Walden
by Henry David Thoreau
Every nail driven should be as another
rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on the work.
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat
at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and
obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went
away hungry from the inhospitable board. The hospitality was as
cold as the ices. I thought that there was no need of ice to freeze
them. They talked to me of the age of the wine and the fame of the
vintage; but I thought of an older, a newer, and purer wine, of a
more glorious vintage, which they had not got, and could not buy.
The style, the house and grounds and "entertainment" pass for
nothing with me. I called on the king, but he made me wait in his
hall, and conducted like a man incapacitated for hospitality. There
was a man in my neighborhood 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 musty
virtues, which any work would make impertinent? As if one were to
begin the day with long-suffering, and hire a man to hoe his
potatoes; and in the afternoon go forth to practise Christian
meekness and charity with goodness aforethought! Consider the China
pride and stagnant self-complacency of mankind. This generation
inclines a little to congratulate itself on being the last of an
illustrious line; and in Boston and London and Paris and Rome,
thinking of its long descent, it speaks of its progress in art and
science and literature with satisfaction. There are the Records of
the Philosophical Societies, and the public Eulogies of Great Men!
It is the good Adam contemplating his own virtue. "Yes, we have
done great deeds, and sung divine songs, which shall never die" --
that is, as long as we can remember them. The learned societies and
great men of Assyria -- where are they? What youthful philosophers
and experimentalists we are! There is not one of my readers who has
yet lived a whole human life. These may be but the spring months in
the life of the race. If we have had the seven-years' itch, we have
not seen the seventeen-year locust yet in Concord. We are
acquainted with a mere pellicle of the globe on which we live. Most
have not delved six feet beneath the surface, nor leaped as many
above it. We know not where we are. Beside, we are sound asleep
nearly half our time. Yet we esteem ourselves wise, and have an
established order on the surface. Truly, we are deep thinkers, we
are ambitious spirits! As I stand over the insect crawling amid the
pine needles on the forest floor, and endeavoring to conceal itself
from my sight, and ask myself why it will cherish those humble
thoughts, and bide its head from me who might, perhaps, be its
benefactor, and impart to its race some cheering information, I am
reminded of the greater Benefactor and Intelligence that stands over
me the human insect.
There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet
we tolerate incredible dulness. I need only suggest what kind of
sermons are still listened to in the most enlightened countries.
There are such words as joy and sorrow, but they are only the burden
of a psalm, sung with a nasal twang, while we believe in the
ordinary and mean.
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