chapter 1 - part 1economy when i wrote the following pages, or ratherthe bulk of them, i lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a housewhich i had built myself, on the shore of walden pond, in concord, massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my handsonly. i lived there two years and two months.at present i am a sojourner in civilized life again. i should not obtrude my affairs so much onthe notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmenconcerning my mode of life, which some
would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all impertinent, but,considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. some have asked what i got to eat; if i didnot feel lonesome; if i was not afraid; and the like. others have been curious to learn whatportion of my income i devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who havelarge families, how many poor children i maintained. i will therefore ask those of my readerswho feel no particular interest in me to
pardon me if i undertake to answer some ofthese questions in this book. in most books, the i, or first person, isomitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the maindifference. we commonly do not remember that it is,after all, always the first person that is speaking. i should not talk so much about myself ifthere were anybody else whom i knew as well.unfortunately, i am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. moreover, i, on my side, require of everywriter, first or last, a simple and sincere
account of his own life, and not merelywhat he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he haslived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. as for the rest of my readers, they willaccept such portions as apply to them. i trust that none will stretch the seams inputting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits. i would fain say something, not so muchconcerning the chinese and sandwich
islanders as you who read these pages, whoare said to live in new england; something about your condition, especially your outward condition or circumstances in thisworld, in this town, what it is, whether it is necessary that it be as bad as it is,whether it cannot be improved as well as not. i have travelled a good deal in concord;and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to meto be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways. what i have heard of bramins sittingexposed to four fires and looking in the
face of the sun; or hanging suspended, withtheir heads downward, over flames; or looking at the heavens over their shoulders "until it becomes impossible for them toresume their natural position, while from the twist of the neck nothing but liquidscan pass into the stomach"; or dwelling, chained for life, at the foot of a tree; or measuring with their bodies, likecaterpillars, the breadth of vast empires; or standing on one leg on the tops ofpillars--even these forms of conscious penance are hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes which i dailywitness.
the twelve labors of hercules were triflingin comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve,and had an end; but i could never see that these men slew or captured any monster orfinished any labor. they have no friend iolaus to burn with ahot iron the root of the hydra's head, but as soon as one head is crushed, two springup. i see young men, my townsmen, whosemisfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools;for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. better if they had been born in the openpasture and suckled by a wolf, that they
might have seen with clearer eyes whatfield they were called to labor in. who made them serfs of the soil? why should they eat their sixty acres, whenman is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt?why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born? they have got to live a man's life, pushingall these things before them, and get on as well as they can. how many a poor immortal soul have i metwell-nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life,pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet
by forty, its augean stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land,tillage, mowing, pasture, and woodlot! the portionless, who struggle with no suchunnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a fewcubic feet of flesh. but men labor under a mistake. the better part of the man is soon plowedinto the soil for compost. by a seeming fate, commonly callednecessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which mothand rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal.
it is a fool's life, as they will find whenthey get to the end of it, if not before. it is said that deucalion and pyrrhacreated men by throwing stones over their heads behind them:-- inde genus durum sumus, experiensquelaborum, et documenta damus qua simus origine nati. or, as raleigh rhymes it in his sonorousway,-- "from thence our kind hard-hearted is,enduring pain and care, approving that our bodies of a stony nature are." so much for a blind obedience to ablundering oracle, throwing the stones over
their heads behind them, and not seeingwhere they fell. most men, even in this comparatively freecountry, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with thefactitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannotbe plucked by them. their fingers, from excessive toil, are tooclumsy and tremble too much for that. actually, the laboring man has not leisurefor a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations tomen; his labor would be depreciated in the market. he has no time to be anything but amachine.
how can he remember well his ignorance--which his growth requires--who has so often to use his knowledge? we should feed and clothe him gratuitouslysometimes, and recruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him. the finest qualities of our nature, likethe bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling.yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly. some of you, we all know, are poor, find ithard 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, orfor the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed orstolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour. it is very evident what mean and sneakinglives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by experience; always on thelimits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the latins aes alienum,another's brass, for some of their coins
were made of brass; still living, anddying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent;seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prisonoffenses; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility or dilating into an atmosphere ofthin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you make hisshoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay upsomething against a sick day, something to
be tucked away in an old chest, or in astocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, in the brick bank; no matter where,no matter how much or how little. i sometimes wonder that we can be sofrivolous, i may almost say, as to attend to the gross but somewhat foreign form ofservitude called negro slavery, there are so many keen and subtle masters thatenslave both north and south. it is hard to have a southern overseer; itis worse to have a northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver ofyourself. talk of a divinity in man! look at the teamster on the highway,wending to market by day or night; does any
divinity stir within him?his highest duty to fodder and water his horses! what is his destiny to him compared withthe shipping interests? does not he drive for squire make-a-stir?how godlike, how immortal, is he? see how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguelyall the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner ofhis own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. public opinion is a weak tyrant comparedwith our own private opinion. what a man thinks of himself, that it iswhich determines, or rather indicates, his
fate. self-emancipation even in the west indianprovinces of the fancy and imagination-- what wilberforce is there to bring thatabout? think, also, of the ladies of the landweaving toilet cushions against the last day, not to betray too green an interest intheir fates! as if you could kill time without injuringeternity. the mass of men lead lives of quietdesperation. what is called resignation is confirmeddesperation. from the desperate city you go into thedesperate country, and have to console
yourself with the bravery of minks andmuskrats. a stereotyped but unconscious despair isconcealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.there is no play in them, for this comes after work. but it is a characteristic of wisdom not todo desperate things. when we consider what, to use the words ofthe catechism, is the 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 living becausethey preferred it to any other. yet they honestly think there is no choiceleft.
but alert and healthy natures remember thatthe sun rose clear. it is never too late to give up ourprejudices. no way of thinking or doing, howeverancient, can be trusted without proof. what everybody echoes or in silence passesby as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion,which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on theirfields. what old people say you cannot do, you tryand find that you can. old deeds for old people, and new deeds fornew. old people did not know enough once,perchance, to fetch fresh fuel to keep the
fire a-going; new people put a little drywood under a pot, and are whirled round the globe with the speed of birds, in a way tokill old people, as the phrase is. age is no better, hardly so well, qualifiedfor an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. one may almost doubt if the wisest man haslearned anything of absolute value by living. practically, the old have no very importantadvice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and theirlives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe;
and it may be that they have some faithleft which belies that experience, and they are only less young than they were. i have lived some thirty years on thisplanet, and i have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advicefrom my seniors. they have told me nothing, and probablycannot tell me anything to the purpose. here is life, an experiment to a greatextent untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it. if i have any experience which i thinkvaluable, i am sure to reflect that this my mentors said nothing about.
one farmer says to me, "you cannot live onvegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with"; and so hereligiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talksbehind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plowalong in spite of every obstacle. some things are really necessaries of lifein some circles, the most helpless and diseased, which in others are luxuriesmerely, and in others still are entirely unknown. the whole ground of human life seems tosome to have been gone over by their
predecessors, both the heights and thevalleys, and all things to have been cared for. according to evelyn, "the wise solomonprescribed ordinances for the very distances of trees; and the roman praetorshave decided how often you may go into your neighbor's land to gather the acorns which fall on it without trespass, and what sharebelongs to that neighbor." hippocrates has even left directions how weshould cut our nails; that is, even with the ends of the fingers, neither shorternor longer. undoubtedly the very tedium and ennui whichpresume to have exhausted the variety and
the joys of life are as old as adam. but man's capacities have never beenmeasured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little hasbeen tried. whatever have been thy failures hitherto,"be not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to thee what thou hast left undone?" we might try our lives by a thousand simpletests; as, for instance, that the same sun which ripens my beans illumines at once asystem of earths like ours. if i had remembered this it would haveprevented some mistakes. this was not the light in which i hoedthem.
the stars are the apexes of what wonderfultriangles! what distant and different beings in thevarious mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at the samemoment! nature and human life are as various as ourseveral constitutions. who shall say what prospect life offers toanother? could a greater miracle take place than forus to look through each other's eyes for an instant? we should live in all the ages of the worldin an hour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages.
history, poetry, mythology!--i know of noreading of another's experience so startling and informing as this would be. the greater part of what my neighbors callgood i believe in my soul to be bad, and if i repent of anything, it is very likely tobe my good behavior. what demon possessed me that i behaved sowell? you may say the wisest thing you can, oldman--you who have lived seventy years, not without honor of a kind--i hear anirresistible voice which invites me away from all that. one generation abandons the enterprises ofanother like stranded vessels.
i think that we may safely trust a gooddeal more than we do. we may waive just so much care of ourselvesas we honestly bestow elsewhere. nature is as well adapted to our weaknessas to our strength. the incessant anxiety and strain of some isa well-nigh incurable form of disease. we are made to exaggerate the importance ofwhat work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or, what if we had been takensick? how vigilant we are! determined not to liveby faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillinglysay our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties.
so thoroughly and sincerely are wecompelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. this is the only way, we say; but there areas many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. all change is a miracle to contemplate; butit is a miracle which is taking place every instant. confucius said, "to know that we know whatwe know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge." when one man has reduced a fact of theimagination to be a fact to his
understanding, i foresee that all men atlength establish their lives on that basis. let us consider for a moment what most ofthe trouble and anxiety which i have referred to is about, and how much it isnecessary that we be troubled, or at least careful. it would be some advantage to live aprimitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if onlyto learn what are the gross necessaries of life and what methods have been taken to obtain them; or even to look over the oldday-books of the merchants, to see what it was that men most commonly bought at thestores, what they stored, that is, what are
the grossest groceries. for the improvements of ages have had butlittle influence on the essential laws of man's existence; as our skeletons,probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors. by the words, necessary of life, i meanwhatever, of all that man obtains by his own exertions, has been from the first, orfrom long use has become, so important to human life that few, if any, whether from savageness, or poverty, or philosophy, everattempt to do without it. to many creatures there is in this sensebut one necessary of life, food.
to the bison of the prairie it is a fewinches of palatable grass, with water to drink; unless he seeks the shelter of theforest or the mountain's shadow. none of the brute creation requires morethan food and shelter. the necessaries of life for man in thisclimate may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several heads offood, shelter, clothing, and fuel; for not till we have secured these are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life withfreedom and a prospect of success. man has invented, not only houses, butclothes and cooked food; and possibly from the accidental discovery of the warmth offire, and the consequent use of it, at
first a luxury, arose the present necessityto sit by it. we observe cats and dogs acquiring the samesecond nature. by proper shelter and clothing welegitimately retain our own internal heat; but with an excess of these, or of fuel,that is, with an external heat greater than our own internal, may not cookery properlybe said to begin? darwin, the naturalist, says of theinhabitants of tierra del fuego, that while his own party, who were well clothed andsitting close to a fire, were far from too warm, these naked savages, who were farther off, were observed, to his great surprise,"to be streaming with perspiration at
undergoing such a roasting." so, we are told, the new hollander goesnaked with impunity, while the european shivers in his clothes. is it impossible to combine the hardinessof these savages with the intellectualness of the civilized man? according to liebig, man's body is a stove,and food the fuel which keeps up the internal combustion in the lungs.in cold weather we eat more, in warm less. the animal heat is the result of a slowcombustion, and disease and death take place when this is too rapid; or for wantof fuel, or from some defect in the
draught, the fire goes out. of course the vital heat is not to beconfounded with fire; but so much for analogy. it appears, therefore, from the above list,that the expression, animal life, is nearly synonymous with the expression, animalheat; for while food may be regarded as the fuel which keeps up the fire within us--and fuel serves only to prepare that food or toincrease the warmth of our bodies by addition from without--shelter and clothingalso serve only to retain the heat thus generated and absorbed.
the grand necessity, then, for our bodies,is to keep warm, to keep the vital heat in us. what pains we accordingly take, not onlywith our food, and clothing, and shelter, but with our beds, which are our night-clothes, robbing the nests and breasts of birds to prepare this shelter within a shelter, as the mole has its bed of grassand leaves at the end of its burrow! the poor man is wont to complain that thisis a cold world; and to cold, no less physical than social, we refer directly agreat part of our ails. the summer, in some climates, makespossible to man a sort of elysian life.
fuel, except to cook his food, is thenunnecessary; the sun is his fire, and many of the fruits are sufficiently cooked byits rays; while food generally is more various, and more easily obtained, and clothing and shelter are wholly or halfunnecessary. at the present day, and in this country, asi find by my own experience, a few implements, a knife, an axe, a spade, awheelbarrow, etc., and for the studious, lamplight, stationery, and access to a few books, rank next to necessaries, and canall be obtained at a trifling cost. yet some, not wise, go to the other side ofthe globe, to barbarous and unhealthy
regions, and devote themselves to trade forten or twenty years, in order that they may live--that is, keep comfortably warm--anddie in new england at last. the luxuriously rich are not simply keptcomfortably warm, but unnaturally hot; as i implied before, they are cooked, of coursea la mode.