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Walden
Walden
Walden
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WALDEN
HENRY D THOREAU
ILLUSTRATED BY
CLIFTON JOHNSON
RS
E IVE IT O
TH UN Y
FO
AL THER LIGH
RN
SE E
IA
1868
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
GIFT OF
CAPE COD
8vo, cloth. 318pages, 33full-page
illustrations
BY
HENRY D. THOREAU
AUTHOR OF " A WEEK ON THE CONCORD," " THE
MAINE WOODS, " "CAPE COD, " ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
CLIFTON JOHNSON
NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1910
BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY
1910
cop. 2
INTRODUCTION
100
vi INTRODUCTION
CLIFTON JOHNSON.
HADLEY, MASS.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ECONOMY 1
V. SOLITUDE 170
A GLIMPSE OF WALDEN 92
ECONOMY
tenderly.
Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it
hard to live, are sometimes , as it were, gasping
for breath . I have no doubt that some of you
who read this book are unable to pay for all the
dinners which you have actually eaten, or for
the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are
Mantle-tree iron $0 15
Nails · 3.90
Hinges and screws · 0 14
Latch 0 10
Chalk • 0 01
I carried a good
Transportation 1 40-
{ part on my back.
In all $28 12
Church
famous
,tUnitarian
building
public
he
Concord's
most
ECONOMY 75
Rice $1 734
Molasses . 173 Cheapest form of the saccharine.
Rye meal · • • 1 042
experiments
Indian meal • 0 99 Cheaper than rye.
Pork 0 22
which
Flour • 0 88
{Costs more thanand
money Indian meal,
trouble.
All
Sugar 0 80
failed.
Lard • 0 65
Apples 0 25
Dried apple • 0 22
Sweet potatoes • 0 10
One pumpkin · 0 06
One watermelon 0 02
Salt .. 0 03
$8 403
Oil and some household utensils 2.00
$23 44
Earned by day-labor 13 34
In all $36 78
78 WALDEN
danger and you are safe, for the rest of the way
is down hill . With unrelaxed nerves, with
5
III
READING
SOUNDS
-
moans of a human being, some poor weak
relic of mortality who has left hope behind , and
howls like an animal, yet with human sobs , on
entering the dark valley, made more awful by a
――
certain gurgling melodiousness , I find my-
self beginning with the letters gl when I try to
imitate it, expressive of a mind which has
reached the gelatinous mildewy stage in the mor-
tification of all healthy and courageous thought.
It reminded me of ghouls and idiots and insane
howlings . But now one answers from far woods in
a strain made really melodious by distance , —Hoo
hoo hoo hoorer hoo ; and indeed for the most part
it suggested only pleasing associations , whether
heard by day or night, summer or winter .
I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the
idiotic and maniacal hooting for men. It is a
sound admirably suited to swamps and twilight
woods which no day illustrates , suggesting a
vast and undeveloped nature which men have not
recognized . They represent the stark twilight
and unsatisfied thoughts which all have . All day
the sun has shone on the surface of some savage
swamp, where the single spruce stands hung with
usnea lichens , and small hawks circulate above,
and the chickadee lisps amid the evergreens , and
the partridge and rabbit skulk beneath ; but now
a more dismal and fitting day dawns , and a
different race of creatures awakes to express the
meaning of Nature there .
166 WALDEN
SOLITUDE
VISITORS
exercise all the wit they had, and make their con-
fessions to me ; in such cases making wit the
theme of our conversation ; and so was com-
VISITORS 199
"I have always been so, " said he, " from my
childhood ; I never had much mind ; I was not
like other children ; I am weak in the head . It
was the Lord's will , I suppose." And there he
was to prove the truth of his words. He was a
metaphysical puzzle to me. I have rarely met a
fellow- man on such promising ground , it was
so simple and sincere and so true, all that he
said. And, true enough, in proportion as he ap-
peared to humble himself was he exalted . I did
not know at first but it was the result of a wise
policy. It seemed that from such a basis of
truth and frankness as the poor weak- headed
200 WALDEN
but they did not know that the third line was, —
THE BEANFIELD
crop .
Before yet any woodchuck or squirrel had run
across the road, or the sun had got above the
shrub-oaks , while all the dew was on, though
-
the farmers warned me against it , I would
advise you to do all your work if possible while
the dew is on, I began to level the ranks of
haughty weeds in my beanfield and throw dust
upon their heads. Early in the morning I
worked barefooted , dabbling like a plastic artist
in the dewy and crumbling sand , but later in the
day the sun blistered my feet . There the sun
lighted me to hoe beans, pacing slowly back-
ward and forward over that yellow gravelly up-
centre
T
business
he
Concord
-
THE BEANFIELD 213
THE VILLAGE
THE PONDS
It is no dream of mine,
To ornament a line ;
I cannot come nearer to God and Heaven
Than I live to Walden even.
I am its stony shore,
And the breeze that passes o'er ;
In the hollow of my hand
Are its water and its sand,
And its deepest resort
Lies high in my thought.
Drop. "
I have said that Walden has no visible inlet
BAKER FARM
HIGHER LAWS
were boys ; but now they are too old and dig-
nified to go a-fishing, and so they know it no
more forever. Yet even they expect to go to
heaven at last. If the legislature regards it,
it is chiefly to regulate the number of hooks to
be used there ; but they know nothing about
the hook of hooks with which to angle for the
pond itself, empaling the legislature for a bait.
Thus, even in civilized communities, the em-
bryo man passes through the hunter stage of
development.
I have found repeatedly, of late years, that I
cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect.
I have tried it again and again . I have skill at
it, and, like many of my fellows , a certain in-
stinct for it, which revives from time to time ;
but always when I have done I feel that it would
have been better if I had not fished . I think
BRUTE NEIGHBORS
are born too far into life for me. I have water
HOUSE-WARMING
the washing is not put out, nor the fire, nor the
mistress, and perhaps you are sometimes re-
quested to move from off the trap-door, when
the cook would descend into the cellar, and so
learn whether the ground is solid or hollow
beneath you without stamping. A house whose
inside is as open and manifest as a bird's nest,
and you cannot go in at the front door and out
hasty-puddings .
I did not plaster till it was freezing weather.
I brought over some whiter and cleaner sand
for this purpose from the opposite shore of the
326 WALDEN
monly empty.
The one who came from farthest to my lodge,
through deepest snows and most dismal tem-
pests, was a poet. A farmer, a hunter, a soldier,
a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted ;
FORMER INHABITANTS 355
WINTER ANIMALS
ful that this pond was made deep and pure for
a symbol . While men believe in the infinite
some ponds will be thought to be bottomless.
A factory owner, hearing what depth I had
found, thought that it could not be true , for,
judging from his acquaintance with dams, sand
380 WALDEN
SPRING
potter.
Ere long, not only on these banks, but on
every hill and plain and in every hollow, the
frost comes out of the ground like a dormant
quadruped from its burrow, and seeks the sea
with music, or migrates to other climes in
clouds . Thaw with his gentle persuasion is
SPRING 409
pand with still joy and bless the new day, feel
the spring influence with the innocence of in-
fancy, and all his faults are forgotten . There is
not only an atmosphere of good will about him,
416 WALDEN
"The Golden Age was first created, which without any avenger
Spontaneously without law cherished fidelity and rectitude.
Punishment and fear were not ; nor were threatening words read
On suspended brass ; nor did the suppliant crowd fear
The words of their judge ; but were safe without an avenger.
Not yet the pine felled on its mountains had descended
To the liquid waves that it might see a foreign world,
And mortals knew no shores but their own.
CONCLUSION
a trifler.
are defended from being a trifler. No man
died
Thoreau
which
in
house
Concord
The
CONCLUSION 435
JUN 01 2007
RNIA
CALIFO ,
1100
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