Walden
by Henry David Thoreau
Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.
The shadows of poverty and meanness gather around us, "and lo!
creation widens to our view." We are often reminded that if there
were bestowed on us the wealth of Croesus, our aims must still be
the same, and our means essentially the same. Moreover, if you are
restricted in your range by poverty, if you cannot buy books and
newspapers, for instance, you are but confined to the most
significant and vital experiences; you are compelled to deal with
the material which yields the most sugar and the most starch. It is
life near the bone where it is sweetest. You are defended from
being a trifler. No man loses ever on a lower level by magnanimity
on a higher. Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money
is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.
I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was
poured a little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my
mid-day, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from
without. It is the noise of my contemporaries. My neighbors tell
me of their adventures with famous gentlemen and ladies, what
notabilities they met at the dinner-table; but I am no more
interested in such things than in the contents of the Daily Times.
The interest and the conversation are about costume and manners
chiefly; but a goose is a goose still, dress it as you will. They
tell me of California and Texas, of England and the Indies, of the
Hon. Mr. --- of Georgia or of Massachusetts, all transient and
fleeting phenomena, till I am ready to leap from their court-yard
like the Mameluke bey. I delight to come to my bearings -- not walk
in procession with pomp and parade, in a conspicuous place, but to
walk even with the Builder of the universe, if I may -- not to live
in this restless, nervous, bustling, trivial Nineteenth Century, but
stand or sit thoughtfully while it goes by. What are men
celebrating? They are all on a committee of arrangements, and
hourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only the president of
the day, and Webster is his orator. I love to weigh, to settle, to
gravitate toward that which most strongly and rightfully attracts
me -- not hang by the beam of the scale and try to weigh less -- not
suppose a case, but take the case that is; to travel the only path I
can, and that on which no power can resist me. It affords me no
satisfaction to commerce to spring an arch before I have got a solid
foundation. Let us not play at kittly-benders. There is a solid
bottom everywhere. We read that the traveller asked the boy if the
swamp before him had a hard bottom. The boy replied that it had.
But presently the traveller's horse sank in up to the girths, and he
observed to the boy, "I thought you said that this bog had a hard
bottom." "So it has," answered the latter, "but you have not got
half way to it yet." So it is with the bogs and quicksands of
society; but he is an old boy that knows it. Only what is thought,
said, or done at a certain rare coincidence is good. I would not be
one of those who will foolishly drive a nail into mere lath and
plastering; such a deed would keep me awake nights. Give me a
hammer, 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 up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction -- a
work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse. So will
help you God, and so only.
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