walden
i was seated by the shore of a small pond, about a mile and a half south of the village of concord and somewhat higher than it, in the midst of an extensive wood between that town and lincoln, and about two miles south of that our only field known to fame, concord battle ground; but i was so low in the woods that the opposite shore, half a mile off, like the rest, covered with wood, was my most distant horizon. for the first week, whenever i looked out on the pond it impressed me like a tarn high up on the side of a mountain, i went to the woods because i wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if i could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when i came to die, discover that i had not lived. i did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did i wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. i wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and spartan- like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. for most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of god, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to 'glorify god and enjoy him forever.' still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. our life is frittered away by detail. an honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! i say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. in the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. simplify, simplify. instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? we are determined to be starved before we are hungry. men say that a stitchin time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches today to save nine tomorrow. as for work, we haven't any of any consequence. we have the saint vitus' dance, and cannot possibly keep our heads still. if i should only give a few pulls at the parish bell-rope, as for a fire, that is, without setting the bell, there is hardly a man on his farm in the outskirts of concord, notwithstanding that press of engagements which was his excuse so many times this morning, nor a boy, nor a woman, i might almost say, but would forsake all and follow that sound, not mainly to save property from the flames, but, if we will confess the truth, much more to see it burn, since burn it must, and we, be it known, did not set it on fire- or to see it put out, and have a hand in it, if that is done as handsomely; yes, even if it were the parish church itself. hardly a man takes a half-hour's nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, 'what's the news?' as if the rest of mankind had stood his sentinels. some give directions to be waked every half-hour, doubtless for no other purpose; and then, to pay for it, they tell what they have dreamed. after a night's sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast. 'pray tell me anything new that has happened to a man anywhere on this globe'- and he reads it over his coffee and rolls, that a man has had his eyes gouged out this morning on the wachito river; never dreaming the while that he lives in the dark unfathomed mammoth cave of this world, and has but the rudiment of an eye himself. for my part, i could easily do without the post-office. i think that there are very few important communications made through it. to speak critically, i never received more than one or two letters in my life- i wrote this some years ago- that were worth the postage. the penny-post is, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man that penny for his thoughts which is so often safely offered in jest. and i am sure that i never read any memorable news in a newspaper. if we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the western railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter- we never need read of another. one is enough. if you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? to a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. yet not a few are greedy after this gossip. there was such a rush, as i hear, the other day at one of the offices to learn the foreign news by the last arrival, that several large squares of plate glass belonging to the establishment were broken by the pressure- news which i seriously think a ready wit might write a twelve-month, or twelve years, beforehand with sufficient accuracy. as for spain, for instance, if you know how to throw in don carlos and the infanta,and don pedro and seville and granada, from time to time in the right proportions- they may have changed the names a little since i saw the papers- and serve up a bull-fight when other entertainments fail, it will be true to the letter, and give us as good an idea of the exact state or ruin of things in spain as the most succinct and lucid reports under this head in the newspapers: and as for england, almost the last significant scrap of news from that quarter was the revolution of 1649; and if you have learned the history of her crops for an average year, you never need attend to that thing again, unless your speculations are of a merely pecuniary character. if one may judge who rarely looks into the newspapers, nothing new does ever happen in foreign parts, a french revolution not excepted. what news! how much more important to know what that is which was never old! 'kieou-he-yu (great dignitary of the state of wei) sent a man to khoung-tseu to know his news. khoung-tseu caused the messenger to be seated near him, and questioned him in these terms: what is your master doing? the messenger answered with respect: my master desires to diminish the number of his faults, but he cannot come to the end of them. the messenger being gone, the philosopher remarked: what a worthy messenger! what a worthy messenger!' the preacher, instead of vexing the ears of drowsy farmers on their day of rest at the end of the week- for sunday is the fit conclusion of an ill-spent week, and not the fresh and brave beginning of a new one-with this one other draggle-tail of a sermon, should shout with thundering voice, 'pause! avast! why so seeming fast, but deadly slow?' shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. if men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we know, would be like a fairy tale and the arabian nights' entertainments. if we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets. when we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality. this is always exhilarating and sublime. by closing the eyes and slumbering, and consenting to be deceived by shows, men establish and confirm their daily life of routine and habit everywhere, which still is built on purely illusory foundations. children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure. i have read in a hindoo book, that 'there was a king's son, who, being expelled in infancy from his native city, was brought up by a forester, and, growing up to maturity in that state, imagined himself to belong to the barbarous race with which he lived. one of his father's ministers having discovered him, revealed to him what he was, and the misconception of his character was removed, and he knew himself to be a prince. so soul,' continues the hindoo philosopher, 'from the circumstances in which it is placed, mistakes its own character, until the truth is revealed to it by some holy teacher, and then it knows itself to be brahme.' i perceive that we inhabitants of new england live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface of things. we think that that is which appears to be. if a man should walk through this town and see only the reality, where, think you, would the 'mill-dam' go to? if he should give us an account of the realities he beheld there, we should not recognize the place in his de***ion. look at a meeting-house, or a court-house, or a jail, or a shop, or a dwelling-house, and say what that thing really is before a true gaze, and they would all go to pieces in your account of them. men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind the farthest star, before adam and after the last man. in eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. but all these times and places and occasions are now and here. god himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. and we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. the universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. let us spend our lives in conceiving then. the poet or the artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at least could accomplish it. let us spend one day as deliberately as nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry- determined to make a day of it. why should we knock under and go with the stream? let us not be upset and overwhelmed in that terrible rapid and whirlpool called a dinner, situated in the meridian shallows. weather this danger and you are safe, for the rest of the way is down hill. with unrelaxed nerves, with morning vigor, sail by it, looking another way, tied to the mast like ulysses. if the engine whistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains. if the bell rings, why should we run? we will consider what kind of music they are like. let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through paris and london, through new york and boston and concord, through church and state, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, this is, and no mistake; and then begin, having a point d'appui, below freshet and frost and fire, a place where you might found a wall or a state, or set a lamp-post safely, or perhaps a gauge, not a nilometer, but a realometer, that future ages might know how deep a freshet of shams and appearances had gathered from time to time. if you stand right fronting and face to face to a fact, you will seethe sun glimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your mortal career. be it life or death, we crave only reality. if we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business. time is but the stream i go a-fishing in. i drink at it; but while i drink i see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. i would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. i cannot count one. i know not the first letter of the alphabet. i have always been regretting that i was not as wise as the day i was born. the intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. i do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. my head is hands and feet. i feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. my instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore paws, and with it i would mine and burrow my way through these hills. i think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining-rod and thin rising vapors i judge; and here i will begin to mine. solitude this is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. i go and come with a strange liberty in nature, a part of herself. as i walk along the stony shore of the pond in my shirt-sleeves, though it is cool as well as cloudy and windy, and i see nothing special to attract me, all the elements are unusually congenial to me. the bullfrogs trump to usher in the night, and the note of the whip-poor-will is borne on the rippling wind from over the water. sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled. these small waves raised by the evening wind are as remote from storm as the smooth reflecting surface. though it is now dark, the mind still blows and roars in the wood, the waves still dash, and some creatures lull the rest with their notes. the repose is never complete. the wildest animals do not repose, but seek their prey now; the fox, and skunk, and rabbit, now roam the fields and woods without fear. they are nature's watchmen- links which connect the days of animated life. spring one attraction in coming to the woods to live was that i should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in. the ice in the pond at length begins to be honeycombed, and i can set my heel in it as i walk. fogs and rains and warmer suns are gradually melting the snow; the days have grown sensibly longer; and i see how i shall get through the winter without adding to my woodpile, for large fires are no longer necessary. i am on the alert for the first signs of spring, to hear the chance note of some arriving bird, or the striped squirrel's chirp, for his stores must be now nearly exhausted, or see the woodchuck venture out of his winter quarters conclusion left the woods for as good a reason as i went there. perhaps itseemed to me that i had several more lives to live, and could notspare any more time for that one. it is remarkable how easily andinsensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten trackfor ourselves. i had not lived there a week before my feet wore a pathfrom my door to the pond-side; and though it is eve or six years sincei trod it, it is still quite distinct. it is true, i fear, that othersmay have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. the surface ofthe earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so withthe paths which the mind travels. how worn and dusty, then, must bethe highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition andconformity! i did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to gobefore the mast and on the deck of the world, for there i could bestsee the moonlight amid the mountains. i do not wish to go below now. i learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advancesconfidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to livethe life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpectedin common hours. he will put some things behind, will pass aninvisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will beginto establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws beexpanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and hewill live with the license of a higher order of beings. inproportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe willappear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor povertypoverty, nor weakness weakness. if you have built castles in theair, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. now putthe foundations under them. it is a ridiculous demand which england and america make, that youshall speak so that they can understand you. neither men nortoadstools grow so. as if that were important, and there were notenough to understand you without them. as if nature could supportbut one order of understandings, could not sustain birds as well asquadrupeds, flying as well as creeping things, and hush and whoa,which bright can understand, were the best english. as if there weresafety in stupidity alone. i fear chiefly lest my expression may notbe extra-vagant enough, may not wander far enough beyond the narrowlimits of my daily experience, so as to be adequate to the truth ofwhich i have been convinced. extra vagance! it depends on how youare yarded. the migrating buffalo, which seeks new pastures in anotherlatitude, is not extravagant like the cow which kicks over the pail,leaps the cowyard fence, and runs after her calf, in milking time. idesire to speak somewhere without bounds; like a man in a wakingmoment, to men in their waking moments; for i am convinced that icannot exaggerate enough even to lay the foundation of a trueexpression. who that has heard a strain of music feared then lest heshould speak extravagantly any more forever? in view of the futureor possible, we should live quite laxly and undefined in front ouroutlines dim and misty on that side; as our shadows reveal aninsensible perspiration toward the sun. the volatile truth of ourwords should continually betray the inadequacy of the residualstatement. their truth is instantly translated; its literal monumentalone remains. the words which express our faith and piety are notdefinite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense tosuperior natures. why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise thatas common sense? the commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, whichthey express by snoring. sometimes we are inclined to class thosewho are once-and-a-half-witted with the half-witted, because weappreciate only a third part of their wit. some would find faultwith the morning red, if they ever got up early enough. 'theypretend,' as i hear, 'that the verses of kabir have four differentsenses; illusion, spirit, intellect, and the exoteric doctrine ofthe vedas'; but in this part of the world it is considered a groundfor complaint if a man's writings admit of more than oneinterpretation. while england endeavors to cure the potato-rot, willnot any endeavor to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much morewidely and fatally? i do not suppose that i have attained to obscurity, but i shouldbe proud if no more fatal fault were found with my pages on this scorethan was found with the walden ice. southern customers objected to itsblue color, which is the evidence of its purity, as if it weremuddy, and preferred the cambridge ice, which is white, but tastesof weeds. the purity men love is like the mists which envelop theearth, and not like the azure ether beyond. some are dinning in our ears that we americans, and modernsgenerally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or eventhe elizabethan men. but what is that to the purpose? a living dogis better than a dead lion. shall a man go and hang himself because hebelongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that hecan? let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what hewas made. why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in suchdesperate enterprises? if a man does not keep pace with hiscompanions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. lethim step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. itis not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree oran oak. shall he turn his spring into summer? if the condition ofthings which we were made for is not yet, what were any realitywhich we can substitute? we will not be shipwrecked on a vain reality.shall we with pains erect a heaven of blue glass over ourselves,though when it is done we shall be sure to gaze still at the trueethereal heaven far above, as if the former were not? there was an artist in the city of kouroo who was disposed to striveafter perfection. one day it came into his mind to make a staff.having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, butinto a perfect work time does not enter, he said to himself, itshall be perfect in all respects, though i should do nothing else inmy life. he proceeded instantly to the forest for wood, being resolvedthat it should not be made of unsuitable material; and as hesearched for and rejected stick after stick, his friends graduallydeserted him, for they grew old in their works and died, but he grewnot older by a moment. his singleness of purpose and resolution, andhis elevated piety, endowed him, without his knowledge, with perennialyouth. as he made no compromise with time, time kept out of his way,and only sighed at a distance because he could not overcome him.before he had found a stock in all respects suitable the city ofkouroo was a hoary ruin, and he sat on one of its mounds to peel thestick. before he had given it the proper shape the dynasty of thecandahars was at an end, and with the point of the stick he wrotethe name of the last of that race in the sand, and then resumed hiswork. by the time he had smoothed and polished the staff kalpa wasno longer the pole-star; and ere he had put on the ferule and the headadorned with precious stones, brahma had awoke and slumbered manytimes. but why do i stay to mention these things? when the finishingstroke was put to his work, it suddenly expanded before the eyes ofthe astonished artist into the fairest of all the creations of brahma.he had made a new system in making a staff, a world with fun andfair proportions; in which, though the old cities and dynasties hadpassed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken their places. andnow he saw by the heap of shavings still fresh at his feet, that,for him and his work, the former lapse of time had been an illusion,and that no more time had elapsed than is required for a singlescintillation from the brain of brahma to fall on and inflame thetinder of a mortal brain. the material was pure, and his art was pure;how could the result be other than wonderful? no face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well atlast as the truth. this alone wears well. for the most part, we arenot where we are, but in a false position. through an infinity ofour natures, we suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and henceare in two cases at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to getout. in sane moments we regard only the facts, the case that is. saywhat you have to say, not what you ought. any truth is better thanmake-believe. tom hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was askedif he had anything to say. 'tell the tailors,' said he, 'to rememberto make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch.' hiscompanion's prayer is forgotten. however mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it andcall it hard names. it is not so bad as you are. it looks poorest whenyou are richest. the fault-finder will find faults even in paradise.love your life, poor as it is. you may perhaps have some pleasant,thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. the setting sun isreflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from therich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in thespring. i do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there,and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. the town's poor seem tome often to live the most independent lives of any. maybe they aresimply great enough to receive without misgiving. most think that theyare above being supported by the town; but it oftener happens thatthey are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, whichshould be more disreputable. cultivate poverty like a garden herb,like sage. do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whetherclothes or friends. turn the old; return to them. things do notchange; we change. sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. godwill see that you do not want society. if i were confined to acorner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would be justas large to me while i had my thoughts about me. the philosopher said:'from an army of three divisions one can take away its general, andput it in disorder; from the man the most abject and vulgar one cannottake away his thought.' do not seek so anxiously to be developed, tosubject yourself to many influences to be played on; it is alldissipation. humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights. theshadows of poverty and meanness gather around us, 'and lo! creationwidens to our view.' we are often reminded that if there were bestowedon us the wealth of croesus, our aims must still be the same, andour means essentially the same. moreover, if you are restricted inyour range by poverty, if you cannot buy books and newspapers, forinstance, you are but confined to the most significant and vitalexperiences; you are compelled to deal with the material whichyields the most sugar and the most starch. it is life near the bonewhere it is sweetest. you are defended from being a trifler. no manloses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher. superfluouswealth can buy superfluities only. money is not required to buy onenecessary of the soul. i live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition waspoured a little alloy of bell-metal. often, in the repose of mymid-day, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum fromwithout. it is the noise of my contemporaries. my neighbors tell me oftheir adventures with famous gentlemen and ladies, what notabilitiesthey met at the dinner- table; but i am no more interested in suchthings than in the contents of the daily times. the interest and theconversation are about costume and manners chiefly; but a goose is agoose still, dress it as you will. they tell me of california andtexas, of england and the indies, of the hon. mr.-- of georgia or ofmassachusetts, all transient and fleeting phenomena, till i am readyto leap from their court-yard like the mameluke bey. i delight to cometo my bearings- not walk in procession with pomp and parade, in aconspicuous place, but to walk even with the builder of theuniverse, if i may- not to live in this restless, nervous, bustling,trivial nineteenth century, but stand or sit thoughtfully while itgoes by. what are men celebrating? they are all on a committee ofarrangements, and hourly expect a speech from somebody. god is onlythe president of the day, and webster is his orator. i love toweigh, to settle, to gravitate toward that which most strongly andrightfully attracts me;- not hang by the beam of the scale and tryto weigh less- not suppose a case, but take the case that is; totravel the only path i can, and that on which no power can resistme. it affords me no satisfaction to commerce to spring an arch beforei have got a solid foundation. let us not play at kittly-benders.there is a solid bottom everywhere. we read that the traveller askedthe boy if the swamp before him had a hard bottom. the boy repliedthat it had. but presently the traveller's horse sank in up to thegirths, and he observed to the boy, 'i thought you said that thisbog had a hard bottom.' 'so it has,' answered the latter, 'but youhave not got half way to it yet.' so it is with the bogs andquicksands of society; but he is an old boy that knows it. only whatis thought, said, or done at a certain rare coincidence is good. iwould not be one of those who will foolishly drive a nail into merelath and plastering; such a deed would keep me awake nights. give me ahammer, and let me feel for the furring. do not depend on the putty.drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake upin the night and think of your work with satisfaction- a work at whichyou would not be ashamed to invoke the muse. so will help you god, andso only. every nail driven should be as another rivet in the machineof the universe, you carrying on the work. rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. i sat at atable where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequiousattendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and i went away hungryfrom the inhospitable board. the hospitality was as cold as theices. i thought that there was no need of ice to freeze them. theytalked to me of the age of the wine and the fame of the vintage; but ithought of an older, a newer, and purer wine, of a more gloriousvintage, which they had not got, and could not buy. the style, thehouse and grounds and 'entertainment' pass for nothing with me. icalled on the king, but he made me wait in his hall, and conductedlike a man incapacitated for hospitality. there was a man in myneighborhood who lived in a hollow tree. his manners were truly regal.i should have done better had i called on him. how long shall we sit in our porticoes practising idle and mustyvirtues, which any work would make impertinent? as if one were tobegin the day with long-suffering, and hire a man to hoe his potatoes;and in the afternoon go forth to practise christian meekness andcharity with goodness aforethought! consider the china pride andstagnant self-complacency of mankind. this generation inclines alittle to congratulate itself on being the last of an illustriousline; and in boston and london and paris and rome, thinking of itslong descent, it speaks of its progress in art and science andliterature with satisfaction. there are the records of thephilosophical societies, and the public eulogies of great men! it isthe good adam contemplating his own virtue. 'yes, we have done greatdeeds, and sung divine songs, which shall never die'- that is, as longas we can remember them. the learned societies and great men ofassyria- where are they? what youthful philosophers andexperimentalists we are! there is not one of my readers who has yetlived a whole human life. these may be but the spring months in thelife of the race. if we have had the seven-years' itch, we have notseen the seventeen-year locust yet in concord. we are acquaintedwith a mere pellicle of the globe on which we live. most have notdelved six feet beneath the surface, nor leaped as many above it. weknow not where we are. beside, we are sound asleep nearly half ourtime. yet we esteem ourselves wise, and have an established order onthe surface. truly, we are deep thinkers, we are ambitious spirits! asi stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forestfloor, and endeavoring to conceal itself from my sight, and ask myselfwhy it will cherish those humble thoughts, and bide its head from mewho might, perhaps, be its benefactor, and impart to its race somecheering information, i am reminded of the greater benefactor andintelligence that stands over me the human insect. there is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet wetolerate incredible dulness. i need only suggest what kind ofsermons are still listened to in the most enlightened countries. thereare such words as joy and sorrow, but they are only the burden of apsalm, sung with a nasal twang, while we believe in the ordinary andmean. we think that we can change our clothes only. it is said thatthe british empire is very large and respectable, and that theunited states are a first- rate power. we do not believe that a tiderises and falls behind every man which can float the british empirelike a chip, if he should ever harbor it in his mind. who knows whatsort of seventeen-year locust will next come out of the ground? thegovernment of the world i live in was not framed, like that ofbritain, in after-dinner conversations over the wine. the life in us is like the water in the river. it may rise this yearhigher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands; eventhis may be the eventful year, which will drown out all ourmuskrats. it was not always dry land where we dwell. i see farinland the banks which the stream anciently washed, before sciencebegan to record its freshets. every one has heard the story whichhas gone the rounds of new england, of a strong and beautiful bugwhich came out of the dry leaf of an old table of apple-tree wood,which had stood in a farmer's kitchen for sixty years, first inconnecticut, and afterward in massachusetts- from an egg depositedin the living tree many years earlier still, as appeared by countingthe annual layers beyond it; which was heard gnawing out for severalweeks, hatched perchance by the heat of an urn. who does not feelhis faith in a resurrection and immortality strengthened by hearing ofthis? who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has beenburied for ages under many concentric layers of woodenness in the deaddry life of society, deposited at first in the alburnum of the greenand living tree, which has been gradually converted into the semblanceof its well-seasoned tomb- heard perchance gnawing out now for yearsby the astonished family of man, as they sat round the festiveboard- may unexpectedly come forth from amidst society's mosttrivial and handselled furniture, to enjoy its perfect summer lifeat last! i do not say that john or jonathan will realize all this; but suchis the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can nevermake to dawn. the light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us.only that day dawns to which we are awake. there is more day todawn. the sun is but a morning star.回复:walden
文坛发帖还是以中文为主，谢谢配合~ 下次请注意~ : 中国松狮俱乐部松狮狗的照片
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