Walden

            WALDEN & ON THE DUTY OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

                             Contents

                              WALDEN  

              1. Economy                              
              2. Where I Lived, and What I Lived For  
              3. Reading                              
              4. Sounds                               
              5. Solitude                             
              6. Visitors                             
              7. The Bean-Field                       
              8. The Village                          
              9. The Ponds                            
             10. Baker Farm                           
             11. Higher Laws                          
             12. Brute Neighbors                      
             13. House-Warming                        
             14. Inhabitants and Winter Visitors      
             15. Winter Animals                       
             16. The Pond in Winter                   
             17. Spring                               
             18. Conclusion                           
            
              -- On the Duty of Civil Disobedience --   



                              Economy

    When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I
lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house
which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord,
Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only.
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 on the notice of my
readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my
townsmen concerning 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 did not feel lonesome; if I
was not afraid; and the like.  Others have been curious to learn
what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and
some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained.
I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no particular
interest in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of these
questions in this book.  In most books, the I, or first person, is
omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism,
is the main difference.  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 if there 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 every writer,
first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not
merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as
he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has
lived 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 will accept such portions as apply
to them.  I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the
coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits.
    I would fain say something, not so much concerning the Chinese
and Sandwich Islanders as you who read these pages, who are said to
live in New England; something about your condition, especially your
outward condition or circumstances in this world, 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 me to be doing penance in a thousand
remarkable ways.  What I have heard of Bramins sitting exposed to
four fires and looking in the face of the sun; or hanging suspended,
with their heads downward, over flames; or looking at the heavens
over their shoulders "until it becomes impossible for them to resume
their natural position, while from the twist of the neck nothing but
liquids can pass into the stomach"; or dwelling, chained for life,
at the foot of a tree; or measuring with their bodies, like
caterpillars, the breadth of vast empires; or standing on one leg on
the tops of pillars -- even these forms of conscious penance are
hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes which I daily
witness.  The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in 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 or finished any labor.  They have no friend
Iolaus to burn with a hot iron the root of the hydra's head, but as
soon as one head is crushed, two spring up.
    I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune 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 open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have
seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in.  Who
made them serfs of the soil?  Why should they eat their sixty acres,
when man 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, pushing all these things before them, and get
on as well as they can.  How many a poor immortal soul have I met
well-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,