like a “wise wild beast”; this was how his friends described him. His
face was ruddy and weather-beaten and very honest-looking; his nose
was large and somewhat like a beak; his brows overhanging—but every
one agreed that his eyes were the most attractive part of his face.
They were sometimes blue and sometimes gray, and full of kindness and
thought. He hated fine clothes and dressing up, so he always wore
strong things, like corduroy (which no gentleman at that period would
think of wearing), in order that he could make his way through the wood
and climb rocks without tearing anything. His sisters and relations
said he was simply delightful at home. He was a sort of household
treasure, because he was always kind and useful and obliging. He would
grow melons and plant the orchard, act as a mechanic—in fact, he was
clever at any odd job with his hands—and he would attend to the animals
and flowers. He was happy with children, and invented all sorts of
games to amuse them and himself. He had no false pride, and was not
ashamed to be seen in an old coat whitewashing the house or mending the
gates. He was a great traveler in a small circle, but he never until
the year before he died saw Niagara, or ever crossed the ocean. “I have
a real genius for staying at home,” he said.
When he was twenty-five, Thoreau went to live with Emerson and a circle
of friends on a farm near his own village of Concord. Emerson being
older than Thoreau, was regarded by him as his teacher. There is no
doubt that Emerson had a good deal of influence over the younger man
and they thought alike about many things; but they were very different
in temperament. Emerson was perhaps the more human, and he certainly
had more personal charm, but Thoreau was the more original of the two.
Emerson persuaded his young friend to join a sect of people formed
with the object of improving the outlook of mankind; they wished to
simplify living and to combine leisure for study with manual labor.
Every member of the community had to do his or her share of the work
to keep the house and farm going. They would plow, milk, make hay,
cultivate the garden, and the women would wash up the dishes in the
intervals of discussing how best to equalize the lots of rich and
poor, how to simplify education so that every one might be educated,
and how to destroy class differences. They were more like anarchists
than socialists, because they did not believe in governments and had
nothing to do with politics. Hawthorne, one of the members of this
Brook Farm society, wrote a novel about them which gives a very vivid
picture of their lives. They were not, except for a few members,
particularly brilliant people, and their society cannot be called very
successful if it is judged by renown, or by the amount of attention
it got from fashionable people. This may have been because it avoided
eccentricities and had very few rules—no sect could have had less—and
indeed they were particularly keen on not interfering with a person’s
liberty or private life. Idealism and Economy were the two principal
articles of their faith. They were kind, simple, hopeful people, and
were known as the Transcendentalists.
Thoreau lived with them for three years. The digging and outdoor work
were easy congenial tasks to him, but Emerson, on the contrary, found
that digging interfered with his writing, and after he left the sect he
never again attempted to combine the two.
Thoreau was twenty-eight when he decided to go away and live by
himself. It was not a sudden wish, for he had been thinking of it for
some years. It was not because he was a hater of men that he wanted to
get away, but he wished to find the answer to certain questions which
had been bothering him. He was anxious to find out what real life could
teach him, stripped of all its stupid complications and conventions. He
wished also to study and to satisfy himself that he could be an author,
and he went, too, because he hoped to draw strength and purpose from
his experiment.
At this period he possessed only twenty-five dollars of his own, and
one day in March he borrowed an axe and went into the woods which lay
all around his village, and there, on the side of a thickly wooded
hill, he found the perfect spot on which to build his house. At once
he began to cut down the tall, straight pines with which the hill was
covered to make a clearing, and with the purpose of using the pines as
timber for his hut. He chose the spot specially for the view it had
of the pond or lake beneath. Thoreau says a lake is a most beautiful
and expressive feature in a landscape, and he likens it to the earth’s
eye. It was called Walden, and from all the descriptions we read of
it, it was a particularly beautiful pond, remarkable for its depth
and its clearness, like a deep green well. Many people thought it was
bottomless, and it was more than a mile long, the hills encircling it
and rising steeply out of it on all sides. These days in which Thoreau
worked, cutting and hewing wood, were pleasant spring days, and we can
imagine how happy he was at his labors in the open air. He felt, he
said, like a bird building its nest, and wondered if men, were they
always to build their own homes, would become more poetical and sing as
they worked.
By July his house was ready to live in, though he had not yet built
his chimney—he liked in summer-time to do his cooking out of doors. He
left till later also the plastering of his hut, so that the cool air
blew through the chinks between the logs, which was very delicious in
summer-time. From the door of his hut a little pathway ran straight
down to the pond, and behind it he had made a clearing of some acres
where he might grow his corn and vegetables. In his book “Walden”
Thoreau describes how he spent his day during that first year. He would
rise very early in the morning in summer-time and take his bath in the
pond, and before the sun was high and the dew lay on everything he
would attend to the bean-field he loved so much and hoe between the
long green rows. After this he would do his housework, which he called
a pleasant pastime. He had only a bed, a table, a desk, three chairs,
a looking-glass (three inches across), a pair of tongs and andirons, a
kettle, a frying-pan, a wash-bowl, one or two jugs, one cup, and a lamp.
When his floor was dirty, he merely set all his furniture out of doors
on the grass, dashed water on the floor of his hut and sprinkled it
with white sand, and then with a broom swept it clean. By the time
other people were just getting up his house was dry again and his work
finished.
The first year at Walden he worked a great deal in his garden. Then he
had his cooking to do, and he studied very carefully the art of making
bread, baking it at first out of doors on the end of a stick of timber
over an open fire. He made experiments and discoveries with foods,
cooking odd wild plants and weeds. He proved that a man in that land
could support himself on what he grew. He could, for instance, grow his
own rye and Indian corn and grind them in a hand-mill, and sugar he
could extract from beet and pumpkins or from maples, which abound in
that country. You could avoid, he said, going to any shops at all, and
he was sure that to maintain yourself on the earth simply and wisely
was not a hardship at all, but a pleasure.
Sometimes during this first year Thoreau did nothing at all but sit
in his doorway dreaming, quite undisturbed and in silence, except for
the flittering and twittering of birds. He would not realize how the
time had flown until he saw the sunlight lighting up his west window,
or heard the sound of some horse and wagon in the distance going home
to rest. He did not feel this to be a waste of time, for he seemed, he
said, to grow under these conditions like the corn in the night.
Not very far from where he lived was a railway line, and a train would
pass at certain intervals. In spite of his love of solitude Thoreau
liked the sound of it, and the whistle of the engine he likened to
the cry of a hawk. He would listen to the passage of the moving train
with the same feeling he had about the rising sun. It was so punctual
and regular, and when the train had passed with its clang and clatter
Thoreau felt more alone than ever, for it had made him feel the
peacefulness and contrast of his own solitary yet not lonely life. On
Sundays he would listen to the bells of distant towns, when the wind
was in the right direction—the sounds would come floating faint and
sweet over the trees, as if it were the music of the woods: so Thoreau
describes it.
In the warm summer evenings he would spend a good deal of time in his
boat, playing the flute and watching the fish. He would make echoes
by smacking the water with his paddle till every corner of the wooded
hills cried and answered him. Sometimes he would fish at midnight to
get something for his next day’s dinner, and he would listen to the
owls he loved so much, and to the foxes crying, or to the call of some
mysterious night-birds; and the fish he describes as dimpling the
moonlit surface of the water with their tails.
His days passed probably very quickly—if you are contented and happy
the day is all too short. Thoreau said he hadn’t got to look for
amusement anywhere, as his life had become his amusement, it was so
real and full of interest. But he did not cut himself off from people
altogether. Sometimes he would go to the village to hear some talk.
He usually went in the evening, and he liked to stay very late there,
especially when it was dark and stormy, because it was so pleasant to
leave some bright, warm village room and to go out into the black night
to find his harbor in the woods. He did not mind how wild the weather
was—in fact, he preferred it wild and often faced severe storms. Those
who have never been in the woods by night have no idea how dark they
can be. They would frighten and bewilder most people, but not Thoreau.
He would feel his way with his feet on the faint track he had worn, or
he would steer with his hands, feeling particular trees and passing
between two pines, perhaps not more than eighteen inches apart; or he
might sometimes guess his whereabouts by seeing a piece of light above
him—a glimpse of the sky through a well-remembered break in the trees.
One can understand the satisfactory and joyful feeling of reaching at
last the little hut, always unlocked and open to any traveler who cared
to enter. When Thoreau went away for a time he left it thus, hoping
that some wayfarer might care to enter, to sit in his chair and read
the few books which lay on his table.
In October, Thoreau collected his stores for the winter. He would go
a-graping, but this, he says, more for the beauty of the grapes than
for any nourishment they gave him, and he would get wild apples and
store them, and principally he would make expeditions to the chestnut
woods, to get chestnuts, which are a good substitute for bread. He
would have a sack on his back and a stick in his hand with which to
open the prickly burrs, and as he gathered them up the squirrels and
jays called angrily to him for taking any of their food. Thoreau also
discovered, while digging the ground near, a sort of potato used by
the first peoples who lived in America; it had a sweetish taste like a
frostbitten potato.
When visitors called on Thoreau, which they did sometimes, he
describes the manner in which, if he were out, they would leave their
cards—either a bunch of flowers, a wreath of evergreen, or a name in
pencil on a yellow leaf or chip. If he had friends in summer days he
took them into his best room, or drawing-room, which was the pine wood
behind his house. Travelers did sometimes come out of their way to see
Thoreau, having heard of the strange man living in the woods, and they
were curious to see him and the inside of his hut. They would make an
excuse for calling by asking for a glass of water, and Thoreau would
direct them to the pond, where he always drank himself, and hand them a
cup. It interested him to observe the effect the woods and solitude had
on people. Girls and boys and young women, he said, seemed very happy
to be there, but men, even farmers, thought only of the loneliness and
how far it was from somewhere, adding that of course they enjoyed a
ramble in the woods.
In November of the first year he was at Walden, Thoreau built his
chimney, having studied masonry, and he lingered about the fire-place
of his house, as being, he says, the most important part of a house.
Then he plastered the hut in freezing weather, fetching the sand for
the purpose from the shore below. Then, he says, “I began to use it for
warmth as well as shelter.” When he had finished this work the pond
was frozen and snow covered the ground. Thoreau, happy and serene,
retired still further into his shell, keeping a bright fire in his
house and within his breast. All this time he wrote a good deal, and
his employment out of doors was to collect dead wood and to drag it
into his shed. He loved his woodpile, and would build it where he could
see it in front of his window. For many weeks in the snow Thoreau would
spend cheerful evenings by his fireside, and no visitors would come to
the woods—only woodmen came occasionally to cut and take wood on sleds
back to the village. But no weather interfered with Thoreau’s walks. He
managed to make a little pathway by always treading on the same track,
and he would go thus in deepest snow to keep, as he expressed it, an
appointment with an old beech-tree or a birch, or an old friend among
the pines. His descriptions of winter in the woods are perhaps more
fascinating and romantic than any other part of his “Walden,” and he
tells of the wonders of the coming spring, the gradual melting of the
ice, the longer days, the note of some arriving bird.
His second year at Walden was, he said, the same as the first, and when
he left it in September he had lived there rather over two years. He
left, he said, for as good a reason as he entered it. He does not tell
the reason, but it was an unselfish one. His father had died, and his
relations needed some one to work for them and to make a little money;
so, much as he hated it, as we know he must have done, he returned to
the world to make pencils and to write and to lecture till the end of
his life.
When Thoreau emerged from his seclusion, you can imagine the questions
he was asked by curious people who wanted to know all about it. Why
did he do it; wasn’t he lonely; what did he do with himself; what did
he eat? So he decided to publish an account of his experiment, filling
out the diary he had written daily at Walden, and giving his reasons
for his retirement and the conclusions he had formed about life and
the world through his experiment. He learned, he tells us, that if you
have a dream or some sort of idea of what a perfect life should be, or
anyhow the life that appears to you to be the most lovely, the most
useful, or the most satisfactory, you should advance quite confidently
in that direction—that is to say, in the direction of your dreams; and
that if you do this you will meet with a great deal of success. Also,
that in proportion as you simplify your life the world will appear
less complicated, you will be less poor and less lonely; the simple
natural things will never fail to interest you, your requirements will
be few, and your life full of enjoyment. Instead of three meals a day,
eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce everything
in proportion. Life, says Thoreau, is simply frittered away by detail.
And about clothes—Thoreau describes how he asked his acquaintances if
they would appear with a neat patch on their trousers, and most of them
thought they would be disgraced for life. Apparently, Thoreau says,
they would rather have a broken leg than a trouser with a rent in it.
It is certain that a man’s clothes are more important to some people
than the man himself, and all these things, to one who lives a natural
life, appear almost too absurd to be tolerated; and Thoreau, I think,
did a useful work in drawing attention to these fallacies, which we are
all inclined to take as a matter of course.
But Thoreau, because he went into the woods to live alone, did not
wish every one to do so; indeed, he thought there should be as many
different kinds of people in the world as possible. What he wanted
people to do was to find out for themselves the best thing for
themselves, and not necessarily to follow in the footsteps of their
fathers and mothers and friends, to be Republicans because these were
Republicans or Democrats because they were Democrats, to think as they
did and to live as they did without giving any thought at all to it.
He wanted people to have the courage to experiment and to take risks.
But he did not wish to make rules for strong, courageous natures, nor
did he wish to alter the way of living of those who found encouragement
and happiness in their present manner of life. He did not speak at all
to those who were well employed, but he did want to help people who
complained, who were discontented and saw life as a desert, dull and
joyless and without hope. He had in his head chiefly what he calls
“that seemingly wealthy but most terribly impoverished class of all,”
the people who have accumulated money and property and so have forged
their own gold and silver fetters. He was tremendously scornful about
the rich, and perhaps not pitiful enough. On the other hand, everything
he has said against the possession of money and the futility of luxury
is so perfectly reasonable and true and without any exaggeration, that
no arguments can really be found to meet him. A good many of us admit
that riches do not bring happiness, and that they undoubtedly increase
our responsibilities and make us less free, but we all fail to act up
to our beliefs, and continue to wish for more money in order to have a
larger house, more servants, more clothes—and thus, as Thoreau says,
we become “the tools of our tools” and the slaves of our own helpers
and servants; in fact, these things are a hindrance to our development.
“Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required
to buy one necessary of the soul.” This is one of Thoreau’s maxims.
It was certainly easier for Thoreau than for some to live a perfectly
natural life in the woods. He had not been brought up in luxury.
What he named luxuries we most of us call comforts. He was frugal by
training as well as by inclination. Therefore in criticizing as he
did the life that is led by most people in the world he was not very
generous, because he had never felt their temptations. He was, some
have thought, hardly human. In fact, he had very few weaknesses,
and to be almost perfect is not a very attractive quality. We like
to find imperfections in people and faults like our own. Thoreau was
very little troubled by indecisions or doubts as to whether a thing
was right or wrong for himself. He was quite sure of what he wanted;
he went to look for it, and he found it. He was determined to improve
himself, to be good and to be happy, and he succeeded. Even when he was
dying of consumption he said in a letter he was enjoying existence as
much as ever. When he believed in things he believed in them wholly,
and principally he believed in the invigorating power of nature.
He loved books; he loved writing and wood-cutting and walks in the
country. He has written a delightful essay on walking, and has told us
that he wrote in proportion to his rambles—if he was shut up indoors
he could not write at all. He liked, too, association with simple,
genuine people who were spending their lives in the open—fishermen,
woodmen, and sometimes farmers—so that it cannot be said that he was
a misanthropist—one who hates his fellow-creatures; if they were real
and natural he enjoyed them and cared for them, but he had not got
to depend on human beings for his entertainment. His interests and
resources lay within himself, and he could always fall back on nature.
“You may,” he says, “have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours even
in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the
almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode. The snow melts
before its door as early in the spring.”
Thoreau’s enjoyment was calm and level. From his writings we do not
gather that he was ever desperately unhappy, unless it was perhaps in
a crowded street or in a luxurious drawing-room. He did mind very much
the struggle and bustle, the ugliness of city life and all it stands
for. It had a bad, cramping effect upon him, and he shunned it. Once
back again in his woods and fields, his whole nature expanded. On
cheerless, bleak days, when he was out of doors and the villagers would
be thinking of their inn, he would, he says, come to himself and feel
himself to be part of it all. “This cold and solitude are friends of
mine.” In the country and alone he would see things as they are, “grand
and beautiful,” and forget “all trivial men and things.” The stillness
and solitude inspired him. His brain and mind worked and his nerves
were steadied.
To some, Thoreau appeared to have a cold personality. One man said of
him he would as soon think of taking his arm as taking the arm of an
elm-tree. “You could not,” said Carlyle, “nestle up to him.” There are
others who put a man down as a coward if he runs away from the world as
it is, and does not face it and make the best of it. On this question
there must always be a good deal of dispute, but it is really rather an
absurd thing to argue about, because we are all made so differently.
What is one man’s meat is another man’s poison. One person may not
physically be able to stand a certain climate, but finds another to
suit him, and so, as regards a man’s nature, he must discover how he
may make the best of himself in order to develop his character and
disposition. Thoreau’s argument was that if you cannot put a great
proportion of your powers and enthusiasm into what you are doing, it
is not of much use to yourself or mankind. He valued a man’s work in
proportion to how much it enlarged and improved his soul.
To those who remain to fight in the hurly-burly while saying they
dislike it, it probably has some bracing quality of which they are
conscious, but Thoreau, as we have seen, felt himself in the streets
to be “cheap and mean.” So he helped in his own way. To have forced
him to sit on an office stool or to have a regular profession would
have been a crime. If he had been more conventional and less peculiar,
“Walden” would never have been written. Besides, he saw for what futile
and ignoble reasons men chose their professions; sometimes not even
because they had to make a living or to keep a wife and children, but
for the sake of having expensive cigars and wines, a man-servant or a
large house; and for these things, he observed, people will toil and
make others toil at some stupid or sordid work, leaving themselves no
time for thought, for true friendship, or for the enjoyment of books or
nature or any real things. “There is no more fatal blunderer,” says
Thoreau, “than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his
living.” He calculated for himself that six weeks’ work would bring
him in all the money he required to live. So that the whole of his
winter and most of his summer would be free for study and enjoyment of
country life. But it must not be thought that Thoreau was lazy or had
never worked himself. In early days he had perfected himself in the
craft of pencil-making and surveying. He had also worked very hard at
his writing. He had learned industry, and in everything that he did he
showed a peculiar thoroughness and skill.
If we want to find fault with Thoreau, it must be that he was perhaps
too bent on improving himself. Thoreau and Emerson both believed very
strongly in the importance of making oneself more interesting. Thoreau
had a corresponding horror of consciously _doing good_ to people, and
of philanthropy generally. “Philanthropy,” he says, “is almost the
only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind”; and again,
“If you give money spend yourself with it. Do not merely abandon it to
them” (the poor).