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15 - Walden - Henry David Thoreau · The Philosophy Insights Collection

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Chapter ten, Baker Farm. Sometimes I rambled to pine groves standing like temples
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or like fleets at sea, full rigg'd with wavy boughs and rippling with light
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so soft and green and shady that the druids would have forsaken their oaks to
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worship in them. Or to the cedar wood beyond Flint's Pond, where the
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trees cover'd with hoary blue berries, spiring higher and higher, are fit to
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stand before Valhalla, and the creeping juniper covers the ground with wreaths full of
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fruit. Or to swamps, where the usnea lichen hangs in festoons from the
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white spruce trees, and toadstools round tables of the swamp gods cover the ground,
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and more beautiful fungi adorn the stumps like butterflies or shells vegetable winkles,
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where the swamp pink and dog wood grow. The red alderberry glows like eyes
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of imps. The waxwork grooves and crushes the hardest woods in its folds,
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and the wild holly berries make the beholder forget his home with their beauty,
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and he is dazzled and tempted by nameless other wild forbidden fruits too fair for
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mortal taste. Instead of calling on some scholar, I paid many a visit
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to particular trees of kinds which are rare in this neighborhoo hood, standing far
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away in the middle of some pasture, or in the depths of a wood
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or swamp, or on a hilltop, such as the black birch, of
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which we have some handsome specimens two feet in diameter. Its cousin, the
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yellow birch, with its loose golden vest, perfumed like the first, the
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beech, which has so neat a bowl, and beautifully like and painted perfect
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in all its details, of which, excepting scattered specimens, I know but
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one small grove of sizeable trees left in the township, supposed by some to
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have been planted by the pigeons that were once baited with beech nuts near by.
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It is worth a while to see the silver grain sparkle when you split
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this wood, the bass, the horn beam, the Celtis occidentalis, or
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false elm, of which we have but one well grown, some taller mast
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of a pine, a shingle tree, or a more perfect hemlock than usual,
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standing like a pagoda in the midst of the woods, and many others
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I could mention. These were the shrines I visited both summer and winter.
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Once it chanced that I stood in the very abutment of a rainbow's arch,
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which filled the lower stratum of the atmosphere, tinging the grass and leaves around
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and dazzling me as if I looked through colored crystal. It was a lake
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of rainbow light, in which, for a short while I lived like a
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dolphin. If it had lasted longer, it might have tinged my employments and
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life. As I walked on the railroad causeway, I used to wonder at
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the halo of light around my shadow, and would fain fancy myself. One
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of the elect one who visited me, declared that the shadows of some irishman
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before him had no halo about them, that it was only natives that were
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so distinguished. Benvenuto Cellini tells us in his memoirs that after a certain terrible
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dream or vision, which he had during his confinement in the Castle of Saint
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Angelo, a resplendent light appeared over the shadow of his head at morning and
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evening, whether he was in Italy or France, and it was particularly conspicuous
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when the grass was moist with dew. This was probably the same phenomenon to
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which I have referred, which is especially observed in the morning, but also
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at other times and even by moonlight. Though a constant one, it is
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not commonly noticed, and in the case of an excitable imagination like Selini's,
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it would be basis enough for superstition. Beside, he tells us that he
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showed it to very few. But are they not indeed distinguished? Who are
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conscious that they are regarded at all? I set out one afternoon to go
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a fishing to fair Haven, through the woods, to eke out my scanty
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fare of vegetables. My way led through Pleasant Meadow, an adjunct of the
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Baker farm, that retreat of which a poet has since sung. Beginning thy
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entry is a pleasant field which some mossy fruit trees yield partly to a ruddy
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brook. By gliding, musquash undertook, and mercurial trout darting about. I
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thought of living there before I went to Walden. I hooked the apples,
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leaped the brook, and scared the musquash and the trout. It was one
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of those afternoons which seem indefinitely long before one in which many events may happen,
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a large portion of our natural life, though it was already half spent
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when I started by the way. There came up a shower which compelled me
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to stand half an hour under a pine, piling boughs over my head and
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wearing my handkerchief for a shed. And when at length I had made one
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cast over the pickerel weed, standing up to my middle in water, I
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found myself suddenly in the shadow of a cloud. And the thunder began to
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rumble with such emphasis that I could do no more than listen to it.
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The gods must be proud, thought I, with such forked flashes to rout
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a poor, unarmed fisherman. So I made haste for shelter to the nearest
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hut, which stood half a mile from any road, but so much the
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nearer to the pond, and had long been uninhabited. And here a poet
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builded in the completed years, for behold a trivial cabin that two destruction steers,
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so the muse fables. But therein as I found dwelt now John Field,
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an irishman, and his wife, and several children from the broad faced
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boy who assisted his father at his work, and now came running by his
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side from the bog to escape the rain, to the wrinkled, sybil like
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cone headed infant that sat upon its father's knee as in the palaces of nobles,
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and looked out from its home in the midst of wet and hunger,
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inquisitively upon the stranger with the privilege of infancy, not knowing but it was
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the last of a noble line, and the hope and cynosure of the world,
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instead of John Field's poor starveling brat. There we sat together under that
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part of the roof, which leaked to the least while it showered and thundered
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without. I had sat there many times of old, before the ship was
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built that floated his family to a America. An honest, hard working,
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but shiftless man, plainly was John Field. And his wife, she too,
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was brave, to cook so many successive dinners in the recesses of that
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lofty stove, with round, greasy face and bare breast, still thinking to
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improve her condition one day with a never absent mop in one hand, and
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yet no effects of it visible anywhere. The chickens, which had also taken
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shelter here from the rain, stalked about the room like members of the family.
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Too humanized me thought to roast well. They stood and looked in my
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eye or pecked at my shoe significantly. Meanwhile, my host told me his
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story, how hard he worked bogging for a neighboring farmer, turning up a
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meadow with a spade or bog hoe at the rate of ten dollars an acre,
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and the use of the land with manure for one year, And his
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little broad faced son worked cheerfully at his father's side, the while, not
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knowing how poor a bargain the latter had made. I tried to help him
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with my experience, telling him that he was one of my nearest neighbors,
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and that I, too, who came a fishing here and looked like a
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loafer, was getting my living like himself. That I lived in a tight,
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light and clean house, which hardly cost more than the annual rent of
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such a ruin as his commonly amounts to, and how if he chose,
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he might in a month or two build himself a palace of his own.
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That I did not use tea, nor coffee, nor butter, nor milk,
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nor fresh meat, and so did not have to work to get them
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again. As I did not work hard, I did not have to eat
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hard, and it cost me but a trifle for my food. But as
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he began with tea and coffee and butter and milk and beef, he had
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to work hard to pay for them. And when he had worked hard,
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he had to eat hard again to repair the waste of his system. And
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so it was as broad as it was long. Indeed it was broader than
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it was long, for he was discontented and wasted his life into the bargain.
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And yet he had rated it as a gain in coming to America,
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that here you could get tea and coffee and meat every day. But the
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only true America is that country where you are at liberty to pursue such a
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mode of life as may enable you to do without these, and where the
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state does not endeavor to compel you to sustain the slavery and war and other
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superfluous expenses which directly or indirectly result from the use of such things. For
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I purposely talk to him as if he were a philosopher, or desired to
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be one. I should be glad if all the meadows on the earth were
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left in a wild state. If that were the consequence of men's beginning to
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redeem themselves, a man will not need to study history to find out what
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is best for his own culture. But alas the culture of an irishman is
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an enterprise to be undertaken with a sort of moral bog hoe. I told
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him that as he worked so hard at bogging, he required thick boots and
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stout clothing, which yet were soon soiled and worn out. But I wore
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light shoes and thin clothing, which cost not half so much, though he
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might think that I was dressed like a gentleman, which however was not the
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case. And in an hour or two without labor, but as a recreation,
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I could, if I wished, catch as many fish as I should
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want for two days, or earn enough money to support me a week.
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If he and his family would live simply, they might all go a huckle
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burying in the summer for their amusement. John heaved a sigh at this,
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and his wife stared with arms akimbo, and both appeared to be wondering if
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they had capital enough to begin such a course with, or arithmetic enough to
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carry it through it was sailing by dead, reckoning to them, and they
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saw not clearly how to make their port. So therefore I suppose they still
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take life bravely after their fashion, face to face, giving it tooth and
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nail, not having skill to split its massive columns with any fine entering wedge
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and rout it in detail, thinking to deal with it roughly as one should
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handle a thistle. But they fight at an overwhelming disadvantage, living John Field
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alas, without arithmetic and failing. So do you ever fish? I asked,
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Oh yes, I catch a mess now, and then when I'm lying
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by good perch, I catch what's your bait? I catch shiners with fishworms
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and bait the perch with them. You'd better go now, John said his
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wife, with glistening and hopeful face. But John demurred. The shower was
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now over, and a rainbow above the eastern woods promised a fair evening,
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so I took my departure. When I had got without, I asked for
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a drink, hoping to get a sight of the well bottom to complete my
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survey of the premises. But there alas are shadows and quicksands, and rope
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broken withal and bucket irrecoverable. Meanwhile, the right culinary vessel was selected.
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Water was seemingly distilled, and after consultation and long delay, passed out to
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the thirsty one, not yet suffered to cool, not yet to settle.
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Such gruel sustains life here, I thought, so, shutting my eyes and
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excluding the motes by a skillfully directed undercurrent, I drank to genuine hospitality the
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heartiest draft I could. I am not squeamish in such cases when manners are
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concerned. As I was leaving the Irishman's roof after the rain, mending my
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steps again to the pond, my haste to catch pickerel, wading in retired
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meadows, in sloughs and bog holes, in forlorn and savage places appeared for
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an instant trivial to me, who had been sent to school and college.
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But as I ran down the hill toward the reddening west, with the rainbow
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over my shoulder, and some faint tinkling sounds to my ear through the cleansed
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air from I know not what quarter, my good genius seem to say,
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go fish and hunt far and wide, day by day, farther and wider,
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and rest thee by many brooks and hearthsides without misgiving. Remember thy creator
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and the days of thy youth. Rise free from care before the dawn and
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seek adventures. Let the noon find thee by other lakes, and the night
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overtake thee everywhere at home. There are no larger fields than these, no
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worthier games than may here be played. Grow wild according to thy nature,
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like these sedges and breaks, which will never become English bay. Let the
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thunder rumble, what if it threaten ruin to farmer's crops that is not its
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Errand to thee take shelter under the cloud while they flee to carts and sheds.
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Let not to get a living, be thy trade, but thy sport.
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Enjoy the land, but own it, not through want of enterprise and
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faith. Men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their lives
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like serfs O Baker farm landscape, where the richest element is a little sunshine
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innocent. No one runs to revel on thy rail fenced lee. Debate with
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no man, hast thou with questions, art never perplex'd as tame at the
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first sight, as now in thy plain Russet Gabardine drest come ye who love
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and ye who hate children of the holy dove and guy fowl of the state,
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and hang conspiracies from the tough rafters of the trees. Men come tamely
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home at night only from the next field or street, where their household echoes
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haunt, and their life pines, because it breathes its own breath over again.
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Their shadows morning and evening reach farther than their daily steps ups. We
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should come home from far from adventures and perils and discoveries every day with new
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experience and character. Before I had reached the pond, some fresh impulse had
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brought out John Field with altered mind, letting go bogging ere this sunset.
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But he, poor man, disturbed only a couple of fins while I was
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catching a fair string, and he said it was his luck. But when
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we changed seats in the boat, luck changed to seats too, Poor John
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Field, I trust he does not read this unless he will improve by it,
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thinking to live by some derivative old old country mode. In this primitive
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new country. To catch perch with shiners, it is good bait sometimes I
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allow, with this horizon all his own. Yet he a poor man born
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to be poor, with his inherited Irish poverty or poor life his Adam's grandmother
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and boggy ways. Not to rise in this world, he nor his posterity
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till their wading webbed bog trotting feet get tillaria to their heels. End of Chapter ten