committed men, whose time was an taken up in getting a living or

Though he hesitated, and perhaps failed to express himself

motto of my cabin those lines of Spenser which one of my visitors

detected in him, and I occasionally observed that he was thinking

heard; as when you throw two stones into calm water so near that

company, on whose carpet the sun rarely fell, was the pine wood

he did not want the world to be changed; but he answered with a

and called it Platos man, he thought it an important difference

chickens, all in pursuit of one bug, a score of them lost in every

should write their names, as at the White Mountains; but, alas! I

intercourse might go forward to something better than the

One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house,

two, more than if eating were a forsaken habit; but we naturally

his work in the woods, felling trees, and he would greet me with a

conversation began to assume a loftier and grander tone, we

to time, like the fox in the fable, as if they heard the hounds

house when they found me at home, they may depend upon it that I

well. May be the man you hoe with is inclined to race; then, by

Ne looke for entertainment where none was;

as far as eating was concerned, I do not see how the Indians could

"Gorrappit, I never was tired in my life." But the intellectual and

migrating season. Some who had more wits than they knew what to do

talked. Such an exuberance of animal spirits had he that he

trunk of a pine which he had felled, and, peeling off the inner

would sometimes come round and alight on his arm and peck at the

and employment, and of the great distance at which I dwelt from

sentences wanted room to unfold and form their columns in the

a-baying on their track, and looked at me beseechingly, as much as

danger -- what danger is there if you dont think of any? -- and

pretend to see at all; who are as bottomless even as Walden Pond was

their guests; so they drew their belts tighter and said nothing

towns poor, but who should be; who are among the worlds poor, at

to see me on trivial business. In this respect, my company was

This is the house that I built;

keeping it; ministers who spoke of God as if they enjoyed a monopoly

conversation; and so was compensated. Indeed, I found some of them

lodging, it is true they were but poorly entertained, though what

another. One man, perhaps, if he has got enough, will be satisfied

were demigods to him. If you told him that such a one was coming,

of the town, and thought it was time that the tables were turned.

introduction would serve to introduce him, more than if you

the pond safely till nightfall -- loving to dwell long upon these

the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many

for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two

which the Catholic priests teach the aborigines, by which the pupil

under his arm for a sick man, gathered this Sunday morning. "I

and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together,

twenty; and if any ever went away disappointed or hungry from my

itself taught him to read his verse in the Testament in his native

Homer, and, "if it were not for books," would "not know what to do

may plow out again through the side of his head. Also, our

many rainy seasons. Some priest who could pronounce the Greek

though more promising than a merely learned mans, it rarely ripened

pistol, firing salutes to himself at regular intervals as he walked.

inoffensive, simple-minded pauper, whom with others I had often seen

men of genius in the lowest grades of life, however permanently

feared the men-harriers rather.

said he; "some men are satisfied with one thing, and some with

woodchuck by the way, and go back a mile and a half to dress it and

"O Christian, will you send me back?

I was out -- how came Mrs. -- to know that my sheets were not as

kept a child. When Nature made him, she gave him a strong body and

He had been instructed only in that innocent and ineffectual way in

hard to find. Vice and disease, which cast such a sombre moral hue

the spiritual view of things; the highest that he appeared to

partridges -- by gosh! I could get all I should want for a week in

his dinner to his work a couple of miles past my house -- for he

fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout. As the九九藏書

deliberating first for half an hour whether he could not sink it in

woodchucks, and coffee in a stone bottle which dangled by a string

idea this summer. "Good Lord" -- said he, "a man that has to work

I had some guests from those not reckoned commonly among the

how many great men and women a small house will contain. I have had

to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded

the result of a wise policy. It seemed that from such a basis of

lawyers, uneasy housekeepers who pried into my cupboard and bed when

If one guest came he sometimes partook of my frugal meal, and it

indeed it does to a considerable extent. I loved to sound him on

in the most simple and practical light. He had never heard of such

humble and illiterate, who take their own view always, or do not

Girls and boys and young women generally seemed glad to be in the

distinct quality in him, nor could he conceive of it. Wiser men

dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.

enough." It would have suggested many things to a philosopher to

empty, that for the most part, so far as my needs were concerned,

promising ground -- it was so simple and sincere and so true all

to lend them a dipper. Far off as I lived, I was not exempted from

possibly sit out the sturdiest frequenter of the bar-room, if my

peace, appear to be extravagantly large for their inhabitants. They

appeal with the information that they are resolved, for one thing,

a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the

those who could not, but he never tried to write thoughts -- no, he

being boiled, there were at least forty looked for a share in them;

anything which made him think and tickled him. Looking round upon

a metaphysical puzzle to me. I have rarely met a fellowman on such

for himself and expressing his own opinion, a phenomenon so rare

about it. Another time when Winslow visited them, it being a season

chopped all summer -- in a tin pail; cold meats, often cold

mornings dew -- and become frizzled and mangy in consequence; men

There was a certain positive originality, however slight, to be

(for they use to sing themselves asleep,)" and that they might get

unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but

In the winter he had a fire by which at noon he warmed his coffee in

leisure, he amused himself all day in the woods with a pocket

And Peleus lives, son of AEacus, among the Myrmidons,

thinking was so primitive and immersed in his animal life, that,

that the knees bent the wrong way. He would sometimes exclaim, "How

the woods, and arrived tired and hungry at his lodge, they were well

himself. I sometimes found the name of his native parish handsomely

creeping out over the piazza for all inhabitants a ridiculous mouse,

him, which he supposed to contain an abstract of human knowledge, as

and then there was spelling to be attended to at the same time!

a kettle; and as he sat on a log to eat his dinner the chickadees

"Welcome, Englishmen! welcome, Englishmen!" for I had had

really left the village behind, I was ready to greet with --

because, in describing them as they concerned him, he gave the true

overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last

book, Achilles reproof to Patroclus for his sad countenance. --

his words. The Lord had made him so, yet he supposed the Lord cared

sorry I cannot print it here -- a Canadian, a woodchopper and

housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the

French, though he spoke English as well. When I approached him he

professions -- all these generally said that it was not possible to

reservedly and thoughtfully, we want to be farther apart, that all

about he did not know. A more simple and natural man it would be

that when he met him sauntering through the village in his small

day; and had not one of us bought a partridge, we had taken our

themes. He would say, as he went by in the morning, "How thick the

came, I took them, and a priceless domestic swept the floor and

stood its ground. I could entertain thus a thousand as well as

happy withal; a well of good humor and contentment which overflowed

be forgotten still. He never heard the sound of praise. He

have done better. They had nothing to eat themselves, and they were

the annual visi九_九_藏_書tation which occurs, methinks, about the first of

continents on the other side.

all day; and he answered, with a sincere and serious look,

truth, quite superior, or rather inferior, to anything that is

Paphlagonian man -- he had so suitable and poetic a name that I am

his thoughts. He said that he had read and written letters for

as you did. He would not play any part. Men paid him wages for

between the half and the whole. One day, in particular, an

man that comes in my way. I am naturally no hermit, but might

He wore a flat gray cloth cap, a dingy wool-colored greatcoat, and

they found an inconvenience was no doubt intended for an honor; but

by George!" Yet I never, by any manoeuvring, could get him to take

They say that Menoetius lives yet, son of Actor,

children; I am weak in the head. It was the Lords will, I

to anything which can be reported. He suggested that there might be

I could not but notice some of the peculiarities of my visitors.

mortgaging some portion of the creature each time to that amount.

not seen before, and I did not know whether he was as wise as

of things in general; yet I sometimes saw in him a man whom I had

sickness, and sudden accident and death; to them life seemed full of

would suspend his work, and with half-suppressed mirth lie along the

about my business again, answering them from greater and greater

nothing said about dinner, though there might be bread enough for

opinions with them. He was so simply and naturally humble -- if he

cheek by jowl, and feel each others breath; but if we speak

within the great ocean of solitude, into which the rivers of society

a-berrying, railroad men taking a Sunday morning walk in clean

were wafted to me evidences of unexplored and uncultivated

the most philosophical accounts of the origin of this institution,

the woods occasionally, it was obvious that they did not. Restless

any rate; guests who appeal, not to your hospitality, but to your

dusted the furniture and kept the things in order.

I think that I love society as much as most, and am ready enough

the bed with himself and his wife, they at the one end and we at the

very near to one another. Many of our houses, both public and

Shakespeare or as simply ignorant as a child, whether to suspect him

work, and so helped to feed and clothe him; but he never exchanged

him any other. At another time, hearing Platos definition of a man

favorable circumstances than I could anywhere else. But fewer came

with a companion on a visit of ceremony to Massasoit on foot through

with himself, wishing to suggest a substitute within him for the

leave it in the cellar of the house where he boarded, after

seemed miraculously retarded in such a case, and the vital vigor

This is the man that lives in the house that I built;

I endeavored to make them exercise all the wit they had, and make

vigorous and a sled might slide over the stumps; and instead of

"Or have you alone heard some news from Phthia?

sleepy blue eyes, which were occasionally lit up with expression.

gradually shoved our chairs farther apart till they touched the wall

gorry, your mind must be there; you think of weeds." He would

and their cellars for the storage of wines and other munitions of

can be called humble who never aspires -- that humility was no

practised abstinence; and this was never felt to be an offence

conceive of was a simple expediency, such as you might expect an

When I asked him if he could do without money, he showed the

improvement. One winter day I asked him if he was always satisfied

world, however he got it. Objects of charity are not guests. Men

of the subject, who could not bear all kinds of opinions; doctors,

fishes that he had shot," about thrice as big as a bream. "These

others voice in any case. Referred to this standard, speech is for

them. I have found it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to

luck, though there were some curious specimens among my visitors.

My "best" room, however, my withdrawing room, always ready for

the most eat of them. This meal only we had in two nights and a

actually starving, though he may have the very best appetite in the

you give. For my own part, I was never so effectually deterred from

once, when I had not seen him for many months, if he had got a new

communication with that race.

pigeons are! https://read.99csw.comIf working every day were not my trade, I could get

cowhide boots. He was a great consumer of meat, usually carrying

when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room

of a fine poetic consciousness or of stupidity. A townsman told me

The noblest mind the best contentment has."

have too good a memory to make that necessary.

animal heat and moisture may have a chance to evaporate. If we

carried, with a thick sunburnt neck, dark bushy hair, and dull

beverage beside water? He had soaked hemlock leaves in water and

roof, and yet we often parted without being aware that we had come

himself. He didnt care if he only earned his board. Frequently he

thought to be, though they may be dark and muddy.

truth and frankness as the poor weak-headed pauper had laid, our

mat upon them. Two more of his chief men, for want of room, pressed

chuckle of surprise in his Canadian accent, not knowing that the

heads, like those hens which are made to take charge of a hundred

As for men, they will hardly fail one anywhere. I had more

to sit all day with his back to the fire and his belly to the table,

friendship, three for society. When visitors came in larger and

animal to appreciate; and this, practically, is true of most men.

I had more cheering visitors than the last. Children come

He was a skilful chopper, and indulged in some flourishes and

he did as if he thought that anything so grand would expect nothing

shirts, fishermen and hunters, poets and philosophers; in short, all

would enjoy the most intimate society with that in each of us which

all, who thought that I was forever singing,--

One real runaway slave, among the rest, whom I helped to forward

twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my

rainy days," though perhaps he has not read one wholly through for

do so much good in my position. Ay! there was the rub. The old and

other, it being only planks laid a foot from the ground and a thin

fellers about him."

Rest is their feast, and all things at their will:

of ideas instead of legs, a sort of intellectual centipede that made

he thoroughly believed in honesty and the like virtues.

all the meat I should want by hunting-pigeons, woodchucks, rabbits,

property, and he wished to get needles and thread at the store, he

a companion on the opposite side. In my house we were so near that

I heard that a distinguished wise man and reformer asked him if

you crawl all over. One man proposed a book in which visitors

reason for their prevalence, and speculation had not suggested to

inscribed on a yellow walnut leaf for a card:--

home while they had strength to travel, they departed. As for

parish far away; and now I must translate to him, while he holds the

written in the snow by the highway, with the proper French accent,

winnowed by my mere distance from town. I had withdrawn so far

endurance and contentment he was cousin to the pine and the rock. I

over the world, seemed to have hardly any existance for him. He was

considerably, he thought for a long time that it was merely the

with; runaway slaves with plantation manners, who listened from time

close-fitting cap, and whistling to himself, he reminded him of a

received by the king, but nothing was said about eating that day.

buy a farm with at last, perhaps in his native country. He was cast

before some Tremont or Astor or Middlesex House, to see come

which soon again slinks into some hole in the pavement.

we could not begin to hear -- we could not speak low enough to be

That lives in the house that I built.

intercourse of sages.

danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is

the trees he would exclaim -- "By George! I can enjoy myself well

reverence and reliance, that he might live out his threescore years

hospitalality; who earnestly wish to be helped, and preface their

private, with their almost innumerable apartments, their huge halls

that he said. And, true enough, in proportion as he appeared to

and the very derivation of the word pecunia. If an ox were his

position, where Dr. B. might be on hand at a moments warning. To

In him the animal man chiefly was developed. In physical

never to help themselves. I require of a visitor that he be not

Finally, there were the self-styled reformers, the greatest bores of

If I suggested any improvement in his mode of lif九九藏書e, he merely

Many a traveller came out of his way to see me and the inside of

in opposite corners, and then commonly there was not room enough.

life; I mean that I had some. I met several there under more

thought it would be inconvenient and impossible soon to go on

is never educated to the degree of consciousness, but only to the

journey fasting." Fearing that they would be light-headed for want

would leave his dinner in the bushes, when his dog had caught a

about twenty-eight years old, and had left Canada and his fathers

ground, that the sprouts which came up afterward might be more

get to his work, such as Yankees exhibit. He wasnt a-going to hurt

what is called spiritual man in him were slumbering as in an infant.

worn the home-made Vermont gray, he said, and that was good. Could

the parade one made about dining me, which I took to be a very

supper on a woodchuck which his dog caught. He, too, has heard of

contentment for his portion, and propped him on every side with

He interested me because he was so quiet and solitary and so

Either of whom having died, we should greatly grieve."

sometimes tumbled down and rolled on the ground with laughter at

asked him once if he was not sometimes tired at night, after working

answered, without expressing any regret, that it was too late. Yet

honest pilgrims, who came out to the woods for freedoms sake, and

is without, or above, being spoken to, we must not only be silent,

and ten a child. He was so genuine and unsophisticated that no

Who should come to my lodge this morning but a true Homeric or

"from my childhood; I never had much mind; I was not like other

but commonly so far apart bodily that we cannot possibly hear each

as much for him as for another. "I have always been so," said he,

suppose." And there he was to prove the truth of his words. He was

of food and also sleep, owing to "the savages barbarous singing,

shall never revisit those scenes. I should be proud to have for the

called humility, that he was "deficient in intellect." These were

one day."

He says, "Thats good." He has a great bundle of white oak bark

are so vast and magnificent that the latter seem to be only vermin

only the finest sediment was deposited around me. Beside, there

sympathized with them at least. So easy is it, though many

could not, he could not tell what to put first, it would kill him,

business called me thither.

who did not know when their visit had terminated, though I went

handwriting which I meant, for he could write a remarkably good hand

our journey." At one oclock the next day Massasoit "brought two

When the night arrived, to quote their own words -- "He laid us on

behind my house. Thither in summer days, when distinguished guests

degree of trust and reverence, and a child is not made a man, but

my house, and, as an excuse for calling, asked for a glass of water.

before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have

distinctly, he always had a presentable thought behind. Yet his

them the village was literally a community, a league for mutual

their confessions to me; in such cases making wit the theme of our

leaving a whole tree to support his corded wood, he would pare it

by and upon us; so that we were worse weary of our lodging than of

These are the folks that worry the man

frequenting a mans house, by any kind of Cerberus whatever, as by

infirm and the timid, of whatever age or sex, thought most of

but they did not know that the third line was,

as I do, if he does not forget the ideas he has had, he will do

I love to talk! By George, I could talk all day!" I asked him

With respect to wit, I learned that there was not much difference

priest without, and some higher motive for living. "Satisfied!"

convenience of money in such a way as to suggest and coincide with

defence, and you would suppose that they would not go

against hospitality, but the most proper and considerate course.

was no interruption to conversation to be stirring a hasty-pudding,

polite and roundabout hint never to trouble him so again. I think I

woods. They looked in the pond and at the flowers, and improved

clean as hers? -- young men who had ceased to be young, and had

house a dozen years before to work in the States, and earn money to

they generally econom九_九_藏_書ized the room by standing up. It is surprising

he was considerably expert. The former was a sort of cyclopaedia to

laugh of inexpressible satisfaction, and a salutation in Canadian

enough here chopping; I want no better sport." Sometimes, when at

performances were miracles. When I told him that I wrote

they thought that a prudent man would carefully select the safest

interval. Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and

the various reforms of the day, and he never failed to look at them

ornaments in his art. He cut his trees level and close to the

they break each others undulations. If we are merely loquacious

suppose theres no harm in going after such a thing to-day," says

place of the old. You need not rest your reputation on the dinners

he dispense with tea and coffee? Did this country afford any

visitors while I lived in the woods than at any other period in my

drank it, and thought that was better than water in warm weather.

the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest

he. To him Homer was a great writer, though what his writing was

He could defend many institutions better than any philosopher,

When Winslow, afterward governor of the Plymouth Colony, went

toward the north star. Men of one idea, like a hen with one

which infest them. I am surprised when the herald blows his summons

or watching the rising and maturing of a loaf of bread in the ashes,

their time. Men of business, even farmers, thought only of solitude

of himself, but take all the responsibility on itself, and let him

introduced a woodchuck to your neighbor. He had got to find him out

used as fencing stuff, standing or sitting on a bushel in the fields

to the re-origination of many of the institutions of society.

that I would any day walk ten miles to observe it, and it amounted

wiser than to think that apologies could supply the place of food to

have dealings with him. To a stranger he appeared to know nothing

humble himself was he exalted. I did not know at first but it was

at his eyes. His mirth was without alloy. Sometimes I saw him at

a-huckleberrying without a medicine chest. The amount of it is, if

"Arrived there, the little house they fill,

away to a slender stake or splinter which you could break off with

remoteness. Men of almost every degree of wit called on me in the

Half-witted men from the almshouse and elsewhere came to see me; but

something or other; and though they said that they loved a ramble in

post-maker, who can hole fifty posts in a day, who made his last

of plenty with them, there was no deficiency in this respect.

in the coarsest mould; a stout but sluggish body, yet gracefully

natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between

bark, roll it up into a ball and chew it while he laughed and

things before. Could he do without factories? I asked. He had

to say, --

concluded that it was safest to follow the beaten track of the

to keep cattle and himself from straying, visited me, and expressed

from his belt; and sometimes he offered me a drink. He came along

-- a biped without feathers -- and that one exhibited a cock plucked

and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it

"Why are you in tears, Patroclus, like a young girl?"

your hand at last.

I did not fear the hen-harriers, for I kept no chickens; but I

I told them that I drank at the pond, and pointed thither, offering

to be wiser than the so-called overseers of the poor and selectmen

April, when everybody is on the move; and I had my share of good

question had ever been entertained before, "No, I like it well

The waste and decay of physical life, which so often needs repair,

chicken, and that a duckling; men of a thousand ideas, and unkempt

a wish to live as I did. He told me, with the utmost simplicity and

and knew that he had passed. I asked him if he ever wished to write

sometimes ask me first on such occasions, if I had made any

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for

in the meanwhile. But if twenty came and sat in my house there was

early, crossing my bean-field, though without anxiety or haste to

potato in his fingers; and he said that he "liked to have the little

His only books were an almanac and an arithmetic, in which last

particularly reverenced the writer and the preacher. Their

prince in disguise.