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

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Chapter six, Visitors. I think that I love society as much as most,
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and am ready enough to fasten myself like a blood sucker for the time
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to any full blooded man that comes in my way. I am naturally no
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hermit, but might possibly sit out the sturdiest frequenter of the bar room if
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my business called me thither. I had three chairs in my house, one
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for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. When visitors came in
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larger and unexpected numbers, there was but the third chair for them all,
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but they generally economized the room by standing up. It is surprising how many
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great men and women a small house will contain. I have had twenty five
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or thirty souls with their bodies at once under my roof, and yet we
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often parted without being aware that we had come very near to one another.
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Many of our houses, both public and private, with their almost innumerable apartments,
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their huge halls, and their cellars for the storage of wines and other
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munitions of peace, appear to be extravagantly large for their inhabitants. They are
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so vast and magnificent that the latter seemed to be only vermin which infest them.
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I am surprised when the herald blows his summons before some Tremont, or
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Astor or Middlesex house, to see come creeping out over the piazza for all
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inhabitants, a ridiculous mouse, which soon again SLINKs into some hole in the
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pavement. One inconvenience, I sometimes experienced, in so small a house the
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difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we began to utter
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the big thoughts. In big words, you want room for your thoughts to
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get into sailing trim and run accord two before they make their port. The
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bullet of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into
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its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else
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it may plow out again through the side of his head. Also, our
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sentences wanted room to unfold and form their columns in the interval. Individuals,
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like nations, must have suitable, broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable
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neutral ground between them. I have found it a singular luxury to talk across
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the pond to a companion on the opposite side. In my house, we
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were so near that we could not begin to hear, we could not speak
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low enough to be heard, as when you throw two stones into calm water
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so near that they break each other's undulations. If we are merely luquacious and
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loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together, cheek by
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jowl, and feel each other's breath. But if we speak reservedly and thoughtfully,
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we must be farther apart that all animal heat and moisture may have a
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chance to evaporate. If we would enjoy the most intimate society, with that
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in each of us which is without or above being spoken to, we must
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not only be silent, but commonly so far apart bodily that we cannot possibly
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hear each other's voice. In any case referred to. This standard speech is
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for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing. But there are many
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fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout. As the conversation
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began to assume a loftier and grander tone, we gradually shoved our chairs farther
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apart till they touched the wall in opposite corners. And then commonly there was
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not room enough my best room, however, my withdrawing room always ready for
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company. On whose carpet the sun rarely fell was the pine wood behind my
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house. Thither in summer days, when distinguished guests came, I took them,
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and a priceless domestic swept the floor, and dusted the furniture, and
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kept the things in order. If one guest came, he sometimes partook of
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my frugal meal, and it was no interruption to conversation to be stirring a
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hasty pudding, or watching the rising and maturing of a loaf of bread in
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the ashes in the meanwhile. But if twenty came and sat in my house,
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there was nothing said about dinner, though there might be bread enough for
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two, more than if eating were a forsaken habit. But we naturally practiced
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abstinence, and this was never felt to be an offense against hospitality. But
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the most proper and considerate course. The waste and decay of physical life,
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which so often needs repair, seemed miraculously retarded in such a case, and
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the vital vigor stood its ground. I could entertain thus a thousand as well
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as twenty. And if any ever went away disappointed or hungry from my house,
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when they found me at home, they may depend upon it that I
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sympathized with them at least. So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt
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it, to establish new and better customs in the place of the old.
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You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give. For my own
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part, I was never so effectually deterred from frequenting a man's house by any
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kind of cerberus whatever, as by the parade one made about dining me,
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which I took to be a very polite and roundabout hint, never to trouble
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him. So again, I think I shall never revisit those scenes. I
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should be proud to have have for the motto of my cabin those lines of
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Spencer, which one of my visitors inscribed on a yellow walnut leaf for a
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card arrived there. The little house they fill, nay, look for entertainment
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where none was. Rest is their feast, and all things at their will.
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The noblest mind, the best contentment has. When Winslow, afterward,
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Governor of the Plymouth Colony, went with a companion on a visit of ceremony
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to Massasoit on foot through the woods, and arrived tired and hungry at his
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lodge. They were well received by the king, but nothing was said about
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eating. That day. When the knight arrived, to quote their own words,
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he laid us on the bed with himself and his wife, they at
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the one end, and we at the other. It being only playing laid
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a foot from the ground, and a thin mat upon them. Two more
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of his chief men, for want of room, pressed by and upon us,
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so that we were worse weary of our lodging than of our journey.
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At one o'clock the next day, Massasoit brought two fishes that he had shot,
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about thrice as big as a bream. These being boiled, there were
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at least forty looked for a share in them, the most eat of them.
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This meal only we had in two nights and a day, and had
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not one of us brought a partridge. We had taken our journey fasting,
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fearing that they would be lightheaded for want of food, and also sleep,
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owing to the savages barbarous singing, for they used to sing themselves to sleep,
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and that they might get home while they had strength to travel, they
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departed. As for lodging, it is true they were but poorly entertained,
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though what they found and inconvenience was no doubt intended for an honor. But
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as far as eating was concerned, I do not see how the Indians could
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have done better. They had nothing to eat themselves, and they were wiser
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than to think that apologies could supply the place of food to their guests.
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So they drew their belts tighter and said nothing about it. Another time,
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when Winslow visited them, it being a season of plenty with them, there
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was no deficiency in this respect. As for men, they will hardly fail
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one anywhere. I had more visitors while I lived in the woods than at
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any other period in my life. I mean that I had some. I
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met several there under more favorable circumstances than I could anywhere else, but fewer
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came to see me on trivial business. In this respect, my company was
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winnowed by my mere distance from town. I had withdrawn so far within the
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great ocean of solitude, into which the rivers of society empty, that for
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the most part, so far as my needs were concerned, only the finest
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sediment was deposited around me. Beside, there were wafted to me evidences of
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unexplored and uncultivated countenance. On the other side, who should come to my
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lodge this morning. But a true Homeric or Paphlagonian man. He had so
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suitable and poetic a name that I am sorry I cannot print it here.
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A Canadian, a wood chopper and post maker who can hole fifty posts in
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a day, who made his last supper on a woodchuck which his dog caught.
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He too has heard of Homer, and if it were not for books,
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would not know what to do rainy days, though perhaps he has not
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read one wholly through for many rainy seasons. Some priest who could pronounce the
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Greek itself taught him to read his verse in the Testament in his native parish
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far away, And now I must translate to him while he holds the book.
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Achilles reproof to Patroclus for his sad countenance. Why are you in tears,
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Patroclus, like a young girl? Or have you alone heard some news
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from Pythia? They say that Minucius lives yet, son of Actor, and
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Pelias lives, son of Aecus, among the mere meduns, either of whom
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having died, we should greatly grieve. He says, that's good. He
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has a great bundle of white oak bark under his arm. For a sick
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man gathered this Sunday morning. I suppose there's no harm in going after such
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a thing to day, says he to him, Homer was a great writer,
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though what his writing was about, he did not know a more simple
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and natural man. It would be hard to find. Vice and disease which
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cast such a somber moral hue over the world seemed to have hardly any existence
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for him. He was about twenty eight years old and had left Canada and
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his father's house a dozen years before to work in the States and earn money
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to buy a farm with that last perhaps in his native country. He was
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cast in the coarsest mold, a stout but sluggish body, yet gracefully carried,
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with a thick, sunburnt neck, dark bushy hair, and dull,
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sleepy blue eyes which were occasionally lit up with expression. He wore a flat
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gray cloth cap, a dingy wool colored greatcoat, and cowhide boots. He
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was a great consumer of meat, usually carrying his dinner to his work a
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couple of miles past my house. For he chopped all summer in a tin
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pail, cold meat, soften cold woodchucks, and coffee in a stone bottle
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which dangled by a string from his belt, and sometimes he offered me a
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drink. He came along early, crossing my bean field, though without anxiety
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or haste to get to his work, such as yankees exhibit. He wasn't
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a going to hurt himself. He didn't care if he only earned his board.
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Frequently he would leave his dinner in the bushes when his dog had caught
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a woodchuck by the way, and go back a mile and a half to
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dress it and leave it in the cellar of the house where he board it,
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after deliberating first for half an hour whether he could not sink it in
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the pond safely till nightfall. Loving to dwell long upon these themes, he
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would say, as he went by in the morning, how thick the pigeons
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are. If working every day were not my trade, I could get all
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the meat I should want by hunting pigeons, woodchucks, rabbits, partridges by
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gosh, I could get all I should want for a week and one day.
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He was a skillful chopper and indulged in some flourishes and ornaments in his
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art. He cut his trees level and close to the ground, that the
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sprouts which came up afterward might be more vigorous, and a sled might slide
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over the stumps, and instead of leaving a whole tree to support his corded
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wood, he would pare it away to a slender steak or splinter, which
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you could break off with your hand. At last, he interested me because
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he was so quiet and solitary, and so happy, withal a well of
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good humor and contentment which overflowed at his eyes. His mirth was without alloy.
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Sometimes I saw him at his work in the woods, felling trees,
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and he would greet me with a laugh of inexpressible satisfaction and a salutation in
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Canadian French, though he spoke English as well. When I approached him,
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he would suspend his work, and, with half suppressed mirth, lie along
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the trunk of a pine which he had felled, and, peeling off the
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inner bark, roll it up into a ball, and chew it while he
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laughed and talked. Such an exuberance of animal spirits had he that he sometimes
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tumbled down and rolled on the ground with laughter at anything which made him think
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and tickled him. Looking round upon the trees, he would exclaim by George,
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I can enjoy myself well enough here chopping. I want no better sport.
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Sometimes, when at leisure, he amused himself all day in the woods
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with a pocket pistol, firing salutes to himself at regular intervals. As he
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walked. In the winter, he had a fire by which at noon he
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warmed his coffee in a kettle. And as he sat on a log to
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eat his dinner, the chickadees would sometimes come round and alight on his arm
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and peck at the potato in his fingers. And he said that he liked
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to have the little fellers about him. In him, the animal man chiefly
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was developed in physical endurance and contentment. He was cousin to the pine and
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the rock. I asked him once if he was not sometimes tired at night
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after working all day, and he answered, with a sincere and serious look,
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gore a pit. I never was tired in my life. But the
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intellectual and what is called spiritual man in him were slumbering as in an infant.
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He had been instructed only in that innocent and ineffectual way in which the
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Catholic priests teach the Aborigines, by which the pupil is never educated to the
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degree of consciousness, but only to the degree of trust and reverence. And
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a child is not made a man, but kept a child. When nature
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made him, she gave him a strong body and contentment for his portion,
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and propped him on every side with reverence and reliance, that he might live
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out his threescore years and ten a child. He was so genuine and unsophisticated
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that no introduction would serve to introduce him, more than if you introduced a
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woodchuck to your neighbor. He had got to find him out as you did.
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He would not play any part. Men paid him wages for work,
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and so helped to feed and clothe him, but he never exchanged opinions with
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them. He was so simply and naturally humble, if he can be called
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humble, who never aspires that humility was no distinct quality in him, nor
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could he conceive of it. Wiser men were demigods to him. If you
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told him that such a one was coming, he did, as if he
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thought that anything so grand would expect nothing of himself, but take all the
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responsibility on itself and let him be forgotten. Still he never heard the sound
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of praise. He particularly reverenced the writer and the preacher. Their performances were
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miracles. When I told him that I wrote considerably, he thought for a
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long time that it was merely the handwriting which I meant, for he could
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write a remarkably good hand himself. I sometimes found the name of his native
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Perish handsomely written in the snow by the highway with the proper French accent,
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and knew that he had passed. I asked him if he ever wished to
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write his thoughts. He said that he had read and written letters for those
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who could not, but he never tried to write thoughts. No, he
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could not. He could not tell what to put first, It would kill
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him, and then there was spelling to be attended to. At the same
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time, I heard that a distinguished wise man and reformer asked him if he
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did not want the world to be changed. But he answered with a chuckle
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of surprise in his Canadian accent, not knowing that the question had ever been
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entertained before. Um No, I like it well enough. It would have
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suggested many things to a philosopher to have dealings with him. To a stranger,
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he appeared to know nothing of things in general. Yet I sometimes I
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saw in him a man whom I had not seen before, And I did
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not know whether he was as wise as Shakespeare or as simply ignorant as a
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child, whether to suspect him of a fine poetic consciousness or of stupidity.
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A townsman told me that when he met him sauntering through the village in his
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small, close fitting cap and whistling to himself, he reminded him of a
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prince in disguise. His only books were an almanac and an arithmetic in which
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last he was considerably expert. The former was a sort of cyclopedia to him,
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which he supposed to contain an abstract of human knowledge, as indeed it
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does to a considerable extent. I loved to sound him on the various reforms
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of the day, and he never failed to look at them in the most
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simple and practical light. He had never heard of such things before. Could
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he do without factories? I asked? He had worn the home made Vermont
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gray, he said, and that was good. Could he dispense with tea
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and coffee? Does this country afford any beverage beside water? He had soaked
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hemlock leaves in water and drank it, and thought that was better than water
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and warm weather. When I asked him if he could do without money,
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he showed the convenience of money in such a way as to suggest and coincide
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with the most philosophical accounts of the origin of this institution and the very derivation
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of the word pecunia. If an ox were his property, and he wished
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to get needles and thread at the store, he thought it would be inconvenient
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and impossible soon to go on mortgaging some portion of the creature each time to
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that amount. He could defend many institutions better than any philosopher, because in
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describing them as they concerned him, he gave the true reason for their prevalence,
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and speculation had not suggested to him any other. At another time,
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hearing Plato's definition of a man a biped without feathers, and that one exhibited
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a cock plucked, and called it Plato's man, he thought it an important
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difference that the knees bent the wrong way. He would sometimes exclaim, how
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I love to talk by George. I could talk all day. I asked
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him once, when I had not seen him for many months, if he
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had got a new idea this summer, good Lord, said he a man
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that has to work as I do. If he does not forget the ideas
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he has had, he will do well. May be the man you hoe
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with is inclined to race, then, by gory, your mind must be
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there you think of weeds. He would sometimes ask me first on such occasions
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if I had made any improvement. One winter day, I asked him if
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he was always satisfied with himself, wishing to suggest a substitute within him for
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the priest without and some higher motive for living. Satisfied, said he.
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Some men are satisfied with one thing, and some with another. One man,
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perhaps, if he has got enough, will be satisfied to sit all
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day with his back to the fire and his belly to the table by George.
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Yet I never, by any maneuvering, could get him to take the
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spiritual view of things. The highest that he appeared to conceive of was a
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simple expediency, such as you might expect an animal to appreciate, And this
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practically is true of most men. If I suggested any improvement in his mode
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of life, he merely answered, without expressing any regret, that it was
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too late. Yet he thoroughly believed in honesty and the like virtues. There
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was a certain positive originality, however, slight to be detected in him,
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and I occasionally observed that he was thinking for himself and expressing his own opinion,
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a phenomenon so rare that I would any day walk ten miles to observe
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it, and it amounted to the reorigination of many of the institutions of society.
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Though he hesitated and perhaps failed to express himself distinctly, he always had
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a presentable thought behind. Yet his thinking was so primitive and immersed in his
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animal life, that, though more promising than a merely learned man's, it
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rarely ripened to anything which can be reported. He suggested that there might be
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men of genius in the lowest grades of life, however permanently humble and illiterate,
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who take their own view always, or do not pretend to see at
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all, who are as bottomless, even as walden Pond was thought to be,
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though they may be dark and muddy. Many a traveler came out of
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his way to see me in the inside of my house, and as an
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excuse for calling, asked for a glass of water. I told them that
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I drank at the pond and pointed thither, offering to lend them a dipper.
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Far off as I lived, I was not exempted from the annual visitation
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which occurs methinks about the first of April, when everybody is on the move,
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And I had my share of good luck. Though there were some curious
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specimens among my visitors. Half witted men from the almshouse and elsewhere came to
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see me, But I endeavored to make them exercise all the wit they had
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and make their confessions to me. In such case, making wit the theme
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of our conversation, and so was compensated. Indeed, I found some of
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them to be wiser than the so called overseers of the poor and select men
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of the town, and thought it was time that the tables were turned with
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respect to wit. I learned that there was not much difference between the half
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and the whole. One day, in particular, an inoffensive, simple minded
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pauper, whom, with others I had often seen used as fencing stuff,
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standing or sitting on a bushel in the fields to keep cattle and himself from
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straying, visited me and expressed a wish to live as I did he told
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me, with the utmost simplicity and truth, quite superior, or rather inferior
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to anything that is called humility, that he was deficient in intellect. These
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were his words. The Lord had made him so. Yet he supposed the
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Lord cared as much for him as for another. I have always been so,
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said he. From my childhood. I never had much mind. I
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was not like other children. I am weak in the head. It was
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the Lord's will, I suppose, And there he was to prove the truth
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of his words. He was a metaphysical puzzle to me. I have rarely
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met a fellow man on such promising ground. It was so simple and sincere,
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and so true all that he said, and true enough in proportion as
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he appeared to humble himself. Was he exalted? I did not know at
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first, But it was the result of a wise policy. It seemed that
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from such a basis of truth and frankness, as the poor, weak headed
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pauper had laid, our intercourse might go forward to something better than the intercourse
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of sages. I had some guests from those not reckoned commonly among the towns
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poor. But who should be who are among the world's poor at any rate?
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Guests who appeal not to your hospitality, but to your hospitalality, who
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earnestly wish to be helped, and preface their appeal with the information that they
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are resolved for one thing, never to help themselves. I require of a
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visitor that he be not actually starving, though he may have the very best
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appetite in the world, however he got it. Objects of charity are not
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guests men who did not know oh, when their visit had terminated, though
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I went about my business again answering them from greater greater remoteness. Men of
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almost every degree of wit called on me in the migrating season, some who
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had more wits than they knew what to do with runaway slaves with plantation manners,
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who listened from time to time like the fox in the fable, as
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if they heard the hounds obeying on their track, and looked at me beseechingly,
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as much as to say, oh, Christian, will you send me
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back? One real runaway slave. Among the rest whom I helped to forward
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toward the North Star, men of one idea, like a hen with one
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chicken, and that a duckling, Men of a thousand ideas, and unkempt
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heads, like those hens which are made to take charge of a hundred chickens,
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all in pursuit of one bug. A score of them lost in every
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morning's due, and become frizzled and mangy in consequence. Men of ideas instead
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of legs, a sort of intellectual centipede that made you crawl all over.
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One man proposed a book in which visitors should write their names, as at
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the White Mountains. But alas I have too good a memory to make that
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necessary, I could not but notice some of the peculiarities of my visitors.
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Girls and boys and young women generally seemed glad to be in the woods.
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They looked in the pond and at the flowers, and improved their time.
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Men of business, even farmers, thought only of solitude and employment, and
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of great distance at which I dwelt from something or other. And though they
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said that they loved a ramble in the woods, occasionally it was obvious that
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they did not. Restless committed men whose time was taken up in getting a
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living or keeping it. Ministers who spoke of God as if they enjoyed a
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monopoly of the subject, who could not bear all kinds of opinions, doctors,
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lawyers, uneasy housekeepers who pried into my cupboard and bed when I was
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out? How came missus to know that my sheets were not as clean as
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hers? Young men who had ceased to be young, and had concluded that
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it was safest to follow the beaten track of the professions. All these generally
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said that it was not possible to do so much good in my position.
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Ah, there was the rub the old and infirm, and the timid of
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whatever age or sex, thought most of sickness and sudden accident and death.
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Till them life seemed full of danger. What danger is there if you don't
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think of any? And they thought that a prudent man would carefully select the
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safest position where doctor B might be on hand at a moment's warning. To
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them, the village was literally a community, a league for mutual defense.
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And you would suppose that they would not go a huckleberying without a medicine chest.
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The amount of it is, if a man is alive, there is
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always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be
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less in proportion as he is dead and alive. To begin with, a
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man sits as many risks as he runs. Finally, there were the self
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styled reformers, the greatest bores of all, who thought that I was forever
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singing this is the house that I built, built, this is the man
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that lives in the house that I built. But they did not know that
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the third line was these are the folks that worry the man that lives in
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the house that I built. I did not fear the hen harriers, for
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I kept no chickens. But I feared the men harriers. Rather, I
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had more cheering visitors than the last children come a burying railroad, men taking
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a Sunday morning walk in clean shirts, fishermen and hunters, poets and philosophers,
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in short, all honest pilgrims who came out to the woods for freedom's
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sake and really left the village behind. I was ready to greet with welcome
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Englishmen. Welcome Englishmen, for I had had communication with that race. End
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of Chapter six