{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_Walden_1893_Thoreau_Chapter_II/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_Walden_1893_Thoreau_Chapter_II","id":"wikisource_Walden_1893_Thoreau_Chapter_II","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Walden_(1893)_Thoreau/Chapter_II","summary":null,"tags":["Subpages"],"text":"At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider\nevery spot as the possible site of a house. I have thus surveyed\nthe country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. In\nimagination I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were\nto be bought, and I knew their price. I walked over each farmer's\npremises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on husbandry with him,\ntook his farm at his price, at any price, mortgaging it to him in my\nmind; even put a higher price on it -- took everything but a deed of\nit -- took his word for his deed, for I dearly love to talk --\ncultivated it, and him too to some extent, I trust, and withdrew\nwhen I had enjoyed it long enough, leaving him to carry it on. This\nexperience entitled me to be regarded as a sort of real-estate\nbroker by my friends. Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the\nlandscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a\nsedes, a seat? -- better if a country seat. I discovered many a\nsite for a house not likely to be soon improved, which some might\nhave thought too far from the village, but to my eyes the village\nwas too far from it. Well, there I might live, I said; and there I\ndid live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how I could\nlet the years run off, buffet the winter through, and see the spring\ncome in. The future inhabitants of this region, wherever they may\nplace their houses, may be sure that they have been anticipated. An\nafternoon sufficed to lay out the land into orchard, wood-lot, and\npasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines should be left to\nstand before the door, and whence each blasted tree could be seen to\nthe best advantage; and then I let it lie, fallow, perchance, for a\nman is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can\nafford to let alone.\n\nMy imagination carried me so far that I even had the refusal of\nseveral farms -- the refusal was all I wanted -- but I never got my\nfingers burned by actual possession. The nearest that I came to\nactual possession was when I bought the Hollowell place, and had\nbegun to sort my seeds, and collected materials with which to make a\nwheelbarrow to carry it on or off with; but before the owner gave me\na deed of it, his wife -- every man has such a wife -- changed her\nmind and wished to keep it, and he offered me ten dollars to release\nhim. Now, to speak the truth, I had but ten cents in the world, and\nit surpassed my arithmetic to tell, if I was that man who had ten\ncents, or who had a farm, or ten dollars, or all together. However,\nI let him keep the ten dollars and the farm too, for I had carried\nit far enough; or rather, to be generous, I sold him the farm for\njust what I gave for it, and, as he was not a rich man, made him a\npresent of ten dollars, and still had my ten cents, and seeds, and\nmaterials for a wheelbarrow left. I found thus that I had been a\nrich man without any damage to my poverty. But I retained the\nlandscape, and I have since annually carried off what it yielded\nwithout a wheelbarrow. With respect to landscapes,\n\n\"I am monarch of all I survey,\n\nMy right there is none to dispute.\"\nI have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having enjoyed the most\nvaluable part of a farm, while the crusty farmer supposed that he\nhad got a few wild apples only. Why, the owner does not know it for\nmany years when a poet has put his farm in rhyme, the most admirable\nkind of invisible fence, has fairly impounded it, milked it, skimmed\nit, and got all the cream, and left the farmer only the skimmed\nmilk.\n\nThe real attractions of the Hollowell farm, to me, were: its\ncomplete retirement, being, about two miles from the village, half a\nmile from the nearest neighbor, and separated from the highway by a\nbroad field; its bounding on the river, which the owner said\nprotected it by its fogs from frosts in the spring, though that was\nnothing to me; the gray color and ruinous state of the house and\nbarn, and the dilapidated fences, which put such an interval between\nme and the last occupant; the hollow and lichen-covered apple trees,\nnawed by rabbits, showing what kind of neighbors I should have; but\nabove all, the recollection I had of it from my earliest voyages up\nthe river, when the house was concealed behind a dense grove of red\nmaples, through which I heard the house-dog bark. I was in haste to\nbuy it, before the proprietor finished getting out some rocks,\ncutting down the hollow apple trees, and grubbing up some young\nbirches which had sprung up in the pasture, or, in short, had made\nany more of his improvements. To enjoy these advantages I was ready\nto carry it on; like Atlas, to take the world on my shoulders -- I\nnever heard what compensation he received for that -- and do all\nthose things which had no other motive or excuse but that I might\npay for it and be unmolested in my possession of it; for I knew all\nthe while that it would yield the most abundant crop of the kind I\nwanted, if I could only afford to let it alone. But it turned out\nas I have said.\n\nAll that I could say, then, with respect to farming on a large\nscale -- I have always cultivated a garden -- was, that I had had my\nseeds ready. Many think that seeds improve with age. I have no\ndoubt that time discriminates between the good and the bad; and when\nat last I shall plant, I shall be less likely to be disappointed.\nBut I would say to my fellows, once for all, As long as possible\nlive free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether\nyou are committed to a farm or the county jail.\n\nOld Cato, whose \"De Re Rustica\" is my \"Cultivator,\" says -- and\nthe only translation I have seen makes sheer nonsense of the passage\n-- \"When you think of getting a farm turn it thus in your mind, not\nto buy greedily; nor spare your pains to look at it, and do not\nthink it enough to go round it once. The oftener you go there the\nmore it will please you, if it is good.\" I think I shall not buy\ngreedily, but go round and round it as long as I live, and be buried\nin it first, that it may please me the more at last.\n\nThe present was my next experiment of this kind, which I purpose\nto describe more at length, for convenience putting the experience\nof two years into one. As I have said, I do not propose to write an\node to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the\nmorning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up.\n\nWhen first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to\nspend my nights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on\nIndependence Day, or the Fourth of July, 1845, my house was not\nfinished for winter, but was merely a defence against the rain,\nwithout plastering or chimney, the walls being of rough,\nweather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made it cool at\nnight. The upright white hewn studs and freshly planed door and\nwindow casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the\nmorning, when its timbers were saturated with dew, so that I fancied\nthat by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my\nimagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this\nauroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain\nwhich I had visited a year before. This was an airy and unplastered\ncabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might\ntrail her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were\nsuch as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken\nstrains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning\nwind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few\nare the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth\neverywhere.\n\nThe only house I had been the owner of before, if I except a\nboat, was a tent, which I used occasionally when making excursions\nin the summer, and this is still rolled up in my garret; but the\nboat, after passing from hand to hand, has gone down the stream of\ntime. With this more substantial shelter about me, I had made some\nprogress toward settling in the world. This frame, so slightly\nclad, was a sort of crystallization around me, and reacted on the\nbuilder. It was suggestive somewhat as a picture in outlines. I\ndid not need to go outdoors to take the air, for the atmosphere\nwithin had lost none of its freshness. It was not so much within\ndoors as behind a door where I sat, even in the rainiest weather.\nThe Harivansa says, \"An abode without birds is like a meat without\nseasoning.\" Such was not my abode, for I found myself suddenly\nneighbor to the birds; not by having imprisoned one, but having\ncaged myself near them. I was not only nearer to some of those\nwhich commonly frequent the garden and the orchard, but to those\nsmaller and more thrilling songsters of the forest which never, or\nrarely, serenade a villager -- the wood thrush, the veery, the\nscarlet tanager, the field sparrow, the whip-poor-will, and many\nothers.\n\nI was seated by the shore of a small pond, about a mile and a\nhalf south of the village of Concord and somewhat higher than it, in\nthe midst of an extensive wood between that town and Lincoln, and\nabout two miles south of that our only field known to fame, Concord\nBattle Ground; but I was so low in the woods that the opposite\nshore, half a mile off, like the rest, covered with wood, was my\nmost distant horizon. For the first week, whenever I looked out on\nthe pond it impressed me like a tarn high up on the side of a\nmountain, its bottom far above the surface of other lakes, and, as\nthe sun arose, I saw it throwing off its nightly clothing of mist,\nand here and there, by degrees, its soft ripples or its smooth\nreflecting surface was revealed, while the mists, like ghosts, were\nstealthily withdrawing in every direction into the woods, as at the\nbreaking up of some nocturnal conventicle. The very dew seemed to\nhang upon the trees later into the day than usual, as on the sides\nof mountains.\n\nThis small lake was of most value as a neighbor in the intervals\nof a gentle rain-storm in August, when, both air and water being\nperfectly still, but the sky overcast, mid-afternoon had all the\nserenity of evening, and the wood thrush sang around, and was heard\nfrom shore to shore. A lake like this is never smoother than at\nsuch a time; and the clear portion of the air above it being,\nshallow and darkened by clouds, the water, full of light and\nreflections, becomes a lower heaven itself so much the more\nimportant. From a hill-top near by, where the wood had been\nrecently cut off, there was a pleasing vista southward across the\npond, through a wide indentation in the hills which form the shore\nthere, where their opposite sides sloping toward each other\nsuggested a stream flowing out in that direction through a wooded\nvalley, but stream there was none. That way I looked between and\nover the near green hills to some distant and higher ones in the\nhorizon, tinged with blue. Indeed, by standing on tiptoe I could\ncatch a glimpse of some of the peaks of the still bluer and more\ndistant mountain ranges in the northwest, those true-blue coins from\nheaven's own mint, and also of some portion of the village. But in\nother directions, even from this point, I could not see over or\nbeyond the woods which surrounded me. It is well to have some water\nin your neighborhood, to give buoyancy to and float the earth. One\nvalue even of the smallest well is, that when you look into it you\nsee that earth is not continent but insular. This is as important\nas that it keeps butter cool. When I looked across the pond from\nthis peak toward the Sudbury meadows, which in time of flood I\ndistinguished elevated perhaps by a mirage in their seething valley,\nlike a coin in a basin, all the earth beyond the pond appeared like\na thin crust insulated and floated even by this small sheet of\ninterverting water, and I was reminded that this on which I dwelt\nwas but dry land.\n\nThough the view from my door was still more contracted, I did\nnot feel crowded or confined in the least. There was pasture enough\nfor my imagination. The low shrub oak plateau to which the opposite\nshore arose stretched away toward the prairies of the West and the\nsteppes of Tartary, affording ample room for all the roving families\nof men. \"There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy\nfreely a vast horizon\" -- said Damodara, when his herds required new\nand larger pastures.\n\nBoth place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those\nparts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most\nattracted me. Where I lived was as far off as many a region viewed\nnightly by astronomers. We are wont to imagine rare and delectable\nplaces in some remote and more celestial corner of the system,\nbehind the constellation of Cassiopeia's Chair, far from noise and\ndisturbance. I discovered that my house actually had its site in\nsuch a withdrawn, but forever new and unprofaned, part of the\nuniverse. If it were worth the while to settle in those parts near\nto the Pleiades or the Hyades, to Aldebaran or Altair, then I was\nreally there, or at an equal remoteness from the life which I had\nleft behind, dwindled and twinkling with as fine a ray to my nearest\nneighbor, and to be seen only in moonless nights by him. Such was\nthat part of creation where I had squatted;\n\n\"There was a shepherd that did live,\nAnd held his thoughts as high\nAs were the mounts whereon his flocks\nDid hourly feed him by.\"\nWhat should we think of the shepherd's life if his flocks always\nwandered to higher pastures than his thoughts?\n\nEvery morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal\nsimplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. I have\nbeen as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up\nearly and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one\nof the best things which I did. They say that characters were\nengraven on the bathing tub of King Tchingthang to this effect:\n\"Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and\nforever again.\" I can understand that. Morning brings back the\nheroic ages. I was as much affected by the faint hum of a mosquito\nmaking its invisible and unimaginable tour through my apartment at\nearliest dawn, when I was sitting with door and windows open, as I\ncould be by any trumpet that ever sang of fame. It was Homer's\nrequiem; itself an Iliad and Odyssey in the air, singing its own\nwrath and wanderings. There was something cosmical about it; a\nstanding advertisement, till forbidden, of the everlasting vigor and\nfertility of the world. The morning, which is the most memorable\nseason of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least\nsomnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes\nwhich slumbers all the rest of the day and night. Little is to be\nexpected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not\nawakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some\nservitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and\naspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial\nmusic, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air --\nto a higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the darkness\nbear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less than the light.\nThat man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier,\nmore sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has\ndespaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening way.\nAfter a partial cessation of his sensuous life, the soul of man, or\nits organs rather, are reinvigorated each day, and his Genius tries\nagain what noble life it can make. All memorable events, I should\nsay, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere. The\nVedas say, \"All intelligences awake with the morning.\" Poetry and\nart, and the fairest and most memorable of the actions of men, date\nfrom such an hour. All poets and heroes, like Memnon, are the\nchildren of Aurora, and emit their music at sunrise. To him whose\nelastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a\nperpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say or the\nattitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there\nis a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep.\nWhy is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have\nnot been slumbering? They are not such poor calculators. If they\nhad not been overcome with drowsiness, they would have performed\nsomething. The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but\nonly one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual\nexertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life.\nTo be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was\nquite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?\n\nWe must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by\nmechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which\ndoes not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more\nencouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate\nhis life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to\npaint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a\nfew objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and\npaint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which\nmorally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the\nhighest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its\ndetails, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and\ncritical hour. If we refused, or rather used up, such paltry\ninformation as we get, the oracles would distinctly inform us how\nthis might be done.\n\nI went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to\nfront only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn\nwhat it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I\nhad not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is\nso dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite\nnecessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of\nlife, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all\nthat was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive\nlife into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it\nproved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of\nit, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to\nknow it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in\nmy next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange\nuncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have\nsomewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to\n\"glorify God and enjoy him forever.\"\n\nStill we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that\nwe were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with\ncranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best\nvirtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness.\nOur life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need\nto count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add\nhis ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity,\nsimplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a\nhundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and\nkeep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this\nchopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and\nquicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man\nhas to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not\nmake his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great\ncalculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of\nthree meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a\nhundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. Our\nlife is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its\nboundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you\nhow it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its\nso-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external\nand superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown\nestablishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own\ntraps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation\nand a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the\nonly cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and\nmore than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It\nlives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have\ncommerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride\nthirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but\nwhether we should live like baboons or like men, is a little\nuncertain. If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and\ndevote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our\nlives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads\nare not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay\nat home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not\nride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what\nthose sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man,\nan Irishman, or a Yankee man. The rails are laid on them, and they\nare covered with sand, and the cars run smoothly over them. They\nare sound sleepers, I assure you. And every few years a new lot is\nlaid down and run over; so that, if some have the pleasure of riding\non a rail, others have the misfortune to be ridden upon. And when\nthey run over a man that is walking in his sleep, a supernumerary\nsleeper in the wrong position, and wake him up, they suddenly stop\nthe cars, and make a hue and cry about it, as if this were an\nexception. I am glad to know that it takes a gang of men for every\nfive miles to keep the sleepers down and level in their beds as it\nis, for this is a sign that they may sometime get up again.\n\nWhy should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are\ndetermined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a\nstitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches\ntoday to save nine tomorrow. As for work, we haven't any of any\nconsequence. We have the Saint Vitus' dance, and cannot possibly\nkeep our heads still. If I should only give a few pulls at the\nparish bell-rope, as for a fire, that is, without setting the bell,\nthere is hardly a man on his farm in the outskirts of Concord,\nnotwithstanding that press of engagements which was his excuse so\nmany times this morning, nor a boy, nor a woman, I might almost say,\nbut would forsake all and follow that sound, not mainly to save\nproperty from the flames, but, if we will confess the truth, much\nmore to see it burn, since burn it must, and we, be it known, did\nnot set it on fire -- or to see it put out, and have a hand in it,\nif that is done as handsomely; yes, even if it were the parish\nchurch itself. Hardly a man takes a half-hour's nap after dinner,\nbut when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, \"What's the news?\"\nas if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. Some give\ndirections to be waked every half-hour, doubtless for no other\npurpose; and then, to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed.\nAfter a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast.\n\"Pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on\nthis globe\" -- and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man\nhas had his eyes gouged out this morning on the Wachito River; never\ndreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave\nof this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself.\n\nFor my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think\nthat there are very few important communications made through it.\nTo speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters\nin my life -- I wrote this some years ago -- that were worth the\npostage. The penny-post is, commonly, an institution through which\nyou seriously offer a man that penny for his thoughts which is so\noften safely offered in jest. And I am sure that I never read any\nmemorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or\nmurdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel\nwrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the\nWestern Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers\nin the winter -- we never need read of another. One is enough. If\nyou are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad\ninstances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is\ncalled, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over\ntheir tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip. There was\nsuch a rush, as I hear, the other day at one of the offices to learn\nthe foreign news by the last arrival, that several large squares of\nplate glass belonging to the establishment were broken by the\npressure -- news which I seriously think a ready wit might write a\ntwelve-month, or twelve years, beforehand with sufficient accuracy.\nAs for Spain, for instance, if you know how to throw in Don Carlos\nand the Infanta, and Don Pedro and Seville and Granada, from time to\ntime in the right proportions -- they may have changed the names a\nlittle since I saw the papers -- and serve up a bull-fight when\nother entertainments fail, it will be true to the letter, and give\nus as good an idea of the exact state or ruin of things in Spain as\nthe most succinct and lucid reports under this head in the\nnewspapers: and as for England, almost the last significant scrap of\nnews from that quarter was the revolution of 1649; and if you have\nlearned the history of her crops for an average year, you never need\nattend to that thing again, unless your speculations are of a merely\npecuniary character. If one may judge who rarely looks into the\nnewspapers, nothing new does ever happen in foreign parts, a French\nrevolution not excepted.\n\nWhat news! how much more important to know what that is which\nwas never old! \"Kieou-he-yu (great dignitary of the state of Wei)\nsent a man to Khoung-tseu to know his news. Khoung-tseu caused the\nmessenger to be seated near him, and questioned him in these terms:\nWhat is your master doing? The messenger answered with respect: My\nmaster desires to diminish the number of his faults, but he cannot\ncome to the end of them. The messenger being gone, the philosopher\nremarked: What a worthy messenger! What a worthy messenger!\" The\npreacher, instead of vexing the ears of drowsy farmers on their day\nof rest at the end of the week -- for Sunday is the fit conclusion\nof an ill-spent week, and not the fresh and brave beginning of a new\none -- with this one other draggle-tail of a sermon, should shout\nwith thundering voice, \"Pause! Avast! Why so seeming fast, but\ndeadly slow?\"\n\nShams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while\nreality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only,\nand not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with\nsuch things as we know, would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian\nNights' Entertainments. If we respected only what is inevitable and\nhas a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets.\nWhen we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and\nworthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty\nfears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality. This\nis always exhilarating and sublime. By closing the eyes and\nslumbering, and consenting to be deceived by shows, men establish\nand confirm their daily life of routine and habit everywhere, which\nstill is built on purely illusory foundations. Children, who play\nlife, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who\nfail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by\nexperience, that is, by failure. I have read in a Hindoo book, that\n\"there was a king's son, who, being expelled in infancy from his\nnative city, was brought up by a forester, and, growing up to\nmaturity in that state, imagined himself to belong to the barbarous\nrace with which he lived. One of his father's ministers having\ndiscovered him, revealed to him what he was, and the misconception\nof his character was removed, and he knew himself to be a prince.\nSo soul,\" continues the Hindoo philosopher, \"from the circumstances\nin which it is placed, mistakes its own character, until the truth\nis revealed to it by some holy teacher, and then it knows itself to\nbe Brahme.\" I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live this\nmean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the\nsurface of things. We think that that is which appears to be. If a\nman should walk through this town and see only the reality, where,\nthink you, would the \"Mill-dam\" go to? If he should give us an\naccount of the realities he beheld there, we should not recognize\nthe place in his description. Look at a meeting-house, or a\ncourt-house, or a jail, or a shop, or a dwelling-house, and say what\nthat thing really is before a true gaze, and they would all go to\npieces in your account of them. Men esteem truth remote, in the\noutskirts of the system, behind the farthest star, before Adam and\nafter the last man. In eternity there is indeed something true and\nsublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and\nhere. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never\nbe more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to\napprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual\ninstilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. The\nuniverse constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions;\nwhether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. Let us\nspend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or the artist never\nyet had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at\nleast could accomplish it.\n\nLet us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be\nthrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that\nfalls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast,\ngently and without perturbation; let company come and let company\ngo, let the bells ring and the children cry -- determined to make a\nday of it. Why should we knock under and go with the stream? Let\nus not be upset and overwhelmed in that terrible rapid and whirlpool\ncalled a dinner, situated in the meridian shallows. Weather this\ndanger and you are safe, for the rest of the way is down hill. With\nunrelaxed nerves, with morning vigor, sail by it, looking another\nway, tied to the mast like Ulysses. If the engine whistles, let it\nwhistle till it is hoarse for its pains. If the bell rings, why\nshould we run? We will consider what kind of music they are like.\nLet us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward\nthrough the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition,\nand delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe,\nthrough Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord,\nthrough Church and State, through poetry and philosophy and\nreligion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we\ncan call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake; and then begin,\nhaving a point d'appui, below freshet and frost and fire, a place\nwhere you might found a wall or a state, or set a lamp-post safely,\nor perhaps a gauge, not a Nilometer, but a Realometer, that future\nages might know how deep a freshet of shams and appearances had\ngathered from time to time. If you stand right fronting and face to\nface to a fact, you will see the sun glimmer on both its surfaces,\nas if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you\nthrough the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your\nmortal career. Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we\nare really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel\ncold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our\nbusiness.\n\nTime is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but\nwhile I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is.\nIts thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink\ndeeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I\ncannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I\nhave always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was\nborn. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way\ninto the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with\nmy hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all\nmy best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my\nhead is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout\nand fore paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through\nthese hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts;\nso by the divining-rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I\nwill begin to mine.","title":"Walden (1893) Thoreau/Chapter II","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":6129}