Walden

Nothing can rightly compel a simple and brave man to a vulgar
sadness.  While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that
nothing can make life a burden to me.  The gentle rain which waters
my beans and keeps me in the house today is not drear and
melancholy, but good for me too.  Though it prevents my hoeing them,
it is of far more worth than my hoeing.  If it should continue so
long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the
potatoes in the low lands, it would still be good for the grass on
the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would be good for me.
Sometimes, when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I
were more favored by the gods than they, beyond any deserts that I
am conscious of; as if I had a warrant and surety at their hands
which my fellows have not, and were especially guided and guarded.
I do not flatter myself, but if it be possible they flatter me.  I
have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed by a sense of
solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks after I came to the
woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the near neighborhood of man
was not essential to a serene and healthy life.  To be alone was
something unpleasant.  But I was at the same time conscious of a
slight insanity in my mood, and seemed to foresee my recovery.  In
the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was
suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in
the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around
my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once
like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of
human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them
since.  Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy
and befriended me.  I was so distinctly made aware of the presence
of something kindred to me, even in scenes which we are accustomed
to call wild and dreary, and also that the nearest of blood to me
and humanest was not a person nor a villager, that I thought no
place could ever be strange to me again.

          "Mourning untimely consumes the sad;
           Few are their days in the land of the living,
           Beautiful daughter of Toscar."

    Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rain-storms in
the spring or fall, which confined me to the house for the afternoon
as well as the forenoon, soothed by their ceaseless roar and
pelting; when an early twilight ushered in a long evening in which
many thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves.  In those
driving northeast rains which tried the village houses so, when the
maids stood ready with mop and pail in front entries to keep the
deluge out, I sat behind my door in my little house, which was all
entry, and thoroughly enjoyed its protection.  In one heavy
thunder-shower the lightning struck a large pitch pine across the
pond, making a very conspicuous and perfectly regular spiral groove
from top to bottom, an inch or more deep, and four or five inches
wide, as you would groove a walking-stick.  I passed it again the
other day, and was struck with awe on looking up and beholding that
mark, now more distinct than ever, where a terrific and resistless
bolt came down out of the harmless sky eight years ago.  Men
frequently say to me, "I should think you would feel lonesome down
there, and want to be nearer to folks, rainy and snowy days and
nights especially."  I am tempted to reply to such -- This whole
earth which we inhabit is but a point in space.  How far apart,
think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star,
the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments?
Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way?  This
which you put seems to me not to be the most important question.
What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows
and makes him solitary?  I have found that no exertion of the legs
can bring two minds much nearer to one another.  What do we want
most to dwell near to?  Not to many men surely, the depot, the
post-office, the bar-room, the meeting-house, the school-house, the
grocery, Beacon Hill, or the Five Points, where men most congregate,
but to the perennial source of our life, whence in all our
experience we have found that to issue, as the willow stands near
the water and sends out its roots in that direction.  This will vary
with different natures, but this is the place where a wise man will
dig his cellar....  I one evening overtook one of my townsmen, who
has accumulated what is called "a handsome property" -- though I
never got a fair view of it -- on the Walden road, driving a pair of
cattle to market, who inquired of me how I could bring my mind to
give up so many of the comforts of life.  I answered that I was very
sure I liked it passably well; I was not joking.  And so I went home
to my bed, and left him to pick his way through the darkness and the
mud to Brighton -- or Bright-town -- which place he would reach some
time in the morning.
    Any prospect of awakening or coming to life to a dead man makes
indifferent all times and places.  The place where that may occur is
always the same, and indescribably pleasant to all our senses.  For
the most part we allow only outlying and transient circumstances to
make our occasions.  They are, in fact, the cause of our
distraction.  Nearest to all things is that power which fashions
their being.  Next to us the grandest laws are continually being
executed.  Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, with
whom we love so well to talk, but the workman whose work we are.
    "How vast and profound is the influence of the subtile powers of
Heaven and of Earth!"
    "We seek to perceive them, and we do not see them; we seek to
hear them, and we do not hear them; identified with the substance of
things, they cannot be separated from them."
    "They cause that in all the universe men purify and sanctify
their hearts, and clothe themselves in their holiday garments to
offer sacrifices and oblations to their ancestors.  It is an ocean
of subtile intelligences.  They are everywhere, above us, on our
left, on our right; they environ us on all sides."
    We are the subjects of an experiment which is not a little