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04 - Walden - Henry David Thoreau · Logic Library

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Economy Part four. As with our colleges, so with a hundred modern improvements,
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there is an illusion about them. There is not always a positive advance.
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The devil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his early share
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and numerous succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys
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which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an
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unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at.
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As railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste
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to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas. But Maine and Texas,
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it may be, have nothing important to communicate. Either is in such a
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predicament as the man who was earnest to be introduced to a distinguished deaf woman,
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but when he was presented and one end of her ear trumpet was put
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into his hand, had nothing to say, as if the main object were
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to talk fast and not to talk. Sensibly, we are eager to tunnel
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under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new,
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But perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad flapping American ear
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will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough. After all, the
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man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important
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messages. He is not an evangelist. Nor does he come round eating locusts
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and wild honey. I doubt if flying Childers ever carried a peck of corn
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to mill. One says to me, I wonder that you do not lay
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up money. You love to travel. You might take the cars and go
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to Fitchburg to day and see the country. But I am wiser than that.
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I have learned that the swiftest traveler is he that goes afoot. I
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say to my friend, suppose we try who will get there first. The
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distance is thirty miles. The fair ninety cents. That is almost a day's
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wages. I remember when wages were sixty cents a day for laborers on this
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very road. Well, I start now on foot and get there before night.
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I have traveled at that rate by the week together. You will,
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in the meanwhile, have earned your fare and arrived there some time tomorrow,
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or possibly this evening. If you are lucky enough to get a job in
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season instead of going to Fitchburg, you will be working here the greater part
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of the day. And so if the railroad reached round the world, I
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think that I should keep ahead of you. And as for seeing the country
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and getting experience of that kind, I should have to cut your acquaintance altogether.
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Such is the universal law, which no man can ever outwit. And
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with regard to the railroad, even we may say it is as broad as
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it is long. To make a railroad round the world available to all mankind
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is equivalent to grading the whole surface of the planet. Men have an indistinct
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notion that if they keep up this activity of joint stalks and spades long enough,
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all will at length ride somewhere in next to no time, and for
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nothing. But though a crowd rushes to the depot and the conductor shouts all
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aboard, when the smoke is blown away and the vapor condemned, it will
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be perceived that a few are riding, but the rest are run over,
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and it will be called and will be a melancholy accident. No doubt they
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can ride at last, who shall have earned their fare, that is,
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if they survive so long. But they will probably have lost their elasticity and
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desire to travel by that time. This spending of the best part of one's
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life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part
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of it reminds me of the Englishmen who went to India to make a fortune
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first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of
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a poet. He should have gone up, Garrett at once, what exclaim
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a million irishmen starting up from all the shanties in the land? Is not
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this railroad which we have built a good thing? Yes, I answer comparatively
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good. That is, you might have done worse. But I wish,
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as you are brothers of mine, that you could have spent your time better
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than digging in this dirt. Before I finish my house, wishing to earn
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ten or twelve dollars by some honest and agreeable method, in order to meet
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my unusual expenses, I planted about two acres and a half of light and
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sandy soil near it, chiefly with beans, but also a small part with
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potatoes, corn, peas, and turnips. The whole lot contains eleven acres,
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mostly growing up to pines and hickories, and was sold the preceding season
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for eight dollars and eight cents an acre. One farmer said that it was
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quote good for nothing but to raise cheaping squirrels. One. I put no
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manure whatever on this land, not being the owner but merely a squatter,
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and not expecting to cultivate so much again, and I did not quite hoe
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it all at once. I got out several cords of stumps and plowing,
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which supplied me with fuel for a long time, and left small circles of
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virgin mold easily distinguishable through the summer by the greater luxuriance of the beans.
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There. The dead and for the most part unmerchantable wood behind my house and
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the drift wood from the pond have supplied the remainder of my fuel. I
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was obliged to hire a team and a man for the plowing, though I
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held the plow myself. My farm outgoes for the first season were for implements,
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seed work, et cetera. Fourteen dollars seventy two cents plus the seed
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corn was given me. This never costs anything to speak of, unless you
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plant more than enough. I got twelve bushels of beans and eighteen bushels of
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potatoes, beside some peas and sweet corn. The yellow corn and turnips were
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too late to come to anything. The whole income from the farm was twenty
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three dollars forty four cents. Deducting the outgoes fourteen dollars seventy two cents plus,
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there are left eight dollars seventy one cents plus beside produce consumed and on
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hand. At the time this estimate was made of the value of four dollars
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fifty cents. The amount on hand much more than balancing a little grass,
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which I did not raise, all things considered, that is, considering the
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importance of a man's soul and of today, notwithstanding the short time occupied by
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my experiment, nay partly even because of its transient character, I believe that
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was doing better than any farmer in Concord did that year. The next year
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I did better still, for I spaded up all the land which I required,
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about a third of an acre. And I learned from the experience of
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both years not being in the least awed by many celebrated works on husbandry,
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Arthur Young among the rest, that if one would live simply and eat only
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the crop which he raised, and raise no more than he ate, and
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not exchange it for an insufficient quantity of more luxurious and expensive things. He
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would need to cultivate only a few rods of ground, and that it would
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be cheaper to spade up that than to use oxen to plow it, and
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to select a fresh spot from time to time than to manure the old.
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And he could do all all his necessary farm work, as it were,
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with his left hand, at odd hours in the summer, and thus he
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would not be tied to an ox or horse, or cow or pig as
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at present. I desire to speak impartially on this point, and as one
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not interested in the success or failure of the present economical and social arrangements,
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I was more independent than any farmer in concord, for I was not anchored
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to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius,
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which is a very crooked one every moment. Besides being better off than they
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already, if my house had been burned or my crops had failed, I
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should have been nearly as well off as before. I am wont to think
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that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers
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of men. The former are so much the freer men and oxen exchange work.
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But if we consider necessary work, only the oxen will be seen to
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have greatly the advantage their farm is so much. The larger man does some
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of his part of the exchange work in his six weeks of haying. And
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it is no boy's play, Certainly, no nation that lived simply in all
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respects, that is, no nation of philosophers would commit so great a blunder
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as to use the labor of animals. True, there never was, and
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is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain
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it is desirable that there should be. However, I should never have broken
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a horse or bull and taken him to board for any work he might do
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for me, for fear I should become a horseman or herdsman merely, And
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if society seems to be the game by so doing, are we certain that
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what is one man's gain is not another's loss, and that the stable boy
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has equal cause with his master to be satisfied? Granted that some public works
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would not have been constructed without this aid, and let man share the glory
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of such with the ox and horse. Does it follow that he could not
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have accomplished works yet more worthy of himself. In that case, when men
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begin to do not merely unnecessary or artistic, but luxurious and idle work with
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their assistance, it is inevitable that a few do all the exchange work with
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the oxen, or in other words, become the slaves of the strongest man.
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Thus not only works for the animal within him, but for a symbol
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of this, he works for the animal without him. Though we have many
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substantial houses of brick or stone, the prosperity of the farmer is still measured
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by the degree to which the barn overshadows the house. This town is said
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to have the largest houses for oxen, cows and horses hereabouts, and it
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is not behindhand in its public buildings. But there are very few halls for
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free worship or free speech in this county. It should not be by their
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architecture, but why not even by their power of abstract thought? That nations
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should seek to commemorate themselves. How much more admirable the bug of Adgita than
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all the ruins of the east, towers and temples are the luxury of princes.
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A simple and indom dependent mind does not toil at the bidding of any
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prince. Genius is not a retainer to any emperor, nor is its material
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silver or gold or marble, except to a trifling extent, to what end
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prey? Is so much stone hammered in Arcadia? When I was there,
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I did not see any hammering stone. Nations are possessed with an insane ambition
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to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave.
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What if equal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners, one piece
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of good sense would be more memorable than a monument as high as the moon.
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I love better to see stones in place. The grandeur of Thebes was
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the vulgar grandeur, more sensible as a rod of stone wall that bounds an
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honest man's field than a hundred gated Thebes that has wandered farther from the true
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end of life. The religion and civilization, which are barbaric and Heathenish,
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build splendid temples, but what you might call Christianity does not. Most of
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the stone a nation hammers goes towards its tomb, only it buries itself alive.
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As for the pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them,
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so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to
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spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have
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been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the nile and then given his body
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to the dogs. I might possibly invent some excuse for them and him,
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but I have no time for it. As for the religion and love of
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art of the builders, it is much the same all the world over.
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Whether the building be an Egyptian temple or the United States Bank, it costs
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more than it comes to. The main spring is vanity, assisted by the
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love of garlic and bread and butter. Mister Balcom, a promising young architect,
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designs it on the back of his Vitruvius, with hard pencil and ruler,
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and the job is led out to Dobson and Sons stone cutters. When
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the thirty centuries begin to look down on it, mankind begin to look up
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at it. As for your high towers and monuments, there was a crazy
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fellow once in this town who undertook to dig through to China, and he
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got so far that, as he said, he heard the Chinese pots and
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kettle's rattle. But I think that I shall not go out of my way
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to admire the hole which he made. Many are concerned about the monuments of
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the West and the East, to know who built them. For my part,
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I should like to know who in those days did not build them,
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who were above such trifling. But to proceed with my statistics by surveying carpentry
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and day labor of various other kinds in the village. In the meanwhile,
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for I have as many trades as fingers, I had earned thirteen dollars thirty
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four cents the expense of food for eight months, namely from July fourth to
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March first, the time when these estimates were made, though I lived there
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more than two years, not counting potatoes, a little green corn, and
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some peas which I had raised, nor considering the value of what was on
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hand at the last date. Was rice one dollar seventy three cents and a
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half. Molasses one dollar seventy three cents, cheapest form of the sachron.
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Rye meal one dollar four cents three quarters, Indian meal ninety nine cents three
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quarters cheaper than rye pork twenty two cents all experiments which failed. Flour eighty
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eight cents costs more than Indian meal both money and trouble, Sugar eighty cents,
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lard sixty five cents, apples twenty five cents, dried apple twenty two
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cents, sweet potatoes ten cents, one pumpkin six cents, one watermelon two
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cents, salt three cents. Yes, I did eat eight dollars seventy four
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cents all told. But I should not thus unblushingly publish my guilt if I
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did not know that most of my readers were equally guilty with myself, and
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that their deeds would look no better in print the next year. I sometimes
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caught a mess of fish for my dinner, and once I went so far
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as to slaughter a woodchuck, which ravaged my bean field, affect his transmigration,
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as a tartar would say, and devour him, partly for experiment's sake.
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But though it afforded me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor,
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I saw that the longest use would not make that a good practice. However,
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it might seem to have your woodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher,
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clothing, and some incidental expenses within the same dates, though little can be
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inferred from this item, amounted to eight dollars forty cents minus three quarters oil,
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and some household utensils two dollars, so that all the pecuniary outgoes excepting
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for washing and mending, which for the most part were done out of the
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house, and their bills have not yet been received. And these are all,
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and more than all the ways by which money necessarily goes out in this
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part of the world. Were house twenty eight dollars twelve cents plus farm one
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year eighteen dollars seventy two cents plus food, eight months, eight dollars seventy
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four cents, clothing, et cetera. Eight months, eight dollars forty cents
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minus three quarters, oil, et cetera. Eight months two dollars in all
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sixty one dollars ninety nine cents minus three quarters. I address myself now to
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those of my readers who have a living to get and to meet this I
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have for farm produce sold twenty three dollars forty four cents earned by day labor
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thirteen dollars thirty four cents in all thirty six dollars seventy eight cents, which
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subtracted from the sum of the outgoes, leaves a balance of twenty five dollars
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twenty one cents three quarters. On the one side, this being very nearly
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the means with which I started, and the measure of expenses to be incurred,
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and on the other beside the leisure and independence and health thus secured a
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comfortable house for me as long as I chose to occupy it. These statistics,
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however accidental and therefore uninstructive, they may appear as they have a certain
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completeness, have a certain value. Also, nothing was given me of which
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I have not rendered some account. It appears from the above estimate that my
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food alone cost me in money about twenty seven cents a week. It was
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for nearly two years after this rye and Indian meal without yeast, potatoes,
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rice, a very little salt, pork, molasses and salt, and my
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drink water. It was fit that I should live on rice mainly who love
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so well the philosophy of inn To meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers,
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I may as well state that if I dined out occasionally as I always had
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done, and I trust shall have opportunities to do again. It was frequently
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to the detriment of my domestic arrangements. But the dining out, being,
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as I have stated, a constant element, does not in the least affect
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a comparative statement like this. I learned from my two years experience that it
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would cost incredibly little trouble to obtain one's necessary food, even in this latitude,
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that a man may use as simple a diet as the animals and yet
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retain health and strength. I have made a satisfactory dinner, satisfactory on several
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accounts, simply off a dish of Purslain portulaca oleracia, which I gathered in
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my cornfield, boiled and salted. I give the Latin on account of the
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savoriness of the trivial name, and pray, what more can a reasonable man
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desire, in peaceful times, in ordinary noons than a sufficient number of ears
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of green sweet corn, boiled with the addition of salt. Even the little
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variety which I used was a yielding to the demands of appetite and not of
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health. Yet men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve,
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not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries. And I know
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a good woman who thinks that her son lost his life because he took to
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drinking water. Only the reader will perceive that I am treating the subject rather
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from an economic than a dietetic point of view, and he will not venture
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to put my abstemiousness to the test unless he has a welst larder. Bread
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I at first made of pure Indian meal and salt, genuine hoe cakes,
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which I baked before my fire out of doors on a shingle, or the
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end of a stick of timber sawed off in building my house. But it
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was wont to get smoked and to have a piny flavor. I tried flour
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also, but have at last found a mixture of rye, an Indian meal,
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most convenient and agreeable in cold weather. It was no little amusement to
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bake several small loaves of this in succession, tending and turning them as carefully
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as an Egyptian his hatching eggs. They were a real cereal fruit which I
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ripened, and they had to my senses a fragrance like that of other noble
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fruits, which I kept in as long as possible by wrapping them in cloths.
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I made a study of the ancient and indi dispensable art of bread making,
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consulting such authorities as offered, going back to the primitive days and first
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invention of the unleavened kind, when from the wildness of nuts and meats men
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first reached the mildness and refinement of this diet, and traveling gradually down in
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my studies through the accidental souring of the dough, which it is supposed,
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taught the leavening process, and through the various fermentations thereafter, till I came
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to good, sweet, wholesome bread, the staff of life, leaven which
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some deem the soul of bread, the spiritus which fills its cellular tissue,
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which is religiously preserved like the vestal fire. Some precious bottleful, I suppose,
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first brought over in the mayflower, did the business for America, and
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its influence is still rising, swelling, spreading in serialian billows over the land.
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This seed I regularly and faithfully procured from the village, till at length
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one morning I forgot the rules and scalded my yeast, by which accident I
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discovered that even this was not indispensable, for my discoveries were not by the
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synthetic but analytic process, and I have gladly omitted it since though most housewives
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earnestly assured me that safe and wholesome bread without yeast might not be an elderly
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people prophesied a steady decay of the vital forces. Yet I find it not
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to be an essential ingredient. And after going without it for a year,
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am still in the land of the living. And I am glad to escape
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the trivialness of carrying a bottleful in my pocket, which would sometimes pop and
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discharge its cain contents to my discomfiture. It is simpler and more respectable to
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omit it. Man is an animal who, more than any other, can
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adapt himself to all climates and circumstances. Neither did I put any sal soda
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or other acid or alkali into my bread. It would seem that I made
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it according to the recipe which Marcus Porcius Cato gave about two centuries before Christ
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panem depstisium sic facito manus mortarium ke bene lavato ferinam in mortarium indito aqua partim
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adito subigitoc polcre ubi bene subigeres defingito coquitoc subtestu, which I take to mean
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quote, make kneaded bread. Thus, wash your hands and trough well.
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Put the meal into the trough, add water gradually, and knead it thoroughly.
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When you have kneaded it well, mold it and bake it under a
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cover eno that is, in a baking kettle. Not a word about leaven.
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But I did not always use this staff of life. At one time,
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owing to the emptiness of my purse, I saw none of it for
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more than a month. Every new Englander might easily raise all his own bread
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stuffs in this land of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on distant
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and fluctuating markets for them. Yet so far are we from simplicity and independence,
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that in Concord fresh and sweet meal is rarely sold in the shop,
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and hominy and corn in a still coarser form are hardly used by any For
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the most part, the farmer gives to his cattle and hogs the grain of
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his own producing, and buys flour, which is at least no more wholesome,
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at a greater cost at the store. I saw that I could easily
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raise my bushel or two of rye and Indian corn, for the farmer will
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grow on the poorest land, and the latter does not require the best,
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and grind them in a hand mill, And so do without rice and pork.
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And if I must have some concentrated sweet, I found by experiment that
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I could make a very good molasses, either of pumpkins or beets. And
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I knew that I needed only to set out a few maples to obtain it
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more easily. Still, and while these were growing, I could use various
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substitutes beside those which I have named, for as the forefathers sang quote,
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we can make liquor to sweeten our lips of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut tree
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chips. Finally, as for salt, that grossest of groceries to obtain,
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this might be a fit occasion for a visit to the seashore, or if
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I did without it altogether, I should probably drink the less water. I
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do not learn that the Indians ever troubled themselves to go after it. Thus
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I could avoid all trade and barter so far as my food was concerned,
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And having a shelter already it would only remain to get clothing and fuel.
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The pantaloons which I now wear were woven in a farmer's family. Thank Heaven,
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there is so much virtue still in man, for I think the fall
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from the farmer to the operative as great and memorable as that from the man
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to the farmer. And in a new country, fuel is an encumbrance as
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for a habitat. If I were not permitted still to squat, I might
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purchase one acre at the same price for which the land I cultivated was sold,
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namely eight dollars and eight cents. But as it was, I considered
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that I enhanced the value of the land by squatting on it. There is
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a certain class of unbelievers who sometimes ask me such questions as if I think
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that I can live on vegetable food alone, and to strike at the root
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of the matter at once, for the root is faith. I am accustomed
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to answer such that I can live on board nails. If they cannot understand
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that, they cannot understand much that I have to say. For my part,
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I am glad to bear of experiments of this kind being tried, as
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that a young man tried for a fortnight to live on hard raw corn on
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the ear, using his teeth for all mortar. The squirrel tribe tried the
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same and succeeded. The human race is interested in these experiments, though a
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few old women who are incapacitated for them, or who own their thirds in
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mills, may be alarmed. My furniture, part of which I made myself,
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and the rest cost me nothing of which I have not rendered. An
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account consisted of a bed, a table, a desk, three chairs,
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a looking glass three inches in diameter, a pair of tongs and and irons,
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a kettle, a skillet and a frying pan, a dipper, a
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wash bowl, two knives and forks, three plates, one cup, one
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spoon, a jug for oil, a jug for molasses, and a japanned
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lamp. None is so poor that he need sit on a pumpkin, that
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is shiftlessness. There is a plenty of such chairs as I like best in
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the village garrets to be had for taking them away furniture. Thank God,
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I can sit, and I can stand without the aid of a furniture warehouse.
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What man but a philosopher would not be ashamed to see his furniture packed
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in a cart and going up country exposed to the light of heaven in the
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eyes of men. A beggarly account of empty boxes, that is Spalding's furniture.
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I could never tell from inspecting such a load whether it belonged to a
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so called rich man or a poor one. The owner always seemed poverty stricken.
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Indeed, the more you have of such things, the poorer you are.
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Each load looks as if it contained the contents of a dozen shen And
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if one shanty is poor, this is a dozen times as poor. Pray,
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for what do we move, ever, but to get rid of our
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furniture, our exuvier at last, to go from this world to another,
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newly furnished, and leave this to be burned. It is the same as
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if all these traps were buckled to a man's belt, and he could not
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move over the rough country where our lines are cast without dragging them, dragging
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his trap. He was a lucky fox that left his tail in the trap.
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The muskrat will gnaw his third leg off to be free. No wonder
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man has lost his elasticity, how often he is at a dead set.
34:52
Quote, Sir, if I may be so bold, what do you mean
34:57
by a dead set? If you are a seer. Whenever you meet a
35:05
man, you will see all that he owns aye, and much that he
35:08
pretends to disown behind him, even to his kitchen furniture, and all the
35:15
trumpery which he saves and will not burn, And he will appear to be
35:21
harnessed to it, and making what headway he can. I think that the
35:27
man is at a dead set, who has got through a knot hole or
35:32
gateway, where his sledge load of furniture cannot follow him. I cannot but
35:38
feel compassion when I hear some trim, compact looking man, seemingly free,
35:45
all girded, and ready speak of his furniture as whether it is insured or
35:51
not. But what shall I do with my furniture? My gay butterfly is
35:57
entangled in a spider's web. Then, even those who seem for a long
36:01
while not to have any, if you inquire more narrowly, you will find
36:07
have some stored in somebody's barn. I look upon England to day as an
36:13
old gentleman who is traveling with a great deal of baggage trumpery which has accumulated
36:20
from long housekeeping, which he is not the courage to burn. Great trunk,
36:24
little trunk, band box, and bundle. Throw away the first three
36:30
at least it would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up
36:37
his bed and walk. And I should certainly advise a sick one to lay
36:40
down his bed and run. When I have met an immigrant tottering under a
36:46
bundle which contained his all, looking like an enormous when which had grown out
36:52
of the nape of his neck, I have pitied him, not because that
36:57
was his all, but because he had all that to carry. If I
37:01
have got to drag my trap, I will take care that it be a
37:06
light one, and do not nip me in a vital part. But perchance
37:10
it would be wisest never to put one's paw into it. I would observe
37:15
by the way that it costs me nothing for curtains, For I have no
37:21
gazers to shut out but the sun and moon, and I am willing that
37:24
they should look in. The moon will not sour milk nor taint meat of
37:30
mine, nor will the sun injure my furniture or fade my carpet. And
37:37
if he is sometimes too warm a friend, I find it still better economy
37:42
to retreat behind some curtain which nature has provided, than to add a single
37:46
item to the details of my housekeeping. A lady once offered me a mat,
37:53
but as I had no room to spare within the house, nor time
37:59
to spare within or without to shake it, I declined it, preferring to
38:02
wipe my feet on the sawd before my door. It is best to avoid
38:07
the beginnings of evil. Not long since I was present at the auction of
38:14
a deacon's effects, for his life had not been ineffectual. Quote the evil
38:20
that men do lives after them end. Quote As usual, a great proportion
38:25
was trumpery, which had begun to accumulate in his father's day. Among the
38:30
rest was a dried tapeworm, And now, after lying half a century in
38:37
his garret and other dust holes, these things were not burned. Instead of
38:44
a bonfire or purifying destruction of them, there was an auction or increasing of
38:51
them. The neighbors, eagerly collected to view them, bought them all,
38:57
and carefully transported them to their garrets and dust holes, to lie there till
39:01
their estates are settled, when they will start again. When a man dies,
39:07
he kicks the dust. The customs of some savage nations might perchance be
39:13
profitably imitated by us, for they at least go through the semblance of casting
39:17
their slough annually. They have the idea of the thing, whether they have
39:22
the reality or not. Would it not be well if we were to celebrate
39:28
such a busk or feast of first fruits, as Bartram describes to have been
39:35
the custom of the muck class Indians. Quote when a town celebrates the busk
39:42
end, quote says he quote. Having previously provided themselves with new cloths,
39:47
new pots, pans, and other household utensils and furniture, they collect all
39:52
their worn out clothes and other despicable things, sweep and cleanse their houses squares
39:58
in the whole town of their filth, which, with all the remaining grain
40:01
and other old provisions, they cast together into one common heap and consume it
40:06
with fire. After having taken medicine and fasted for three days, all the
40:10
fire in the town is extinguished. During this fast they abstain from the gratification
40:17
of every appetite and passion. Whatever. A general amnesty is proclaimed, all
40:22
malefactors may return to their town. On the fourth morning, the high priest,
40:29
by rubbing dry wood together produces new fire in the public square, from
40:32
whence every habitation in the town is supplied with the new and pure flame.
40:38
They then feast on the new corn and fruits, and dance and sing for
40:44
three days, and the four following days they receive visits and rejoice with their
40:51
friends from neighboring towns who have in like manner purified and prepared themselves. The
40:58
Mexicans also practice the similar purification at the end of every fifty two years,
41:02
in the belief that it was time for the world to come to an end.
41:07
I have scarcely heard of a truer sacrament, that is, as the
41:12
Dictionary defines it, quote outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace
41:19
end quote than this, And I have no doubt that they were originally inspired
41:23
directly from Heaven to do thus, though they have no biblical record of the
41:29
revelation. For more than five years, I maintained myself thus solely by the
41:34
labor of my hands, and I found that by working about six weeks in
41:38
a year, I could meet all the expenses of living. The whole of
41:43
my winters, as well as most of my summers. I had free and
41:45
clear for study. I have thoroughly tried school keeping, and found that my
41:52
expenses were in proportion, or rather out of proportion to my income. For
41:57
I was obliged to dress and not to say, think and believe accordingly.
42:04
And I lost my time into the bargain, as I did not teach for
42:07
the good of my fellow men, but simply for a livelihood. This was
42:12
a failure. I have tried trade, but I found that it would take
42:16
ten years to get under weigh in that, and that then I should probably
42:22
be on my way to the devil. I was actually afraid that I might
42:27
by that time be doing what is called a good business, when formerly I
42:32
was looking about to see what I could do for a living. Some sad
42:37
experience, in conforming to the wishes of friends, being fresh in my mind
42:42
to tax my ingenuity. I thought often and seriously of picking huckleberries, that
42:51
surely I could do, and its small profits might suffice. For MY greatest
42:57
skill has been to want but live so little capital it required so little distraction
43:04
from my wonted moods, I foolishly thought, while my acquaintances went unhesitatingly into
43:10
trade or the professions. I contemplated this occupation, as most like theirs,
43:19
ranging the hills all summer to pick the berries which came in my way,
43:23
and thereafter carelessly dispose of them, so to keep the flocks of admetus.
43:30
I also dreamed that I might gather the wild herbs, or carry evergreens to
43:37
such villagers as love to be reminded of the woods, even to the city
43:40
by hay cart loads. But I have since learned that trade curses everything it
43:49
handles, and though you trade in messages from Heaven, the whole curse of
43:54
trade attaches to the business. As I preferred some things to others, and
44:00
especially valued my freedom, as I could fare hard and yet succeed well.
44:06
I did not wish to spend my time in earning rich carpets or other fine
44:10
furniture, or delicate cookery, or a house in the Grecian or the Gothic
44:15
style. Just yet, if there are any to whom it is no interruption
44:21
to acquire these things, and who know how to use them. When acquired,
44:25
I relinquish to them the pursuit. Some are industrious and appear to love
44:32
labor for its own sake, or perhaps because it keeps them out of worse
44:37
mischief to such, I have at present nothing to say. Those who would
44:44
not know what to do with more leisure than they now enjoy, I might
44:47
advise to work twice as hard as they do, work till they pay for
44:52
themselves and get their free papers. For myself, I found that the occupation
44:59
of a day labor or was the most independent of any especially as it required
45:04
only thirty or forty days in a year to support one. The laborer's day
45:08
ends with the going down of the sun, and he is then free to
45:13
devote himself to his chosen pursuit, independent of his labor. But his employer,
45:19
who speculates from month to month, has no respite from one end of
45:22
the year to the other. In short, I am convinced, both by
45:28
faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a
45:32
hardship, but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely. As
45:39
the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial,
45:46
it is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of
45:51
his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do. End of Part four of Economy