May 10, 2024 • 29 mins
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(00:00):
Chapter one Economy. When I wrotethe following pages, or rather the bulk
of them, I lived alone inthe woods, a mile from any neighbor,
in a house which I had builtmyself, on the shore of Walden
Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, andearned my living by the labor of my
(00:24):
hands only. I lived there twoyears and two months. At present I
am a sojourner in civilized life.Again, I should not obtrude my affairs
so much on the notice of myreaders, if very particular inquiries had not
been made by my townsmen concerning mymode of life, which some would call
(00:47):
impertinent, though they do not appearto me at all impertinent, but considering
the circumstances very natural and pertinent.Some have asked what I got to eat,
if I did not feel lonesome,if I was not afraid, and
the like. Others have been curiousto learn what portion of my income I
devoted to charitable purposes, and somewho have large families how many poor children
(01:12):
I maintained. I will therefore askthose of my readers who feel no particular
interest in me, to pardon meif I undertake to answer some of these
questions in this book. In mostbooks, the I or first person is
omitted. In this it will beretained that in respect to egotism is the
(01:34):
main difference. We commonly do notremember that it is, after all always
the first person that is speaking.I should not talk so much about myself
if there were anybody else whom Iknew as well. Unfortunately I am confined
to this theme by the narrowness ofmy experience. Moreover, I, on
(01:57):
my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and
sincere account of his own life,and not merely what he has heard of
other men's lives. Some such accountas he would send to his kindred from
a distant land, For if hehas lived sincerely, it must have been
(02:19):
in a distant land. To me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed
to poor students, as for therest of my readers. They will accept
such portions as apply to them.I trust that none will stretch the seams
in putting on the coat, forit may do good service to him whom
(02:40):
it fits. I would fain saysomething not so much concerning the Chinese in
Sandwich Islanders, as you who readthese pages, who are said to live
in New England. Something about yourcondition, especially your outward condition, or
circumstances in this world, in thistown, what it is, whether it
(03:04):
is necessary that it be as badas it is, whether it cannot be
improved as well as not. Ihave traveled a good deal in Concord,
and everywhere, in shops and officesand fields, the inhabitants have appeared to
me to be doing penance in athousand remarkable ways. What I have heard
(03:25):
of Brahmins sitting exposed to four firesand looking in the face of the sun,
or hanging suspended with their heads downwardover flames, or looking at the
heavens over their shoulders until it becomesimpossible for them to resume their natural position,
while from the twist of the necknothing but liquids can pass into their
(03:46):
stomach, or dwelling chained for lifeat the foot of a tree, or
measuring with their bodies like caterpillars thebreadth of vast empires, or standing on
one leg on the top of pillar. Even these forms of conscious penance are
hardly more incredible and astonishing than thescenes which I daily witness. The twelve
(04:10):
labors of Hercules were trifling in comparisonwith those which my neighbors have undertaken.
For they were only twelve and hadan end. But I could never see
that these men slew or captured anymonster, or finished any labor. They
had no friend ioleus to burn witha hot iron the root of the hydra's
(04:30):
head. But as soon as onehead is crushed, two spring up.
I see young men, my townsmenwhose misfortune it is to have inherited farms,
houses, barns, cattle, andfarming tools. For these are more
easily acquired than got rid of.Better if they had been born in the
(04:51):
open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer
eyes what field they were called tolabor in? Who made them serfs of
the soil? Why should they eattheir sixty acres when man is condemned to
eat only his peck of dirt?Why should they begin digging their graves as
(05:13):
soon as they are born? Theyhave got to live a man's life,
pushing all these things before them,and get on as well as they can.
How many a poor immortal soul haveI met, well nigh crushed and
smothered under its load, creeping downthe road of life, pushing before it
(05:34):
a barn seventy five feet by fortyits aggion, stables never cleansed, and
one hundred acres of land tillage,mowing, pasture, and wood lot.
The portionless who struggle with no suchunnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough
(05:55):
to subdue and cultivate a few cubicfeet of flesh. But men labor under
a mistake. The better part ofthe man is soon plowed into the soil
for compost by a seeming fate commonlycalled necessity. They are employed, as
it says in an old book,laying up treasures which moth and rust will
(06:18):
corrupt, and thieves break through andsteal. It is a fool's life,
as they will find when they getto the end of it, if not
before. It is said that Dusalliumand Pyra created men by throwing stones over
their heads behind them indegenus durum,sumus experiensk leborum a documenta damus qua simus
(06:47):
orogin nati, or as Rally rhymesit in his sonorous way. From thence
are kind, hard hearted, isenduring pain and care, approving that our
bodies of a stony nature are somuch for a blind obedience to a blundering
(07:10):
oracle, throwing the stones over theirheads behind them and not seeing where they
fell. Most men, even inthis comparatively free country, through mere ignorance
and mistake, are so occupied withthe factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of
life, that its finer fruits cannotbe plucked by them. Their fingers from
(07:35):
excessive toil are too clumsy and trembletoo much for that. Actually, the
laboring man has not leisure for atrue integrity. Day by day he cannot
afford to sustain the manliest relations tomen. His labor would be depreciated in
(07:56):
the market. He has no timeto be anything but a machine. How
can he remember well his ignorance whichhis growth requires, who has so often
to use his knowledge? We shouldfeed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and
(08:18):
recruit him with our cordials before wejudge of him. The finest qualities of
our nature, like the bloom onfruits, can be preserved only by the
most delicate handling. Yet we donot treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.
(08:39):
Some of you we all know arepoor, find it hard to live,
are sometimes, as it were,gasping for breath. I have no
doubt that some of you who readthis 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 already worn out, and have come to this page to
(09:03):
spend borrowed or stolen time, robbingyour creditors of an hour. It is
very evident what mean and sneaking livesmany of you live. For my sight
has been whetted by experience, alwayson the limits, trying to get into
business and trying to get out ofdebt, a very ancient slow called by
(09:26):
the Latins ace alienum another's brass,for some of their coins were made of
brass, still living and dying andburied by this other's brass, always promising
to pay, promising to pay tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent, seeking
(09:50):
to curry favor, to get customby how many modes only not state prison
offenses, lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourself into a nutshell of civility,
or dilating into an atmosphere of thinand vaporous generosity, that you may
(10:11):
persuade your neighbor to let you makehis shoes, or his hat, or
his coat, or his carriage,or import his groceries for him, making
yourself sick, that you may layup something against a sick day, something
to be tucked away in an oldchest, or in a stalking behind the
plastering, or more safely in thebrick bank, no matter where, no
(10:35):
matter how much or how little,I sometimes wonder that we can be so
frivolous. I may almost say asto attend to the gross but somewhat foreign
form of servitude called negro slavery.There are so many keen and subtle masters
(10:58):
that enslave both north and south.It is hard to have a southern overseer.
It is worse to have a northernone. But worst of all,
when you are the slave driver ofyourself. Talk of a divinity in man?
Look at the teamster on the highwaywending to market by day or night.
(11:22):
Does any divinity stir within him hishighest duty to fodder and water his
horses? What is his destiny tohim compared with the shipping interests? Does
not he drive for squire make ast How godlike? How immortal is he
(11:43):
see how he cowers and sneaks,how vaguely all the day he fears,
not being immortal nor divine, butthe slave and prisoner of his own opinion
of himself, a fame won byhis own deeds. Public opinion is a
(12:05):
weak tyrant compared with our own privateopinion. What a man thinks of himself,
That it is which determines, orrather indicates his fate self emancipation,
even in the West Indian provinces ofthe fancy and imagination. What wilberforce is
(12:28):
there to bring that about? Thinkalso of the ladies of the land weaving
toilet cushions against the last day,not to betray too green an interest in
their fates, as if you couldkill time without injuring eternity. The mass
of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.
(13:00):
From the desperate city, you gointo the desperate country and have to
console yourself with the bravery of minksand muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair
is concealed even under what are calledthe games and amusements of mankind. There
is no play in them, forthis comes after work but it is a
(13:26):
characteristic of wisdom not to do desperatethings. When we consider what to use
the words of the Catechism, isthe chief end of man? And what
are the true necessaries and means oflife? It appears as if men had
deliberately chosen the common mode of livingbecause they preferred it to any other.
(13:50):
Yet they honestly think there is nochoice left. But alert and healthy natures
remember that the sun rose clear.It is never too late to give up
our prejudices. No way of thinkingor doing, however, ancient can be
trusted without proof. What everyone echoesor in silence passes by as true to
(14:18):
day may turn out to be falsehoodtomorrow, mere smoke of opinion, which
some had trusted for a cloud thatwould sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields.
What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can.
(14:39):
Old deeds for old people and newdeeds for new Old people did not
know enough once perchance to fetch freshfuel to keep the fire agoing. New
people put a little dry wood undera pot, and our world round the
(15:00):
globe with the speed of birds,in a way to kill old people.
As the phrase is age is nobetter, hardly so well qualified for an
instructor as youth, for it hasnot profited so much as it has lost.
One may almost doubt if the wisestman has learned anything of absolute value
(15:26):
by living practically. The old haveno very important advice to give the young.
Their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such
miserable failures for private reasons, asthey must believe. And it may be
(15:46):
that they have some faith left whichbelies that experience, and they are only
less young than they were. Ihave lived some thirty years on this planet,
and I have yet to hear thefirst syllable of valuable or even earnest
advice from my seniors. They havetold me nothing, and probably cannot tell
(16:11):
me anything to the purpose. Hereis life an experiment to a great extent
untried by me, But it doesnot avail me that they have tried it.
If I have any experience which Ithink valuable, I am sure to
(16:32):
reflect that this my mentors said nothingabout. One farmer says to me,
you cannot live on vegetable foods solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones
with, And so he religiously devotesa part of his day to supplying his
system with the raw material of bones. Walking all the while he talks behind
(16:56):
his oxen, which, with vegetablemade bones, jerk him and his lumbering
plow along in spite of every obstacle. Some things are really necessaries of life
in some circles the most helpless anddiseased, which in others are luxuries merely,
(17:18):
and in others still are entirely unknown. The whole ground of human life
seems to some to have been goneover by their predecessors, both the heights
and the valleys, and all thingsto have been cared for. According to
Evelyn, the wise Solomon prescribed ordinancesfor the very distances of trees, and
(17:44):
the Roman praetorse have decided how oftenyou may go into your neighbor's land to
gather the acorns which fall on itwithout trespass, and what share belongs to
that neighbor. Hippocrates has even leftdirections how we should cut our nails,
that is, even with the endof the fingers neither shorter nor longer.
(18:06):
Undoubtedly, the very tedium and onwe which presumed to have exhausted the variety
and joys of life are as oldas Adam. But man's capacities have never
been measured, Nor are we tojudge of what he can do by any
(18:26):
precedence. So little has been tried. Whatever have been thy failures? Hitherto
quote, be not afflicted, mychild? For who shall assign to thee
what thou hast left undone end?Quote? We might try our lives by
(18:48):
a thousand simple tests, as forinstance, that the same sun which ripens
my beings illumines at once a systemof earth like ours. If I had
remembered this, it would have preventedsome mistakes. This was not the light
in which I hoed them. Thestars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles?
(19:17):
What distant and different beings in thevarious mansions of the universe are contemplating
the same one at the same moment. Nature and human life are as various
as are several constitutions. Who shallsay what prospect life offers to another?
(19:42):
Could a greater miracle take place thanfor us to look through each other's eyes
for an instant? We should livein all the ages of the world,
in an hour, ay, inall the worlds of the ages. History,
poetry, mythology. I know ofno reading of another's experience so startling
(20:07):
and informing as this would be thegreater part of what my neighbors call good.
I believe in my soul to bebad, and if I repent of
anything, it is very likely tobe my good behavior. What demon possessed
me when I behaved so well?You may say the wisest thing you can,
(20:33):
old man, you who have livedseventy years, not without honor of
a kind. I hear an irresistiblevoice which invites me away from all that
one generation abandons the enterprises of another, like stranded vessels. I think that
(20:57):
we may safely trust a good dealmore than we do. We may waive
just so much care of ourselves aswe honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature is as
well adapted to our weakness as toour strength. The incessant anxiety and strain
(21:18):
of some is a well nigh incurableform of disease. We are made to
exaggerate the importance of what work wedo, and yet how much is not
done by us? Or what ifwe had been taken sick? How vigilant
(21:38):
we are determined not to live byfaith if we can avoid it all the
day long, on the alert.At night, we unwittingly say our prayers
and commit ourselves to uncertainties. Sothoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live,
reverencing ours our life, denying thepossibility of change. This is the
(22:06):
only way, we say, Butthere are as many ways as there can
be drawn raydye from one center.All change is a miracle to contemplate,
but it is a miracle which istaking place every instant. Confucius said,
(22:29):
quote, to know that we knowwhat we know, and that we do
not know what we do not know. That is true knowledge end quote.
When one man has reduced a factof the imagination to be a fact to
his understanding, I foresee that allmen at length establish their lives on that
(22:56):
basis. Let us consider for amoment what most of the trouble and anxiety
which I have referred to is about, and how much it is necessary that
we be troubled or at least careful. It would be some advantage to live
a primitive and frontier life, thoughin the midst of an outward civilization,
(23:18):
if only to learn what are thegross necessaries of life, and what methods
have been taken to obtain them,or even to look over the old day
books of the merchants to see whatit was that men most commonly bought at
the stores, what they stored,that is, what are the grossest groceries.
(23:42):
For the improvements of ages have hadbut little influence on the essential laws
of man's existence, as our skeletonsprobably are not to be distinguished from those
of our ancestors. By the wordsnecessary of life, I mean whatever of
(24:03):
all that man obtains by his ownexertions has been from the first or from
long use, has become so importantto human life that few, if any,
whether from savageness or poverty or philosophy, ever attempt to do without it.
To many creatures, there is,in this sense but one necessary of
(24:27):
life. Food. To the bisonof the prairie, it is a few
inches of palatable grass with water todrink. Unless he seeks the shelter of
the forest or the mountain's shadow.None of the brute creation requires more than
food and shelter. The necessaries oflife for man in this climate may accurately
(24:52):
enough be distributed under the several headsof food, shelter, clothing, and
fuel. For not till we havesecured these are we prepared to entertain the
true problems of life with freedom anda prospect of success. Man has invented
not only houses, but clothes andcooked food, And, possibly from the
(25:15):
accidental discovery of the warmth of fire, and the consequent use of it at
first a luxury, arose the presentnecessity to sit by it. We observe
cats and dogs acquiring the same secondnature. By proper shelter and clothing,
we legitimately retain our own internal heat. But with an excess of these,
(25:37):
or a fuel, that is,with an external heat greater than our own
internal, may not cookery properly besaid to begin. Darwin the Naturalist,
says of the inhabitants of Tierra delFuego, that while his own party,
who were well clothed and sitting closeto a fire, were far from too
(26:00):
warm, these naked savages, whowere farther off, were observed, to
his great surprise, to be streamingwith perspiration at undergoing such a roasting.
So we are told, the newHollander goes naked with impunity, while the
European shivers in his clothes. Isit impossible to combine the hardiness of these
(26:26):
savages with the intellectualness of the civilizedman. According to liebig Man's body is
a stove, and food the fuelwhich keeps up the internal combustion in the
lungs. In cold weather, weeat more in warm less The animal heat
(26:47):
is the result of a slow combustion, and disease and death take place.
When this is too rapid, orfor want of fuel, or from some
defect in the draft, the firegoes out. Of course, the vital
heat is not to be confounded withfire, but so much for analogy.
(27:08):
It appears, therefore, from theabove list that the expression animal life is
nearly synonymous with the expression animal heat. For while food may be regarded as
the fuel which keeps up the firewithin us, and fuel serves only to
prepare that food, or to increasethe warmth of our bodies. By addition,
(27:29):
from without, shelter and clothing alsoserve only to retain the heat thus
generated and absorbed. The grand necessity, then, for our bodies is to
keep warm, to keep the vitalheat in us. What pains we accordingly
take not only with our food andclothing and shelter, but with our beds,
(27:53):
which are our night clothes. Robbingthe nests and breasts of birds to
prepare their shelter. Within a shelter, as the mole has its bed of
grass and leaves at the end ofits burrow. The poor man is wont
to complain that this is a coldworld, and to cold no less physical
(28:15):
than social. We refer directly agreat part of our ales. The summer
in some climates make possible to mana sort of Elysian life. Fuel,
except to cook his food is thenunnecessary. The sun is his fire,
and many of the fruits are sufficientlycooked by its rays. While food generally
(28:38):
is more various and more easily obtained, and clothing and shelter are wholly or
half unnecessary at the present day,and in this country, as I find
by my own experience, a fewimplements a knife, an axe, a
spade, a wheelbarrow, et cetera. And for these studious lamp, light,
(29:02):
stationery, and access to a fewbooks rank next to necessaries, and
can all be obtained at a triflingcost. Yet some not wise go to
the other side of the globe,to barbarous and unhealthy regions, and devote
themselves to trade for ten or twentyyears in order that they may live,
(29:26):
that is, keep comfortably warm,and die. In New England, at
last, the luxuriously rich are notsimply kept comfortably warm, but unnaturally hot,
as I implied, before they arecooked, of course, Alamode,
(29:48):
end of the first part of Chapterone,
Chapter one Economy. When I wrotethe following pages, or rather the bulk
of them, I lived alone inthe woods, a mile from any neighbor,
in a house which I had builtmyself, on the shore of Walden
Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, andearned my living by the labor of my
(00:24):
hands only. I lived there twoyears and two months. At present I
am a sojourner in civilized life.Again, I should not obtrude my affairs
so much on the notice of myreaders, if very particular inquiries had not
been made by my townsmen concerning mymode of life, which some would call
(00:47):
impertinent, though they do not appearto me at all impertinent, but considering
the circumstances very natural and pertinent.Some have asked what I got to eat,
if I did not feel lonesome,if I was not afraid, and
the like. Others have been curiousto learn what portion of my income I
devoted to charitable purposes, and somewho have large families how many poor children
(01:12):
I maintained. I will therefore askthose of my readers who feel no particular
interest in me, to pardon meif I undertake to answer some of these
questions in this book. In mostbooks, the I or first person is
omitted. In this it will beretained that in respect to egotism is the
(01:34):
main difference. We commonly do notremember that it is, after all always
the first person that is speaking.I should not talk so much about myself
if there were anybody else whom Iknew as well. Unfortunately I am confined
to this theme by the narrowness ofmy experience. Moreover, I, on
(01:57):
my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and
sincere account of his own life,and not merely what he has heard of
other men's lives. Some such accountas he would send to his kindred from
a distant land, For if hehas lived sincerely, it must have been
(02:19):
in a distant land. To me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed
to poor students, as for therest of my readers. They will accept
such portions as apply to them.I trust that none will stretch the seams
in putting on the coat, forit may do good service to him whom
(02:40):
it fits. I would fain saysomething not so much concerning the Chinese in
Sandwich Islanders, as you who readthese pages, who are said to live
in New England. Something about yourcondition, especially your outward condition, or
circumstances in this world, in thistown, what it is, whether it
(03:04):
is necessary that it be as badas it is, whether it cannot be
improved as well as not. Ihave traveled a good deal in Concord,
and everywhere, in shops and officesand fields, the inhabitants have appeared to
me to be doing penance in athousand remarkable ways. What I have heard
(03:25):
of Brahmins sitting exposed to four firesand looking in the face of the sun,
or hanging suspended with their heads downwardover flames, or looking at the
heavens over their shoulders until it becomesimpossible for them to resume their natural position,
while from the twist of the necknothing but liquids can pass into their
(03:46):
stomach, or dwelling chained for lifeat the foot of a tree, or
measuring with their bodies like caterpillars thebreadth of vast empires, or standing on
one leg on the top of pillar. Even these forms of conscious penance are
hardly more incredible and astonishing than thescenes which I daily witness. The twelve
(04:10):
labors of Hercules were trifling in comparisonwith those which my neighbors have undertaken.
For they were only twelve and hadan end. But I could never see
that these men slew or captured anymonster, or finished any labor. They
had no friend ioleus to burn witha hot iron the root of the hydra's
(04:30):
head. But as soon as onehead is crushed, two spring up.
I see young men, my townsmenwhose misfortune it is to have inherited farms,
houses, barns, cattle, andfarming tools. For these are more
easily acquired than got rid of.Better if they had been born in the
(04:51):
open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer
eyes what field they were called tolabor in? Who made them serfs of
the soil? Why should they eattheir sixty acres when man is condemned to
eat only his peck of dirt?Why should they begin digging their graves as
(05:13):
soon as they are born? Theyhave got to live a man's life,
pushing all these things before them,and get on as well as they can.
How many a poor immortal soul haveI met, well nigh crushed and
smothered under its load, creeping downthe road of life, pushing before it
(05:34):
a barn seventy five feet by fortyits aggion, stables never cleansed, and
one hundred acres of land tillage,mowing, pasture, and wood lot.
The portionless who struggle with no suchunnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough
(05:55):
to subdue and cultivate a few cubicfeet of flesh. But men labor under
a mistake. The better part ofthe man is soon plowed into the soil
for compost by a seeming fate commonlycalled necessity. They are employed, as
it says in an old book,laying up treasures which moth and rust will
(06:18):
corrupt, and thieves break through andsteal. It is a fool's life,
as they will find when they getto the end of it, if not
before. It is said that Dusalliumand Pyra created men by throwing stones over
their heads behind them indegenus durum,sumus experiensk leborum a documenta damus qua simus
(06:47):
orogin nati, or as Rally rhymesit in his sonorous way. From thence
are kind, hard hearted, isenduring pain and care, approving that our
bodies of a stony nature are somuch for a blind obedience to a blundering
(07:10):
oracle, throwing the stones over theirheads behind them and not seeing where they
fell. Most men, even inthis comparatively free country, through mere ignorance
and mistake, are so occupied withthe factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of
life, that its finer fruits cannotbe plucked by them. Their fingers from
(07:35):
excessive toil are too clumsy and trembletoo much for that. Actually, the
laboring man has not leisure for atrue integrity. Day by day he cannot
afford to sustain the manliest relations tomen. His labor would be depreciated in
(07:56):
the market. He has no timeto be anything but a machine. How
can he remember well his ignorance whichhis growth requires, who has so often
to use his knowledge? We shouldfeed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and
(08:18):
recruit him with our cordials before wejudge of him. The finest qualities of
our nature, like the bloom onfruits, can be preserved only by the
most delicate handling. Yet we donot treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.
(08:39):
Some of you we all know arepoor, find it hard to live,
are sometimes, as it were,gasping for breath. I have no
doubt that some of you who readthis 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 already worn out, and have come to this page to
(09:03):
spend borrowed or stolen time, robbingyour creditors of an hour. It is
very evident what mean and sneaking livesmany of you live. For my sight
has been whetted by experience, alwayson the limits, trying to get into
business and trying to get out ofdebt, a very ancient slow called by
(09:26):
the Latins ace alienum another's brass,for some of their coins were made of
brass, still living and dying andburied by this other's brass, always promising
to pay, promising to pay tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent, seeking
(09:50):
to curry favor, to get customby how many modes only not state prison
offenses, lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourself into a nutshell of civility,
or dilating into an atmosphere of thinand vaporous generosity, that you may
(10:11):
persuade your neighbor to let you makehis shoes, or his hat, or
his coat, or his carriage,or import his groceries for him, making
yourself sick, that you may layup something against a sick day, something
to be tucked away in an oldchest, or in a stalking behind the
plastering, or more safely in thebrick bank, no matter where, no
(10:35):
matter how much or how little,I sometimes wonder that we can be so
frivolous. I may almost say asto attend to the gross but somewhat foreign
form of servitude called negro slavery.There are so many keen and subtle masters
(10:58):
that enslave both north and south.It is hard to have a southern overseer.
It is worse to have a northernone. But worst of all,
when you are the slave driver ofyourself. Talk of a divinity in man?
Look at the teamster on the highwaywending to market by day or night.
(11:22):
Does any divinity stir within him hishighest duty to fodder and water his
horses? What is his destiny tohim compared with the shipping interests? Does
not he drive for squire make ast How godlike? How immortal is he
(11:43):
see how he cowers and sneaks,how vaguely all the day he fears,
not being immortal nor divine, butthe slave and prisoner of his own opinion
of himself, a fame won byhis own deeds. Public opinion is a
(12:05):
weak tyrant compared with our own privateopinion. What a man thinks of himself,
That it is which determines, orrather indicates his fate self emancipation,
even in the West Indian provinces ofthe fancy and imagination. What wilberforce is
(12:28):
there to bring that about? Thinkalso of the ladies of the land weaving
toilet cushions against the last day,not to betray too green an interest in
their fates, as if you couldkill time without injuring eternity. The mass
of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.
(13:00):
From the desperate city, you gointo the desperate country and have to
console yourself with the bravery of minksand muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair
is concealed even under what are calledthe games and amusements of mankind. There
is no play in them, forthis comes after work but it is a
(13:26):
characteristic of wisdom not to do desperatethings. When we consider what to use
the words of the Catechism, isthe chief end of man? And what
are the true necessaries and means oflife? It appears as if men had
deliberately chosen the common mode of livingbecause they preferred it to any other.
(13:50):
Yet they honestly think there is nochoice left. But alert and healthy natures
remember that the sun rose clear.It is never too late to give up
our prejudices. No way of thinkingor doing, however, ancient can be
trusted without proof. What everyone echoesor in silence passes by as true to
(14:18):
day may turn out to be falsehoodtomorrow, mere smoke of opinion, which
some had trusted for a cloud thatwould sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields.
What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can.
(14:39):
Old deeds for old people and newdeeds for new Old people did not
know enough once perchance to fetch freshfuel to keep the fire agoing. New
people put a little dry wood undera pot, and our world round the
(15:00):
globe with the speed of birds,in a way to kill old people.
As the phrase is age is nobetter, hardly so well qualified for an
instructor as youth, for it hasnot profited so much as it has lost.
One may almost doubt if the wisestman has learned anything of absolute value
(15:26):
by living practically. The old haveno very important advice to give the young.
Their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such
miserable failures for private reasons, asthey must believe. And it may be
(15:46):
that they have some faith left whichbelies that experience, and they are only
less young than they were. Ihave lived some thirty years on this planet,
and I have yet to hear thefirst syllable of valuable or even earnest
advice from my seniors. They havetold me nothing, and probably cannot tell
(16:11):
me anything to the purpose. Hereis life an experiment to a great extent
untried by me, But it doesnot avail me that they have tried it.
If I have any experience which Ithink valuable, I am sure to
(16:32):
reflect that this my mentors said nothingabout. One farmer says to me,
you cannot live on vegetable foods solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones
with, And so he religiously devotesa part of his day to supplying his
system with the raw material of bones. Walking all the while he talks behind
(16:56):
his oxen, which, with vegetablemade bones, jerk him and his lumbering
plow along in spite of every obstacle. Some things are really necessaries of life
in some circles the most helpless anddiseased, which in others are luxuries merely,
(17:18):
and in others still are entirely unknown. The whole ground of human life
seems to some to have been goneover by their predecessors, both the heights
and the valleys, and all thingsto have been cared for. According to
Evelyn, the wise Solomon prescribed ordinancesfor the very distances of trees, and
(17:44):
the Roman praetorse have decided how oftenyou may go into your neighbor's land to
gather the acorns which fall on itwithout trespass, and what share belongs to
that neighbor. Hippocrates has even leftdirections how we should cut our nails,
that is, even with the endof the fingers neither shorter nor longer.
(18:06):
Undoubtedly, the very tedium and onwe which presumed to have exhausted the variety
and joys of life are as oldas Adam. But man's capacities have never
been measured, Nor are we tojudge of what he can do by any
(18:26):
precedence. So little has been tried. Whatever have been thy failures? Hitherto
quote, be not afflicted, mychild? For who shall assign to thee
what thou hast left undone end?Quote? We might try our lives by
(18:48):
a thousand simple tests, as forinstance, that the same sun which ripens
my beings illumines at once a systemof earth like ours. If I had
remembered this, it would have preventedsome mistakes. This was not the light
in which I hoed them. Thestars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles?
(19:17):
What distant and different beings in thevarious mansions of the universe are contemplating
the same one at the same moment. Nature and human life are as various
as are several constitutions. Who shallsay what prospect life offers to another?
(19:42):
Could a greater miracle take place thanfor us to look through each other's eyes
for an instant? We should livein all the ages of the world,
in an hour, ay, inall the worlds of the ages. History,
poetry, mythology. I know ofno reading of another's experience so startling
(20:07):
and informing as this would be thegreater part of what my neighbors call good.
I believe in my soul to bebad, and if I repent of
anything, it is very likely tobe my good behavior. What demon possessed
me when I behaved so well?You may say the wisest thing you can,
(20:33):
old man, you who have livedseventy years, not without honor of
a kind. I hear an irresistiblevoice which invites me away from all that
one generation abandons the enterprises of another, like stranded vessels. I think that
(20:57):
we may safely trust a good dealmore than we do. We may waive
just so much care of ourselves aswe honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature is as
well adapted to our weakness as toour strength. The incessant anxiety and strain
(21:18):
of some is a well nigh incurableform of disease. We are made to
exaggerate the importance of what work wedo, and yet how much is not
done by us? Or what ifwe had been taken sick? How vigilant
(21:38):
we are determined not to live byfaith if we can avoid it all the
day long, on the alert.At night, we unwittingly say our prayers
and commit ourselves to uncertainties. Sothoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live,
reverencing ours our life, denying thepossibility of change. This is the
(22:06):
only way, we say, Butthere are as many ways as there can
be drawn raydye from one center.All change is a miracle to contemplate,
but it is a miracle which istaking place every instant. Confucius said,
(22:29):
quote, to know that we knowwhat we know, and that we do
not know what we do not know. That is true knowledge end quote.
When one man has reduced a factof the imagination to be a fact to
his understanding, I foresee that allmen at length establish their lives on that
(22:56):
basis. Let us consider for amoment what most of the trouble and anxiety
which I have referred to is about, and how much it is necessary that
we be troubled or at least careful. It would be some advantage to live
a primitive and frontier life, thoughin the midst of an outward civilization,
(23:18):
if only to learn what are thegross necessaries of life, and what methods
have been taken to obtain them,or even to look over the old day
books of the merchants to see whatit was that men most commonly bought at
the stores, what they stored,that is, what are the grossest groceries.
(23:42):
For the improvements of ages have hadbut little influence on the essential laws
of man's existence, as our skeletonsprobably are not to be distinguished from those
of our ancestors. By the wordsnecessary of life, I mean whatever of
(24:03):
all that man obtains by his ownexertions has been from the first or from
long use, has become so importantto human life that few, if any,
whether from savageness or poverty or philosophy, ever attempt to do without it.
To many creatures, there is,in this sense but one necessary of
(24:27):
life. Food. To the bisonof the prairie, it is a few
inches of palatable grass with water todrink. Unless he seeks the shelter of
the forest or the mountain's shadow.None of the brute creation requires more than
food and shelter. The necessaries oflife for man in this climate may accurately
(24:52):
enough be distributed under the several headsof food, shelter, clothing, and
fuel. For not till we havesecured these are we prepared to entertain the
true problems of life with freedom anda prospect of success. Man has invented
not only houses, but clothes andcooked food, And, possibly from the
(25:15):
accidental discovery of the warmth of fire, and the consequent use of it at
first a luxury, arose the presentnecessity to sit by it. We observe
cats and dogs acquiring the same secondnature. By proper shelter and clothing,
we legitimately retain our own internal heat. But with an excess of these,
(25:37):
or a fuel, that is,with an external heat greater than our own
internal, may not cookery properly besaid to begin. Darwin the Naturalist,
says of the inhabitants of Tierra delFuego, that while his own party,
who were well clothed and sitting closeto a fire, were far from too
(26:00):
warm, these naked savages, whowere farther off, were observed, to
his great surprise, to be streamingwith perspiration at undergoing such a roasting.
So we are told, the newHollander goes naked with impunity, while the
European shivers in his clothes. Isit impossible to combine the hardiness of these
(26:26):
savages with the intellectualness of the civilizedman. According to liebig Man's body is
a stove, and food the fuelwhich keeps up the internal combustion in the
lungs. In cold weather, weeat more in warm less The animal heat
(26:47):
is the result of a slow combustion, and disease and death take place.
When this is too rapid, orfor want of fuel, or from some
defect in the draft, the firegoes out. Of course, the vital
heat is not to be confounded withfire, but so much for analogy.
(27:08):
It appears, therefore, from theabove list that the expression animal life is
nearly synonymous with the expression animal heat. For while food may be regarded as
the fuel which keeps up the firewithin us, and fuel serves only to
prepare that food, or to increasethe warmth of our bodies. By addition,
(27:29):
from without, shelter and clothing alsoserve only to retain the heat thus
generated and absorbed. The grand necessity, then, for our bodies is to
keep warm, to keep the vitalheat in us. What pains we accordingly
take not only with our food andclothing and shelter, but with our beds,
(27:53):
which are our night clothes. Robbingthe nests and breasts of birds to
prepare their shelter. Within a shelter, as the mole has its bed of
grass and leaves at the end ofits burrow. The poor man is wont
to complain that this is a coldworld, and to cold no less physical
(28:15):
than social. We refer directly agreat part of our ales. The summer
in some climates make possible to mana sort of Elysian life. Fuel,
except to cook his food is thenunnecessary. The sun is his fire,
and many of the fruits are sufficientlycooked by its rays. While food generally
(28:38):
is more various and more easily obtained, and clothing and shelter are wholly or
half unnecessary at the present day,and in this country, as I find
by my own experience, a fewimplements a knife, an axe, a
spade, a wheelbarrow, et cetera. And for these studious lamp, light,
(29:02):
stationery, and access to a fewbooks rank next to necessaries, and
can all be obtained at a triflingcost. Yet some not wise go to
the other side of the globe,to barbarous and unhealthy regions, and devote
themselves to trade for ten or twentyyears in order that they may live,
(29:26):
that is, keep comfortably warm,and die. In New England, at
last, the luxuriously rich are notsimply kept comfortably warm, but unnaturally hot,
as I implied, before they arecooked, of course, Alamode,
(29:48):
end of the first part of Chapterone,
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