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  • Where I Lived, And What I Lived For 1-12 (128 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [The low shrub-oak]

      More commonly known as the scrub oak.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [of Tartary]

      The grasslands of Asiatic Russia.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [enjoy freely a vast horizon]

      “Il n’y a d’heureux dans le monde que les êtres qui jouissent librement d’un vaste horizon.” (M. A. Langlois, trans., Harivansa, ou Histoire de la Famille de Hari [Paris, 1834, I, 283]). Again, the English translation is most likely T’s. Damodara is another name for Krishna.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [Re Rusticâ” is my “Cultivator]

      T is probably referring to either the Boston Cultivator or the New England Cultivator, both of which were published in Boston in his lifetime.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [the experience of two years]

      Note the structure of the book. To give it unity, he combined the experience of two years (and, indeed, some of the experiences of the period from 1847 to 1854, when W was finally published) into one. This was a favorite device of T’s. He had used the unit of a week for his first book, A Week, and in Cape Cod combined several excursions into one. Lane (1969) suggests that combining the two years into one added to the mythic qualities of the book, but in turn lessened the realism.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [me of a certain house]

      A house he had seen in the Catskill Mountains in 1844, as he tells us in his Journal (V, 361).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [goddess might trail her garments]

      The Iliad (Maxwell).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [if I except a boat]

      T built the boat himself and used it on his excursion on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. He sold it to Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was then living in the Old Manse, who in turn passed it on to Ellery Channing. It eventually rotted away and was disposed of. Hawthorne tells at some length the story of his acquiring the boat in his American Notebooks, in the entries for September 1 and 2, 1842.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [like a meat without seasoning]

      “Et un séjour sans oiseaux est comme un mets sans assaisonnement” (M. A. Langlois, trans., Harivansa, ou Histoire de la Famille de Hari [Paris, 1834, I, 282]). The English translation is undoubtedly T’s.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [possible site of a house]

      In his copy of W, Ellery Channing lists Weird Dell, the orchard side of Fairhaven Hill, the Cliff Hill, and Baker Farm as other sites T considered.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [each farmer’s premises]

      Poirier (86), in a discussion of T’s use of puns, points out that “premises” here can appropriately mean both property and proposition from which a conclusion is drawn.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [tree]

      The “picturesque” school of landscape architecture, popular in T’s day, reveled in displaying deformed trees.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [can afford to let alone]

      The first, second, third, and fifth paragraphs of this chapter were first published in Sartain’s Union Magazine (XI, 1852, 127), with slight variations in wording and punctuation.  A short segment from “Sounds” was published in the same volume.  Since they were the last issues of Sartain’s published, it raises the question of whether T intended to serialize more of W, only to have the magazine fail on him.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [Place]

      An old farm on the Sudbury River just below Hubbard’s Bridge.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [monarch of all I survey]

      The word is italicized to call attention to the pun on T’s own means of earning a living.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [there is none to dispute]

      From “Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk” by William Cowper.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [have frequently seen a poet]

      Undoubtedly Ellery Channing, who often accompanied T on his walks and who often described Concord landscapes in his poetry.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [carry it on; like Atlas]

      According to Greek mythology, Atlas carried the world on his shoulders.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [have always cultivated a garden]

      T was famous in Concord for his gardens.  He delighted particularly in raising many varieties of melons and each fall gave a melon party, which was one of Concord’s social events of the year (Harding, 1993, 89).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [you, if it is good]

      Cato, De Agri Cultura 1.1. T would have little complaint about the current Ash-Hooper translation. “When you are thinking of acquiring a farm, keep in mind these points: that you be not over eager in buying nor spare your pains in examining, and that you consider it not sufficient to go over it once. However often you go, a good piece of land will please you more at each visit.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [As I have said]

      He said this before on the title page, where these lines are set forth as the theme of the book. The “ode to dejection” refers to Coleridge’s poem of that name.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [as lustily as a chanticleer]

      The rooster, a standard symbol of dawn.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [ears that hear it. Olympus]

      The residence of the gods in Greek mythology. Cavell (56) suggests, “The abode of the gods is to be entered not merely at the outermost point of the earth or at the top of the highest mountain, and maybe not at all; but anywhere, only at the point of the present.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [abode, for I found myself]

      Cavell (53-4) notes how frequently T speaks of “finding himself” and suggests its transcendentalist implications.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [scarlet tanager, the field-sparrow]

      T is mistaken here about the field sparrow, for as the name implies, it is a bird of the open fields rather than of the woods.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [a mile and a half]

      T did not retire far from civilization. He was within easy walking distance of Concord village and only twenty miles from Boston.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [to fame, Concord Battle Ground]

      Site of the battle of April 19, 1775, the opening skirmish of the American Revolution.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [up of some nocturnal conventicle]

      A secret or illegal religious meeting.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [lake]

      As he tells us later, in “The Ponds,” the lake is l/2 mile long, 1 3/4 miles in circumference, and covers about 61 1/2 acres.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [important. From a hill top]

      Channing identifies this as Heywood’s Peak, which is directly south of Walden Pond.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [and more distant mountain ranges]

      The Peterborough range in southern New Hampshire.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [that it keeps butter cool]

      In the days before refrigeration, butter was submerged in the well on summer days to keep it from melting and becoming rancid.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [which in time of flood]

      The rivers of Concord (including the Sudbury) still overflow their banks each spring.

      Comment by isabel lafortezza on January 5, 2015

      within paragraphs 10, 11, and 12  Thoreau describes his the exhilarating experience he has when looking out at the pond. As he experiences the nature surrounding his existence is awakened. Thoreau recognizes his satisfaction with his life as he states “There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon,” unlike the town which Thoreau had previously been living in, his new house in nature has provided him with the space to grow as a human and discover himself without the interference of society’s burdens.

      Comment by ingrid funez on January 6, 2015

      In paragraph 12 Thoreau talks about how happiness can be profound within looking farther away from Earth. To pay attention to the  lovely horizon.  He took the time to describe the way he feels towards using his imagination to locate farther away from reality.  In paragraph 11 it talks about how the neighborhood can be looked differently. To look away from your surrounding that’s there is more than just land, there’s beauty to look at.

      Comment by Jennifer Joyce on February 1, 2015

      Thoreau’s comparison to a bragging rooster “standing on his roost” can be seen as an almost religious awakening. He is enlightened and declaring it to all who can hear. However, he is also elevating himself above others, showing that he finds himself superior from this vantage point his newfound wisdom has provided him with.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on February 3, 2015

      I think this is an apt comparison, Jennifer — and interestingly consistent with the suggestion in the TAL episode that Wake Up Now is a kind of cult. It may not be an accident that Thoreau was writing shortly after a period of religious revival in the U.S. that historians call “The Second Great Awakening.”

      Comment by Paul Schacht on January 12, 2016

      [Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly.]

      The portion of this paragraph from this point to the end forms the text for composer Gregory Spears’ song “Where I Lived, And What I Lived For,” Track #8 of The Opera America Songbook – Volume 1. The song is performed by baritone Jesse Blumberg and pianist Djordje Nesic.

      Comment by Justine Capozzi on May 10, 2016

      I really admire how Thoreau finds joy through the simplistic elements of nature, particularly Walden Pond. I wish more people today were willing to take a moment and do the same.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 6, 2017

      I think it’s really interesting that Thoreau is talking of the time in which people are sort of looking for a home, and it’s interesting to me because he was 27 at the time he left to live in the woods. At around a similar age these days, I think people start to think about where they might want to live, and are also thinking of potentially buying a home for the first time. In some senses time hasn’t changed the age at which people look for a home. Just based on some quick research the average homeowner in the United States buys their first home at age 31 or 32, but nonetheless it’s interesting that the age has only increased by 5 years in the past 200 years, at least if you use Thoreau’s age at the time as the average age someone bought their first home at the time.

      Comment by Josephine Gombert on October 8, 2017

      It is very interesting me how he just left to go live in the woods. He looks at life as a whole, not just something that is passing by, looking at the whole picture and all the aspects that play into that.

      Comment by Maureen Sullivan on October 9, 2017

      I think this is a very interesting idea. He uses the analogy of seeds becoming less productive with time and compares that essentially to one being forced into the life they shouldn’t have over time. “As long as possible live free and uncommitted”, I believe he is referring to one avoiding the “normalized” daily life of man and trying to sustain one that is free of those chains and more in-tune with a natural life.

      Comment by Miles Duhamel on October 9, 2017

       
      Thoreau seems to be talking about productivity here, in reference to his seeds and how when he does decide to plant them, in time, he will likely be satisfied from what they bring, instead of hastily planting seeds that may not sprout without the intended patience and placement. I think this carries through to his view on people, which he goes on to recommend that people live free and uncommitted to the mechanism of daily life because it makes little difference.

      Comment by Skye Bruggeman on October 13, 2017

      [I found thus that I had been a rich man without any damage to my poverty.]

      Thoreau makes an interesting point here about society’s concept of wealth. Though Thoreau has very little money he considers himself rich because of the rich experiences of his life.

      Comment by Mary Robicheaux on October 14, 2017

      People today are incredibly focused on money, but focusing on experience instead of money might be a better way to assess how satisfied someone is with his life because he will always have his experiences and memories, while money can be easily taken.

      Comment by Josephine Gombert on October 15, 2017

      I agree with that completely, I think that people should definitely take time and look whats around them instead of focusing on what they need all the time.

      Comment by Skye Bruggeman on October 22, 2017

      When Thoreau goes to live in the wood he is, in some ways asserting or guaranteeing his freedom, by assuring that he is not confined by a job or society’s rules.

      Comment by Elena Vasquez on October 24, 2017

      Thoreau uses smilies, metaphors, and personification to describe the Pond’s natural beauty. His in-depth descriptions demonstrates he connection and love for the beauty nature can provide.

      Comment by Jeidah DeZurney on October 25, 2017

      Thoreau is also really big on self reliance and how he values interpersonal relations over neediness or wealth.

      Comment by Jeidah DeZurney on October 25, 2017

      Its also interesting to think he could do that. There is little places someone could go now a days to be away from civilization, but also not being unwanted on private property.

      Comment by Josephine Gombert on October 26, 2017

      It is very interesting to think that someone could withstand that isolation for so long.

      Comment by Elisabeth Strand on October 26, 2017

      I agree, later on he also says “the town’s poor seem to me often live the most independent lives of any”

      Comment by Tyler Merritt on October 26, 2017

      It’s very interesting how, even with such a low-quality, unfinished home that doesn’t protect him as much as it could, he still feels as if there are no faults with it, and he compares it to the Greek gods’ residence on Mount Olympus.

       

      Comment by Tyler Merritt on October 26, 2017

      This quote of his in paragraph 2 sounds so regal, like he feels practically one with nature. It is very awe-inspiring.

      Comment by Tyler Merritt on October 26, 2017

      I agree, I feel that if I didn’t have human company for a while that I would possibly go crazy. It’s amazing that he was able to manage like this, his mind must have been very strong.

      Comment by Benjamin Fritz on October 26, 2017

      The second half of the title “What I Live For” reminds me of a book by Viktor Frankl were he attributes his own survival to the the discovery of a personal meaning for his life.

      Comment by Benjamin Fritz on October 26, 2017

      I think the second half of the quote is funny because the idea that no one can dispute his right implies that he has some authority and power but in reality there is simply no one around to dispute him.

      Comment by Benjamin Fritz on October 26, 2017

      Definitely, this theme is also earlier in economy where Thoreau talks about how it is the poorest of people who are the wisest.

      Comment by Benjamin Fritz on October 26, 2017

      Thoreau seems to be modeling the idea of the old American dream. He is only striving to fulfill his duty to himself and seems to be avoiding the responsibilities people have to their communities. He’s looking for what the world can do for him and not what he can do for the world. Theres nothing wrong with that, I’m simply surprised to see capitalistic themes repeated continuously in this book. Though considering a major theme is self reliance I probably shouldn’t be.

      Comment by Sarah Alper on October 27, 2017

      This makes sense with paragraph 8, as Thoreau despite not having a completed of protective house sees no faults in it because it is the most he has ever truly had proving that he is thankful with the simple things in life, a lesson we could all learn from.

      Comment by Sarah Alper on October 27, 2017

      Jumping off of what you said Ben, I agree it’s pretty funny how he talks as if no one can dispute him when no one really can, hence why he probably thinks that he is in some position of power because in a way he kind of is as just as there is no one to dispute him there is no one to dispute him so he in this case he is the monarch of himself

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on October 27, 2017

      We have an ongoing discussion on this chapter in Iran based on my Persian translation. It is hard for us to imagine that Thoreau is merely referring to early adulthood by the phrase “at a certain season of our life” in the beginning of this chapter. It also seems hard to imagine he is looking for a permanent residence. Thoreau may not be looking for a physical residence in the material world at all. The reason I think so is that later in the chapter, he says, “We are wont to imagine rare and delectable places in some remote and more celestial corner of the system, behind the constellation of Cassiopeia’s Chair, far from noise and disturbance?”  A permanent house was never on T’s mind. He says, “Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat?” Even in the beginning of Walden he considers himself “a sojourner of civilized life.” Rumi says, “The whole seven universes are too small for me.” It is most pleasant mysteries of Walden for us in Iran. What certain season and what spot is really Thoreau speaking about here?

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on October 28, 2017

      It should be remembered that when T says, “it surpassed my arithmetic to tell, if I was that man who had ten cents, or who had a farm, or ten dollars, or all together.” He is doing this whole calculation using only his fingers and in this extreme case his toes too, for elsewhere in Walden he says, “An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest.” I am sure he is honest enough to stick to his own words and do not use any other tool in these situations.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on November 7, 2017

      Thoreau is a great admirer of the Greek mythology, but his admiration is not absolute. His critical spirit reaches even this favorite part of the Greek culture. I believe that the sentence “I never heard what compensation he received for that” is a mild criticism of Atlas.  To me, this is one of the very powerful analogies of Walden. He compares owning a farm to carrying the world on his shoulders.پ

      Comment by Ed Gillin on November 7, 2017

      Perhaps the criticism of Atlas is in jest, but I think the criticism of current values is in earnest.  Asking “what compensation” the giant received for carrying his burden is the sort of practical-minded inquiry that Thoreau found typical among his Yankee neighbors.  If remuneration was decidedly not of concern to the Greek tale-tellers, what Thoreau “never heard” in his classical studies says something, then, about the distance between ancient values and modern ones?

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on November 8, 2017

      Walden has never been a boring book with rigid ideas to me, but I take Thoreau’s jest a little seriously. In my opinion, that is true about all cases of Thoreau’s humor. Rumi’s book of mystical poetry called Masnavi is replete with humorous stories, in several cases erotic ones. I have been comparing Walden and Nature with Rumi and Sa’di’s works for a long time. You are right. By searching for values in what Atlas does, Thoreau is inviting us to pay attention to the results and consequences of our own actions. Perhaps Henry Thought we were carrying a world full of Augean Stables on our shoulders.

      I am delighted to be here and discussing Thoreau and Emerson with you. We have a large group of Iranians who are reading my translation of Walden with me. There are two translations of Walden in Iran. Mine is never going to end. As long as I am alive, my translation is going to grow. I find Thoreau and Emerson extremely close to the soul of my soul. (Rumi frequently uses the term: soul of the soul, and I think it is very close to Emerson’s “Oversoul.”)

       

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on November 9, 2017

      I believe the reason Thoreau tells us that the beginning of his stay at Walden Pond on America’s Independence Day was an accident is that he does want that particular day to be considered more important. He preferred the Independence Day to coincide with his first day in the woods rather than the opposite.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on November 9, 2017

      Thoreau did not drink wine, or even tea or coffee, but here he is about to drink his own house! The way he talks of the sweetness of the gum in the timber of his house one would imagine he was really about to drink it.

      Comment by Henrik Otterberg on November 10, 2017

      This is a perceptive comment by Alireza, which asks us to probe deeper into Thoreau’s writing; always difficult, but always rewarding in the end. As inspired by Alireza, I wonder if the passage also touches on the complex/intricate temporalities at play in Walden. To begin with the well-known 101 literal level, two years and more have been conflated into one in the book. This makes for good narrative sense, of course, but also hints toward the mythological, archetypical, and ultimately representative in Thoreau’s account. Perhaps there is even a sort of eschatology hinted in the passage in question, as a “season of life” would seem to indicate a life not necessarily bounded by linear time. In other words, “a certain season of life” can at once be seen as a straightforward, temporal season – here as yet relatively young adulthood, as we may infer from the specific vantage of Walden‘s narrator. But a “season of life” can also be something recurrent, largely independent of chronological life: there can be “spring in me,” as I seem to recall Thoreau writing somewhere else in gratitude over the gift of such a feeling. And this independently of whether winter rages outside, or whether Thoreau’s own tally of years would seem to preclude such a statement. And finally, a “season of life” may hint beyond the individual life as well, by the rudimentary logic that seasons are by definition recurrent, not gone once and for all in a linear progression (or so we hope). James Guthrie, Richard Tuerk and several others have studied the wonder of Thoreau’s handling of time in his writings, and from recent work by Branka Arsic and Audrey Raden on Thoreau’s concepts of grief and dying, respectively, we may learn more. The hurt and challenge, it would seem, is the realisation of the loss of time, and what to do about this from an existential vantage. // This commentary aside, I hope we may hear more of Thoreau’s relationship to Persian poets Saadi, Rumi, Khayyam and others; on how to live a poetic life in the highest sense. This is an area yet to be explored and made known to the wider body of Thoreau scholars. I hope Alireza will return with more. As it is, I am very thankful for the note offered by him to this passage.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on November 26, 2017

      Henrik, I can’t tell you how happy I am to be among you and read your comment. Forgive me for my late reply. My decade long journey in Walden has only added to a sweet sense of amazement and wondering. Walden fills me with wonders and mysteries. Here, as you pointed out, Thoreau is both speaking of a site both for his own cabin, his own soul and at the same time moving beyond himself as an individual. Thoreau started Walden with his famous “I” giving the book an egotistic odor, but he immediately moves to “we” in the first sentence of the second chapter.  He then tries to take our minds away from a single cabin and the woods around it to other spots. I personally believe by “every spot” he is referring to all possible places in the universe. The season that opens the mind to such an expansion is not just a natural season. It is a quality in our soul which Thoreau would call “wakefulness.” We should seek such a season in Thoreau’s own words when he says, “I have, as it were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself.” In this little world seasons are also represented on a little scale. He says, “The day is an epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer.” Thoreau’s Spring and morning arrive only when we are awake: “Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.” A mere rising of the sun is not enough. Therefore, when this season dawns in our soul we will be able to discover the whole universe as a possible site of our house: “Where I lived was as far off as many a region viewed nightly by astronomers. We are wont to imagine rare and delectable places in some remote and more celestial corner of the system, behind the constellation of Cassiopeia’s Chair, far from noise and disturbance. I discovered that my house actually had its site in such a withdrawn, but forever new and unprofaned, part of the universe.”

      But the most astounding aspect of Thoreau profound thought here is that even when he conquers those inaccessible corners of the universe, he does not believe that he has settled there and says, “Such was that part of creation where I had squatted;” He is still a squatter. It means that at an even higher level of wakefulness he will still be looking for more remote places for other types of houses. That is why in the beginning of Walden he considers himself a sojourner of civilized life. The same sense of place or lack of place exists in my culture. Dervishes are know to be homeless, wanderer people. You can even see this culture right in Walden when Thoreau says, “as a dervish in the desert.”  It is not that these dervishes were unable to obtain a house. It is that they thought the universe was too small for them.  I am sorry I wrote too much! 

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on November 29, 2017

      We are having a wonderful time with Thoreau in our discussion groups in Iran. We find this to be an extremely subtle sentence: “It was not so much within doors as behind a door where I sat” First, it shows that T’s real house is the whole universe. The sentence is consistent with this: “Where I lived was as far off as many a region viewed nightly by astronomers.” Therefore, T’s house cannot be limited to a cabin in the woods. No one is able to discover where T’s real house was. Like Persian dervishes he was a man who found a house wherever he happened to be when the night fell. What is more profound is that “a door” usually opens on another world. As we arrive at this sentence, T is in fact implying that he is going to open a door on the secrets of nature, the universe and on human soul for us. That is what Walden is truly about. 

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on December 2, 2017

      Walden is a journey from the mundane physical world to the metaphysical spiritual world. Using different techniques Thoreau continuously takes our minds away from the familiar objects around us to his own unknown ethereal world. Here, I believe the word “substantial” carries both a physical and metaphysical meaning. In its physical sense, it refers to the substance Thoreau has used in the making of his cabin. We have a detailed report of it down to the nails, hair, hinges, etc. In its ethereal, metaphysical sense, however, I believe that the word refers to the woods around him and the might he finds in nature in contrast to the flimsy, mundane life of the people in the town.  In my humble opinion, this word is just another miraculous pun Thoreau has used in Walden.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on December 3, 2017

      Thoreau’s boat went on the same stream in which Thoreau used to fish: “Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.”  In what way Thoreau believed this boat is moving on the stream of time? What is the significance of this sentence? Does it mean that Thoreau is asking us to join him in this boat?

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on December 3, 2017

      A serenade can be a music by a lover. T is contrasting the greed in a garden or an orchard to the love that exists in nature. The birds do not serenade a villager because he treats nature greedily for his own profits through the fruits he cultivates in his orchard. Nature is aware and intelligent.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on December 5, 2017

      T sometimes contrasted Walden Pond to the village. Here he is contrasting the pond to other lakes. It is easy to understand why Walden Pond stands above the village for T, but in what sense is this pond’s bottom above the surface of other lakes? Is he not humiliating other lakes by contrasting Walden’s bottom to their surface? What do you think is the mystery here?

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on December 5, 2017

      It is extremely odd for a man who believed his house was in the most remote corners of the Milky Way to consider his place “low” in the woods and to limit his horizon to the opposite shore. Why is he speaking like this? Walden is tormentingly difficult. In such moments, I always tend to say to myself, “Okay, never mind. He did not know what he was talking about or how he was writing this.” But what if I’m wrong and there is something profound in the sentence?

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on February 3, 2018

      Thoreau’s emphasis is on his neighbor not on his distance from his neighbor. Thoreau is happy that he is still within two miles of the village.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on February 6, 2018

      There could be a pun in “it is well”. It may mean it is good or pleasing and at the same time it may mean that it is “healthy” to have a body of water nearby. In Iran’s classical architecture there were always a pool in all buildings. If you look at Sa’di’s shrine you will see a small pool next to his grave. Sa’di is the Persian poet Thoreau and Emerson highly admired.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on March 26, 2018

      Thoreau was eating his own house. He was tasting life in all its details. This is part of the deliberate life he followed at Walden Pond.

      Comment by Jeffrey Taylor on April 22, 2018

      There is a parallelism here between Thoreau himself and the house in which he will live.  The house is unfinished since Thoreau has just begun to construct his new life.  There may also be a suggestion that he hasn’t decided if the house should ever be finished lest it diminish his hearing of the morning wind blowing over his home carrying the poem of creation.  Will the completed plastered cabin be a place where the poem of creation can be sung?

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 12, 2018

      In paragraph 3, Thoreau talks about the farm in the sense that he, as the poet, gained more from the farm than the farmer ever will. In a literary sense, he has drained the farm for every admirable trait, leaving the farmer with the “skimmed milk” while Thoreau now has all the valuable parts. This can also be an indication that now he has dominion over this farm because it is now apart of this narrative. He may not own the land but he has put an “invisible fence” around it through his poetry.

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 12, 2018

      [Many think that seeds improve with age. I have no doubt that time discriminates between the good and the bad; and when at last I shall plant, I shall be less likely to be disappointed. But I would say to my fellows, once for all, As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail.]

      Thoreau uses conversational dialogue (They Say/ I Say). When discussing cultivating a garden for his land, he says that the “many” think that the seeds mature with age. He nonetheless agrees that time discriminates between good and bad, however, he says to them to live “free and uncommitted”. This takes it back to his statement in ‘Economy’ in which he states that working your life away on an inherited farm and never differentiating yourself from your ancestors lives is more of a prison, than a farm.

      Comment by Grace Lawrence on September 13, 2018

      Thoreau uses the They Say/I Say format in order to describe how time can decipher between the good and bad but also that one should live how they decide because there is no difference between being “committed to a farm or the county jail.”

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      Thoreau seems to continue to emphasize that the enjoyment of nature is a big part of helping to process who we are as elements of nature that in many cases don’t act so natural.

      Comment by Alexandra Welker on September 26, 2018

      [This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments. ]

      Thoreau built his own cabin and felt that it was fit for a god and goddess. It was his own home. It was his creation and he seems that he was very proud of it. I love how he feels it is worthy of a god.

      Comment by Alexandra Welker on September 27, 2018

      [It was suggestive somewhat as a picture in outlines. ]

      This line in this paragraph also describes his complete and utter pleasure with his work. His previous home was like an artists work that seemed to be missing something. His new home however he felt was perfect and complete.

      Comment by Alexandra Welker on September 27, 2018

      [There are none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon]

      Earlier in this paragraph Thoreau talks about the pasture being enough for his imagination. He enjoys his sense of freedom. It makes him happy he feels that none are happier than those who enjoy freely a vast horizon.

      Comment by Clare Corbett on May 12, 2019

      [the pond appeared like a thin crust insulated and floated even by this small sheet of intervening water]

       

      You can see Sudbury on a map here

      Comment by Jenna Doolan on May 13, 2019

      [I was seated by the shore of a small pond, about a mile and a half south of the village of Concord and somewhat higher than it, in the midst of an extensive wood between that town and Lincoln, and about two miles south of that our only field known to fame, Concord Battle Ground; but I was so low in the woods that the opposite shore, half a mile off, like the rest, shore, half a mile off, like the rest covered with wood, was my most distant horizon.]

      View Concord Battle Ground on a map here.

      Comment by Tayler Thompson on May 13, 2019

      [When first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my nights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on Independence Day, or the fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for the winter, but was merely a defence against the rain, without plastering or chimney, the walls being of rough, weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made it cool at night.]

      Find Thoreau’s cabin on the map here

      Comment by Christina Inter on February 17, 2020

      Thoreau discusses how he enjoys his endless view of nature, his unobstructed horizon. As technology has progressed and there has been more development, it has become more uncommon in our modern world to find such an unobstructed horizon. When someone does, it is something to be treasured — like when you enjoy the view from the top of a mountain. Glieck describes that as “telegraph towers spread across Europe and beyond,” people were “struck by the towers’ height and by their beauty” (134-5). While many enjoyed the convenience of the unprecedented speed of communication the telegraph offered over distance, few were bothered by the cluttering of the earth’s surface they caused. Some admirers may describe these towers as beautiful, but how beautiful does one find a power poles throughout our own streets that are increasingly becoming replaced with underground systems? Development requires space. It complicates things while offering more convenience. As our world has become so cluttered and noisy with all the technology we have in our lives, we appreciate the simple beauty of the natural world less and less.

      Comment by Justin Colleran on February 18, 2020

      Thoreau uses many different forms of figurative language to describe the beauty and the area surrounding it. By going so deep in his descriptions of the area, the reader full understands how much connection he feels to this place, and why he does as well. We see how strong his connection truly is to nature.

      Comment by Leila Sassouni on February 18, 2020

      This passage regarding room for imagination, and feeling unconfined reminded me immediately of social media. While social platforms allow me to have followers, whether it be my followers on Instagram, my friends on Facebook, or my friends on Snapchat, I still do feel stuck quite frequently. I feel that my imagination is worsening, that social media has provided and/or restricted me with barriers, and that I need to live up to other people’s standards.

      I think this passage generally speaks about the role of technology, too. In some ways, technology limits a creative mind/imagination due to the increased usage of the internet and all of the other readily accessible resources. At the same time, though, technology promotes creativity with the vast amount of applications, softwares, and information on the web.

      Comment by Danielle Crowley on February 18, 2020

      The beginning portion of this paragraph caught my interest. As Thoreau reflects on the location of Hollowell farm, one cannot ignore that throughout the narrative, Thoreau\’s core goal has been to disconnect from technology and to be isolated. While in this particular section, Thoreau is actually happy to be close to the village and to be close to neighbors, one cannot ignore that he has placed himself in a place of some distance away from civilization.

      While reading this portion of Walden, I couldn\’t help but think of the \”talking drums\” that Gleick writes about in the first chapter of, The Information. It is interesting to note that the people of Africa, wanted to be near people and to communicate from far distances, maybe because they hadn\’t been exposed to technology like Thoreau had been. Perhaps, Thoreau wishes to remove himself fro, technology and society because its all he has known, while other societies only wish to become immersed in a society full of technology.

      Building off of this, Thoreau\’s journey to live simply and to not be surrounded by technology reminds me of people taking 24 hour social media breaks in today\’s society. We constantly try to disconnect, so perhaps Thoreau was onto something all those years ago when he set out to write Walden.

      Comment by Jaffre Aether on February 18, 2020

      [Why, the owner does not know it for many years when a poet has put his farm in rhyme, the most admirable kind of invisible fence, has fairly impounded it, milked it, skimmed it, and got all the cream, and left the farmer only the skimmed milk.]

      This line connects up well with Gleick’s discourse on the dictionary and its fluid interconnectedness. Thoreau does not mention individual words in this quote though, rather choosing to delineate rhyme as the creator of meaning; it is this choice that contrasts well with Gleick. Gleick says this of the lexis “[it is] a measure of shared experience, which comes from interconnectedness” (91). I believe this to be true, meaning of objects is formed through communal work. But, Thoreau, in some ways, reacts against that in this quote by noting that the poet will own the farm far more than the practical farmer ever will. It is Thoreau’s attention to individuality here that subverts Gleick’s statement. Everyone knows what a table is, but only I know what a table is to me. It is this self-recursive networks of meaning that I believe make creating a taxonomy of language so hard, because one will always run into the invisible fence that Thoreau notes. One will always run into a similar, but at once, highly individualized, definition of meaning. In sum, I believe paying attention to both kinds of networks of meaning is important, the interconnected and the self-recursive.

      Comment by Caroline Crimmins on February 19, 2020

      This passage truly shows how incredibly focused people are on possessions and tangible items. Today, people are absolutely obsessed with getting the latest technology. Throeau writes how much he has gained from the farm without earning any profit from it. I believe this is shown in Gleick’s The Information through language regarding the talking drums and morse code. Humans are constantly finding new ways to communicate with each other, whether it is face to face or miles apart. Communication is not a physical item, but it is something that can be shared between two people.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on February 19, 2020

      I have been speaking about Thoreau with American scholars for almost 15 years. You put it very beautifully: “Communication is not a physical item, but it is something that can be shared between two people.” For 15 years I have been speaking about  Thoreau with many Americans. I have never seen these American friends. I have never been physically close to many of them, yet they are my soul companion. Thoreau has stitched our souls together.

      I discovered digital Thoreau after extensive searching. It is a huge gift. I hope I can use it for deeper communications with America. Sadly there has not been any contract between Iran and the US for forty years. It breaks my heart.

      Comment by Hannah Jewell on February 19, 2020

      I found this paragraph interesting as Thoreau implies that the amount of physical space he had at his disposal did not hinder the abilities of his mind. The same can be applied to technology. There is so much that can be done and essentially another world to enter even within a tiny screen that we can hold in our hands or a computer that we can take with us everywhere.
       
      In reference to Gleick’s “The Information,” I am reminded of the beginning chapter in which the African drums are described as a form of technological communication. Although the rhythms of drums do not seem like they would qualify as a piece of technology, it is important to remember that ancient cultures did not have the resources that we do today and that they had to get creative to achieve what they were intending to.
       

      Comment by Claire Rogers on February 19, 2020

      Thoreau’s complaint about poor translation amuses me, in part because it brings up in my mind what is perhaps the fundamental problem of language: its inconstancy. But that I mean that each word, each phrase, and each sentence do not have some absolute meaning, but rather are all slightly different in the interpretations of different minds. As Dr. Harding’s notes observed, Cato seemed to be indeed “mistranslated” into English. But, of course, the problem of translation is not purely at the level of language or even dialect, but at the level of idiolect. For what is a translation? What is nonsense? These words can be defined, of course, but words can only be defined in relation to other words. Language is a construct, and no absolute meaning exists. To write Cato in English or to respond to Thoreau is a matter of translation in both cases; one must decide what words mean even when their meanings are incorporeal. So, certainly, there is a certain amusement in criticizing translation in a more philosophical sense, even if one can recognize the annoyance of a poorly-translated work in practicality.

      A final note of amusement, more of an aside: That WordPress’ software for catching typos does not recognize “idiolect” as a word certainly reflects well the slippery nature of language.

      Comment by Olivia Davis on March 7, 2020

      “Many think that seeds improve with age. I have no doubt that time discriminates between the good and the bad”. This quote by Thoreau reminded me of one of the chapters in Gleick that discusses the evolution of language, from oral to written. There are mixed feelings about the transition into written language, and then even a step further into technology. The majority of people, as Thoreau described with the seeds, think that language is improved with time as technology advances. However, since this is a controversial topic, there are obvious pros and cons to the advancement of language.

      Comment by Leila Sassouni on April 3, 2020

      I compared the versions of Thoreau’s first version to his third, and was amazed by the drastic difference in his writing use and usage of detail. In his initial version, his writing was extremely choppy and unclear, as he included unnecessary detail like Independence Day, that did not pertain to the text. His only use of including this specific detail was to provide a setting and/or time, but it was unnecessary and took away from the flow of the paragraph. He specifically wrote, “which, by accident, was on Independence Day, or the fourth of July…” which adds no content or substance. I also noticed that just as his most recent version shows, in just three versions, his writing style became more focused on himself rather than the outside world. He went from describing his unfinished house, to describing how he felt as a builder. I think these changes reflect his personality and how highly he thinks of himself.

      Comment by Anne Baranello on May 12, 2020

      One of the points that my group studied for the final project was Thoreau’s revisions in terms of language and diction – this paragraph, when compared to itself in Version C, isn’t so significantly different – however, Thoreau made a variety of edits. He seemed to be indecisive on phrases such as “uncluttered”, “not cluttered”, “empty”, etc. He wrote down and crossed out many different versions of the same phrase, and eventually settled on none of them. Thoreau did this multiple times throughout the paragraph, and his revisions overall, which is incredibly interesting because it plays into the stereotype that he is a perfectionist.

      Comment by Katelyn Cummings on February 9, 2021

      [The real attractions of the Hollowell farm, to me, were; its complete retirement, being about two miles from the village, half a mile from the nearest neighbor]

      The way that he’s describing the farm sounds like to be a place that is peaceful and doesn’t have to worry about the neighbors and only really other animals. The way how it’s described as “complete retirement” sounds to be as a place that is calm and doesn’t create stress, like a vacation on the beach. I really like how they mentioned that the neighbor is half a mile away because it gives the audience the idea that this farm is in the country and is set back in a large plot of land away from the world.

      Comment by Owen Amigo on February 9, 2021

      Thoreau uses an intriguing bundle of phrases to describe the fog that lays over the pond when the sun comes up. This gives insight on what he spent many of his mornings observing

      Comment by Sofie Wolters on February 10, 2021

      In this paragraph, Thoreau gets into how even though he lived in a tent protected from weather and natural forces, he kept close to nature; being among the birds and having fresh air within his shelter to stay connected.

      Comment by Dylan Thorburn on February 10, 2021

      [But I would say to my fellows, once for all, As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail.]

      Thoreau is telling the reader that it is important to live free of any personal burden, he has referenced the idea of living like this previously, he is emphasizing this because he wants the reader to understand the importance of living the way they want rather than the way they should.

      Comment by sully blair on February 10, 2021

      Interesting connection he makes between successful harvest and the quantity of time. Such an interesting concept to connect to…. time. For contains all the right ingredients for success but at the very same time contains all the tight reason for failure

       

      Comment by Rebecca Johnson on February 13, 2021

      I love the line, “but I never got my fingers burned by actual possession.” Thoreau makes his views on material possessions clear throughout his writing and I believe this line perfectly portrays those ideals. The idea of possession burning ones’ fingers is an excellent portrayal of his modest lifestyle.

      Comment by Rebecca Johnson on February 13, 2021

      I love the idea Thoreau is getting across here; how a poet will get far more out of a farm than the farmer ever will. The poet spends his days watching the farm with a new, bright, perspective while “the crusty farmer supposed that he got a few wild apples only.” With the farmer only focused on the profit his farm will yield, he has failed to get the most of it.

      Comment by Jacob on February 2, 2022

      This got me thinking about the seasons, like Spring, Summer, winter and fall. However, I had the realization that we could apply this to life. Spring is like when we are a child, we start to grow and learn, summer is like the prime of our live, fall is our waning Twighlight, and winter is when we kick the bucket. I compare it to flowers.

      Comment by Liam Bilodeau on February 2, 2022

      [The only house I had been the owner of before, if I except a boat, was a tent]

      He lived with his family so he had a home… but it wasn’t exclusively his.

      Comment by Liam Bilodeau on February 2, 2022

      [This is as important as that it keeps butter cool.]

      Did he dig himself a cellar to keep food cool?  Also, great imagery.

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 2, 2022

      I really liked the way T related the difference between living by what you want instead on focusing on living as how you should do in order to impress society. What T is trying to say is that when a person decides to live without commitment and tries to be free, that person is going to be happier and would see their life as success. Instead of living in a prison world where people has been told how to act, what to get, how to dress, etc.

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 3, 2022

      What T was trying to say in this paragraph was that a wall that divides humans from nature should not divide them apart. T states that even he had a a tent, he always tried to have contact with the nature (birds) and tried to be part of their world instead of making them being part of his. I really liked how he worded this, it shows the difference between buying a bird and having it domesticated at home instead of being out and both free to explore.

      Comment by Keera Lopusiewicz on February 3, 2022

      Though unfinished and quite literally rough around the edges, Thoreau holds his humble abode in high regard, as he should. Despite its certain characteristics that would be considered flaws or foundational issues in modern society, Thoreau does not see the wide chinks and weather-stained boarding as distasteful, but rather something to be appreciated and possibly romanticized. He classifies it as clean and airy, and by the time the afternoon falls upon him and his lodgings, the morning dew it had been saturated with would glow, and grant it its “auroral character” meaning like the dawn. 

      I am also especially fond of the line that follows:

      ”This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a traveling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments.”

      Comment by Keera Lopusiewicz on February 3, 2022

      I especially love how Thoreau, having lived within the deferential quarters of only a tent, still refers to it as a home in which he had taken up residence in prior to this more substantial shelter. He is kind and appreciative to himself, as well as the land on which it was built upon. It does not act as a barrier separating human hospitality from the natural world, but rather, it bridge connecting the two. He can still hear and admire the melodic conversing of the birds, and taste the fresh air of the outdoors, despite being behind one himself. This idea of being in close proximity to nature is further defined thoroughly as he explains, “Such was not my abode, for I found myself suddenly neighbor to the birds; not by having imprisoned one, but having caged myself near them.”

      Comment by Valerie Hill on February 3, 2022

      I like the last line ” for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can affords to let alone” And What I think he is saying is that like you are rich if you don’t have to do things everyone else has to do, meaning you are rich in free time to do whatever makes you happy

      Comment by Valerie Hill on February 3, 2022

      I thought the last line was very ironic because if my memory serves me correctly, he did spend the night in jail for not paying taxes, so he can say that it doesn’t matter where you are as long as you live freely.

      Comment by Valerie Hill on February 3, 2022

      I feel like Thoreau is just trying to make the best out of a bad situation. because it’s almost winter, but his house is only half done, so instead of stressing and rushing to get it fixed, he is content to share his home with the birds and the fresh air.

      Comment by Caleb Mihelich on February 3, 2022

      ” I found thus that I had been a rich man without any damage to my poverty.”
      I feel this is one of the most powerful lines, as Thoreau shows that riches does not necessarily come from wealth. He bought the farm, and land was seen as wealth. The man he bought it from offered to buy it back, and then some to pay for the trouble. But rather than seek his own welfare, Thoreau gave the man his farm back for the original price, making him rich for assisting a fellow human, without losing the humanity that comes with poverty.

      Comment by Caleb Mihelich on February 3, 2022

      “This small lake was of most value as a neighbor in the intervals of a gentle rain storm in August, when, both air and water being perfectly still, but the sky overcast, mid-afternoon had all the serenity of evening,” This is just great imagery about how he enjoys the lake his shack is built by, and the general ambiance of the area in the calm before the storm.

      Comment by Caleb Mihelich on February 3, 2022

      “Though the view from my door was still more contracted, I did not feel crowded or confined in the least” this quote talks about how the view from his front door is restricted, likely due to the difficulty and complexity of glass working causing thick or low quality glass in his windows. He discusses that despite the poor view from his window, he still feels free and in the open.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 3, 2022

      Yes! ‘Rich’ in time, and rich with the confidence to say ‘no thanks’ to the things commercial culture tells us to care about.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 3, 2022

      Very nicely put, Caleb!

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 3, 2022

      I love that line, too. Very nice analysis, Keera.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 3, 2022

      Yes, it must be back in Economy: he dug a cellar that used part of an old woodchuck den. Some houses around here still have “root cellars” outside, or in unheated parts of a basement.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 3, 2022

      Yes, that’s a gorgeous passage, and you would know, dwelling beside a lake yourself.

      Comment by Zachary Vandecar on February 12, 2022

      [But I would say to my fellows, once for all, As long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail.]

      I have lived with this sort of thinking for a bit now. When we practice not committing, we are chasing simplicity. But in the time we live in now, we are constantly asked to commit to things. We are constantly reminded of what we are expected to be doing. People are always reminding us of what we should be doing, whether it’s buying a car, getting a job, saving money, improving our credit score, or going to college. Someone who isn’t doing these things is a failure in the eyes of many. This seems so prominent now, that it seems like it would be simpler to start committing to things. The freedom Thoreau wants, when practiced now, makes things more complicated.

  • Where I Lived, And What I Lived For 13-23 (134 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 20, 2014

      [stitch in time saves nine]

      A proverb that can be traced at least as far back as Thomas Fuller’s Gnomologia (1732).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [Shams and delusions are esteemed]

      For a complex analysis of the remaining paragraphs of this chapter, see Balthazor.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [sincere a worshiper of Aurora]

      The Roman Goddess of dawn.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [and again, and forever again]

      Confucius, The Great Learning, “Commentary of the Philosopher Tsang,” chap. I, p. 1.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [that ever sang of fame]

      “And the trumpet that sings of fame” (Felicia Hemans, “The Landing of the Pilgrims”).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [It was Homer’s requiem]

      T was probably thinking of Homer’s tribute to the mosquito in the Iliad (17.567-73) (Weissman).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [have the Saint Vitus’ dance]

      A nervous disease characterized by involuntary motions of the limbs.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [never old! “Kieou-pe-yu]

      Shanley (1971, 397) has corrected the typographical error of the first edition of W, which read “Kieou-Pe-you.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [accomplish it]

      Cannot accomplish it: In the first edition of W, this reads “cannot come to the end of them,” but in his personal copy of W, T changed it to the present reading, which Shanley accepts.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [messenger! What a worthy messenger]

      Confucian Analects, XIV, xxvi, 2.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [end of the week,—for]

      According to Genesis, the Sabbath is the last day of the week, rather than the first, as in the modern calendar. The Seventh-Day Adventists were particularly active in calling attention to this in T’s day.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Children]

      The idea, which was common to the English romanticists and the American transcendentalists and most notably expressed in Wordsworth’s “Intimations of Immortality,” is that the child has a superior understanding of the universe which he loses as he grows older.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a Hindoo book]

      The Sanchya Karika, translated by Henry Thomas Colebrooke and H. V. Wilson (Oxford, 1837, 72) (Stein, 1970; Hoch, 1970).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [to Aldebaran or Altair]

      The names of various stars and constellations

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [did hourly feed him by]

      The author of these lines is unknown, but they were set to music in 1611 by Robert Jones as the ninth song in The Muses Gardin of Delights, or The Fift Booke of Ayres (Leach; Schultz).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [its own wrath and wanderings]

      The Iliad opens with a reference to Achilles’ wrath, and the Odyssey to the wanderings of Odysseus.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a standing advertisement, till forbidden]

      “Till forbidden,” abbreviated to “tf,” was a printer’s term for a standing advertisement.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [intelligences awake with the morning]

      The Sanchya Karika, translated by Henry Thomas Colebrooke and H. V. Wilson (Oxford, 1837, LXXII, Comment) (Stein, 1970, 304).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [to the woods]

      “He went to the woods … with no intention of abandoning society or of going primitive. Instead, by beginning from scratch, he would relive all human life and history and test the achievement of civilization by what he found, hoping, of course to demonstrate that choice was still possible and to reorient society by showing what had been lost on the way” (Paul, 306). For an exceptionally interesting stylistic analysis of T’s paragraph, see Shwartz, 67-8.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [it in my next excursion]

      T usually referred to his travel essays as “excursions.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [like ants; though the fable]

      Aeacus, son of Jupiter in Greek mythology, was king of Oenopia. When a pestilence destroyed his subjects, he entreated Jupiter to repopulate his kingdom by changing all the ants in an old oak tree into men.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [pygmies we fight with cranes]

      The opening lines of Iliad III compare the Trojans to cranes fighting with pygmies

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [error, and clout upon clout]

      “If we can get a garment to cover without / Our other garments are clout upon clout.” From “New England Annoyances,” with which T was familiar, in John Warner Barber’s Historical Collections … of … Massachusetts (Worcester, 1841, 195).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity]

      If T really meant simplicity seriously, why did he repeat it twice? A number of critics have asked – I trust facetiously.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [at all, by dead reckoning]

      A method of determining the location of a ship by its last known position and its course and direction. Dead reckoning was used especially in bad weather or when stars could not be seen.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [is like a German Confederacy]

      The German Confederation was constantly changing its borders, until national unification in 1871.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [and export ice]

      As we shall see in “The Pond in Winter,” the practice of shipping ice from New England to warmer regions for refrigeration was just beginning.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [and talk through a telegraph]

      The Morse telegraph had been invented in 1835, and by the 1840s was rapidly spreading through the nation.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [ride thirty miles an hour]

      Railroad trains, the first vehicles to reach such speeds, were just coming into the area, and in fact had reached Concord just the year before T moved out to Walden. While T admired the vigor of the railroads, he despaired of its devotion to material ends (Cronkhite).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [do not get out sleepers]

      Ties upon which the railroad tracks were laid. Note the pun, which T makes much of later.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [shall we get to heaven]

      Another reference to Hawthorne’s satire “The Celestial Railroad.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [them. They are sound sleepers]

      Moldenhauer (1964) discusses at length T’s use of paradox here and throughout W.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [of riding on a rail]

      Note the punning allusion to running a person out of town.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [is, without setting the bell]

      The parish bell was rung in one way (known as “setting the bell”) to call people to church, and in another to call them to a fire.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [not set it on fire]

      In May 1844 T and his friend Edward Hoar accidentally set the woods on fire at Fairhaven Bay, destroying a number of acres of trees. T felt guilty about it for years. For his own account of the fire, see his Journal (II, 21- 5). For a contemporary newspaper account, see Thoreau Society Bulletin 32 (1950).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [morning on the Wachito River]

      The Washito (or Ouachita, as it is now called) flows from Arkansas into the Red River in Louisiana. According to Allen, when the residents of that area got into a fight, they would try to gouge out their opponents’ eyes with a turn of the thumb.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the dark unfathomed mammoth cave]

      “Dark unfathomed caves of ocean” (Thomas Gray, “Elegy in a Country Churchyard”). T is referring to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, noted for its blind fish.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [that were worth the postage]

      Actually T was a fairly regular letter writer; the new edition of his correspondence, being prepared for the Princeton edition of his writings, will fill three volumes.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [that penny for his thoughts]

      “A penny for your thought” can be traced at least as far back as John Heywood’s Proverbs (1546).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [The penny-post]

      England had established the so-called penny post in 1839. At the time of the publication of W, letter postage in the United States was three cents.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [over on the Western Railroad]

      A railroad formerly connecting Worcester and Albany, now a part of the Boston and Albany Railroad.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Pedro and Seville and Granada]

      “The persons here named appear prominently in the annals of Spain during the ‘thirties and early ‘forties. During the first part of the period, King Ferdinand and his brother Don Carlos were struggling for power. With the death of the king in 1839, Maria Christina succeeded to the throne as regent. In 1841 she was temporarily replaced by General Espartero, also as regent; but in 1843 the thirteen-year-old Infanta was crowned Queen Isabella” (Crawford, 367).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [was the revolution of 1649]

      When the Commonwealth, under Cromwell, abolished the British monarchy.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [be thrown off the track]

      The trains then spreading their tracks over New England were easily derailed.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [that terrible rapid and whirlpool]

      An allusion to the Scylla and Charybdis of Ulysses’ journey, recorded in the Odyssey.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [the “Mill-dam]

      Still the name of the business center of Concord, so called because it was originally built on the dam of a mill pond, long since filled in.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [the day I was born]

      Another allusion to the romantic belief in the superior wisdom of the child.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [so by the divining rod]

      According to folklore, a stick, usually of willow, that when held in a certain way would, of its own volition, point to the nearest underground source of water (Noverr).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [dinner, situated in the meridian]

      Meridian: noontime.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [to the mast like Ulysses]

      So that he might hear the song of the Sirens yet not succumb to the fatal desire to go to them, Ulysses had himself tied to the mast of his ship and had his sailors’ ears filled with wax.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [a point d’appui]

      A point of support.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 28, 2014

      [a gauge, not a Nilometer]

      “Because of the anxiety occasioned by the rise of the river the kings have constructed a Nilometer at Memphis, where those who are charged with the administration of it accurately measure the rise and despatch messages to the cities” (Diodorus 1.36.10 ).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 29, 2014

      [if it were a cimeter]

      A scimitar, a sword with a curved blade.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 29, 2014

      [thundering voice,—“Pause! Avast]

      Possibly an allusion to Father Taylor of the Boston Seamen’s Bethel, who was famous for the nautical allusions in his sermons. He was the model for the character of Father Mappie in Melville’s Moby-Dick.

      Comment by Hunter Rowell on February 12, 2014

      The first line of the paragraph is such a wonderful one- I get a sense of how living should be done: simple, without stressing out too much about how everything is. To me, especially being a modern reader, I think that we all too well that we shouldn’t make life any harder than it has to be, which is a wonderful concept.

      Comment by Martha Jones on February 25, 2014

      “To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”

       

      This line suggests our ability to change the way our day is perceived. We can allow our emotions to be dulled down by say, a rainy day, or we can look at what we see in a different light. Instead of focusing on the negative we make it into a positive and it is in that moment, that change, that we will “affect” how that day is, which, Thoreau seems to consider an art of its own.

      Comment by Steven Reng on January 5, 2015

      To add to this comment, Thoreau is stating at the beginning of this paragraph how he finds nature to be the prominent component of his happiness. He seems to find that with a simple life, he can be happier, since he has less to worry about. This is a concept that few recognize in today’s society, where lives are becoming increasingly complicated and increasingly negative. By having the opportunity to observe the always-present beauty of nature, Thoreau has little else on his mind, and as a result is quite happy.

      Comment by Kasey Guglielmo on January 5, 2015

      I agree. If we can affect our day and make it better and more positive that can influence how you feel and make you change. Thoreau believes that “it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look.”  The idea of art and change and affect seems to be important also, art is everything including the emotions that we feel.

      Comment by ingrid funez on January 6, 2015

      I agree with your statement because chapter 14 talks about how he wakes up every morning with a cheerful matter. when he so explains, ” To be awake is to be alive. I have never met a man who was quite awake.” Thoreau seems like a man with hope in nature. He  wakes up every morning and takes his time to observe the morning with a nature view.

      Comment by ingrid funez on January 6, 2015

      If we look at the bright side of life, not only that but by waking up every morning with a bright, happy view of the day. Like Thoreau I would think that if we had a different perspective of nature and paying more attention to it life would be better. As he says, ” Every  man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.” is our responsibility to make a difference in our lives.

      Comment by Casey Vincelette on January 27, 2015

      This reminds me of Sherlock Holmes’s theory of the brain being like an attic, and his proclamation that it’s foolish to crowd it with useless facts that aren’t directly relevant to everyday life. This was his reason for not knowing basic facts like the content of the solar system. I think Thoreau’s ideas may make life simpler and more peaceful, and give him a greater focus on living deliberately and getting in tune with himself, but in practice I believe that ignorance often leads to trouble and conflict, especially when you must coexist with other people.

      Comment by Alexa Krowiak on January 29, 2015

      “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep” is so far one of my favorite quotes of Thoreau’s. I really like the meaning behind it about not living our lives “asleep” so to speak and we need to appreciate each day and live to the fullest, not being so fully absorbed in material things.

      Comment by Daisy Anderson on February 1, 2015

      I really love this paragraph in particular, because I feel like the happiest people in life are those who can find good in any situation. A person who can take an environment that many others would find depressing or bothersome, and see it as an opportunity or simply view in a better light is a very powerful person. To me, Thoreau can sound pretentious in a lot of his writing, but this section is one that I really appreciated him putting into words.  I think this idea of manipulating your view of the world into something good is a very important takeaway from this book, and a teaching that would benefit a lot of people today.

      Comment by Allison Fox on February 1, 2015

      Thoreau’s litany of “simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!” encapsulates his dismay towards technology. In this section, Thoreau champions introspection and an uncomplicated lifestyle. He censures humanity for their desire to innovate, focusing on the railroad.  He does not believe advanced transportation to be a necessity, but more importantly, he considers the project consuming and detrimental. He claims that if people detached from their desires for speed, wealth and material things, we could live more meaningful lives.  The line , “We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us,” demonstrates the power and control that technology wields over humans. Thoreau is disconcerted with “sleepers” or workers who willingly and ignorantly devote their life work to constructing a steel track. He calls for everyone to wake up from dreams of modernization, and avoid society’s obsession and devotion to technology. I could only imagine how disgusted Thoreau would be with smartphones. However, I cannot agree with his aversion for advancement. I acknowledge that people are bound to ringtones, notifications and text messages, and that we as the creators have ironically become enslaved by our own products. But, it will always be our choice whether or not to hit the power button or look at the screen. Additionally, technology has had obvious beneficial impacts, and I think that it would be absurd and unsafe to live without it completely. Thoreau is correct in the captivating potentials of technology, but he fails to credit human accountability, and recognize how technological advancement, in moderation, has transcended us.

      Comment by Catherine McCormick on February 2, 2015

      I feel that Walden has made a good point here, but he is living in conflict with his own beliefs. In a lot of ways I view his sojourn into the woods to be a break from reality. Here he is exhaulting the goodness of being one with nature and how it can transform anyone’s life, but he does not understand the true implications of this life. He has not lived it his entire existance. He does not understand the toils of working the land consistantly to survive, he has not felt the gnawing hunger of starvation, and so I don’t feel he has the authority to comment on this. I do realize that he has mentioned that his decsion is for everyone. I read this passage and felt that he was waxing poetic on a lifestyle he does not fully understand.

      Comment by Melissa Rao on February 9, 2015

      Living deliberately is something that Thoreau felt was lacking in his society, and I believe that this concept is still absent in our society today.  So many people go through life on the conveyor belt of school to college to working a 9-5 job with little thought as to what they really want to accomplish in their lives.  High school seniors are basically mandated to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives at the young age of 17 or 18 in order to keep going on that conveyor belt.  It is abnormal, or even looked down upon if someone decides to forgo college and take the road less travelled.  Living deliberately is the way to truly enjoying life and getting the most out of the endeavors you go through, and I believe that our society needs to make a change in this direction to have happier, and healthier future generations.

      Comment by Amanda Wentworth on March 4, 2015

      To add to this discussion of hope in the morning, Thoreau captures the renewal, power, and energy that can be found in the morning time. When one performs this of her own ambition, there is an incredible opportunity for productivity, or even simple tranquility. However, I don’t think that T is merely arguing that the time of day which constitutes morning is what must be experienced. T argues that the world needs to throw off its sleepiness and actively participate in life: “Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me… It matters not what the clock says…” This is yet another section where T eerily speaks to our contemporary society, one that could be seen as constantly sleeping, physically or otherwise. I see this as a call to arms against idleness, particularly the idleness of mind.

      Comment by Joshua Brand on November 8, 2015

      Thoreau explains how living a life in complete solitude and restricting himself to only the bare essentials is truly living. Through this he feels he is getting a more realistic idea at how life actually is. Although I believe Thoreau may be finding his own serenity and living simply, it is an unrealistic way of life. I disagree that isolating oneself is a more genuine way of living. People are social beings and rely on each other not only to survive, but for interaction too. I do see a reasoning for removing from society, to get a feel for doing things on your own. By removing himself from everyone he may have taken a step too far.

      Comment by Lam Bui on November 8, 2015

      This passage harbors plenty of meaningful messages but particularly at the end. Beginning from “Moral reform is…” to “How could I have…”, Thoreau challenges his audience to become aware of their lives or to rise from slumber. Thoreau claimed there are millions of productive workers who are unconsciously laboring away; the mentality of a person half-asleep, functioning on autopilot. The contextual use of “morning” can then be interpreted as a time of awakening oneself both physically and intellectually.

      By applying one’s intelligence and conscientiousness into the pursuit of life’s greater goals, he or she will then lead a divine life. A life that Thoreau has never met.

      Comment by Andrew Inchiosa on November 11, 2015

      [Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own newly-acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air—to a higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less than the light. ] 

      Interesting solely if taken at face value but even more so, if thought about metaphorically. Maybe the mechanical nudgings of a servitor are not only the tones of an alarm clock, but the aspirations and meanings given to us by society? Perhaps the Genius that physically awakes us in the morning if we allow it, is also the pull to think above the conventions society has established and to seek our own purpose separate of them as Thoreau seeks to do in is retreat to Walden.

      Comment by Anthony Bettina on May 2, 2016

      To me, this passage perfectly encapsulates the point that Thoreau is trying to get across throughout the entirety of Walden. “I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.” Thoreau went to the woods because he is a transcendentalist thinker who is challenging what his society had to offer. He wanted to go to the woods to to immerse himself in the simplicity of life, to find out what the true meaning of being a human was. To find out the true meaning of being a man, without the hindrance of society, to find out what living life at its foundation truly means. As a side note, I also thought that it was interesting that he brought religion into the passage. Once again, he is challenging society, challenging man’s fixation with religion, and stating that one must fruitfully live their life on earth as opposed to just simply accepting that God is “the chief end of man.”

      Comment by James Douglass on May 11, 2016

      This paragraph reminds me of Emerson’s ideas of nature and the over-soul. Emerson talked about how nature is a reflection of our own mental state. This paragraph may seem to make the 2 transcendentalists have conflicting ideas, but really they are in harmony. What we see around us is representative of our inner mental state, and by seeing the positive and beautiful aspects of nature around us, we show the positive energy within ourselves.

      But I think this passage is not just about a positive perspective, but also about contemplating everything. There are little miracles everywhere to contemplate. We should always keep a sense of child-like wonder for what we see around us, even for the tiniest snail.

      Comment by Mary Robicheaux on October 8, 2017

      [To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?]

      These three sentences seem to comment on how routine most of society is. People generally go through each day simply doing the same thing as the day before, not necessarily fully engaged in the present. They also might be worrying about one thing or another, which would add to their distraction from their current surroundings. These people are not “awake”, as Thoreau describes them, but somewhere between wakefulness and sleep. To see someone fully awake would be so intense and unusual, Thoreau would have had a hard time directly looking at him.

      Comment by Savannah Robert on October 8, 2017

      This is even more applicable today.  How often do we check our e-mail ten times to avoid starting work?   With endless new apps, news sources, and social media, people are constantly distracted.  For many people, every opportunity of free time is filled with these apps (especially social media)-  despite knowing that social media is linked to higher rates of depression.  However, research shows that many of these platforms are addicting.  Unfortunately, much of the information we receive is unimportant in benefiting our lives.  While I personally believe that the point of view presented here is extreme (connections to one another are important!), I do agree that there is too much hype related to news.  Negativity is spread through the news and it is usually filled with bias.  This has been an issue and continues to be an issue, with no end in sight.  What might Thoreau think about the outrageous prices we pay for cell phones and internet access?  He believes that the post-office is unnecessary.  This business is slowly fading out today, but it has been replaced by so many other businesses and technology.  While it can look like we simplified life, it can also look like we have made things more difficult.

      Comment by Lane Riggs on October 8, 2017

      “Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails.” This makes me think of sustainable living. From the communities I have learned about, one thing seems to be prevalent in them all: a need to get away from the “real” world. As in Thoreau’s writings, there’s a need to get back to nature, get back to the root of all things without any kind of distractions. This paragraph and this sentence make me think of that idea, and that’s what I think sustainability is: the ability to live on your own, without any distractions. Similarly, it seems that by living this way, Thoreau thinks a person can sustain themselves.

      Comment by Sarah Kinzer on October 9, 2017

      In reading this and reflecting on sustainability, I find an interesting tension here between awake and asleep. Thoreau acknowledges that he has “never yet met a man who was quite awake.” By his logic, such a man would be fully divine. Humans have the capacity to touch this divinity but not necessarily to fully embody it because of the inevitable necessity for sleep. Rest is necessary in many senses, and I’m wondering where the sustainable balance is between striving for awakeness and allowing one’s self rest.

      Comment by Debra Schleef on October 11, 2017

      I am wondering what Thoreau would have thought reading about having student read his work as a standard in high school. Would he think this a good thing? That it would help everyone to live deliberately? Live less meanly?

       

      Comment by Cody McDaniel on October 11, 2017

      Thoreau’s idea of sustainability works for him but his methods of farming and simplicity would likely be much harder to accomplish if he had a large family. Once someone has a family they will likely want to provide them with medicine if they are sick. his sustainable life style also relies on the docility of his neighbors. Without community how can a man protect his family from robbers or brigands. Also his desire to eat simply is fine but is very susceptible to outside forces like disease or nature destroying crops.

      Comment by Benjamin Fritz on October 26, 2017

      I wonder whether Thoreau considers himself to be “awake” or not. Perhaps he realizes that this is not something someone can judge for themselves because everyone believes themselves to be awake.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on February 10, 2018

      This is extremely subtle. He is not living in a cabin, he does not think he is nearer to the forest or the pond or even Concord. He believes he is nearer to those places in “the universe” and “those eras in history” which most attracts him. Reminds me of a line from Rumi who says, “The whole seven heavens are like a shirt which is too tight for me.” From Iran, Ali

      Comment by Julia McGaugh on April 23, 2018

      [To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?]

      Thoreau comments on those who live life resembling sleepwalkers, lacking true purpose and meaning in their existence. Is Thoreau himself awake? This criticism of his, unlike some of his other points of contention, seems to be solely directed toward other people.

      Comment by Nathan Stivers on September 12, 2018

      Thoreau makes the argument that, “All intelligences awake with the morning.” This is especially interesting because of the time-period he writes this, preceding the commercial availability of the electric light by more than 10 years. He argues that part of his excursion involves some sort of aesthetic ideal, which is for him, to be truly awake. A feeling, or ‘Genius,’ elicited most profoundly by a pleasant morning. The kind of morning, Thoreau claims, that’s found frequently on Walden Pond.

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 13, 2018

      [Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.]

      This reminds me of Macintyre’s idea of accountability in narrative.  The little critical details of a life make up the whole and you are still accountable for those critical hours in your narrative.  Thoreau asks them to “elevate” their lives. Each hour, you decide to spend usefully, or waste, and your accountable for how you spent that time when you detail your life.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      This line is incredibly interesting and insightful. What should we think Thoreau is getting at here? Does he mean to claim that the shepherd is not aware and so he is not insightful?   Or is he proclaiming that the shepherds thoughts can only go as high as the sheep can?

      This point can contrast with the ideas that Thoreau supported such as individualism. This sort of dependence is opposition.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      Thoreau seems to be stating that we need to start living with the purpose to live and to not just survive through means that only bring hardship and don’t help to elevate the mind.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      Wow. He wanted to to simplify life in the most basic and in some cases gritty ways. He wanted to “start from the beginning,” and to tell the world of his experience. To find what there is to find.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      We have resulted to clout, things that we have created to block our own progress, or maybe it was the wrong type of progress. Or maybe we have progressed so much that we have forgotten what it is to truly enjoy life, and to not live for superficial means.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      Do we not see what is beyond because we do not wish too? Is it our clout of “reality” that hinders us spiritually and insight-fully? The universe seems to be right in front of us, and yet we continue to miss the signs.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      In this sentence Thoreau seems to claim that we need to look past all in which we have created, and the ideas in which history has implemented and to look at what is on common ground. To see what reality is for what reality is.

      Comment by Alexandra Welker on September 18, 2018

      [ Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering? They are not such poor calculators. If they had not been overcome with drowsiness they would have performed something. The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?]

      I find this very interesting. How come no one is quite alive? People are alive and able to do work, but they can still not be able to think. I feel this way several times. Like I can be alert for my grueling 8 hour job, but coming time to read and study my mind can not be truly there.

      Comment by Hannah Fuller on September 18, 2018

      [To be awake is to be alive.]

      This sentence really spoke to me because as simple as it may seem, it is packed with a much more deeper meaning. In this passage, Thoreau talks about being truly awake and alive by participating and being active in your life instead of just letting it pass by. People seem to be focused on what’s coming next–what plans they have, where they have to go, and what they have to buy rather than focusing on the here and now.

      Comment by Clare Corbett on September 18, 2018

      [It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. ]

      I found his definition of the morning to be interesting. I think it represents his view of society because he doesn’t wish to follow societal norms. He would rather go about his day how he wishes without being told what to do or when to do it.

      Comment by Jennifer Lew on September 18, 2018

      Especially in modern day there is such a push to complete tasks and to worry about trivial problems. I definitely agree that we shouldn’t be letting societal pressures have as much of an impact our lives. Sometimes we should have time to take a deep breath and appreciate life in the moment.

      Comment by Zach Engel on September 23, 2018

      Thoreau discusses his idea that people are too caught up in unimportant things, and that as a result, we are severely limited in what we experience and in what we can do because our focus lies somewhere completely unnecessary.

      Comment by Zach Engel on September 23, 2018

      [ Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure.]

      Thoreau is basically saying that children know more about life than adults do–because they imagine how it will be when they are older, and pretend to experience it as adults, while adults themselves refuse to acknowledge it and just let it fly by without a thought.

      Comment by John Mattison on September 26, 2018

      This is the part of the passage which I believe is when it shifts to theory. Here we can see Thoreau making broad claims but still making sure to acknowledge exceptions by referring to “most men” instead of “all men.”

      Comment by Michael Frederick on February 18, 2019

      Compare “Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.” and paragraph 11, the so-called “doubleness” passage, in chapter 5, “Solitude.”

      Comment by Hannah Fahy on February 18, 2020

      It seems as though Thoreau is most at peace when he has the least amount of technology. Though this particular example is metaphorical, Thoreau is denying the simplest of technologies in favor of sitting inside his own head. He doesn’t want to use the alphabet nor tools that require his hands or feet. He admits that this is making he less wide, and yet he doesn’t feel troubled by that. Instead, he feels like an animal driven by instinct without the worries that come with being human. This is fairly ironic considering he is disconnected from modern technologies in order to write which is something nearly exclusive to the human experience. In Gleick’s The Information, we learn that the alphabet and written word are complex technologies that revolutionized communication and history-keeping. It’s interesting that Thoreau would reject “technology” only to be doing something highly technological, writing about the human experience.

      Comment by Sandy Brahaspat on February 18, 2020

      [For my part, I could easily do without the post-office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it.]

      As someone who finds a lot of pleasure in reading epistolary novels, I am quick to disagree with Thoreau\’s sentiment that there are \”very few important communications\” made through the postal system. Having said that, I think it\’s worth noting that Thoreau\’s sentiment about news and the hysteria surrounding it- which he labels as \”gossip\”- bears striking similarities to our current fiasco with fake news and the widespread of misinformation. It\’s without a doubt that the development of the internet and modern social media platforms makes it both easier and faster to spread misinformation without having to be directly responsible for the consequences. In fact, I think Thoreau makes a clever observation about the ways in which news can often be a form of entertainment when he recalls hearing about \”a rush\” to learn of foreign news. I think it\’s clear that Thoreau may be commenting on a particular way of life that may not be so different from our own and we ought to remember that just because information is readily available at our fingertips doesn\’t necessarily mean we should blindly trust or accept everything we read or hear on the web because sometimes- it might just very well be gossip.

      Comment by Kyle Regan on February 18, 2020

      The part of this paragraph that really stood out to me was his critique of the news in general. His perspective of never having to read about certain unfortunate events more than once i think identifies an issue in today society. With the scope of the media today we are constantly inundated with terrible news. As soon as a terrible thing happens it gets plastered everywhere. Thoreau seems to see these things being all in the newspaper is more like gossip to him. What I think he misses is the issue of monetization of tragedy and its possible effects on the average person. Thoreau writes that “not a few are greedy after this gossip” which I took as there are many people who are interested in this news. Which is similar to today in that many people like to know about the new thing that just happened even if it has a negative effect on their mood/mental health.

      Comment by Emma Annonio on February 18, 2020

      In this passage, Thoreau details his peace with nature and his mind. He notes that the “intellectual is a cleaver. . .” meaning that the one who seeks out knowledge will more easily be able to see the truth and simplicity in things. His goal is too live a simple life and he begins his journey in doing this by building his own house, with the knowledge in his head and the materials in his hand. These are the only things he will ever need to live a simple life. In comparison to today, out lives are far but simple. If I were asked to name three things I could not survive without, as pathetic as it may sound, my phone or laptop would be one of those objects. I have grown up learning to use technology and it has manifested its way into our society to the point where many people would not know how to live life without out technological devices. This may not be all bad though. Today, living life simply in the persecutive of one person, may be going through life doing the things you love and not worrying about information that may get in the way of that; technology enables us to live our lives this way. While I may not be living simply by Thoreau’s standards, the technology has enhanced and simplified the way I live my life. It has made communication faster and more efficient. It has transformed the workforce runs and It enables people t connect with those across the world. Thoreau goes on to say his best faculties are concentrated in his head; is our ability to use technology one of best faculties? I have noticed that swiping a screen has become a natural motion for toddlers and I wonder if this is a sign that we are evolving and transforming as a race into an age of technology or that we are forgetting what it means to be human and live a simple life?

      Comment by Mitchell Pace on February 19, 2020

      Throughout, Thoreau makes the point of wanting to live without technology. He craved a peaceful life unbothered by the hold of the machines and aids that are commonplace and taken for granted. As we read through Gleick, we see the development of technologies that strive to make people’s lives easier. Gleick features the telegraph prominently, a technology that makes communication easier and faster. As someone else had pointed out in their comment, this ease came with the consequence of communication towers marring the natural world. With how the advancement of technology slowly takes over and replaces the natural in our lives, we can see Thoreau’s work as a lamentation in this section. So many people don’t care or become complacent with how technology demands more space from our world as it develops and as it develops, technology has slowly taken over the attention of the people. Thoreau is preaching against this, believing people shouldn’t strive to let technology take over all aspects of their lives, but to go out and work themselves to accomplish their goals.

      Comment by Maeve Morley on February 19, 2020

      Thoreau emphasizes the beauty of life one can live without the interference, or temptation of technology. This is a common concern in Gleick’s The Information, in which the progression throughout time opens the door to various new inventions, and critics of technology fear the effect it’ll have on humans. Today, we see a stark difference between Thoreau’s technology-free life where one is “reawakened” with the reality and beauty of life without the help of “mechanical aids,” and current day modern times where many are too consumed with their phones, or computers and forget the meaning of life.

      Comment by Rachel Beck on February 19, 2020

      In this paragraph, Thoreau talks about communication. He says he can do without the post office because there are few important communications made through it. This reminds me of what Gleick writes about in chapter six of The Information. This particular chapter focuses on the creation of the talking telegraph, or the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell invented this means of communication to make it easier to send messages. This makes me wonder what Thoreau would think of the telephone. I mean, he thinks the post office is pointless because humans don’t have anything important to say. Apparently, when it was first invented, many business people thought the telephone was a joke in comparison to the the telegraph, because while the telegraph dealt in facts and numbers, the telephone appealed to emotions. How would Thoreau feel about this?

      Comment by Abigail Henry on February 19, 2020

      [We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.]

      Here, Thoreau talks about his desire to live a more natural and spiritualistic way of life. To him, advancing oneself morally is more important than advancing technologically. I wonder what he would think of the scenarios given in Gleick’s The Information, in which people interweave technology into their daily lives to make things simpler (such as inventing the telegraph for easier and faster communication). For example, I wonder what he would think of social media today. It has been argued for a long time that social media can be detrimental to an individual’s mental health, although, I believe that when used consciously and purposefully, it can lead to this moral growth that Thoreau describes.

      Comment by Kira Baran on February 19, 2020

      “It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”

      To paraphrase these lines, Thoreau is saying that the most honorable thing a human can do is to work towards a positive outlook on life, as well as a positive interpretation of the information/events/things/people that make up life. Perspective is what matters, and humans are capable of changing their viewpoints for the better. In a modern world where it is easy to react by becoming depressed at all the bad things happening in life as portrayed by the media, the only option left is to defy this by working on oneself and the attitude with which one will approach the news/information received with each new day.

      By adopting a growth mindset/mentality, people can change the very lens by which the world is seen, rather than having to change the things that make up the world. This connects to the digital humanities (not to mention technology/communication/media in general), in that the digital humanities are the lens–the “very atmosphere and media through which we look”–by which humans share their perspectives on human experience.

      As Gleick notes in The Information, “[I]nformation storage . . . counts as communication. The message is not created, it is selected” (p. 222). Here, Gleick seems to echo Thoreau by saying that humans are capable of transforming their perspectives by selecting how they will choose to interpret and respond to information and events. Computers and digital literature are, in essence, lenses and vehicles for human perspective.

      Comment by Emma Raupp on February 19, 2020

      “In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify.”

      Simplicity is an important tenet of Thoreau’s life ‘lived deliberately.’ The smallest bits of information, vital to communication, are uncovered via simplification. Complicated messages are encoded, or simplified, to be easily transmitted and received. Otherwise, our communication would be much more difficult. Gleick writes: “The transmitter “operates on the message in some way”—that is, encodes the message—to produce a suitable signal. A telephone converts sound pressure into analog electric current. A telegraph encodes characters in dots, dashes, and spaces. More complex messages may be sampled, compressed, quantized, and interleaved” (223). This sense of conversion, between complex and simpler symbols of meaning, from our everyday language to the computer languages used for coding, fuels the human ability to communicate over great distances and with great speed. So by simplifying and simplifying, perhaps contrary to Thoreau’s anticipation, we ended up with a information technology more complex than ever.

       

      Comment by Maeve Morley on April 2, 2020

      “Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with nature herself. I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks.”

      The beginning of this paragraph was significantly shortened with Thoreau explaining his appreciation and excitement for every morning. In the fluid text edition, he initially states: “The morning is to every one the season of his ideal life. Then, if ever, we can realize the life of the Greeks and we are all at some time good heathens enough to acknowledge and worship their Aurora.” These two sentences were cut, and so he immediately jumps to describing himself as a worshipper of Aurora like the Greeks. Aurora is the ancient Roman version of Eos, the Ancient Greek goddess of the dawn. With these two sentences, Thoreau delves into a deeper description of his connection to the Greeks and the morning. My thoughts regarding this change is that he might have cancelled these two sentences due to the fact that he wanted to put greater emphasis on his appreciation of every coming morning instead of his worshipping relationship with the Greeks.

      Comment by Emma Annonio on May 4, 2020

      I am writing this as I work on my final project for the class. This is one of the passages we have chosen to include in our timeline of revisions as it had noticeable and substantial revisions across versions A and C, that we will pick apart and analyze. Thinking ahead to our blog post, I want to relate our entire project to the circumstances our world is currently facing, as it has changed some aspect of everybody’s life. Thoreau’s writings can be easily connected to everything that is happening today during the pandemic. This paragraph focuses on news and what news means. These lines in particular focus onboard news, to which Thoreau responds, “one is enough, we never need read of another,” noticing that all bad news is the same and t does no good for the public. Today, I feel like that is all we are seeing news sights reporting about the virus – bad news. Would he view news differently if more good news or important news was reported? Perhaps, the revisions gave us an insight to that.

      Comment by Ainsley Owens on February 8, 2021

      [Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself]

      This line speaks for Thoreau’s mindset.He woke up every day with the knowledge that each day was a new day and he had the opportunity to make each day better than that of before. Additionally, his connection with nature is an essential aspect of his life, something that he prioritizes mentally every morning. Thoreau’s way of life is essentially centered around nature.

      Comment by Ainsley Owens on February 8, 2021

      This paragraph gives insight on Thoreau’s philosophy. He believes that an individual entirely has the power to change their day, not in their actions, but in how they view the actions of themselves and others. He compares the way one views life with the ability to paint a picture or carve a statute to the ability to carve or paint their perception of life. Thoreau states it is essential for every individual to make the most of his life in every possible detail, no matter how small.

      Comment by kenneth demerchant on February 9, 2021

      [Cassiopeia’s]

      Cassiopeia is a constellation in the northern sky. In Mythology, Cassiopeia was the wife of King Cepheus.

      Comment by kenneth demerchant on February 9, 2021

      [I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.]

      This part of the paragraph means that he wanted to live out in the woods on purpose and wanted to see what life wouldn’t hand him.

      Comment by Katelyn Cummings on February 9, 2021

      [we never need read of another. One is enough.]

      They were talking about reading the newspaper and they get to a section that talks about negative or sad information they only read one and that is it. I find this surprising because I thought they would just continue to read it and find out what else is going on. I understand that they don’t want negative emotions in their life and they want to live a life full of positivity. But to me it seems interesting that they didn’t finish reading the rest of the paper. For me personally I would have wanted to read another article and find out what else is going on.

      Comment by Owen Amigo on February 9, 2021

      Being out and living alone in the woods certainly brings tough tasks and challenges but also teaches some of the most fundamental facts of life. Thoreau did not want to go through life and die not having lived life to the fullest extent.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 9, 2021

      [Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep]

      “Sleep” here seems to be defined as “sleepwalking through life” or just following tradition and convention, and “moral reform” –of society or oneself? or both? –requires fully waking up, to see with new eyes, and change.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 9, 2021

      [One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip.]

      Kati, I read this less as Thoreau keeping out bad news than saying all news repeats the same old stories/ gossip. He’s interested in general “principles” or rules to live by, rather than a particular story of what happened somewhere. (He prefers philosophy to the news.)

      Comment by Steven Covey on February 10, 2021

      I really like the first sentence, “Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.”

      Comment by Steven Covey on February 10, 2021

      I like how he relates time as a stream.

      Comment by Sofie Wolters on February 10, 2021

      “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.” To me, Thoreau emphasises how people nowadays keep mindlessly living their lives without actually paying attention. He calls on us to be more conscious in our life and about everyday occurrences, eg. the sunrise. We need to be aware and take in the things around us to avoid us looking back on our lives and questioning if we really got the most out of it.

      Comment by Dylan Thorburn on February 10, 2021

      [It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do.]

      In this sentence, Thoreau is trying to say that it is important to think positively even on difficult days. Thoreau is trying to get people to understand that the world could look and feel much better if they are optimistic and bright towards their surroundings.

      Comment by sully blair on February 10, 2021

      Is he someone that has trouble realizing the ideal self and the self made image he has dreamt of and created for himself? What is this Genius for him?

       

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 10, 2021

      It’s inspired and inspiring. Some people read Walden as claiming he was far from everyone and everything, but I think he’s saying he just got enough distance to get some perspective on life, so it felt like he was “far off” even though he was just outside town –Like going camping for a weekend .

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 10, 2021

      That’s a great- and hard- question. He uses that word “Genius” to mean something like our Soul or Imagination or Inner / True Self. Other “Romantic” writers used it, too, to mean an original, inner self, unchanged by society.  So here, he’s hoping to rise each day and be focused, purposeful, and live fully.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 10, 2021

      Exactly! Well said, Ainsley!

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 10, 2021

      Yes, absolutely, Sofie! He recommends paying close attention every day and also keeping an “expectation of the dawn,” a belief in the chance, always, for continued growth and renewal in our lives.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 10, 2021

      Exactly, Dylan! Ainsley from our class also commented on these lines a couple comments up. Can you see that? And she wrote a similar response. 🙂 Great minds…

      Comment by Liam Bilodeau on February 2, 2022

      [ If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter,—we never need read of another. ]

      Today it is the opposite.  We read about the same kind of events in the news, mostly violence.  It reoccurs.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 2, 2022

      We do see much more violence in the news than he did. He’s suggesting also, though, that news is essentially gossip, since it repetitively tells us “what happened” but rarely asks or answers “why?”  (One could certainly argue with his view or characterization of news…)

      Comment by Keera Lopusiewicz on February 3, 2022

      “We must learn to reawaken ourselves and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our deepest sleep.” This is a line that truly stood out to me in this chapter, as well as the segment that follows. According to Thoreau, in order for us to become reinvigorated, and to “reawaken” ourselves from this metaphysical sleep that is reflective of us essentially losing our states of being, we must be friendly, understanding, and optimistic in our actions and behaviors. Despite the troublesome times we may inevitably endure, finding the beauty in our everyday routines, as well as within ourselves, is a voluntary step toward a sense of enlightenment. From his perspective, we go about our lives blindly, almost mechanically. In order to abandon the ways of a machine, in order to remain conscious, it is vital that we take the time to admire the small details of our day-to-day lives, bathe in them, and embrace them.

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 3, 2022

      I really like the reference he used to demonstrate the difference between living and not living the right way. T uses morning and being awake as a form to say that he was alive and living his life as his best by not worrying about anything. However, he also used sleep as a way of people not actually living their life because they live in the way people want them to live instead of living how they really want. People are alive but not actually living.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 3, 2022

      Spot on, Keera, and that idea of reawakening runs throughout Walden. One indication that we live mechanically is how hard it is to remember what we did two days ago–

      Comment by Brodie Messer on February 8, 2022

      [Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches today to save nine tomorrow.]

      Really enjoyed looking at his line because after I looked it up to get a better understanding figured out it’s about procrastination and how problems can build up which I have been guilty of at times.

      Comment by Brodie Messer on February 8, 2022

      [To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.]

      Thought this quote was very applicable towards our lives in the present and our issues with news/media currently.

  • Economy 1-14 (184 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [the chief end of man]

      “What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever” (the Shorter Catechism, from The New England Primer). While T quotes twice from this major document of orthodox Protestantism, he was anything but orthodox in his own religious beliefs (Bush).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [According to Evelyn]

      John Evelyn, Sylva; or, A Discourse of Forest Trees (London, 1679, 227).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [we should cut our nails]

      “The nails neither to exceed nor come short of the finger tips” (Hippocrates, “In the Surgery,” Works [Loeb, 1928, III, 63]).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [I wrote the following pages]

      Morse (150), choosing these opening lines as a notable example, says, “In truth W is a self-dramatizing, self-advertising and deeply duplicitous book that seeks to mask its excessive ambitions behind a facade of commonsense and practicality.” W is filled with wordplay of all sorts. Lane (1970) analyzes at length the puns in the first three paragraphs of the book. Donald Ross (1971) provides a checklist of the wordplay T uses.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [rather the bulk of them]

      T wrote no more than half the text while at the pond. The rest was worked on in the later versions before publication (Shanley, 1957, 125). “The bulk of them” is an aside quite typical of T, as Broderick (1982) wittily demonstrates – a sort of precursor of the modern footnote – and T uses it deftly.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [the notice of my readers]

      For a particularly thoughtful study of the relationship between T and his intended audience, see Railton.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [inquiries]

      Although T is undoubtedly referring to many direct inquiries, some of which he describes later in the book, he is also probably referring to the fact that he was asked by his fellow townsmen to give three lectures before the Concord Lyceum on his experiences at Walden. The texts of these lectures were later incorporated into the book itself. Much of the material on this page, for example, was taken from his lecture of February 10, 1847. Rossi (251) suggests that T started his account of his life at Walden earlier and used the inquiries as a rhetorical pretext for explaining his purpose in writing.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [who have lived seventy years]

      “The days of our years are three-score and ten” (Psalms 90:10).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [some would call impertinent]

      Note that “impertinent” can refer to “inquiries,” “townsmen,” or “life” (Cavell, 45).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [always on the limits]

      On the limits: to the point of overdrawing a bank account.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [debt, a very ancient slough]

      T is undoubtedly referring to the “Slough of Despond” in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress where insolvent debtors were mired.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [only not state-prison offences]

      Misdemeanors are punished by imprisonment in county jail; felonies, in state prison.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [contracting yourselves into a nutshell]

      “I could be bounded in a nutshell” (Hamlet, II, ii, 260).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [lead lives of quiet desperation]

      T uses the words “desperation” and “desperate” six times in this one brief paragraph (Cavell, 55).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [bravery of minks and muskrats]

      Minks and muskrats, when caught in steel traps, will even chew their own feet off to free themselves (Dean).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a mile from any neighbor]

      Actually there was a whole hamlet of huts and shanties occupied by Irish railroad laborers less than half a mile from T’s cabin, but T chose to ignore them. Hawthorne (395) gives a vivid description of this colony. While there is a general impression that T lived in a hut or shanty at Walden, he himself, in W, refers to it more than eighty times as a “house,” only twice as a “hut,” and never as a shanty. It was undoubtedly much better built than many other houses in Concord (Robbins).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [dry wood under a pot]

      Dry wood under a pot: a reference to railroads, which in the 1840s were beginning to spread throughout the country.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [people, as the phrase is]

      I have been unable to find this phrase in any collection of sayings or proverbs.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [thirty]

      Although T was eight days short of twenty-eight years of age when he went to Walden Pond to live, he wrote a large portion of the book in later years, not completing it until 1854, when he was thirty-six. In the campus rebellions of the 196os and ’70s, a common cry of college students was ‘”Don’t trust anyone over thirty.” T, appropriately, was one of the few heroes of those rebelling students.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [earnest advice from my seniors]

      Yet T quotes continually from his “seniors” – Confucius, Darwin, Chapman, and so on – throughout the book (Bickman, 35).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [cannot live on vegetable food]

      Although T was not an absolute vegetarian, as were some of his transcendentalist friends, he did follow a modified vegetarian diet for many years. See the chapter “Higher Laws.” See also Joseph Jones.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [of life in some circles]

      For an elaborate discussion of the circle images in W, see Tuerk.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [what thou hast left undone]

      “Be not afflicted, my child, for who shall efface what thou hast formerly done, or shall assign to thee what thou hast left undone?” (H. H. Wilson, trans., The Vishnu Purana [London, 1840, p. 871]).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the shore of Walden Pond]

      Lyon discusses Walden Pond as a symbol. “Walden remains Thoreau’s ultimate image of God upon Earth and the central symbol of the work to which it gives its name” (299).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [in Concord]

      Concord, then a village of about 2,000 people, is 18 miles northwest of Boston. It is now a prosperous suburb with a population of 15,000.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [two years and two months]

      Exactly two years, two months, and two days—that is, from July 4, 1845, to September 6, 1847.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [what I]

      “In all, the first-person pronoun occurs almost three thousand times in W: ‘I’ 1816 times, ‘my’ 723 times, ‘me’ 306 times, and ‘myself’ 65 times” (Neufeldt, 1989, 181). In fact, T used “I” so frequently that the printer ran out of the letter occasionally in setting type (Stern, 145).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a simple and sincere account]

      There are those who question just how “simple and sincere” T’s own account is—and not without reason.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [poor students]

      “Poor” in the sense of needy, rather than inferior. Note the particular audience to whom T is addressing the book. He later suggests W is primarily for those who are dissatisfied with their present life.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the Chinese and Sandwich Islanders]

      The common nineteenth-century name for Hawaiians.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [of another like stranded vessels]

      Both Bonner (1985) and Springer discuss the surprisingly large number of nautical images throughout W.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [heard of Brahmins]

      Upper-caste Hindus who frequently subjected themselves to various penances as acts of devotion. For an extensive analysis of Hindu influences on this chapter, see Stein (1969).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the face of the sun]

      The sun acts as a key symbol in W; see Hyman.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [can pass into the stomach]

      T is quoting from The Library of Entertaining Knowledge: The Hindoos (London, 1834, II, 57-8), which in turn quotes from James Mill, The History of India (1817; London, 1848, I, 410). Hoch (1971 and 1975) gives good brief surveys of Hindu influences on T, as does McShane.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [and suckled by a wolf]

      Romulus, the founder of Rome, and his brother Remus are fabled to have been stranded as babies at the foot of the Palatine hill and adopted and suckled by a she-wolf.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [they eat their sixty acres]

      The then typical size of a farm in the Concord area.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [only his peck of dirt]

      “We must eat a peck of dirt before we die” is a proverb that can be traced at least as far back as Oswald Dyke’s English Proverbs of 1709.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [by four, its Augean stables]

      Augeas had 3,000 oxen, and his stables had not been cleaned for thirty years.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [called]

      Called: T, by the use of this word, stresses how frequently we are misled by the names of things (Cavell, 65).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [says in an old book]

      “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal” (Matthew 6:19). T’s referring to the Bible as “an old book” did not ingratiate him among his religiously conservative contemporaries. For a checklist of biblical allusions in W, see Long.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Deucalion and Pyrrha]

      Deucalion, the son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrha were the only mortals saved when Zeus decided to annihilate the degenerate race of man. Upon the advice of Themis, they covered their heads and cast stones over their shoulders which turned into men, thereby repopulating the earth.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [damus quâ simus origine nati]

      Ovid, Metamorphoses, I, 414-5.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [in his sonorous way]

      Sir Walter Raleigh, History of the World, book 1, part 1, chap. 2, sec. 5.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [a stocking behind the plastering]

      Traditional places to hide one’s savings.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [but somewhat foreign]

      “Foreign” because it was limited to the southern states.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [to have a southern overseer]

      Overseer: supervisor of slaves. T was an active abolitionist all his adult life.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [to have a northern one]

      Despite the popular understanding that T fled the problems of modem civilization, he was one of the earliest Americans to protest the northern factory system. He favored beginning one’s reforms at home, rather than in a distant land.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [of a divinity in man]

      Although the Puritans concerned themselves with man as a sinner, the transcendentalists of T’s day talked more of the divinity of man. See, for example, Emerson’s “Divinity School Address.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [reflect that this my Mentors]

      Mentor was the friend and counselor of Telemachus, the son of Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey. The term has come to mean a wise counselor.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [twelve labors of Hercules]

      Hercules, the most celebrated of all heroes of antiquity, was commanded to perform twelve feats before he could obtain his release from servitude to Eurystheus. They included such tasks as fetching the golden apples of the Hesperides and cleaning the stables of Augeas.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [They have no friend Iolas]

      One of the labors of Hercules was to fight the Lernean Hydra, a serpent with nine heads. As fast as Hercules cut off one head, two · grew in its place. But finally with the aid of his servant Iolas he burned away the heads and buried the ninth, immortal one beneath a rock. T took this sentence almost word for word from Lemprière’s Classical Dictionary, including the spelling of lolas. The more common spelling is Iolaus (Eddleman, 63).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [any divinity stir within him]

      “Tis the Divinity that stirs within us” (Joseph Addison, Cato, V, 1).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [for Squire Make-a-stir]

      This name does not occur in Pilgrim’s Progress, but it is certainly in that tradition.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [of the fancy and imagination]

      The transcendentalists regularly contrasted two types of creative power, fancy and imagination, with the former thought of as more superficial and decorative, and the latter deeper and more serious.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [fancy and imagination,—what Wilberforce]

      William Wilberforce (1759-1833), an English antislavery crusader who led the parliamentary battle for the abolition of slavery in the British West Indies.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [the land weaving toilet cushions]

      Embroidered cushions popular in ladies’ dressing rooms in T’s day.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on February 1, 2014

      [Economy]

      Saunders suggests that T’s surprising use of economic terms to convey the joys of a natural and spiritual life is intended to demonstrate how overwhelmingly our vision of life is dominated by commercial values. For further discussion of T’s use of the word “economy,” see Werge and see Heinzelman. Blasing’s “The Economics of W” is a thoughtful and much broader study than its title implies. It includes a good discussion of W as autobiography. Neufeldt (1966, 156) points out that T in his earliest version of the W manuscript used one series of page numberings for “Economy” and a second for the rest of the book, as though “Economy” were an extended preface to W. The most extensive analysis of T’s economic theories is Neufeldt (1989). Birch and Metting give an interesting contrast of T’s economic theory with that of his contemporaries, saying, “T wanted to make it clear that the real quarrel between himself and his neighbors did not involve the necessity of work and industry but centered on the Calvinist doctrine that earthly duties, such as work, were necessarily a hardship to be endured and that accumulation of material wealth was a symbol of spiritual success.”

      Comment by Matt Spitzer on March 5, 2014

      [As if you could kill time without injuring eternity]

      I recently saw this quotation on the Henry David Thoreau twitter handle as a stand-alone tweet, without the context of the entire book, or even the immediate context of the passage. It’s interesting to consider how quotations can  accurately sum up a theme of a whole section of a book, and can stand alone (as this one seems to be able to do nicely enough)– however, do things like focusing on “nice quotations” lead us to be lazy and not read the whole book, and thus lose the essential(?) support for the quotation? Will things like this easy quoting, tweeting, etc., only, go against the very meaning of this line itself if we don’t bother to read the book itself and merely rely on the “spark notes edition” of things? “I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous.” I think T himself would be somewhat disappointed in how his name was being used, for quotable twitter handles, unless these “scaffolding” type tools like spark notes and easy-to-remember quotations led us to read the actual work.

      Comment by Jeffrey Cramer on March 10, 2014

      I think that quotations allow us to inspect a text from a different angle, which may, I admit, lead to a quotation being used in a way that is different from that the author had intended. Somewhat like looking at a detail of a painting. It can be something missed or overlooked. Thoreau himself was a quoter, not always attributing it, and not always quoiting correctly when it suited him to do otherwise (look at how he quoted Etzler’s text in “Paradise (to be) Regained.”) And I do think a single quotation can lead a person to the text, somewhat like how a single potato chip can lead you to the whole bag.

      Comment by John Cunic on October 23, 2014

      Title: As Thoreau explains later in the chapter, the title means something like “philosophy of living,” economy meaning “the thrifty management of resources” – hence one of the major themes: materialism vs. economy

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 17, 2014

      I feel that Thoreau’s use of the word Economy, based on the Greek origin of Oikos (house) and Oikonomia (household management), is to relate us to our inner household (the temple) and that his intent on waking us up is to have us “manage” ourselves more intentionally. He say in the chapter Reading that ‘a written word is the choicest of relics” and that as a reader of his writing we have to “stand on tip-toe to read and devote our most alert and wakeful hours” to an accounting of our “nobler faculties”.

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 17, 2014

      I would welcome any insight into the comment above that “There are those who question just how “simple and sincere” T’s own account is—and not without reason.” Why was this so, and who are the ones who question Thoreau’s account. To me, Thoreau’s account of his life in respect to simplicity and sincerity is near to being the most perfect statement in American literature. 

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 18, 2014

      I sense that Thoreau is intimating much about the mythic adventure he has taken (called Walden) in these opening pages. It is very reminiscent of J. Cambell’s “Hero With A Thousand Faces” where he speaks about the “call to adventure” that the Hero (or Heroine) first hears if ready for such an adventure -or an awakening to self. Within myths handed down to us in story, if one is fortunate enough to hear that call one often then finds themselves in “unknown territory” (the inner world) populated by polymorphous beings that need to be vanquished. These are the “monsters” that I believe Thoreau is wishing to see his fellow townsmen slaying as opposed to being the slaves of the machine age. This the mistaken labor that he refers to a bit further on in paragraph #5.

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 18, 2014

      I think our reading labors are often mistaken too, and I find it interesting that it (Reading) is the very next chapter after he tells us where he lived, and what he lived for.

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 18, 2014

      The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. 

      This sentence, as an educator, strikes me most forcefully as our current industrial model of education is in need of some quality attention.

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 18, 2014

      Or like a pearl galvanizing us to dive deep in search of further treasure.

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 18, 2014

      I can’t help but wonder what Thoreau would have thought about the game Monopoly? As a member of the GAMES Magazine Hall of Fame, Monopoly is the most popular board game in the world; sold in 103 countries and produced in 41 languages since 1935, it is still the best-selling board game in the world. The game, simply put, is played by taking turns rolling the dice, traveling around a circular board, buying, selling and trading real estate, collecting and paying rent, fines, and taxes. The object of Monopoly is to bankrupt your opponents and become the wealthiest player,  to become “monarch of the world.” Talk about living lives of quiet desperation!

       

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 19, 2014

      Is Thoreau merely asking us to do our own thinking? That if we have experienced nothing for ourselves, we have not done anything at all? When I think of Thoreau’s interest, and understanding, of Native American life I often reflect upon a piece from “I Become Part Of It: Sacred Dimensions in Native American Life” (Parabola Books 1989) titled “Doing Your Thinking” by Thomas Buckley. The piece speaks about the recognition in Native American culture that all education is really self-education, and that to explain too much is to steal the gift of learning from the learner. One learns how to do something well if one is interested and able, or one doesn’t. If one were to explain too much it would actually be an insult, inferring that one was incapable of doing there own thinking, or stupid.

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 20, 2014

      I love Thoreau’s use of paradox, forever reminding us that “every stick has two ends” or never to get all that comfortable with a static thought. Look at how he presents the capacity to “look through each other’s eyes for an instant” as a greater miracle, when in paragraph #10 he tells us that the “old have no very important advice to give the young” and again, further ahead in paragraph #14 he hears “an irresistible voice which invites” him away from whatever the wisest have to say to him. I believe Thoreau is a master at inviting us to do our own thinking and to stay forever on our toes when reading intentionally.

      Comment by Kaitlin Pfundstein on January 31, 2015

      “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”  This is definitely a “take-away” line from Walden— the kind of line that people get tattooed down their spine or quoted one late night on twitter, with absolutely no prior knowledge of Thoreau.  Hearing this line in the context of Walden, however, it takes on a deeper meaning.  Thoreau speaks of how separating himself from “the masses of men” is the way to lead a happy life.  It is almost a mantra, that can be used as a reminder as to why Thoreau is isolating himself

      Comment by Grace Rowan on April 23, 2015

      Thoreau’s use of the word “sojourner” proves that he has no intention of remaining in civilized life. From the very beginning of this book, he is trying to convince the reader that living in a house at Walden should be the ideal lifestyle for everyone. This is the beginning of Thoreau explaining what he believes is “living deliberately”.

      Comment by Kieran Regan on November 2, 2015

      [The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation] I feel this is the epitome of the piece as a whole, a good representation of the general theme. 

       

      Comment by Dan Kim on November 2, 2015

      gctrhdjh

      Comment by Andrew Inchiosa on November 2, 2015

      [The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve, and had an end; but I could never see that these men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor.]

      Comparable to Pope Francis’ views on the state of materialism present in our world. May be possible to live virtuously if we could live simply

      Comment by Dan Kim on November 2, 2015

      This comment was only posted as a trial run. I was not serious about this comment.

      Comment by Jackie Moore on November 2, 2015

      I think this paragraph is congruent with the concepts from the multiple other texts we have analyized this semester, and it supports the debate we have had ongoing. Walden argues that man is so focused on its superficial, moneary goods that we have failed to notice are humanistic decline, that we have depreciated to “machines”.

      Comment by Claudia Coleates on November 2, 2015

      The “civilized life” he is in now seems to be more of a social life then say civilized. He still seemed to have the necessities of being civilized when he lived in the woods.

       

      Comment by Kimberly Leffler on November 2, 2015

      [The portion less, who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh.]

      Comparable to Marx’s view of the haves and have nots

      Comment by Sean Fischer on November 2, 2015

      [I lived alone]

      Did he really though? What does it actually mean to live alone? Maybe we need to consider variations on common assumptions here.

      Comment by Mollie Thompson on November 2, 2015

      Society forces people into roles they do not desire.

      Comment by Austin Taylor on November 2, 2015

      I found this passage to be especially interesting. The idea that age itself does not make one wise contradicts the common thought that elders in society have lived long lives and have much experience to share with youth on their mistakes. Here, Thoreau poses the notion that elders are actually living in the past, and out of the loop essentially from new methods and ideas that weren’t even thought of when they were younger.

       

      Comment by Kieran Regan on November 2, 2015

      [ see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in.]

      On the values of what both ‘being given’ and ‘having earned’ mean. He is comparing inheritance to having to earn things in your life, implying what is earned can be far more than what is given by alluding to Romulus and Remus – Having inherited nothing, they were able to create one of the the greatest empires in history

      Comment by Brooke Dehlinger on November 2, 2015

      [Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned any thing of absolute value by living.]

      Does age really give us an advantage in how much we know and how well we know it? Times change so rapidly that everyone’s experience on earth is shockingly different.

      Comment by Caroline Gerard on November 2, 2015

      Here do we have a statement on the fluidity of human morals, or of human nature? Two similar concepts, yet it is certain that they are different in meaning and in impact.
      Where else can we draw insight on the ideas referenced here? (including the biblical and nautical referenced brought in)

      Comment by Ryan Michaelsen on November 2, 2015

      [Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them]

      This paragraph emphasizes man’s obsession with obtaining more possessions or “factitious cares” that are not actually needed for survival. People become so obsessed that they lose what makes them human.

      Comment by Kimberly Leffler on November 2, 2015

      I believe this quote exemplifies the expectation of society on men and women. Men and women are supposed to suffer to live, but suffer quietly. This imposes something on citizens. When someone asks you “How are you?” the polite response is “I’m well” even if the world feels like its falling apart beneath your feet.

      Comment by Claudia Coleates on November 2, 2015

      Here Thoreau is speaking of how some humans are born into their future, specifically farmers. He thing this is unfortunate because people will struggle to get rid of being in this. It is human nature to do what the individual wishes to do and benefit themselves but if they are born into something they do not enjoy it may not be a fulfilled life. Compared to lock which says from labor we obtain property and he may look at this as a open door to perform labor and gain property if already born into it.

       

      Comment by Kieran Regan on November 2, 2015

      [Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.]

      I feel this is a good example of Thoreau’s opinion of both the individual and the society that individual is in. He talks of how individuals are often their own slave-drivers, that by simply accepting their place or their role, they are imprisoning themselves. Just before this quote he asks about the teamsters ambitions and imagination, saying these things are limitless; with these thoughts he is “Godlike … immortal”. But he cowers from this and lives in fear, becoming a prisoner of his own self deprecating thoughts. Thoreau says while it may seem a society is the restricting factor in an individuals life, there is nothing more harmful than that individuals own thoughts. “What a man thinks of himself… indicates his fate”.

      Comment by Kahla Uhrinek on November 2, 2015

      Human nature is depicted as being stone-cold. It is here that Raleigh specifically states that, “From thence our kind hard-hearted is, enduring pain and care, approving that our bodies of a stony nature are”. He uses words like “heard-hearted” and “stony nature” that illustrate human nature as not only permanent, but cold.

      Comment by Austin Taylor on November 2, 2015

       
      Locke writes on self-actualization through work. Laboring to create and then enjoying the fruits of said labor to enrich the quality of one’s life, or the estrangement of labor to acquire currency in order to purchase that which one cannot themselves produce. Here, Thoreau claims that labor for currency is in a sense ruining man, with “the better part of man soon ploughed into the soil for compost. He argues that to work for currency which one spends to acquire necessities for their lifestyle is a foolish endeavor. Perhaps in his efforts to estrange himself from society through isolation in the woods, he is attempting to prove he can live a satisfying life without the need of labor, other than that which he engages in to provide for his own sustenance.
       

      Comment by Mollie Thompson on November 2, 2015

       
      Society treats people inhumanely in the market economy. “He has no time to be anything but a machine” (Thoreau, 1854). The labor that people have to offer becomes one’s primary purpose and other endeavors of the individual are left to waste because they are deemed as irrelevant when compared to the importance of work. “Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them” (Thoreau, 1854). When people are so completely dedicated to their work, they are not truly free.

      Comment by Emma Dempsey on November 2, 2015

      [It is hard to have a southern overseer; it is worse to have a northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself. Talk of a divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the highway, wending to market by day or night; does any divinity stir within him? His highest duty to fodder and water his horses!]
      Thoreau seems to be questioning the purpose of man here.  When he says, “his highest duty to fodder and water his horses,” he seems excited by the absurdity that could be all someone is living for.  He asks, “does any divinity stir within him?” The “purpose” of man, for Thoreau seems to be more than just watering horses—something greater than man, in his own words, “divine.”  But that purpose is overshadowed sometimes by one’s self.  To Thoreau, the greatest slavery is to be a slave to yourself.  Locke talks about slavery in an external, tangible way that requires rules and laws.  Here, Thoreau talks about slavery on an individual level, a level untouched by rules and regulations.  Locke says, all men should be equal—that no person should hold power over you, ever.  You belong to yourself.  But what happens when you’re the one holding the power over yourself?

      Comment by Ken Wolfson on November 6, 2015

      I think the point of the piece is to defy this quote.  Thoreau’s cabin in the woods is to let him escape the masses of men and live the life that satisfies him.

      Comment by Justine Capozzi on April 22, 2016

      When Thoreau says “The great part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of any thing it is very likely to be my good behavior,” I think this connects back to his essay “Civil Disobedience”(“Resistance to Civil Government”) as he talks about how people should stand up for what they truly believe in rather than simply abiding by what the government deems to be right.

      Comment by Mariya Gunda on April 28, 2016

      [The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. ]

      The idea of being born into a profession or onto a piece of land that one must till until the end of his days is a trap for man.  Any parts of him that are valuable and capable of learning and expanding reason and genius is tilled into the ground and left for compost because the fact that so many mindless days are spent on this labor, intellect suffers.  The cyclical schedule and nature of this life only builds the body and not the mind.  They work but in working they do not work their intellect (genius) but bury them as they turn the ground.

      Comment by Chu Wang on May 2, 2016

      Sometimes old people always give us their suggestions which cased on their personal experience and want us to follow  their advice. In china, there is a proverb is “If the old dog barks, he gives counsel”. It seems that there is an interesting controversy and in my view I think both these two side hold water. I think because nowadays everything is changing so fast that old people’s experiences may not as helpful as they think but these advice can still be some kind warnings for us to set up our own ideas.

      Comment by Mark Gallagher on June 25, 2016

      The first version of Walden, the 1846-47 manuscript held by the Huntington Library (HM 924), begins, “I should not presume to talk so much about myself and my affairs as I shall in this lecture if very particular and personal inquiries had not been made concerning my mode of life,–what some would call impertinent, but they are by no means impertinent to me, but on the contrary very natural and pertinent, consider the circumstances” (1-2). Having already spent a year at the Pond, Thoreau began work on the first draft of Walden, initially conceived as a lyceum lecture for Concord citizens who were curious about his experimental mode of living. For more on Thoreau’s “A History of Myself” lecture, see Richard Smith, “Thoreau’s First Year at
      Walden in Fact & Fiction” at the Thoreau E-server website, http://thoreau.eserver.org/smith.html.

      Comment by Debra Schleef on September 23, 2017

      [poor students]

      Wonder what he means by that…

      Comment by Maureen Sullivan on September 24, 2017

      [Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. Who made them serfs of the soil? ]

      It is interesting to note how Thoreau describes the pitfalls of inheritance. He sees these things as almost damaging to a person because they are blinded and condemned to work

      Comment by Maureen Sullivan on September 24, 2017

      [ Leave a comment on paragraph 6 4 Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. ]

      Thoreau again makes the point that most people are forced into labor and because of that, are unable to see the truly great and natural things in life. They are so focused on their labor that they miss the worlds’ true beauty

      Comment by Debra Schleef on September 25, 2017

      Do you agree?

      Comment by Cody McDaniel on September 25, 2017

      I think Thoreau is unfairly prejudiced against men and their traditions. It seems like Thoreau is the same fallacy that many teenagers make. “If I cannot understand why something is being done, surely it has no purpose”.

       

      Comment by Sarah Kinzer on September 25, 2017

      It’s interesting to me that Thoreau identifies farmers specifically as people who are limited by their inheritance and commodities. Many intentional communities have sustenance as an integral part of their work, with farms or community gardens providing food. This is the humble work of existence. I don’t see the alternative; if you need to eat, you depend on SOMEONE farming. If you rely on someone else to do that for you, and don’t offer love or labor in return, then are you really liberated from need?

      Comment by Allegra Nolan on September 27, 2017

      I think that by students he means the people who like to learn from reading. Students of literature, you could say, with the literature in this case being his book. In this context, a student is not necessarily our typical image of a young person attending classes and doing homework assignments. It encompasses a much wider range of people, any one who has made it their business to learn from books. He may believe the poor students to be particularly interested in his mode of life – eating, feelings of loneliness, income – because he made for himself, with no income, the basic necessities which they lack.

      Comment by Allegra Nolan on September 27, 2017

      In Reece’s chapter, he tells of Thoreau’s belief that no wealth can buy the freedom of walking and the leisure of a life not weighed down. Here, Thoreau undermines the value of farms, houses, barns cattles, and farming tools, useful only for their ability to produce wealth. The way he sees it, these “unnecessary inherited encumbrances” only tie people down to the difficult and smothering life of a laborer. Because they have inherited these tools, they will of course use them, and proceed with maintaining acres and acres of land for the purpose of accruing wealth to further take care of the land and its buildings. Were they without such misfortunes, they might be independent of all these responsibilities weighing  them down. They could walk through life without “pushing a barn” before them, and accrue enough wealth to meet the minor day-to-day needs. They would have more time for leisure and thought, rather than feeling smothered by the land, tillage, mowing, pasture, etc.

      Comment by Allegra Nolan on September 27, 2017

      “The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.”

      In Reece’s writing, we find out that Thoreau believed in our human nature as a moral compass, one that we can trust because it is part of a larger nature. Here, Thoreau expresses that idea through a comparison with a familiar element of nature – the bloom. It is a common subject of poems, paintings, home decor. By choosing such a commonly studied piece of nature, he makes it easy for a reader to feel that their nature shares something with the larger nature. The idea of treating ourselves delicately to reveal the finer qualities of our nature agrees very well with the parallel of a compass. One handle a compass with care so that it stays intact and can point them in the right direction. To Thoreau, humans in the industrialized, ambitious society have broken that compass, and so have forgotten to trust in and live freely with a larger nature.

      Comment by Cody McDaniel on September 27, 2017

      I wonder if Thoreau is being shortsighted here because it is unlikely that people could survive famine and droughts if we only grew what we could by hand

       

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on October 8, 2017

      The French translator of Walden considers Thoreau’s mode of life to be impertinent, which I agree. I believe that Thoreau is contrasting his own mode of life to the people who lived in the town. When Thoreau says, “they” do not appear to me at all impertinent, I think he is referring to his affairs.

      The German translator, however, thinks that the questions are impertinent.

      What do you think?

      By the way, I am the Persian translator of Walden.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on October 9, 2017

      Dear Mark, Is it “my mode of life” which is impertinent? Does “what” refer to “my mode of life”?

      Comment by Paul Schacht on October 9, 2017

      See Harding’s note above, referencing Stanley Cavell, on the antecedent of which (what in versions A-B). Inquiries seems to me the likeliest primary referent, but the ambiguity is interesting. At some point, presumably in version C, what became which: Was Thoreau trying to narrow the range of possible referents, reducing ambiguity? Mode of life is a bit of a stretch as antecedent, since it’s a mismatch, in number, with they. But the pun on impertinent (= rude but also beside the point, hence the follow-on very natural and pertinent) is a reminder that you can never rule out the possibility that Thoreau has deliberately crafted his writing with an eye towards increasing, rather than reducing, the number of ways he can be read.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on October 9, 2017

      Thank you, Paul. This was very helpful.

      It seems, as you say, tried to expand the meaning in a way that keeps his readers’ mind between three words.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 18, 2017

      The description he gives of his lifestyle here is somewhat misleading, because in reality he lived near a town that he visited often, and received gifts from friends with relative frequency.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 18, 2017

      Thoreau is very interestingly concerned with the motivations and actions of the men of his day. He feels they don’t work and have the proper motivations comparatively with what he feels is ideal. The labors of Hercules reference speaks to this idea very well.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 18, 2017

      Again Thoreau criticizes the lack of focus by humanity on what is truly important and necessary in life. “games and amusements of mankind” are seen by Thoreau as completely trivial and unimportant, and it’s easy to understand why he thinks so. Thus his continuation of advocacy for a simple lifestyle illustrates how men can be wise and avoid doing “desperate things”

      Comment by Jeidah DeZurney on October 25, 2017

      I agree Conrad, when first reading the book I did not understand his location. He makes the pond seem more isolated then it actually was.

      Comment by Elisabeth Strand on October 26, 2017

      “The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.”
      This quote again points towards Thoreau’s faith in man’s inherent goodness, and also reminds us that in order to become the best versions of ourselves we need to be kinder to ourselves. Self deprecation is not a good motivator! Practice self care!

       

      Comment by Tyler Merritt on October 26, 2017

      I think it’s almost derogatory to say this about other people; I’m sure many people who read this book soon after it was published originally were quite angry at Thoreau for describing their lives as such, especially when Thoreau had probably not most of those people before.

      Comment by Tyler Merritt on October 26, 2017

      He does say he was living a mile away from people, which may seem pretty isolated at first, but it’s also true that a mile isn’t really very far away at all. That may also play into it.

      Comment by Sarah Alper on October 27, 2017

      I definitely agree. Although I think by dwelling on that, we are missing the point that he wanted to experience what it was like to generally be without people but not necessarily rid of them all together and technically speaking he was living alone but definitely think that this description is also misleading.

      Comment by Sophie Schapiro on September 6, 2018

      [whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of.]

      I find it intriguing how Thoreau describes people’s station in life (that may be inherited) as a “misfortune”. As most people would see having a copious amount of land handed to you upon birth, he sees it as a burden. I believe this actually shows his belief in the non fluidity in identity. Thoreau states how “these [inheritances] are more easily acquired than got rid of”, meaning how hard it is to erase a name or position that you were born into.

      Comment by Andrew Shutes on September 10, 2018

      In this paragraph, I noticed a repetition of the theme of accountability as stated by both Macintyre and Thoreau. This passage demonstrates the idea of being accountable for others as well as being accountable for ones self. In this case, Thoreau raises the idea that laborers and the common man sometimes do not live their life to the fullest potential because they are preoccupied with their work. As a result, they are not experiencing life as they should and not taking accountability of their narrative. Thoreau makes a similar accusation to higher class individuals, in that they judge the common man to harshly and they should assist the common man in finding the finer fruits of life. This accusation fits into the idea that we are accountable for the narrative of others as well as our own.

      Comment by Nat Hilts on September 10, 2018

      [How godlike, how immortal, is he? See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. ]

      Thoreau points to the individual as the master of their own fate. It’s one thing to compare one’s opinion of themselves to slavery, but in a sense it is true that we are slaves of our own self-conceptions. Self-fulfilling prophecies happen all the time. As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.” Thoreau questions how often humans fall victim to their own opinions, and how they are inhibited by them. This, I think, can tie into MacIntyre’s statement about “accountability:” we are all the protagonists and authors of our own story, and it’s our responsibility to shape our fate.

      Comment by Nathan Stivers on September 10, 2018

      Thoreau doesn’t necessarily pose what they say, but rather assumes what they ask in regard to his experiences on Walden Pond. A clever twist on the templates we’ve seen in “They Say/I Say.” Also, he engages in what could be considered ‘metacommentary’ when speaking about his writing style (though again, assumes what his academic critics/colleagues might say) and even lists a few explanations as to why he consciously chooses to write in this way.

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 10, 2018

      [In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were any body else whom I knew as well.]

      Thoreau use of meta commentary is displayed in his preference to use first person pronouns. He refers to ‘other books’ and their habit of restraining using such diction because it sounds egotistical. However, he uses the pronouns as a way to express the individuality of his story, because he doesn’t know anyone else’s story well enough to tell it from their perspective. This reminds me of the theme of “Anthem” by Ayn Rand. The whole emphasis on the story is the difference between “I” and “ego”. ‘I’ represents a persons individual self where as ‘ego’ is the self importance that comes from valuing aspects of your individual self.

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 10, 2018

      Thoreau uses religious allusion in reference to both the Brahmins and Hercules to emphasize the never ending daily struggles for the towns people to acquire necessities to live. He references to the Brahmins penance through a ritual called Prayascitta (Hindu repentance), and describes it as a form of conscious penance (vs. the daily tasks of the towns people which are performed subconsciously). However, he also references Hercules’ 12 labors and called them ‘trifling’ in comparison to the everyday labors of the townspeople. The reasoning behind this exaggerated statement is to emphasize the longevity of these labors that the townspeople undertake. They cant “slew or captur[e] any monster or finis[h] any labor.”,  They’re forever in servitude to their practices.

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 10, 2018

      [Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born? ]

      Thoreau is entering the conversation by asking questions to refer to not what “they say” but rather what“they do”. He critiques this norm of prioritizing inherited land and entering the conversation establishing the idea that ‘cultivating’ a body and mind is labor enough.

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 10, 2018

      [But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost.]

      The “better part” of the man is himself. In the previous paragraph, Thoreau emphasized the mistake in men cultivating and prioritizing land instead of the body and mind. The labor of cultivating and upkeep on land is a never ending task and gives little room for a person to cultivate themselves as an individual.

      [It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.”

      Men waste their lives focusing on the wrong things and do not realize it has been wasted until its over.

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 10, 2018

      [ Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.]

      Thoreau is basically saying that the image you have of yourself generally reflects of that of your future. Even a God among men, if deemed incompetent in his thoughts, will become the “prisoner of his own opinion of himself.”

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 10, 2018

      [their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons,]

      This kind of follows MacIntyre’s logic that they’re subject to their own narrative. Their actions compose their life alone, void from other’s experiences. So, giving advice or brandishing this so called ‘wisdom’ based off of their own failures is irrelevant.

      Comment by Clare Corbett on September 11, 2018

      [I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me any thing, to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it. If I have any experience which I think valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my Mentors said nothing about.]

      This paragraph represents Macintyre’s idea of accountability in one’s life. Macintyre says that the only way to live a narratable life is to be accountable for your own actions. Thoreau harshly states that he has never received “earnest advice from [his] seniors.” He clearly thinks he will only live a worthwhile life if he lives the way he wants to, not the way others advise him to. He realizes that he must be accountable for his actions, but he does not want to be ruled by the guidelines that were developed by those who lived before him. He must set his own standards to live a fulfilling life.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 11, 2018

      Wasn’t such practices a custom to religion? Understating the fact that there were those in poverty.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 11, 2018

      Can this answer the question as to how a reader knows whether they have fully understood and analyzed a text? Is a text only meant to be understood as fairly as a person could relate?

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 11, 2018

      Is he referring to industrialization? The “norm” of living then is considered today unhealthy, undesirable.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 11, 2018

      The laboring man has no opportunity to be a “man,” a human being? For his life is dedicated to something so fragile. (what could this sentence mean? ) So this laboring man is unappreciated.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 11, 2018

      It is horrible to enslave people, but to enslave yourself is another horrible cycle.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 11, 2018

      “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery” – Bob Marely/ Marcus Garvey

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 11, 2018

      Mankind is unconsciously sad, only trying to find happiness in the distractions we give ourselves.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 11, 2018

      [What every body echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. ]

      This discussion could lead to that of science, and evolution of the world, and its interactions.

      Comment by Kathryn Capone on September 11, 2018

      [Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men’s lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land]

      Here Thoreau is challenging the reader to give account of their own life because that is what he or she has lived and it’s what they know the most about. They’re the ones accountable in telling their story to share with others. This is because the readers have only lived their own story, so to hear other’s stories helps expand their knowledge and learn.

      Comment by Jennifer Lew on September 11, 2018

      [Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.]

      Thoreau explores the idea of holding others accountable. Throughout the text, a variety of older works are used to influence his opinion and back up his points. By simply stating that we should solely think for ourselves, Thoreau contradicts himself. This passage can be either interpreted as satirical, or could just be in reference to his opinions regarding slavery or any form of prejudice. In this section, Thoreau explains that although much of the present is based on tradition, people shouldn’t base all of their actions and opinions on the past.

      Comment by Jennifer Lew on September 11, 2018

      [it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices.]

      Thoreau uses a variety of techniques to convey and convince the reader of his ideas. One of the more notable methods used is well described in Graff and Birkenstein’s “They Say / I Say.” Rather than simply stating his opinion regarding conforming to past ideologies, he initially gives the countering perspective.

      In other words, Thoreau is portraying that many people (They say’) believe that there is no choice but to conform to past teachings. On the other hand, he (‘I say’) believes that it is never too late to change old philosophies.

      Despite contradicting himself later in the passage (by using older text to back up his opinions), Thoreau conveys his ideas in a coherent and convincing manner.

       

      Comment by Zach Engel on September 13, 2018

      In this paragraph, Thoreau discusses the accountability of man and how it is necessary for men to avoid straying down the wrong path. For example, Thoreau says that men often choose to focus so much on their labors and their work that they cannot take time to really live life to the fullest extent. This means, in Thoreau’s mind, that they are not taking accountability for themselves or other because they are so preoccupied with their work. He addresses this issue from both sides, however, and also says that the more fortunate are not taking accountability of their wealth and eve themselves and others, stating that fortunate people are quick to judge the less fortunate, when instead they should be helping them before judging. Basically, he is saying that all people are accountable for something, whether it be themselves, their daily lives, or even other people.

      Comment by Zach Engel on September 13, 2018

      In this paragraph, Thoreau talks about his neighbors, who he claims have a different view of what they see as good. Thoreau kind of uses the template of “They say, I say” here in a simple format, basically saying that “they think these things are good, but in my soul I believe they are bad”,which is his way of stating the basics of an intellectual argument. Thoreau goes further, giving a deeper example of their disagreement, saying that they may say the wisest thing, but to Thoreau, it is an invitation into a place he wishes not to go.

      Comment by Maya Garde on September 13, 2018

      In this Thoreau speaks about the poor and how they lie and steal to get meals that they can’t afford. Even clothes too expensive for them to buy. I believe that Thoreau is telling us not to do these things out of an experience. For maybe at one point in his life, Thoreau was poor and doing that same thing his neighbors are doing now. Telling us that it will only get worse the more we steal for it might become a norm of everyday life.

      Comment by Shakira Browne on September 15, 2018

      [sojourner]

      This shows that he is a person that uses his resources to survive while liking that kind of lifestyle he chooses to come back to a “civilized life” where he can communicate with others and share his experiences from living alone for two years.

      Comment by Grace Lawrence on September 16, 2018

      Thoreau uses They say/I say to discuss the fact that he doesn’t agree with his neighbors’ idea of “good.” In his mind what they view as good behavior is what he sees as bad behavior. He tells the reader that “a greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad” which is classic they say/I say, since he begins by stating others’ beliefs and then stating his own.

      Comment by Anna Briganti on September 18, 2018

      In paragraph 13, he focuses on the importance of nature and how he sees the way the nature benefits him and where he resides. He seems to his surrounding and knows that there might be a “greater miracle” than the human eye can see.

       

      Comment by Anna Briganti on September 18, 2018

      “what demon possessed me that I behave so well?” When Thoreau says this he makes it seem that he does not usually act like this around others. It might be his surroundings and the people and nature that surround him that make I=him act the way he does.

       

      Comment by Nat Hilts on September 18, 2018

      [The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of any thing, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?]

      On what Thoreau is saying here, I appreciate the nod to the fluidity of morality here. I find it interesting, and wonder what he intends to portray here: that his neighbors are wrong, or that both he and his neighbors are right? In the previous paragraph, he says, “Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?” Perception shapes our personal realities, and morals are relative to the contexts in which they are embedded: culturally, individually, situationally, and so on.

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 18, 2018

      Thoreau moves up one level of abstraction from talking about the fact that “the same sun which ripens my beans illumines at once a system of Earths like ours” to “could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”. He is implying that the sun has a wider purpose and story rather than just for him. At the end of the paragraph he elaborates that it would be more beneficial to society to see through the eyes of others and consider the fact that you’re a small part of a big picture.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on November 30, 2018

      The influence of Emerson’s Nature on Thoreau and his Walden is quite obvious. Thoreau built his cabin on the land he borrowed from Emerson and based his book, Walden, on many inspirations he received from Nature and, of course, other books.  But in his encounter with other great souls and their books, Thoreau never lost his own creative spirit.

      In Nature, Emerson says, “Then, there is a kind of contempt  of the landscape felt by him who has just lost by death a dear friend.”  When Thoreau moved to Walden Pond, he had just lost his beloved brother John.  There is, however, absolutely, no sign of any gloom or sadness in Walden. In fact, in the paragraph where Thoreau explains his purpose of going to the woods, the paragraph that starts with “I went to the woods to live deliberately”, he uses the words life, live and lived eleven times.  Death and deprivation only made him more determined to live, and to live more deliberately.

      Thoreau says, “A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.” Nature could not dictate anything to Thoreau. In the depth of Thoreau’s own nature, there was no room for gloom, depression or sadness. Desparation and depression have no room in Walden. It is not enough to survive. In Walden you live, love and thrive.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on November 30, 2018

      I believe there is a double meaning in the words “first or last”. I require from every writer first or last” means

      1. I require of every writer whether he or she is first in rank or last a simple and sincere account of his or her own life. Here Thoreau believes that all sorts of writers should deliver such an account

      2. My first or last request of every writer is to deliver an account of his own life. Here Thoreau is emphasizing on his own request telling us this is his very first and last request of every writer.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on February 28, 2019

      If we try to read Walden as “deliberately and reservedly” as it was written we will never underestimate its profound depth by taking Thoreau too literally.  Here “the labor of my hands” does not merely refer to Thoreau’s physical labor with his hands and tools, his ax, spade, nails and beans. Rumi says, “Man has a body and soul other than the body that cows and donkeys have.”

      In Where I Live and What I Lived for, Thoreau reveals a deeper aspect of this labor when he says, “I fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars.” Fishing in the sky is another aspect of Thoreau’s labor and the fish is a type of food that is necessary for Thoreau’s particular kind of life. Thoreau did not move to the woods to live like the beasts of the forest. He moved there to “live deliberately.” That particular type of deliberate life requires a transcendental kind of labor, hand, food and feeding.  Walden is profound from the very beginning. I have started my new reading of my Walden and am preparing a new edit for the second publication of my translation in Iran.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on March 5, 2019

      What is impertinent the mode of life or the questions? And what is the antecedent of they? Affairs? I have been thinking about this for a long time.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on March 5, 2019

      On one hand T emphasizes that the first person will be retained in his book, on the other hand he is apologizing for answering questions which are asked about his mode of life. It seems like there are two Thoreaus in Walden. One is drinking from the sky which is pebbly with stars the other is the one who fishes in Walden Pond. I feel as if these two Thoreau’s are at war in many of Thoreau’s sentences in Walden.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on March 5, 2019

      I think there is a very subtle irony in this part of the sentence. T could have said, “you … who live in…” Instead he twists the sentence and says, “you … who are said to live.” Implying that he himself does not recognize some of his readers to be alive or living. The whole book says why.

      Comment by Sophie Schapiro on March 25, 2019

      [What is called resignation is confirmed desperation]

      In this line, Thoreau comments on how when people leave or “resign” from something, you are confirming desperation for something else. I feel this idea relates heavily to the idea we discussed in class about how romanticized living a “social media free” life is. While people may “resign” from a life of technology and social media, they are really desperate for being seen as someone willing to do this, rather than truly being someone who wants to be connected. This relates heavily to the psychology and human condition in the sense that no matter how much someone wishes to believe they don’t care what others think of them, it is impossible not to.

      Comment by Jeffrey Taylor on April 29, 2019

      As has been indicated by the comments attached to this section, Walden is not a factual history.  Thoreau does not account for all his visits back to  Concord and tell us so herein.  He does not tell us what he did there, how often he ate at home, how often he worked in the family pencil business and bulk sales of graphite.  And he tells us here that although the book condenses his experiences into a single year he lived there for more than twice that span of time.  We should, perhaps, be reading Walden as a ideal, a presentation of life as an experiment.  We can only, being human, approximate the ideal and our actual sojourn would vary depending upon our state of life when we made the attempt.  I do think after reading the comments Alireza made above, that he is reading Walden in a way that Thoreau may have intended.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on October 31, 2019

      It is interesting to notice that Walden is not as egotistically restricted to this “first person singular” as T claims it to be. Walden is indeed full of stories about other people.  As an Iranian, I find it to be very similar to Rumi’s book of mystical poetry called Masnavi. In that book too, Rumi mingles his own personal journal with many stories about other people.

      Comment by David Fahy on January 12, 2020

      A third, and I think more logical meaning of “first or last” here is “at the beginning or the end.” This is the meaning of the phrase given in Webster’s 1828 dictionary. The meaning in the present context is then “somewhere in the writer’s work.”

      Comment by David Fahy on January 13, 2020

      There seems to be typo in the first sentence, after the third comma: “what are” is repeated unnecessarily.

      Comment by Leila Sassouni on February 11, 2020

      The opening line of Thoreau\’s Walden demonstrates the opposite of today\’s world, due in part to increasing technological advancements. While in this reading Walden claims to live independently without the worry of those around him, for us today, technology makes such a desired environment nearly impossible. Each of us smiles at the thought of being alone and unwatched; however, with technology and different available softwares, each of us is always being observed in some way, shape or form. This is simply because of the advancements in the environment around us.

      Comment by Christina Inter on February 11, 2020

      Given Throeau’s time period, and that “Walden” was written around 1850, the Industrial Revolution was coming to a conclusion around the time he wrote this. In this context, when Thoreau compares an overworked man to a machine, he is referring to the machines of his time which solve monotonous and tedious tasks in factories. With how far machines have evolved since then, especially computers, I wonder if someone would still use such a comparison considering the different imagery the word “machine” evokes for us in the present day.

      Comment by Kira Baran on February 12, 2020

      I find Thoreau’s deliberate preemptive distinction between first-person “I” and second/third-person “other” at the outset of this text telling. By doing so, he is disclaiming the fact that “[I]t is, after all, always the first person that is speaking,” and therefore that learning about others can only truly be done by reading accounts of others’ lives as told in the others’ own perspectives and words. Readers’ curiosity into other people’s lives, as Thoreau says he frequently experiences, is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as the curious people in question are willing to listen to his own account without forcing their own opinions or viewpoints onto it and therefore skewing it.

      I admire this particular passage for how it so directly connects to the essence of the humanities–that is, how individual human consciousness, perspective, and experience can be documented, shared, and tried on like “putting on a coat.” Through this analogy, Thoreau seems to be saying that by walking in someone else’s shoes, and by trying to practice empathy and see things from the other’s perspective rather than trying to force it into their own point-of-view, is where real learning takes place. Too often we try to compare other’s viewpoints by referencing our own, and do not stop to truly listen and understand where others are coming from through their own viewpoints. This sentiment is echoed in the line, “[F]or if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.” Distance (as in the distance of people’s experiences and consciousnesses), though often given a negative connotation, is what makes individuals unique, and is therefore given a positive connotation in this context.

      Comment by Emma Raupp on February 12, 2020

      I wonder how Thoreau felt about age “not profiting so much as it has lost” toward the end of his own life. Did he uphold the distinction created in “old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new”? Understanding and keeping up with recent technological advances requires various fresh approaches to “old deeds” like encoding language, so I tend to believe the relationship between old and new has become more fluid than ever before. Some old people learn new ways to interact with our technological world, some ‘new’ or young people revisit the old ways to learn history, or the origin of the new. Thoreau didn’t seem to hold out much hope for the prevailing wisdom of older generations. But he does indicate some connection with “and they are only less young than they were”; perhaps ‘youth’ or more broadly, ‘newness’, is a state of mind or a way of being that is momentarily achievable regardless of true age. Approaching technology especially with a transcendental, unprejudiced, and open mind seems key; anticipating learning the new even though you may have already mastered the old, framing life as a journey of continual learning rather than the journey as a means to an end like eventual wisdom. I think what Thoreau is getting at is that assuming mastery of life comes with age is flawed. The person who has the greater insight on the ‘true nature’ of life looks from the perspective of perpetual youth.

      Comment by Claire Rogers on February 12, 2020

      Thoreau’s reflecting on the pedantic rules of Solomon and the Romans and Hippocrates draws an amusing comparison to the exactness needed for programming, be that writing a modern computer program or Charles Babbage’s attempting to “program” his inventions with multitudes of gears and levers and other iron elements. Thoreau here objects to that thinking, arguing that man cannot be so constrained and that such strict rules presuppose a life devoid of variety and joy. To some extent, Thoreau’s polemics against rules and life of tedium speak directly to the Industrial Revolution, and by extension the increasingly tedious rules that bind a man that Thoreau argues can do more. Today those humans have been replaced with technology, and by extension humanity’s unmeasured capacities no longer matter. Humans have been replaced with machines to measure the distance of trees and the angles at which we cut our nails and the frequency with which we can collect acorns. Humans no longer just create tedious rules for humans with less power but have created another “species” to play that role.

      Comment by Alyssa Harrington on February 12, 2020

      I find this paragraph intriguing since many poor people now would have admired Walden\’s work. Families on the low income status now a days don\’t try to rob creditors of hours. Today low-economic families would be trying to make enough money to survive. I do not agree with Walden\’s point on living mean and sneaky lives, if he was not able to experience them himself. People never really give low economic humans a chance to prove themselves before being criticized. Poor people always get a bad rap, and Walden is not helping at all with this. To me it is like when technology was first created, and many people wanted nothing to do with it and the idea was immediately rejected.

      Yes people and technology are two different things but the concepts of rejection to new ideas, are still present today and should change. If poor people still did not get the bad reputation they have today we could all be at peace for once. I am also not trying to make Walden seem mellicious with saying this however, I think that this point did not have to be made in his book.

      If technology has had the same form of discussion today, then why has it become such a positive influence on life, but talking about poor people hasn\’t?

      Why is technology so important and how can we make our lives simpler by adjusting to change, and not having negative reactions to them?

      Comment by Hannah Jewell on February 12, 2020

      In this paragraph, Thoreau discusses the manmade world and how this affects the way humans function. When humans follow the ways of those around them, it is likely to change the way they view the world and the values they hold. Through a modern perspective in relation to technology, humans all over the world are consumed by the cell phones and social media. As a result, this may cause desperation for more out of life and possibly a greater meaning. After so long, trying to live up to people around us is likely to become exhausting, leading to a desire to escape the media world for something else more meaningful and realistic.

      Comment by Sandy Brahaspat on February 12, 2020

      [We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.]

      This passage hits close to home, considering our upcoming presidential election and the debate surrounding universal health care, affordable education, and livable wages. While Christina is correct in pointing out in her comment that Thoreau\’s Walden was written towards the end of industrial revolution in Britain, I believe his commentary still holds truth today. The working classes still don\’t have time to be anything but a machine. I see this clear as day with my own parents, who simply cannot afford to miss a day of work because it disrupts the capitalist machine that they are forced to contribute to.  Yet, when working classes demand rights like earning livable wages -for instance, the wealthier classes tend to recoil at the very idea. Interestingly enough, in the following paragraph we see criticism placed on the lower classes, as being sneaky and facetious. I\’m unsure of where Thoreau might stand today in relation to the political and social issues that we are currently facing.

      Comment by Danielle Crowley on February 12, 2020

      This paragraph stuck out to me specifically because of the way in which is emphasizes other areas of study. The line,

      \”We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology! – I know of no reading of another\’s experience so startling and informing as this would be.\”

      Makes me think the humanities and the way in which we learn. Perhaps is may be a mute point to try and define the humanities, as we tried to do on the first day of class, but maybe the point is that the humanities themselves are an ongoing experience. It is an experience to learn \”all the ages of the world in an hour\” and making that your own experiences, rather than attempting to learn someone elses experience.

      Comment by Caroline Crimmins on February 12, 2020

      Caroline Crimmins
      Paragraph 1: Last semester I took Professor Cooper’s English 368 Connections in Recent Literature: Unplugged and ParaDigitial class and examined the relationship between books and technology. On the first day of class, we talked about how Thoreau was actually much closer to civilization than it seems in his writing. Although I cannot find the original map that I saw on my first day of class, this map also demonstrates that even though Thoreau was somewhat “tucked away” he was still decently close to civilization. He talks about occasionally catching people off the train to hear the town’s gossip, something he cannot resist. He also mentions occasionally wandering into town for the human connection that he sometimes yearned for. I believe that this is an interesting point to bring into his first chapter “Economy” because he talks to the reader about how he builds his own house that is meant to be so distant from society but in reality it is quite the opposite. This relates strongly to technology today because even people that claim they want to be distant from the innovations we are creating as a society are still somehow connected to technology in some way. Technology has a huge influence on our society and there is almost no way of having total seclusion from the world or from the devices we have invented and are still working on today.

      https://concordlibrary.org/special-collections/walden/50

       

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on February 12, 2020

      Had it not been for the wonders of Technology I would not have been able to study Thoreau from Iran. Technology made it possible to connect to Thoreau scholars in the US and and use their knowledge and wisdom to penetrate deep into Thoreau’s Walden and even deliver a translation of this book to my people.

      Comment by Olivia Davis on February 16, 2020

      Thoreau’s perspective on senior’s contributions to the world is very interesting. Thoreau states, “I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors”. This portrays the idea that all sound and valid advice or information comes from youth and younger generations, which in turn suggests that as one ages, they become less valuable. It also suggests that ‘new’ is better, and new comes from the youth. This interested me, because it seems to have a direct connection with media and the digital age today. Seniors tend to struggle with technology, as they grew up in a time where communication was done by mouth or written letter. Most of today’s modern technology has been created by younger generations, which goes along with the idea of ‘new’ and ‘better’ coming from the young. Similarly, the idea of humans becoming less valuable with age, the same holds true with technology. Like we discussed in class, technology has shifted immensely within recent years, from a time where writing wasn’t even around to the electronic world today of emails, social media and texting. As time passes and we keep creating new technology, the old is becoming less valuable and of no use. The old technology generally does not contribute to the creation of the new, just like Thoreau suggests that seniors do not give valuable advice.

      Comment by anthony guttilla on February 16, 2020

      When Thoreau talks about old people, he says they have no valuable information to pass on to the younger generation: “They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me any thing, to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me…” As much as I agree with his view, I also disagree. When we are born, old people give us as much knowledge as possible so by the time we go to school and are educated, we know more than they do, because we have learned everything they taught us, and then some. However, old people have gone through most of life at this point and, let’s say he is talking about retired people, they either regret their course because they have worked their whole life and never appreciated anything, or they are happy with what they’ve done and have a big family or something. however, people have different values, and just because someone is old and happy with their lives, does not mean that somebody younger will find happiness from doing the same thing. listening to what older people have to say is somewhat like studying the humanities; it is a story of how another person lived. However, young people have their whole lives ahead of them and have yet to choose their path. So when Thoreau says, “I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors”, he means that he will find out what brings him happiness on his own, and their stories may go against what he believes in.

      Comment by Olivia Davis on April 3, 2020

      Reading the Fluid-Text edition of this passage was very interesting. The beginning 3-4 lines of the text are almost identical, but the rest is cut short or re-worded several times. For example, when speaking on old people not knowing to fetch new fuel to keep the fire going, he added “Old people can hardly walk up stairs, –in Typee the young men can walk up a smooth cocoa-nut tree 60 feet high & bare of branches”. He chose to go into detail with specific examples of why old people are not useful as they age rather than stating broad statements like the original. Thoreau cut out several sentences about his own personal experience with seniors. I find it interesting that he thought his argument might be more credible or convincing using examples that are not relative to himself rather than his own personal experience, for example his closing few sentences including, “They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me any thing, to the purpose.”

      Comment by Anne Baranello on April 27, 2020

      This paragraph is particularly interesting because Thoreau refers to life as an “experiment to a great extent untried by me”, which is a unique perspective. He recognizes and acknowledges the value in what those of older age have to say, but he declares that he will not live by it. Thoreau goes on to state that while advice from an older person cannot be applied to your own life, because even if the situations are similar, your lives are drastically different. He’s reminding us, the readers, to take into consideration that advice we’re given by the wiser souls, but to, in the end, make a decision based off of our own thoughts, feelings, and context.

      Comment by Emma Annonio on May 4, 2020

      My group has chosen this paragraph and the next as part of our revisions for the timeline. This first paragraph was not always included in the novel, and was introduced in Version C. I think Thoreau went back and added this to give his novel a starting place and introducing himself to the reader in a very direct way. We also learn a lot about what we are going to read and can begin to imagine how this life would look before we begin reading.

      The next paragraph allows the reader to establish a connection with Thoreau and his upcoming journey. It has been surprising to me, how easily I have been able to connect the events in my life to this look and to certain passages. We have all, now, experienced some aspect of solitude that Thoreau writes about, and we are better able to connect with his writings because of that.

      Comment by Anne Baranello on May 4, 2020

      My group has decided to use this particular section of economy for our revisions/timeline, and it’s interesting to see what differences there are between version A and this current version. Thoreau is definitely wordier in the original manuscript – there are entire sections of sentences that were crossed out. For example, after the sentence “Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income…” Thoreau had originally written, “Some had not come to my house because I lived there. Others have come – because I lived there – and others again, because I lived there.” This section was taken out of both version A and this version. Version A is still wordy, but this copy is infinitely less so, and its interesting to see exactly what sentences were deemed unnecessary.

      Comment by kenneth demerchant on February 4, 2021

      I found it interesting that he lives in the woods alone and wanted to be civilized from everyone. And it amazes me that he built a home all by himself on a pond

      Comment by Allison Cummings on January 26, 2022

      [civilized life]

      irony.

      Comment by Sarah Cronin on February 1, 2022

      Even just reading through the first paragraph, we can already get a feel for Thoreau and how he lived his life. It is also interesting to see how different ways of life were back then, earning his living by his hands only

      Comment by Sarah Cronin on February 1, 2022

      This paragraph is interesting and confusing at the same time. “The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad…” or “what demon possessed me that I behaved so well?” It makes me wonder how he really acts and what he is used to, and why does he bring up demon possession for acting in a good way when I tend to think of that as evil?

      Comment by Zachary Vandecar on February 12, 2022

      I see Thoreau’s point here, that despite only eating vegetables, oxen are stll strong and healthy, but humans are not oxen. I’m not a biologist, but the human body was surely created with eating things other than vegetables in mind.

  • Solitude (188 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [My nearest neighbor]

      As has been pointed out, there was a much nearer community of Irish shanties along the railroad track, but T preferred to ignore these in W.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [To fish for pouts]

      A common New England freshwater fish.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [The world to darkness]

      “And leaves the world to darkness and to me” (Thomas Gray, “Elegy in a Country Churchyard”).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [Cambridge College]

      Once again, Harvard College, from which T had graduated.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [What is the pill]

      T is probably thinking of Morrison’s Pill, which Carlyle describes in the chapter of that name in Past and Present.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [dark, though the witches are]

      Salem had been the site of witch trials in the late seventeenth century.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Beautiful daughter of Toscar]

      From Patrick MacGregor’s “translation” of Ossian, The Genuine Remains of Ossian, “Croma” (London, 1841, 193).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Hill, or the Five Points]

      Beacon Hill is the eminence on which the state house stands in Boston. Five Points was a section of lower Manhattan notorious for its squalor and crime.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [and the mud to Brighton]

      Brighton, now part of Boston, was then the site of numerous slaughterhouses and farmers’ markets. “Bright” was a common farm name for a favored ox.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [environ us on all sides]

      Confucius, The Doctrine of the Mean, XVI, 1-3.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [must of necessity have neighbors]

      Confucian Analects, IV, xxv.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [sky looking down on it]

      In Hindu mythology, the Vedic god who presides over the deities in the middle realm (the air).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [another. However intense my experience]

      T was constantly aware of the fact that he was never able to lose himself completely in any emotion.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [remunerate]

      In the first edition a comma appeared after “remunerate,” but T struck it out in his copy.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [alone, hardly in their dreams]

      A famous social experiment of the time was conducted in Lowell, Massachusetts, where girls were hired to work in the textile mills and lived in factory dormitories nearby. Reformers roundly praised the artistic products of their leisure time, but T questioned the effect on their individual spirits.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [lost in the woods and dying]

      I have been unable to discover the source of this story.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [has not the blue devils]

      Blue devils: a popular name for hypochondriac melancholy.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [one is a mock sun]

      A common natural phenomenon known as a parhelion or sundog.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [alone]

      When Jesus cast the evil spirit out of an unclean man, “He asked him, ‘What is thy name?’ and he answered, saying, ‘My name is Legion: for we are many'” (Mark 5:9).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [than the Mill Brook]

      The Mill Brook still flows through the center of Concord, although now partly underground.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [wood, from an old settler]

      Since a few lines later T refers to the old settler as someone thought to be dead, it is likely that he is referring to Pan, the Greek god of all the inhabitants of the country. “The great God Pan is dead” is from Plutarch’s “Why the Oracles Cease to Give Answers.” Charles Anderson (77-8) questions the usual interpretation of this as Pan. Cameron (1991) suggests T is referring to Hawthorne’s “Gray Champion.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [ever did Goffe or Whalley]

      Two of the regicides under indictment for killing King Charles I in 1649. They fled to America and hid in various places in the Connecticut River Valley.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [is buried. An elderly dame]

      Mother Nature.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [persons, in whose odorous herb]

      Medicinal herbs.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [outlived so many old Parrs]

      Thomas Parr, reputedly born in 1483, who died in Salop, England, in 1635 at the age of 152.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [one of those quack vials]

      Patent medicines of the day, hawked from village to village in covered wagons.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Acheron]

      The modern Souli River, which according to Greek mythology was in communication with the realms of Pluto.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [westward the steps of Aurora]

      A Roman goddess, the forerunner of the sun.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [am no worshipper of Hygeia]

      The Greek goddess of health.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [that old herb-doctor Aesculapius]

      The “blameless physician” of the Iliad.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [but rather of Hebe]

      According to some ancient authorities, Juno conceived Hebe after eating lettuce. As Eddleman demonstrates, T is quoting almost word for word from Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on February 1, 2014

      [Solitude]

      For an analysis of the structure of this chapter, see Ross (1970).

      Comment by Christine O'Neill on May 5, 2014

       [visitors have been there and left their cards, either a bunch of flowers, or a wreath of evergreen, or a name in pencil on a yellow walnut leaf or a chip] So Thoreau had groupies even in his own time. I wasn’t sure if he was considered more of an eccentric than a local celebrity, but I guess it was both. It’s pretty comical, though, that they left him flowers and wreaths and a ring from a willow – those sound like little kid gifts, like “mud pie” or something. I guess that’s the stuff Thoreau likes, though. Nature.

      Comment by Alexa Krowiak on February 3, 2015

      I find it interesting that Thoreau chooses to to describe himself “more favored by the gods” compared to other men.  I know there has been a few discussions in class that have been brought up about how people feel Thoreau at times shows off the fact he came from a well-educated background and had the means for him to be able to live in the woods, and I feel that this is another point where he shows that off. He had claimed this lifestyle is not for everyone, but describes to us in this paragraph here how he himself has “never felt lonesome” in his time of solitude in the woods, and is very much enjoying the company of Nature

      Comment by Catherine McCormick on February 3, 2015

      “When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way.” This comment resonated with me. I realized that all too often human beings are concentrated entirely on themselves and on nothing else. In many cases I would rather complain about my own trials and tribulations than worry about others. This passage is causing me to reflect upon the fact that people can be self centered and this can hurt them spiritually.

      Comment by Morgan Staub on February 4, 2015

      To me, I find this paragraph quintessential to the theme of Walden, almost the equivalent of John 3:16 from the New Testament, which is considered to encapsulate the entire message of Christianity in one verse. Thoreau reiterates several main themes of his work, such as his isolation, being in his “own world,” and the reclamation of nature. If I was to introduce someone to the work of Thoreau and they did not have time to read the whole work, I would make sure that they were aware of this paragraph. His last line, which even brings up religious themes and the fear imbibed by the dark, only serves to drive home the biblical comparisons.

      Comment by Melanie Weissman on February 9, 2015

      I wonder, how would Thoreau feel about methods of communication like email, texting, and talking on the phone? Would he condemn these types of technology or find them more tolerable than forced face-to-face conversations?

      Comment by William Foley on February 9, 2015

      In this paragraph, Thoreau goes into great detail about how he is basically a better human because of his ability to appreciate his “oneness” with Nature. While this idea comes across in a very presumptuous manner, i think he does have a point. I think the ability for someone to be content and one with themselves  and their surroundings when completely on their own is actually an important ability. Thoreau is explaining here how he is able to connect on such a level with Nature, that the technological advances of societal life are completely insignificant. While i do not think it is that easy or intelligent to completely disengage with society in today’s day in age, i do think it is important to be aware of how technology can be an amazing resource but also a detriment to our connection with the environment around us if we let it be. In today’s society, i think this has happened. We have reached a state of affluence that in my opinion, has been largely influenced by the exponential growth of technology. If we were able to take some of Thoreau’s ideas about being one with Nature, and focus on finding a correct balance between that mindset and technological advances, we would be in a far greater place today.

      Comment by Grace Rowan on April 28, 2015

      Thoreau’s description of his surroundings tempts the reader to drop everything and go to Walden pond. The serenity and his appreciation for the little things in nature makes the reader stop and enter this mindset. This simplistic way of thinking makes the reader more observant to his or her surroundings as well.

      Comment by Justine Capozzi on April 3, 2016

      While reading this paragraph, I questioned if Thoreau would have felt this way if he was more extroverted. Similarly to Thoreau, I myself appreciate the time that I spend alone as I reflect upon my own thoughts. When he says that “We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers,” I believe that this statement rings true for many people who are in the presence of someone that they do not relate to whatsoever. Thoreau believes that we do not have to be in the presence of others in order to learn. Rather, it is possible to expand our knowledge while we are alone, because there is no one there to distract or exhaust us. When performing work within a designated field, it is impossible to feel lonely because this will make it possible to work in solitude.

      Comment by Erin Dougherty on April 3, 2016

      [I could always tell if visitors had called in my absence, either by the bended twigs or grass, or the print of their shoes, and generally of what sex or age or quality they were by some slight trace left,]

      I wonder what Thoreau means here by quality. Does your quality depend on the type of trace you leave? What trace could one leave behind that makes you higher quality in Thoreau’s eyes?

      Comment by Amber Parmelee on April 3, 2016

      This section reinforces that Thoreau was not a big fan of people.  By his tone of voice, one can assume that Thoreau is not happy about his visitors.  He is able to draw conclusions about the people who visit from very small details.  This implies that he pays very close attention to his surroundings and knows exactly when something changes.  The idea of Thoreau being in touch with his surroundings is once again touched on in this section, as it has been throughout Walden.

      Comment by Autumn Arnold on April 3, 2016

      [To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating.]

      This quote, and entire paragraph reminds me of the quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, when Jordan Baker tell the protagonist Nick, “And I like large parties. They’re so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy.”For, even among the intimate company of others or among large crowds, like Thoreau states,it is tiresome to be around others. Always putting in effort to focus on those around us and indulge their thoughts and ideas, solitude provides a sole focus on the self. This self-reflection and introspection may serve as restorative time whether in the fields or in the home as a student. 

      Comment by Ed Gillin on April 4, 2016

      [ She was probably the only thoroughly sound-conditioned, healthy, and robust young lady that ever walked the globe]

      This is certainly an intriguing judgment.  Is it meant to be as gender-related as it sounds, do you suppose?  (If so, what does it say about the author?  About his times?)

      Comment by Alexis Sammler on April 4, 2016

      “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” While this is a paradox, it is a great awareness and consciousness to solitude. To embrace the company of being alone, is courageous. Not many people today embrace the strength of solitude. But to do so is to travel within our soul and find a deeper understanding of life.  “We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows.” Thoreau is embracing solitude. To be comfortably alone is a strength. This is solitude. To be with others may be more lonely–for we are influenced by others, and not as close to our truest self with others. To be in solitude is to be alone with our closest, most well known friend: ourselves.

      “I should not talk so much about myself if there were any body else whom I knew as well.” (Economy)

      “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.” (Visitors)

      Much of Thoreau’s passages are metaphorical as well as humorous.

      Comment by Autumn Arnold on April 4, 2016

      As we have discussed in class today (4/4/16) there are various interpretations of what solitude means to Thoreau, especially if it were to be placed in the context of today’s more technologically “plugged in” society. Two view points / questions offered in class were:

      1. Does technology serve as a means of connection and interconnectedness . . an extension of company?

      2. Is the use of technology used to fill the void / fear of loneliness and solitude?

      However, in my opinion, it would seem as though the use of technology has increased our means of solitude and isolation by allowing us to disconnect from face to face interactions. The distance of our minds keeps us from having to exert our attention on others ideas, thoughts, and feelings which, as Thoreau states, can be tiresome. Technology gives us the ability to put company down, away, or turned off so that we may still look introspectively at ourselves to enjoy solitude at a moments notice. Although, it would not seem as though this generation takes to enjoying solitude often, the convenience that technology provides us to do so is worth conversation when considering Thoreau’s ideas/thoughts about the quality of solitude. 

      Comment by Kristen Seaman on April 4, 2016

      This might be my favorite line of Thoreau’s thus far. I feel that he perfectly described the separation of the minds that every individual feels, while addressing the question of loneliness due to his isolation. I found this entire paragraph to be very thought provoking, as he brought in a lot of different elements to the conversation.

      I found it particularly interesting when he addressed the issue of enormity in the universe. I enjoyed the quote, “This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way?” I felt that he perfectly put in perspective the isolation that our planet as a whole experiences. In retrospect, living outside of the village is merely a few hundred feet of distance, compared to the immense distance between all aspects of the universe that we are a part of.

      One will never find another man who completely understands his mind. Therefore, isolation will always exist. Without isolation of the minds, we would lose the ability for original thought. I felt that he brought in the positives of isolation through this paragraph, and brought to light a new perspective to loneliness.

      Comment by Mariya Gunda on April 4, 2016

      “I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced.” I find this sentence really interesting because he touches upon two “religious” ideas; that of Christianity and Paganism. Religion as whole can be viewed as a way to bring people together that may fear life and the unknown. When Th. talks about how many men are still afraid of the dark, this darkness goes deeper than just absence of light. I believe that this darkness encompasses a whole other Truth or area of awareness and knowledge that most men may still shrink from. This darkness and the fear of it can be seen as the fear of the unknown and rather than welcoming it and befriending it, learning from it, they run and hide. Those who are not willing to take the time to learn from Nature entrap themselves in their societal ideals. Religion can be viewed as a way to subdue fears but it never explains where the fear comes from or why there may be no reason to feel it at all. Th. says that he has no reason to be afraid and perhaps it is that he has taken the time to understand the darkness that he has welcomed it as an essential part of life and Nature.

      Comment by Mariya Gunda on April 4, 2016

      This has a very Emersonian tone to it.  Emerson, in Nature, wrote when you seek the beauty of Nature it is often not there for you to see because nature likes to sneak up on you and leave you staring in awe.  This sentence makes me think of something similar, when you entrap all that there is in the world to physical objects and ideas, the essence of them is often lost.  There is an ethereal aspect within each object that people may see or identify with but this is not the entirety of the substance it is merely what holds the essence.  If the essence is forgotten and only understood as the tangible object the understanding and appreciation is shallow.  Seeking the objects, we think to contain the essence, is not the right way to go about it.  Searching in these places that we thought to last see them does not guarantee their presence or existence.  It also does not guarantee that they will show themselves.  They are everywhere, they only stop to visit the substances we connect them with.

      Comment by Mariya Gunda on April 4, 2016

      ” how I could bring my mind to give up so many of the comforts of life”

      This particular statement makes me think back to when Th. decided to walk to Fitchburg instead of working like another man might to earn the fare for a train.  Passages like these remind the reader of the differences between what is viewed as “comfort” or “luxury” and what is indeed the more comfortable and luxurious path.

       

      Comment by Lizzie Landrum on April 5, 2016

      [and, being good for the grass, it would be good for me. ]

      I find the simplicity of this line beautiful and peaceful.  It touches something inside me like a zen mantra.  By stating so simply that what is good for one, is good for another Thoreau emphasizes the cyclical nature of life.  Though the rain might destroy his crops, he has faith that in the grand scheme of things it benefits all.  His later lines undercut this profound thought with what I can only describe as spiritual narcissism, and show that he might only have been thinking of his own gain from the health of the grass. The line by itself is a meditation on life, but joined with the rest of the passage becomes an ego-filled musing.  I personally prefer to take the line by itself, for its purity, or maybe to look at the “favor” he feels from the god’s as a feeling of unity with nature that anyone would have, being one with divinity and the earth.

      Comment by Megan Normann on April 6, 2016

      I think you make a good point in asserting that face-to-face interactions happen less often now due to technology’s abundant presence in our lives. While I think that it is certainly possible, as you say, to turn off the phones and thus ‘put the company away,’ I’m wondering if that’s something that ever happens anymore. I don’t think I’m presuming too much when I infer that not all of us can find company in anything like the pattering of rain drops; however, Thoreau says, “Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me” (Walden, 86). I think what technology has really done, is not provided us with a lack of company, but rather a lack of introspection. No longer do people often sit by themselves and simply go through their own thoughts or appreciate nature. It is these moments that Thoreau so enjoys that he actually schedules times to experience them that we no longer have much respect for at all – not when there are phones in our hands that can so easily take us away from our thoughts and surroundings.

      Comment by Megan Normann on April 7, 2016

      [God is alone,—but the devil, he is far from being alone; he sees a great deal of company; he is legion]

      This line struck me the first time through reading Solitude. I know that Thoreau took this quote from the book of Mark, and so did not compose it entirely on his own; however, he did choose to add it here. Why?

      After our class discussion on Wednesday, I thought about it more, and I think it can be connected to our thoughts on Thoreau’s potential misanthropy, or at least his cynicism. He states earlier that the lake has the company of ‘blue angels,’ not devils, but now chooses to indicate that there are less people in Heaven than there are in Hell. I think it’s fairly clear through most of Thoreau’s works that he favors the company of nature more than that of humans, or at least that he thinks the essence of nature is more beneficial than the institutions of society. To place this quote here seems to me, then, that Thoreau consciously indicated his dislike, or at least doubt, in the genuine nature of human beings.

      Comment by Alyssa Sherman on April 28, 2016

      In “Solitude” Thoreau explores the greater concept of being “alone” and in paragraph 12 specifically addresses the defining qualities of loneliness:

      “The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he can “see the folks,” and recreate, and as he thinks remunerate himself for his day’s solitude…”

      Essentially, is the word alone defined as a physical or mental state? A person may be surrounded by others, but alone with his own thought. Physical proximity does not equate to loneliness. Likewise, a person may be physically alone, but at the company of his own thoughts.

      I believe that language is failing Thoreau. Thoreau enjoys the state of being physically alone, but I do not believe that he is experiencing the affects of loneliness because he still has the company of his own thoughts. If Thoreau is never leaving “his field” much like the farm worker, he is never truly experiencing loneliness.

      Comment by James Douglass on May 11, 2016

      While I understand Thoreau’s sentiments. I find that my own mind is too limited. I need the thoughts of others to challenge my own ideas and give food for thought later on. In fact I love talking to people who I disagree, provided they are open-minded enough to tolerate my opinions as well. I’m not “at the mercy of my thoughts” when I am alone so much as when I am alone after having a challenging conversation or reading a challenging text. Transcendentalists believe all truth can be found from within, But I still have trouble believing it. I desire other people’s opinions to compare with my own and to expand my ability to think from multiple perspectives.

      Comment by Elena Vasquez on October 9, 2017

      Finally once he is alone for a little while, he begins to feel one with nature.

      Comment by Elena Vasquez on October 9, 2017

      In my book he references feeling like his house could have been as far away as Africa or Asia, although his neighbors are just a mile down the road. The fact that he feels so distant to his neighbors, describes how much he enjoyed the ability to be alone.

      Comment by Josephine Gombert on October 14, 2017

      At this part, I was able to understand how it was okay to be alone and how it is nice to get away from a city or town.

      Comment by Josephine Gombert on October 15, 2017

      Yes, he finally is able to one with nature and takes in all that is around him.

      Comment by Skye Bruggeman on October 20, 2017

      Thoreau’s solitude is what allows him to truly connect with the nature around him. In today’s modern society, solitude is hard to come by and is often underrated.

      Comment by Skye Bruggeman on October 22, 2017

      I think he is also making the point that there is space for solitude anywhere if you go looking for it.

      Comment by Elena Vasquez on October 24, 2017

      especially because in todays society it hard to become disconnected with technology.

      Comment by Sarah Alper on October 27, 2017

      As the person above me has said, I understand why solitude can sometimes be a good thing. Some times having time to yourself is rejuvenating in a way that nothing else is, but just because someone is alone does not necessarily mean that they feel loneliness as Thoreau states “The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome” 

      But I also think that there are times when isolation can be a bad thing as you have no one to challenge, no one to push you other than yourself which is most cases can cause extreme stress and laziness therefore. Personally I think it’s important to have a balance of the two.

      Comment by Hannah Kennedy on April 22, 2018

      [Sometimes, when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the gods than they, beyond any deserts that I am conscious of; as if I had a warrant and surety at their hands which my fellows have not, and were especially guided and guarded. ]

      Thoreau could not possibly make a more conceited statement than this.

      Comment by Alexandra Welker on September 17, 2018

      [They who come rarely to the woods take some little piece of the forest into their hands to play with by the way, which they leave, either intentionally or accidentally]

      I love this idea! Working at a summer camp when we go on hikes the kids often pick up a rock, leaves, or some form of nature and play with it on the hike. We say “leave nature in nature” but it is very easy to find the nature in a different spot then where they found it, and there are tears when they accidentally lose the stick we told them they could not have.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      [Sometimes, when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the gods than they, beyond any deserts that I am conscious of; as if I had a warrant and surety at their hands which my fellows have not, and were especially guided and guarded. ]

      Thoreau feels he is privileged in being able to enjoy this experience and to be conscious of  faults that many live throughout him being there.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      [ I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.]

      Wow. There is no better way to state that communication and chemistry among a people which is vital, among any amount of space between. Idly being surrounded by a crowd of people and still feeling lonely. Minds must connect, almost as if they have there own powerful language.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      I want to discuss this statement in class! Waking up…to not live…is destruction to ones self?

      Who is “they?”

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      Thoreau here highlights yet another fault which is that we are in-fact poor spectators of one another and of ourselves and for that we lose insight.

      Comment by Anna Briganti on September 18, 2018

      I believe that Thoreau believes that he is superior to other man when he says “as if I was more favored by the gods.” He thinks the he has something that those other may not contain.

      Comment by Anna Briganti on September 18, 2018

      “While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me.” Thoreau tried to explain that he does everything in his power to enjoy his stay at him home. He knows  if there is a storm there are not many aspects of the house that can save him and keep him dry in the cold raining nights, but he tries to make the best of the combinations that he is living within.

       

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 18, 2018

      Here we discuss how Thoreau criticizes the idea presented by Confucius, that we have these outside spectators who measure our “virtue.” Here Thoreau disagrees and questions whether we need these societal pressures of “being together”, if that creates the very hindrance of us connecting to ourselves and one another. Why can we not be alone, measured by ourselves, and content?

      Comment by Carver Kozlowski on September 18, 2018

      “I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which…is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it”–I find it interesting how Thoreau separates parts of himself from himself; it almost sounds like he is describing an out-of-body experience where he is watching his own actions. This possibly relates to his overall pattern of seemingly contradictory statements and characterizing himself differently at different moments, perhaps to the extent that he is an entirely different person in different moments.

      Comment by Nat Hilts on September 19, 2018

      In this paragraph Thoreau reflects on his positive experiences of being alone, expressing the fact that he likes it better than socializing in general. He moves from this into his theory of solitude not being measured by physical space but by one’s perception, using the example of the farmer and the student to frame his point. As most people may identify with the farmer who “cannot sit down in a room alone,” it becomes necessary to generalize it and explain in this way in order to help people understand the potential beauty in solitude that most people shy away from. The point made in this paragraph can generalize, too, to the recurring theme in Walden of helping others understand why Thoreau went into the woods in the first place.

      I find the relation to working in the field to be an interesting analogy for the difference found between solitude and loneliness. “…he does not realize that the student… is still at work in his field… and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the latter does….” That is, it is the recreation and society which keeps them from feeling alone; so long as they are occupied with these, their solitude won’t become negative. It’s intriguingly worded, and I do agree to a certain extent, but I’d rather opt to use a different term for it: perhaps, “purpose”?

      Comment by Nat Hilts on September 19, 2018

      Looking again at his positive experiences of solitude, Thoreau explains that he finds company when he is alone. He extends this into a abstraction of how being alone should not have such negative connotation, and perhaps we should look to being in others’ company as the negative potential. His potent example is of God and the devil: “God is alone,–but the devil, he is far from being alone; he sees a great deal of company; he is legion.” This particular line really struck me. It seems that, both in the present and in Thoreau’s time, most people just really dreaded the thought of being alone. Most people can’t stand being with only themselves, or so they perceive. In fact, that’s how humans tend to get stuck in bad company, bad relationships, and so on: they think it is better than being alone. The all-too-common notion of the negativity of solitude was what made it necessary for Thoreau to elaborate the way he did. Just as the theme of Paragraph 12, this relates back to Thoreau’s recurring explanation of “Why I’m here.”

      Comment by Kathryn Capone on September 26, 2018

      Thoreau first talks of his experience of being alone and his enjoyment of it. Then, he moves up one level of abstraction and uses the word, “we,” to encompass all of society in his generalization and theorizes on what the true meaning of loneliness is. He believes that loneliness is more of a state of mind and concept, rather than the idea of physically being near other people. To further prove his argument, he includes a comparison between a student and a farmer. The farmer has his work in the field, and the student studies inside a building. These are both of their fields, a place where each are completing their duties, so they are occupying their mind and don’t feel lonely. Thoreau’s whole theory is very interesting to debate and think about, as it changes the meaning to a common idea, which is loneliness. The common definition is “to be by one’s self,” but Thoreau is challenging that preconceived idea with his theory.

      Comment by Jennifer Lew on September 27, 2018

      [ Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question. What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another. ]

      Thoreau explores the idea of solitude through his own experiences and explains that in order to truly be happy, one has to be able to appreciate the simplicity of life. I find this section to be extremely powerful, and was struck by this idea that we, as humans, are always isolated in a sense, but not necessarily alone. By moving up a level of abstraction, Thoreau also allows the reader to dig into their own thoughts and ‘get meta’ themselves. This portion is ultimately grounding despite its universe-oriented themes, and helps to contrast with the previous weather/nature related analogies.

      Comment by Ricky Noel on November 14, 2018

      I’m afraid that I have to respectfully disagree with you, here. I do understand how out of context, Thoreau’s comments that he believes he is “favored by the gods” could read as conceited, but I believe that in context an altogether different and more authentic meaning becomes manifest. Thoreau did not mean to say that he is better or more important than his fellow men in the section you have quoted, he simply meant that when he is alone in nature, enjoying the chapter’s eponymous state of solitude, he feels a deep sense of gratitude and appreciation for what he feels is his very lucky lot in life. Being able to contemplate nature and yourself at your own pace, away from the hustle, bustle, and distraction of human interaction was sacred to Thoreau and I believe he treasured every moment he was able to spend by himself in his beloved wilderness.

      Comment by Michael Frederick on February 18, 2019

      For the “spectator,” see Sankhya Karika by Ishvara Krishna.  Allen Hodder in his book, “Ecstatic Witness,” identifies the “Karika” as a source for this passage.  I would add that the passage is related to Emerson’s notion of the “me” and “not-me” in his essay “Nature.” The passage is also related to time and eternity, especially if we define “eternity” as outside of time, as many spiritual traditions do.  The passage is central to the Thoreau’s life and thought.

      Comment by Michael Frederick on February 18, 2019

      I’m unaware of anyone having pointed this out in the literature about Thoreau, but the “grooved walking stick” in this paragraph is related to the central motif of the book, “Walden.” Read para 5 and 11 in “Solitude” and compare with para 11 in “Conclusion,” Artist of Kouroo (paragraph numbers correspond, both 11).  Then compare with the last para of “Where I Lived and What I Lived For,” “time is but the stream….”  Together the three paragraphs inform us of Thoreau’s imaginative rendering of time and eternity.

      Comment by Henrik Otterberg on February 18, 2019

      I agree with Mike that Emerson’s notion of the “me” and “not me” in his essay “Nature” (1836) may also be at play here. Interestingly, Victor Cousin in his Introduction to the History of Philosophy (1828-29; Boston: Hilliard et al., 1832), some years before develops the following argument: “The fundamental fact of consciousness is a complex phenomenon composed of three terms, namely, the me and the not me, bounded, limited, finite; then the idea of something different from these, of the infinite, of unity, &c.; and again, the relation of the me and the not me, that is – of the finite, to the infinite, which contains and unfolds it: these, therefore, are the three terms of which the fundamental fact of consciousness is composed” (159). Cousin then goes on to develop the argument over the following pages. From Walter Harding’s Emerson’s Library (1969), we learn that Emerson owned Cousin’s tomes in the original French. Regarding Thoreau, in turn, we learn from Sattelmeyer’s Thoreau’s Reading (1988) that he extracted Cousin in the English translation (quoted here above) from the Institue of 1770 library at Harvard College, twice in 1837.

      The Emersonians will surely have all this covered already, but it is interesting to note that Cousin’s focus is chronological (finite-infinite), whereas Emerson and Thoreau seem more concerned with the spatial (here-not here).

      Comment by Michael Frederick on February 18, 2019

      Also, see:  https://commons.digitalthoreau.org/docs/frederick-transcendental-ethos-a-study-of-thoreaus-social-philosophy/

      Victor Cousins is discussed in “Transcendental Ethos,” page 22.

      Comment by Henrik Otterberg on February 18, 2019

      Wonderful Mike, so good of your to allow your full PDF to be shared here!

      I urge anyone interested in this problematic to consult Mike’s Transcendental Ethos, p. 22 ff.

      Here Cousin gets a fuller gloss and appropriate context, I learned much from it.

      I wish I had caught this earlier, but better late than sorry 🙂

      Comment by Michael Frederick on February 18, 2019

      The dichotomy, me and not-me, and the “spectator” is relatable to the Contact passage in “Ktaadn,” where Thoreau distinguishes between spirit (which he says “I am one”) and matter (which he says “has possession of me”).  This is, in fact, the condition of purusha (roughly spirit) and prakriti (matter) in the Sankhya Karika Yoga text, which Thoreau read (Sattelmeyer), where the Spectator is watching, or entwined with, the Dancer.

      For further evidence that Thoreau read about the “Spectator” in Hindu literature, here’s a quote from “Friday,” in “A Week”: “

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      A Hindoo sage said, “As a dancer, having exhibited herself to the spectator, desists from the dance, so does Nature desist, having manifested herself to soul—.”

      Comment by Michael Frederick on February 18, 2019

      That’s why Thoreau says: “We are not wholly involved in Nature.” The “dancer” and “Nature” desist from the dance.  Thoreau’s double consciousness is of himself engaged in the “field of action,” as HDT, where he must be ethical, and “outside” the field of action as Spectator (non-judging).  Awareness of judging/non-judging attitude in Thoreau helps us to discern some of the seeming paradoxes in his writing.

      Comment by Danielle Crowley on February 28, 2020

      [ Leave a comment on paragraph 2 4 When I return to my house I find that visitors have been there and left their cards, either a bunch of flowers, or a wreath of evergreen, or a name in pencil on a yellow walnut leaf or a chip.]

      This particular line makes me think of the holidays with my family. When my entire family comes over for thanksgiving or for Christmas dinner, there are always things left behind as gifts, things forgotten, messes left to be cleaned, and an overwhelming feeling of joy. Whatever is left always tells you what the person was doing and you can almost all tell who left it.

      In addition to this thought, later on in the text in paragraph 12, Thoreau talks about how he has found it wholesome to be alone. I’m so inclined to agree with that statement. I consider myself to be an extroverted introvert. I love hanging out with the people i care about and who don’t get on my nerves easily, but regardless of how much I like a person, I need to be left alone sometimes. Just being able to be alone, get work done, but productive and really focus is extremely enjoyable – Thoreau touches on how you can be alone but not feel alone by working.

      I think this concept is different when it comes to technology. While I enjoy being alone and being productive, I find that doing work on my computer is not the same kind of productivity I may have when I’m reading from a book or working through a worksheet. I think there are more distractions on the computer than there may be when I am just working with old school pen and paper.

      I think I almost think of my computer as a person as well. My computer is connected to my phone, all my social media, and stores so much information – its almost as if it is extension of myself and my life. This makes me feel like the feeling of good solitude I get from working with paper and books is greater than that of working with a computer.

      Comment by Leila Sassouni on February 29, 2020

      I love quiet time. I love being able to sit down without technology around me and just breathe. I find beauty in embracing silence, since it is beneficial for both my mental and emotional states. There are times, however, where this silence can develop into an unwanted feeling of loneliness. In this passage, Thoreau discusses the idea of silence and says, “There is commonly sufficient space about us.”  In this time period, technology was not rampant. As a result of this, much of the time people like Thoreau were alone and were able to embrace the quiet around them and think about their role in the world, giving them space. Present day, technology is what shrinks this space. When I am without my phone and still alone, I feel free of the world and disconnected. I do not feel obligated to anyone or anything. However, when I have my phone on me and I am by myself, I still feel connected to the people around me. This feeling is in part due to the fact that my applications are still active, but also that people still have the freedom to reach me as they please. No matter what, I am still connected; therefore, my space is even more limited. Technology is what completely intervenes in this space.

      Comment by Justin Colleran on March 1, 2020

      In this paragraph, Thoreau talks about the idea of space, and how it is nice to just be away from the hustle and bustle of cities and more stereotypical neighborhoods. It is nice to get away from it all and just have time for yourself, to be in your own world without anyone else around you. However, I feel like it is nice to an extent. Don’t get me wrong, I love alone time, but sometimes I get really bored and feel really lonely. That’s when I turn to technology, because you get alone time, but also get the feeling that you are not alone, which is a really weird to think about. Although I enjoy technology, it is still good and healthy to step away from it for a little bit.

      Comment by Caroline Crimmins on March 1, 2020

      In our society, it is not often that we do have complete alone time. Because of the technological advancements we created, even when we are alone we never truly are disconnected. One way we can disconnect is by turning our phones and devices off or setting time limits on certain applications. Thoreau values alone time because he does not see solitude as lonely. It is a time to reflect on our thoughts and emotions about the world around us. Being alone is often portrayed as a negative feeling, however, that does not always have to be the case. For introverts, alone time lets them recharge or rest after social situations.

      Comment by Kira Baran on March 1, 2020

      Thoreau makes a very important point here as he weighs “solitude” versus “society” in terms of quality versus quantity. He notes that many people–family members, friends, etc–make it a point to set aside regular, “short intervals” of time to meet with each other, in order to keep their relationships going. However, while setting aside time to meet up may keep their current relationships going, it is not effective at fostering growing, progressing relationships through which “new value” and “respect” is gained.

      Society’s tendency to place more focus on quantity (i.e., frequency of meet-ups) rather than quality (i.e., duration of meet-ups and depth of conversation) has inevitably led society to develop “rules, called etiquette and politeness” which further fuel this stagnant trend whereby people talk to or past each other, rather than WITH each other. As Thoreau concludes, keeping company with few, yet high-quality people, rather than many people who lack communicative substance, is ideal: that is, quality over quantity–and solitude over superficial popularity–is a better path to take.

      Since the time Thoreau penned these thoughts, I think technology has only served to exacerbate the issues he addresses here. Email and text and social media mean that we, as a society, keep in touch with people at an unprecedented, global-reaching rate; an yet, rarely is meaningful human connection gained through these means of communication. As many people my age, including myself, have realized, taking breaks from social media–and even temporarily deleting one’s accounts in order to do this–are sometimes necessary for one’s sanity. “FOMO” (fear of missing out) leads people to think they are missing out on meaningful social interactions, when in reality social media often is used to depict mere quantity over quality.

      Comment by Jaffre Aether on March 1, 2020

      [ I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since]

      Thoreau discusses the delineation between Nature and Neighborhood as a choice that can be taken, and as if the two spheres were completely separate. I don’t believe this to be necessarily true anymore for our contemporary world. While Thoreau is able to escape into Nature, we are only able to visit it. Likewise, his escape into nature equates into pure solitude, such that our visits do not allow us to achieve a sense of solitude. The lingering thought that we retain is that we must return to society, as we have a certain framework of expectations set upon us so that we may produce value for our society. I speak in reference to the concept, now fading, of the American Dream. Whereas Thoreau had Nature and Neighborhood, we have Nature and Workplace. We can only abdicate our relational responsibilities so much, because we need to interact with people constantly within the Workplace. In essence, I think our contemporary society has set up a sticky network of interpersonal relations, ones that are not meaningful but nonetheless inextricable from ourselves, that pervade our jaunts into Nature and solitude with stressful reminders that sit in the back of our heads with what we ought to be doing.  Perhaps though, the solution is contained within his sentence though, for if we could drop those expectations for just a second, and enter the pure infiniteness that Thoreau detail, we could achieve a pause and respite.

      Comment by Christina Inter on March 1, 2020

      [ I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.]

      Upon first glance, I find this quote to be counter intuitive. Usually, one feels the least alone when surrounded by people, especially good company. However, it is possible to feel the most lonely in a room full of people when one feels alienated, that they have nothing in common with those who surround them. I believe Thoreau is discussing how the place where you can always be yourself without any trepidation is in your own company. If you are alone, there is nothing to compare your experience to. You are free to be yourself without judgement, without fear. There are no other people present to make you feel by yourself or different. Solitude is liberating. One feels alone when they compare their experience to those of others, to the absence of people around them. I believe Thoreau is expressing that being alone can be freeing, if you keep yourself open to the present experience.

      Comment by Kyle Regan on March 1, 2020

      Thoreau adds to his points made in the third paragraph in the beginning of the fourth about living surrounded by nature. In the third paragraph he talks about how far away he is from everyone and the extent to which he is excluded from other humans. He starts the fourth paragraph saying “there can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of nature and has his senses still.” This stood out to be because of the vast difference in how I perceive the world as does Thoreau. Whenever I am on a long drive and happen to pass houses that seem extremely secluded and in the middle of nowhere. I always have this feeling that if I was to live there I would feel very depressed and I just would never want to live to far away from things happening. I guess my viewpoint is quite skewed against living in nature growing up in the middle of Manhattan. The only solace I think of is that technology would connect me to people I know if I did happen to live there. Meanwhile Thoreau is talking about loving being secluded in the way he is without any semblance of the technology we enjoy today. I think my preconceived notions are wrong though about feeling poorly when living in nature. I was on a trip to yellowstone national park this summer with my family and the air bnb we stayed in was essentially in the middle of no where wyoming without wifi and terrible phone reception. I thought that when we were back from the park it would be very boring but I ended up just having a great time with my brothers and parents. Although I’m not so sure I would have felt the same way without the company of my family the way that Thoreau seems to like to live.

      Comment by Maeve Morley on March 1, 2020

      In this paragraph, Thoreau places emphasis on his seclusion from the rest of the world while living in the woods next to Walden Pond, and how it brings him content. I, too, have shared this same mindset with Thoreau where I do enjoy being by myself sometimes. I feel like everyone should have alone time, and it’s a healthy factor in one’s daily life. As for technology in connection with this situation, I believe it plays a significant part in distancing ourselves from the rest of the world, but with a negative influence. With the progression into the future, technology will always be a prominent force in our everyday lives. However, humans need to learn how to balance the utilization of technology in their lives, and make sure not to have it encroach too much into the important things in life, such as family, friends, and experiences.

      Comment by Hannah Fahy on March 1, 2020

      This passage reminds me of the song “Car Radio” by Twenty One Pilots. The song follows the lead singer as he laments the loss of his car radio. The lead singer finds out that he can’t hide from himself in the silence and solitude of his car. Solitude can be scary at first, but it’s in the seclusion that you can learn about yourself. People go out of their way to stay busy and distracted to avoid spending too much time with their own mind. However, if people spent more time in solitude, they would notice things about themselves and their environment like Thoreau does in this section. He felt the discomfort associated with seclusion until the silence allowed him to hear the natural world around him. He was able to see the woods and weather in a new way without the constant distraction of always being surrounded by people.

      As a kid I spent a lot of time home alone because my mom worked a lot. Because of that, I’ve always loved being alone. When I was alone as a kid I would explore the house and play pretend for hours. Now as an adult, solitude allows me to be creative and contemplative. It may be uncomfortable at first, but more people ought to give solitude a chance. Being alone every now and then might help them see things in a new light.

      Comment by Rachel Beck on March 1, 2020

      [Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rain storms in the spring or fall, which confined me to the house for the afternoon as well as the forenoon, soothed by their ceaseless roar and pelting; when an early twilight ushered in a long evening in which many thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves.]

      I really enjoy this particular sentence of the passage because I also find that some of my best times are spent sitting inside during rain storms. The sound of the rain against the rooftop is one of my favorite sounds, and I like being able to sit down next to a window so I can watch the rain create puddles outside in the grass. It’s interesting how in a world that’s so  invested in technology, some of the simple things still manage to make us happy.

      Later on in this paragraph, Thoreau mentions how some wonder why he doesn’t feel lonesome being so far away from people, especially during rainy days and nights. He doesn’t understand why people expect him to feel lonely, and I can’t help but agree with him. While I love being around my friends and family, there is something very enjoyable about being alone. Too often I find myself needing to be alone to re-energize.

      Comment by Emma Annonio on March 1, 2020

      Even though Thoreau spends most of his time in solitude, he finds peace and company with nature, work, and study. He also notes that one can be in solitude or feel lonely whilst among others; he specifically describes that one diligent student student at Cambridge University studying among a crowd. I wonder if Thoreau would still be at peace with solitude if he had access to the immense technology we have today. When I am physically alone, I don’t necessarily feel alone as I have access to friends and family via social media and my phone. I have access to streaming networks, and media online. I am always connected to the world, and while it allows me to always stay updated, I never have the freedom to just be alone. If I receive a ext message I feel obligated to respond right away. I spend almost all day on my laptop, and even if I am physically alone, I am always virtually connected with people. When I was younger, and didn’t have access to the technology we use today I remember staying up late to watch lightning storms with my mom or simply just listening to the rain until I fell asleep. I can’t remember the last time I have been able to enjoy the effects of nature; if its a snow day, I’d probably just watch a movie on my laptop. Thoreau, not having access to this technology, finds that rain storms are his most pleasant hours; giving him time to appreciate how nature interacts and alone with his thoughts. I find myself feeling jealous of Thoreau’s simple life and the ways he chooses to spend him time throughout the reading of this book and I wonder If I would be more motivated and able to live a life like this, if technology was not as advanced and dependable today.

      Comment by Emma Raupp on March 1, 2020

      “With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent. We are not wholly involved in Nature. I may be either the drift-wood in the stream, or Indra in the sky looking down on it”

      Solitude is certainly conducive to thinking, particularly thinking deeply. When we’re fully absorbed in thought, we’re able to assume a perspective disentangled from the distractions of the self. For a few moments, at least. In the quote above, Thoreau seems to indicate an instance of objective thought. More often than not, our thoughts are formed with the subjective in mind, if they’re not outright egocentric. But we all possess the ability to exist outside our subjective selves and consider the beyond: stuff like ‘the eternal’ and ‘objective truths.’ In that sense, as Thoreau points out, we can momentarily exist apart from ourselves. He calls this a ‘doubleness’ in thought.

      In my experience, I’ve become familiar with the sense of ‘spectating’ my life in a detached way. Like Thoreau, I wouldn’t necessarily call this doubleness, this standing beside my life, a good thing. When I consider “my self” objectively, often in moments of extreme unreality (and solitude), I’m wont to be overly critical and cold. It’s also frightening to see yourself as just another human, who will make mistakes and eventually die like everyone else. But I appreciate the moments of clarity it affords me. This type of thinking is great for getting lost in writing, and also for acting without thinking during overwhelmingly stressful situations, but not for day-to-day existence. As Thoreau writes, “we are not wholly involved in Nature” here, and feeding too much to the detached, objective side of our thoughts takes the joy out of life and “may easily make us poor neighbors and friends”, lacking the ability to connect to someone’s subjective experience.

      I’m really interested in Thoreau’s notion of the spectator. Above I connected it to objective thought, but I also think this lends itself well to Eastern philosophy. When he writes “that is no more I than it is you” of the detached, observant spectator, it brings to mind the concept of “oneness”, or everything being connected as a manifestation of ‘God.’ Perhaps this spectator, that exists for all of us, is indication of some base spirituality. It’s a lot to consider.

      But, in an attempt to connect this to technology somehow, the word spectator reminds me of language in video games. In the online game LoL, you can ‘spectate’ a match other people are playing without being involved in the game yourself. As a spectator, you can move between the perspectives of any/all players, while not being a player yourself. This isn’t very fun, but you can learn from other players’ real-time experience, which tracks onto Thoreau’s concept of a spectator “sharing no experience [with the self], but taking note of it.”

      Comment by Alyssa Harrington on March 1, 2020

      I think this paragraph is the most important to me because of the emphasis of pulling yourself away from technology. I think the shown importance of finding yourself and values in space is good for everyone to know. I think that being able to find your happiness mentally and emotionally will improve the disengagement from technology. Giving yourself the time to step away from technology helps make life more realistic and can improve the knowledge of not needing technology readily available. Since I am a college student now, technology has become a necessity, but is not the only thing I need in my life.

      I do agree with taking a break from technology, but I do not think it needs to be as extreme as it is mentioned in this paragraph. People use technology to figure out where to go and how to determine the weather, or if any major tragedy is occurring. If you do what Milton has suggested we would end up living like hunters and gathers (to a certain extent) instead of working as a whole society and being independent. I do think that we need to take a break from technology, but should still be able to keep it available for emergencies, not for social media use 24/7.

      Comment by Sandy Brahaspat on March 2, 2020

      [A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert. ]

      I particularly enjoyed Thoreau’s sentiment about solitude not being measured by miles of space that intervene between people and his description of the college student because it reminds me of my own college experience. For instance, when I am in the process of working on projects or simply meeting deadlines, it doesn’t matter if I am surrounded by a crowd of my friends – I will still block out the noise from the outside world. Consumed by my own thoughts or suspicions, I’m never quite alone when the voice in my head won’t be quiet.  Yet, at the same time, Thoreau’s description of the farmer who cannot sit down in a room alone seems to reflect the same dilemmas that exist today. Whether it’s obsessively checking our phones when we find ourselves alone in a coffee-shop as opposed to say, engaging in meaningful conversations, or turning to the television and watching shows or movies instead of being content with the quiet. If anything, this passage highlights certain issues that are confronted when practicing yoga or other meditative forms. In yoga, there’s a particular pose that comes to mind and it’s my favorite, it’s called savasana, but most people know it as corpse pose [Sava means corpse (among many other things) in Sanskrit]. Savasana is a pose that forces us to be conscious of our own body by lying perfectly still. Understanding that we are alone, we have control of our independent bodies, this pose encourages us to be more conscious– to exist in the moment. In my own practice of yoga, savasana has enabled me to find comfort in silence, which is ultimately why I find myself agreeing with Thoreau’s sentiment: “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”

      Comment by Abigail Henry on March 2, 2020

      In this paragraph, Thoreau talks about how secluding yourself is not necessarily a bad thing. As a more introverted person, I agree with Thoreau. Sometimes, it is nice to take a step back from socializing and dedicate time to myself. However, I never feel truly alone. Most of the time, I am spending my free time on my phone or some other sort of device. It is strange how we can be physically alone, yet surrounded in the online world. People can reach out to me if they need anything and vice versa. I often prefer this situation, as my social battery is able to recharge without completely isolating myself. I have to give credit to Thoreau, though, because I do not think I could live and be alone almost all the time. While it may be exhausting for me, I still think that social interaction is an important part of a healthy life.

      Comment by Claire Rogers on March 2, 2020

      This paragraph in particular makes me think of the spread of information technology, be that in the form of social media, the internet, or the like. “Can we not do without the society of our gossips a little while?” I think we cannot. The endless, meaningless chattering of the information age is nigh inescapable. I pride myself in not using social media, and in similarly not watching television or Netflix or whatever equivalent, while also not using the internet to socialize. Even still, this is not something I can escape. One cannot walk through campus without hearing of whatever transient and meaningless drama is occurring for some people or another. Even if I isolated myself as much as I am capable, I would still be bombarded by the infinitude of emails sent by the college. I must use my email to function in college life. It is not something I can afford to avoid. And, that technological omnipresence makes the ability to have naught but “our own thoughts to cheer us” a practical impossibility.

      Comment by Hannah Jewell on March 2, 2020

      I think it is interesting how Thoreau discusses feelings of loneliness and how this both affected him and didn’t at the same time. He discusses that he never felt lonesome despite the lack of human contact around him, but he was also conscious of the “slight insanity” in his mood. I can relate to this because when I am alone (which I usually don’t like to be), I have to find ways to entertain myself, which sometimes leads to me believing I’m a little crazy. However, I convince myself that this is normal because it is only me in the room and no one else is there to influence my actions.

      This same idea can be related to technology. When I am on social media, along with many others, this changed the way I portray myself and interact with people because I know other people will be seeing it. This could come off as much different than how my true, in-person self is. Without the use of technology, this gives me the freedom to act as a more authentic and even creative version of myself. As much as I don’t like being alone, sometimes I need that time to discover new things about myself that I can’t find when I am around other people, especially without the use of technology.

      Comment by Mitchell Pace on March 2, 2020

      When working, I put in earbuds, listen to music, and disconnect from the world. This is a common occurrence if I’m writing an essay or doing work around my house. This is because I prefer solitude when I need to focus. Similar to Thoreau, solitude is a great aid in life that doesn’t matter how close you are to others, when you need it, you can find solitude. Thoreau’s point on how company soon turns wearisome and dissipating rings true, especially in the life of an introvert such as I. Being able to take the time to distance yourself and focus on either yourself or your work allows you to rest and recharge.

      Comment by Olivia Davis on March 7, 2020

      It is interesting to me that Thoreau experiences such mixed feelings about being alone. He discusses feelings of “insanity” and how being alone was “unpleasant”, however he also explains the peacefulness of living in the nature among the pine needles that befriended him. I can relate to this, because when I came to college, I was very lonely and uncomfortable in my environment. I felt like I was going crazy, because I had a hard time making friends at first so I went days at times without talking to anyone. However, it slowly became peaceful as I discovered that I was left alone to do what I wanted and when I wanted, and I was very productive within my first year of school because of that. So, while it was unpleasant at first, it grew on me just as it did for Thoreau.

       

      As for technology, I have found my experience with being alone with people with technology to make life boring. It is so common anymore to be in a room full of people, with everybody’s face buried in their phones and no actual social interactions occurring.

      Comment by anthony guttilla on March 23, 2020

      In the first paragraph, Thoreau talks about the peacefulness  of walking about the lake alone, looking at the reflective water and feeling calmed. In the fourth paragraph, he talks about being stuck inside the house due to rain. when this happens, he is again calmed and not feeling melancholy. I feel the same way when I am alone. I too have taken long, slow walks around a pond, or sat inside the house alone with my thoughts because of rain. Many people do not like to be alone with their mind, but I find it peaceful. It is like therapy or meditation. The main difference between the way Thoreau spends his alone time and how I spend mine is technology. While Thoreau will sit in his house in silence, I prefer to have music playing. I am still focusing on my thoughts, or even nothing at all, but I enjoy the background noise.

      Comment by Christina Inter on March 31, 2020

      When comparing this published version of Walden to the fluid text version of his 1847, I am struck by the changes he made. His opening line remains unchanged, which is unsurprising given how strong and gripping it stands. I particularly love this section and this paragraph specifically for its ability to enrapture the reader in the scene of the woods at night and the sounds and sensations Thoreau experiences. Reading the paragraph itself is a meditation of nature. The fluid text reveals how Thoreau grappled with capturing the scene in its justice, highlighting just the right parts. His changes are subtle but intentional, such as shifting the placement of “the waves still dash” from the beginning of the sentence to later. He also builds upon the scene with delightful additions like “some creatures lull the rest with their notes. The repose is never complete.” Or, his amendment of the simple “the whippoorwill sings” to “the note of the whippoorwill is borne on the rippling wind from over the water.” The fluid text reveals the process of writing — Thoreau is like an artist, each sentence he hones is a stroke of his brush. Sometimes he goes back to add a new layer, sometimes he slightly changes the color. All of his efforts are made to move him toward the final image he seeks. Sometimes, a new and more vivid is formed that what he originally imagined. In the fluid text, Thoreau’s brush strokes are made evident as he carefully adds color and repaints other sections entirely.

      Comment by Hannah Fahy on April 3, 2020

      So perchance it appears to each of us They are unaccountably kind to me Notwithstanding a sense of unworthiness which possesses me, for the most part the spirit of the universe seems unaccountably kind to me, & I seem to enjoy an unusual share of happiness. Yet I think that there may be a settlement to come

       

      This section is removed from the published version of Walden. I think that this section shines some light on a more humble version of Thoreau than is seen in the majority of the published text. He acknowledges how fortunate he is, which is refreshing! This small passage gives us insight into a less-sure Thoreau who feels unworthy of his luck. This is a stark contrast to his usual confident voice as a writer.

      Comment by Emma Annonio on April 3, 2020

      I have chosen this passage as my fluid text, because of the peaceful scene, Thoreau Cretes through his writing and how essential it is to see the beauty in life, especially during time like these.In version A, this passage has many revisions, specifically with word choice. He uses the word “special” instead of “in particular” and I believe that this shows how comfortable he is with his environment – “in particular” has a cold and uninviting connotation, but “special” makes the reader understand that these are things he is used to.
      The last line of this passage is quite interesting when you look in the revisions. In versions A, Thoreau says “nature has her watchmen,” but in this version he says “They are natures watchmen.” I wonder why he decided to gender nature as a female in this first versions but remove the gendering all together in the one we are reading.

      Comment by Hannah Jewell on April 3, 2020

      I enjoy this chapter of the book because I think the “solitude” of Thoreau’s situation is one of the most intriguing aspects of the book. I chose to address this passage in particular as I noticed it is completely cut out of Version A of Walden. I wanted to touch upon why this might be as there must have been a reason behind this passage being removed while others remained. As I look at the rest of the passages in this chapter and how they might compare to this paragraph, he starts the chapter off with a very broad sense of how he observes the nature around him. However, he follows this with a paragraph of a specific look into a situation in his own life, then right into another paragraph of an experience he had. I think this second passage in the chapter was removed from Version A because it makes for a smoother transition into a new theme. I also think this creates a deeper sense for the reader by leaving out a paragraph that does not have much meaning to it, while the following paragraph has a more valuable insight to consider following the first paragraph in the chapter.

      Comment by Alyssa Harrington on April 3, 2020

      I have chosen to talk about this paragraph for fluid text influence because to me the change of the text was the most captivating. Certain phrases throughout the first two sentences changed my aspect on the details throughout the journey he took during his writing. The fluid text given to us has helped me understand the peaceful message that Walden was trying to give us, and some sentences I liked more in the fluid version than in this version. I specifically liked when he was talking about the waves sending him through the journey quickly. I also being able to click on specific parts of a sentence to see the changes given and overall understand why Walden decided to make those chagnes.

      I also like that throughout all of the passages you can see that some paragraphs did not need to be edited at all and can see how those paragraphs also affected the changes in other paragraphs.

      Comment by Mitchell Pace on April 3, 2020

      Through looking at the fluid text version, it seems Thoreau removed a sentence from the end that adds more clarity to the thought expressed of belonging to nature and nature being a part of him. This sentence, appearing only in Version A, reads “God is my father & my friend—men are my brothers—but nature is my mother & my sister.” I find the removal and rarity of this concluding line odd as the reference to nature as mother and sister I feel brings more clarity and allows the reader to more easily grasp the question this paragraph poses.

      Comment by Anne Baranello on April 3, 2020

      This first paragraph is the one I chose as my fluid text example, because in reading both the original and that of version A, I noticed some striking differences. The message overall still rings true, and is seen in both versions: that though time may feel paused in the woods, in such an isolated and serene part of the forest, life continues on, and seasons continue to change. Time, although it often feels abstract, is a constant, and always moving forward. One change I noticed was in the first sentence, when “the whole body is one sense” is changed to “the whole body seems to be one sense” in version A. This is interesting because it takes the state of the body from being a fact to being a subjective thing. It forces the reader to acknowledge that what they’re reading is a subjective reality of the narrator, and is not entirely fact.

      Comment by Hannah Fahy on May 5, 2020

      I\’ve been coding this chapter of Walden over the past couple of days. It\’s been a real challenge because I am by no means good at coding, I just happened to be the person in my group willing to give it a try! I thought this would mean that I\’d only do the coding part of the project, however after expending hours typing out each word and triple-checking that I didn\’t skip over a line (I triple check because I\’ve done just that three times already), I feel as thought I understand the text better than before. I find myself contributing to all of the project because I have so many thoughts on the text! We are all in a unique position to be writing and thinking about solitude, both the chapter and the concept. I\’ve never agreed much with Thoreau with the exception of this chapter. I love being in solitude. I really wanted to focus on this chapter for the group project because it\’s my favorite. However, I\’m starting to better understand paragraph 14. I\’ve kind of skimmed that paragraph in the past, but the two sentences have new meaning during social distancing. There\’s a difference between self-chosen solitude and forced solitude. One breeds healthy thought, self-reflection, productivity, and relaxation while the other inhibits all of those things. This chapter is almost only about self-chosen solitude, and while it\’s still my favorite, I don\’t connect with Thoreau nearly as much as I used to. In fact, his wonder toward solitude is almost annoying at the moment. Instead I find compassion for the dying man, and gratitude for the line \”and come to know that we are never alone.\” I include the \”and\” because realizing that we aren\’t alone is a continuous process, and not a linear one by any stretch.

      Comment by Christina Inter on May 8, 2020

      My group chose to focus on a set of paragraphs, including paragraph 9, that are added in version B and make it to the final version as seen here. I think it interesting that he added these passages in quotes as they help to evolve his earlier discussion of opening our eyes to the grand things that exist next to us that we seek for but do not see. Thoreau has a great veneration of early authors and poets and the works of those before us. In paragraph 9, he acknowledges that our traditions “offer sacrifices and oblation to their ancestors… [in] an ocean of subtile intelligence.” So much of what we do is a repetition of those that came before us, of the impacts they had on society. As Thoreau remarks, it is a subtle influence that we do not often acknowledge. We do, do, do, but rarely do we stop and think and consider. There are very few moments in our life where we are introspective and ask ourselves where our clothes, our traditions, our ideas come from. We internalize what’s around us without considering those where it first came from.

      Comment by Maeve Morley on May 9, 2020

      In this paragraph, Thoreau addresses the observation many people make about him and his distance away from other humans. Many people prefer and find it more easy and comfortable to be in closer to one another, because everything is accessible and within reach. Thoreau’s answer to this is “What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.” In other words, Thoreau’s take on solitude and distance means much more in his eyes than mere physical distance and closeness between humans. In this sense, he’s referring to not only his distance from other people in terms of measurement (i.e. miles, minutes, etc.) but also to their differing mindsets and outlook on life which has a more significant weight in his eyes. He also questions why people should feel lonely if they are far in distance from other people. Respectively, Thoreau is expressing that ‘distance’ holds a much more ambiguous meaning than one realizes.

      Comment by Danielle Crowley on May 11, 2020

      Throughout this Remote Learning period, I have found myself thinking about Thoreau and his time in the woods. This chapter in particular about Solitude has been one that I have come back to time and time again. The line in paragraph12 thats says, “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude,” has been sticking with me. At one time, I use to love when I was alone. I craved my alone time to recharge and to relax without having to be around people. But now, when I no longer have the freedom to see people as I please, I find myself wishing I could and waiting to see them the first chance I get. I think Thoreau enjoyed this solitude so much because it was self inflicted. When you’re choosing to do something it means that you truly want it, so obviously Thoreau found it enjoyable. But social-distancing, while highly important to prevent COVID-19, isn’t something people wanted to do – I think this is why it has been so hard for everyone, including myself, to deal with it and continue to be functioning adults. While in comply with the guidelines and try to do the best I can, its still hard and I begin to resent the solitude that Thoreau praises.

      Comment by Mitchell Pace on May 11, 2020

      I find this passage, mainly the line, “… whose loneliness was relieved by the grotesque visions with which…his diseased imagination surrounded him,” to show that we are very much social creatures. For even a man, completely alone and dying, was made to see visions ensuring he didn’t die alone in a fashion. It’s an important notion to make in a chapter about solitude. Thoreau states earlier, in paragraph 12, that he loves to be alone. That is a sentiment most definitely shared by others, but as Thoreau notes, “So also, owing to bodily and mental health and strength, we may be continually cheered by a like but more normal and natural society, and come to know that we are never alone.” This statement reinforces the notion of humans as social creatures; that despite how much we can love solitude, it is important to interact.

      Comment by Mariah Branch on May 12, 2020

      When working on our projects, this paragraph caught my attention the most. As an introvert, I understand Thoreau’s assertion about never finding “the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” I always say that my life is about me and no one else, and I feel that Thoreau would agree. I like that he does not equate distance and being alone due to the fact that a person in a party of 100 can still feel alone. To Thoreau, solitude is something that is measured by things other than loneliness.

      Comment by Kyle Regan on May 12, 2020

      I found the comparison of someone working in a field vs a student working on their studies interesting in terms of them both being solitude. From my own experience I have a very different perspective from that of the farmer he gives. When I am doing work for school I am able to be far more productive and focused when I am alone in a quiet area. I can’t get my work done productively when I am surrounded by friends conversing. Yet in my first summer job at 15/16 I worked for a contractor doing a lot of physical work. Everyone I worked with was from Poland and a good 90% of them didn’t know english at all. Those that did could not really hold a conversation more just be able to communicate what they wanted me to do. I have always been more of a quiet person and not really interested in small talk. However, after awhile I found myself missing general human connection over what we were doing when I was unable to do so. For some reason in my own personal experience I feel like I would rather not be by myself doing laborious physical work. The complete opposite from how the farmer is described in his thoughts.

      Comment by Anne Baranello on May 13, 2020

      [Nature]

      I commented on this paragraph as a whole a couple of weeks ago, but reading through it again, I’m noticing a pattern in the way Thoreau addresses nature as a concept. Without missing a beat, Thoreau has capitalized every mention of the word Nature, referring to it as almost a sentient being, with a working mind and agenda. He’s essentially made Nature into it’s own pronoun. I’ve seen this done in other literary texts before – often with Hope or Faith or Love, and when done well, I genuinely enjoy it as a literary device. Thoreau uses it well, especially because the entirety of Walden is relating to Nature and it’s relationship with humankind.

      Comment by Anne Baranello on May 13, 2020

      This paragraph is particularly interesting to me because Thoreau manages to put into words a concept that I’ve had trouble articulating in the past. I’m a weird introvert – I love talking to people, socializing, etc. But only for short amounts of time. After that, once my social energy runs out, there is nothing more that I want than to be alone and by myself. Spending time alone because you want to has been made into a sort of stereotype in our society – the only people that willingly seek out alone time are shy, introverted, unfriendly. But Thoreau understands that this is simply not true, and tells the reader that in being alone leaves you with “the world to darkness and to me.”

      Comment by Anne Baranello on May 13, 2020

      What Thoreau is trying to say here is that more often than not, humans live for their next interaction, rather than the moments in between. The line that puts it best is, “We…give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are.” This is a fabulous comparison – with every routine interaction with each other, we have nothing new to offer – we are, in fact, musty old cheese.

      Comment by Jose Romero on May 13, 2020

      Most of the time, people associate being alone as a negative thing. However, throughout this section of the text, Thoreau analyzes his isolation from society and introduces the idea of a smaller world all to himself. As we are evolving with technology, we are constantly thinking about ways to communicate online, rather than in person. While the internet can be a great place to gain some knowledge or communicate with others, it also opens the doors to negativity and malicious acts. One needs to learn how to strike an appropriate balance to ensure we are focusing on what’s really important: being alive.

      Comment by Alec Marshall on February 10, 2021

      A lot of Thoreau’s writing in this section reminds me of Into the Wild. I know Christopher McCandless was heavily influenced by people like Thoreau in his quest for solitude and a simple life, and it definitely shows in the writing I feel.

      Comment by Owen Amigo on February 11, 2021

      Thoreau shows his philosophical mindset for finding the good in every situation. This separates him from how most people think about certain things such as rain; they would complain and not acknowledge the good it is actually doing for the earth

      Comment by Owen Amigo on February 11, 2021

      Thoreau explains how he is basically living out natures course by saying he is not anymore lonesome than a variety of things such as a dandelion by living alone in the woods. He knows that he is never alone, even though the average person would perceive him to be a hermit.

      Comment by Sofie Wolters on February 12, 2021

      [This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question. What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another. ]

      Here Thoreau puts loneliness and solitude into perspective. What defines loneliness? Him being so far removed from others while still being relatively close to them in terms of our universe. Distance doesn’t define loneliness but rather meaningful connections with others do. One can live in a town surrounded by people and feel alone while Thoreau lives alone in the woods and feels connected with nature. It all depends on your perspective.

      Comment by Sofie Wolters on February 12, 2021

      This paragraph focusses on our routine lives and how we spend so much time together that there is no room for personal development. We mindlessly follow society’s standards of a good citizen without much thought for ourselves. We need solitude to learn more about ourselves in order to be able to give back to society and be of value to others.

      Comment by kenneth demerchant on February 12, 2021

      In this paragraph, Thoreau connects the nature that surrounds him while he walks along the pond.

      Comment by kenneth demerchant on February 12, 2021

      [I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced.]

      What Thoreau means by this is that men might be afraid of the unknown of what’s in nature

      Comment by Anna Forth on February 12, 2021

      I found this passage significant and can see the theme of solitude clearly. He is talking about how routine the daily “tasks” of having connections with other people seems sometimes. I think sometimes this is the case when we come out of our room just to eat 3 meals a day as the author says, it seems routine and careless. The last sentence such out to me as well- I interpret it as saying the value of people is what is in the inside in some way.

      Comment by Anna Forth on February 12, 2021

      This short paragraph I found a bit confusing as a whole due to the language but he first line was interesting. Saying that we are subjects of an experiement when referring to people in life is something I have heard before. Thoreau tends to have a different perspective on life than most and this definitely proves this.

      Comment by Dylan Thorburn on February 12, 2021

      Thoreau used the time in his home to slow down and enjoy the time he has to be alone. He used rainy and snowy days as an opportunity for space away from people. He contested the thought of needing to be close to people all the time as a way to feel secure and safe.

      Comment by Dylan Thorburn on February 12, 2021

      Thoreau uses his mind as a way to escape his physical body and to enter a world where he can be anything. He is saying that thoughts are what make reality and helps people stay sane.

      Comment by Rebecca Johnson on February 12, 2021

      Here, Thoreau touches upon the difference between being alone and loneliness. Describing how a mind at work, whether that be a farmer tending to his field or a student at college, is never truly lonely because they are working and “employed.” Both, he explains, will “seek the same recreation and society” to compensate for the time they spend alone because, “when he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts.”

      Comment by Rebecca Johnson on February 12, 2021

      Describing a man dying alone at the foot of a tree forced to be alone with his thoughts, Thoreau strengthens his idea that when alone, one must be able to face, and truly understand, their thoughts. Saying, “his diseased imagination surrounded him,” is an excellent way of describing the often dark thoughts the mind has a way of concocting.

      Comment by Steven Tummino on February 14, 2021

      This paragraph is so descriptive and really makes me visualize the nature around  him. I like how he describes how man is still a bit weary of the world around them.

       

      Comment by Steven Tummino on February 14, 2021

      Thoreau really uses his view to show his connection to everything in nature around him. The way he describes his connection to every little aspect of nature is interesting. It seems that in every task he has to do, he seems to find the deeper meaning of what it means to him.

      Comment by Katelyn Cummings on February 15, 2021

      In this first paragraph it makes me think that we walking along the beach or near a lake and listening to the animals talk at night. While reading this paragraph it reminds me of the camp that I used to go to each summer that was on an Island in Maine that was on the ocean. We would go at night and early morning to watch the sun rise and set. While we would be walking down in the early mornings we would see and hear the morning birds and frogs sing to us. Many times it was cool and a little windy just like the paragraph talked about.

      Comment by Katelyn Cummings on February 15, 2021

      [ Leave a comment on paragraph 12 16 I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. ]

      This section of the chapter really stood out to me. We are now living a life where it’s not normal for us to be at home all the time and not being out with others. Since Covid started our live has kind of been similar to Thoreau’s life in the sense that we are at home and away from other people. I personally like being alone because I can do what I want, when I want and where I want without having to worry about other people. But I’ve been like this before Covid was even a thing. Looking at Covid in the perspective of Thoreau, I think we would have done well with Covid in terms of being isolated from the outside world. He lived his life as if he was in quarantine because he would work on his farm each and every day and hardly ever went into town. Back then people would look at you weird or make comments about never going out and being a “home body” but now society wants us to stay home and not go out.

      Comment by Olivia Elliott on February 16, 2021

      This is a really interesting paragraph which is still relevant today. I think its so odd that we have these rules and routines in society which basically guide our lives. I think we need more diversity and freedom so that we feel more at ease in life because like Thoreau said, “we thus lose some respect for one another”. It’s like we get in our own heads and instead of actually communicating with one another we create small talk.

      Comment by Olivia Elliott on February 16, 2021

      I like that he quoted Confucius here. This whole paragraph is really interesting to me and I think I agree with the part about having our own thoughts to “cheer us”.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      Nice connection, Kati. I can really picture similar lovely evenings by water, too.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      Definitely. And there were still some wild animals around at night in the 1800s in Concord, Mass, that one could fear–even now, in some places. But you’re right, it’s not just unknown animals, it’s just The Unknown that makes us nervous.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      That last sentence of yours is spot on–and that was his goal: think about everything to figure out life’s meaning.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      Yes! I love this passage. Most people think of how rain affects them; he thinks of how it affects nature, first. And if it’s good for nature, it’s good for him.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      Yes– he does look for meaning in Everything, to figure out life and himself.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      Nice job, Sofie & Dylan: excellent observations and comments.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      I guess it depends on the person, but if you’re in a good mood (your own thoughts to cheer you), then see people complaining or criticizing on social media or in the news (“the society of gossips”), it’s probably wise  to click away before it drags you down.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      Good analysis, Dylan. This part of the chapter is more difficult and ‘metaphysical’ than the rest. And yes, he doesn’t feel lonely in part because he / we can think as spectators on our own experience, almost like splitting into two, the one living and the one thinking.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      Both great comments on this paragraph, Rebecca and Kati!

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      Great readings of this paragraph, Sofie, Anna, and Olivia–we’ll talk about it in class. I think a lot about “that old musty cheese that we are” in quarantine…

      And Olivia, I can’t figure out how to delete unwanted second posts either…:)

      Comment by Alec Marshall on February 17, 2021

      The opening sentence to this paragraph was very relatable for me. I could never put my finger on why, but there is something pleasant and calming about a good rain storm. My grandmother has a house on the beach, and I’ve always enjoyed being there during a storm – getting to watch the waves crash and the wind howl. Maybe it is the sense of being able to watch that form of nature from the safety of a dry shelter, but I’m not sure

      Comment by Alec Marshall on February 17, 2021

      As I am sure much of Thoreau’s writing will do, I continue to be reminded of Christopher McCandless. Obviously Thoreau was a main inspiration of his, so I find it interesting to read a different voice that is pushing much of the same message

      Comment by Owen Amigo on February 18, 2021

      [ I one evening overtook one of my townsmen, who has accumulated what is called “a handsome property”,—though I never got a fair view of it,—on the Walden road, driving a pair of cattle to market, who inquired of me how I could bring my mind to give up so many of the comforts of life. I answered that I was very sure I liked it passably well; I was not joking. And so I went home to my bed, and left him to pick his way through the darkness and the mud to Brighton,—or Bright-town,—which place he would reach some time in the morning.]

      Another example of Thoreau exemplifying his passion and reasoning for isolation.

      Comment by Owen Amigo on February 18, 2021

      I love the line about being more alone when we are around people we have nothing in common with, compared to being by yourself.

      Comment by ethan okwuosa on February 5, 2022

       

      Leave a comment on paragraph 170″ The indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature,—of sun and wind and rain, of summer and winter,—such health, such cheer, they afford forever!” – 

      “forever” made me come to the realization that nature is everlasting and will replenish itself always no matter the destruction done to it. Yet most humans neglect nature’s “indescribable innocence and beneficence”.

       

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 7, 2022

      What T is trying to say reminds me of religion. My family is Catholic and I was always told about the dark and evil side of religion that hides in the dark. Which is why I like how he related the “dark” to witches and the unknown in the forest, the fears of humans. Even though nature is beautiful even when it’s dark, however, we never know the predators that can be out there with us at the same time.

      As for Christianity and candles, I think he refers to this as the way to pray and be protected when the “evil” from the dark comes to us. Since we know that by praying and saying the word of God we’re putting away all the evil in the world.

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 7, 2022

      T is always talking about finding his meaning in life and trying to figure it out as a way to be better. I like how he describes himself as someone who doesn’t feel lonely, even though he doesn’t have other people close to him. T loves finding a connection between him and nature and that’s what keeps him happy, nature is a beautiful way of connecting yourself with the beauty of live. T always seems to find the good in nature, he thinks of the needs of nature and not how the nature could affect human needs.

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 7, 2022

      In this paragraph T explains how he sees the terms of “alone” and “loneliness” as two different things. T explains that a person can feel lonely even though its surrounded by people and lives in a town. The difference between being alone and feeling lonely is whether you feel the connection or not. Since he lived in nature, he found the beauty on it and connected himself with it, which is why he doesn’t feel lonely. Sometimes people misunderstand the difference between these two words, but in reality it all depends of the emotions.

      I love that he uses rainy and snowing days as a way of calming himself, it reminds me of me. Every time I hear the rain is like bringing peace to my soul, I only have to listen to it without having to worry about the outside world. I feel calm and all I think about it how beautiful Earth is.

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 7, 2022

      I really like how T explains how society is based on rules and duties. It feels like our lives are being managed by other people and we have to follow everything we are supposed to do without us being able to manage it. We as humans tend to see our value as what we can offer, but not what’s under our skin, which in this case he refers as our emotions. Which is why at the end he says “the value of man is not in his skin, that we should touch him”, as a way of referring to the value we give to people that it’s incorrect.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2022

      Well put, Danna: he’s happy about rain not only as a farmer would be (to serve his needs for crops to grow), but as part of nature himself: when the grass or ecosystem’s needs are met, it benefits all land, animals, and us (and God’s creation).

      Comment by Brenden Choate on February 7, 2022

      FOr me it seems like simplistic is a staple that never leaves his writing no matter what

      Comment by Brenden Choate on February 7, 2022

      For me the pencil kind of stands out for me while everything else is a type of flower there is just a random pencil.

      Comment by Brenden Choate on February 7, 2022

      I feel like hes trying to say that there is no limit to what we can do and that if we just think in a different way we can unlock our potential.

      Comment by Liam Bilodeau on February 7, 2022

      [The gentle rain which waters my beans and keeps me in the house to-day is not drear and melancholy, but good for me too.]

      Rain and storms can always be portayed as something bad but I like that he sees the good in them, it’s a good reminder and outlook.

      Comment by Valerie Hill on February 7, 2022

      I feel like the first part of the paragraph is his version of solitude, because he can’t see anyone for miles, and no one can see him so he rarely gets visitors. But then at the end I feel like he is trying to say that man is hindered by his fear, they give into their own personal darkness when they give into fear, just like everyone went crazy hanging people who were accused of being witches for absurd reasons.

      Comment by Valerie Hill on February 8, 2022

      I feel like he is trying to say that being alone is good because you are stuck with your thoughts rather than being distracted by your everyday life and your social life, you can have nothing to do and be alone and still be happy.

      Comment by Valerie Hill on February 8, 2022

      I feel like in this paragraph he is trying to say that his friends and visitors is the ancient landscape of Walden Pond. And only he can see them because only he is alone with them all the time.

      Comment by Keera Lopusiewicz on February 8, 2022

      This passage is essentially a love letter to nature. Every word seems to speak in the tongue of a romantic with an unfurling affection for the natural world – so much so, that Thoreau seems to depict nature as a conscious, sentient being that is alive in this midst of such tranquility. This is evident through the capitalization of the very term ‘Nature’ that is seen throughout this publication in general. From my perspective, this passage in particular is infused with the essence of Walden Pond, and the feelings in which the setting had invoked for Thoreau as he describes each detail of his solitude of serenity with immense detail.

      Comment by Keera Lopusiewicz on February 8, 2022

      This is a paragraph in which Thoreau capitalizes on one of the main themes of this section, that being solidarity, and the appropriation and restoration of Nature. The lines, “There is commonly sufficient space about us. Our horizon is never quite at our elbows…” in particular resonate with me, and speak to an idea of existentialism that Thoreau is notorious for hinting toward. In common tongue, he may be referring to the sense that the world is far larger than we interpret it to be. At our disposal, we have the necessary room to grow and evolve as a society. However, there are some who choose to limit themselves to the wood just beyond their doorstep, never daring to venture outside the fenced block in which they have appropriated a little fragment of Nature’s cheek. From this point forward, Thoreau emphasizes on his love for seclusion, as well as the land he has adopted that he shares with his most beloved comrade: the wilderness. He goes on to illuminate humanity’s fear of the darkness, or the wood, due to the notorious and pessimistic views upheld by Christian belief.

      Comment by Liam Bilodeau on February 8, 2022

      [5 8 Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rain storms in the spring or fall, which confined me to the house for the afternoon as well as the forenoon, soothed by their ceaseless roar and pelting; when an early twilight ushered in a long evening in which many thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves.]

      Rhapsodic

      Comment by Julianna Larue on February 8, 2022

      You can reach solitude being with people and while being alone. It is not a one shoe fits all definition of solitude. He finds value in people over being”cheap” and meeting people for short intervals.

      Comment by Julianna Larue on February 8, 2022

      I agree with Thoreau when he calls society cheap, and when he says he seeks value in people and true connection rather than finding no value in one another with short interactions.

      Comment by Sarah Cronin on February 8, 2022

      The strong descriptions of nature in this passage allow for beautiful and intricate illustrations. We can see even in this intro paragraph to solitude, Thoreau keeps himself company through nature. Nature as a whole keeps him company like sounds, weather, rain and all are connected to the days of animated life.

      Comment by Sarah Cronin on February 8, 2022

      Thoreau goes into even more descriptors of how nature is his solitude. He describes how some of his pleasantest hours were during long rain storms in the spring or fall. He chooses to use the word pleasantest, which shows how much he enjoys these types of little things. I also like how Thoreau defines loneliness and differentiates it from solitude. He prefers to be more removed from others but finds comfort in other aspects, which perhaps brings him even closer to understanding relationships with others and concepts surrounding that.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 9, 2022

      Good analysis, Keera: this is not an easy passage. Nicely put: “the world is larger than we interpret it to be.”

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 9, 2022

      Nice comments, Keera and Sarah. This is a love letter to nature, which keeps him company and connects him to all life. A reader can also feel exactly the sort of early spring or June afternoon-evening he describes, when we “imbibe delight through every pore” and don’t want to go inside.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 9, 2022

      Yes! I would just add the ancient “spirit” of the landscape (incarnated as “an old settler & original” owner).

      Comment by Brodie Messer on February 10, 2022

      Though this part seemed pretty dramatic I definitely thought it was cool that he seems to be talking about not living a life you don’t enjoy.

      Comment by Brodie Messer on February 10, 2022

      Seems to be pointing out the flaws of society about how living in these larger groups is not good for you especially when you are being deprived of enjoying nature. He does offer a solution here which is about where he lives but this isn’t necessarily practical for all people.

      Comment by Zachary Vandecar on February 12, 2022

      [What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary]

      This is a wonderful question. I think Thoreau mentions in another spot that we can be right next to each other and still be solitary. So I would suppose that Thoreau believes that solitude has no necessary connection to physical closeness.

       

      [I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another. ]

      Here though, Thoreau seems to be saying that he is already pretty close to other people. Relatively speaking, he is not far from other people. And that, making that relatively small distance between him and others smaller doesn’t make much of a difference. There is some confusion for me here. So does Thoreau want to be alone? Does he feel alone? Because it seems here that he would say he’s hardly alone. He’s actually pretty close to other people. Additionally, maybe moving closer to one another does not bring two minds closer together, but certainly, an efficient method of joining minds is for them to converse with each other right? And for two people to talk, they have to be close to each other. And further than that, the closer we live to each other, the more we see each other, which means the more we learn of each other and the more we talk to each other.

      Comment by Zachary Vandecar on February 12, 2022

      [A man thinking or working is always alone]

      [The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed]

      This paragraph confuses me still. These two ideas seem to contradict eachother to me. I still haven’t been able to sort out the difference between the student and the farmer. Is the key here that being alone and feeling alone are different? I think Thoreau’s definition of solitude is confusing, and I’d have liked him to tell me exactly how he would define it so that I could ask him clarifying questions.

       

       

      Comment by Zachary Vandecar on February 12, 2022

      [ Leave a comment on paragraph 17 1 The indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature]

      I wonder here, would Thoreau call humans part of the Nature is referencing now? I’m not sure Thoreau would call humans innocent. I’ve always been interested in this question. Are we part of nature? And if so, is what humans are doing natural? I think different people would answer differently, and I wonder about Thoreau’s answer.

      Comment by Judiah Strouse on February 25, 2022

      A paragraph full of Greek mythology allusions, the gods he includes are all associated with medicine and healing of some kind. Curiously enough, he doesn’t include Apollo himself, the god of medicine.

      Comment by Jacob Watson on March 19, 2022

      Okay I have been reading Paradice lost By John Milton, however me though on this line is what if it is an experiment? That is what fascinates me about society is that it is a giant social experiment that we live every day. That we as people have to work together in this world to survive.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on October 13, 2022

      I am a life long reader of Thoreau Walden. I have translated this book into Persian and published it in Iran too. I would always like to discuss this eternal book with fellow American readers. I love this connection. Here is some food for thought and a good subject for discussion:

      We live on a planet. Any life similar to ours must naturally form on a planet. Why then Thoreau is referring to the inhabitants of a star? What form of life is conceivable on a star:

      How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments?

  • Sounds 1-11 (108 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [Sounds]

      Lambden discusses the artistry of this chapter. Stein (1972) analyzes this chapter from the standpoint of yoga. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [But while we are]

      Notice how the opening paragraph carries over the idea from the preceding chapter. This was one of the many devices T used to unify the seemingly unrelated essays of the book. Note also that the sounds described in the chapter follow a chronological order starting with morning, going on through afternoon, evening, night, and ending up with morning once more. Just as the whole book epitomizes the year, so this chapter epitomizes the day, and both end on the theme of renewal – the book on the renewal of spring, and the chapter on the renewal of dawn. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [when the shutter is wholly removed]

      Although some suggest this refers to a camera shutter, mechanical shutters did not come into use until after the first publication of W. T is more likely referring to window shutters, which were used in New England to keep the sun off parlor rugs. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [or a seer]

      Seer: a favorite term among transcendentalists for a person with extraordinary perceptions. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [I did not read books]

      This paragraph is considered by many to be one of the outstanding expressions of the mystical experience in literature. For an analysis of T’s use of sound and silence in achieving the mystical experience, see Paul (1949). 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [taken my accustomed bath]

      T took his daily bath in the cove nearest his cabin. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [on the distant highway]

      The road from Concord to Lincoln was then the closest highway to T’s cabin. Route 2, the road just north of the pond, was not constructed until well into the twentieth century. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [those seasons like corn]

      Corn is among the fastest growing of the common garden vegetables. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [the stamp of any heathen deity]

      The days of our week are named after heathen deities — Thor, Woden, etc. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [remove the books and pen and ink]

      When T went to Staten Island in 1843 to tutor Emerson’s nephews, he was given an inkstand by his friend and neighbor Elizabeth Hoar. He kept it throughout his life, and it is now on exhibit in the Concord Museum. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [sits on the next bough]

      A common weed of the genus Gnaphalium.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [half a dozen rods]

      A rod, a surveyor’s measure, is 16 1/2 feet. Surprisingly, since T was a professional surveyor, he greatly underestimated the distance, which was 204 feet, or more than twelve rods (Robbins, 9-10). 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [fell over in wreaths like rays]

      Compare this with T’s description of the time he heard a tree fall at night in the Maine wilderness (Maine Woods, 103), which he thought one of the most impressive sounds he had ever heard. T emphasizes sounds and onomatopoeia throughout this chapter. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [As I sit at my window]

      The following nine paragraphs were first published as “The Iron Horse,” in Sartain’s Union Magazine (XI, 1852, 66-8), with numerous revisions of spelling, punctuation, and word choice.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [the tantivy of wild pigeons]

      Tantivy: at full gallop – or, in this case, fast flying.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [wild pigeons, flying by two]

      Probably passenger pigeons, once so numerous, but in T’s day becoming rarer, and now for nearly a century completely extinct.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [a mink steals out of the marsh]

      The mink was not in T’s original journal for August 6, 1845, but was added later after, he had left Walden and forgotten that he could not see the marsh from his doorstep (Robbins, 17).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [reed-birds flitting hither and thither]

      Then a common name for bobolinks.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [like the beat of a partridge]

      The partridge, or ruffed grouse, produces a loud noise during the mating season by beating its wings rapidly.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [its soothing sound is—Concord]

      From Ellery Channing, “Walden Spring,” The Woodman and Other Poems (Boston, 1849). 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [The Fitchburg Railroad touches]

      For discussions ofT’s literary use of the railroad, see Cronkhite and see Torsney.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [all the weary and heavy laden]

      “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [traveling demigod, this cloud-compeller]

      Zeus was sometimes referred to as “cloud- compeller.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [iron horse make the hills echo]

      This passage parallels in many respects Job 39:19-25.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [heroic deeds, or a beneficent]

      Beneficient; Shanley (1971, 398) adds here the words “to men,” which are not in the first edition. They are in the uncorrected page proof, and T did not indicate a deletion. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [stretching far behind and rising higher]

      The antithesis here points out the triviality of the passengers’ errands. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [a celestial train beside which]

      Still another reference to Hawthorne’s satire “The Celestial Railroad.” 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [like a following drill-barrow]

      Tate points out that the drill-barrow or seed-drill, a device that sows seeds evenly, was invented only four years before T went to Walden and would not have been widely known in Concord. This is another indication of how well T kept up with his times – remarkable for someone who supposedly fled from civilization.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [the next in the Dismal Swamp]

      An extensive swamp in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [conveyance, were on hand when]

      The first edition reads “are on hand,” but T, in his personal copy of W, changed it to the present reading.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [stopping to read the riot act]

      According to the Riot Act, which became law in England in 1715, if twelve or more individuals assemble and disturb the peace, they must disperse after being read the law or face felony charges.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [constructed a fate, an Atropos]

      In Greek mythology Atropus, one of the three Fates who preside over mankind, cuts the thread of human destiny. “Atropus” means “never turn aside.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [educated thus to be sons of Tell]

      William Tell, the fourteenth-century Swiss folk hero, was required to shoot an apple from the head of his own son.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [the front line at Buena Vista]

      A battlefield in northern Mexico where American forces withstood a severe attack in 1847. T opposed the Mexican War, which might have resulted in extending slavery to new territory.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [three-o’-clock-in-the-morning courage]

      In Memorial de Sainte Helene (Dec. 4-5, 1815) Las Cases explains Napoleon’s meaning, though the reference is to two o’clock: “As to moral courage, he had, he said, very rarely met with the two o’clock in the morning courage, unprepared courage.” As Gottesman points out, “Courage not painstakingly worked up but coming forth spontaneously, as when a soldier is awakened suddenly in the dead of night.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [On this morning of the Great Snow]

      T was probably thinking of the “Great Snow” of February 17, 1717, which Cotton Mather recorded in his Magnalia Christi Americana.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [heads peering, above the mould-board]

      Plow blade.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [and the nests of field-mice]

      T is referring to Robert Burns’s poems “To a Mouse” and “To a Mountain Daisy.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [of the Sierra Nevada]

      Mountain range in Spain.    

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [I lived like the Puri Indians]

      Ida Pfeiffer, A Lady’s Voyage Round the World (New York, 1852, 36). The Puri Indians are natives of eastern Brazil. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [I should not have been found wanting]

      “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting” (Daniel 5:27). 

      Comment by Hunter Rowell on February 12, 2014

      [Will you be a reader?]

      Here, I feel that the text has this sense of itself, I feel, because we are literally reading and not experiencing what Thoreau has done in a true sense. This goes back to how Thoreau talks about experience in Economy and how you cannot just take the word of someone else because true experience comes from the self and your own experience. What I appreciate most in this ending of this paragraph is that the passage is almost telling the reader not to always read, but to experience life for yourself. I don’t know if anyone has read Don Quixote, but the moral the friends of Don are trying to say is that reading is harmful and you lose out on experiences that you yourself can make, rather than being trapped in other experiences that aren’t your own. (If you haven’t read Don Quixote, definitely take a look at it!)

      Comment by Kristen Case on February 25, 2014

      This is a wonderful observation, Hunter. It’s really almost disconcerting – it’s almost as if he’s chastising us for reading his book! It’s also a particular Thoreauvian moment, in my mind, and an instance of what I think of as Thoreau’s sense of “neighboring”: on the one hand he comes very close to us here, addressing the reader directly, in the act of reading, as a you. On the other hand, he does that in order to tell us, basically, that we should put the book down (at least from time to time) and go live our own lives, find our own truths. So the intimate and direct address becomes a way of insisting upon a distance…

      Comment by Kristen Case on February 25, 2014

      Great observation, Hunter. It’s really almost disconcerting – it’s almost as if he’s chastising us for reading his book! It’s also a particular Thoreauvian moment, in my mind, and an instance of what I think of as Thoreau’s sense of “neighboring”: on the one hand he comes very close to us here, addressing the reader directly, in the act of reading, as a you. On the other hand, he does that in order to tell us, basically, that we should put the book down (at least from time to time) and go live our own lives, find our own truths. So the intimate and direct address becomes a way of insisting upon a distance…

      Comment by Molly Cavanaugh on February 26, 2014

      The intimacy of this passage is troublingly Quixotic, and I love it. I personally feel a bit of good-natured prodding from Thoreau, like a friend berating you for posting on your exercise blog instead of hopping on the treadmill!

      The value of experience is far greater than what can be read, but Thoreau recognizes that we all will experience life differently. Therefore, despite his comments to the contrary, Thoreau knows that we can gain valuable insight through his personal experiences.

      Comment by Kelly Langer on February 1, 2015

      Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour.

      Genius: (in some mythologies) a guardian spirit associated with a person, place, or institution.

      a person regarded as exerting a powerful influence over another for good or evil:
      “he sees Adams as the man’s evil genius”

      OR the prevalent character or spirit of something such as a nation or age:
      “Boucher’s paintings did not suit the austere genius of neoclassicism”.

      With Thoreau having the genius within him he has the influence of good over the nature around him, but with Thoreau having a spirit over him then he is then shown the beauty of nature by another perhaps nature herself.

      Comment by Anthony Bettina on February 2, 2015

      Thoreau’s ideology of learning can be clearly seen throughout this passage. When he states “Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer?” he is speaking on his admiration for learning practically. Thoreau believes learning through experience and application furthers the knowledge, and humanity within a person. These ideas help preface his later statements of not reading his first summer away. Thoreau had a much stronger fixation on practical learning/experience than that of simple memorization from text.

      Comment by William Foley on February 2, 2015

      Thoreau’s pedagogy can be easily pointed out here. “No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert.” To Thoreau, this process of always seeking and finding information is an important part of the learning process. This act of constantly seeking and expanding one’s mind through query and action, are important to Thoreau. This idea is reiterated again in paragraph 2 when he states that he did not spend his summer reading, but working, and learning that way. This pedagogy argues that to better fully understand, we must step away from memorizing text and instead go out into Nature with open minds and enthusiasm, and partake in practical experiences. This raises the question of if interest and enthusiasm are vital in a truly successful and empowering learning process.

      Comment by Kasey Krug on February 6, 2015

      “Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity.”

      This paragraph acts as a bridge between reading and sounds. It speaks of the importance of reading, but that there is so much our there, it all cannot be read. The last quote of the paragraph is telling the reader to read what you believe will guide you in your life. The writings of the past will help in your future endeavors. The quote ties into the chapter of Sounds because this chapter focus’s on how listening to and noticing the sounds of the world is a form of “reading” as well. So “reading your fate” also can connect to paying attention to the world around you and noticing what you may have never noticed before.

       

      Comment by Paul Schacht on February 8, 2015

      This is a really important point, Kasey. Thoreau repeatedly invokes the very traditional religious notion of the “book of Nature,” seeing the natural world as inherently meaningful and as having something to say to us as humans. Like his fellow nineteenth-century transcendentalists, and the earlier romantic poets from whom they drew inspiration, Thoreau adapts this idea of a “readable” Nature in a way that makes Nature a reflection of the divinity in humans themselves. So in reading Nature we read ourselves. In “The Ponds,” par. 17, he writes that “A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.” Sometimes Thoreau plays verbal games with the metaphor of Nature as a book, as when he writes in “The Ponds” par. 9 of a line left by footprints in the snow: “The snow reprints it, as it were, in
      clear white type alto-relievo.” But one of the best examples is in “Spring,” par. 9, where he rejects the idea of Nature as a physical book in favor of the idea of Nature as “living poetry”: “The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologists and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit—not a fossil earth, but a living earth.”

      Comment by Kaitlin Pfundstein on February 8, 2015

      If we were always indeed getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the last and best mode we had learned, we should never be troubled with ennui. Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour. Housework was a pleasant pastime.

      In my opinion, these lines, and continuing throughout the paragraph, Thoreau is making a point about how the little things in life should be appreciated.  He is glorifying the beauty of nature and the beauty of solitude.

      Comment by Kaitlin Pfundstein on February 8, 2015

      It’s interesting to hear about what ties Thoreau had to civilization during his time on Walden Pond.

      Comment by Ed Gillin on April 1, 2016

      [Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer?]

      As a number have aptly commented here, Thoreau really challenges us with this query.  Though he has previously offered much favorable comment about the “reader” and “student,” praising their care and attentiveness, he urges a shift from a passive posture to an active one now.  It’s a place where the legacy of Emerson seems particularly present.  “The American Scholar” oration of 1838 called books a secondary influence, noting that “The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature.”  Furthermore, Emerson’s ideal scholar makes use of both influences by translating them into action: “A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.”

      Comment by Alexis Sammler on April 1, 2016

      “I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans.”

      Thoreau is seizing the day.  He is using his moments preciously. Thoreau is embracing the day, by hoeing beans. Not by reading books, but by doing what he knows to be true to himself.

      Throughout “Sounds,” Thoreau, eliminates the constraints of time and the normalcy of societies’ everyday expectations. While he could be spending the day doing many things, he actively chooses to pay no attention to time.  “I minded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening…” Time is relative to Thoreau. And truth is in the eyes of the beholder.

      Thoreau is meditating. He is immersing himself in his space and living in the present moment to the best of his ability.

      Comment by Alexis Sammler on April 1, 2016

      Thoreau is self aware, while actively choosing to be unaware of time. “This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt…” It is easy to find “idleness” in everyday actions people do, when we do not stop to recognize that there is a reason for everything we do, no matter how small. We are constantly growing through these “idle” actions. Enjoying the “idleness” and embracing a Walt Whitman-esque “Song to Myself,” style of life. Freeing, liberating, and simply living in nature.  Thoreau recognizes the purpose of his actions, no matter how “idle” they seem–he is living “deliberately,” through “simplicity, simplicity.” He is  actively pursuing the future which he creates.

      While Thoreau’s actions in that moment may have seemed like “idleness” to his fellow-townsmen, what he is pursuing, is not lazy or idle, but profoundly the opposite. He actively chooses to live a life awake. A life of meditation he lives. With thoughtful realizations into his own self awareness, Thoreau lives deliberately.

      Comment by Amber Parmelee on April 3, 2016

      This sentence reminds me of something that Emerson would say.  I love how vivid the imagery is that Thoreau uses here.  It is so well written that I can imagine myself sitting in a chair directly in the sun, admiring my beautiful surroundings and immersing myself in nature.  Thoreau is so calm and at peace in this section.  He is so caught up in the beauty of nature that several hours pass by and he doesn’t even realize it.  I would love to live in a world where this was possible.  Now a days, it is so hard to get away from everything and just be one with nature, especially with the never-ending presence of technology.

      Comment by Sarah Sparks-Stewart on October 11, 2017

      I find it interesting that Thoreau uses the term “restless” when discussing the city merchants. When I hear restless I often think of unable to relax or constantly in motion and that seems to be exactly what Thoreau wants to part with. It seems to me that Thoreau has buried himself so deep into solitude that it is difficult for him to think about the outside world in a positive light. Just the sound of the train coming into town represents unease and tension surrounding the outside world.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      Here Thoreau is describing the trade between entities, yet he’s also underlying that this is what makes up the capitalist system, “All the Indian huckleberry hills are stripped,…” the idea of taking natural resources for the an industrial society.

      Comment by Hannah Fahy on February 23, 2020

      Hayles’ “How We Read” starts off by mentioning how deeply critical scholars are of this current generation and digital reading. I think that Thoreau would also be quite critical of digital reading. If he thought that a lot was published back then, he would be horrified at the seemingly infinite number of books one can read for $9.99 on their Kindle. However, I think that Thoreau might appreciate how the digital world makes so many texts in various languages accessible. One can read the classics in their original language and use the internet to help translate. Digital reading opens a whole new world of opportunities for readers. Not everyone or even most people take advantage of this opportunity, but it’s there for those few who see the value in reading and learning.

      Comment by Christina Inter on February 24, 2020

      [ My days were not days of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and fretted by the ticking of a clock; for I lived like the Puri Indians, of whom it is said that “for yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow they have only one word, and they express the variety of meaning by pointing backward for yesterday, forward for to-morrow, and overhead for the passing day.” ]
      Thoreau describes how the bird’s singing in the morning signals the beginning of the day for him, unlike the alarm clock that wakes me up. By relying on the sounds of nature to guide his days and sense of time, Thoreau lives an unstructured and more enjoyable life through its simplicity. The sounds I hear in my own life are through a structured world. The beginning of my day is dictated by the shrill alarm of my phone to signal when I must wake up to get to class on time. As our world has become more technologically advanced, the need for accuracy has increased. People can no longer rely on the sun’s position in the sky to determine what time they need to be somewhere. With more technology, the world has become more complex. They is an increased need for accuracy, for all the small components of the organization of society to compartmentalize. It’s not possible to live in the simplistic nature of Thoreau’s world, where one does not have to be a slave to the clock, if one is part of the modern world or wishes to interact with society. Time, the sounds associated with it, have become an integral part of society. Yet, for some situations, I still rely on the simplicity of natural sounds to guide my life in a sense of time much larger than a clock. Recently, even before the weather was as nice as it is today, my first hint of spring always comes from the sound of certain bird songs outside my window in the morning. I don’t know which birds they are, and I couldn’t recite the tune if you asked, but when I hear those familiar melodies — I know that it’s the beginning of spring. I also recognized the sounds of birds in the summer from my bedroom back home. Despite the overbearing presence of the sounds of technology in my life today, the sounds of the natural world still hold an importance as they help with my larger perception of time and change in the world.

      Comment by Hannah Fahy on February 24, 2020

      I grew up down the street from a park that hid a set of train tracks at the back. There is a fence and several warning signs, but there they are marking the end of the little league field. My friends and I used to hop the fence of the baseball field to lay in the outfield and listen to trains thunder past. Aside from the whistle, I can perfectly hear the “iron horse” that Thoreau describes here. It’s an overwhelming sound that can drown out even the sound of your own thoughts. This sound is quite obviously one only made by technology. It’s funny how both our train tracks are near our get-aways. Mine next to the park and Thoreau’s next to his woods.

      Comment by Leila Sassouni on February 25, 2020

      In this passage, Thoreau describes the sound of stillness. He says “I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness… I was reminded of the lapse of time.” This stillness that he describes is the stillness I both love and experience when I read novels that suck me in. Novels that just want to make me keep reading, and/or that I can relate to so much. As I said in class on Monday, when I am in my most comfortable environment (snuggled into a couch with or without good music), there is a certain stillness around me as if the whole world stops. And then once I finish reading, I feel like I have come back to life.  I very much relate to this stillness and this time lapse since I experience it for myself.

      Comment by Justin Colleran on February 25, 2020

      Even though Thoreau lives in the country and I live in a city, this description of the merchants arriving reminds me a lot of when I was a kid. This is because when I was little, there used to be a a couple who would set up a fruit and vegetable stand every Saturday morning near my house. My mom would take me and sister and we would just shop around for a really long time.

      Comment by Maeve Morley on February 25, 2020

      Here, Thoreau describes the whistle of a passing train “piercing” the calmness and stillness of his woods. With this come the merchants from the city who are urgent to trade. I live in the suburbs, so I’m not very close to train tracks, but I do hear the alarm raised by the fire house that is fairly close to where I live, which can be comparable to the similar sounds Thoreau experienced in Walden Pond. With the rise in technology, the ‘sounds’ it is composed of and releases make an appearance in our everyday lives. Today, we hear the sound of a train whistle, of a car horn, the tap of fingers on computer keys…Years and years ago these sounds were almost foreign-like in the woods in which Thoreau resided. Today, these sounds are an everyday presence in our lives that we don’t even seem to realize, or take notice of due to its “normalcy.”

      Comment by Rachel Beck on February 25, 2020

      In this paragraph, Thoreau talks about the whistle of the locomotive. It penetrated his woods summer and winter, and sounded like the scream of a hawk sailing over some farmer’s yard. The sound of a screaming hawk doesn’t sound very pleasant to me, but the memories I have attached to the sound of a train whistle are quite nice. When I was a child, I used to stay at my grandpa and grandma’s house over the summer. I’d sleep in their spare bedroom, and because they lived next to a set of train tracks, I would hear the soft whistle when I’d lay in bed at night. It’s funny how certain sounds can bring up memories, whether good or bad. It’s also interesting how sometimes we get so used to sounds that we don’t even notice them anymore. For instance, there is a cuckoo clock in my house that goes off every hour, but half the time I don’t even acknowledge the noises it makes. However, technology was so new in the world when Thoreau wrote this passage, that certain sounds probably really stood out to him.

      Comment by Caroline Crimmins on February 26, 2020

      Thoreau was very lucky to have this disconnected experience by Walden pond. In paragraph five of “Sounds,” Thoreau talks about the birds that fly past his window. He writes, “As I sit at my window this summer afternoon, hawks are circling about my clearing; the tantivy of wild pigeons, flying by two and threes athwart my view, or perching restless on the white-pine boughs behind my house, gives a voice to the air…” (Thoreau 14). I love the sounds of different birds because I do not hear them very often. Occasionally I will find a pretty blue bird or a robin outside my window, but I am used to seeing geese and pigeons, birds who do not make particularly pleasant sounds in my opinion. I am from downstate New York, where it is extremely populated. It is a far drive for me to go somewhere wooded or away from the main roads. When I do, I feel what Thoreau prompts us to feel when he writes this text, the power of disconnecting and truly listening to your senses around you. Last year in Professor Cooper’s 368 ParaDigital class, we spent one class “doing nothing.” Before coming to that class, we read an article about how it is socially unacceptable to sit somewhere and do exactly that, nothing. Professor Cooper challenged us to find somewhere on campus where we could sit and just concentrate on our thoughts. This experience taught me to identify the feelings and senses around me: what do I feel? What do I hear? What are some of the thoughts I would like to think about? I encourage everyone to try this activity because it truly allows your mind to gather and be pulled away from the screen for thirty minutes or so.

      Comment by Mitchell Pace on February 26, 2020

      The whistle of a train that Thoreau brings up is still a sound prevalent in modern life. In an earlier paragraph, Thoreau discusses the places where one can’t even hear the whistle in a tone of disbelief. Now, in the current day, I can’t hear the various sounds of the train from where I live, but what I can hear are the sounds of cars and buses that indicate a similar sign of progress and innovation that came with the introduction of the train. In a similar vein, it would be strange to be in a place away from the sounds of progress and the technologies that take over our lives.

      Comment by Kyle Regan on February 26, 2020

      Thoreau reflects upon how he used to sit in his doorway on a summer morning and his memories from doing so. The stillness, bird noises, and noises from a wagon on the distant highway. I related this to how different it is to the sounds I would hear in my own life. Growing up in Manhattan there are nonstop sounds that you grow accustomed to and don’t even really hear anymore. Random cars passing by honking, random people walking down my block, and many other random sounds drown out most things he remembers from his own place. But yet how he used to hear wagons the progression of technology I grew up hearing cars. Also some of the sounds won’t change. On the other side of the apartment is a little backyard with a bird feeder and I grew up hearing birds every once in awhile similar to him.

      Comment by Jose Romero on February 26, 2020

      While reading this paragraph, it brought a lot of nostalgia to my childhood. Like Thoreau describes, there is this sound of life that comes from housework. Growing up in a Latinx household came with a lot of responsibilities and a grown-up role I was not yet prepared for. By the age of 5, I was expected to help my family clean, learn how to wash dishes, and how to make sure our house was the cleanest it could be. Though I did not see it as a “pleasant pastime” as Thoreau describes, I do treasure the moments now and am thankful that at a young age I was taught responsibility, structure, and how to care for myself. The sound of music on Sunday mornings is what made me wake up, brush my teeth, get dressed, and then start cleaning. It was a ritual and bit by bit, my body and mind were adjusting to the cycle.

      The sound of my early cries (from not wanting to wake up early to clean my house) turned into sounds of happiness from seeing my house neatly tight. Today, housework is a pleasant pastime and something I have to do in order to make sure my life is in order.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on February 26, 2020

      Screech owl:

      Comment by Olivia Davis on February 26, 2020

      Thoreau describes the whistling of the train in his city as the “scream of a hawk sailing over some farmer’s yard”. It is almost as if the train is a signal, or messenger to indicate that people and goods are arriving. This reminded me of my house back at home, as there is a railroad as well as a highway right behind my house. When I was young, it bothered me and kept me up at night, reminding me that just because it’s bed time for me, doesn’t mean it’s bed time for the rest of the world. The sounds of the vehicles or trains make those in the city aware that things are arriving. Much like I became accustomed to the sounds at night and eventually slept through them, I think these sounds have also been muted out by people due to technology. They no longer need the whistle of the train to alarm them to go into the city, and this method of alarm has become “old school”. We now have everything we need, all information at our fingertips at all time. It has caused us as humans to become numb to sounds, and the peace or joy they may bring.

      Comment by Madison Jackson on February 26, 2020

      [I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans. Nay, I often did better than this. There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiselessly through the house until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveler’s wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. ]

      This reminds me of being at my camp during the summer and fall. I can remember sitting on the deck with my grandfather and watch the calm lake water, see the huge mountain full of chaos in front of the still lake and all the while smelling the pine trees. We called it Adirondack air. Still to this day my favorite smell in the world. I love the passage I selected from Walden for this reason. The way he described the air, the way it smelled, instantly brought me back to my favorite place in the world.

      Comment by anthony guttilla on March 23, 2020

      When Thoreau talks about how he hears the wind blowing on the pages, I can very much relate with it. This is a calming, peaceful noise, as evident by the words “free wind”. When I was younger, I would prefer to read outside. I would take a pillow up to the roof of my house and sit there for hours, feeling the sun on my skin as the wind whistles through the pages. Many sounds that Thoreau hears are unaffected by technology, considering how he lives as simply as possible in the woods away from civilization. However, in my life, I am constantly hearing technology affecting me. I hear the squeaky buzz of electricity running through an outlet, the computer generated voices that call my phone, the audio of a video or song coming out of my speakers, and so much more.

      Comment by Jaffre Aether on April 3, 2020

      [I had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, over those who were obliged to look abroad for amusement, to society and the theatre, that my life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel. It was a drama of many scenes]

      When reading the fluid text version of this paragraph, I noticed that Thoreau had the order of society and the theatre reversed, with theatre first and society last. There are two indications I see within the change. First, that Thoreau thought the theaters were a bigger draw for petty amusement than society, but reversed this decision. Clearly, he changed his mind and saw that fiction was secondary to reality (although in this case, reality still seems somewhat fictional) in terms of distraction. Secondly, he keeps his mode of metaphor even though he placed theater secondary to society. I wonder if he thought the metaphor was too good to relinquish, or if he wants to correlate life to fiction strongly. I also cannot help but point out that he makes a pun of the word ‘novel’ in this sentence as well.

      Comment by Rachel Beck on April 3, 2020

      [The Fitchburg Railroad touches the pond about a hundred rods south of where I dwell. I usually go to the village along its causeway, and am, as it were, related to society by this link. The men on the freight trains, who go over the whole length of the road, bow to me as to an old acquaintance, they pass me so often, and apparently they take me for an employee; and so I am. I too would fain be a track-repairer somewhere in the orbit of the earth.]

      In the fluid-text edition of this passage in Walden, this entire paragraph is basically missing. The only piece remaining is the line: “The Fitchburg Railroad then newly constructed touches the pond within about a hundred rods of my house”. I find this very interesting, because the rest of the paragraph was obviously an afterthought. 

      Comment by Caroline Crimmins on May 7, 2020

      Leila, this is such a thoughtful comment! I feel that reading truly takes a reader into a whole different world. Because of the current state our world is in, I have tried to set aside time to disconnect. As I mentioned in my blog post, I have been trying new skills and reading more because of this time. I love to sit on the couch with my dog and read for an hour or so because it gives me the opportunity to go into another world for that small amount of time. Even if the environment around me is not totally silent, I am not bothered because the books I have been reading are so engaging that I feel silence, calmness, and stillness around me.

      Comment by Anne Baranello on May 12, 2020

      Earlier in the semester, we discussed in class the sentence, “Much is published, but little printed.” Those who talked in class didn’t come to a distinct conclusion – some believed Thoreau was not referring to physical printing at all, but rather the impression that is left on people and their minds. The quote refers to the sheer amount of text and media that is published every year, but a large amount of published work continues to go unnoticed. Its easy to publish work, but it is infinitely harder to publish work that has a lasting and meaningful effect on those who consume it.

      Comment by Anne Baranello on May 12, 2020

      The first half of this paragraph is Thoreau talking about his experience of summer living at Walden. Thoreau recalls that he often sat in the sun, lost in the warmth of the rays and his own continuous thoughts, so much so that it would take a wagon passing by to be “reminded of the lapse of time.” This is something that I can (and I think everyone, to some extent) can relate to. Losing track of time is so easy, especially when everything around you is peaceful and warm, and the environment just lends itself to your thoughts. To be entirely honest, it’s times like these that I do my best thinking.

      Comment by Anne Baranello on May 12, 2020

      [ had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, over those who were obliged to look abroad for amusement, to society and the theatre, that my life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel. It was a drama of many scenes and without an end. If we were always indeed getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the last and best mode we had learned, we should never be troubled with ennui.]

      A while ago in group discussion, a classmate had mentioned how she perceived this quote as evident of Thoreau’s pretentiousness – I disagree (although he can be pretentious, that is a fact). I interpreted this section of the paragraph as Thoreau explaining to the reader that he found joy in his every day life. Doing mundane activities like house chores or cooking or simply thinking brought him all the pleasure that someone who frequents the theatre might have. It can almost sound like a slam against those who choose to live in a society and drive happiness from things that are, objectively, novel and unimportant to every day life, but I think otherwise. Thoreau isn’t ridiculing those who choose to live like that, but rather he’s asking them to have a modicum of self-awareness, and try to live in the moment, rather than vicariously through something.

      Comment by Jose Romero on May 13, 2020

      “We are in danger of forgetting the language which all things and events speak without metaphor, which alone is copious and standard”

      This quote stood out to me because Thoreau makes a great point in explaining that we can read as many texts as we want but what good is it if we are not allowed to have discussions about it and collaboratively analyze it? It’s important to have a clear space to voice what one’s thoughts or opinions are, especially after reading a text. Whether it is a book, a newspaper article, a tabloid, or a text message, we need to be able to voice how we feel and what our understanding is. We can do so little with only the written language which is why Thoreau foreshadows us losing our spoken, human language: communication.

      Comment by Ainsley Owens on February 9, 2021

      [Nor is there any man so independent on his farm that he can say them nay. ]

      While Thoreau himself is able to live only off of his land and his own skills and abilities, as proven by his experiences creating his own home in the woods with little to nothing, other men are unable to craft a lifestyle where this is possible

      Comment by Ainsley Owens on February 9, 2021

      [They go and come with such regularity and precision, and their whistle can be heard so far, that the farmers set their clocks by them, and thus one well conducted institution regulates a whole country.]

      I think this is something important to think about; in this area, people do not base the timing of their day around the rising and setting sun, nor the sounds of nature or other environmental factors, like the church bells that ring hourly in my own town. Instead, their internal clocks are set based upon the arrival of the railroad. Not only that, but activities are planned based on whether the railroad will be in use at that time, which speaks greatly to the importance of the railroad and what it has to offer in this society.

      Comment by kenneth demerchant on February 9, 2021

      [The men on the freight trains, who go over the whole length of the road, bow to me as to an old acquaintance,]

      I find this quote interesting because, I wonder why they bow to him instead of just waving and saying hello? I would like to know as well as to why he is referring to himself as an old acquaintance? Maybe the people who are bowing to him are much younger?

      Comment by Katelyn Cummings on February 9, 2021

      [ I watch the passage of the morning cars with the same feeling that I do the rising of the sun, which is hardly more regular.]

      This quote stands out to me because this is something that he does a lot and it’s how he starts his morning off. Some people like to get up early and watch the sun rise that represents a fresh day and new beginnings. But for him he has the same feelings when it comes to the cars going by in the morning. These are people who are starting their day off by headed out into the world. Much like the sun, it’s starting it’s day off by welcoming everyone to have a fresh new day.

       

       

      Comment by Katelyn Cummings on February 9, 2021

      [were on hand when the bell rang. To do things “railroad fashion” is now the by-word; and it is worth the while to be warned so often and so sincerely by any power to get off its track. ]

      This quote reminds me of just a few month ago while I was in Florida we had to stop and wait for a train to go by. We saw the lights flashing and the bells ringing telling us to stop and if someone’s on the tracks to get off. Much like what the quote is saying that the trains and the tracks have so much energy that it can’t stop to let people or cars go by.

      Comment by Owen Amigo on February 9, 2021

      Very interesting technique he uses to clean his floor; water and white sand from the pond. I wonder if that changed the smell of his house? Also a solid connection between seeing his chairs and other furniture outside among the objects in nature who’s form they once were.

      Comment by Owen Amigo on February 9, 2021

      Here Thoreau exemplifies the capitalistic side of America. He mentions even the most independent farmers rush to see the merchants when they arrive. Furthermore, he shines light on all of the earths natural resources that are being taken for consumption in the industrial society.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 9, 2021

      [I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance.]

      Do we allow ourselves to daydream anymore, as a necessary route to growth, especially for the young?  Or have screens replaced that idle time, which artists know is also the ground of creativity? How is this time “over and above his usual allowance” of time?

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 9, 2021

      It’s a great image of “housecleaning” and of how he lives an indoor/ outdoor life.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 9, 2021

      I’m not sure why they bow instead of wave. But the train would’ve been loud, so they couldn’t have been heard if they said (or yelled) “hello.” I think the same guys work on the train each day, and they see him walking into Concord (Mass) regularly, so he’s very familiar to them, like an old acquaintance. He was about 27 at this time; the train-workers could have been any age, I guess.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 9, 2021

      Great point, Owen, let’s look at this passage and talk more in class about Thoreau’s critiques of industrial consumption of natural resources!

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 9, 2021

      He was definitely a morning person! He does seem inspired by watching and hearing the train cars go by in this paragraph. He shows mixed feelings about the train and what it represents in various passages, but in this paragraph, the “iron horse” is dependable, strong, and admirable in many ways.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 9, 2021

      Great point, Ainsley: even by the 1840s, people’s days were timed and regulated by technology and markets, rather than natural cycles. He seems to have both admiration for the new, faster, precise timing of the train, and some wariness. What do you think he thinks of how this technology has changed how people live?

      Comment by Steven Covey on February 10, 2021

      I like the imagery of the hawks circling about the clearing.

      Comment by Sofie Wolters on February 10, 2021

      [They go and come with such regularity and precision, and their whistle can be heard so far, that the farmers set their clocks by them, and thus one well conducted institution regulates a whole country.]

      Here Thoreau talks about the effects of modern society on people. The new way of living is almost inescapable and even affects farmers who are far removed from it. Nature doesn’t indicate time anymore but “progressive” human activity does, leaving them oblivious to the beauty of life.

      Comment by Dylan Thorburn on February 10, 2021

      …[I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller’s wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time.]

      Thoreau is reminding us to live in the moment and absorb our surroundings and become a part of them. He sat listening to the birds and observing trees. Thoreau could have sat there for hours longer if the wagon had not passed by. He is saying that time is not something to be bound to, it is something to embrace.

      Comment by Steven Tummino on February 10, 2021

      I really enjoyed reading this paragraph because of the imagery of the home he lives in. I love that he mentions the materials scattered on the floor, it almost seems as if he lives the most natural life. I even love the description of his furniture, it paints a really great image of his life and what he must be seeing

       

      Comment by Dylan Thorburn on February 10, 2021

      The way Thoreau described his home and Boston shows how different the country and city are in terms of sounds. Thoreau painted an image in my head that concord was this peaceful place of tranquility, and Boston was full of angry, ignorant people trying to get through the day.

      Comment by Steven Tummino on February 10, 2021

      This line is really interesting as well, I just love the way he describes things. Especially the lines about different languages and dialects

       

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 10, 2021

      Very nicely put about time, Dylan. I guess nowadays, people would call that kind of absorbed listening and being “mindfulness.”

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 10, 2021

      Yes! Here, and often, he’s just observing and describing the nature he sees, and it’s peaceful and just lets us experience what he saw.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 10, 2021

      Great insight, Ainsley– Farmers were increasingly unable to just get by on what they raised (like Thoreau); they needed to raise extra crops and livestock to sell at the markets, just to stay out of debt. That time was called “the Market Revolution.”

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 10, 2021

      Good quote and point, Sofie! Ainsley commented similarly a couple boxes above. I know for me, not waking to an alarm = vacation.

      Comment by Rebecca Johnson on February 13, 2021

      In contrast to his earlier comments about owning a farm, Thoreau describes the care and respect he has for his garden. Saying, “I tasted them out of compliment to Nature, though they were scarcely palatable.” I loved this quote because it truly shows the respect and admiration he has for nature. He also capitalizes Nature to personify it, another way to show his respect.

      Comment by Rebecca Johnson on February 13, 2021

      Here, Thoreau describes the rise of capitalizing and material things through the expanding railroads. My favorite line in this passage is, “up comes the books, but down goes the wit that writes them,” because it is an excellent way of explaining how material items can shift one’s ideals and lesson their connectedness to themselves and “wit” to write a book.

      Comment by Rick Visser on September 1, 2021

      [Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity.]

      I wonder if T may be suggesting a deeper sense of ‘reading,’ perhaps related to the concept of reading put forward by Simone Weil in her “Essay on the Notion of Reading.”

      https://www.academia.edu/44651263/Simone_Weil_Essay_on_the_Notion_of_Reading_Trans_Fleming_

      Comment by Julianna Larue on February 3, 2022

      Summer living at the lake? Talking about being calm in the moment. No fear about future or past. Just living in the moment. He did no planning.

      Comment by Judiah Strouse on February 25, 2022

      An overview of Thoreau’s minimalist thoughts, he does mention Confucius teachings many times throughout Walden. From there he establishes that in life, a person doesn’t need a strict timetable of their day. Rather, living in the moment and taking your time to meander about is the best way to live.

  • Spring 1-13 (83 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [ponds so severe a trial]

      T here reflects the mid-nineteenth-century fascination with scientific phenomena almost for their own sake – an interest that Melville parodied in portions of Moby-Dick. To his dismay, T found that as he grew older he became more interested in merely recording statistics and less interested in interpreting those statistics for a better understanding of life.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [year take place every day]

      It was a favorite fancy of T’s to see the world in microcosm – the Atlantic Ocean as Walden Pond, etc.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [alive and covered with papillæ]

      Tiny protruding cells.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [about the 7th of April]

      Since in his Journal for March 28, 1854 (VI, 176), T notes that he has received the first proofs of W, this last entry must have been inserted into the final text, which means that he kept revising the book up to the last moment. In his Journal for April 9, 1854 (VI, 191), he records his discovery that Walden had opened several days before.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [to the age of Methuselah]

      “All the days of Methuselah were 969 years” (Genesis 5:27).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [down without obstruction from Sudbury]

      The next town southwest of Concord (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [sand and clay assume]

      Few passages in W have been analyzed with more frequency and at greater length than these paragraphs. Bigelow cites them as an outstanding early example of “how the modern symbolist mind works.” Saucerman discusses it in the light of contemporary theories of geology. Perhaps the best general discussion can be found in Paul (1958, 346-9).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [deep cut on the railroad]

      Just northwest of Walden Pond, where the earth was cut away to some depth to avoid too great an incline on the railroad (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [and excrements of all kinds]

      Many have suggested that T’s comments here indicate the psychological orientation that Freud called anal. West (1974), in fact, finds scattered throughout W, particularly in some of T’s puns, many scatological references.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [than acanthus, chiccory, ivy, vine]

      All of these leaves have been used as decorative motifs in various schools of architecture.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a word especially applicable]

      T was often fascinated with word origins but was not always correct in his theories (Gura).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a mass of thawing clay]

      “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground” (Genesis 2:7).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [What Champollion]

      Jean-Francois Champollion (1790-1832), the French Egyptologist who deciphered the Rosetta stone and launched a widespread interest in the study of hieroglyphics (Irwin).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the heaps of liver lights]

      Lights: lungs.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [and bowels]

      The bowels were thought to be the source of compassion and sympathy.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [still in her swaddling clothes]

      “Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes” (Luke 2:12).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [studied by geologists and antiquaries]

      T once again is reflecting his interest in the archeological discoveries made in the Middle East during his lifetime.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [which precede flowers and fruit]

      As Sattelmeyer (88) points out, T is here giving “a fairly explicit refutation of the contemporary squabbles over the meaning of the geologic record.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the hands of the potter]

      “As clay is in the potter’s hand” (Jeremiah 18:6).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [is more powerful than Thor]

      The Norse god of thunder.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the earliest birds,— decent weeds]

      A widow’s mourning costume is known as weeds.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [of spring the red-squirrels]

      Whether T was aware of the fact or not, the squirrels were obviously engaged in a mating ritual.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [chickaree—chickaree]

      A common name for squirrels, supposedly based on one of their calls.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [oritur herba imbribus primoribus evocata]

      “And the grass which is called forth by the early rains is just growing” (M. Terenti Varronis [Varro], Rerum Rusticarum [On Agriculture] 2.2.14).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [told that in the experiment]

      The Concord Freeman for September 30, 1842, announced that “they are building a reservoir on a very large scale at Fresh Pond, for the purpose of manufacturing ice, the coming winter. It is intended to pump up the water into the basin and allow it to freeze, which it will more readily do, than in the pond, as the depth will be but little, and it can be but slightly disturbed.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on February 1, 2014

      [The opening]

      For a discussion of the spring and rebirth imagery throughout the book, and particularly in this chapter, see Richard Adams (424-8). Hume gives a detailed analysis of this chapter as a psychological preparation for the advent of spring. Sweeney discusses the particular influence of Oriental philosophies on this chapter.

      Comment by Matt Spitzer on February 10, 2014

      [and still puts forth its green blade to eternity]

      Simply, I found this whole paragraph full of beautiful imagery, but this line line in particular is a very democratic and optimistic idea, drawing on a metaphoric spring to rebirth humanity, which is symbolized as a field of growing grass, and each of us is a single “blade” fighting ever onward. Many people have heard misconceptions about T, the full extent of his solitude, his perceived dryness, etc., but he really is a beautiful writer as well as a deep thinker.

      Comment by Holly Gilbert on February 25, 2015

      [whose veins are filled with the blood of winter]

      While I have always considered the changing of seasons to be  routine, possibly because we live in an area with the sort of extremes Thoreau mentions, he views the melting ice in a way that gives the seasons life. I was particularly drawn in by this description of winter as a being, with the ice and snow being its blood. At this point, the passage seems to be moving from a scientific evaluation of the melting ice to a more spiritual description – showing how varied Thoreau’s approach towards nature can be. He sometimes shifts between scientist and poet.

      Comment by Grace Rowan on February 27, 2015

      The juxtaposition of the change of season to the beginning of the end of Walden is prevalent in this paragraph. He describes the temperature change in comparison to the melting of the pond. Could he be comparing himself to the pond: how he has come full circle now just as nature’s course?

      Comment by Emily Peterson on March 1, 2015

      It is interesting to see the more scientific-minded side of Thoreau here. When reading Walden it can be easy to get caught up in all of Thoreau’s grand metaphors and observations of society. I found this passage to read quite like a field journal—simply a scientific account of the lake’s thawing process. I think that it was important for Thoreau to not lose that scientific connection with nature. The combination of scientific observation and social observation really speaks to the complex workings of Thoreau’s mind.

      Comment by Aran Fox on March 2, 2015

      Here Thoreau’s transcendental vision is displayed with some clarity. “You here see perchance how blood vessels are formed,” he muses. Clearly, Thoreau identifies more with the order of nature than with its entropy. Two unrelated things are compared here: rivers and blood vessels. They are united under this abstract principle of “the law,” an apparent inherent guideline nature provides. The transcendental approach here can be poignantly compared with the works of the early twentieth century: Thoreau finds himself amongst the last batch of authors who yearn so steadfastly for the uncovering of truth. A truth which the modernists and the postmodernists after them describe as insufficient. If there were a way of identifying a unifying truth, Thoreau exhaustively attempts to find it in this passage.

      Comment by Joseph Fennie on April 11, 2016

      [The phenomena of the year take place every day in a pond on a small scale]

      Here we see again Thoreau’s theme of circles. The progress of a day at the pond is mirrored by the progress of a year in Massachusetts, such as the time spent at Walden Pond is a smaller circle of the entirety of Thoreau’s life. Through this theme we see the point of Walden as a work of literature. The life we live must be reflective of the miniature life spent at Walden Pond. Not necessarily a point for point guide on how to live (we must move into a small house in the woods and live meekly forever), but rather through nature realize how to live. We must pay heed to its rituals and cycles and imitate them in a way that they correspond with our own lives.

      Comment by Joseph Fennie on April 11, 2016

      simply a scientific account of the lake’s thawing process. I think that it was important for Thoreau to not lose that scientific connection with nature. The combination of scientific observation and social observation really speaks to the complex workings of Thoreau’s mind

      Emily makes a good point here. I’m reminded strongly of the chapters in Melville’s Moby Dick where he describes, rather scientifically and taxonomically, cetology, the scientific study of whales. This seems like a good crossroads for the meeting of both Romantic writing and a bit of Enlightenment scientific writing. It appeals to both the artistic and logical aspects of the human mind, which strengthens the writings of both movements.

      Comment by Alexis Sammler on April 13, 2016

      [The whole bank, which is from twenty to forty feet high, is sometimes overlaid with a mass of this kind of foliage, or sandy rupture, for a quarter of a mile on one or both sides, the produce of one spring day. What makes this sand foliage remarkable is its springing into existence thus suddenly. ]

      “This kind of foliage” is not real foliage. Foliage, or the leaves of a plant, collectively, or leafage, is not what Thoreau is talking about in this passage. However, I enjoy the pun: “is its springing into existence…” In this passage, Thoreau is echoing in solitude, and also celebrating that Spring can do anything.

      Comment by Alexis Sammler on April 13, 2016

      “These foliaceous heaps lie along the bank like the slag of a furnace, showing that Nature is “in full blast” within. The earth is not a mere fragment of dead history, stratum upon stratum like the leaves of a book, to be studied by geologist and antiquaries chiefly, but living poetry like the leaves of a tree, which precede flowers and fruit,–not a fossil earth, but a living earth…”

      The imagery of leaves continues beautifully in this passage,  through the “foliaceous heaps”. To me, this  passage creates an image of a book full of pages of leaves. Simply, leaves are the pages to a book.

      Natures’ renewal in Spring keeps happening–we are all growing through nature, and this is the beginning.

      Comment by Alexis Sammler on April 13, 2016

      [The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever!]

      To Thoreau, Everyday can be Spring. Everyday we can atone for our sins.

      Comment by Mary Robicheaux on October 16, 2017

      I agree. Thoreau is a well-know figure, so people will have various opinions and perceptions of him, regardless of what his true character is.

      Comment by Elisabeth Strand on October 26, 2017

      [but this suggests at least that Nature has some bowels, and there again is the mother of humanity]

      While at times it seems that Thoreau is optimistic about the true nature of man, this line suggests that his optimism comes in moderation

      Comment by Sarah Alper on October 27, 2017

      Here we see Thoreau using nature to describe man which helps to remind the reader of his ecological standpoint. He states that we are made of clay meaning we are made of nature, but this does not necessarily mean we are good for the environment as clay soil hinders growth so it prevents water penetration, so in this context when applied to the symbiotic relationship between nature and humans might be a negative one

      Comment by Jayant Kulkarni on June 14, 2018

      Hi !

      Can anyone help me to understand this para in detail ? I am translating Walden into Marathi, language spoken in Maharashtra, India. I would like to discuss this para by e-mail exchanges if one agrees…

      Warm Regards,

      Jayant Kulkarni

      jayantckulkarni@gmail.com

       

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on June 14, 2018

      Jayant, I had a terribly difficult time translating this particular passage. I remember that, through a scholar friend in Japan and another in Korea, I even looked at the way the Japanese and Korean translators treated this paragraph. No one can feel what you are going through better than me.  You have to begin to form specific questions.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on June 14, 2018

      Long before leaves appear on trees, they reveal themselves in sands to Thoreau. To him sands and stones are as alive as leaves and trees. It seems to me that Thoreau is watching what Emerson called the Oversoul here. It is this Oversoul that is giving animal life to this inanimate material. “Sand foliage” may be seen only in Walden. See how beautifully “springing to life” reminds us of the spring which is just emerging.  The spring does not emerge in leaves, trees, not even in the cracks in Walden Pond’s ice only, it is seen in the dead sands that are just springing into life.

      Isn’t all this a mystical invitation to a deliberate life. How can we continue our winter hibernation while even stones and sands rupture and spring into life life this?

      Comment by Jayant Kulkarni on June 17, 2018

      Hi !

      Yes, I appreciate what you say and I thank you for replying.

      I have already scrapped 5 th version of my translation and your reply will help me when I am writing my 6th one… 🙂

      Thanks a lot.

      Warm Regards,

      Jayant

      Comment by Paul Schacht on June 23, 2018

      @jayant – In thinking about the paragraph, you may find it useful to look at some of the articles in the JSTOR database that reference it. Scroll down to the bottom of the comments on the paragraph and look for the blue-highlighted “Find References in JSTOR Articles” button. Click the button to open a list of articles that reference this paragraph. Mouse over the article snippets (or look for the italicized words in them) to see just what words in the paragraph are referenced in each article. Click an article title to find the full content of that article in JSTOR. Some of these articles are available without charge to all readers. If you belong to a library with an institutional subscription to JSTOR, you’ll have access without charge many if not all of them.

      Comment by Clare Corbett on May 12, 2019

      [covered for the most part with a firm field of ice. It was a warm day, and he was surprised to see so great a body of ice remaining]

       

      You can see Fair Haven Pond on a map here.

      Comment by Lauren Beers on May 2, 2020

      This comparison of the times of day to seasons is one that I haven’t considered. In a way, a day does go through a smaller scaled cycle similar to that of the seasons. Although nature and time can be seen as fluid, it is sometimes helpful to view them in a more cyclical way.

      Comment by Leila Sassouni on May 5, 2020

      [The day is an epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer. ]

      I don\’t remember which passage it was, but this statement reminds me of a previous chapter in which Thoreau continuously referenced seasons and how quickly time changes… It seems that he is attempting to go full circle with his ideas now, given that he is nearing the end of his manuscript.

      Comment by Jaffre Aether on May 6, 2020

      [it was pleasant to compare the first tender signs of the infant year just peeping forth with the stately beauty of the withered vegetation which had withstood the winter]

      I quite like this quote because this is also something I love to do. I go on a lot of walks, and I especially like going to ledges where there is a striking vista. And because of that, I can see the trees bare of leaves, and those budding, and it is always interesting to come back the next day and see how much the wave of leaves has increased. The mix of brown leaves and budding grass is also a deeply pleasant sight. Thematically as well, I see this quote connecting to the grander themes of cycles and the immensity of times. These points of smallness, where we can tap into these almost eternal cycles, are what allows us to see nature and universe enact itself. Even grander, this section connects to the ebb and flow of our life, as we will die and feed the ground itself.

      Comment by Kira Baran on May 8, 2020

      I like Emily’s and Joseph’s points on how this particular passage “seems like a good crossroads for the meeting of both Romantic writing and a bit of Enlightenment scientific writing. It appeals to both the artistic and logical aspects of the human mind, which strengthens the writings of both movements.”

      Personally, while reading this passage in which Thoreau talks about the “first signs of spring,” the “arriving bird,” and the “leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in,” I was reminded of an Emily Dickinson poem I distinctly recall reading in fourth grade: “Dear March – Come In.” The poem personifies Spring as a visitor, much like spring seems to be visiting Thoreau.

      The fact that this passage summons up comparisons as varied as scientific “field journals,” the novel Moby Dick, and a romantic Emily Dickinson poem, speaks to the wide-reaching effects of Thoreau’s writing as he appeals to both pathos and logos; for his relationship to nature is one of both the heart and the mind.

      Comment by Hannah Jewell on May 12, 2020

      Thoreau demonstrates in this paragraph just how knowledgable he is about the pond after all these years, even when it comes down to the temperature of the water in the pond and the significance of it.

      Comment by Kyle Regan on May 12, 2020

      I connected with the middle of the paragraph where he talks about seeing certain things that remind him of the summer. Certain things are stuck in our minds that can bring us out of the present and into a better state of mind. For him he is able to relate the wool-grass as part of nature that art would like to copy. For me there is a cherry blossom tree my grandma planted in the backyard of the nyc apartment I grew up in and still live currently. When it recently bloomed it brought me back to all the times I have seen it bloom over my life. Then the pedals eventually fall and leave the ground covered in its beautiful color. Certain things we can see from nature that can make us reminisce in the nostalgia of seeing similar/the same things that can remind us of past times.

      Comment by Olivia Davis on May 13, 2020

      This passage was very interesting to me in its dissection of the effects of the atmosphere on the pond. The particular line that stood out to me was:

      “The day is an epitome of a year. The night is winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is summer.”

      This idea is fascinating, because I have never thought about it in this way. The day and position of the sun within that day truly does affect wildlife, the pond in this case, but also other things such as animals or plants, in the way seasons affect humans. Nature is outside experiencing every part of the day at all times, so it feels the cool mornings, the hot afternoons, and the harshly cold nights. The extremes are different depending on the actual season, but I like the idea of every day being a mini year in wildlife time.

      Comment by Mariah Branch on May 13, 2020

      I found Thoreau’s assertions equating the different times of day to the seasons to be quite interesting. Of course, everyone knows that it is typically in the process of getting warm in the morning, to then peak in the afternoon, before beginning to cool down into the night. Thoreau’s explanation is so logical to me as the progression through the day really does mimic the seasons. I am a person that is a firm believer in the claim that time is a manmade concept and, therefore, is not real. However, I feel that Thoreau’s argument here really made me reconsider my thoughts about time and how it affects our lives.

      Comment by Mariah Branch on May 13, 2020

      With this praising description of Spring, Thoreau makes a sharp contrast to wintertime. As someone who has experienced the strifes of seasonal affective disorder, this paragraph really resonates with me. Spring is my favorite season and perhaps the hope that Thoreau suggests comes with it is why. Thoreau describes springtime as a new beginning that gives you a chance to bloom and I think that is beautiful.

      Comment by Katelyn Cummings on February 15, 2021

      [The fishermen say that the “thundering of the pond” scares the fishes and prevents their biting.]

      I have never heard of “thundering of the pond” before, but I could only imagine how scary it must be for the fishes. It reminds me of when your swimming in the pool and your underwater and you hit your foot on the side of the pool. It probably sounds something similar to that with the echo’s under it. I wonder though, how often does it “thunder” in the pond? Is it only when the change of temperatures happen when it’s cold?

      Comment by Katelyn Cummings on February 15, 2021

      [The brooks sing carols and glees to the spring. ]

      I can relate to this quote in a few different ways. I have a brook outside of my house that is in a wooded area and in the spring I like to go down and sit on the big rock and listen to the birds chirp and the water rushing. Reading this quote makes me think of the spring time when everything just seems so fresh and new. New flowers are growing, the grass is getting greener, and new wildlife is being born.

      Comment by Olivia Elliott on February 16, 2021

      Again, this descriptive paragraph caught my eye and painted a picture in my head. I really like the way that he includes writing like this in his work.

      Comment by kenneth demerchant on February 16, 2021

      [The cracking and booming of the ice indicate a change of temperature.]

      The cracking and the booming means that the ice is melting from the pond and that spring is surely coming.

      Comment by kenneth demerchant on February 16, 2021

      Here in this paragraph Thoreau explains that while living in the woods, he can see the spring come in by looking at his surroundings. He also mentions that he wont need a large fire to keep him warm.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      maybe you need to live near a big lake to hear this, but I’ve heard it. As Kenny said, the ice cracks and booms and it’s Loud!

      Comment by Rebecca Johnson on February 16, 2021

      I love the imagery and personification in this paragraph; how he describes the sun smiling on the land, warming it.

      Comment by Sofie Wolters on February 17, 2021

      [The day is an epitome of the year.]

      This part reminds me of something I noticed in the Walt Whitman poem, “There was a child went forth everyday”. The poem goes from the start of the day to the end but also seems to emphasise the growth of the child throughout the years within the poem. Both these writers see these natural cycles and compare them in their writing.

      Comment by Alec Marshall on February 17, 2021

      This paragraph interested me. I remember as a young child, I always learned about birds flying south come winter time, and rarely remember seeing birds in the winter. Nowadays, I feel like I still see birds here in New Hampshire year-round. The amount is definitely far less than in the spring and summer, but I think the days of birds returning and representing the start of spring may be gone.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 17, 2021

      Great connection, Sofie! That’s both a literary move- to see such cycles symbolically- and a Romantic idea that all these patterns (human, seasonal, animal, vegetative) were divinely created to mirror each other.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 17, 2021

      So, I am Not any kind of bird expert, but Yes & No. Some birds are finding it unnecessary to migrate because they can find enough food, due to lack of snow cover, and water, due to now unfrozen water. But other birds still migrate, though their timing and routes may be changing. For Birders, certain birds’ return still marks the start of spring. Hummingbirds, for instance.

      Comment by Dylan Thorburn on February 17, 2021

      Spring is a season that I enjoy because it is the turning point from a cold Winter to a warm Summer. Usually, when Spring comes around I am sick of the cold and I think Thoreau is trying to say this in this chapter as well. He is saying that everything is coming back to life both physically and socially and I can relate to that.

      Comment by Dylan Thorburn on February 17, 2021

      I really enjoy seeing the seasonal birds come back from the south or wherever they migrate to and I had the same appreciation when Thoreau showed the level of excitement towards the sparrow.

      The way Thoreau talks about the grass and sort of compares it to his own life was particularly interesting. Grass, even though frozen and covered for most of Winter, still comes back to life and grows quickly and strongly as compared to people getting busier since the air is warmer.

      Comment by Ainsley Owens on February 18, 2021

      This paragraph speaks a lot about Thoreau’s intense attention to detail. Not only does he detail the thickness and thinness of the ice, but he also discusses the relation between the thickness of the ice and the way it melts. Thoreau also discusses in-depth the way that the temperature causes state changes in the ice and the way it impacts the water at different lengths. I doubt many people, and I know I haven’t, have ever put that much thought and consideration into ice and the way it melts. While it also speaks a lot to Thoreau’s surroundings, it speaks even more to his attention to detail, especially in nature. He notices everything he possibly can, and thinks about it and what it means as opposed to letting it be a passing thought, which is what most do.

      Comment by Rick Visser on September 1, 2021

      Yes, Allison. For a time, we lived on the shores of Lake Champlain: Cumberland Head, north of Plattsburgh, NY. Once, as we returned home from a long trip on an extremely cold winter night (-15 F), we were stopped in our tracks by a loud, eerie, and most unsettling sound. The entire lake was groaning and wailing, evoking in us a sense of utter desolation—mournful and fearsome—as great cracks ripped through the ice, shooting out for miles; as if some impossibly great beast was suffering its last agony; a doleful, primeval utterance, quite beyond anything we had heard before. There is simply nothing like it.

      Comment by Valerie Hill on February 9, 2022

      I like the line “Who would have suspected so large and cold and thick-skinned a thing to be so sensitive”

      I never thought of a pond as something that could be sensitive before because in the winter the pond is strong because of the ice, but in the summer its calm and beautiful, ready for fisherman and swimming.

      Comment by Valerie Hill on February 9, 2022

      I like his attention to the spring plants, it makes me wonder if he noticed any invasive species while he was out in Walden Pond, because once you disturb an area, like when he built his house, invasive species come in, and with his attention to detail I wonder if he wrote about it or took note of any new species around his house.

      Comment by ethan okwuosa on February 9, 2022

      By the way he was using imagery in this paragraph, it is obvious he admires the natural changes that spring brings him and his pond.

      Comment by ethan okwuosa on February 9, 2022

      “I know of nothing more purgative of winter and indigestion.” He does not like winter and associates unwanted stomach pain with it.

      Comment by ethan okwuosa on February 9, 2022

      A lot of personification to keep the theme of this paragraph of spring bringing joy and life to not only him, but the world.

      Comment by Zachary Vandecar on February 9, 2022

      [γείβω]

      what?

       

      Comment by Liam Bilodeau on February 9, 2022

      [So, also, every one who has waded about the shores of the pond in summer must have perceived how much warmer the water is close to the shore, where only three or four inches deep, than a little distance out, and on the surface where it is deep, than near the bottom. ]

      Yes, this is true (at least in my experience).

      Comment by Liam Bilodeau on February 9, 2022

      [ Nature has some bowels, and there again is mother of humanity.]

      Personification of the Earth?  He is comparing Nature to a human being.

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 10, 2022

      In this paragraph I really like how T not only observes but also tries to analyze the why and how the ice melts when the temperature changes. He does scientific assumptions about how the sun reflects from the bottom of the shallow water which causes the water to warm up and melt the under side of the ice at the same time that is meting it’s melting above. This explains how T never felt alone, since he constantly had his thoughts focused on what was around him and learned from it, which keep him to not feel lonely.

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 10, 2022

      “The atoms have already learned this law, and are pregnant by it” what?

      Comment by Keera Lopusiewicz on February 10, 2022

      [The grass flames up on the hillsides like a spring fire,—“et primitus oritur herba imbribus primoribus evocata,” —as if the earth sent forth an inward heat to greet the returning sun; not yellow but green is the color of its flame;—the symbol of perpetual youth, the grass-blade, like a green ribbon, streams from the sod into the summer, checked indeed by the frost, but anon pushing on again, lifting its spear of last year’s hay with the fresh life below]

      I love everything about this line for no other reason other than it sounds pretty and the wording used is agonizingly poetic.

      On a different note: this passage, alongside this chapter as a whole, is brimming with imagery and personification that, in essence, humanizes spring; henceforth, furthering the long-running theme of the sacred endearment of nature.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 13, 2022

      He’s citing the word for lobe in Greek, to trace word origins, looking for patterns in words as well as earth’s images.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 13, 2022

      He’s punning. You can say that someone is “pregnant with” ideas or anticipation, meaning just “full to bursting.” Here, since he’s referring to the word lobe, he connects it to the words globe and labor (as in work OR giving birth) and envisions each living thing as bursting with life/ giving birth to leaves, animals, life in spring.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 13, 2022

      wonderful question, Valerie! I’m not sure he and others had a sense of which plants were native or invasive back then, since not as many plants had been classified, but you or I could try to find out! Also, I think (?) that invasion of invasives is a relatively new problem: I’ve seen it happen intensely in the last 20 years, but I recall clearcuts before 2000 that grew back with pioneer species like poplar, but not so many invasives like multiflora rose and bittersweet.

  • Conclusion 1-9 (89 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [The buck-eye does not grow]

      A relative of the horse chestnut. A native of the Midwest, it has become very common since its introduction into New England.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [the mocking-bird is rarely heard here]

      Although the mockingbird was indeed rare in New England in T’s day, it has in recent years become quite common.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Tierra del Fuego]

      A group of islands at the southern tip of South America.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [look over the tafferel of our craft]

      Taffrail, the rail around the stem of a ship.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [stupid sailors picking oakum]

      On sailing vessels, sailors were often kept busy untwisting old pieces of rope to use in caulking the seams of the ship.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [is only a great-circle sailing]

      The shortest distance between two points on a sphere is the arc of a circular plane passed through the center of the sphere, thus ships (and now airplanes) navigate between any two points on the great circle (Cameron, 1972).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Snipes and woodcocks also may afford]

      Two marsh game birds now no longer legally hunted.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Expert in home-cosmography]

      William Hahington, “To My Honored Friend Sir Ed. P. Knight,” which T probably found in Chalmers, Works of the English Poets (VI, 468). T has modernized the text and misread “sight” as “right,” which Shanley (1971, 402) corrected from the first edition.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Is it the source of the Nile]

      Hunting for the source of the Nile River was one of the great exploratory challenges of the mid-nineteenth century, as was the search for the Northwest Passage.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Is Franklin the only man who is lost]

      Sir John Franklin (1786-1847), a British explorer who was lost in the Arctic. Many expeditions were sent out to search for him.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [so earnest to find him?]

      Henry Grinnell of New York was the author, advocate, and patron of an American expedition to find Franklin.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Be rather the Mungo Park]

      Mungo Park (1771-1806?) was a Scottish explorer in Africa; Lewis and Clark led an expedition through the Louisiana Purchase to the West Coast; and Sir Martin Frobisher (1535?- 1594) was a British navigator and explorer.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [pile the empty cans sky-high for a sign]

      Elisha Kent Kane, in The United States Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin (Philadelphia, 1856, 164), describes the finding of six hundred preserved-meat cans left by Franklin.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Nay, be a Columbus to whole new]

      Doloff finds many parallels between this passage and Byron’s Don Juan (canto XIV, stanzas 101-2).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [earthly empire of the Czar]

      In T’s time the realms of the czar of Russia comprised the largest body of land under one dominion.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [South-Sea Exploring Expedition]

      Charles Wilkes led an expedition to the Antarctic islands of the Pacific from 1839 to 1842.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [they more of the road]

      In his Journal for May 10, 1841 (1, 259- 6o), T tells us that these are the last verses of Claudian’s “Old Man of Verona.” T has changed lberos (Spaniards) to Australians to make the reference more appropriate to his time.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [count the cats in Zanzibar]

      T was undoubtedly thinking of Charles Pickering, The Races of Man (London, 1851), which, according to his Journal (V, 392), he read in 1853. Pickering’s book, an account of his world tour, amazingly reports (349) on the domestic cats of Zanzibar.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [find some “Symmes’ Hole”]

      Capt. John Cleves Symmes in 1818 proposed that the earth was hollow and open at both poles. A detailed description of his theory can be found in Blackwood’s Magazine (CCXXVI, 1829, 856-7).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [cause the Sphinx to dash her head]

      A mythical monster of Thebes who killed those unable to solve her riddle. When Oedipus solved it, she dashed her head against a rock, killing herself.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [her head against a stone]

      “They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone” (Psalms 91:12).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [the old philosopher, and Explore thyself]

      The apothegm “Know thyself” has been attributed at various times to nearly all of the great Greek philosophers.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [on that farthest western way]

      T wrote W at the height of the migration to the American West.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Mirabeau took to highway robbery]

      The Comte de Mirabeau (1749-1791) was a statesman of the French Revolution. In his Journal for July 21, 1851 (II, 332-3), T quotes the passage at greater length from Harper’s New Monthly (1, 648).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [so much courage as a foot-pad]

      Robber on foot.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [I left the woods for as good]

      The immediate reason for T’s leaving Walden was that Emerson planned to go abroad on a lecture tour and wished T to take over the care of his house and family. Later in his Journal (III, 214-5) T confessed, “Why I left the woods I do not think I can tell. I have often wished myself back. I do not know any better how I ever came to go there. . . . Perhaps if I lived there much longer, I might live there forever. One would think twice before he accepted heaven on such terms.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [before my feet wore a path]

      The path from T’s cabin site to the pond is still there, kept open nowadays by visitors who come from all over the world.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [before the mast and on the deck]

      On sailing vessels, sailors slept before (that is, in front of) the mast. T’s Harvard classmate Richard Henry Dana was the author of the celebrated Two Years Before the Mast.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [see the moonlight amid the mountains]

      Channing has said that T refers to a boat trip they took together in 1844 on the Hudson River, when they spent the night in the bow of the ship because there was bright moonlight.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [and hush and whoa, which Bright]

      Then a common farm name for an ox.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Extra vagrance! it depends]

      Neufeldt (1971) discusses T’s use of “extravagance” in W. Stern suggests that T splits the word to emphasize its roots – extra (outside) and vagari (to wander).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [to men in their waking moments]

      Berkowitz suggests that T is probably parodying Richard Baxter’s Autobiography (London, 1696), “as a dying man to dying men.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [insensible perspiration toward the sun]

      “Insensible perspiration” was coined by the Italian physician Sanctorius (1561-1636) as a synonym for metabolism.

      I have never found a satisfactory explanation of this sentence. An early Journal version (Princeton edition, I, 429) reads: “In view of the possible and future – we should live quite laxly – and be more straightened behind than before. If there were a true and natural development we should be all defined in front, our outlines dim and shadowy on that side – as the crown of a rising flower shows newly from day to day – and from hour to hour.” But that enlightens me, at least, no further.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [that the verses of Kabir]

      “On pretend que les vers de Kabir ont quatre sens differents: L’illusion (maya), l’esprit (atma), l’intellect (man), et la doctrine exoterique des Vedas” (M. Garcin de Tassy, Histoire de la Littirature Hindout [Paris, 1839, 279]). The translation is apparently T’s.

      Kabir (1440-1518) was an Indian mystic and poet.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [to cure the potato-rot]

      The potato blight, or rot, struck the United States in 1845 and the British Isles in 1846.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [A living dog is better]

      “A living dog is better than a dead lion” (Ecclesiastes 9:4).

      Comment by Martha Jones on February 25, 2014

      “The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels.”

       

      Everywhere we go we leave a mark. Think about when you are walking on a muddy trail or how a dirt driveway takes the shape of the abuse it’s given. Out shoe prints will stick out on that dirt trail and our tire tracks leave deep impressions on the drive way when the land is wet. While this is a literal meaning it was one we cannot ignore.  Just as similar as what we do leaves an impression in our mind. If we allow ourselves to be open to love – as cheesy as it sounds – that love will stick around as a memory, an impression that we let our minds travel.

      Comment by Martha Jones on February 25, 2014

      “The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement.”

       

      There is something to be said about a sentence that sticks out. It means one should give it a second look, perhaps a third, or – quite frankly – as many that is needed to understand what you are reading. The truth of our words should always carry a validity that we can either be proud or disappointed in.  There should be something lasting with our words that will make people remember us for what we’ve said, more so than what we’ve done. If the truth doesn’t hurt, you are doing it wrong, and that is the point. If we spoke the truth, without worrying about what others think, they would have a more lasting impact if we did care, because when we do, we are vague with our speech and the impact is just not the same.

      Comment by Kristen Case on February 25, 2014

      Like Martha, I wanted to focus on this sentence:  “The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement.” We begin with the idea of truth–but not a fixed, immortal truth like Plato’s forms, rather a volatile truth: a truth that is changeable, erratic, impossible to contain. This mercurial thing, the volatile truth, belongs to our words. That is, our words possess a kind of inner wildness that is their truth, and this wildness, when we are writing as we should, betrays–that is, reveals, discloses, but also, is disloyal to, breaks faith with–the inadequacy of the residual statement, that which remains after the essential thing is gone, the residue or husk. The residual statement  (the material form of the sentence, printed on the page) thus exists in a vexed and paradoxical relation to the volatile truth of our words (the wild essence of our meanings). But statement and words are also obviously inseparable: if the truth belongs to one it must also belong to the other. The double meaning of betray captures the way that words can both reveal and resist their own inadequacy, their failures to contain their own wild meanings. To read Walden with this sentence in mind is to imagine the physical text as a series of residual statements that must be reanimated, brought back to their volatile truths by a reader sufficiently awake to perform the task.

       

       

      Comment by Hannah Huber on February 25, 2014

      Does anyone else feel a little shiver go down their spine when Thoreau says, “we think that if railfences are pulled down and stone-walls piled up on our farms, bounds are henceforth set to our lives and our fates decided”? It’s so chillingly true, isn’t it? And think of how, by sheer habit, we condemn ourselves to live like deep-cave-dwelling fish, swimming around sightless in the same pools, because we think that’s all we can do. But even more chilling, strangely, is the idea that I could – could – walk out of my door, with nothing but a pocketful of bus fare, and ride to a different part of the country, begin a new life – that in fact, the boundaries of our lives are not set. Such a simple thought, and yet one that chills with both excitement and fear.

      Comment by Molly Cavanaugh on February 25, 2014

      “I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.”

      I found this moment on of the most significant in Walden. Through my readings, I often felt conflicted at Thoreau’s message to his readers. Did he want us to live at our own Walden pond? Did he encourage us to forsake our societal comforts? He certainly put great effort into assuring us that this lifestyle wasn’t for everyone, but for those that it was, should we keep it forever?

      No, this quote says. The silent, awed contemplation of nature is a worthy and wonderful pursuit, but it is not the only pursuit. Thoreau recognizes this, both for himself and for his views as society as a whole.

      While we too benefit from silent meditation, our reflections lack meaning without sharing them.

      Comment by Molly Cavanaugh on February 26, 2014

      And not only do we as humans leave marks, but all living things leave marks: dogs, leaves, birds. And, like human love, we must also remain open to the impressions of the living world.

      Thoreau’s interest in the ruts of tradition and conformity is important to our personal impressions as well-we must remain open to love and other positive influences, but must carefully shield ourselves from impressions that would seek to trod upon us like the “worn and dusty…highways of the world.”

      Comment by Michael Gole on February 26, 2014

      I think that Thoreau generally is urging his readers to “live at their own Walden pond” in a very metaphorical sense. If one wants to do what Thoreau did and abandon a conventional life, that person should by all means do so. But, if one wants to live with modern societal comforts, they should do so also. “Living deliberately” is something that can be done in any environment.

      Comment by Katelyn Baroody on April 14, 2014

      Hannah, I agree that these lines are particularly loaded with meaning – and scary at that! It certainly feels to me like Thoreau is challenging us to do something bigger, to find our own Walden Pond and search for inner fulfillment there.

      It calls to mind the famous lines from paragraph 16 of “Where I Lived, And What I Lived For,” where Thoreau writes of going to the pond to “learn what it had to teach.” He’s not going out to see what he can do while at the pond, as many of us would, but to see what living at the pond can do for him. He is unsure of what it can teach, at least going in. I think this is reflected beautifully in the last line of this paragraph: “The universe is wider than our views of it.” So simple a concept, and yet one we can all benefit from taking to heart.

      Comment by Christine O'Neill on May 5, 2014

      This is very inspirational and eloquent, and I’m surprised it’s not quoted more often. But I think Thoreau addresses a (false) criticism that comes up a lot — “poets/kids/communication/education/etc. just aren’t what they used to be…” Of course, that’s a silly claim. Many of the thinkers and creators we consider great today lived in relative obscurity during their lifetimes. Hey, Thoreau loves quoting the Bible so much, so here’s one for him: “‘Truly I tell you,’ he [Jesus] continued, ‘no prophet is accepted in his hometown'” (Luke 4:24). Jesus and Thoreau are making a similar observation here – you need a little distance from your own era and philosophies to appreciate them for what they are.

      Comment by Emily Buckley-Crist on March 1, 2015

      The line “The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring” reminds me of  another line from earlier in the book, “To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake” (Where I Lived, and What I Lived For p14). When examining these quotes together, it would seem that Thoreau thinks that even those who aren’t completely alive should possess common sense, and that we should place any value on it.

      Comment by Catherine McCormick on March 1, 2015

      From this paragraph I believe that Thoreau is explaning why in the first place he decided to live out in the woods. He was not trying to make a point but rather he wanted to learn how to live deliberately. He talks about how it is very easy to fall into a routine and do what is culturally recommended. He wanted to get away from what is familiar and discover the unknown. Even in his discovery he finds himself creating a pattern (with his path to the pond) and this could be the changing point. He realizes from this experience that in order to live deliberately he must explore the “mast and deck of the world”.

      Comment by Darby Daly on March 1, 2015

      “Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay? Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.”

       

      I found this part of the conclusion to be especially interesting because of the way that Thoreau is talking about people who claim to have patriotism. The interpretation that I got from this passage is that Thoreau feels that no one is a true patriot anymore, as they have lost the initial meaning of the term; now the concept of patriotism is simply an issue, hence the “maggot” reference. It seems that no one is searching for anything new or defending their patriotism in a way that Thoreau believes to be appropriate, and that maybe part of his reason for being at Walden was a way through which he felt he was expressing his patriotism.

      Comment by Daisy Anderson on March 1, 2015

      “The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residual statement. Their truth is instantly translated; its literal monument alone remains. ”

      This statement reminds me of a topic that I talked about way back in high school about the inadequacies of language and what it does to the truth. It seems to me that when we put things into words, we simplify it and break it down so that it fits into our vocabulary. Even if there are no words to completely describe a feeling, image, sound, etc., we find the words that come as close as possible. Even so, these words aren’t the whole truth, but a sort of copy. At the same time, we alter the situation by forcing it into our perspective, as that’s the only way that we can describe it in a way that we believe to be true. It’s not as if we lie by telling the story from our perspective, but we might not be giving the same picture to our listener as the listener would have gotten had she been there herself.

      Comment by Melanie Weissman on March 2, 2015

      “Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.”

      I think this quote essentially sums up why Thoreau benefited from the time he spent at Walden Pond. Being isolated from the influences society gave him the opportunity to journey into the depths of his mind. In effect, I believe that the observations he makes about the natural world throughout Walden are reflections of his own soul. When there are no other people around, he imprints his own ideals onto what he sees, and the way he finds meaning in the little details of his surroundings is a sort of self discovery.

      Comment by Anthony Bettina on March 2, 2015

      Section 9 of “conclusion” brings about some interesting points. Thoreau goes on to state “Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.” This “hands off” approach contradicts his ideology of telling people that they must participate in experiential learning. Thoreau also perplexes the reader by stating “Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or even the Elizabethan men.” Thoreau makes it seem as if the people who think this way are incorrect, but Thoreau himself has romanticized ancient Greek literature while at the same time demonizing modern day society.

      Comment by Casey Vincelette on March 2, 2015

      This section of text reminded me of William Cronon’s article “The Trouble With Wilderness” from the very first sentence, when Thoreau reminds us of human purposes for nature. The article explained that the meditative atmosphere that nature took on in popular sentiment had little to do with nature and everything to do with society. However, I think it’s interesting that Thoreau doesn’t seem to object to this, as long as his fellow man was experiencing the outdoors in order to enlighten themselves. It’s a viewpoint addressed in the article and perhaps not sympathized with, but Thoreau becomes it well.

      Comment by William Foley on March 3, 2015

      Paragraph 9 of Conclusion, and the last sentence in particular, bring up some interesting points that i think are important to consider. Throughout this novel, there has been a question about Thoreau’s idea of what the “correct” pedagogy is. The reader has seen Thoreau himself throughout the novel use observational learning (when observing, for example, the family on Baker Farm), but also say things like “We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun” and clearly advocate for experiential learning. Thoreau has also stated that one must read the classics, thus lending himself towards the idea of traditional education as well. This constant contradiction is also brought up in the last sentence. Thoreau attempts to backtrack on his dictatorial and confined idea of education through specific experiences once again by stating that every man has made something different for himself and that the endeavors into these different experiences are what should be used to become fulfilled. Adding this to a section entitled “Conclusion” (where most report their findings) after clearly advocating for different ideas all throughout the book show just how conflicted Thoreau is as a human being. 

      Comment by Ed Gillin on April 15, 2016

      [explore your own higher latitudes,—with shiploads of preserved meats to support you]

      When bodies were finally located, it developed that many members of the Franklin expedition suffered from severe lead poisoning.  One widely held theory held that the lead-based solder sealing their canned supplies had tainted the food.  (Others have claimed that the toxic lead came from the ship’s water supply system.)

      Comment by Mark Gallagher on June 25, 2016

      One of the most quoted lines in all of American literature. It has sold countless coffee mugs and motivational calendars, to be sure, but the source is a proverb that goes back into the English tradition as far as the writings of Jonathan Swift and before that, too. While it was a commonplace in Thoreau’s day, the source for Thoreau’s “castles in the air” may have been more specific. Some believe that Thoreau is revising the proverb as he found it in the writings of seventeenth-century English writer Sir Thomas Browne. In his “Letter to a Friend” (1656), Browne writes, “They build not castles in the air who would build churches on earth; and though they leave no such structures here, may lay good foundations in heaven.” Thoreau’s revision thus reads like a refutation to Browne’s Christian humanism. Rather than postpone your dreams for another world, Thoreau says, realize them in the here and now. See Stefano Paolucci, “The Foundations of Thoreau’s ‘Castles in the Air'” in the Thoreau Society Bulletin 290 (Summer 2015), 10. For a history of “castles in the air” as a proverbial expression, see “To Build Castles in Spain” in Wolfgang Mieder, Behold the Proverbs of a People: Proverbial Wisdom in Culture, Literature, and Politics (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2014), 415-435.

      Comment by Robert Jordan on June 27, 2016

      As a teenager, I had not a care in the world. I was never a good student. I spent my time off playing baseball, a game I loved. In June, 1966, I was Drafted. I spent the next three years in the Army. The middle year was spent fighting in an ill conceived war where we had no business being. During my last year in the Army, I decided I wanted to become a social worker, in an attempt to give back to humanity what I had taken away from others. That did not work out. Instead I became a Respiratory Therapist (1970) and spent the next 45 years working in hospitals.

      My “experiment” was to practice and excel at my profession, go to college, and pursue my interests, as well as the usual “American Dream” stuff that we all grew up with, and then be able to stop working while I was still a viable human being. So, from when I entered the Army, until my retirement in February, 2015, I was involved with death, more often then not on a daily basis. This reality, that life is fleeting, helped me live in the moment, more often than not. I learned as a 20 year old that the next moment is not always there to do what one wanted to do.

      My aspirations were predicated on the thought that if I can get to sleep that day, and awaken after that sleep, and still have my senses about me, and be able to walk and talk, I was ahead of the vast majority of people that whine about every possible thing.

      In large part, I believe I was successful in my experiment, and able to accomplish my aspirations while in the work force. I never hated my job. Granted, some places were more trying than others, but I would just move to another hospital, which I found to be very beneficial in the learning process. I took a very long road in completing a degree, and am thankful to the professors and students I encountered. And, I was never so consumed by work or studies, so as to not enjoy my life doing other things.

      Now that my life is my own, I take joy in most things around me. I go to bed when I chose, as well as getting up when I decide I am ready, whether it be 3 AM or 7:15 AM. An alarm clock is a thing of the past. The garden outside the kitchen window that is overgrown with Lemon Balm, gives me daffodils in the early Spring, Evening Primrose in June, Tiger Lilies later in the Summer as well as a beautiful red colored flower. I watch the chipmunks dashing about, as well as the squirrels. Mother Groundhog had twins this Spring, so I can watch them, and the beautiful deer and fawns that visit. If I am fortunate, I will see the hen turkey watch over her 8 chicks feeding as they traverse the yard. Not cutting the grass too short in the back yard allows them all a sense of security. And than there are the birds, including all the various woodpeckers. When the weather cools, the same cast of characters will be here, except for the bear. The chicks will be grown and the fawns will have lost their spots. Occasionally, the bear comes to see what is left in the bird feeders or visits me when I am trapped within the garden, picking greens for lunch. Fortunately, I do not seem to be on its list of things to eat.

      My life, I believe is simple. I do not need things. Granted my computer is an extravagance, as well as my TV, and my Honda, and then there are my books, but I acquired all these, except for a few books, when I was still working. Retirement has allowed me to do what I chose to do. My goal of never again having to earn a penny is intact. My benefactors are SSI, a pension from my first hospital job, and the Veterans Administration.

      My life is lived by what I remember of the 10 Commandments, although I have considered myself an atheist for over four decades. My interest in Buddhism has guided much of my life. My “higher laws” come from living and observing. I believe I understand Right from Wrong and that we are all the same, and killing others and animals will only complicate the future. In this period of devisiveness, I find sadness and sorrow, but realize that there are those that will continue along these paths in attempts to become powerful, and accumulate wealth, while leaving destruction of various types, in their wake.

      I really do not know if I built castles in the air. What I am convinced of is that what has preceded this moment has allowed me to live on a firm foundation, and enjoy.

      Whether or not I stayed true to the subject of Mark’s question/request is for you who may read this to decide. I am happy with it, and will welcome any comments.

       

       

       

       

      Comment by Skye Bruggeman on October 20, 2017

      In this paragraph Thoreau is essentially saying that your circumstances don’t have to define your life. He proves this by going to live a walden and taking a different direction in his life.

      Comment by Tyler Merritt on October 26, 2017

      This first paragraph of the conclusion is interesting because he seems to be almost making fun of what he says doctors recommend to sick people, especially with his comment about Tierra del Fuego and what can be interpreted as hell.

      Comment by Alexandra Welker on September 18, 2018

      [Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.]

      I have mixed emotions about this sentence. Partly because of how I have been raised. I understand that you need to take care and worry about you. Make yourself a priority. But I do struggle with minding my own business because I want to help others. I don’t want to just say tough luck or ignore their issues. I want to solve issues. I think this is partly because I am a people pleaser. I care an awful lot about how others are feeling, and this can be really annoying and difficult to do. As Thoreau states that we should mind our own business and worry about ourselves, in a sense I agree. We should put taking care of ourselves and that often can be overlooked. However, at the same time I disagree with this statement. If everyone only worries about themselves then no one helps  others and no one reaches their full potential. The world is crazy and you can’t do everything on your own. So I don’t know how I feel about this sentence.

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 20, 2018

      [Yet we think that if rail-fences are pulled down, and stone-walls piled up on our farms, bounds are henceforth set to our lives and our fates decided]

      I think Thoreau is trying to communicate that obstacles or certain circumstances  prevent people from achieving much. When presented with a blockade or restriction, we give up and “bounds are henceforth set to our lives”.

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 20, 2018

      [ Snipes and woodcocks also may afford rare sport; but I trust it would be nobler game to shoot one’s self.]

      Having previous knowledge of the fact that he was a advocate for nature reserves, we can conclude that his opinion on hunting for sport is the contrary of positive.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 20, 2018

      [ Leave a comment on paragraph 4 10 I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. ]

      I like this idea of living a life beyond the one in which you where given. To live.

      Comment by Anna Briganti on September 24, 2018

      [Be rather the Mungo Park, the Lewis and Clark and Frobisher, of your own streams and oceans; explore your own higher latitudes,-with shiploads of preserved meats to support you, if they be necessary; and pile the empty cans sky-high for a sign.]

      When Thoreau says this you can see that he is telling people to explore their ideas and their strengths and have people around to support you. If those people end up being unfaithful then put them aside and “pile them up” as a sign of you did and didn’t have your back.

      Comment by Hannah Fuller on September 26, 2018

      [Yet we think that if rail-fences are pulled down, and stone-walls piled up on our farms, bounds are henceforth set to our lives and our fates decided. ]

      This line really stuck out to me as a place where Thoreau pushes us, as readers, to move up one level of abstraction. This statement makes us question the boundaries we have set forth for ourselves. In this way, we can evaluate our own life’s cycles and assess if we are comfortable in our complacency or wish to challenge the boundaries we (and society) have set for ourselves. I agree with Katelyn Baroody when they say Thoreau is urging us to find our own Walden Pond and search for inner fulfillment there. We don’t necessarily need a change of landscape, like Thoreau got when he moved to Walden Pond, but a change of soul. I feel like this move of abstraction is necessary because how else are we supposed to find inner fulfillment and peace if we don’t challenge our own beliefs and ideas?

       

      Comment by Hannah Fuller on September 27, 2018

      [ Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.]

      Thoreau seems to move up one level of abstraction here when he gets me, as a reader, to theorize about thought. I really liked this quote because it makes me think about how I think and what my thoughts can be used for. Thoreau wants us to see our thoughts as channels to new discoveries and worlds. This move seems necessary because without new thoughts and discoveries, there wouldn’t be innovation and progression in the world and we would be stuck in the cycle of complacency and ignorance of society that Thoreau seems to despise.

      Comment by Una McGowan on September 27, 2018

      [The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. ]

      Here, Thoreau makes the shift from experience to theory. He moves from speaking about the simple path he wore through the trees from his cabin to the pond to how easily paths must be worn in other areas of life. If one man can walk a path enough that it endures for years after he’s gone in only a week, what can years of traditions do to a society? In this theorizing, he extrapolates his own experience and projects it onto the greater world around him.

      Comment by Emma Annonio on May 3, 2020

      This is such an interesting line and an interesting paragraph over all. It seems as though Thoreau had accomplished his goal and learned something from it. After living alone and living in a specific routine everyday, he seemed to have gotten too comfortable with it. He realized that he should be spending his time exploring the world \”before the mast and on the deck.\”

      I am writing this during my 6th week in quarantine, and I have to agree with everything he is saying here. I have gotten comfortable with my life in quarantine and have certainly established a routine, but I ache to go outside beyond the fence that encloses my home. I have developed more gold for my life once the world calms down and it is interesting to see how closely Thoreau\’s words resonate with me.

      Comment by Noah Lieberman on May 5, 2020

      This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently stuck in the same place for so long. I’ve been trying to think more about how my perspective is formed. As I look into the motivations of Thoreau himself and what shapes his outlook on the world, I see some of my own in that same analysis. We are amalgams of our experiences and we base our values off of those experiences. The line “The universe is wider than our views of it” is a particularly hard hitting way to put it.

      Comment by Lauren Beers on May 7, 2020

      Here Thoreau mentions the idea that many, if not all of us, tend to rely on an almost accidental timed schedule. People say that humans crave order, this could be one explanation for the habits that are formed such as Thoreau’s feet worn path. With so much information and ideas constantly surrounding us, giving ourselves a routine or an order may help to make us feel as though we are in control. Traditions and conformities also emphasize this.

      Comment by Hannah Fahy on May 8, 2020

      It’s interesting that Thoreau says he had “several more lives to live” because he isn’t often remembered for any of those other lives. Many people assume that he only believed in living alone in the woods and completely rejected society. I used to be guilty of this! He actually contributed to technology, politics, and society in several ways throughout his life. Walden was, in fact, only one of the many lives he lead throughout his time. It makes me wonder how society decides what to remember of certain people. I think it mostly comes down to the education system. In high school and even in humanities class, I only learned the Walden side of Thoreau. I didn’t know about his other works and contributions.

      Comment by Christina Inter on May 8, 2020

      I chose to focus on this paragraph when trying to create my own TEI file. I was struck by how in Version F, he removes religious references. For instance, after “common hours,” he originally had the line: “and the result will, in a measure, miraculously answer to his faith.” Also, before the phrase “the old laws be expanded,” removed the phrase, “heaven lie about him in his manhood even…” By making these deletions, Thoreau removed religious jargon like “faith,” “miraculously,” and “heaven.” He also alludes to people answering to the higher laws and mandates of religion. I find it an interesting decision that makes his point appeal more to his audience as it is less intimidating if one is unable to advance “confidently in the direction of his dreams.” It takes the guilt and religious weight off his encouragement for one to push towards their dream and leave what they need to behind to make it. By removing the religious undertones, Thoreau’s appeal becomes more inspirational.

      Comment by Mitchell Pace on May 11, 2020

      [I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.]

      This section I find ringing true to me with the way the world is now. With being forced to stay at home, I mirror Thoreau’s sentiment of not wanting to go below. I want to be out and experiencing life, seeing new sights, and meeting new people. I’m tired of secluding myself from the world and I long to be “on  the mast.” Seclusion by necessity is stifling, even secluding myself in the woods would feel like paradise because it would be my choice and still allow me to experience the world.

      Comment by Kyle Regan on May 12, 2020

      I liked how he talks about how so many people can get caught up in doing the same thing and never change. Even for him in nature where he sees a form of divinity to be found within nature; he still feels the need to do other things. He thinks that by continuous observation there are almost like metaphysical lessons to be taken. There is an elevation of life that can be achieved in his own framework of how the world works. Even that can’t stop him from having to change paths. I thought it was interesting since he makes a good point that so many people can get caught in what is comfortable for them and they never progress past where they are currently.

      Comment by Olivia Davis on May 13, 2020

      “The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels.”

      This line by Thoreau is particularly interesting to me. He compares the Earth with the paths of the mind. I like this comparison because it is very accurate, you always hear that “children’s minds are impressionable”, but this is true of the mind of any human. I would like to relate this to social media. Coming across a post by someone giving their opinion on a topic can completely change one’s view on the topic in question. Had they not happened to scroll by and stumble across the post, they may have never changed their mind and held strong to their beliefs. But the power of a text, usually reinforced by all the “likes” it has received, is undeniable. Though Thoreau was not talking about social media, it was a comparison I wanted to draw being that we are taking a course on the Digital Age.

      Comment by Katelyn Cummings on February 15, 2021

      [ Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.]

      I really like this quote because it shows how everyone should just do their own thing and not worry about what others think. I think people spend so much time worrying about others and what they might think about their choices they don’t spend enough time thinking about what make them happy. It shouldn’t matter what others think, it should just matter what you think and how it will effect your life. This quote is tell us to not get messed in other people’s drama and to just focus on our own personal life and do what makes us happy.

      Comment by Olivia Elliott on February 16, 2021

      I definitely agree with this paragraph and like the message that he is trying to convey. People should definitely mind their own business and not judge others based on silly stereotypes.

      Comment by kenneth demerchant on February 16, 2021

      I found it interesting that Thoreau would live in the shack for the longest time and seeing that now he has more things to liver for.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      Good point, Kenny. This is an important passage, too, so thanks for picking it out.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      Yes, good points Kati and Olivia! And I like the idea of not comparing oneself to previous generations either. Just be the best you can!

      Comment by Rebecca Johnson on February 16, 2021

      In this passage, he explains how the world stretches far beyond what we know; “the universe is wider than our views of it.” Thoreau mentions how most believe once they settle somewhere, their fate is decided, but he enforces the idea that there is so much more to the world yet to be explored.

      Comment by Sofie Wolters on February 17, 2021

      [The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!]

      Thoreau has closely experienced nature in New England and acknowledges that there is so much left for him to see elsewhere in the world. In this quote specifically, he addresses how most people don’t deviate from the rest of society in their lives (calling their journeys highways because a lot of people travel on that same road) and therefore all live in the same “small world” as everyone else around them. Thoreau himself wants to walk in another direction than everyone else, to the areas that are still unknown/under appreciated to most.

      Comment by Alec Marshall on February 17, 2021

      I was a big fan of this paragraph. I think it is clear that Thoreau is saying that all other species migrate and relocate regularly, so why should humans be any different. We don’t need to be bound to one location permanently. I am someone who has grown up camping and being outdoors, and have always been infatuated with a life on the road. Though I have grown up in New Hampshire and intend to remain here for the foreseeable future, I am also deeply interested in road tripping to new places within the country/continent regularly in the future.

      Comment by Dylan Thorburn on February 17, 2021

      This paragraph is showing how Thoreau felt about falling into a sense of normalcy and habit, he was not fond of it. He is also saying humanity will have a lasting impact on Earth regardless of how minimalistic or big people get, so long as there is a habit of doing things by everyone, there will be a notable footprint of those habits.

      Comment by Ainsley Owens on February 18, 2021

      This paragraph was super important in the sense that Thoreau’s safe place, his favorite location with his favorite sounds and scents of the trees and waters and animals, became a feeling of normalcy. When Thoreau first moved into the woods, he was in awe of everything around him, and took in everything he possibly could. However, after having the same surroundings and doing the same things day after day, Thoreau was no longer satisfied in this lifestyle he had created. He states that he thought he had more lives to live, and I think that by this he means he has very different experiences ahead of him. While the woods offered and taught Thoreau so much, he can only experience so much inside of the woods, and he realized that he had gained everything he could from this experience and it was time to move on.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 20, 2021

      Exactly!

      Comment by Liam Bilodeau on February 9, 2022

      [ Leave a comment on paragraph 4 11 I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.]

      A good way to look at it.  Did he miss living at Walden after keaving?

      Comment by Keera Lopusiewicz on February 10, 2022

      Thoreau does not seem like the type of man that could stay in one place for very long. His explanation for leaving, as he explains, is just, “As good a reason as I went there.” He goes on to describe the mark in which he left in the woods, both physical and metaphorical. The tracks in which he had left behind that seemed to hollow the earth beneath him symbolize more than his day-to-day regimen, but also the path that he had created for himself, and eventually came to reinvent. Just as he is afraid of conforming to a singular place or lifestyle, as is he afraid of committing to a singular path. When he says that he had worn away the highway of his current life, he chose to change direction and start anew before he had fallen victim to “the ruts of tradition.”

      Comment by Zachary Vandecar on February 12, 2022

      [One hastens to Southern Africa to chase the giraffe; but surely that is not the game he would be after. How long, pray, would a man hunt giraffes if he could? Snipes and woodcocks also may afford rare sport; but I trust it would be nobler game to shoot one’s self.—]

      Did Thoreau just say what I think he said?

      Comment by Zachary Vandecar on February 12, 2022

      [I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one]

       

      Until death is near, I think it always seems like the grandest adventure is still ahead, but I think it is less often ever considered that the grandest adventure has already occurred. I wonder if Thoreau expected to experience something greater than his time at Walden. I wonder if he would say he did. I wonder how he would have reflected on those last new lives he lived and how they compared to Walden.

  • Reading (109 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [repeating our a b abs]

      This is the first part of a mnemonic device once used in country schools to teach children the alphabet.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the lowest and foremost form]

      In one-room country schools, the youngest children sat on the lowest benches in the front row.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Circulating Library entitled Little Reading]

      Little Reading (New York, 1827) (Gross, 1988).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a town of that name]

      Reading, Massachusetts, north of Boston.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [who, like cormorants and ostriches]

      An old bit of folklore that T may have become familiar with through Sir Thomas Browne’s discussion of “That the Ostrich Digesteth Iron,” in Pseudodoxia Epiclemica, book III, chap. 22.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a woodchopper, of middle age]

      Allen (383) identifies this man as Alex Therien, who is described at greater length in the “Visitors” chapter. Therien is called middle-aged here, but T later describes him as being twenty-eight years old. His actual age was thirty-four.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [as far as Easy Reading]

      T may have been thinking of Easy Reading for Little Folks (Boston, n.d.).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a race of tit-men]

      “Tit” means “little,” as in the bird name “titlark.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the reading of a book]

      And for many a man, W has been that book!

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [has had his second birth]

      The religious conversion of a person is often spoken of as his second birth.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [is not true; but Zoroaster]

      A Persian religious teacher of about the year 1000 B.C.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [church” go by the board]

      To fall overboard – that is, permit to be lost.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [starved Lyceum in the winter]

      The lyceum was a common educational institution in the small towns of New England in the mid-nineteenth century. Its main purpose was to sponsor a series of lectures each winter. T was a frequent lecturer at such lyceums and was for a time one of the curators of the Concord Lyceum (Hoeltie; Harding, 1951).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [library suggested by the state]

      On May 24, 1851, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts authorized and encouraged its towns to establish public libraries but did little else to assist them.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [that we had uncommon schools]

      T may have derived some of these ideas from his friend Elizabeth Peabody, the Boston publisher (Joseph Jones, “Universities”).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [we not hire some Abelard]

      A French teacher and theologian (1079-1142).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [house, thank fortune or politics]

      Concord built its present town offices on the square in 1851 (Wheeler, 171).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [hundred and twenty-five dollars]

      T was curator of the Concord Lyceum for the year 1842-43. With a budget of $109.20, he rented a lecture hall, paid for its lighting and heating, and invited twenty-three speakers, including such men as Emerson, Horace Greeley, Theodore Parker, and Wendell Phillips. Yet he was able to turn $9.20 back to the treasury at the end of the year (Sanborn, Recollections, 569-70 ).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [pap of “neutral family” papers]

      Periodicals that did not take sides on political issues but provided a variety of reading matter for every member of the family.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Branches” here in New England]

      The Olive Branch was published weekly in Boston, under the editorship of the Reverend Thomas F. Norris.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Harper & Brothers and Redding & Co]

      Harper & Brothers was a New York City book publisher. Redding & Co., booksellers and publishers, had offices at 8 State Street, Boston.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [to select our reading]

      T is playing on the fact that Harper & Brothers published a series of books entitled “Select Library of Valuable Standard Literature.” T preferred to do his own selecting.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [parish library, and three selectmen]

      The elected governing officials in most 4 New England towns, including Concord, were a small group known as selectmen.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [because our pilgrim forefathers]

      The founders of Plymouth, the earliest colony in Massachusetts.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [board them round the while]

      In lieu of part of their salary, New England teachers were often given board and room by their students’ parents.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [of the ordinary circulating library]

      T is exaggerating here, for Albert Stacy ran a bookstore with a circulating library (that is, book rental) in Concord for many years.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [may read Homer or Æschylus]

      Greek dramatist (525-456 B.C.) whose Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes T had translated (Rossi).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [in the Greek]

      T had perhaps a better knowledge of Greek and Latin than any other transcendentalist, and translated a number of classical works into modern English.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [tale about Zebulon and Sophronia]

      Apparently an allusion to typical characters in the sentimental novels of T’s day.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [their true love run smooth]

      “The course of true love never did run smooth” (Midsummer Night’s Dream, I, i).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [got up onto a steeple]

      Perhaps a reference to a well-known Baron Munchausen tale in which, during a great snowstorm, he ties his horse to a post, only to discover when the snow melts that he has tied it to the top of a church steeple.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Romance of the Middle Ages]

      Perhaps a jibe at James Fenimore Cooper’s The Wept of the Wish-ton-Wish, or possibly taken from the Arabian Nights (Leisy).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the primers and class-books]

      School textbooks for younger children were known as primers, and those for older children as classbooks.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [from the statue of the divinity]

      To lift the veil of Isis, the principal goddess of ancient Egypt, is to pierce the heart of a great mystery. In the Hindu religion, the successful unveiling of Maya, the cosmic illusion, results in a direct knowledge of God and the secret of creation.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [poet Mîr Camar Uddîn Mast]

      “Etant assis, parcourir la région du monde spiritual: j’ai eu cet avantage dans les livres. Etre enivré par une seule coupe de Yin: j’ai éprouvé ce plaisir lorsque j’ai bu la liqueur des doctrines ésoteriques” (M. Garcin de Tassy, Histoire de La Littérature Hindoui, Paris, 1839, I,331). The translation from the French is undoubtedly T’s own. Mast was a Hindu poet of the eighteenth century.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [Homer’s Iliad on my table]

      For the influence of Homer upon T, particularly in the writing of W, see Seybold.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [them as Delphi and Dodona]

      The two most famous oracles of ancient Greece.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [again in order to speak]

      “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [a few scholars read]

      Some of the ancient classics have survived only because churchmen of the Middle Ages, not appreciating their value, used the manuscripts as scrap paper for their own notes.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [eloquence in the forum]

      T was not always a successful lecturer, and after a failure was wont to deride the value of the lecture platform.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [carried the Iliad with him]

      This fact is recorded in Plutarch’s life of Alexander.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [yet been printed in English]

      It need hardly be said that T did not in- tend us to take this statement literally. He means simply that no translation has ever succeeded in carrying over fully the spirit of the original.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [further accumulated, when the Vaticans]

      The Vatican in Rome houses one of the greatest libraries of ancient classics in the world.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [Vedas and Zendavestas and Bibles]

      The Vedas are the entire sacred scriptures of the Hindus; the Zendavesta, the scripture of Zoroastrianism. T was always ready to point out that the bibles of other religions meant as much to him as did the Christian one.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [to scale heaven at last]

      An allusion to the building of the Tower of Babel.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [two shallow books of travel]

      T was actually an inveterate reader of travel books, averaging about one a month (Christie).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [author of ‘Tittle-Tol-Tan]

      In his essay “Walking” (V, 236), T speaks of “the child’s rigmarole, Iery wiery ichery van, tittle-tol-tan.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [rush; don’t all come together]

      In the mid-nineteenth century long novels often first appeared in monthly installments. Dickens is the outstanding example.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [little four-year-old bencher]

      Again, a reference to the fact that in country schools small children sat on low benches in the front of the room.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [Indian in almost every oven]

      Just at the time T was at Walden, Dr. Sylvester Graham, the inventor of the graham cracker, was leading a campaign to change people’s diets by substituting whole grain flours for the more highly milled products. Many of T’s friends among the transcendentalists were followers of Graham.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on February 1, 2014

      [Reading]

      For an extensive analysis of this chapter, see Knott.

      Comment by Katelyn Baroody on February 5, 2014

      [It is not enough even to be able to speak the language of that nation by which they are written…]

      Thoreau seems to feel that written language is not as easily accessible to the masses, as we do not tune into it as easily as we do spoken words in our native tongue. To be able to read the “works of genius,” he suggests, is a more noble pursuit. In modern times however, written scholarship is much more accessible since literacy is more prevalent. Would Thoreau still view reading so highly? Perhaps today it is not so much about having the ability to read these texts, but choosing to do so and reading deeply and thoughtfully rather than simply glossing over it all.

      Comment by Holly Gilbert on January 28, 2015

      What with the democratization of literature and much higher literacy rate today, it could be said that Thoreau’s belief, “Most men have learned to read to serve as a paltry convenience,” is outdated. However, his insistence that reading should not be merely an escape or a pastime but a challenging exercise is much easier to relate to modern readers. Surely Thoreau would see the popularity of reading for fun today as irreverent; students and scholars may actively study the classics, but many more people pick up literature for personal entertainment. Perhaps this could be the modern application of Thoreau’s statement about people reading for their own convenience.

      Comment by Julia Kinel on January 29, 2015

      The line; “If we live in the nineteenth century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the nineteenth century offers?” sttod out to me because it’s still relevant today. Obviously, we are not in the 19th century but the concept of moving forward with our culture and accepting changes/new things is still up for debate in the 21st century. For us, it’s less about what types of literature we’re immersing ourselves in and more about technology. We live in the era of the selfie, Google,  and online social networks. Many believe that this relatively fresh dependency on electronic devices is negatively impacting our society. However, as Walden pointed out, why not allow ourselves to enjoy the advantages that our century offers? We are the ones who put ourselves in this situation. We invented computers (the internet), cell phones, long-distance communication (video-chatting), etc. We should take pride in our accomplishments , not be ashamed to move on to bigger/better things and allow ourselves to continue bettering society through our use of education and innovation.

      Comment by Emily Buckley-Crist on January 29, 2015

      It seems that Thoreau values education above everything else in this paragraph, and is willing to spend a great deal of money on it. That being said, I wonder what he would think of the current situation in higher education, in which students have to pay exorbitant costs and often take out large amounts of money in loans to be educated at the level he appears to think is suitable. Would he applaud educators for putting such a high price tag on learning, or reprimand them for making it so financially difficult for students to go to university?

      Comment by Grace Rowan on January 29, 2015

      The point I believe Thoreau is trying to make is that we should remain students all of our lives. I agree that everyone should take full advantage of their education. It’s interesting to see his point of view from a different time period, specifically when he states, “Shall the world be confirmed to one Paris or one Oxford forever?” Since then, we have established many elitist universities and have made a further education more accessible to more and more people. I wonder how Thoreau would feel about what we have accomplished today?

      Comment by Kasey Krug on January 31, 2015

      The phrase “all men would perhaps become essential students and observers” stood out to me. The idea that you are always learning something new and that everyone you meet will teach you something is an idea I like to keep prominent in my mind. With my goals for being a teacher in the future, I have to remember to keep an open mind to new ways of teaching and that even though my students will be young they will teach me as well. I think it is important for people to keep an open mind to the world around them in order to understand themselves and how they think as well how others may think and see the world as well.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on January 31, 2015

      I agree, Kasey. This idea has become an important one in our contemporary thinking about education. It’s interesting that in paragraph 12, Thoreau writes, “It is time that we had uncommon schools, that we did not leave off our education when we begin to be men and women. It is time that villages were universities, and their elder inhabitants the fellows of universities, with leisure—if they are, indeed, so well off—to pursue liberal studies the rest of their lives.” He clearly has in mind the ideal of what we these days call “life-long learning.” He also has the idea of education as a public good. In spite of what looks like elitism in his discussion of modern popular reading vs. the “classics” in this chapter, there’s something fundamentally democratic in the notion that education should be a value of the community.

      Comment by Jess Goldstein on February 1, 2015

      [ …the adventurous student…]

      What does it mean to be an adventurous student? Can you only be an adventurous student by reading the classics or is just having an excitement towards learning and reading enough?

      Comment by Paul Schacht on February 1, 2015

      What are your own thoughts about this, Jess? And do you think Thoreau himself offers any kind of answer?

      Comment by Jake Trost on February 2, 2015

      What I see Thoreau saying here is that education, though encouraged and even demanded by our society, is undertaken in the wrong way.  He wishes “that we did not leave off our education when we begin to be men and women.”  He also points out the trend in our education system to learn what we need to, and not all that we can.  When he claims a village should be both a university and a “patron of the fine arts,” he is saying that learning subjects like math and science just so that we can become a functioning member of society isn’t enough.  We need to have a passion and drive to learn more than what is necessary.

      Comment by Melanie Weissman on February 2, 2015

      There is obviously a divide between written and spoken language, but the recent development of the language used through technology (such as email, online forums, blogs and text messaging) has slowly been bridging that gap. David Crystal’s Language and the Internet provides more information on this.

      Comment by Jess Goldstein on February 3, 2015

      I think that in today’s society with technology constantly expanding it is hard to satisfy Thoreau’s idea of the adventurous student. When i picture the image of Thoreau’s adventurous student I see somebody who is constantly in the library looking up new information and spending most of their time devoted to searching. With today’s search engines the tedious process of searching for information or definitions is cut down immensely due to the ease of finding what it is you are looking for. I think that as long as the need, passion, and excitement towards learning is still there anybody can be an adventurous student. As long as students are ambitious and constantly seeking out new information, the adventure is still there, the ambition is still there. As long as the thirst for knowledge remains unquenchable, there will always be an adventure to seek out knowledge.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on February 3, 2015

      An interesting irony here is that the classics Thoreau cites were, in fact, written for oral performance. Silent reading didn’t take hold in Western society until the middle ages. And some classics, such as the Odyssey and Iliad, did not exist in any authoritative “written” form until recent centuries.

      Comment by Daisy Anderson on February 6, 2015

      Thoreau’s emphasized importance of the “classics” is an idea that is still very present today, especially in classrooms. I recently read an article about reading programs in schools, and the majority of schools in the United States give students little to no choice when it comes to their reading material. One teacher in the article even said that she would not give her students an option, because the students will pick books less important than the classics, and that of all the modern books they will choose from, very few will have the potential to be as good as one of the classics. At the same time, a teacher who gave her students the option to pick their own books noticed that students enjoyed reading more and participated in analyzing their choices more enthusiastically. Even though the books they chose may not have stood up to other teachers’ standards of good reading, the students were being active readers. I think an important question for classrooms today is which is more important: reading “good” books (the classics), or developing a love of reading? Personally I think that the latter is more important, but I could imagine that many would argue otherwise.

      Comment by Maya Merberg on February 9, 2015

      Thoreau seems to have very conflicted ideas about higher education. Earlier he points out that people would be better off not going to college and just learning things by living. Here, though, he talks about how undervalued education is. Ultimately, I think he does think higher education theoretically serves a good purpose, but maybe he thinks it’s not executed ideally. It would be difficult to learn to read the classics in Greek and Latin if there’s no one to teach you the languages.

      Comment by Kelly Langer on February 9, 2015

      [The modern cheap and fertile press, with all its translations, has done little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity.]

      “Information is a source of learning. But unless it is organized, processed, and available to the right people in a format for decision making, it is a burden, not a benefit.”- William Pollard

      I think that this is fitting because much like information books are a source of learning, but unless they are available to the right people then they become a burden rather than a benefit. The original bible, the Old Testament, was written in Hebrew, but then translated into Greek. Those that wanted to keep it written in Hebrew rather than having it translated argued that if it was translated it could be used for ill intentions. Despite their arguments it was translated and no longer in the hands of the ‘holy men’ and could be read by the commoners whom the ‘holy men’ and the proponents to the translation were afraid of using it for ill intentions. Perhaps Thoreau instead wishes people could read the classics in their native tongue because they would obtain more knowledge and gain more from reading texts in their original Latin and Greek. They would also not lose words in translation, which is what has happened through revisions and different versions of the Bible. Though the Bible and Homer are of two different genres they are both very much a part of the Western Humanities.

      Comment by Kelly Langer on February 11, 2015

      “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.” -Sir Francis Bacon
      Perhaps Thoreau would argue that the classics, like the Iliad, are to be “chewed and digested” and “read wholly [with] diligence and attention” and not be read with haste, but rather read at length so their concepts can be fully understood and grasped. These concepts can ‘intoxicate the mind’ for they are to be enjoyed and make the reader ‘drunk’ with ideas and thoughts about themselves and the world around them. If someone were to read but a portion of such books then they are only understanding a part of what is said and not all that is said. Like taking a quotation from a book and not understanding the full meaning of what is being said during that portion of the text or what is happening within the text during that particular chapter, scene, etc., so they cannot fully wrap their heads around the quote and what is meant by it.

      Comment by Sean Fischer on November 6, 2015

      [in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal]

      I wonder what Locke would have to say about T’s idea here; it strikes me that T is trying to degrade, to some degree, the high perception individuals hold towards politics.

      Comment by Ken Wolfson on November 6, 2015

      I agree with the statement that Thoreau wanted us to be students throughout our life.  I think he didn’t want us to theoretically restrict our learning to one part of our lives (hence his dislike of university,) but wanted us to learn like students for our entire lives.  However I think his view is colored by his own upbringing and incredible intellect; not everyone can master the greek works or survive in a cabin from scratch

       

      Comment by Joshua Brand on November 8, 2015

      This paragraph interests me because Thoreau explains how people can be students for the rest of their lives. There is no reason to ever stop learning, or to stop improving. It seems that Thoreau believes that people can become more intelligent by just challenging themselves to think a different way. He also appreciates all levels of genius such as culture, art, music, intelligence, etc. In our time it seems we are moving away from the arts and tend to value practical and problem solving intelligence more.

      Comment by Joshua Brand on November 8, 2015

      I agree that Thoreau wants people to challenge themselves to learn their entire life. This can be through reading, school, experience, thinking differently, etc. I also I believe Thoreau sees just as much value in people that are not “traditionally intelligent.” Based on the other passages I see Thoreau appreciating all intelligence alike. He sees how one can benefit from learning something that another person may not value the same way. He sees  a constant need for self-improvement and intelligence should not determine how much we can learn or improve.

      Comment by Ed Gillin on April 1, 2016

      [all men would perhaps become essentially students and observers]

      This is a moment where Thoreau, I believe, lets us in on one of those etymological word-games he likes to play.  “Students” have been given special attention since Walden‘s second paragraph, when the author posits that his book may be particularly addressed to “poor students.”  Yet it’s clear he doesn’t generally mean to invoke only those in school in a traditional sense.  He likely has the original Latin sense of the word in mind–which would have focused on visual observation, as in “Study how those squirrels behave” or “Study this painting.”  Thoreau’s “students and observers” phrasing seemingly confirms the older root sense.  We all get to be students, therefore, if we’ll commit to the sort of deliberation with which Thoreau urges us to approach our lives.  Students are necessarily awake, alert and alive.

      Comment by Alexis Sammler on April 3, 2016

      I agree that we all have the chance to be students–if we create and allow ourselves to be.  To do so however is  a different story. To make the time to indulge in our surroundings and observe our world is to be patient with our selves and with our earth–this  is a discovery and a virtue.

      Walden begins with EconomyThoreau, in this passage as you mention, addresses his audience in the second paragraph: “Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students.”

      Students may in fact be observers. Observers who are intentionally focused on the study of life; On the profound meditations which are at our finger tips through a higher sense of awareness. Whether this be an intellectual, or spiritual experience, it is a profound experience to recognize the real. Our surroundings which many of us take for granted: the beauty of the sunrise, or the sound of a bird.

      Comment by Amber Parmelee on April 3, 2016

      I agree that we all can be students, because we are always learning. Even if we are not actual “students” in a classroom, we are still learning new things every day of our life. I agree with Alexis in the sense that we have to allow ourselves to be students. We must, as Emerson would say, immerse ourselves in nature and everything around us. When we do this, we are learning from our surroundings and we are therefore “students.”

      Comment by Mary Robicheaux on October 7, 2017

      [Yet I sustained myself by the prospect of such reading in future.]

      This sentence stuck out to me as a small, but clear, example of Thoreau’s “why”. Although Thoreau had a bigger “why” that was the main contributor to his survival, smaller daily parts of his life, such as reading, also added meaning to his life. As someone who enjoys reading, I can relate to Thoreau.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 7, 2017

      This paragraph is really striking because of the way Thoreau discusses the learning process. He seems to feel as if humans learning must ideally be very well focused on what they’re learning, and that the learning they do should be through certain books. His point about the necessary context and experience with language is also very interesting, and I have to agree with him. Language has nuances that are often only learned through experience and exposure to cultural factors related to the speaking of the language.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 7, 2017

      In response to Thoreau’s claim that “books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations”, I’d say that while he makes a good point, I think books reflect history really well, however they are all somewhat biased and opinionated in some sense. They offer an array of different ways to see the past, and the fact that none of them are truly representative of what happened is due to natural human error in perception.

      Comment by Mary Robicheaux on October 10, 2017

      [By such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last.]

      Thoreau holds books in high regard, as seen by this use of imagery. By using books as a means to reach heaven, which is the ultimate goal to most people, Thoreau is illustrating his deep appreciation of books and literature.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on October 10, 2017

      One of the things that connects Thoreau to me as an Iranian is his interest in the books in other cultures. I must say it had a very fundamental role in creating this huge interest in him. He studied Sa’di’s Gulistan and quoted from it at the end of Economy, and I see huge similarities between him and Sa’di in Walden.

      Comment by Lara Mangino on April 23, 2018

      This paragraph certainly comes off as elitist. Assuming that the books he’s chosen to read are the most important does not portray him in the kindest light. However, I wouldn’t, unlike Schulz, use this paragraph necessarily as evidence to condemn him as a misanthrope. Looking at the importance he places in education as is demonstrated in paragraphs 2 and 36 of Resistance to Civil Government (the first time he uses the fact that the people have educated others as a sign that the people are better than the government, and the second time, he says that he is taking it upon himself to educate others), it is unlikely that he looks down on these people for being people and more likely that he looks down on the education that produced them.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      In this line is Thoreau trying to explain that the search for truth is something almost hereditary, the exploration of truth will live on from generation to generation.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      It seems here that Thoreau is theorizing about learning and explaining that we have to be aware and have to have such “training” even when reading a book. The idea of being deliberate in reading as you are in life.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      Is Thoreau saying that through the divide of spoken and written language there is yet a connection?

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      Books hold the insight of what was, what is, and what can be through perspectives of time in which we can take and examine in order to become more aware of such possibilities.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      beautiful.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      Thoreau wants his community to begin taking responsibility for their own education. To break the division between the educated and the uneducated, he wants people to get over such obstacles toward a better fulfillment of life.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      [. If it is necessary, omit one bridge over the river, go round a little there, and throw one arch at least over the darker gulf of ignorance which surrounds us. Page 13]

      Thoreau wants his community to take responsibility for their own education , breaking such division between the educated and uneducated, moving toward a larger fulfillment of life.

      Comment by Christina Inter on February 23, 2020

      [The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and health of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him.]

      Thoreau contrasts the difference of delivery between the words of an orator and a writer. An orator speaks to entertain, for people to only hear them, while a writer writes with a permanence that is meant to be understood. I feel this relates to how people approach words/reading today. Most people are interested in the orator — they read because they have to, to hear, not to understand. Hayles discusses that as the digital age of reading has evolved,  “people read less print, and they read print less well” as they’ve developed a form of rapid form of reading — hyperreading (2). With digital text, there are a multitude of distractions on one web page, and people have access to jump to tons of other content through the technology they are using to access the text. I find myself scanning through text and trying to find the relevant bits to focus my attention on — a strategy I developed largely from ‘hyperreading’ on the internet. It is about reading to be efficient, not for the experience.

      Comment by Justin Colleran on February 23, 2020

      I relate to Thoreau a lot in this paragraph. I come from the city, and find it really hard to concentrate to read there because of all the noise and chaos that comes with living there. However, ever since I came here to Geneseo, I have found it much easier to read here since there is not that much going on. So just like Thoreau, I find myself “more than ever come within the influence of those books…” Thoreau also quotes the poet Mir Camar Uddin Mast, who compares reading too drinking. He says that when we read a book we become drunk with knowledge and they make the reader think about the ideas presented to them.

      Comment by Maeve Morley on February 23, 2020

      Thoreau stresses the importance of an authentic liberal education which resides in a culture far richer than the “rapid strides” of technological advancement. With the lack of knowledge, or understanding in respect to the classics, one will never share a meaningful appreciation for the literary world and its creativity. In this case, this perspective can be connected with N. Katherine Hayles, “How we read,” in which she mentions the gradual, but continuous shift from physical paper copies of text to current-day e-books. One of her main arguments is that due to less literary reading, reading skills are lessening significantly. Both Thoreau and Hayles emphasize the importance of the authentic literary world in culture, and how society should try its best not to stray far from this, despite the temptations of the technological world.

      Comment by Sandy Brahaspat on February 23, 2020

      [ If we live in the nineteenth century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the nineteenth century offers? Why should our life be in any respect provincial?]

      Thoreau’s comment about taking advantage of the opportunities of the nineteenth century bears striking resemblance to Hayles’ argument about rethinking the ways in which we, as readers, engage with the literature in the era of advanced technology and digital texts. While Thoreau seems to be advocating for literacy for all (both children and adults) in Concord, Hayles makes a similar argument about the disadvantages that most small colleges and universities have in relation to inadequate computation-intensive facilities. In these cases, Hayles makes a point that those who do not have an abundance of digital facilities should opt for small scale exercises that require students of literary studies to read closely while also engaging with digital literacy- which seems on par with Thoreau’s idea about “uncommon schools” that encourage town dwellers to engage in the arts.

      Comment by Danielle Crowley on February 23, 2020

      In this paragraph, Thoreau discusses how his residence allows him the ability to participate in “serious reading” and how being away from a circulating library and a university provided him with the opportunity to “come within the influence of those books which circulate round the world”. Now, I hate to bring up that fact that we don’t have access to Milne Library here, but I think this paragraph gives an interesting perspective on not having a library. In this case, Thoreau is secluded, but through serious reading, he was able to be influenced by what he was reading more effectively than he was at university or when he had access to a full library. Don’t get me wrong, I would rather have a library on a college campus so I had a place I could get more work done, but perhaps in the sense of being able to be more secluded with our work and readings, not having a library could be a good thing from Thoreau’s point of view?

      Additionally, in our Hayles reading, “How We Read: Close, Hyper, Machine,” note is made how in junior high, high school, and college the ability to read and read well is declining. Perhaps isolation and seclusion, as represented in Walden, has allowed Thoreau to unlock a secret to improve those skills. Perhaps being alone with just a few books and the other bare necessities is how a book is meant to be truly enjoyed and understood to reap the full benefits.

      Comment by Emma Annonio on February 23, 2020

      While most of us go into college feeling adequately versed in the English language and significantly literate, we are met with new challenges, and a new type of reading that brings to light the high level of hyperattention our brains have become so used to. I have noticed a significant change in the way I read and an increase in how easily I become distracted. In paragraph 9, Thoreau expresses his contempt with the people in his village, those who are literate and seem to be educated, but have no taste for the English classics. He says it is rare to find another person to converse with about these books. He expresses his anger in how the notion of reading has changed and how schools are only teaching “Easy Reading.” Could this suggest a shift towards increased hyper attention amongst the public? Similarly, Hayle notes that digital reading has transformed the way we read, leading us to need constant stimulation and because of this, her colleagues, college professors, have begun assigning short stories instead of novels because their students cannot read them. This moves back into Thoreaus point that nobody reads the Classics anymore reading to what he believes to be a community of ignorant people. In the context of an English concentrator, I have to agree with him. I am not well versed in the English Classics and normally do not understand when they are referenced in my other classes and this is because I was never asked or challenged to read them.

      Comment by Jaffre Aether on February 23, 2020

      [I know a woodchopper, of middle age, who takes a French paper, not for news as he says, for he is above that, but to “keep himself in practice,” he being a Canadian by birth; and when I ask him what he considers the best thing he can do in this world, he says, beside this, to keep up and add to his English. This is about as much as the college bred generally do or aspire to do, and they take an English paper for the purpose]

      This section from Thoreau is surprisingly relevant today, albeit, most are not trying to ‘keep up their English,’ but rather, keep up with cultural, political, and social trends. When Hayles discusses the prevalence of hyperreading, I cannot help but see the connection between the woodchipper and the bulk of us who frequently view the news and use social media. It is all we can do, in this golden age of information, to keep up with current trends, and keep a pulse on what is most relevant to us. Thoreau is correct in his diagnosis of a broader need to read the foundational texts of our culture, but he misses the reason why people do not. The woodchipper is working, and has little time to read through dense (but rewarding) texts. Most likely, he would rather keep his contemporary knowledge sharper, as it is what is most relevant to him, and it is what keeps him most connected to his community. Going back to Hayles, it is clear that her conceptualization of ‘hyperreading’ tracks back to this period, and with Thoreau’s anecdote, we are able to see why hyperreading is even more prevalent nowadays. However, Thoreau is not wrong in his wish for a ‘close reading’ of the foundational texts of Western culture. These precursors are highly influential, and by reading them, I have found myself able to ‘hyperread’ better, as connections (often historical or symbolic) flow easier. And the more I examine this relationship, the more I realize how symbiotic the relationship between close reading and hyper reading are, for the two compliment each other in excess. But, as Hayles warns, and Thoreau does as well, there is a clear danger in an excess of hyperreading.

      Comment by Caroline Crimmins on February 23, 2020

      Within the first two pages of her essay, Ms. Hayles discusses how “the NEA chairman, Dana Gioia, suggests that the correlation between decreased literacy reading and poorer reading ability is indeed a causal connection” (Hayles 2). I believe this statement can be tied into Thoreau’s chapter, “Reading” in Walden and to our everyday lives. My generation has grown up using technology. I took computer classes as early as second grade and have been using an iPhone since I was twelve. Technology is a huge part of our lives that is both beneficial and not concerning literature and reading. It is fantastic that I can read Walden online and connect with people from all around the world. However, most people opt for spending time on digital streaming websites or games of some sort instead of reading. In this respect, people read a lot less now than they have done in the past. Thoreau writes that “Most men are satisfied if they read or hear read, and perchance have been convicted by the wisdom of one good book…” (Thoreau 13). Although people are still reading for pleasure, there are many more outlets of entertainment we can go to.

      Comment by Leila Sassouni on February 23, 2020

      In this paragraph, Thoreau addresses the concept of \”serious reading.\” He references that \”[books] whose sentences were first written on bark, and are now merely copied from time to time on to linen paper.\” While he starts to mention embracing the spirituality between himself and his readings, I started brainstorming various questions. I could not help but wonder how he would feel if he lived in today\’s highly advanced and technological world. I wonder how he would react if he knew that readings that used to be on bark or on linen paper are now found on online sources. Just as Katherine Hayles\’ writes in her passage \”How We Read: Close, Hyper, Machine,\” for 20 years now, the use of technology has skyrocketed such that almost anything can be found and/or read online. I read this passage first, followed by Hayles\’ reading. I sincerely believe that her passage either responded to Thoreau or maybe even took the space to emphasize how much the world has changed. As I then think about myself as an avid reader, I realize how much I relate to Thoreau in the sense that I want the tangible copy of a reading in order to sit in a comfortable, relaxed environment where I can form a strong, spiritual connection with a reading.

      Comment by Rachel Beck on February 24, 2020

      [Most men have learned to read to serve a paltry convenience, as they have learned to cipher in order to keep accounts and not be cheated in trade; but of reading as a noble intellectual exercise they know little or nothing;]

      In this particular portion of the passage, Thoreau discusses how too many people read for their own convenience, when in reality, they should be reading as a intellectual exercise — to gain knowledge. I think this could equate to how people today often read for fun, instead of reading to analyze. But why can’t these two methods be combined? In Hayles article on How We Read, she talks about a project that was created called “Romeo and Juliet: A Facebook Tragedy”, where students adapted the Shakespearean play to a Facebook model. This required them to analyze the text, but they got to make something fun out of it. Knowing how Thoreau feels about technology, he’d likely think this foolish, but from a modern perspective, I’d say it’s a unique way to make reading as an intellectual exercise fun.

      Comment by Abigail Henry on February 24, 2020

      [ and for the rest of their lives vegetate and dissipate their faculties in what is called easy reading.]

      What Thoreau is saying here is that we tend to push aside books that challenge our minds as they may be more difficult and time consuming to read. I believe that this is still true today, especially now more than ever. In Hayles\’s essay, she notes that in modern classrooms, students are being assigned short stories instead of long novels due to the lack of deep attention (Hayles 501). There is a clear shift towards hyperattention/hyperreading, whether for better or for worse. I have experienced this shift firsthand in my own reading over the years. When I was younger, I was able to read a whole book in one sitting if I desired. Nowadays, I find it hard to even read a single chapter without getting distracted by my phone or some other sort of technology surrounding me. I also tend to gravitate towards quick reads, and find myself mostly reading for entertainment instead of enhancing what knowledge I already possess (outside of class assigned readings).

      Comment by Mitchell Pace on February 24, 2020

      Thoreau’s commentary in this paragraph on the necessity of education relates heavily to N. Katherine Hayles and her work “How We Read.” Both Thoreau and Hayles stress the importance of education. Thoreau’s comments on spending more on a town house than a library is reminiscent to how younger generations today focus less on reading as well. Hayles talks about how to encourage students to become expert readers and promotes a threefold approach that offers literary training, encourages comparing methodologies to other fields, and how to use digital media to analyze texts (505). Hayles and Thoreau both task themselves to educating those around them, both impacted by the current state of technology. It’s interesting to note the differences in techniques they propose and how the issue of education has developed over time.

      Comment by Kira Baran on February 24, 2020

      It is clear from these passages that Thoreau is a proponent of reading literature in a way that is as close to its original format/language (and, in turn, meaning) as possible. Reading classic texts in the \”ancient language\” rather than in a translated form–the latter of which Thoreau equates to a more or less \”dead language\” void of original meaning–is ideal; as he remarks,\”The modern [printing] press . . . with all its translations, has done little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity.\” In taking a digital literature class centered around Thoreau, I find these ideas interesting. How would Thoreau feel, then, to not only have texts translated into other languages nowadays, but in fact have texts not appear on paper/print at all? In one way, the Internet seems to be an entirely new way to translate texts into other languages and formats. This is a question I similarly came across when taking a W. B. Yeats course in which I was tasked with designing a website version of a volume of Yeats\’s poetry. Such a task involves asking oneself what the original meaning(s) of the text may have been, and how (or whether) one should attempt to recreate them, or else adapt them into a brand new reading experience.

      Thoreau\’s concerns with the inaccuracy of translated texts in adhering to original meaning are echoed by N. Katherine Hayles in \”How We Read: Close, Hyper, Machine.\” Hayles\’ emphasis on not just reading text, but \”reading well\” (i.e., close reading accurately and acutely), is something to keep in mind as the literature trend leans more and more towards digital text.

      Comment by Claire Rogers on February 24, 2020

      [Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.]

      I do not know that I agree, Thoreau. I adore Shakespeare, and am certainly in many ways an Early Modernist. I recognise, however, that the “text” of Shakespeare is not absolute, and its relation to the “original” may be dubious. Although my more scholarly tendency is very much towards close reading, as characterises the discipline of literary criticism, it is important to recognise what one is close reading. Each and every word in a play of Shakespeare’s is not whatever genius we attribute to the bard himself. It may be simply a mangled line, misremembered by an actor. It is not as if Shakespeare himself did not fill his works with contradictions and inconsistencies. The ghost characters that appear in some plays (Violenta from All’s Well That Ends Well comes to mind) certainly illustrate this.

      Thoreau makes quite the point in Walden about living deliberately. The issue is that humans are not deliberate, and that not all choices are conscious or agonisingly thought on. It is easy to criticise not admiring every word of supposed wisdom from the classics or the “literary canon,” but not every word is golden. Ancient poets and dramatists are not gods, nor should they be read as such. While one is right to pay attention to the minutiae of language to some extent, it is the holistic meaning of a text that better recognises the rampant human imperfection of even those we most revere.

      Comment by Emma Raupp on February 24, 2020

      “yet this only is reading, in a high sense, not that which lulls us as a luxury and suffers the nobler faculties to sleep the while, but what we have to stand on tiptoe to read and devote our most alert and wakeful hours to” 

      Thoreau is of the opinion that reading should be an activity on a higher level of consciousness, unlike the supposedly numbed mental processes of easy reading. It’s safe to assume he would be a proponent of close reading, and consider reading with a deep and undivided focus the ‘noblest’ form. But what would he make of our easier than easy reading today, for instance, a thread on Twitter? Undoubtedly we are reading that thread, but not in the noblest sense of close reading that Thoreau prefers. However, to think reading a thread on Twitter is not actually reading is misguided, because our brain adapts to the information we consume and how we choose to consume it. Depending on the thread, I suppose you could close read on Twitter, but it’s more likely that you may use hyperreading techniques like scanning or skimming. In reality, if we were to close read every text we came upon, we would have way too much information. And in our present age of information inundation, we have the luxury to choose which information is important and which is not, and adjust our reading level accordingly. In her article, N. Katherine Hayles mentions a book titled The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, which pinpoints concerns about the overwhelming shift toward hyperreading rather than close reading as the primary reading ability, especially in our generation. Hayles explains Carr’s position: “He readily admits that Web reading has enormously increased the scope of information available, from global politics to scholarly debates. He worries, however, that hyperreading leads to changes in brain function that make sustained concentration more difficult, leaving us in a constant state of distraction in which no problem can be explored for very long before our need for continuous stimulation kicks in and we check e-mail, scan blogs, message someone, or check our RSS feeds” (67). This certainly rings true for my reading experience online, especially if the online text requires us to mentally ‘stand on tip-toe’ to grasp. I still prefer the physicality of a book because the experience is much more immersive. But I can’t deny the fact that I read much more content digitally, not quite thinking of the words under posts and threads as ‘true reading’, which is a bad habit to get into.

      Comment by Alyssa Harrington on February 24, 2020

      When talking about books in English literature it is hard to really classify what is a “good” book and what is not. If good books are not read by good readers then how are they considered good books.

       Even the college-bred and so called liberally educated men here and elsewhere have really little or no acquaintance with the English classics; and as for the recorded wisdom of mankind, the ancient classics and Bibles, which are accessible to all who will know of them, there are the feeblest efforts any where made to become acquainted with them.

      When good books are being classified, how does the process begin. Is there a list, or an overall bias toward good books based on the author(s) that have written the book. If the liberal men who are grading our books to make a list of them haven’t even read the classics then how are they able to tell the difference.

      Also, the point on Easy Reading to me is not relevant. If Thoreau classifies them as easy reading then why are we still using them to read today. I would understand if they were put for children to read, but if they are not easy it will be difficult for this to happen.

      In class since everything is online now, why would books even need to be read at this point. Since we can find almost everything online, then why would we need to keep copies of the classics, and even keep libraries around in the future ?

      Comment by Hannah Jewell on February 24, 2020

      In this paragraph, Thoreau in a way seems to consider the act of reading as something with a sense of aesthetic, while also taking it seriously and putting thought into the message he received from his reading. I think the environment you read in has a lot to do with the action itself, the occasion, and what you take away from it. While reading can be leisurely and enjoyable, it can also be for the purposes of learning and critical thinking. This strongly relates to Hayles piece as she discusses print reading versus web-based reading. Textiles can often make a significant difference when it comes to the different ways people read. Some people may want a printed text for the sentimental value or just the act of being able to hold and turn the pages which is often considered to be easier. Even the sole act of having a book out in one’s immediate view can have an impact on them as it is easily visible and even a reminder to them for whatever the given purposes may be. Overall, when it comes to how we read as a society today, things have changed in terms of technology but old ways are still valued by many.

      Comment by Olivia Davis on March 7, 2020

      “Most men have learned to read to serve a paltry convenience, as they have learned to cipher in order to keep accounts and not be cheated in trade; but of reading as a noble intellectual exercise they know little or nothing”

       

      This quote is notable because it relates directly to N. Katherine Hayles’ article “How We Read: Close, Hyper, Machine”. Hayles describes how reading abilities are worsening as people spend less time printing and reading print. “The correlation between decreased literary reading and poorer reading ability is indeed a causal connection” said Hayles. Just as Hayles discusses that reading and literacy skills are decreasing, Thoreau mentioned that men know little to nothing about reading as an intellectual exercise, they only use their skills to get by in day to day life. Both authors make the point that reading is important, and people are allowing this tool to slip away from them as they live in a distracted world where print and reading for learning is not top priority.

      Comment by Justin Colleran on March 31, 2020

      As I was looking at the Walden fluid text to see what I found interesting that Thoreau had changed. I find it really funny that I was drawn to a passage that I already commented on. I really liked how Thoreau changed the structure of this passage a lot. In the first draft, he talked about Homer’s Iliad first before talking about his surroundings. To me, it was a good choice to switch these two around. I feel like you have to draw a connection with your reader fairly quickly to keep them interested, and talking about one’s reading environment is a good way of doing this. No offense to Thoreau, but if he started this paragraph off talking about Homer’s Iliad,  I would not have been interested in continuing reading.

      Comment by Claire Rogers on April 13, 2020

      [I kept Homer’s Iliad on my table through the summer, though I looked at his page only now and then. Incessant labor with my hands, at first, for I had my house to finish and my beans to hoe at the same time, made more study impossible. Yet I sustained myself by the prospect of such reading in future. I read one or two shallow books of travel in the intervals of my work, till that employment made me ashamed of myself, and I asked where it was then that I lived.]

      This passage, which I quite enjoy, stayed pretty much constant in Thoreau’s manuscript version of Walden from Version B (the 1849 manuscript) on. In the very first manuscript, from 1847, this quote starts off the second paragraph, and there is a sizeable section added to the middle. In this section, Thoreau predictably praises ancient literature, but he also includes a line about how any book can be read in the future. Thoreau does not go in depth in the manuscript in this location, but this gets at the difficulty of ever getting around to read something new due to the seemingly infinite length of the list of books I have not read. In the future one can indeed read any book, as the 1847 manuscript edition points out, but to me that is not solely a positive thing.

      Comment by Anne Baranello on April 27, 2020

      Thoreau strikes up an interesting (but not uncommon) comparison between those who speak (orators) and those who write. His stance is that orators speak because it’s the only method to have everyone hear what they want to say. Writers, on the other hand, write because they know that those who have the capacity to understand their work will, no matter what age or background. Thoreau highlights the difference between hearing and understanding – hearing is an involuntary action, it’s not possible just to shut off your ears. They hear everything. So whether you like it or not, the orator has your attention. However, while many people may be listening to the orator, the majority will leave unaffected by what they just heard, and forget about it. Writing however, opens up a new door: reading is a voluntary action, you have to want to and allow yourself to read and understand the words on a paper. It forces you to think… which is why Thoreau chose to write Walden as a book, instead of touring the country and making speeches.

  • The Ponds 1-17 (74 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [have all heard the tradition]

      In T’s copy of W, he has noted that this tale is told of Alexander’s Lake in Killingly, Connecticut, in Barber’s Connecticut Historical Collections (New Haven, 1838, 431). But Cameron (1956) cites an article in the Middlesex Gazette for August 11, 1821, that attributes this legend to Walden Pond itself.

      Hanley quotes the geologist Joseph Hartshorn as saying, “Walden Pond could have been a high hill, covered with an earth crust and supporting growing trees. And it could have collapsed into a pond, because the heart of the hill would have been a huge ice pocket left by the glacier. When the ice melted, the thin earth crust would have sunk to become the bottom of Walden Pond.” Skehan (50) advances a similar theory.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [Nine Acre Corner]

      Nine Acre Corner is a little over a mile southwest of Walden Pond, near the Sudbury town line (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [There have been caught in Walden]

      For an excellent account of the fish of Walden Pond, see Ted Williams. According to local legend, at about the turn of the century a local fisherman started adding to Walden Pond specimens of fish T mentioned in his works. Many of these were river fish rather than pond fish, and they upset the ecological balance of the pond. Later, to correct the problem, state officials had all the fish killed off with poison. But then they restocked the pond only with species such as trout and bass, which made fishermen happy but which were not necessarily native species. Today, the pond is restocked every spring, and on the first day of fishing season it is surrounded by hundreds of fishermen pulling out the fish. Incidentally, it has been said that there were no fish at all in Walden Pond until they were transplanted there by man (Shattuck, 200).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a very few breams]

      In his own copy of W, after the word “breams” T inserted “Pomotis obesus [Nov. 26-58] one trout weighing a little over 5 lbs (Nov. 14-57).” In his Journal entry for the latter date, he records the catching of a trout by Gardiner Heywood (X, 180), and for the former date discusses various types of fresh-water fish (XI, 344-7).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [reticulatus]

      Netlike.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [guttatus]

      Speckled.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [tortoises, and a few mussels]

      In the first edition, spelled “muscles,” fresh-water bivalves.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [skim over it]

      In his copy of W, T inserted the words “kingfisher dart away from its coves” after the word “it.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [ancient sect of Coenobites]

      Members of a religious order, but here used as one of T’s best or worst puns, that is, “See, no bites.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a companion]

      George William Curtis tells of a very similar incident involving himself and T on the Concord River. Presumably T simply transferred the incident to Walden, and Curtis is the companion mentioned.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [The scenery of Walden]

      Over the years, Emerson and his family and friends bought up the land around Walden Pond as it became available. In 1922 the family gave the land to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to be preserved forever as it ways in the days of Emerson and T. Unfortunately, although there are many other ponds in the vicinity, Walden is the only one accessible to the public, and it has become inundated with swarms of people, who use it for swimming and hiking. Added to these are the tourists making their pilgrimage to see where T had once lived. The stress has been too much for Walden’s environment. As a result, limitations on access to the pond have been imposed on summer weekends. Tourists should try to limit their visits to off-season times if they want to see Walden at its best.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [“whether liquid or solid”]

      James D. Forbes, Travels Through the Alps of Savoy (Edinburgh, 1843, 71).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Michael Angelo]

      One characteristic of the male figures in Michelangelo’s paintings is their overdeveloped muscles.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      T’s telling of this incident seems to echo II Kings 6:1-7 (Paul Williams, 1963, 2).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [in the neighborhood]

      In the first edition, this reads “neighhorhood,” an obvious typographical error.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [smooth rounded white stones]

      The whereabouts of these stones is now a mystery. I have searched for them many times without success. I have been told by others that they have succeeded in finding a few small ones by diving in deeper water, but otherwise they seem to have disappeared. Probably some have been carted away and others have drifted farther out in the pond.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Some think it is bottomless]

      Seemingly every community in New England has its “bottomless pond.” I am familiar with a number of them, and T mentions some of them in his Journal, such as at II, 68.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Castalian Fountain]

      A spring sacred to the Muses, flowing from the slope of Parnassus.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Golden Age]

      The reign of Saturn is usually considered the Golden Age in mythological history. Saturn was king of the Titans and was overthrown by Jupiter.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a narrow shelf-like path]

      The path is still visible and has, in fact, been worn much deeper by visitors to the pond over the years.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [alto-relievo]

      Sculpture that stands out in relief.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [will one day be built here]

      Presumably Walden Pond has been preserved from such a fate, for in 1922 the Emerson family and some of their friends donated the land surrounding the pond to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and it is now a state park.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [The pond rises and falls]

      Walker (1971) gives the first scientific explanation of this. He points out that the rising and falling coincide with the fluctuations of the area’s water table and that the pond is a kind of natural well, having been carved out by glaciers down to the water table. Walden needs no hidden water source, for its watershed is ample to supply the pond. Note that earlier in this chapter T himself refers to the pond as a well. Incidentally, in 1956, when the pond was at so high a level that the beaches had to be closed, officials attempted to lower its level by pumping the water, at the rate of 4,000 gallons a minute, into the Sudbury River. They pumped all summer and did not succeed in lowering the level one inch!

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [in a secluded cove]

      The cove is now known as Wyman’s Meadow. It still shifts from meadow to cove, depending on the water level of the pond. The cove is a few rods southeast of T’s cabin site.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [has risen steadily for two years]

      One of the many indications that a large part of W was written in the seven years between his leaving Walden and the publication of the book in 1854.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Flint’s Pond]

      Known for many years as Sandy Pond, its name was recently changed back to Flint’s Pond at the request of the Flint family (Lincoln Journal). It is in the town of Lincoln, about a mile southeast of Walden (Gleason), and is now used as a reservoir. T’s college classmate Charles Stearns Wheeler built a hut there in 1836, where he stayed during vacations for the next six years. T spent some time there with him, and perhaps this was a source for the idea of building his own cabin at Walden.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [settler whom I have mentioned]

      See “Solitude.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [here with his divining rod]

      Again, a forked stick used to find underground sources of water.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [The temperature of the pond water]

      These seemingly unimportant facts, so carefully recorded by T, occasionally bore the modern reader “as do the measurements of whales in Moby-Dick” but they indicate the growing interest in scientific research in mid-nineteenth-century America. In later years T sometimes bewailed the fact that the recording of such minutiae was gradually usurping his time and leaving him little for philosophical speculation. See, for example, his Journal (II, 406).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the Boiling Spring]

      Slightly west of Walden Pond (Gleason). A boiling spring is not a hot spring, but merely one in which the water can be seen bubbling up from the bottom.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [a spring in the neighborhood]

      Brister’s Spring, northeast of Walden. It feeds what T called the Fairyland Pond, in what is now the Town Forest.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [have sometimes disturbed a fishhawk]

      Osprey.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [a gull, like Fair Haven]

      A widening of the Sudbury River about a mile southwest of Walden Pond.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the chivin]

      T’s guess was correct. An account of this fish and its nest-building habits will be found in The Fishes of the Connecticut Lakes and Neighboring Waters, by W. C. Kendall and E. L. Goldsborough, published as Document No. 633 of the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [the paver]

      Glaciers.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [woods and make pastures new]

      Milton, “Lycidas,” line 193.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [blueberries on Fair Haven hill]

      Again, on the shore of the Sudbury River, south of Walden (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [know the flavor of huckleberries]

      “Would you know the ripest cherries? Ask the boys and blackbirds” (Goethe, “Sprichwortlich,” lines 458-9).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [some English locality – Saffron Walden]

      According to a note in his own copy of W, T got this name from Evelyn’s diary, but the Concord Minot family, which was related to T by marriage, originally came from Saffron Walden, a suburb of London, and it seems likely T heard the name in family tradition. T himself speaks of this tradition in his Journal for December 2, 1857 (X, 219). Yet, in an unpublished manuscript in the Huntington Library (HM 924) he points out that the Minot family did not come to Concord until after Walden was named. The earliest known reference to Walden Pond is a Concord property record of 1652 or 1653.

      Walden is a fairly common place name in England. There is, for example, a King’s Walden, a St. Paul’s Walden, and a Walden Bury. Hudson suggests the pond may have been named for Richard Walden, the speaker of the General Court of Massachusetts from 1666 to 1679 and an associate of Major Simon Willard, one of the pioneers of Concord. Olhoff points out that in Old English the word “walden” (also spelled “wealand”) means lord or ruler, and had T been aware of that, he might have expanded greatly on his puns. See also Walker (1972).

      Since the German wald means woods, T’s book in Germany is occasionally mistaken for a book on forestry, a fact that would probably have amused T.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [Walled-in Pond]

      Cameron (1956) cites a reference, in the Concord Yeoman’s Gazette for August 21, 1830, to Walden as “Wall’d in,” so T obviously did not coin this pun. It is said in England that the word “walden” might be derived from “walled-in,” as an estate surrounded by a wall.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [of huckleberries ask the cow-boy]

      A boy who tends cows in the local pastures, as distinct from the cowboy, of the western ranges.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [grew on her three hills]

      Copp’s, Fort, and Beacon Hills, where the city was first founded

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [reigns, not one innocent huckleberry]

      Huckleberries and blueberries are often confused. It is the blueberry that has a bloom, not the huckleberry.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on February 1, 2014

      [The Ponds]

      Woodruff argues that T in this chapter imparts to Walden Pond “a cosmological significance which places it simultaneously both within and outside space and time.”

      For an analysis of the structure of this chapter in relation to the book as a whole, see Baker.

      Comment by Casey Vincelette on February 11, 2015

      It sounds like Thoreau did a lot of fishing out there, largely for sport or the “experience”. He goes on to describe the natural beauty of Walden Pond, and the lushness all around him. However, in his account of the forest fire he started in Selections from the Journals, he shows an utter lack of concern for the hundred acres of nature that he set ablaze, and remarks, “The trivial fishing was all that disturbed me and disturbs me still.” Here it seems that he is unconcerned with the well-being of the Walden Pond fish. Really I guess I just don’t understand why Thoreau wouldn’t mourn the loss of something that seems so important to him and instead focus on the wastefulness of fishing, which he seems to do on a fairly regular basis.

      Comment by Melissa Rao on February 11, 2015

      Walden  so far has discussed for the most part the impact of nature and technology on a person’s life, but this particular passage calls attention to language and how that can have monumental effects on the way we as people perceive the world around us.  [If the name was not derived from that of some English locality, – Saffron Walden, for instance, – one might suppose that is was called, originally, Walled-in Pond.] This line specifically really made me think about how easily the world we live in is shaped by the human language and how even today language is constantly changing and evolving to take a new form in this digital age that we live in today.  Less than twenty five years ago the phrase, “electronic mail” was used sparingly, whereas now it has been condensed to “e-mail” and is a part of our daily vocabulary.  Language is constantly moving and changing to keep up with the times, and language of course plays a very significant role in how we view the world.

      Comment by Amber Parmelee on April 3, 2016

      This is another section where Thoreau’s use of imagery really stood out to me.  We see once again his love of nature expressed in his writing, which is no surprise by now.  I find the comparison to an eye very interesting.  Instead of just leaving it about the earth’s eye, he continues to talk about the eyelashes and eyebrows, which I find all very interesting.

      Comment by Ed Gillin on April 4, 2016

      [Yet a single glass of its water held up to the light is as colorless as an equal quantity of air]

      About ten years ago I made a pilgrimage to Walden Pond and, in true pilgrim spirit, stole away a few ounces of its holy water in a capped plastic bottle.  To this day it looks as clear and colorless as if I had just purchased the water from a grocery store.  In wonderment about this, a while back I sent an email to Professor Sid Bosch of Geneseo’s Biology Department, an expert in freshwater ecology.  I didn’t disclose the particulars of my interest, merely inquiring what ought to happen to a plastic container of pond water scooped up from the water’s edge as I had done.  He responded that, in general, after some time photosynthesis and other processes ought to set in, discoloring the sides of the container and also discoloring the water.

      So why does my Walden water remain so clear?  The romantic in me wants to believe in the special purity Thoreau speaks about–a purity so perfect that it resists the onslaughts of time.  My realist side has a vague awareness of the process by which many Adirondack lakes have become so environmentally compromised that their crystal waters indicate that they are ecologically dead.  In some terror, I ask: does anyone know what’s going on with my Walden water?

      Comment by Marissa Toran on April 5, 2016

      Thoreau seems to feel that the truest tasting huckleberry is one that was not bought or plucked to be bought, but rather taken for one’s sustenance. This seems to be a common theme across Thoreau’s works, with his belief that the use of money somehow mars the object that’s being sold.

       

      Comment by Nikkel Gohel on April 12, 2016

      Its funny how Thoreau uses his humor to poke fun at the company that is available to him. Despite a fisherman having been fishing since the morning, Thoreau calls him “impatient.” It is odd that he would call a “silent and motionless” person impatient as well, when clearly that would require a great deal of patience.

      Moreover, while Thoreau claims that he does not require company in Chapter 6, Visitors, that is not the case here. In this paragraph, Thoreau makes he clear that he enjoys the fisherman’s company and that if he doesn’t have company, he would “raise the echoes by striking” his boat with a paddle. There doesn’t seem to be any good reason for doing this other than to stop his impending lonliness.

      Comment by Benjamin Fritz on October 26, 2017

      The process of becoming part of society as a huckleberry, being bought and sold, seems to devalue the berry in Thoreau’s eyes. The best of berries are wild and natural.

      Comment by Benjamin Fritz on October 26, 2017

      The amount of time Thoreau spent with visitors or friends or in the town seems counter to some of the ideas represented in Walden like self reliance and solitude. I guess that shows how deeply ingrained the need for society is in the human mind.

      Comment by Benjamin Fritz on October 26, 2017

      This paragraph reminds me of a theme in Andrew Zolli’s book about resilience, the idea that the most resilient system is one in constant change.

      Comment by Benjamin Fritz on October 26, 2017

      Similar to the huckleberries mentioned earlier the best water to Thoreau is that which is not corrupted by the institutions of man.

      Comment by Tayler Thompson on May 13, 2019

      [or, while the sun was setting, made my supper of huckleberries and blueberries on Fair Haven Hill, and laid up a store for several days. The fruits do not yield their true flavor to the purchaser of them, nor to him who raises them for the market. There is but one way to obtain it, yet few take that way]

      Find Fair Haven Hill on the map here

      Comment by Tayler Thompson on May 13, 2019

      [We have one other pond just like this, White Pond, in Nine Acre Corner, about two and a half miles westerly; but, though I am acquainted with most of the ponds within a dozen miles of this centre, I do not know a third of this pure and well-like character. Successive nations perchance have drank at, admired, and fathomed it, and passed away, and still its water is green and pellucid as ever. ]

      Find White Pond on the map here

      Comment by Justin Colleran on March 22, 2020

      Since all these stay at home things have been issued, we are allowed to take walks outside and there is nothing else to do, I’ve found myself walking up to my beach a lot more. His description of the pond reminds me a lot about my beach. However, there are no stones that are on the shore, but there are lots of shells and sea glass. I find myself walking along the shoreline for hours, just getting lost finding all different types of shells and other treasures.

      Comment by Maeve Morley on March 23, 2020

      It’s interesting to see the transformation of Sandy Pond over a twenty-five time span described by Thoreau. Upon reading this, I didn’t realize how something as simple as a pond could fluctuate and transform so much over time. With that being said, it can be said that such natural forces as these remain obscure from the human eye for this change cannot physically be seen until someone notices a transformable presence. For example, Thoreau’s friends didn’t believe that the water in the sand bar helped him boil a kettle of chowder for the water in that channel used to be limited in depth. However, over a twenty-five year time frame, the water level rose. This circumstance can easily related to the concept of time. Time is an undoubtable force to be reckoned with. The clock is always ticking, and as time passes, changes occur in our lives, such as this that most of us are imperceptive to.

      Comment by Leila Sassouni on March 24, 2020

      I am not quite sure what the references mean but throughout this passage, there are several times where the seasons are identified. Thoreau consistently names fall, spring, summer, winter, along with each of their outside temperatures. I assume that he does this as he recalls his happiest memories at the pond which occurred at each of these times? Or, maybe he does this quite simply to communicate the message of enjoying life and nature and the people you are around? I would love to know why.

      Comment by Emma Annonio on March 24, 2020

      [Walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view.]
      Point of View during a time like (during a global pandemic) this is an important thing to keep in my mind. I never imagined I would experience what the world is going through right now. I never thought I would have to partake in ‘social distancing’ or stay in my home for a period of days, limiting my contact to the world. It would have never crossed my mind that I wouldn’t be able to finish my sophomore year in Geneseo or say goodbye to so many of my friends. People around the world are experiencing the same emotions I am, we are all sharing in the point of view of shock, fear, and sadness. Like Thoreau’s experience with the changing colors of the pond, people around the world are dealing with the changing aspects of their normal lives. While we might all be reading the same exact news and receiving the same exact information, it is affecting all of us differently. My mom, a preschool teacher, is determining how she is going to educate toddlers via the internet. Myself, a college student, is learning how to stay focused during online class. My aunt, a retired physician, is coming out of retirement to care for those affected by COVOID-19. The pond appears in so many different ways, depending on its environment around it; how the sun is located between the hills, what season it is, what the weather is like. . .. Right now, I think the world has to remember that although it may seem like we have no control over what is happening, we are able to establish control based on our perspectives. When it seems like nothing good can come out of this, there needs to be a shift in perspective, a changing of the color of the pond. People are spending more time with family, pollution levels are at a low, people are coming together in ways we don’t see everyday. It is important to remember that there are so many factors that we are in control off, and those things will help us all overcome the hardships that world is facing.

      Comment by Olivia Davis on March 25, 2020

      In this passage, Thoreau interestingly uses the pond and water levels as a way to show the passage of time. He describes how the pond level is higher in the winter and lower in the summer, indicating that the time passing and changing of seasons can be measured by the water levels of the pond.

      “It is remarkable that this fluctuation, whether periodical or not, appears thus to require many years for its accomplishment.”

      His way of showing that seasons years can be counted based on nature is very interesting and fitting for his lifestyle and style of writing. Time inevitably passes, just as the seasons come and go and water rises and falls. All of these patterns have one thing in common: consistency. Time, like nature, is consistent.

      Comment by Caroline Crimmins on March 25, 2020

      In this passage, Thoreau talks about his break from human contact and ventures into unfrequented parts of town. In America’s current situation, I feel much like how Thoreau feels. My phone is constantly buzzing with new NEWS notifications and every television in my house is on with updates regarding the Coronavirus. To be more mindful, I have been trying to turn my phone on do not disturb and occasionally check in to see any important updates. During stressful times like these it is extremely important to decrease your screen time and do something for yourself and your mental health.

      Comment by Claire Rogers on March 26, 2020

      Thoreau here reminds me of one of the few truly pleasant things in our current circumstances. I currently live in a rented house on Conesus Lake, and staying home so much has had me spending quite a bit of time watching the waterfowl who have recently returned to the lake. The ducks and loons (mostly bufflehead ducks, with some common mergansers and now common loons as of yesterday) have in large been a much-appreciated peaceful presence as I gaze off onto the lake in melancholy want of joy. Though, my avian companions play both the role of the duck/leaf and of the fisherman, in that they are frequently peaceful and still, but one is still able to watch them fish, and there is occasional action when a group of tiny buffleheads bully a pair of (much larger) loons. The bald eagles that occasionally visit to fish play the role of active and aggressive members of the lake community, however. Fortunately, stuck at home with my partner, I have my own Walden Pond.

      Comment by Hannah Jewell on March 26, 2020

      This passage is particularly descriptive as Thoreau discusses how he spends some of his free time at night when he is not working. He seems to have a strong connection with nature and at the end he says how he has “made his home by the shore.” I think that they way in which Thoreau chooses to spend his time affects his quality of life. When he spends time in nature, he is all in and focused on the essence around him. This reminds me of when I go camping and I don’t have access to my phone, which forces me to spend quality time in nature with my family.

      Comment by Hannah Jewell on March 26, 2020

      Although this passage is short, I think it has a lot of meaning and potential to it. The line “It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.” To me, this relates a lot to the effect that the current need for social distancing has had on me. It has forced me to find new ways of entertaining myself, including taking more walks outside and taking in nature. Also, I think this relates to the nature of the situation at hand. People all over the world have had to deal with these circumstances in their own ways. I am already starting to see a lot of people saying how they took “normal” life for granted before this all happened. Instead of looking at it as a negative thing, people have gotten creative with it and used it as a learning experience. It is all about the perspective of the “beholder” and how they choose to cope with it and what they take away from this experience.

      Comment by anthony guttilla on March 26, 2020

      Thoreau knows everything about this pond. He knows the size of it, he knows the few colors it turns, he knows what it looks like up close compared to what it looks like far away. Thoreau obviously spent a lot of time at this pond. This paragraph is a good example of showing time because the color will be different in the spring or summer than it would in the summer. In the winter, it would look completely different, especially if it freezes over. He even knows what it looks like from the mountains. Thoreau obviously spent a lot o time at this pond.

      Comment by Alyssa Harrington on March 26, 2020

      I think this passage relates to time since multiple sentences relate back to the physicality of the sunset, and a clock. “the pond rises and falls” the time on a clock goes around to rise and fall in the day. The sun rises and falls every day. Commonly higher in the winter and lower in the summer, just like a sunset takes longer in the summer and is shorter in the winter. “the pond has risen steadily for two years” is related to the amount of climate change occurring on the planet today, and how much time we do not have left if we don’t do something.

      Comment by Mitchell Pace on March 26, 2020

      Thoreau details a spot in nature he loves to go to, whether it be with companions or himself and just immerses himself. This is a spot that he formed an incredibly strong connection with that allows him to detach from society. Even when he has to return to \”the haunts of men again,\” he is home in that spot. In a similar vein, it reminds me of the beach my house is rather close to. At night, there is nothing more relaxing to me than when I walk the boardwalk completely alone, the sound of waves the only partner I have. Like Thoreau, it is a spot that I\’ll occasionally bring others to enjoy, but overall, it is like a home away from home, where I can detach and enjoy nature, away from the virus sweeping the globe and cut off from all the news due to the poor cell reception.

      Comment by Noah Lieberman on March 26, 2020

      It is interesting how despite the importance Thoreau places in his own ability to live by his own terms and without interference from society, he can still find harmony with the company of others. He seems to frequently do so without need for drawn out conversation or any specified activity. This is something my friends and I call being alone together, sharing a space and appreciating our surroundings without feeling compelled to make small talk or do anything in particular. I see a common ground with Thoreau in this regard, the way he appreciates his solitude to a great degree and thrives in it, but also appreciates breaks in isolation to share space with someone else. Variation in the way we spend our time creates appreciation for moments with others and by ourselves in equal measure.

      Comment by Caroline Crimmins on April 2, 2020

      The passage I compared is from the chapter “The Ponds” and is the third paragraph. This paragraph interested me because the Princeton edition had almost twenty lines and two parts, a and b. Version a only had approximately five full lines and only had one part. This paragraph was so small that I was shocked to see how much was cut out from the original Princeton edition. I also realized that there was only one sentence in the paragraph in version a. Although I enjoy Thoreau’s writing, I appreciated how detailed and concise the paragraph in version a was compared to the Princeton edition. I image that others felt this way too because it was produced after the Princeton edition in 1847. Everything after forest was removed in the revised paragraph, which told about his former experience at the pond.
      In the Digital Thoreau version that I am leaving the comment on, I see that Thoreau’s former experiences are listed and that this paragraph is less concise compared to version a. However, it is simplified in comparison to the Princeton edition.

      Comment by Kira Baran on May 8, 2020

      This passage is one of the best examples of nuance and precision within Thoreau’s work. In comparing this passage across the different drafts (particularly draft E and F) of Walden, I noticed this passage experienced several revisions. As minor as these revisions seem at first glance, I believe much insight can be gained from them. For example:

      Towards the end of para. 5, “of an alabaster whiteness, still more unnatural” had been changed from “of an alabaster whiteness, equally unnatural.” By revising comparatives like “equally” and “more,” Thoreau presumably strives for accuracy and precision when comparing how one’s perspective can influence one’s perceptions and, in turn, their evaluations. Be it the color of water in a pond, or a serious matter of discourse when interacting with another person, viewpoint is everything. In order to be able to understand another person who possesses a different viewpoint/perspective than oneself, it is very useful to be able to communicate with precision. Precision aids the active listening (and reading) process. To convey meaning effectively is to communicate as accurately as possible.

      Personally, this passage reminds me of when I took a Geology course and observed how one mineral’s color (its outward appearance) often differs from its streak color (the color of its powder form after being crushed). As Thoreau expresses well, looks can be deceiving. His writing here, regarding the exact colors and tints of the pond water, in a way speaks to a broader truth on perspective and the human experience.

      Comment by Priscilla Ford on May 20, 2020

      In regards to time, I can see many references placed within this paragraph. The pond “rising and falling” obviously happens over time. As the sun sets the pond will set, and as the sun rises the pond will rise. Seasons have an effect on the pond, much like seasons have an effect on humans. People often feel different ways depending on the weather, such does the pond. Higher in the winter and lower in the summer, it all revolves around time and what time can change. The passage is talking about old memories and what those memories mean. Time can change many things and bring people apart or together, but memories are something that time can never change. The White Pond can symbolize a lot, but in terms of time, it can symbolize how you can’t stop a clock, but you can keep the memories created while the clock is ticking.

      Comment by Alec Marshall on February 10, 2021

      I had never seen the term Cenobites before, but learned that refers to members of a monastic community. This means people living under religious vows, which is how many lived during the time as religions were far more prevalent than they are today.

      Comment by Judiah Strouse on February 25, 2022

      A long paragraph describing Walden Pond, it shows Thoreau’s journalistic side very well. He establishes a humble scene for the pond in comparison to the sea, yet still manages to give it a flair that shines in its own way that entices the reader to visit the pond in an instant.

  • Economy 15-29 (78 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 20, 2014

      [what was in the wind]

      Pribeck discusses the many wind images in W, saying, “T consistently uses the wind to symbolize the spirit at the heart of man and nature, both the ‘sublime’ and the ‘mean.'”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 20, 2014

      [have appeared in the Gazette]

      T was probably thinking of Concord’s own Yeoman’s Gazette (1826-1841).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [over the old day-books]

      In several places in his Journal (1, 474; VI, 69) T records his delight in going over old account books of Concord merchants. See the chapter “Winter Animals.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [at undergoing such a roasting]

      “We were well clothed, and though sitting close to the fire, were far from too warm; yet these naked savages, though further off, were observed, to our great surprise, to be streaming with perspiration at undergoing such a roasting” (Charles Darwin, Voyage of a Naturalist Round the World [New York, 1846, I, 284]).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [the New Hollander]

      New Holland was an early name for Australia. T’s reference is to Darwin, Voyage of a Naturalist, 220-1.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [to telegraph]

      Bonner (1969) points out that T is referring to the then prevalent custom of using semaphore to announce the progress of ships along the coast.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [evening on the hill-tops]

      When T lived on Staten Island in 1843, he loved to climb a hilltop and watch the ships coming and going in New York harbor (T, 1958, 99).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [much, and that, manna-wise]

      Manna: the food God provided the children of Israel in the Sinai desert which rained from the heavens (Exodus 16).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [it on my stick too]

      T was probably thinking of Robinson Crusoe’s method of keeping his calendar.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the meeting of two eternities]

      “One life, a little gleam of Time between two Eternities” (Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes and Hero-Worship, lecture V). Tripp (1969) suggests another source in Marcus Aurelius.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [bay horse, and a turtledove]

      See the Appendix.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Confucius said]

      Confucian Analects, II, xvii. For analysis of this and other quotations from Confucius, see Cady.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [what are the grossest groceries]

      Except for the fact that so many have called T “without humor,” it would seem almost pointless to note that he particularly delighted in puns. For a catalog of puns in W, see Skwire.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [ancestors]

      Interestingly enough, when five years after the publication of W Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species, refuting this statement, T became one of the earlier admirers of Darwin’s thesis.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [According to Liebig]

      Justus Liebig (1803-1873), a professor of chemistry at the University of Giessen, wrote many volumes using this metaphor, among them Animal Chemistry (Philadelphia, 1842).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a sort of Elysian life]

      In Greek mythology, Elysium was the home of the virtuous in the afterlife.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [other side of the globe]

      When T wrote his book, the clipper trade with the Orient was at its height.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [à la mode]

      In the current fashion.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [above?—for the nobler plants]

      It was a pet theory of T’s friend and neighbor Bronson Alcott that man’s diet should not be confined to vegetables merely, but to those species of plants that showed their higher nature by growing up toward the sun and not down into the earth. Thus one should eat corn, but not carrots, which were considered “humbler” (Sears, 39)

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [like the humbler esculents]

      The carrot, for instance.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [of men who are discontented]

      T once again calls the reader’s attention to the fact that he is addressing his book not to the general public but to a special audience – those who are dissatisfied with their present life.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [own golden or silver fetters]

      “A fool I to him firmly hold, that loves his fetters though they were of gold” (Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III, vii).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [enterprise, farmers starting for Boston]

      Many Concord farmers raised crops especially for the Boston market.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [was reporter to a journal]

      T may be referring facetiously either to his own journal, which was not published until forty-four years after his death, or to the Dial, whose editors, Emerson and Margaret Fuller, rejected a number of his contributions, and whose circulation never exceeded several hundred.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [I was self-appointed inspector]

      T felt the day was wasted if he did not spend at least four or five hours walking in the woods and fields of Concord, taking note of the world of nature. In his later years he became more and more concerned with keeping a precise record of the progress of the seasons and, with the urging of Bronson Alcott, hoped to publish an “Adas of Concord” with a complete record of its natural phenomena. He died before he was able to do this.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [did my duty faithfully; surveyor]

      For the last ten or fifteen years of his life, T earned a large portion of his income by surveying (Chase).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [grape and the yellow violet]

      All of these species were rarities in Concord and so especially cherished.

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 20, 2014

      There is a duplication of the last two sentences in this paragraph.

      It is sometimes said that a miracle is the action of a higher world’s law operating in a lower world (as presented in Edwin Abbott’s Flatland for example), yet this is truly what is happening when we contemplate phenomena deeply. I sense the influence of Goethe’s Italian Journey, where the young Goethe is struck by the concept of the Archetypal Plant.

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 20, 2014

      To adventure on life is a sweet call for us embark upon the Hero’s journey.

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 20, 2014

      ..to embark

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 20, 2014

      I don’t think Thoreau is measuring time here in any way, or passing time to be specific. To be purely perceptive of, and attuned through the senses to the present moment where one is in that moment, as opposed to being of it, is a critical faculty to possess. Thoreau often refers to the lack of this faculty as being asleep, slumbering, or not experiencing or anticipating the dawn. His quality of attentiveness to where he is inwardly and outwardly in the moment is what brings forth the intuitive moment of the philosopher. I often wonder if his “hound, bay horse, and turtle dove” in the paragraph that follows is in reference to his head, heart, and hand working in concert within any moment? The hound dog being the intellectual capacity to sense, track, and be attentive to the moment, while the bay horse represents the emotional fortitude of the heart to be open and free of like/dislike, while the turtle dove represent the loving hand of wisdom responding humbly to what might be a moment of grace. The obscurities and secrets of this trade resonate well with what the perennial philosophies have been intimating throughout the ages, and what Thoreau is truly after in his experiment called Walden.

      Comment by Digital Thoreau on December 20, 2014

      Thanks for pointing out the duplicated sentence! We’ve fixed it. We know that there are other instances scattered throughout our text and are on the look out for them.

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 21, 2014

      I really like the comment on Pribeck’s take on Thoreau’s symbolic use of wind; I had never carried that image before but I will now take note! A good one -thanks. 

      Comment by Keith Badger on January 2, 2015

      [It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.] 

      The key work here is practical; something in short order these days.

      Comment by Keith Badger on January 2, 2015

      [I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it.]

      Living in the moment inwardly, with attention to both worlds (outer & inner) is truly more important than merely being the witness to the physical event. The dawn thus rises in Thoreau I believe, regadless of actual time of day.

      Comment by Joshua Brand on November 2, 2015

      This is saying that when people start attaining material luxuries they develop a need to only gather more and can never truly appreciate what they have. I believe it results from the nature of luxuries. They serve no true purpose in our survival, but solely act as a comfort item we spend resources and labor on. In a way it validates the amount of time and energy we spend working jobs that make us feel detached from ourselves.

      Comment by Stephanie Jacob on November 2, 2015

      This section talks a lot about going beyond the basic necessities of life. He talks about specific things in this passage that are important to living comfortably.

      Comment by Aliza Curtis on November 2, 2015

      [à la mode]

      Could this be an example of where Thoreau uses humor to balance his instruction?

      Comment by Alexandra Pownall on November 2, 2015

      [None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.]

      An explanation as to why Thoreau felt it necessary to live in the woods on his own for two years, in order to grasp a better understanding of human life. With less distractions there is more clarity.

      Comment by Brooke Dehlinger on November 2, 2015

      [but mainly to the mass of men who are discontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of their lot or of the times, when they might improve them]

      Thoreau implies that most of man kind are living their lives continuously unhappy while looking for ways to better it. He then goes on to say that the worst type of poverty is from the wealthy, that have so much but still live their lives with desire. It seems that this desire isn’t the desire for warmth and necessities previously talked about, but a desire to live a complete, happy life, that every man- no matter how rich or poor- strives to obtain.

      Comment by Kimberly Leffler on November 2, 2015

      [The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us!]

       

      Humans are made to make themselves look better than they are for society. Those who are well off exaggerate and make it sound as if they did all of the necessary work by themselves to get where they are but this is not always the case. The backbone of big companies are its workers, and deserve their fair cut of the praise.

      Comment by Brooke Dehlinger on November 2, 2015

      [ I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment;]

      T talks about trying to better the present moment. He then describes the present as being the in-between of the future and the past. This speaks to the way society thinks, always reminiscing about the past of having anxiety towards the future. Learning how to live in the present could lead to self fulfillment.

      Comment by Jackie Moore on November 2, 2015

      [We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick? How vigilant we are! determined not to live by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties. ]

      This particular sentence reminds me of a connection with Diderot . Thoreau talks about how we go through the motions of life, doing our labor, having families and lives and our faith and yet at the end of the day we all submit ourselves to persistent uncertainty. This goes with the argument that I and Him have in Rameaus Nephew. I argues for an ethical and moral lifestyle, doing what is right and going through the traditional motions of living while in contrast Him does whatever he needs through whichever ever means to get what he needs and wants. in these two situations, I lives the life of uncertainty that Thoreau speaks of in this passage, whereas Him is not uncertain as he will always do whatever needs to be done in order to have that certainty, he is not deterred for moral or ethical or societal reasons. If Thoreau were to have read Rameau’s Nephew i think Thoreau would agree with the beliefs and lifestyle of Him. Him uses what he has to accomplish his goals. He works with the skills he has been  given and is able to manipulate himself and his environment to remove the uncertainties that most experience in life.

      Comment by Brooke Dehlinger on November 2, 2015

      The difference between Thoreau’s opinion of poverty as being deprived of self actualization and happiness, compared to Marx’s opinion that poverty is purely based off of monetary standing and fulfilling basic needs for life

       

      Comment by Sean Fischer on November 2, 2015

      In paragraph 15, T begins to describe man’s relationship to nature. He acknowledges how man puts faith in nature to just work correctly, recognizing that humanity does not understand nature as well as it should. He ends by invoking the notion of miracles, and suggests, through the use of his Confucius quote, that man has adopted a sort of ignorance or stupidity towards the natural world, which in turn seeps into man’s daily life.

      T’s claim seems like a logical preface to some of Pope Francis’ claims in Laudato si. Pope Francis calls on man to recognize what he already knows about nature and make political and economic changes based on that knowledge. The Pope rationalizes his suggestions by emphasizing the relationship between humanity and nature, arguing that no matter how far removed we try to make ourselves from the natural world, we are very much a part of it. T sees this inherent connection to the natural world, which is why he calls out his peers for choosing to live in ignorance towards the world around them.

      T does not acknowledge the economic and political realities of thinking in such a way, but failing to do so makes sense when considering the state of political development still being carried out in T’s lifetime. Further, the lack of understanding that T describes would, in turn, suggest a lack of knowledge about the specific needs for the persistence of life on Earth.

      As we read historically back towards Pope Francis’ encyclical, it is interesting to consider how T is the first writer we have encountered who starts to make specific claims about the philosophical relationship between humanity and nature. Up to this point, the writers we have considered have chosen to primarily reframe the man/nature relationship as a pragmatic concern (Locke) or social-economic issue (Marx). It will be interesting to see if T’s genuine anxiety about the state of this man/nature relationship continues to build as we move closer to Francis’ similar worries.

      Comment by Stephanie Jacob on November 2, 2015

      Thoreau starts off by defining the term “necessary of life” which are all the things a man acquires in his life that is essential for his growth and well-being. This relates to Locke’s views on the importance of property to an individual, that it is everything pertaining to life, including life itself.

      In regards to the individual, he talks about the different necessaries of life (food, clothing, shelter etc.) and how important it is to said individual. Man has taken those raw materials and developed it into something valuable, such as fire for warmth and cooking food & materials to make houses. These necessaries are a man’s own private property, which is something exempt from the government and is an end within itself

      Comment by Aliza Curtis on November 2, 2015

      Although Thoreau asks us to think about the advantages of leading a primitive lifestyle, even while living within society, he seems to be emphasizing that it would be most beneficial to do so if the only reason were to learn of the basic necessities of life and how our ancestors have obtained and lived by them. This would somehow enrich our virtues. This idea is very similar to the discussion of philosophers’ lifestyles (in contrast to the luxurious life of many in society) and Greek Diogenes in Diderot’s Rameaus Nephew. Diogrenes  was sustained by the basic but plentiful resources in nature.  Both Diderot and Thoreau may have agreed that these philosophers were better off – both physically and in virtue (“the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meager life than the poor”).  Also, to introduce another opinion to the discussion we can observe that John Locke, in his second treatise, valued nature for what it provided for human sustenance, yet did not express the same feeling as Thoreau,  that the luxuries and comforts of life were “hindrances to the elevation of mankind”. Locke did affirm that hoarding food or goods was taking away from the rest of society, but made no critique of these actions that would likely result with the introduction of currency in his chapter on private property.

      Comment by Shiho Azuma on November 4, 2015

      The idea here is similar to Pope Francis’s encyclical: “Living creatures only need food and shelter to survive.” However, only humans value luxury, which is destroying the nature which all the creatures live in. Thoreau believes minimizing one’s needs is preferable and identifies only four necessities: food, shelter, clothing, and fuel. Since nature itself does much to provide these, a person willing to accept the basic gifts of nature can live off the land with minimal toil. Any attempt at luxury is likely to prove more a hindrance than a help to an individual’s improvement.

      Comment by Justine Capozzi on April 22, 2016

      I agree with Thoreau when he says “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.” I think that this applys perfectly to today’s society because many people are primarily concerned with obtaining the newest technology rather than reflecting on ways to improve humanity.

      Comment by William Foley on April 27, 2016

      I find it so interesting that although most people think of Thoreau in such a simple-minded way that suggests he just wants to “escape society”, when even he acknowledges one of his basic needs as fuel. I think it is extremely interesting that he went into Nature and attempted to live deliberately, although he was only a mile and a half from town, and quite close to the railroad.

      What i like most about HDT is that he attempts to reconnect individuals with Nature in the places where they actually reside. It is less about rebelling and “leaving society” for Nature, and more about just being present in your environment and living deliberately not only in the place that you are, but the actual physical SPACE. It makes the conclusions he makes much more realistic, and is a response to those critics who try to bash him for being too much of an idealist.

      Comment by William Foley on April 27, 2016

      I find it so interesting that most people think of Thoreau in such a simple-minded way that suggests he just wants to “escape society”, even though he acknowledges himself one of his basic needs is fuel. I think it is extremely interesting that he went into Nature and attempted to live deliberately, although he was only a mile and a half from town, and quite close to the railroad (both ‘civilized’ entities).

      What i like most about Thoreau is that he attempts to reconnect individuals with Nature in the places where they actually reside. It is less about rebelling and “leaving society” for Nature, and more about just being present in your environment and living deliberately not only in the place that you are, but the actual physical SPACE. It makes the conclusions he makes much more realistic, and is a response to those critics who try to bash him for being too much of an idealist.

      Comment by Debra Schleef on September 23, 2017

      [Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind]

      This notion he would share with a lot of communards.

      Comment by Debra Schleef on September 23, 2017

      [voluntary poverty]

      I’ve encountered a different phrase that takes this a bit further in a somewhat obtuseness about being poor — “clever poverty.”

      Comment by Maureen Sullivan on September 24, 2017

      [ Leave a comment on paragraph 19 6 Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meager life than the poor.]

      Thoreau notes how the comforts and luxuries of our lives often hinder us from its true beauty. He explains how the wisest of us have lived with few to none of these in order to truly experience life. He views luxuries as a road block in the way of the advancement of mankind because it distracts and deters from growth.

      Comment by Cody McDaniel on September 25, 2017

      Thoreau makes a good point here that luxuries quickly blind us and can make us stupid. Also Thoreau’s understanding of philosophers is a good one because it requires words being put into action to make them fully real.

      Comment by Elisabeth Strand on October 26, 2017

      [ It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.]

      If the practical solution Thoreau proposes  is to live a life of cultivated poverty close to nature, I wonder how that would look on a grand scale?

      Comment by Benjamin Fritz on October 26, 2017

      I find it interesting that fuel is given as a necessity of life. Thousands of years ago we needed it no more than any other animal. If stripped of everything now could people survive without it or have we become so dependent on it that it would be imposible?

      Comment by Benjamin Fritz on October 26, 2017

      Many religions believe that it is the act of giving up material possessions that leads to enlightenment. So through becoming poor they may indeed be becoming clever or perhaps wise is a more apt term.

      Comment by Andrew Shutes on September 10, 2018

      [Confucius said, “To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men at length establish their lives on that basis.]

      This passage is a perfect example of the “they say/I say” technique discussed by Graff and Birkenstein in their book. Thoreau quotes a famous philosopher to establish a basis for his argument and then smoothly transitions to his own interpretation of Confucius’ ideas. I found this passage particularly effective in that Thoreau places the quote near the end of the paragraph, where it nearly summarizes what has been said previously and leaves the reader with succinct, thought provoking idea.

      Comment by Nat Hilts on September 10, 2018

      [So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are a many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.]

      Change is an essential component to both life and narrative. Without change, a life is stagnant: comfortable, but lacking. Without change, a story lacks movement and purpose. Thoreau points out that humans have a tendency to get fixed on what they’re accustomed to, but presses the idea that there is never only one way to do things nor to perceive things. He goes on to say that “all men at length establish their lives on that basis,” that is, whatever it is someone perceives to be fact. Perceived reality becomes that person’s reality, and this can be drawn back to MacIntyre’s point of ‘accountability’ and the narrative form of our lives.

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 10, 2018

      [Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel; for not till we have secured these are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life with freedom and a prospect of success. ]

      Thoreau is referring to the Triangle of Needs. The basis logic of the triangle is a set of needs a person must cultivate in their environment to reach their full potential. The base of the triangle are the primary needs, or “physiological” needs (Food, water, warmth, rest). Second layer being safety, third being beloningness, fourth being esteem and the final being self actualization. Thoreau basically says that a person must be in an environment which promotes self cultivation to truly flourish.

      Comment by Una McGowan on September 11, 2018

      [So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are a many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre.]

      This passage illustrates MacIntyre’s stance on accountability. Here, Thoreau describes how people may just sit back and let life happen, but they are still responsible for what happens in their lives and are constantly responsible for every change, which happens at every moment of the day. Every decision a person makes, no matter how small, affects the course of their life in unfathomable ways.

      Comment by Adriana Straughter on September 11, 2018

      Maybe he’s trying to reach a certain apart of his readers. The fact that he’s separating sections of people

      Comment by John Serbalik on September 11, 2018

      His attempt to enter the narrative is exhibited here, where he addresses the principal audience as those men who are not content with their lives regardless of their wealth. He further explains how he is entering the conversation, in the next paragraph, by recognizing that some people may be surprised to learn how he has lived.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      The simplicity in which others have lived their live’s is in fact what allows them to live their lives. No to add pressures implemented but things that have no true “value.”

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      Thoreau is not proclaiming that all must practice what he is preaching, he is saying for “those of you who are discontent with life’s hassle,” “try this way of living and thinking.”

      Comment by Shakira Browne on October 1, 2018

      [ We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us!]

      test comment

      Comment by Justin Colleran on February 11, 2020

      [All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, “To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men at length establish their lives on that basis.]

      Thoreau talks about the idea of miracles and how man has put false hope in them. Since we believe that nature should work a certain way, we let it blind us to what is really going on. This is best seen in the quote by Confucius. In this quote, it is suggested that man has chosen to believe in false ideas about the world.

      Comment by Mitchell Pace on February 12, 2020

      Thoreau speaks of pain being the reward for his labor, a premise that would sound horrible to anyone reading this today. But looking deeper, a man who has his work barely published, in a journal with small circulation, that man gets experience and a push to improve. Today, we have such a desire for instant gratification that most people who found themselves in a situation like this would get fed up. Thoreau seemingly praises the benefits of hard work, even without the promise of reward. Hard work and improvement is the reward, and you can tell how Thoreau is grateful for the experience and improvements it led to.

      Comment by Rachel Beck on February 12, 2020

      This particular paragraph stands out to me because Thoreau is implying that luxuries, like the technology that we have today, are “not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind”. This is because luxuries often blind us. When it’s easy for someone to acquire luxuries, they stop appreciating what they actually have. Technology makes things so simple for us and many people don’t acknowledge that. However, when someone does take the time to acknowledge it, if they use the power of technology for good (such as improving humanity or gaining knowledge), does it still mean that luxuries are positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind? Thoreau explains that the wisest of mankind live simple, meager lives, and one can only be wise from the vantage ground of voluntary poverty. But is that really true? I understand that with less distractions, there is typically more clarity, but is clarity genuinely what makes an individual wise?

      Comment by Emma Annonio on February 12, 2020

      “I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.” While Thoreu is relating this line to the lives of humans in reference to labor and their livelihoods, it is very true of the relationships we carry today with technology. Humans rely on and put trust in their laptops, cellphones, gps, cars, home security systems, and more to ensure they live the most “simple” life of all. We turn over all of our responsibilities to machines that we truly do not understand. Thoreau goes on to say, “We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us!” This is entirely true of civilization today. As I am typing this right now, the programs that make up my computer are computing my words into the language that will be read on the internet. As I make presentations for other classes, I might be the one writing the words, but my computer is behind the scenes making the presentation possible. When I drive back to Long Island for winter break, it is not I doing all of that work, it is my car taking the toll of the 7 hr ride and it is my gps doing the work of finding the safest way to travel. Thoreau is right,as humans we have put too much faith in the things we do not understand, and we do not give these the things the credit they deserve for the work they do. He goes on to talk about change, and everyday our technology is changing and advancing to a status humans never thought possible. The idea of a self driving car is absurd to most of us, but who wouldn’t want to take a long trip in a Tesla? Have all of these advancements made our lives more “simple” in the sense that we no longer have to exert as much energy to write out directions before heading off, or using a pen and paper to write an essay without spell check? Or have these advancements made our lives more complicated than ever, increasing our anxiety by the minute because of the unknown. Ever had your laptop shut down as you wrote the last sentence of a 10 page paper that didn’t have autosave? It is a bad feeling. We have become so reliant and trusting of our technology to protect and serve us that the minute there is a glitch in the system, our lives turn to chaos. 
       

      Comment by Joshua Mora on February 12, 2020

      When one thinks about the past, especially in regards to their own being, very few people can say they were not incredibly different people from who they are now. People probably once had different dreams, aspirations, and even hobbies five years ago. In the digital age of social media, where privacy is very much replaced by public posts and captions, we in a way have a timeline of years pasts documenting the kind of person we were to the world. A lot of the time, people post things without thinking about the future. Many influencers or even the average person on social media can look back at a post a couple years and think why did they even consider posting this. Or the may say that they were so different back then, wanting different things and had a different intent with their posts. This is why people are shocked when they scroll down all the way to someone’s first instgram post and say things like “they’ve changed so much” or “they would never say something like this  today”. This small paragraph is able to encompass all this, and connects to how online our past posts can surprise those who get a glimpse in our pasts and what they wanted to show their followers or the world.

      Comment by Anne Baranello on April 27, 2020

      What caught my eye about this paragraph was when Thoreau stated that there are no longer philosophers in this world, but rather only professors of philosophy. This is an interesting statement because it is true, but not a distinction that many people can make. Walden was written in 1846, and Thoreau is referring to the philosophers that were ancient then, and even more ancient to us now – Socrates, Aristotle, etc. In today’s modern society, I don’t think there are any real philosophers. There are, of course, the innovative thinkers that write things that can shift the course of society, but nothing is strong/powerful enough to entirely shift a society’s way of thinking.

      Comment by Lauren Beers on May 12, 2020

      The idea of us becoming dependent on our new ideas and inventions is one that is widely seen today. Even a simple power outage can cause mass panic due to the overwhelming dependence we have developed on our technology. This also feeds into the idea of our technology making us “soft”. The way in which our advancements help us often has to do with conveniences. We often find ways to do things faster and easier, leaving the skill that it would’ve taken without our advancements in the past. This leaves us unprepared for when our advancements are taken away.

      Comment by Jose Romero on May 13, 2020

      The first sentence of this section really spoke to the ways in which people have become more invested in materialistic items in society. As Thoreau describes, “most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.” As we learned in Gleick’s first few chapters, technology is evolving and many people are investing not only their money but time into learning more about technological gadgets. While technology is helping a lot of people advance their businesses, education, and day to day life, it is also hindering human connections and has a lot of drawbacks. The question then becomes, “should we view technology as a luxury?” What even is considered a piece of technology?

      Comment by Julianna Larue on January 27, 2022

      [What is the nature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? ]

      Capitalism thrives luxury. Capitalism and consumerism destroy nations.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on January 31, 2022

      Good connection to now, Julianna. Thoreau was warning people against getting into debt (farmers or anyone), which he saw as compromising one’s freedom. Collectively, debt weakened (still weakens) a nation. But if Thoreau were alive today, he would be appalled at how consumerism ravages the land (the nation).

      Comment by Zachary Vandecar on February 12, 2022

      [ but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. ]

      I’m not sure wisdom only dictates ” a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.” I think there are other wise paths to life.

  • Sounds 12-22 (73 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [all the way from Long Wharf]

      One of Boston’s major wharves, the probable destination of much of the freight shipped down past Walden Pond from northern and western New England.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [Lake Champlain]

      A large lake on the Vermont-New York border. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [reminding me of foreign parts]

      In the Sartain’s Union Magazine version of these paragraphs, “parts” reads “ports,” which makes more sense, but Shanley has assured me that it reads “parts” in the manuscript.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [at the sight of the palm-leaf]

      Again, the summer hats made from palm leaves that were popular at that time. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [the Manilla hemp and cocoa-nut husks]

      Cocoa-nut husks: used in making matting, particularly doormats. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [gunny bags]

      Gunny is a coarse material made from jute and used for making sacks.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [This car-load of torn sails]

      Old cloth was frequently pulverized and used in the making of good quality paper for books.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [lumber from the Maine woods]

      T frequently visited the Maine woods, where he saw the results of spring freshets on lumber being floated down to the mills: logs strewn high along the banks or washed out to sea.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [Next rolls Thomaston lime]

      Thomaston, Maine, one of the primary sources of lime in T’s day.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [before it gets slacked]

      More commonly spelled “slaked.”    

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [now no longer cried up]

      Cried up: praised.    

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [reminding me of the Grand Banks]

      An extensive shoal southeast of New-foundland, the Grand Banks is the major fishing ground of New England fishermen.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [thoroughly cured for this world]

      T, in Cape Cod, describes in detail the fish-curing process. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [as a Concord trader once did]

      Emerson, in his Journal (V, 36-7), says that T told him this storekeeper was Deacon Parkman.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [whether it be animal, vegetable, or mineral]

      T was probably thinking of the old parlor game Twenty Questions, in which all substances are classified as animal, vegetable, or mineral. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [will come out an excellent dun fish]

      A cod that has turned dun colored (dingy brown) in the curing process. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [retain its natural form]

      Charles Wilkins, trans., Fables and Proverbs from the Sanskrit Being the Hitopadesa, “The Lion and the Rabbit,” chap. II, fable IX. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [Here is a hogshead of molasses]

      Another of T’s numerous puns.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [Cuttingsville, Vermont]

      Although there is a Cuttingsville, Vermont, a village in the town of Shrewsbury, according to the town clerk there has never been a Cuttingsville Times, and while several John Smiths have lived there, none ever ran a store.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [“to be the mast Of some great ammiral”]

      Milton, Paradise Lost, I, 293-4.    

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [the cattle of a thousand hills]

      “The cattle upon a thousand hills” (Psalms 50:10).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [do indeed skip like rams]

      “The mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like lambs” (Psalms 114:4). 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [Peterboro’ Hills]

      A range of hills in southwestern New Hampshire, visible from Concord.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [And the blackberries a-growing]

      T’s own poem.    

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [women their ancient u-lu-lu]

      The word seems to have been adapted by T from the Latin word ulalo, to howl.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [Their dismal scream is truly]

      T was probably thinking of “Wee give thee a shout: Hoo!” (Ben Jonson, Masque of Queens, II, 317-8).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [Wise midnight hags!]

      “How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags?” (Macbeth, IV, i, 47).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [honest and blunt tu-whit tu-who of the]

      “Then nightly sings the staring owl, ‘Tu- whit, tu-who!”‘ (Love’s Labour’s Lost, V, ii, 911)

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n!]

      “Allas! that I was born!” (Chaucer, The Book of the Duchess, I, 686). 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [who has left hope behind]

      “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here” (Dante, Inferno, 3.1.g).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [where the double spruce stands]

      In his own copy of W, T corrected this from “single spruce.” Double spruce is an old name for the black spruce, the common spruce of the New England swamps, found in the neighborhood of Concord. The single or white spruce is more northerly in its range. Adding irony to T’s confusion of the species is the statement in his Journal (VI, 22) for December 22, 1853, before W was published. “It is remarkable how few inhabitants of Concord can tell a spruce from a fir, and probably not two a white from a black spruce, unless they are together.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [sing a catch in their Stygian lake]

      In Greek mythology, the river Styx encircled Hades, so Stygian refers to the lower world.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [The most aldermanic, with his]

      Aldermen are often caricatured with vast bellies.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [has gulped down to his mark]

      In drinking bouts it was customary to pass around a large cup with marks on the inside to indicate how much each man was expected to drink.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [the patriarch is not under the pond]

      That is, under the table.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [Who would not be early to rise]

      “Early to bed and early to rise / Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise” (Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1757).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [Even the sailor on the Atlantic]

      Cape Cod ship captains often took a coop of hens along on their whaling vessels to provide fresh meat and eggs.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [the whippoorwills chanted]

      A nocturnal bird (Caprimulgus vociferns), once common in the eastern United States, that often rested on house roofs at night to sing.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [a screech-owl or a cat-owl behind it]

      Now known as the great horned owl.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [Not even a lark or an oriole]

      The meadowlark, a common resident of New England fields. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [Instead of a scuttle]

      Scuttle: a kind of bucket for carrying coal and other objects.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 30, 2014

      [gate in the Great Snow]

      Another reference to Cotton Mather’s Great Snow.

      Comment by Katie Allen on April 23, 2014

       [a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized] I sometimes have a hard time understanding how Thoreau feels about mankind. It’s clear that he thinks simplicity is key, and that he believes in not only living within one’s means, but by being so frugal, one can survive on almost nothing. And yet, isn’t he himself living on someone else’s land for free? Also, he does a fair amount of advising and criticizing of mankind, like here when he says, “… suggesting a vast and undeveloped nature which men have not recognized,” and in many other places in the text. It’s hard to say whether he is a hypocrite, a genius, a lover, a hater, or somehow all of the above.

      Comment by Jeffrey Cramer on April 24, 2014

      Thoreau’s not living on someone else’s land for free. He’s living on Emerson’s land but he bartered for permission to live there, doing work for Emerson, including the planting on pine trees on Emerson’s land (a wood lot). In fact, Thoreau never lived for free anywhere.

      Comment by Melissa Rao on January 31, 2015

      [Who would not be early to rise, and rise earlier and earlier every successive day of his life, till he became unspeakably healthy, wealthy, and wise?] This particular sentence struck me because I felt that it was a striking contrast to the mindset on sleep that we have in today’s society.  High school and college age students face a daily struggle to complete their assignments and get off the internet before the crack of dawn, and as a consequence of this usually wind up sleeping until the afternoon hours.  I believe that the Internet, smart phones, gaming devices, and other technologies play a large role as to why many people’s sleep schedules have reverted to almost a nocturnal state, and it seems that because Thoreau is not faced with these technologies, or even the technologies of his own time, he cannot seem to understand why others would not want to or be able to follow the exact regimen that he does.  The contrast between Thoreau’s life in the woods and the way that we live in 2015 is a continuous theme throughout Walden.

      Comment by Darby Daly on February 3, 2015

      I kept neither dog, cat, cow, pig, nor hens, so that you would have said there was a deficiency of domestic sounds; neither the churn, nor the spinning wheel, nor even the singing of the kettle, nor the hissing of the urn, nor the children crying to comfort one. An old-fashioned man would have lost his senses or died of ennui before this. 

      This particular passage stood out to me the most for multiple reasons. It made me put a new perspective on the loneliness of Walden Pond. The average person is so used to those sounds that we don’t necessarily notice them anymore, however; we would notice it more if we didn’t hear them on a daily basis. By saying that an “old-fashioned man would have lost his senses or died of ennui before this”, is essentially referring to the idea of not being able to survive after becoming accustomed to the every day scenarios by which average societies deal with. Having such a simplified lifestyle could really make a difference for those of us who are more accustomed to, in a sense, our chaotic lives. We don’t take the time to appreciate quiet because we don’t really know what true quietness is. By pointing out the difference of sounds at Walden Pond, Thoreau is demonstrating what it is that we take for granted in our every day lives, such as domestic animals and house noises. It is a strong, but reasonable point that Thoreau makes through the idea of domestic sounds.

       

      Comment by Aran Fox on February 4, 2015

      The ring of the transcendental heart resounds in the paragraph. Mentions of the sounds of nature, its tranquility and beauty, abound. Mentions of “our woods” and a “walk in a winter morning” inspire imagery of a simple life. However, I begin to wonder how this natural spiritualism is reconciled with the apparent intellectual arrogance of Reading. Thoreau seems to believe that any claim of intellectualism is voided by the virtue of the mere act of reading the great authors. “The student may read Homer or Æschylus in the Greek without danger of dissipation or luxuriousness, for it implies that he in some measure emulate their heroes, and consecrate morning hours to their pages,” Thoreau remarks in Reading. I suppose these interacts with his transcendentalist dream by accessing the soul of the reader. The reader is entertained not by the hustle and bustle of the world around, but instead by the authors of antiquity, judged in an obviously subjective way as “heroic,” and therefore worth reading. I again can’t help but noting a “chicken-and-the-egg” type logical inconsistency. Are the writers heroic because they are worthwhile, or worthwhile because they are heroic?

      Leave a comment on paragraph 3

      Comment by Kaitlin Pfundstein on February 8, 2015

      This is powerful, in my opinion, as on homage to just how alone Thoreau was.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on October 1, 2015

      [Milwaukie]

      On Thoreau’s spelling, see the following explanation from the online project, “Information Infrastructure: Methods of Information Transfer in Nineteenth Century Wisconsin”:

      “Until 1835, when the Milwaukie Post Office was established under Postmaster Solomon Juneau, there was no standard way to spell the name of the city. Juneau preferred ‘Milwaukie,’ so that is what he used. Between 1833-1843 the name appeared on maps, in newspapers, and in correspondence with a variety of spellings, including Miliwaki, Milawakee, Milwaki, Milwaukee, Milwalky, and Milwauk, as well as the version favored by Postmaster Juneau, a Democrat.

      “In 1843, Josiah A. Noonan, a Whig, was elected postmaster. Postmaster Noonan preferred the spelling ‘Milwaukee,’ and changed all date stamps to reflect his preference. Noonan lost the office to Juneau in 1849, and with a Democrat back in charge the name reverted to ‘Milwaukie’. Two successive postmasters retained that spelling, but Noonan regained the office in 1853 and once again the name was changed to ‘Milwaukee’ on the date stamps.

      “1857 saw another change, as Noonan was defeated by Democrat J. R. Sharpstein. Although Sharpstein held office for only one year, he succeeded in changing the date stamps back to ‘Milwaukie’ once again. The change stayed in effect until the end of 1861. Meanwhile, in 1860, the new Republican party, successor to the Whigs, had soundly defeated the Democrats in most areas of the city’s political arena. In 1862, the name was changed for the last time. Through use by exclusively Republican postmasters over several decades, Milwaukee has become the accepted, ‘non-partisan’ spelling used today.”

      Comment by Jonathan Senchyne on January 2, 2016

      Jeffrey Cramer gives the following note in his, Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition, (2004, Yale UP), noting that Thoreau’s sense of Milwaukee’s temporal delay in fashionability may have come from his reading of Fuller’s Summer on the Lakes: “Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which in Thoreau’s day was a rapidly growing city, but would not have had the same fashion sense as Boston or New York. Thoreau may have had in mind Margaret Fuller’s Summer on the Lakes, in 1843, in which she wrote that Milwaukee ‘‘promises to be, some time,a fine one. . . . During the fine weather, the poor refugees arrive daily, in their national dresses, all travel-soiled and worn.’”

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      Well…that got dark…

      This chapter really focuses on the environment in which Thoreau lived and how he felt it connected to things that he missed it seems, as well as evaluating how humans in a sense imitate nature and vice versa.

      Comment by Kira Baran on February 25, 2020

      The concept that certain sounds are a \”natural melody\” that mimic \”the voice of the wood\” is thought-provoking. Thoreau seems to differentiate between natural sounds and artificial, or man-made, sounds, and bases sounds\’ value/worth/likeability upon how nature-like and organic the sound is.

      Bells, such as wind chimes or church bells, are described here in a positively connotative way: natural and pleasant to the ear. While church bells and chiming clock towers (such as those often heard on college campuses) still adhere to a universally \”natural\” and pleasant melody as Thoreau describes, not all clocks today do. Digital clocks have replaced analog clocks–and so, too, have digital sounds replaced analog sounds. Today\’s technology means that the man-made sounds of a constant \”tick-tick\” of a clock, or the shrill electronic ring of an alarm clock, have replaced more organic chiming tones. While most cellphones give the option of choosing more soothing sounding alarms and ringtones, many people just use the default sounds. This is an interesting topic to investigate, as some studies and health-related articles suggest that stress levels and shrill alarm/ringtone noises are correlated. It begs the question: do digital sounds have a negative impact on our health and stress levels?

      Comment by Danielle Crowley on February 25, 2020

      I feel like this is one of the first times that Thoreau is actually feeling alone. I feel that while he discusses it frequently and there are various mentions of his seclusion, this is the first time that I feel as if he is feeling the affects of that seclusion.

      This also makes me think about the need humans have for human interaction. Its a known fact that we are a social species, we need interaction with other intelligence beings and we have to build relationships with people – going to long without that starts to affect oneself. This is the first time I have read Walden, so it makes me wonder if Thoreau will reflect on this in the coming chapters or if the prolonged seclusion he subjected himself to will not be mentioned.

      Comment by Emma Annonio on February 25, 2020

      Thoreau reveals in paragraph 14 that once the noise passes, and the world becomes quiet again he feels the most alone. The train tracks and freight trains cross near his pond, and the sounds and vibrations are noticeable in his small cabin. Before reading this chapter, I expected that Thoreau would express his frustration with the abundant noises new and advanced technology have brought, but so far he seems to be at peace and enjoys hearing the noises. He details that the whistle blowing from the train marks the beginning and end of a work day, and has become comfortable with hearing this sound everyday. Similarly, I live down the block from the train station and during peak times, while I cannot hear the train itself, I notice an increase of cars honking and driving past my house, people walking past my home engaging in conversations whilst arriving home from work. These sounds often signify to me that my father will be home soon, that my mom is about to cook dinner, or that it is time to feed my pets. In the morning I have gotten used to these noises as I have lived on this busy street my entire life. On snow days I notice the quiet more than usual because nobody is about and about; snow days have always been my favorite days because of how quiet and peaceful they are – I have never considered what the world would sound like if we didn’t have technology. Now as I am writing this, I am irritated by the buzzing of my fridge, my roommates loud typing, and the hum of the TV in the living room. I am so used to all of these sounds that I am able to block them out; I wonder if this has made me more numb or more sensitive to the sound of nature. Without technology, I would be able to enjoy the birds chirping, the sound of snow falling, and the sound of the wind whistling through the trees – all sounds I do not “hear” often as the sound of technology is overstimulating. Unlike Thoreau, the lack of sound doesn’t make me feel lonely; If anything, the quiet motivates me to do more.

      Comment by Jaffre Aether on February 25, 2020

      [At evening, the distant lowing of some cow in the horizon beyond the woods sounded sweet and melodious, and at first I would mistake it for the voices of certain minstrels by whom I was sometimes serenaded, who might be straying over hill and dale;]

      I really like this line because it reminds me of the most natural place I frequented over the summer. My friends and I always drove far out from our town to this nice sequestered spot in the Finger Lakes National Forest, and the first thing we would notice and talk about were the cows that lazed about 40 feet from the parking lot. We felt a distance from the cows too, but it wasn’t the same difference Thoreau felt. Our distance came from the fence, hitched with some kind of gizmo, that thoroughly alienated us from the herd. We never remarked on it, but the moos rang hollow to us when we knew that we would never be able to touch them or feed them. I think Thoreau touches on this subtly as well. We need a note of authenticity in the song of the moo. Nature has to be revealed to us in naked glory, not hidden behind an electric fence, humming its discordant note.

      Comment by Sandy Brahaspat on February 25, 2020

      Thoreau’s sentiment about feeling alone once the restless world drifts away reminds me of my initial transition from living in a big city to studying in a small town. Long gone were the obnoxious vendors, honking of the impatient taxi-drivers, and screech of the overhead trains as they made their routine stops. And while at first I enjoyed the peaceful small town appeal with church bells chiming every so often, the silence became overwhelmly deafening. In our small college town, there isn’t an urgent need for public transportation because there isn’t a demand for it. When I compare the technological advantages that I’m used to at home, like announcements from passing trains or buses, to the simple life that I live in my small college town, I am struck both by the lack of familiar noises and the presence of unfamiliar sounds. For example, prior to moving upstate I had no idea what cicadas sounded like and was all the more terrified when I heard it for the first time. Yet, while I miss the erratic noise of New York City, I often find myself better able to concentrate when I find myself both alone in my thoughts and surroundings. I can immerse myself in a novel without being distracted by unpleasant sounds, I can watch the sun set in silence, and I can listen to the faint drum of my heartbeat without the anxious musings that inevitably come with urban living.

      Comment by Alyssa Harrington on February 26, 2020

      I like in paragraph 14 that Thoreau starts mentioning being alone. I think that Thoreau can actually start forming a bond with the audience that he is overall given as many details to this story as possible. The affect that the seclusion has on him is finally showing and honestly helps me connect more with the story.

      I also agree with the meditation aspect of this paragraph. Meditation is a good way to channel you inner aspects of the loneliness you are feeling and be able to overcome them. I think this point also relates to trying to perfect everything you do with you laptop in this class. It may take you a long time to do it, but after that, the process becomes easy and overall makes the class pretty enjoyable.

       

      Comment by Abigail Henry on February 26, 2020

      [Now that the cars are gone by, and all the restless world with them, and the fishes in the pond no longer feel their rumbling, I am more alone than ever. For the rest of the long afternoon, perhaps, my meditations are interrupted only by the faint rattle of a carriage or team along the distant highway.]

      Coming from a small town that is frequently busy, I often experienced what Thoreau describes here. I live on a street that has heavy traffic almost 24/7. It can get quite annoying at times, especially at nighttime when cars passing by are blaring music. However, I have grown used to it, and most of the time I do not realize that it\’s even occurring until the traffic is already long gone. While I do enjoy (and prefer) the quieter areas of my city, such as where my grandparents live, I sometimes find myself missing that background noise. It reminds me of home. The sounds make me feel as though I am surrounded, despite the fact that I am only around my family.

      Comment by Hannah Jewell on February 26, 2020

      For such a brief paragraph, there is a lot being said by Thoreau here. Aside from this being a rare mention of him feeling loneliness, there is much that can be interpreted about the effects that sounds can have on someone. I can relate to the sounds of cars going by in the distance as I live near a highway. When I stand outside of my house or have my window open, I hear this and it gives me a sense of solidarity. The sounds of the outside world also take me to a place away from the technologies I use on a daily basis. Sometimes I sit outside without my phone and just listen to the natural sounds of my surroundings and it allows me to mentally connect with where I am and what I am experiencing in that moment. The sounds of my neighborhood also gives me a sense of nostalgia when I think about the sights and sounds I grew up around. Even though I may feel alone when I sit outside by myself and without any media interaction, this time allows me to reflect on my environment and how I relate to everything around me.

      Comment by Claire Rogers on February 26, 2020

      [I rejoice that there are owls. Let them do the idiotic and maniacal hooting for men.]

      I feel a certain amount of appreciable bitterness from this line that I agree with. The bizarre squawks of squirrels, for instance, are something I adore for my love of the creatures. The same is true of the ducks and geese who reside on Conesus Lake near my rented home. The inanity of humans doing such things, however, is felt intensely. The irritation of human neighbours when I lived in a dormitory and the screaming of fraternities and sororities when they are “recruiting” once per semester come to mind. But, still, I appreciate the natural nature of these sounds, even when I would find them irritating from a human. Waking up to hearing hunters shooting is incredibly irritating. The natural nature of house sparrows chirping, however, is a lovely distraction from human artifice.

      Comment by Emma Raupp on February 26, 2020

      I love Thoreau’s description of night sounds in this section, particularly of the owl and the bullfrog. His description of these natural sounds and the emotions they evoke in the listener ring true despite the fact that they were written over a hundred years ago. Certain sounds and animal calls seem to be woven into the human experience, seldom changing between ages. Even those sounds we might not call ‘plesasant’, like the haunting cry of an owl. Even this strange sound has its rightful place: “suited to swamps and twilight woods which no day illustrates, suggesting a vast and undeveloped nature which men have no recognized.” Thoreau’s suggestion of a “vast and undeveloped nature” unrecognized by man is intriguing. Today, technological sounds have become a sort of “second nature” to us (e.g. a phone ringing or a text-alert, a T.V. or radio playing in the other room, cars/trains going past, dial-up, printers, etc.) but do we take the time to truly recognize the sounds we hear as part of our new nature? I can imagine a poem written about birdsong and “beautiful Nature”, but what about an ode to text-tones? This sound is certainly part of our “beautiful Nature” now in the sense that we probably hear text-tones as often as birdsong, but our attention to it as such is under-developed. “But now a more dismal arid fitting day dawns, and a different race of creatures awakes to express the meaning of Nature there”: I know Thoreau is talking about creatures of the night, but in a way, the technological age awakes a “different race of creatures” (us, who see, hear, and interact with the world in an unprecedented manner via technology) to express a particular meaning of nature. I appreciate that Thoreau’s definition of nature is not static. Nature, and our understanding of it, may be historically situated, constantly in flux from age to age. Our Nature in the technological age envelops many of the familiar natural sounds, but with the addition of newly naturalized mechanical sounds.

      Comment by Anne Baranello on May 13, 2020

      [Who can write so graphically the history of the storms they have weathered as these rents have done? They are proof-sheets which need no correction. ]

      I don’t know if this was Thoreaus original intention, but the way I interpreted this was calling out those who tend to rewrite history as they see fit, despite the real story being within plain sight. It doesn’t take much to fact-check yourself, as well as make sure your sources are reliable, but many people seem to think that twitter and Instagram are good places to get their news – and while this isn’t necessarily  the worst thing, it more often than not leads to misunderstandings, blown out of proportion rumors, and misinformation of anyone who chooses to take what they read at face value (which is a surprisingly high amount). Thoreau is saying here that there’s no better source than the original one – the evidence is there, ready to be discovered, but many people refuse to go out and find it.

      Comment by Anne Baranello on May 13, 2020

      The way I interpret this section is that Thoreau is finally experiencing what it’s like to feel lonely, and be aware of it. Being alone is normal to him – it’s how he wakes up, how he eats, how he does his chores. He is living alone in an isolated area, and he chose that for himself. In a situation like that, its easy to almost forget that company exists, and that it’s something he’s missing. But on this particular day in Thoreau’s narrative, the sounds of passing cars, people, and travelers were his company, as opposed to his thoughts. It’s easy not to miss something you aren’t normally used to, but it’s harder to go back after experiencing the other side. Thoreau is feeling lonely for the first time, because, for the first time, he is acknowledging the absence of company.

      Comment by Jose Romero on May 13, 2020

      Sounds, people, and conversation all help someone think about what they’re listening to, who they’re speaking to, or where they want to take a conversation. However, when you don’t have any of those, you are left with your thoughts. As Thoreau shines a light on, loneliness can be more impactful when there are no distractions nearby. For him, the distractions are physical sounds such as cars going by. For me, many distractions that I have are songs and singing to lyrics while I do work. But, whenever I turn off my phone and do not hear a song, I feel weird — lonely if I may say and feel the need to turn it back on.

      Comment by kenneth demerchant on February 9, 2021

      In this passage Thoreau is really explaining on what is feels like to be lonely out in the middle of the woods, and how during the afternoon there’s not to many sounds to distract him. I can relate to this part of the passage because even though I live in a big town with a lot of people, I live in a small neighborhood so it can get very quiet and lonely.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 9, 2021

      Good point, Kenny! It seems like all the noise and excitement associated with the train leave him feeling more alone than if it hadn’t gone by at all, like the quiet after a party.

      Comment by Steven Covey on February 10, 2021

      I like how enthusiastic he is about hearing owls.

      Comment by Sofie Wolters on February 10, 2021

      This passage stood out to me because of his emphasis on the calm and silence he experiences once the “restless world” has removed themselves from his spot. He associates the absence of sound with the fact that he is all alone in nature. Even the fish in the pond experience the disruption of human sound in nature.

      Comment by sully blair on February 10, 2021

      So relatable! Good old NE

      Comment by sully blair on February 10, 2021

      He’s on to something here! the use of domestication for human success

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 10, 2021

      Well said, Sofie. I assume the fish would feel the trains rumbling. I know I see birds out my window fly away before a car comes into sight on the road, because they feel or hear it coming. Imagine how all our human noises stress all creatures beyond their usual high alert for predators!

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 10, 2021

      Steven, Earlier, you noted his description of hawks. Here, he’s similarly describing real owls, but also imagining that they symbolically represent human emotions:

      [They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have.]

      I think he IS enthusiastic about owls (and all nature) and also seeing further meaning in them.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 10, 2021

      What wild birds would you like to see domesticated, Sully?

      Here I think he’s talking about roosters, and imagining if they were “naturalized without being domesticated,” which I guess would mean they would roam in the woods and crow wherever they went. (people might come out and shoot them to shut them up…)

      He speaks often about waking at dawn, greeting every morning, and living fully, and I think that’s why he imagines naturalized roosters, to wake us all up, but I’m not sure if there’s some sarcasm in here, too, where he says, “rise earlier and earlier and become unspeakably healthy, wealthy, and wise” (mocking Ben Franklin’s advice there:
      “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”)
       

  • The Village (115 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [its coves for a stint]

      When M. Fabulet was translating W into French, he had difficulty with “stint.” Finding that in England the word was also the name of a small sandpiper, he translated “for a stint” as “en chasse d’une bécassine,” that is, “in pursuit of a snipe” (Allen, 1952).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [doses]

      Homeopathic remedies are taken in minute doses.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [State Street

      Redding & Company were booksellers at 8 State Street, Boston.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [them like the Etesian winds]

      A Mediterranean summer wind from the north, frequently mentioned by classical writers.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [or as if inhaling ether]

      Ether came into general use in Boston in the late 1840s. Emerson’s brother-in-law, Dr. Charles Jackson and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., were early proponents of the use of ether.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [in their pockets, like caryatides]

      Caryatid: a female figure used as a supporting column in Greek architecture.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [had to run the gantlet]

      A punishment formerly used on sailing ships. The crew, provided with rope ends, were lined up in two rows, and the delinquent sailor had to run between them as the crew delivered as many lashes as they could.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [slight ground or window tax]

      In colonial times, houses were taxed according to the number of windows.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [and kept out of danger]

      Sir Francis Bacon, De Sapienta Veterum, chap. 31; apparently T’s translation (Woodson, 1975).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [cabin fire ‘as I sailed’]

      The refrain of the old American “Ballad of Captain Robert Kidd.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [as I have elsewhere related]

      T has told in further detail the story of his personal rebellion against slavery in “Resistance to Civil Government” (better known as “Civil Disobedience”), which has had a worldwide impact on such people as Gandhi and Martin Luther King and their followers.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [odd-fellow society]

      A pun on the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternal organization.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [huckleberries on Fair-Haven Hill]

      A short distance southwest of Walden, on the shore of the Sudbury River (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [spent a fortnight in the woods of Maine]

      T left Walden for Maine on August 31, 1846. His account of this excursion can be found in the first chapter (“Ktaadn”) of The Maine Woods.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [invariably]

      In his copy of W, T inserted the comma after “invariably.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [their way two young men]

      As Thomas Blanding has suggested to me, these were quite probably George William Curtis and his brother Burrill, who lived for a time on the Hosmer farm on Lincoln Road and who had helped T build his cabin (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 28, 2014

      [we begin to find ourselves]

      “He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 10:39).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 28, 2014

      [book, a volume of Homer]

      It was the first volume of the Pope translation of the Iliad (Baltimore, 1812; Harding, 1983). It was apparently “borrowed” by the French-Canadian woodcutter Alex Therien, for it was found in his family’s possession more than a century later (Harding, 1993, 190-1). It has since disappeared again. Therien was apparently attracted to it by T’s reading to him from it (see “Visitors”). Interestingly, in his chapter “Reading” T denounces the use of translations of the great books, but he kept Pope’s translation in his Walden cabin.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 28, 2014

      [a solider of our camp]

      In the “Sayings of Confucius,” which T edited for the Dial (III, 494), he quotes, “A soldier of the kingdom of Ci lost his buckler; and having sought after it a long time in vain, he comforted himself with this reflection: ‘A soldier has lost his buckler, but a soldier in our camp will find it; he will use it.’” He had apparently found this fable in The Phenix: A Collection of Old and Rare Fragments (New York, 1836, 83), where it is printed as one of the “Morals of Confucius.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 28, 2014

      [beechen bowls were in request]

      “Nev bella fuerant, Faginus abstabat quum [sic] scyphus ante dapes” (Elegies of Tibullus 3.11.7-8). It is interesting to note that John Evelyn quotes these two lines and gives almost exactly the same translation in Silva; or, A Discourse of Forest-Trees (London, 1679, 46), so it is quite possible that T derived the quotation from this secondary source.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 28, 2014

      [wind passes over it, bends]

      Confucian Analects, XII, xix

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on February 1, 2014

      [The Village]

      This is the shortest chapter in the book, implying village matters are of little importance to T.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on February 1, 2014

      [to make an irruption]

      T was likely thinking of Emerson here, for it was but a short walk from Emerson’s back door, through the fields and woods, to the Walden cabin.

      Comment by Katie Allen on April 23, 2014

      [I frequently had to … without assistance]In this passage, Thoreau is commenting on how he would often get “lost” in the darkness as he made his way home without a light to guide him. I find it interesting because in our contemporary society, this type of wandering would not only be unsafe, but would rarely happen. Even the most basic of cell phones have bright enough lights to be used as flashlights, and most streets (and even some back roads) are lit by streetlights at night.I can’t help but imagine that a part of Thoreau enjoyed this walk in the dark. Sure, he appreciated his solitude every once in a while, but there’s also a special kind of challenge when man is forced to live in a way that is different than what he is used to. When I was younger and the power would go out, my family would gather in the living room with candles, flashlights, board games, and a battery-operated radio, waiting for the power to come back on. Nostalgic or not, this was one of my favorite times, because something forced my family to meet in one place, connect, and enjoy ourselves with the added challenge of doing so in a dimly-lit room. I think Thoreau would have liked these gatherings too.

      Comment by Katie Allen on April 23, 2014

       [I frequently had to … without assistance] In this passage, Thoreau is commenting on how he would often get “lost” in the darkness as he made his way home without a light to guide him. I find it interesting because in our contemporary society, this type of wandering would not only be unsafe, but would rarely happen. Even the most basic of cell phones have bright enough lights to be used as flashlights, and most streets (and even some back roads) are lit by streetlights at night.I can’t help but imagine that a part of Thoreau enjoyed this walk in the dark. Sure, he appreciated his solitude every once in a while, but there’s also a special kind of challenge when man is forced to live in a way that is different than what he is used to. When I was younger and the power would go out, my family would gather in the living room with candles, flashlights, board games, and a battery-operated radio, waiting for the power to come back on. Nostalgic or not, this was one of my favorite times, because something forced my family to meet in one place, connect, and enjoy ourselves with the added challenge of doing so in a dimly-lit room. I think Thoreau would have liked these gatherings too.

      Comment by Christine O'Neill on May 5, 2014

       [I was seized and put into jail] Wow, I love how Thoreau just breezes over the fact that he was incarcerated for tax evasion. Considering the man can spend an entire chapter detailing the adventures of a squirrel, you think he could at least treat us to his edgy prison stories…

      Comment by Darby Daly on February 7, 2015

      Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homœopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs.

      I found this especially interesting because I was under the impression that since Thoreau willingly established his residence so far away from others at Walden pond, that he would have no desire to listen to gossip in the town. However, after reading on, he seemed to compare the people and the life in the village to the woods and the woodland life.By saying that visiting the town and hearing the sounds a human life was as refreshing to him as listening to the frogs and leaves, I believe that Thoreau visited the town as a way to get a change of scenery, as someone who lives in the village would visit the woods for some fresh air and a walk through nature.

      Comment by Darby Daly on February 7, 2015

      Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homœopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs.
      I found this especially interesting because I was under the impression that since Thoreau willingly established his residence so far away from others at Walden pond, that he would have no desire to listen to gossip in the town. However, after reading on, he seemed to compare the people and the life in the village to the woods and the woodland life.By saying that visiting the town and hearing the sounds a human life was as refreshing to him as listening to the frogs and leaves, I believe that Thoreau visited the town as a way to get a change of scenery, as someone who lives in the village would visit the woods for some fresh air and a walk through nature.

      Comment by Emily Peterson on February 8, 2015

      It is interesting to read how Thoreau felt about slavery here. In the 1840’s we really see the reform movement picking up speed, and in this paragraph it feels like Thoreau is on board with reform. However, when reading this chapter and selections from his journals concurrently, the reader is left with the sense that Thoreau’s thoughts on reform were ambiguous or “luke-warm” to say the least. In an entry dated June 17, 1853 Thoreau describes some reformers staying in his house with unflattering language. I would be very interested to learn more about Thoreau’s thoughts on reform as this passage leaves the reader without a sense of certainty in this regard.

      Comment by Emily Buckley-Crist on February 8, 2015

      I was very surprised to read that Thoreau went into the village with such frequency, as it seemed that he wanted to escape the gossip and other goings on that he seems to detest. However, it appears as though his excursions into the village act as reminders for him of why he is otherwise so secluded, a way of justifying his lifestyle. His reference to the Sirens is also interesting, and connects back to the other mentions of mythology in “The Bean-Field,” again drawing himself in am almost heroic light, this time for being able to draw away from petty gossip.

      Comment by Jake Trost on February 9, 2015

      Here it seems Thoreau is once again displaying his distaste for generic community rules and regulations.  Earlier in Reading he displayed contempt for the way in which we are taught by society to claim and conform to a niche.  He objects, claiming that society should support the quest for knowledge.  In this section he once again points out that without the community’s overbearing presence, his life has actually become more wholesome.

      Comment by Gabriel Karon on February 9, 2015

      I feel this passage is interesting because of the connections between immersion and nature and immersion in text. In a class that is dedicated to the study of literature in the digital age, the question of how contemporary (thus, digital) life affects out immersion with the text. Similarly, Thoreau is pointing out the difference between his own experience and immersion in nature and those of the villagers through their ability to walk through the woods in darkness. This is strikingly similar to the argument that the modern reader is far less likely to have memorized portions of text they study or read, where, for example, in Shakespeare’s time, memorization was considered far more important than it is now.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on February 15, 2015

      You’re right, Jake. The incident he describes here is the basis of his famous essay “Civil Disobedience,” in which he explains his refusal to support, through taxation, a government engaged in immoral actions — specifically, slavery and the war with Mexico.

      Comment by Darby Daly on February 15, 2015

      “I had no lock nor bolt but for the desk which held my papers, not even a nail to put over my latch or windows. I never fastened my door night or day, though I was to be absent several days; not even when the next fall I spent a fortnight in the woods of Maine. And yet my house was more respected than if it had been surrounded by a file of soldiers”

      I found this particular part of the paragraph especially interesting because it shows just how comfortable Thoreau is with his life in the woods. It shows that, not only does he have nothing to hide regarding his lifestyle and belongings, but that he also trusts whomever it is that may stumble upon his home. The whole time Thoreau is living by the pond he is “living deliberately”, and to do this in its entirety he must demonstrate his full comfort levels regarding his situation, these comfort levels being extremely high.

      Comment by Aran Fox on February 15, 2015

      This passage finds Thoreau setting up a man vs. the state sort of situation. While I appreciate his resistance to an unjust institution, some of his observations beg a closer reading. He describes living without locks with a sort of “open-door” living policy, just after he makes a point of noting that the only people that give him any sort of problem are representatives of the state. This seems to suggest that there is a difference in the type of person that represents the state and the one who does not. Or, it could suggest that working for the state has a corrupting effect on individuals, making them incompatible with his manufactured world. Additionally, he suggests something that reminds me here of Politeia, where Plato describes his ideal kallipolis. Ideally, he notes that the city would not need protection, as protectors have a level of power that could be dangerous. Plato only allows for the guardians when he notes that wealth demands it. Thus, Thoreau here is not in an isolated place in western thought. He is, though, in application. Plato cedes such a city would be impossible, while Thoreau appears dedicated to its necessity.

      Comment by Anthony Bettina on February 16, 2015

      “Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homœopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs.” 

       

      This quote is interesting because it furthers the notion of Thoreau’s hypocrisy. He states that he chooses to live his life in the woods in order to escape the flaws of society, yet he finds his solace in observing society. This further proves the point of Thoreau’s uncertainty on his philosophical beliefs. He entered the woods in order to broaden himself, not in order to escape society.

      Comment by Kieran Regan on November 9, 2015

      I think this paragraph is showing Thoreau’s devotion to the concept of isolation, not his hypocrisy. When he goes into the village, he seems to embrace the role of an ‘outsider’ rather than an actual member. I think he is analyzing in order to better appreciate or even further confirm his thoughts on living in solidarity. He observes and studies the village, maybe similar to the thought that you can not understand or appreciate something (in this case his solidarity) without understanding its counterpart (society and the lives people live). I think the best example of this is when he compares himself to Orpheus of all people. He walks through the village, “loudly singing the praises of the gods to his lyre, drowned the voices of the Sirens, and kept out of danger.” Orpheus had walked to Hades, and much like Thoreau had surrounded himself with evil. He had not associated himself with that around him, and had actively refused to accept anything that may seem to tempt him. What is important to consider is that both had made their journey for a reason; to take something with them which in Thoreau’s case is knowledge and insight.

      Comment by Maggie MacIntyre on April 13, 2016

      Here, Thoreau seems to capture his feelings on solitude and loneliness. As we discussed in class, Thoreau may not actually want to be alone, considering the fact that he spends a lot of his time talking about his visitors and social exchanges with people while on the topic of solitude. This passage helps clarify that perhaps Thoreau is seeking a deeper human connection with people; one that lacks words and shallow exchanges like the ones people have in the Village. Instead, Thoreau would prefer to be alone, among other independent people and have shared experiences, shared silences, shared appreciations for the moments they have together and not clog the air with gossip. I think Thoreau challenges the people around him and his readers to lose themselves in silence, in the woods, in a place that does not ground us to our own realities. We cant be found until we are lost, and I think Thoreau wants people to find each other in this remoteness too.

      Comment by Elena Vasquez on October 9, 2017

      [These take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough.]

      It’s interesting how Thoreau recognizes thieves, rather then feeling upset or anger, he is able to rationalize the reasoning behind their actions.

      Comment by Mary Robicheaux on October 14, 2017

      Thoreau doesn’t seem like the type of person who would be fazed by going to jail, given his intellectual and thoughtful nature. So while his experiences in jail would be interesting for the reader, I’m not surprised he didn’t include them.

      Comment by Josephine Gombert on October 15, 2017

      It was interesting to read about how he goes into the village to get some gossip. It is almost like he wants to stay up to date about the things that go on around. But why did he go to live in the forest to find himself but also go into the village and get caught up to date with things that are going on?

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 20, 2017

      The word choice used here, which is incorporated into the imagery, is really nice. I enjoy the descriptions of the environment, especially at night. Thoreau’s awareness of his environment is admirable, and I enjoyed reading about the area surrounding his home in this part of the text.

      Comment by Mary Robicheaux on October 20, 2017

      This makes Thoreau seem empathetic or understanding, which contradicts the dislike he shows towards his neighbors in later parts of the book. But then again, he is human and humans are complicated beans. (Get it?????)

      Comment by Elena Vasquez on October 24, 2017

      His reasoning for returning to the Village seems rather odd, because if he truly wanted to become one with his surroundings why would he still engage with places of consumerism.

      Comment by Elisabeth Strand on October 26, 2017

      “Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous. The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass; the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends.”

      This passage implies to me that Thoreau believes in the inherent goodness of man- and the idea that good will ultimately triumph seems oddly optimistic for Thoreau’s outlook on people

      Comment by Elisabeth Strand on October 26, 2017

      Also supported by: “I am convinced, that if all men lived as simply as i then did, thieving and robbery would cease to exist.” Thoreau seems to believe that outside the toxic influences of society that man would return to its natural- inherently good state. This also aligns with the idea that competition is what corrupts man.

      Comment by Elisabeth Strand on October 26, 2017

      Maybe his distaste for society is enough to make him sympathetic?

      Comment by Sarah Alper on October 27, 2017

      That’s a really interesting way of viewing it but I can completely see where you are coming from.  It seems like to Thoreau that people are people so it naturally makes sense why he can acknowledge instead of instilling hate though I don’t know if this is necessarily empathetic…possibly sympathetic…with some reality and open-mindedness sprinkled in.

      Comment by Emma Harrison on January 4, 2018

      I agree, especially since his philosophy was centered around personal action. He went to jail rather than pay a tax to a government he disagreed with, but he wasn’t able to disassociate from consumerism.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 19, 2018

      [One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler’s, I was seized and put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the state which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle at the door of its senate-house. I had gone down to the woods for other purposes.]

      Thoreau here implies his rejecting opinion of slavery and proclaims that he will not support or engage with an entity in which participates in such disgusting capital.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 19, 2018

      [You who govern public affairs, what need have you to employ punishments? Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous. The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass; the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends]

      Those who hold the hierarchy in society, to what purpose do they govern? Be moral and drenched in goodness and people in which you encounter will be good. The virtue of those in which are superior will always come as priority or law when presented to those not high in the social hierarchy. What could this determine about those who govern and their virtues? Are they in fact virtuous?

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on June 7, 2019

      Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homœopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs

      Thoreau is comparing the gossip with lesser sounds in nature. However sweet the peeping frogs may sound to T, they cannot be compared with the songs of the birds or crows of his wild cockerels which seem to be filling the world: ““To walk in a winter morning in a wood where these birds abounded, their native woods, and hear the wild cockerels crow on the trees, clear and shrill for miles over the resounding earth, drowning the feebler notes of other birds—think of it!”   

      Comment by Caroline Crimmins on March 7, 2020

      After reading the first few lines of this paragraph, I could not help but think of how a majority of the water by where I live people do not want to swim in. This is because this water would do the exact opposite of clean you. The water is murky and filled with chemicals and waste from transportation. Climate change and advocating for the environment is a controversial topic right now in politics. We need to stop debating whether it is real or not and start making a change for the better, or humans and other living organisms will eventually go extinct. 
       

      Comment by Olivia Davis on March 7, 2020

      Though this passage isn’t directly referencing homelessness, some of the quotes within reminded me of the issue. “Gentlemen and ladies making a call have gone half a mile out of their way, feeling the sidewalk only with their feet, and not knowing when they turned”. Thoreau describes people getting lost in the woods and how he has to give them directions to find their way home. This reminded me of modern day homelessness that I’ve been hearing about, and how prevalent it truly is. These people are confused and forced to wander the streets, just as the people in the passage do the woods. They are also, in a more metaphorical sense, looking for help and a sense of direction. Though they may not be physically lost, they are struggling in terms of life in general and likely finances.

      Comment by Kira Baran on March 8, 2020

      I find it worth noting that Thoreau refers to reconnection with society–that is, with the “great news room” of the village–as beneficial and “refreshing,” but only when taken in “homeopathic doses.”

      For me as a reader, the key term here is “doses.” Just like my own experiences with contemporary politics as a media consumer, Thoreau finds it necessary to keep up with current events in the news, but finds it just as necessary to limit his contact with news/gossip, lest he get overwhelmed by it. Maintaining one’s own independence and political beliefs as an individual apart from a political party/campaign/trend is vital for one’s well-being. It is all too easy to lose oneself in the disorienting voices, and get bogged down by mob mentality. It seems that throughout human history, news has been scheming with often unsubstantiated rumors of “war and peace, and whether the world was likely to hold together much longer.” With this shifting tone, Thoreau now paints society’s politics in a more negative light–not as something “refreshing,” but as something from which he needs to “escape.” In the end, he describes politics and news as a mere “commodity” that people trade, as they come together in the village to voice their own political agendas and perpetuate the gossip–be it substantiated or not–that they have heard.

      While politics and news are necessary for human government, civilization, and an informed society, it is necessary to self-filter the media and gossip one encounters in order to protect one’s own sanity.

      Comment by Emma Raupp on March 9, 2020

      “It is true, I might have resisted forcibly with more or less effect, might have run ‘amok’ against society; but I preferred that society should run ‘amok’ against me, it being the desperate party” 

      How is society a “desperate party”? In the last few sections, Thoreau uses the word “desperate” to describe the reckless nature of some men and their society. “Desperate” is rather vague, but some synonyms I find especially applicable to Thoreau’s meaning of the word are “hasty”, “rash”, “desirous”, and “demoralized.” Thoreau’s fellow man seemed to lack the deliberation with which he led his life; instead, their lives are governed by rash decisions based on wayward desires, grounded in no certain morality. The list of synonyms marches on to include “lawless”, “violent”, and “resigned.” Thoreau knew the weight of the word he was using, and that weight has only increased over the years. With concern, Thoreau indicates how  society seems ever more resigned to desperation rather than deliberation.

      In the quote above, Thoreau re-iterates his civil disobedience. Rather than ‘running amok’ against society by evading the law, he calmly accepts his charge and does time in jail. He allows society, that desperate party, to run amok against him. I take this to mean he threw himself with some faith into that jail cell, figuring all the while that ‘society’ would do its utmost to keep him there. It seems he accepted this as a possibility, but kept faith that his fate would never be decided by desperate men and their “dirty institutions.” He was right, but the same cannot be said for many people in America today. Unfortunately, a country led by desperate men sows desperation among its citizens. “Dirty institutions” regularly decide the fate of our country, and by extension, the fate of our people, disparaging some and wildly benefitting others. How much longer can we trust society to “run amok” against us, fairly? How long before our best option may be to run amok against society ourselves?

      Comment by Christina Inter on March 10, 2020

      [ Sometimes I bolted suddenly, and nobody could tell my whereabouts, for I did not stand much about gracefulness, and never hesitated at a gap in a fence. I was even accustomed to make an irruption into some houses, where I was well entertained, and after learning the kernels and very last sieve-ful of news, what had subsided, the prospects of war and peace, and whether the world was likely to hold together much longer, I was let out through the rear avenues, and so escaped to the woods again.]

      I find the image of Thoreau bolting through “a gap in the fence” or escaping into the woods after getting his fill of the news and townspeople to be quite entertaining. It almost reminds me of stories of Bigfoot — a figure that dwells in the woods and only few catch glimpses of him before he retreats to his forest once more. Strangely, I feel similarly about politics. I. I take similar action with my involvement in political conversations. I usually tend to hide in the woods myself and only venture into the conversation to catch the important and newsworthy tidbits, and then I retreat back into the woods. I feel that with politics people make quite a show off it as the townspeople do when a traveler or new person comes through. Like the traveler, the newest bit of controversy sparks intrigue and debate and exorbitant amounts of attention. Like Thoreau, I feel most content to creep in and get  the news from time to time and then quickly slip back into the woods unnoticed.

      Comment by Leila Sassouni on March 10, 2020

      [ I was seized and put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the state which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle at the door of its senate-house. I had gone down to the woods for other purposes. But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society. ]

      In this passage, Thoreau discusses a time when he was “seized” and put into jail, presumably due to older Caucasian men who wanted him in their more traditionalist society. Upon connecting this passage to the umbrella of contemporary politics, I think it is quite interesting to observe how much society still has not changed. At this time, Thoreau faced punishment after improperly recognizing the authority of the state, which treats women and children terribly. In a more oversimplified way, he went to jail for not paying forward taxes that hurt women and their children. While this same issue is not as prominent today, old, Caucasian, traditionalist men still wind up assuming higher powers in government. This means that instead of increasing the diversity among those who are higher officials and increasing the amount of respect for women, that men are still granted the ability to make laws and establish regulations that they believe are necessary, on behalf of females.

      Comment by Hannah Fahy on March 10, 2020

      “Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper” reminds me heavily of the way that news circulates today. However, instead of strolling through a village to hear the latest, people scroll through social media. They hear news from friends and family who have commented on stories or shared articles. Much like gossip, however, this “news” isn’t always factual. It’s the gossip that someone heard from someone who read some news article that they can’t find anymore. It’s like the game of telephone; everything gets distorted as it moves down the line.

      Comment by Justin Colleran on March 10, 2020

      When Thoreau discusses bathing in the pond, I could not help but think about the idea of water pollution and how it has dramatically increased the past few years. I live on the beach, and I constantly see things wash up on the shoreline, like plastic bags, bottles, glass, etc. The pond that Thoreau is describing seems very clean and clear of garbage.

      Comment by Danielle Crowley on March 10, 2020

      [Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper]

      The above quote passage reminded me of contemporary politics due to the objective Thoreau has for going to the village. Ultimately, Thoreau is going to the village to find out the current news as told by the people and the newspaper. Comparing that to today, we get are news from online sources, from twitter, and posts on facebook. This same diffusion of information is what Thoreau is discussing. While that manner in which information is spread has changed since Thoreau wrote Walden, the concept of sharing information between people is the same. As we have seen throughout this course, humans have a need to share information, from the chapter about the talking drums in Africa in the Information, to Walden, and to current day.

      Comment by Hannah Jewell on March 10, 2020

      As Thoreau describes how he went into the village to get the most recent news, I think of how different we receive news today. Although some people still read the newspaper, whether local or not, it is not nearly as common as it used to be. Most people in modern day receive the news through their phones, computers, or TV. When it comes to social media specifically, I automatically think about the number of arguments I have seen within the comments on various posts  regarding political opinions. Unfortunately, this easy access to news and communication creates such controversy between individuals through a screen. People seem to refuse to discuss their opinions and settle arguments in person, so they just go on and on in the comments section. I think this causes many people to avoid agreeing to disagree when they might actually attempt to otherwise if they were to have a genuine, in-person conversation. If one were just to receive the news through a newspaper and without a source of convenient and efficient communication, there would likely be less political disputes among strong-minded people who believe in various ideas.

      Comment by Rachel Beck on March 10, 2020

      [Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper… in the other horizon was a village of busy men, as curious to me as if they had been prairie dogs, each sitting at the mouth of its burrow, or running over to a neighbor’s to gossip. I went there frequently to observe their habits. The village appeared to me a great news room;]

      This particular portion of the passage is very interesting to me. The way Thoreau describes the village as a “news room” reminds me of how we would likely consider the internet our main source of information. Instead of walking through the village to hear the weekly gossip, we scroll through Twitter and Newsweek, hoping we’re reading reliable and accurate information. I’m sure rumors back then got twisted around and started as one thing, then ended up turning into something completely different – almost as if the villagers were playing a giant game of telephone. I wonder if they called false information ‘fake news’ like so many people do nowadays… It’s a funny thought.

      Comment by Jaffre Aether on March 10, 2020

      [ Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.]

      I do not believe this point to be overtly related to politics, but I think it carries a kind of political or societal implication. As a world that thrives on connection and relations, the path that Thoreau lays out for us is a deeply difficult one. He tells us to ‘lose the world,’ but for the most part, that command is an outdated one. There is no physical world or structure that we can lose, such as the bank or the group of gossipers, but a discursive construct that regulates our behavior. We are, in essence, given a path to follow, and this path is reinforced consistently throughout our lives. Such innocuous questions like “where are you going to school?” “what is your major?” or “what do you want to do?” actually care a meaning that is based in creating economic value. As an English major, it is quite easy to find someone to tell you that there is no money in it, and this statement is easy to brush off at first. But, after a while, it is hard not to internalize the message. I wonder then, how we can disconnect ourselves from our interior world, our constructed world of societal commands, and truly liberate our being? To address this, a glut of labor is needed, and it can’t help but feel impossible with all else that is expected from us by the exterior world.

      Comment by Emma Annonio on March 10, 2020

      [But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society]

      After reading this paragraph and especially this sentence, I immediately thought of our Nations changing policies on marijuana use and the increase in legalization in several states. Marijuana legalization has proved to be a racial justice issue; as Thoreau doesn’t believe nor support slavery, I doubt that when looking at contemporary politics, he would believe that it is fair that caucasian people are becoming entrepreneurs and capitalizing off go marijuana sales when Black men and women are serving life sentences in prison for doing the same thing when it wasn’t legal. Thoreaus phrase “desperate odd-fellow society” stands out to be because I believe he means that the government will do things to benefit themselves and only themselves. When they change policies, you are free to fit into them, but they won’t go back and free those who were the “odd-fellow out” beforehand. We are living in the 21st century where racism is institutionized and it is not something myself nor Thoreau stand for.

      Comment by Mitchell Pace on March 11, 2020

      This paragraph made me think on the plethora of cases in society today of police pulling over Black drivers much more often than they do White drivers. Like Thoreau, these are just people going about their everyday life when those in power choose to stop them and lord that power over them.

      Comment by Claire Rogers on March 11, 2020

      [“You who govern public affairs, what need have you to employ punishments? Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous. The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass; the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends.”]

      This final quote from Homer is incredibly comical to me. Of course, there is the expected, and that is noting just how far from virtual our American government is. In policy, we would much rather punish thievery than allow all of our people to eat or be healthy. In conduct, need I mention our president? And, of course, Geneseo and the rest of New York’s 27th district has lacked representation in the house for quite a while now after Chris Collins’ (very drawn out) resignation over insider trading.

      That being said, the idea that if the government and its leaders were virtuous the people would be the same is nonsense. It is such naivete that drives me off of true socialism or communism. Humans will not become virtuous by example, they will not become kind, they will not become truthful. Certainly, there would likely be some improvement if Donald Trump was not the country’s ultimate role model, but politicians are representative of their constituents, not the other way around. Government is not virtuous because we are not virtuous and do not often reward virtue. Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, to reference Thomas Hobbes. The idea that Homeric virtue or Thoreau’s proposed equality would stop that is farcical.

      Comment by Abigail Henry on March 11, 2020

      [ I am convinced, that if all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough.]

      This is an interesting point Thoreau makes, but I do not think it is entirely true in modern times. Wealthy people and neighborhoods/homes may be a bigger target, but most times, thieves tend to choose places where they can get the job done without getting caught. Robberies also happen all over, not just in “communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough”.

      Comment by Alyssa Harrington on March 18, 2020

      [ I had gone down to the woods for other purposes. But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society.]

      This part of this section is the most interesting to me because of the issues going on in our country and the world today. Currently our president is saying that the “Chinese virus” is just something that we all need to relax about. But sadly, most of us cannot relax without having the information given to us.  Men are not helping give us the information we are asking for, or any updates for how much medicine or actual procautions need to be taken for any of this to stop. This country alone is in shambles because we are not taking steps like other countries who are now doing better, despite this viral pandemic occurring. We are not trying to constrain any “man” to a certain society but we would like to have everyone on an equal damn playing field.

      Comment by Jose Romero on May 13, 2020

      “Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homœopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs.” 

      As Thoreau describes in earlier passages, he listens for nearby sounds to distract himself. Although he is known to only be with himself and nature, I find it really interesting that he likes going to the village to hear the “gossip.” In a way, he compares the sounds of people who are gossiping to the rustle of leaves the peeping of frogs. I’m curious to know: does he care any bit of the information they might be spreading being that he lives so isolated and far?

      Comment by Jose Romero on May 13, 2020

      [But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society]

      I definitely agree with Alyssa’s comment above. This might be one of the most powerful quotes in the whole entire reading! Throughout the course of Donald Trump’s presidency, there have been questions about his ability to successfully lead a country. When COVID-19 first started, he ensured the public that there was nothing to worry about. However, cases started to slowly progress and there was finally something done to anticipate stopping the spread.

      One instance where “men have pursued him and pawed him with their dirty institutions” is when he has refused to wear a mask in public. Many of his followers also did not wear masks and quoted the president in doing so. Society as a whole is very divided now and it can be seen that there are changes to be made with the next presidential term.

      Comment by Owen Amigo on February 11, 2021

      Here Thoreau is saying that if more people were to live with a pure mindset, thievery and robbery would not be existent.

      Comment by Owen Amigo on February 11, 2021

      Very deep and intriguing thought which is actually very true

      Comment by Sofie Wolters on February 12, 2021

      [Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homœopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs. As I walked in the woods to see the birds and squirrels, so I walked in the village to see the men and boys; instead of the wind among the pines I heard the carts rattle.]

      I find this quote especially interesting because it shows how Thoreau’s change in lifestyle influenced his thoughts about the human world. Instead of escaping the busy human world by going into nature, like people often do when they need a break from their work/reality, he feels that going to the village is a welcome get away for him now. Spending so much time alone in the forest, lets him appreciate the town life again.

      Comment by Sofie Wolters on February 12, 2021

      [Sometimes, after coming home thus late in a dark and muggy night, when my feet felt the path which my eyes could not see, dreaming and absent-minded all the way, until I was aroused by having to raise my hand to lift the latch, I have not been able to recall a single step of my walk]

      This quote made me think of walking down the stairs in your house and how I can blindly trust my legs to take me down. We recently moved houses and I can already feel a new rhythm in the steps. The fact that Thoreau is able to find his way home in the dark almost automatically shows how much he has gotten used to the forest as his home.

      Comment by kenneth demerchant on February 12, 2021

      I found this interesting that Thoreau went to observe the village. I also find it very unusual because I thought that he wanted to spend more time where he was staying

      Comment by kenneth demerchant on February 12, 2021

      In this passage, Thoreau talks about how he was arrested and put in jail for tax evasion. Towards the end of the passage he explains that if all men were to live a simple life and be free, we wouldn’t have thieving and robbery issues

      Comment by Anna Forth on February 12, 2021

      I also find it interested that Thoreau enjoyed watching the people gossiping in the village. It seems like it is just human nature even if he believes there is other things he should spend his time with. On the other hand he is just observing life around him whether it be nature or people and not living by any schedule or rule book.

       

      Comment by Dylan Thorburn on February 12, 2021

      The way Thoreau describes the actions of others in his community shows what things bring him pleasure and gives us a glimpse of what life is like in Concord for other people.

      Comment by Dylan Thorburn on February 12, 2021

      I think Thoreau is trying to say that if people were not bound by paying off debts and taxes as a way of living, there would be very little crime. He believes that if people live easy lives, they would be less inclined to break the law.

      Comment by Rebecca Johnson on February 12, 2021

      I love the way Thoreau describes the people in the village as gossiping prairie dogs. As though he enjoys walking through town to watch them scurry about in their natural habitat. He admits here that he enjoys listening to or reading about the latest gossip and how it is refreshing in small doses.

      Comment by Rebecca Johnson on February 13, 2021

      One of Thoreau’s ideas that stood out to me in this passage was how he refused to pay taxes to a state condoning slavery; “sell men, women, and children, like cattle at the door of its senate-house.” The other line that caught my attention was, “if all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown.” I found this to be an interesting claim and although I see where he’s getting at, I don’t agree. Even if everyone were to live as modestly as him, there would always be someone with more, and greed would remain a constant human trait.

      Comment by Steven Tummino on February 14, 2021

      After reading this paragraph, I found it interesting how Thoreau mentions the gossip happening in the village. I was not expecting to read that he found it somewhat pleasant. But, I also like how he connected it back to the works of an ecosystem.

      Comment by Steven Tummino on February 14, 2021

      This paragraph is so descriptive. The way Thoreau describes the darkness is amazing. I especially like the line about finding ourselves at the end of the paragraph.

      Comment by Katelyn Cummings on February 15, 2021

      [I frequently had to look up at the opening between the trees above the path in order to learn my route]

      I found this quote to be very interesting and really neat to think about. I found it interesting because it says that Thoreau had used the sky to navigate back home from going into town. I never would have thought of using the sky as a map or GPS to find out how to get back. I honestly just thought that he had it memorized or he had markings on the trees that created a path to get back home. I also found this really neat to think about because now a days we have our phones or GPS’s to help us find our ways back home but back then they had to use the earth’s map to find their ways.

      Comment by Katelyn Cummings on February 15, 2021

      [ Leave a comment on paragraph 3 35 One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler’s, I was seized and put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the state which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle at the door of its senate-house.]

      This quote makes me a little confused and lost about the reason towards him going to jail. I know they said it was because he didn’t pay tax but what does that have to do with shoes? I’m wondering if there was a cop there and saw him then arrested him or what actually happened? I just find it a little odd that he was put into jail when he was just getting shoes. Why didn’t the police go to his house and arrest him there? He seems to be a well known person in the area, so I would have thought everyone would know him or at least know of him.

      Comment by Olivia Elliott on February 16, 2021

      It was interesting to read the part about him listening to the gossip. You wouldn’t think that Thoreau would be the type of person to even pay any mind to that stuff based on his writing so far.

      Comment by Olivia Elliott on February 16, 2021

      I really admire the way that he writes and the way that he describes specific things. It really paints a picture in my head.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      [Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homœopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs]

      Great comments, everyone! A little gossip is “homeopathic”- small doses (of something toxic or disease-inducing) used as medicine, or just a balance between the woods & people. This part also balances the Solitude chapter —

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      which one are you looking at, Owen?

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      I really like it, too. And next time you’re walking on a dark night, try this, & look up at the path between the treetops, (though he does mean more than finding our way home).

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      Lots of good points, questions, and objections in here! Let’s talk about this in class, since why he went to jail matters, and Rebecca’s objection is worth discussing, too.

      Comment by Alec Marshall on February 17, 2021

      This is a very interesting paragraph to me. Obviously Thoreau was arrested for not paying taxes and abiding by the laws that everyone was required to, but he also has the argument that the tax dollars do nothing for him. By living self-sufficiently, he does not rely on the government benefits that tax payments afford the average citizen.

       

      Comment by Alec Marshall on February 17, 2021

      I think this chapter shows a lot of the reason for Thoreau’s dislike of society. He doesn’t agree with the common man’s ideals and prefers his way of life; solitude. He sees the way society operates as deeply flawed and consistently aims to distance himself from it

      Comment by ethan okwuosa on February 5, 2022

       

      “I am convinced, that if all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough”

      I agree to an extent. Yes, if everyone had only what they needed then there would be no need to take from another person out of jealousy, but, no one knows the true motive. Definitely debateable.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2022

      I agree with you, Ethan. This is one of those spots where his statement is, at best, only partly true, and worth debating.

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 7, 2022

      The way T relates his relationship with the town life style is fascinating for me. I feel that what he is trying to say is that by going to town it feels like a gate away weekend for us. However, the difference is that our society seeks for a place where nature can be related in order to escape from the city, the problems, the thoughts and all the bad things happening in our lives. For T is the opposite and it’s not like he was trying to escape from nature, it was more about observation and point out the difference between his life and others. Even though he says how much he likes listening to others people’s gossip, it is a way of feeling the connection again with the town.

      Comment by Liam Bilodeau on February 7, 2022

      [Signs were hung out on all sides to allure him; some to catch him by the appetite, as the tavern and victualling cellar; some by the fancy, as the dry goods store and the jeweller’s; and others by the hair or the feet or the skirts, as the barber, the shoemaker, or the tailor.]

      What I take away from this is he has a distaste for advertising, perhaps because some of what is being advertised is materialistic.

      Comment by Liam Bilodeau on February 7, 2022

      [But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society.]

      I think this is very true in today’s society.  It is very easy to make a mistake or commit a crime and have it follow you around.  Especially now, with technology it is very easy to find people who in one way or another need to pay for a mistake or crime.

      Comment by Caleb Mihelich on February 8, 2022

      [ As I walked in the woods to see the birds and squirrels, so I walked in the village to see the men and boys; instead of the wind among the pines I heard the carts rattle.]

      In this quote, and the following sentences, Thoreau talks about the correlation between nature and the nearby town. This sets a tone for the whole chapter as he discusses the differences between watching wild animals go about their day, versus humans with our more complex daily regiments. In this paragraph he says, “…a village of busy men, as curious to me as if they had been prairie dogs,” showing that despite his time living and participating with society, he did not understand it fully.

      Comment by Caleb Mihelich on February 8, 2022

      [ One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler’s, I was seized and put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the state which buys and sells men, women, and children]

      Abolitionism was still in its early stages even in the north in the 1840’s, and even though slavery had not existed in Massachusetts for some time, this quote still highlights slavery’s existance in America.

      Comment by Caleb Mihelich on February 8, 2022

      [and set sail from some bright village parlor or lecture room, with a bag of rye or Indian meal upon my shoulder, for my snug harbor in the woods, having made all tight without and withdrawn under hatches with a merry crew of thoughts, leaving only my outer man at the helm, or even tying up the helm when it was plain sailing.]

      This idea of equating walking home with your thoughts as sailing is a very interesting concept. Sailing at the time was still done with a sail, meaning you would be directed by the wind to your destination. Similarly Thoreau seems to be walking home with his thoughts and is on auto pilot, not paying attention to his journey.

      Comment by Keera Lopusiewicz on February 8, 2022

      Upon a second reading of this passage, I was under the assumption that Thoreau would not take it upon himself to seek out the scandalous, human activities of his society. However, after further analysis, it seems as though his day trips into the village were simply for leisure, and this is not to say he is growing tired or bored of his little slice of life in the wilderness. Throughout this passage, he consistently compares the bustling sounds and gossip of the village to the lyrical choir composed by Nature. He takes pleasure from both parts of the world, the man-made and the natural, despite taking up residence in the part that pre-dates man. From my perspective, this passage seems to carry Thoreau above the rest of the world. He is transcendent, or a simple spectator watching the world go by as he lives out his days in one of Nature’s making. Though he does take part in some of the village quirks, he does not allow himself to root into place. Within itself, this passage acts a break from Thoreau’s regularly scheduled programming or the reality that he has built for himself, whilst upholding his view on the world surpassing that in which we initially perceive. He wishes to explore not just the parts untouched by industrialization, but those harbored by it as well. It fascinates and entices him.

      Comment by Julianna Larue on February 8, 2022

      IS Thoreau enjoying the village? He seems really content being by himself in a previous chapterSolitude. “Taken in homeopathic doses, was really refreshing”.

       

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 9, 2022

      Great comments above, folks. He does view village life anthropologically: “I went there frequently to observe their habits.” His time in the woods has given him a certain remove from society, and animals are now his baseline neighbors and humans are the curiosities. And yes, Liam, he sees the ads and signs as meant to catch him like a fish. Ads still aim to snag us–

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 9, 2022

      Yes, good spotting of the metaphor here: his body sails its path home, “leaving only my outer man at the helm.” What do you think he’s getting at?

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 9, 2022

      [Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves]

      As Harding notes above, this line alludes to Matthew 10.39. It’s worth looking at all of Matthew 10, to see why T chose that verse here: what is he saying about the village, in light of Matthew? Or is he only lightly borrowing from that text for this line, and not making a larger argument about those who will and won’t be saved?

      https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-Chapter-10/

       

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 9, 2022

      I really liked the comparison he made when it comes to find ourselves and how humans manage their lives. In this paragraph what I feel that T is trying to do is show us how our mind is the one in charge of moving our body but our eyes can’t really see where we are going until we feel lost, is like explaining how we never see what is in front of us even though we are looking at it, we just don’t observe. As he said, until we have lost the world we start trying to find ourselves and that’s how it is nowadays, every time we look at the horrible things that the Earth is going through we start to worry and we start looking for solutions. However, this is only because we feel at risk, not really because people would care about what happens around us, sadly most people prioritize themselves and can’t see the beauty outside that nature has to offer us.

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 10, 2022

      I personally liked the way he thinks about humanity traits or behavior. In the last sentence he states that if every person in the world would live as simple as he did thieving and rubbery wouldn’t be an issue. I don’t really know about that, because is a human trait the need of more, however, I think is because of how we have been raised, so maybe if our mindset had been different since we were born we wouldn’t think that way. I don’t think that we should spend the rest of our lives worrying about making enough money, we should enjoy our lives and actually live instead of having a path that everyone wants you to follow. As he said of being in debt and paying taxes, it shouldn’t be a thing that humans should worry about, is all thanks to capitalism.

      Comment by Liam Bilodeau on February 10, 2022

      [ As I walked in the woods to see the birds and squirrels, so I walked in the village to see the men and boys; instead of the wind among the pines I heard the carts rattle.]

      Compare and contrast between nature and the town.

      Comment by Zachary Vandecar on February 12, 2022

      Thoreau compares the village to various natural phenomena at first, but then also compares it to something unnatural.

      [ The village appeared to me a great news room;]

      Once again, I wonder how Thoreau would categorize people and nature. Are people natural? Is what we do natural?

      Comment by Judiah Strouse on February 25, 2022

      Homeopathic, a word normally used in the medical world, means to ingest a poisonous or potentially poisonous item in small amounts. In the case of the village gossip, Thoreau sees it as a necessary cleanser. Spending too much time in nature can lead to taking it for granted, so Thoreau comes to the village to remind himself why nature is so essential in one’s own life.

      Comment by Judiah Strouse on February 25, 2022

      In the infinite dark one can find themself and what their place in the world is. Only by disconnecting from what we find familiar can we tread a new path that leads us to the “strangeness of Nature”. What Thoreau means to say is that when we are away from what we know, we can find new things about ourselves in a spiritual sense.

      Comment by Judiah Strouse on February 25, 2022

      Thoreau’s view here is very optimistic, with the opinion that people will do no harm if there isn’t an expectation of harm. And in his case, that philosophy has held out. However, one has to ask, with today’s standards in both a moral and societal stance, would that philosophy still hold true?

  • The Bean-Field 1-8 (71 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [Before yet any woodchuck]

      Myers analyzes this paragraph at length to explain T’s methods and purposes.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [warned me against it]

      The farmers knew more about this than T did, as Paul Williams (1977) points out. Most gardening books say that if bean plants are bruised when wet, they are likely to spread disease.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [throw dust upon their heads]

      “And sprinkled dust upon their heads towards heaven” (Job 2:12).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [his rigmarole, his amateur Paganini]

      Nicolo Paganini (1782-1840), perhaps the most famous violinist of all time, was noted for his ability to play entire passages on a single string.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the oratorios. The night-hawk]

      Not a hawk at all but a member of the goatsucker family and a relative of the whippoorwill.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a mote in the eye]

      “Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye?” (Matthew 7:3).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [as if a puff ball]

      A common fungus that, when ripe, bursts open when touched, spreading its spores in all directions.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [out there soon, either scarlatina]

      Scarlatina: now known as scarlet fever. Emerson’s son died of it in 1842.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [with my beans than usual.]

      Each year T planted and cultivated a vegetable garden at his parents’ home.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [agricola laboriosus]

      Hard-working farmer.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a pair of hen-hawks]

      Common name for any large hawk, but especially the red-tailed hawk.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [and outlandish spotted salamander]

      A common amphibian, black with bright yellow spots.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [or canker-rash]

      Canker-rash: a form of malignant sore throat.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [me information of the “trainers”]

      All young men were required to turn out for military training and were known as trainers.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [if somebody’s bees had swarmed]

      Most of T’s references to bees are negative, rejecting them as automatons (Swanson).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [tintinnabulum]

      The nearest that Virgil seems to have come to that word is in his Georgics, where in book IV he uses the word tinnitusque.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [down into the hive again]

      A folk belief that swarming bees could be called back to their hive.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [all safely into the Middlesex]

      Concord is in Middlesex County.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [westward through Lincoln and Wayland]

      The road past Walden Pond leads from Concord to Lincoln and thence to Wayland (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [at their ease in gigs]

      A light, two-wheeled, horse-drawn carriage.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [to hoe: the ministerial husbandman]

      The Reverend Henry Colman [sic] (1785-1849) published for the state a series of four agricultural surveys of Massachusetts, from 1838 to 1841. T misspelled the name throughout the chapter, and Shanley (1971, 399) has corrected it in each case.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [reins up his grateful dobbin]

      Common pet name for a horse.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [recommends a little chip dirt]

      Sweepings from an area where wood has been chopped.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [hay]

      The various grass crops grown for fodder in New England were not native but imported, and were known as English hay to distinguish them from meadow hay harvested for bedding.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Ranz des Vaches]

      Hirsh suggests that T was thinking of Friedrich von Schiller’s “Ranz des Vaches,” the opening song of Wilhelm Tell (1804). A ranz des vaches is a Swiss pastoral song for calling cows home. Shanley (1971, 399) corrects T’s first edition misspelling of “Rans.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [MEANWHILE my beans]

      In his Journal for June 3, 1851, T identifies them as a variety of bush bean known as “Phaseolus vulgaris”; later in this chapter he identifies them as “common small white bush beans.” His beanfield was located on the level land just north of the cabin. In 1857 when he and Emerson were walking in the area, T said he thought the ground barren and offered to replant it for Emerson. It was two years before he did it, when he planted four hundred white pines, as well as oaks, birches, and larch trees. The result was a beautiful grove that became a popular picnic site. In 1872 a spark from a passing locomotive started a fire that burned part of it. But a good deal of the grove lasted well into this century, though the great hurricane of 1938 felled most of what was left. One can still identify the beanfield site by the rows of stumps of the pine trees felled by the hurricane.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [was seven miles already planted]

      This is not a Thoreauvian hyperbole. He tells us later in the chapter that he planted 2 ½ acres of beans in rows 15 rod long and 3 feet apart, which means approximately 146 rows. Their total length would be approximately 36,000 feet, or just short of seven miles.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [labor]

      Hercules was forced by Zeus to perform twelve labors for Eurystheus, among them the cleaning of the Augean stables and destruction of the Lernean Hydra.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [I got strength like Antaeus]

      In Greek mythology, a giant who became stronger whenever he touched his mother, the Earth. Hercules defeated Antaeus by lifting him up in the air and squeezing him to death in his arms.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [flowers, produce instead this pulse]

      Pulse: edible seeds of plants having pods.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [and most of all woodchucks]

      According to legend, T could not bear to kill and offending woodchuck, so he caught it in a box trap, releasing it several miles away to feed on someone else’s garden. (Canby, 219).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [it appeared by the arrowheads]

      T had a lifelong interest in Indians and assembled a large collection of Indian artifacts that is now in the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts (Sayre). Ellery Channing tells a story: In his walk, his companion, a citizen, said, “I do not see where you find your Indian arrowheads.” Stooping to the ground, Henry picked one up, and presented it to him, crying, “Here is one.” T tells a somewhat similar anecdote in his Journal for October 29, 1837 (I, 7).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [I was four years old]

      In his Journal for August 1845 (I, 380), T says he was five at the time of this visit.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [to this my native town]

      Thoreau was born in Concord.  In 1818 his family moved to Chelmsford, and then in 1821 to Boston, returning to Concord to settle permanently in 1823.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [now to-night my flute]

      T’s flute can be seen in the Concord Museum.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on February 1, 2014

      [The Bean-Field]

      Gross (1985) describes this chapter as “a wonderfully malicious parody of agricultural reform literature” and points out that beans were never an important money crop in Concord.

      Matthews asserts that “careful reading shows that T put W together with the consummate skill of a master craftsman.” Domina sees this chapter as a miniature of the whole book.

      Comment by Holly Gilbert on February 4, 2015

      I find the difference between Thoreau’s attitude towards his bean field and his attitude towards farming as a living interesting to consider. As Thoreau writes in “Where I Lived, And What I Live For,” “It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail.” Yet here Thoreau commits himself to what seems a little too extensive (what with two and a half acres of beans) to be considered merely a garden. The distinction, I think, is that he views his labors in the bean field as a fulfilling practice rather than a way to make a living. If a man needs to tend to his crops, does a farm, in Thoreau’s view, then become a chain?

      Comment by Morgan Staub on February 5, 2015

       
      I find it fascinating that Thoreau chooses to compare his tending to the bean-fields to the labors of Hercules. In this quick, seemingly fleeting metaphor, Thoreau reveals much about his character and the overarching meaning of his botanic hobby. The twelve labors of Hercules were placed as a burden upon him as a punishment for his committing of deranged crimes. The tasks included slaying and capturing various creatures and stealing mythical items. For Thoreau to compare his simple gardening hobbies, something that most would find as a soothing past time, to this mythical burden implies that he was using the bean-fields to surpass a personal obstacle. Thoreau also goes on to compare his strength to Antaeus, the mythical rival of Hercules, furthering the comparison.

      Comment by Julia Kinel on February 8, 2015

      Of course, Thoreau’s multiple references to ancient Greek/Roman mythology are interesting on their own. However, what I find interesting is how he emphasizes the symbolic aspect of farming through these references as opposed to the practical aspect of farming. He mentions little about his harvest or his pursuit of material sustenance. He’s more interested in what he’s doing rather than what he’s getting out of it. And going along with that, he gains more from the act of farming itself (skills such as patience, hard-work, self-discipline) than he does from the harvest.

      Comment by Jennifer Joyce on February 8, 2015

      I agree with Julia that Thoreau’s description of gardening as a meditative act as opposed to a chore is striking. To me, particularly, I thought of his weeding as a purging of the world he’s left behind. He himself has been “uprooted” from his old ways and transplanted to isolation where he can now grow. I loved the line “making the earth say beans instead of grass.”

      Comment by Rebecca Miller on February 9, 2015

      Wow I love this observation…the way you described it Morgan it almost sounds like Thoreau feels that he is doing some sort of penance via gardening. Like, his experience is a larger than life religious cleansing of sorts rather than a small task. I think that could have wider implications for Thoreau’s motivations on the whole.

      Comment by Dillon Murphy on February 13, 2015

      If we agree that Thoreau’s experiment of living in the woods was not a call for everyone to follow in his footsteps but to find their own way to the happiness of simplicity, it’s easy to imagine this paragraph repurposed to fit any number of different pursuits. Here he discusses the happiness provided to him by his bean field and the entertainment he finds in it, but such rewarding feelings are far from exclusive to farming

      Comment by Kaitlin Pfundstein on February 16, 2015

      I agree with Dillon here– this is a very generalized account of farming that could apply to a myriad of different things.

      Comment by Joshua Brand on November 9, 2015

      Thoreau feels a closer connection to nature by farming and getting something directly out of his labor and the Earth. He finds great joy and entertainment in his work. When he discovers pieces of the old native civilization he feels like he is reliving history and following in their steps.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 10, 2017

      It’s not surprising that Thoreau was picking up artifacts left behind, because his style of life during the book is very similar to the native Americans. His philosophies also have many parallels to the beliefs of native Americans.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 10, 2017

      Thoreau’s farming techniques are reflective of his philosophy about nature, which I enjoyed reading about. He is content with his “half-cultivated” field, which shows his interest in valuing the natural processes of nature existing side by side with his cultivation of the crops. He has an admirable harmony with the natural environment around him, and the way he handles his bean field is truly reflective of this.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 10, 2017

      Paganini is a musician I’ve heard briefly years ago. This is probably his most famous piece:

       

      Comment by Elena Vasquez on October 24, 2017

      [inexhaustible entertainment]

      Thoreau looks onto nature and the creatures in it fondly as he describes the [inexhaustible entertainment] which nature presents to him.

      Comment by Elena Vasquez on October 24, 2017

      I used the example of his “half-cultivated” field as a way for him to understand that he has very little control over natures actions and accepts what happens to him

      Comment by Jeidah DeZurney on October 25, 2017

      Thoreau compares his living to Natives throughout the book.  His beliefs are about living off the land. He even goes as far as thinking the natives are an “ideal human” because of their philosophies and life styles,

      Comment by Elisabeth Strand on October 26, 2017

      With as much distaste as Thoreau had for slavery, going so far as to be arrested to oppose the government that condoned it- I’m surprised he never  talked about the government’s actions in regards to Native Americans, especially considering that the trail of tears happened only 16 years prior to Walden being published and the ongoing Native American massacre in California.

      Comment by Elisabeth Strand on October 26, 2017

      His growing philosophy sounds a lot like the philosophy Buddhist nun/ chef Jeong Kwan has surrounding her garden x

      Comment by Tyler Merritt on October 26, 2017

      This is where Thoreau can be seen as a person who has a strong connection with nature, since it can be implied that he believes that living off the land and not wasting anything is the ideal way to live.

       

      Comment by Tyler Merritt on October 26, 2017

      I agree with you, I’m sure that if he did make a good argument about the disappointing actions our government took (which I am sure he would have), a lot could have possibly come from it in the form of stopping more of those bad choices from taking place.

       

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 19, 2018

      [ It was a cheap sort of top dressing in which I had entire faith. It was a cheap sort of top dressing in which I had entire faith]

      Why does Thoreau repeat this statement?

      Comment by Leila Sassouni on March 7, 2020

      Last semester in Professor McCoy’s English class, we read a novel, “I am Not Sidney Poitier” with sections throughout it that were bland and lacked detail. I felt extremely bothered by the writing, since the narrator was reflecting on a physically challenging obstacle yet provided an unsubstantial amount of detail. In this case, too, I feel incredibly bothered by the writing style of this passage. Aside from its length, there are times where sentences are just written without any additional explanation. It is as if they are simply listed. So, as much as I would like to feel present in this situation and even envision myself there, I cannot do so. He says, “Removing the weeds, putting fresh soil about the bean stems, and encouraging this weed which I had sown…” which genuinely agitates me a lot. Even though in some ways he is extremely detailed and elaborate in some parts of the passage, it still feels as if he is listing information which, in my opinion, is uncreative and bland.

      Comment by Olivia Davis on March 7, 2020

      This passage made me feel curious as to why Thoreau was so passionate about the beans. I understand that farmers care about their plants and vegetables, however the way Thoreau speaks on it in this passage almost seems to come across as more of a way to brag. He discusses his early mornings, and how “later in the day the sun blistered my feet”. These statements, to me, make it feel that Thoreau feels as though he has something to prove, and has to include every detail of his farming in order to evoke a feeling of belief or even sympathy in the reader. I found this to be interesting, and maybe even a little frustrating to read.

      Comment by Jaffre Aether on March 8, 2020

      [ while all the dew was on, though the farmers warned me against it,—I would advise you to do all your work if possible while the dew is on… Early in the morning I worked barefooted, dabbling like a plastic artist in the dewy and crumbling sand, but later in the day the sun blistered my feet

      I would not say this passage brings me joy, but it does remind me of whenever I would have jobs that required me to do manual labor. Thoreau is right that it is best to begin work ‘while the dew is on,’ not just for the practical aspect of it being cool, but for a more sensory one as well. There is something deeply pleasing about waking up early, getting ready for the day, and stepping out to work while the mist still hangs low. The progression of the day is equally enjoyable, such that once you are beat and tired from work and the heat has become nigh unbearable, you are able to take a break to eat with your friends. I know Thoreau did not write about this, but sitting in the sun, taking a well-earned break, it is one of the more honest and enjoyable aspects of life. This passage evokes that spirit for me. The early start on work, the passage of the sun through the sky, and the conviviality of food at noonday.

      Comment by Hannah Fahy on March 8, 2020

      Blackberries always make me happy and strangely sad. My brother and his family used to live in Seattle, WA which is overrun by blackberry bushes. They are everywhere, and they are an invasive species that kill off the native plants. That’s why blackberries make me sad. Despite how terrible that fact is, picking blackberries with my niece and nephew is one of my favorite past-times. Blackberries make me think of chubby cheeks stained with juice and kissing boo boos caused by the bushes’ thorns. I can sympathize with Thoreau here; blackberry bushes are impossible to get rid of, and they kill every other plant around them. He seems to have been able to grow crops in spite of several challenges.

      Comment by Maeve Morley on March 8, 2020

      This particular paragraph made me feel nostalgic in a way. Here, Thoreau is commenting on his personal connection to his hometown and Walden Pond. In a sense, he is a part of the history and of the landscape that comprise his home. Not only that, but he also stands witness to the future, as he sees new life budding before him. This situation reminded me of my own hometown, which played a vital role in my childhood. I experienced feelings of nostalgia as I left to attend college, and it was bittersweet when I returned home and found that it was “different” from when I had previously left. For example, my old high school went through a complete renovation. In this sense, I have a way of relating with Thoreau, in which these places will always be home to us, even as it is ever evolving.

      Comment by Rachel Beck on March 8, 2020

      Though Thoreau calls the brown-thrasher an enemy to corn, the way he describes the bird sitting upon the topmost spray of birch, singing all morning, makes me feel joyous. Ever since the weather has been getting warmer, I’ve been hearing birds chirping outside my dorm room window every morning. Back at home, I would hear the same thing throughout the spring and summer. I think maybe the idea of hearing birds chirping in the morning makes me so happy because it reminds me of warm weather. I’ve also been hearing it since I was a child, so there’s a nostalgic aspect to it, as well.

      Comment by Emma Annonio on March 8, 2020

      Thoreau’s description of the beginning of his day is so very different from my fast paced, technological life that it brings me joy and jealousy while reading. While the work Thoreau pursues is not easy by any means, he is able to enjoy what nature provides him. His one statement, “Early in the morning I worked barefoot, dabbling like a plastic artist in the dewy and crumbling sand. . .” is what I imagine a more simple like to be. The physical connection he has with the earth, working in solitude, and respecting the crops he grows is not something many people in the mainstream world will experience to such a great degree. Though is his simple life all that simple? Hiring more men or purchasing machinery to aid his farming would make his day more efficient but it would remove the unique connection he has with his own land. He is able to enjoy the work he does because of the mindset he has, and that is a quality I believe more people should possess.

      Comment by Justin Colleran on March 8, 2020

      When Thoreau brings up harvesting different types of things, it reminds me of the stories that my Granny used to tell me about the farm she grew up on in England. She used to milk cows, pick up chicken eggs, things like that. She would also grow carrots on her farm as well. Reading this brought me a lot of joy.

      Comment by Danielle Crowley on March 8, 2020

      This passage makes me think of nationalism and being proud of ones work. For starters, Thoreau discusses Massachusetts and how its liberties are in safekeeping. This indicates that Thoreau is proud to live in the United States and is proud of democracy and other enlightenment thoughts.

      Additionally, Thoreau talked about working in his bean field. It is clear in this paragraph that because Thoreau feels secure in his future that he can enjoy his work and throw himself into it with confidence and ease. It brings into question The relationship between nationalism and feelings of confidence and joy. When someone is proud of their country, are they more likely to be confidence and feel secure in their work?

      Comment by Abigail Henry on March 9, 2020

      [ I cherish them, I hoe them, early and late I have an eye to them; and this is my day’s work.]

      This passage brings me joy as it reminds me of my grandfather. Every year, he plants new flowers around the trees in his front yard and in his flower beds out back. Whenever the weather is nice, you can find him out there digging and watering his plants. There is no reason as to why he does this, but tending to his flowers is fun for him, and he thoroughly enjoys doing so.

      Comment by Sandy Brahaspat on March 9, 2020

      Thoreau’s description of the ways in which he finds “inexhaustible entertainment” from the countryside resonated with me because at some level, when I consider the things that spark joy or comfort, for me at least- I notice them when I am most attuned to them. Yet, when I consider the things that do make me happy, like Thoreau – it’s the simplistic aspects of life: whether it’s a gentle breeze or the sounds of waves crashing against each other. When I pay attention to these sounds, I too, often find inexhaustible entertainment from nature.

      Comment by Hannah Jewell on March 9, 2020

      I think it’s important how Thoreau takes the time to absorb his surroundings and the various aspects of the natural world. This is something that can be appreciated when we step away from technology. He also addresses the benefit of working with one’s own hands and the “intimacy” of doing so. This is yet another thing to consider that we may not as so much of our own work is done through the use of technology. The way Thoreau talks about something as simple as a bean in such depth indicates how observant he is and the ways he can view the world and even small things within it more deeply than most people who only see the shallowness that comes with the use of social media and other parts of technology.

      Comment by Alyssa Harrington on March 9, 2020

      Thoreau is making me feel nostalgic in this paragraph as well as self aware. Not everyone or everything in your life is going to go well the first time. This reminded me of him talking about the trees. The trees that fell overall were showing that you cant keep everyone around you all the time. If they (trees) are bringing you down, you have to leave them behind and keep growing by yourself. This also makes me feel joy in knowing that everyone uses as many resources as they can, even if others do not think that it would be beneficial for a certain group to use. This paragraph also makes me wonder what others consider a resource or a burden to the world. Are the dead tree stumps a resource, or a burden for landowners?

      Comment by Claire Rogers on March 11, 2020

      [My enemies are worms, cool days, and most of all woodchucks. The last have nibbled for me a quarter of an acre clean.]

      I feel an amusing degree of joy hearing of the destruction of Thoreau’s field by woodchucks and worms. I am very much glad that they are giving him trouble, and that Thoreau is having difficulty fighting them for control over land he does not own. There is certainly an angry sadness here as well, observing the invader destroying the woodchucks’ home and their original comestibles. This certainly reflects how Thoreau is actively destroying the nature he is so appreciating. He may love the songbirds in the morrow but he chops down their homes soon after.

      Comment by Caroline Crimmins on May 7, 2020

      I agree with you, Maeve. I really enjoyed reading this chapter because of the nostalgic aspect. I felt that Thoreau really connects with his reader in this paragraph because he opens himself up by speaking about a personal story.

  • Conclusion 10-19 (60 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [different drummer. Let him step to]

      A favorite image of T’s, found often in his writings.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [an artist in the city of Kouroo]

      Many scholars have searched for T’s source for this tale. Cameron (1991) has found a possible source in the Indian fable of the Carpenter (or Wood Carver) of the State of Lu, but has been unable to discover where T could have read it. Paul (1958, 353) suggests that “Kouroo was clearly Kuru, Kooroo, or Curu, the nation that fought the Pandoos in the Mahabharata, the sacred land that Arjuna was assigned to protect in the Bhagavad-Gita. T may have come across it in the Laws of Menu, where it is referred to as the country of the Brahmanical sages (see the Dial, III [1843], 332). These Brahmins also carried staves.”

      “I have long thought of it as an allegory of T’s own life, of his love for the Beautiful, the True, and the Good, and of his search for Perfection,” says Christy (193). “I find in it a veiled suggestion of the reason he went to Walden, of his indifference to criticism and the social standards of his time.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [a stock in all respects]

      Stock: “Stick” seems a more likely reading of this word, though Shanley (1971, 327) accepts the reading of the first edition.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [smoothed and polished the staff Kalpa]

      In Hindu literature, Kalpa is not a star but a long period of time, cited specifically by some authors as 4,354,56o,ooo years. The Hindus also knew that over a great period of time the pole star changed. In his Journal (Princeton edition, I, 413) T says, 4,320,000,000 years says Murray form “the grand anomalistic period called a calpa, and fantastically assigned as a day of Brahma.”‘ Sattelmeyer (242) identifies the source of the internal quotation as Hugh Murray, Historical and Descriptive Account of British India . . . (New York, 1832).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [he had put on the ferrule]

      Woodward points out that a ferule (usually spelled ferule) is an iron ring around the end of a staff.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Brahma had awoke and slumbered]

      A day of Brahma supposedly lasted two billion, one hundred and sixty million years, at the end of which time he slept.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Tom Hyde, the tinker]

      In one of the early W manuscripts in the Huntington Library, T adds, “You Boston folks & Roxbury people will want Tom Hyde to mend your kettle,” which seems to imply that Hyde was an eastern Massachusetts character either in folklore or fact. Moseley suggests that he might have been derived from Sam Hyde, an early New England trickster. She also points out that his advice to tailors has been attributed to Till Eulenspiegel of German folklore.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [“From an army of three divisions]

      Confucian Analects, IX, xxv.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [creation widens to our view]

      “And lo! Creation widened in man’s view” (Joseph Blanco White, “To Night”).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [the wealth of Croesus]

      A ruler of Lydia in ancient times who was known as the richest of men.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [life near the bone]

      “The nearer the bone, the sweeter the flesh” (English proverb).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [my ears a confused tintinnabulum]

      A small tinkling bell.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [of the Hon. Mr. – – – of Georgia]

      C. B. Cooper (206) suggests that this was probably Senator Robert Toombs, but does not explain why.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [ready to leap from their court-yard]

      In 1811, Muhammad Ali Pasha of Egypt ordered the massacre of all the Mamelukes. They were trapped in a citadel, but one escaped by leaping on his horse from the ramparts and fleeing to Syria.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [and Webster is his orator]

      Daniel Webster (1782-1852), senator from Massachusetts and the most famous orator of his day. Gottesman (1737) suggests that T is playing on the Islamic affirmation “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [play at kitty-benders]

      A children’s game of running out onto thin ice without breaking through.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [the swamp before him had a hard bottom]

      This story was told in the Concord Yeoman’s Gazette for November 22, 1828, T’s most likely source. Many variations on the tale are given in Hunt and Maxwell (100-9).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [let me feel for the furring]

      The furring are studs to which laths are nailed. Shanley (1971, 402) has corrected this from the first edition’s “furrowing,” although both spellings are found.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [ashamed to invoke the Muse]

      It was the custom to invoke the aid of the Muses whenever one embarked upon a major literary effort.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [I sat at a table where were rich food]

      T often complained about the ostentation of Emerson’s dinner table.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [who lived in a hollow tree]

      Emerson, in his journal, as quoted in Edward Emerson (210), also mentions “a divine man dwelt near me in a hollow tree,” but I have been unable to trace the allusion further. But see the previous hollow tree allusion, page 223.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [we have done great deeds, and sung]

      I have been unable to trace the source of this quotation.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [have had the seven-years’ itch]

      A long-lasting itch. Interestingly, the Dictionary of American English gives its earliest entry for this term as 1899.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [seventeen-year locust]

      When T visited Staten Island in 1843, he was much impressed with the seventeen-year locust (cicada) there, which was not known in Concord.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [with a mere pellicle of the globe]

      Pellicle: skin.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [like the water in the river]

      D’Avanzo (1981) suggests that this penultimate paragraph of W “summarizes the theme of the entire narrative through symbol and illusion.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [which will drown out all our muskrats]

      Muskrats build their houses with the upper chamber above water level and the entrance below. Thus if the water rises high enough, they run the risk of being drowned. T was apparently inspired in this comment by the high waters of 1850 in Concord (Journal, II, 18, 33).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Every one has heard the story]

      This story reached print in a number of places (Harding, 1956) in T’s day, and he saw it both in Timothy Dwight, Travels in New England and New York (New Haven, 1821, II, 398), and in J. W. Barber, Massachusetts Historical Collections (Worcester, 1839, 108-9). The story could be true, because long-homed beetles have been known to hatch out from wood after more than fifty years.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [perfect summer life at last]

      Saunders points out that this passage echoes that about the maggot in “Economy,” but while the earlier passage seems one of cynical disappointment, this is one of affirmation and faith.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [John or Jonathan]

      Names used for a typical British and a typical American citizen, respectively.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [The light which puts out our eyes]

      Jacobs and Jacobs suggest as a source for this, “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in dark places, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts” (II Peter 1:19).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [The sun is but a morning star]

      Friesen suggests many possible sources for this image, among them Emerson, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and the Old and New Testaments.

      Comment by Hannah Huber on February 25, 2014

       
      This has got to be one of my favorite parts of the entire book. As a writer, I relate to this desire to create something beautiful and with something of yourself in it, but more than anything, I find the idea thrilling that you can create “a new system in making a staff, a world with full and fair proportions.” Is this not what artists do, all the time, often not thinking that their efforts are anything really out of the ordinary? They can think lightly of the way that they spin new worlds off from their fingertips, upsetting old orders and a thousand preconceptions, but with what force their efforts strike the world and the people who behold the finished art! I talk about art because it’s the first thing I think of, but Thoreau seems to believe that any calling, pursued by someone who really cares about it, can do the same. How many of us know what we want to do, with what J.K. Rowling called “the deepest and most desperate desire of our hearts”? How many of us believe that we can do it, let alone create the suggestion of an alternate world in so doing? Perhaps this sounds like fatuous praise of Thoreau’s anecdote, without criticism, but I find, and found when I first read it, this passage so exciting, I just had to express it.

      Comment by Hannah Huber on February 25, 2014

       
      It’s so strange to hear Thoreau talk about his contemporaries, well over a century ago, “congratulate [themselves] on being the last of an illustrious line; and in Boston and London and Paris and Rome … [speak] of [their] progress in art and science and literature with satisfaction”. Thoreau meant to point out, and rightly so, that ours was a young species, barely at the beginning of its lifespan, and that, like Adam, we shouldn’t congratulate ourselves when we had so much before us left to achieve. But another possible interpretation of this passage lies in the fact that human beings always seem to think, for one reason or another, that they are at the end of their species’ run. How could things get any better, or even be any different than they are? The world must be about to end, next week at the latest. That’s often how we seem to think in our subconscious mind, or at least we assume that nothing new can ever happen to us in the span we have left. To see something new, something like the Civil War that Thoreau seemed to sense in the air around him, or something like climate instability that we face today, must mean that we can’t adapt. And yet, one of the foremost points of the conclusion is to suggest to the reader the idea that our money, our culture, and our empires are not infallible, that they are not the last forms in which money, culture, and empire will appear, any more than they were the first. Thoreau seems to take this frightening prospect and make it liberating: we did create art, science, and literature, after all, or people very like us who came before us did. It’s such a basic idea, yet one so seldom considered, that Thoreau puts forth: that after money, culture, and empires fail, and perhaps leave their former possessors in ruin, then in the aftermath, maybe the survivors can find that they always had the potential in them to create something at least as great as what came before – very possibly greater.

      Comment by Molly Cavanaugh on February 26, 2014

      Hannah, I also find this passage exciting!

      Something Thoreau also mentions here, that I think is worth adding on to your observations is the idea of sacrifice. In this anecdote, the artist’s friends desert him and eventually die, leaving the artist alone in his creation. The artist is forced to sacrifice connections for the immortality of his work.

      As with much of Thoreau’s advice to the reader of Walden, this prospect is daunting to most, and impossible to many. Most of us are not willing to make this sacrifice, because we fear, or because we lack desire.

      The purity of the artist’s work is told in this form to show the impossibility of capturing such purity, the singular focus, the drive, while also showing the reward for any brave enough to make the attempt.

      Comment by Molly Cavanaugh on February 26, 2014

      “The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it.”

      I found this passage to be spectacularly beautiful, and incredibly optimistic. Instead of the slow decay of humanity, the circle of life of rotting slowly away from the day we are born, Thoreau shows us that we can be better than ourselves.

      Like the rivers, lives are subject to constant change: change in weather, roughness, even physical form, but the flow remains continuous.

      Comment by Allison Fox on March 1, 2015

      “Shall we with pains erect a heaven of blue grass over ourselves, though when it is done we shall be sure to gaze still at the true ethereal heaven far above, as if the former were not?”

      Here, Thoreau revisits his reasoning for going to the woods. In one of the first chapters, Thoreau explains his biggest fear: laying on his death bed only to realize that he failed to “suck the marrow out of life”. In the conclusion he reiterates the necessity of shunning convention. Thoreau encourages individuality, and a patient, soul-searching lifestyle. He recoils at the artificial reality that humans have created for themselves- an arena for competition and strict societal roles. Thoreau asks his readers to abandon our man-made “heaven of blue grass”. Then, we may recognize the true heaven, which floats over us as Nature, and live a purposeful life.

      Although I’m a proponent for individuality, I can’t help but envision a world of disconnected, delusional woodsmen if we were all to lead this Transcendentalist lifestyle.

      Comment by Jennifer Joyce on March 1, 2015

      Thoreau wrote Walden to inspire others to escape societal norms and pursue a pure lifestyle. Yet he concludes his work assuming “John or Jonathan will not realize all this.” The generalized name he uses connects back to the prejudices he held against John Field. Why would an author publish a book that will never reach the audience they feel needs it?

      Comment by Ed Gillin on April 11, 2016

      [and that the United States are a first-rate power]

      Note the plural reference, which also may be found in Walt Whitman’s introduction to the 1855 Leaves of Grass.  It was only after the American Civil War that “United States” came to signify a country, rather than a “union” of component states.

      Comment by Isaac Park on April 12, 2016

      I feel that the last few chapters have allegorical images to references we would find in the bible. He alludes Spring (especially the climate change) as a form of rebirth, and evokes the creation of the Cosmos. This becomes especially important because a specific amount of Thoreau’s verse have preacher-like tones. He does not necessarily only inform, but commands. He urges his readers to [Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.] Whereas some of his prose may seem condescending in earlier chapters of Walden, his “commands” are very advice-like and direct, rendering readers to view Thoreau as admirable in his final messages to us.

      Comment by Natalie LaCourt on April 12, 2016

      To me, the whole last chapter seems to be a direct contradiction to “Pond Scum.” Within this chapter, one can see a certain humility possessed by Thoreau, such as when he discusses himself looking down at the ants. Along with this, it seems clear that he does not have animosity towards humans, but rather seems to possess an animosity towards society. Within this chapter, he discusses how money and fame and riches corrupt people by distracting them from the true values of life. Much like Emerson, he seems to have infinite hope for humanity, if only they can recognize their divine possibilities.

      Comment by Alexis Sammler on April 13, 2016

      [The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.]

      It is morning by the end of Walden. Thoreau lets his readers know it is time to wake up. The day is young. Good things are going to happen to us if we embrace the message of spring and rise.

      Carpe Diem.

      Comment by Mark Gallagher on June 25, 2016

      This transcendental epiphany becomes a satirical “spiritual lesson” in Herman Melville’s short story, “The Apple-Tree Table; or, Original Spiritual Manifestations,” published in Putnam’s Monthly Magazine  in May of 1856 (465-475). Several critics have commented on this, the first being Frank Davidson, who argues that Melville’s story “records its author’s thoughts on religion at a critical time in his life” (479), and that its “inconclusive ending” speaks to the author’s “conflicting and unresolved views” on Calvinism. (See “Melville, Thoreau, and ‘The Apple-Tree Table’.” American Literature 25.4 (1954): 479-488.) If you ask me, Melville’s take on Thoreau is a parody of Transcendental optimism, characterized as a naive faith in “spirit” that blithely ignores the more pessimistic facts of material existence. It may be pretty to think that the bug symbolizes resurrection and immortality, according to Melville, but when the bug dies the next day, what are we to make of that? In Thoreau’s defense, the conclusion does not moralize upon resurrection as such; rather, Thoreau tells his reader how to live without an abiding faith in resurrection and immortality.

      Comment by Elisabeth Strand on October 26, 2017

      The purpose the artist derives from the creation of his staff reminds me of Viktor Frankl when he discussesthe importance of a job only the individual can fulfill when finding meaning. In the same way that Nietzche says “He who has a why can bear almost any how.” the artist was able to endure the passing of all his friends.

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 20, 2018

      [Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.]

      Thoreau critiques the value on labor over individuality.

       

      Comment by Leila Sassouni on May 5, 2020

      [If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.]

      I feel like this sentence completely encompasses Thoreau and his reasoning for living in the woods rather than near more townspeople. Thoreau subtly says that he is essentially choosing to be his own leader rather than follow a herd of others. He wants to make his own success and be in charge of his own life. He would rather live in the woods where he has the chance to grow as an individual than to be surrounded by other townspeople who do not add intellect to his life. I have an appreciation for this line.

      Comment by Kira Baran on May 8, 2020

      [If the condition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute?]

      This line reminds me of an Albert Einstein quote: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

      Thoreau has a strong distaste for conforming to sociocultural expectations, which are likened here to an artificial man-made “reality.” His strong taste, instead, for individuality, is likened to nature and the “true ethereal heaven” that one cannot (and must not attempt to) ignore lest that attempt lead to self-delusion and/or failure.

      Comment by Christina Inter on May 8, 2020

      [However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. ]

      This is one of my favorite quotes from Walden. One of the most beautiful things from Thoreau’s time in the woods is his ability to find beauty in the simplicity of life, in the uncomplicated harmony of nature. In life, it seems true that the poor are the most content with what they have while the rich are always craving more, despite having everything. As Thoreau points out, life is all about perspective. No matter how large your home may be, “the setting sun is reflected fro the windows…as brightly as from the rich man’s abode.” One is only as content as they allow themselves to be. And as Thoreau explores, there are joys that can be found in every life, in the smallest of moments.

      Comment by Emma Raupp on May 9, 2020

      [Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town’s poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. May be they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving]

      This sentiment is reflected in Thoreau’s experiences with visitors to Walden Pond. He describes the Canadian woodchopper, Alex Therien, with as much respect and reverence as one of his more highly educated peers. Thoreau recognizes the wisdom, the variable genius, all people possess if only we take the time to listen. Many of our greatest fears– like poverty and isolation–are assuaged by Thoreau’s account of life at Walden Pond. One may be deprived of material wealth and human contact and still live a rich life, perhaps even the richest life: one that is more spiritually rewarding than the lives of well-to-do townsfolk. There is also freedom of greater proportion in the impoverished life, because the world expects little of you. There is less pressure to conform to society as an outsider, which Thoreau seems to view as an asset. In his eyes, society creates more trouble for itself than it’s worth, and the humble man is more honorable than any prince. If leading a simple life is perceived as impoverishment, then let the world aspire to poverty.

      Comment by Sandy Brahaspat on May 13, 2020

      Thoreau’s comment: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhap it is  because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away” really resonated with me because throughout most of my academic career, I’ve always been incredibly competitive and hard on myself. It’s true, most writers are their own worst critics. As I leave my undergraduate years behind me, Thoreau’s message appears to be a token of wisdom that I ought to keep safe. Reading this  passage and the rest of his Conclusion, I suppose I am beginning to realise that not everyone’s path looks the same and most of us have no idea which path we want to take, and that’s okay… at least that’s what I’ll tell myself going forward.

      Comment by Katelyn Cummings on February 15, 2021

      [“Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul”]

      I agree with this quote for a few different reasons, one of those reasons being is that one doesn’t need money to be happy and to have a good life. It might be nice to have money to spend it on things that might bring joy. But no one necessarily needs money to have a good life. Those who work hard and are able to barter for their items tend to have a great life. The reason is that they don’t know any different, this is something they have become costumed to and have always lived this way. Overall, to live a good life money won’t buy you happiness, it’s something that you have to find yourself. You have to look at the big picture and find what is something that makes you feel good and enjoy life. That is what is necessary for the soul.

      Comment by Olivia Elliott on February 16, 2021

      I like this paragraph a lot. I feel that his views on truth are very relevant today and its true that many people cherish material things over it. People would rather live a luxurious life than an honest one.

      Comment by kenneth demerchant on February 16, 2021

      [Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.]

      Thoreau didn’t want love, money or fame. He wanted to find the meaning of life.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      Well said, Kati! And Thoreau would agree. He’s concluding the book here and this idea comes around from Ch 1, but it’s an important one throughout the book.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 16, 2021

      The way you put that, Olivia, makes me think of a certain ex-President with toilets made of gold.

      Comment by Sofie Wolters on February 17, 2021

      [If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.]

      People have different motivations and goals in life so deflecting from the majority is not something that should be looked down upon but rather inspiring to others to follow whatever calls them.

      Comment by Alec Marshall on February 17, 2021

      “The life in us is like the water in the river.”

      I interpreted this line as simply saying that life is ever-changing for all species, with humans being no different. Though I am not sure if this was Thoreau’s intended message, I think that is also the beauty of his writing. There is enough ambiguity at times to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 17, 2021

      Yes & yes. Some readers, then and now, are put off by the ambiguity of his writing. People asked him, even while he was alive, to write more simply: to offer more usable “Guides to Simple Living.” But he didn’t want to tell people how to live. He wanted a reader just like you –to draw his own conclusions, be inspired in his own way. One of the things I love most about Walden is how I take different ideas from it every time I read it, and I’ve been reading it off and on for 30 years… The ambiguity and density are what make that possible.

      Comment by Ainsley Owens on February 18, 2021

      This paragraph also discusses, as I mentioned in one of my earlier comments, Thoreau’s philosophy and how it intertwines with nature. He states that no matter what your life is like, you do not give up and reject it and complain about it. Thoreau believes the way to live your best life with what you are given is to face your problems head on instead of ignoring them because they will only continue to develop and get worse. Thoreau states things don’t change; we do. While you may be stuck with things and situations, you yourself are not stuck if you change your thinking.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 20, 2021

      Well said, Ainsley. Given that he had TB and financial constraints, he lived that advice.

  • The Ponds 18-34 (55 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [an old man, a potter]

      Tommy Wyman, whose pottery was at the northeast end of the pond. T recounts Wyman’s story in his Journal for June 16, 1853 (V, 260).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Sky water.]

      The shortest sentence in W.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [suddenly the dimples ceased]

      1852, according to his Journal (IV, 424).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [there was an iron chest]

      D’Avanzo (1979) expounds at length on biblical echoes of this image.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [or the teacher’s desk]

      T had been previously employed as a schoolteacher and as a worker in his father’s pencil factory.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [still further laid them waste]

      Now, thanks to the fact that Walden Pond is a state reservation, the woods have returned to its shores, though the great hurricane of 1938 and a misguided attempt by park commissioners in 1957 to put in a new parking lot destroyed many of the trees.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [When you invert your head]

      It was a habit of T’s to bend over and peer at the landscape through his legs, providing a novel view – a device sometimes used by artists.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [where the skater insects]

      T inserted “(Hydrometer)” after “insects” in his copy of W.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [murder will out]

      “Mordre wol out” (Chaucer, “The Prioress’s Tale,” i.1766).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [to the village in a pipe]

      That plan was never carried out, and Concord now gets its water from Nagog Pond in Acton.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Iron Horse]

      Locomotive, which in T’s day needed regularly to replenish its water and wood for its steam engine.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Trojan horse]

      The Greek’s were finally able to pierce Troy’s defenses by hiding in a wooden horse and persuading the Trojans to drag it into the city as a god.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Moore of Moore Hall]

      “But More of More-Hall, with nothing at all, / He slew the dragon of Wantley” (Bishop Percy, “The Dragon of Wantley,” Reliques of Ancient English Poetry).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [between the ribs]

      Just northwest of Walden Pond, the earth was cut away to some depth to permit the railroad to proceed on a level track.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the Irish have built]

      Another reference to the Irish railroad workers’ shanties about half a mile northwest of T’s cabin site.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [there was no guile]

      “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!” (John 1:47).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [high in my thought]

      T’s own poem. Critics vary widely in their interpretation of it, though most agree that he is speaking of his own identity with Walden Pond. For further explication see Paul Williams (1964) and see Bode.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [State Street]

      The financial district in Boston.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [thus reserved and austere]

      “He lived reserved and austere” (Andrew Marvell, “An Horatian Ode,” line 30).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [and waste its sweetness]

      “And waste its sweetness on the desert air” (Thomas Gray, “Elegy in a Country Churchyard”).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [I went a-chestnutting there]

      Although the American chestnut had been one of the commonest trees in T’s day, it was almost completely obliterated by a blight early in this century.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [right had the unclean and stupid]

      T had originally hoped to build his cabin on the shore of Flint’s Pond but had been thwarted by the owner, Mr. Flint – which explains his anger (Edison, 53).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [grasping harpy-like]

      In Greek mythology, a harpy is a filthy, hideous winged monster.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [and it was no privilege]

      Landowners in New England were required to obtain a written “privilege” from the community before they could dam up a stream for water power.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [at least as the clarion Sea]

      The part of the Aegean Sea where Icarus was drowned.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the shore’ a ‘brave attempt]

      “For still the shore my brave attempt resounds” (William Drummond of Hawthornden, “Icarus”).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Goose Pond, of small extent]

      Originally two tiny ponds just east of Walden. One has in recent years been filled in by the Concord town dump.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [This is my lake country]

      England’s scenic Lake District, made famous by Wordsworth.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [to make sandpaper with]

      Part of the Thoreau family business was the manufacture of sandpaper, no piece of which, to my knowledge, now exists.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Virid Lake]

      Sanborn (1909, II, 323) suggests that it was Ellery Channing who gave White Pond this name.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Topographical Description of the Town]

      William Jones, “A Topographical Description of Concord,” Massachusetts Historical Society Collections (I, 1792, 238).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [man who lives nearest the pond]

      A Mr. Haynes. His grandson, Adrian Hayward, gives an amusing account of the pulling out of the tree. Haynes later commented to his son, “T was as anxious for all the particulars as if apples of gold had grown on it.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [butt-end]

      Usually spelled “but-end”.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [after the diamond of Kohinoor]

      One of the world’s largest diamonds – 109 carats – first discovered in India and now part of the British crown jewels.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [‘God’s drop’]

      Emerson thus refers to Walden Pond in his Journal for April 9, 1840 (V, 381). Benoit suggests the term was derived from the Hindu concept of Bindu.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [curious balls]

      These balls are a green alga of the genus Cladophora. A detailed description of them can be found in Smith (424-31).

      Comment by pmorgan on February 5, 2014

      [devilish Iron Horse]

      Twenty-first century readers of Walden might think that Thoreau was being imaginative when he described the railroad as a “devilish Iron Horse,” and they would be justified in thinking so.  And yet, it may be helpful to tease out what particularly is imaginative about this animal-machine metaphor.  What’s imaginative about this passage, I’d like to suggest, isn’t the bare fact that Thoreau decided to use the vehicle “horse” to describe the tenor “railroad,” but the very linguistic act of collapsing these two entities into one metaphor.  Horses and railroads are already conceptually linked for anyone living in early to middle nineteenth-century America because, in the first few decades of railway transportation, passenger trains were literally horse-powered.  Even as late as 1844, some United States railway lines—such as the storied P&C (Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad)—would include horse-drawn trains, even going so far as to allow horse-power at certain hours of the day and steam power during other times.  Thoreau, in other words, is imaginatively collapsing two terms—horses and railroads—that are already linked in the popular imagination of the day.  Thus the specifically imaginative aspect about this passage isn’t how Thoreau decided to compare railroads to horses, but how he linguistically united them into an apocalyptic vision of forest degradation. 

      Comment by Jeffrey Cramer on February 10, 2014

      There is no evidence for Edison’s claim which he does not document in any way. Both Thoreau and Ellery Channing refer to potential sites other than Walden. Neither mentions Flint’s Pond.

      Comment by Alexa Krowiak on February 10, 2015

      After noticing a fact provided courtesy of Walter Harding in one of his comments on this paragraph – about how Thoreau originally intended to build his cabin on the shore of Flint’s pond but had been thwarted by the owner makes this an interesting paragraph. Keeping in mind Thoreau’s original intentions for wanting to live at Walden pond, to find himself and live deliberately in nature, should where he did that have mattered? Would it have been any different if he had in fact been able to build his cabin on the shore of Flint’s pond?

      Comment by Holly Gilbert on February 10, 2015

      I like how closely Thoreau identifies with Walden itself here – it’s as if he is aiming to acquire the same purity he believes the pond has due to its apparent separation from a larger water source. Just as Thoreau admires Walden’s isolation, he attempts to remove himself from a “comparatively impure” society. This raises a question of motive; clearly Thoreau’s lifelong enjoyment of the pond and its beauty were contributing factors, but did he also choose to live on Walden’s shores because he saw it as an embodiment of his goals? Or did he make this connection only after living in solitude?

      Comment by Emily Buckley-Crist on February 11, 2015

      Thoreau says “Nations come and go without defiling [Walden],” so does he consider his dwelling, built within close proximity to the pond, to not alter the landscape in any significant way? Does it lack the permanence of the pond and nature, therefore making it irrelevant?

      On a slightly different note, we can certainly say in the modern world that many nations, especially the United States, have defiled great areas of nature, though Walden Pond itself is currently protected by the government of Massachusetts, mainly due to this text. I can’t help but wonder what Thoreau might have to say (or write) about the current state of nature, as well as the attempts at preservation.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on February 15, 2015

      You make some great points here, Emily. As William Cronon’s essay “The Trouble with Wilderness” suggests, Thoreau’s idea that “in wildness is the preservation of the world” (from his essay “Walking”) helped fuel the modern environmental movement. So there’s strong reason to believe that Thoreau would have been in favor of modern attempts to preserve nature from being “defiled” by commercial use or even just excessive human presence. In addition, his Journal entry for January 30, 1861 points toward the need to block off areas of natural beauty from private ownership. And even by the final paragraph of the present chapter of Walden, he’s clear about his view that humans are in some sense a “disgrace” to the earth.

      But as both Cronon and you point out, this attitude leaves us wondering what to make of Thoreau’s own human activity in nature. If what we value in nature is only its otherness from us, how do we justify even the “natural” intrusion into nature’s beauty that Thoreau (however briefly) attempts?

      Comment by Catherine McCormick on February 16, 2015

      I find the comment “gilding nature continually repairs” interesting. Is it true that nature will be able to repair all of the damage that humans have created? When Thoreau claims that “nations come and go without defiling it” does he beileve this because he is born and living  in a earlier time than us? Are we still able to say that nature will be able to fix itself?

      Comment by Paul Schacht on July 27, 2015

      In fact, this honor would appear to belong to a one-word sentence in “Economy,” par. 89: “Furniture!”

      Comment by Elisabeth Strand on October 26, 2017
      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 19, 2018

      [My Muse may be excused if she is silent henceforth. How can you expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down? ]

      Here Thoreau gives a poetic description of how nature feeds him, and how if she where not as she is he would not be content.

      Comment by Clare Corbett on May 12, 2019

      [Flint’s, or Sandy Pond, in Lincoln, our greatest lake and inland sea, lies about a mile east of Walden. It is much larger, being said to contain one hundred and ninety-seven acres, and is more fertile in fish; but it is comparatively shallow, and not remarkably pure.]

       

      You can see Flint’s Pond on a map here.

      Comment by Tayler Thompson on May 13, 2019

      [ by a chain of small ponds coming from that quarter, and on the other directly and manifestly to Concord River, which is lower, by a similar chain of ponds through which in some other geological period it may have flowed, and by a little digging, which God forbid, it can be made to flow thither again]

      Find Concord River on the map here

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on November 26, 2019

      This is a very magically strange characteristic for a mirror. Mirrors are supposed to reflect all the impurities presented to them back to the presenter, that is to the one who is standing before them.

      In a most subtle way, Thoreau shows us here that Walden is not just for the bathing of the body, we can purify our souls in it — only if we are standing before it with honesty.

      A dervish arrived at a temple and asked the doorman: “What kind of a place is this?” The doorman answered: “This is a place where you must leave envy, lust, greed, anger, hostility, meanness, rudeness, impatience and the like behind and enter.” The dervish said, “If I am able to put all these negative traits behind why would I need to enter this place anyway? I need a place where I can carry all these impurities inside with me and come out without.”

      As a reader of Walden from Iran, I am surprised to see Thoreau is introducing the very place that Persian dervish was looking for.

       

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on February 20, 2020

      Throughout the passage, Thoreau praises Walden Pond as a heavenly mirror emphasizing that “no storm, no dust can dim its surface ever fresh”. Why does he suddenly speak of the mirror’s need for repair?
      How separate is the mirror’s surface from its gilding Nature? How can we justify the contrast between this splendid praise of the mirror’s surface and the need of its gilding Nature for continual repair? Why does the mirror’s quicksilver never wear off, while its gilding Nature continually repairs? What is the source of this flaw? What did Thoreau see? Could we miraculously look through his eyes for an instant here and discover the source of this apparent discrepancy?

      Comment by Christina Inter on March 10, 2020

      Thoreau is discussing the shift in the landscape of the pond to mark the passing of time. As people have come and gone and development looms near, more and more of the pond’s history has faded away. Thoreau laments in the villagers’ desire to use pipes to carry water away from the pond and through the town. While the development of running water is something we frequently enjoy in the modern day, Thoreau views it as a violation. However, he is fighting an uphill battle as the convenience and efficiency of technology has won — look at the world we live in today. Why travel all the way to the pond to bathe when you can do it without leaving your own home? The change of the landscape around Thoreau is a manifestation of time passing. Trees and people have disappeared as time has marched on the the physical world has changed. While Thoreau may be deeply bothered by the change he sees taking over the pond, it is part of the progress of time, of the technology the wave of the future carries.

      Comment by Justin Colleran on March 22, 2020

      In terms of time, this paragraph talks about the time of year that Walden looks perfect. It looks “fair” and “pure.” Thoreau compares it to a “mirror.” No one can break it. Maybe he saying that no matter how badly people want to tear it down, they simply cannot because of its beauty.

      Comment by Jaffre Aether on March 25, 2020

      [A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is continually receiving new life and motion from above. It is intermediate in its nature between land and sky]

      I think this passage is interesting because it contains three spheres of time. The first sphere is the human, the second sphere is Nature, and the third sphere is the Sky. The human sphere of time is limited and small, as evidenced by the inability to recognize the gradual changes in the natural world. We exist on an incredibly small scale, and it is the pond that serves as the site between this recognition and the difference in the Natural sphere and the Cosmic sphere. On Thoreau’s side, and ours, we can only perceive the soft hum and gentle reverberations of the natural and cosmic cycle. We can only see the wind mingle with the surface of the pond, but we cannot be part of it. I find Thoreau’s notion of ‘continually receiving new life and motion from above’ interesting as well. There is the natural element of sky, in that it rains and nourishes life that way, entailing a cyclical conception of time. But, I think it also possible to read a spiritual element within that quote as well. The sky, the cosmos, stands stark as the beacon of eternity in our world, and it is this eternal time that contrasts the short lived span of time humans and nature is allowed.

      Comment by Emma Raupp on March 26, 2020

      “It is itself unchanged, the same water which my youthful eyes fell on; all the change is in me. It has not acquired one permanent wrinkle after all its ripples.”

      According to Thoreau, water is one facet of the ageless beauty in nature. Water, not alive but certainly beholden to some lively characteristics, does not wither with time like living organisms do. It makes me sad to imagine how shocked Thoreau would be at the quality of even the cleanest bodies of water today… impossibly, they are beginning to show the detriments of time and human wear, mostly due to pollution. Despite this, water retains its essential characteristics, albeit with more trash amidst the pond-dwellers: “the same thought is welling up to its surface that was then; it is the same liquid joy and happiness.” Water still flows with the same ferocity and remains still with like serenity in 2020 as it did in 1854. It continues to inspire us, calm us, and call us visiting. If we take time to notice, many parts of nature remain unchanged and somewhat eternal.  Unfortunately, though, we must also realize their sanctity is being threatened– by time, but mostly callous human choices.

      Comment by Priscilla Ford on May 20, 2020

      I think this paragraph is really interesting in terms of how it is worded. “As precious to my eye as if fewer or rarer.” Thoreau is saying that in his eyes, he has never seen anything as precious as Walden on that day. What makes Walden so beautiful? IS it the mirror that makes Walden so beautiful, and if the mirror no longer existed, would he still be as beautiful? Maybe it is the mirror that is the real beautiful thing, hence it making everything else beautiful. Thoreau also states that all impurity presented to its sinks. Does the mirror take in ll that impurity or does the impurity gets overthrown by the beauty? I really like this paragraph because it makes you think.

  • Economy 30-44 (112 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [a particular form, my tailoress]

      She has been identified by Sanborn (1909, I, 79) as Mary Minot of Concord.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [at beholding the costume]

      T originally made these statements on costume about a group of Tyrolian singers who visited Concord in 1841 (Journal, 1906, I, 196).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [Islands]

      T is here using the common generic term for islands inhabited by uncivilized natives.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [be obtained. As for Clothing]

      The relationship of the following material on clothing to the “clothes philosophy” of Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus will quickly be seen by any student familiar with that work.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Laing]

      Samuel Laing, Journal of a Residence in Norway (London, 1837, 295).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [believe that our factory system]

      Here again, it is significant that T was an early protester against the evils of the factory system, which was already producing slums and paupers in New England cities.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [We worship not the Graces]

      Graces: the Roman goddesses of charm and beauty.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [nor the Parcæ]

      Parcæ: the Fates in Roman mythology.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [forget that some Egyptian wheat]

      The Concord Freeman for Nov. 12, 1841, gives such an account, and T probably saw it there. Such stories have appeared in many places, and although they have often been dismissed as myth, present-day scientists acknowledge that dormant seeds can germinate even after thousands of years. See, for example, the New York Times for March 7, 1951.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [of any people. Let Harlequin]

      A droll character in comedy and pantomime usually dressed in parti-colored clothes.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [are as becoming as purple]

      The color of royal garments.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [The manufacturers]

      Ellery Channing, in his notes on W, points out that T had visited the Bigelow mills in Clinton, Massachusetts. T reports at length on this visit in his Journal (1906, II, 134-6).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the coast, in some Salem]

      Salem, Massachusetts, was the center of trade with China, the Celestial Empire. The products listed were all prominent in that trade (Morison).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [discharged upon a Jersey shore]

      The coast of New Jersey was long noted as the site of many shipwrecks.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [untold fate of La Perouse]

      Jean-Francois de Galaup, Comte de La Perouse (1741-1788), a French explorer who disappeared in 1788 while exploring the Pacific. His fate was not learned until 1826, when his shipwreck was discovered on Vanikoro Island, north of the New Hebrides.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [in this state of society]

      T did not have the usual mid-Victorian objections to nudity, but delighted in swimming and wading naked in rivers. Modern nudists often claim him as one of their precursors (MacDonald).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Eve, according to the fable]

      Genesis 3:7. Calling the Bible a fable alienated some of T’s more devout contemporaries, but he was not one to mince words to soothe his neighbors’ feelings.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [in a workhouse, a labyrinth]

      Labyrinth: any complicated structure, but specifically a building in Crete built by Daedalus where the Minotaur was housed. Theseus was able to penetrate it, slay the Minotaur, and escape with the aid of Ariadne, who gave him the clue – a thread to follow.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [I have seen Penobscot Indians]

      The Penobscots of northern Maine frequently visited Concord and camped outside the town

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [to see a large box]

      Although T suggests a man might well live in a large box, only seven pages later he condemns the “degraded poor” for living in “sties,” which Bridgman (79) says are surely more livable than boxes.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [his soul be free]

      “If I have freedom in my love,/ And in my soul am free” (Richard Lovelace, “To Althea from Prison”).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [a strolling Indian]

      American Indians were always of great interest to T. He gathered more than 2,800 pages of notes from his readings on them and mentions them nearly fifty times in W (Sayre).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [of a well-known lawyer]

      In his Journal (II, 84) T identifies the well-known lawyer as Samuel Hoar, the town’s leading citizen and father of T’s friends Elizabeth and Edward Hoar.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [one’s while to buy them]

      Tripp (1988) suggests that T may be echoing both Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (VI, 444-6) and Virgil’s Eclogues (X, 70-2).

      Paul (1958, 322) suggests that T is here giving a thinly veiled account of the publishing failure of his Week.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [to transact some private business]

      At least one piece of “private business” that T wished to transact at Walden Pond was the writing of A Week, his memorial tribute to his brother John, who had died in 1842. For three years he had been kept from the task by worldly affairs. By retiring to the pond, he was able to find time to complete the book.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [adventurers and merchants, from Hanno]

      Hanno was a Carthaginian navigator of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [interest, of tare and tret]

      The two ordinary deductions in calculating the net weight of goods to be sold by retail, “tare” making allowance for the weight of the container, “tret” for that of waste matter.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [railroad and the ice trade]

      Both the railroad and the ice trade were new to Walden Pond when T lived there. See the chapter “The Pond in Winter.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [it is a good port]

      In T’s own copy of W, he corrected “post” to “port,” and it is clearly “port” in the manuscript. Either word makes sense, and critics have argued for both.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [good foundation. No Neva marshes]

      St. Petersburg is built in the lowlands of the Neva River.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [no better than wooden horses]

      Clothes horses: wooden frames used to air out clothes, and also persons who think clothes are all-important.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [naked thief]

      The New York Times for May 16, 1969, reported that thieves in Trujillo, Peru, used this technique to rob houses. I doubt they got the idea from W.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [When Madam Pfeiffer]

      Ida Pfeiffer, A Lady’s Voyage Round the World (New York, 1852, 265).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [hero ever has a valet]

      “No man is a hero to his valet” (Madame Cornuel, 1605-1694).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [new wine in old bottles]

      “Neither do men put new wine into old bottles else the bottles break” (Matthew 9:17).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [outmost cuticle and mortal coil]

      “When we have shuffled off this mortal coil” (Hamlet, III, i, 67).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [we grew like exogenous plants]

      Plants that grow by adding an annual layer just beneath the bark.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [like the old philosopher]

      T was thinking of Bias (c. sixth century B.c.), as he indicates in his Journal (1906, I, 169-70).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [Gookin]

      Daniel Gookin, Historical Collections of the Indians in New England (Boston, 1792, chap. III, 9).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [is never done]

      “Man may work from sun to sun, / But woman’s work is never done” (Bartlett, 920).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [found sailing under false colors]

      Pirates and other unscrupulous merchantmen often sailed flying the flag of another nation to disguise their activities.

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 21, 2014

      The strict business habits required when dealing with the “celestial empire” appear to be those habits of head and heart that allow one to mine the wealth of human resource deep within at native bottom.

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 21, 2014

      [I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit?]

      Or the manner of  the inner man being  more important than the look of the outer. Remembering this comment has saved, and served, me often over the years. One of my favorites!

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 21, 2014

      [according to the fable]

      Perhaps better to use Myth? Which, like Thoreau’s Walden, the Bible certainly is. Good myth I suspect for those who mine the depths, but not something born out by history.

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 21, 2014

      [Economy is a subject which admits of being treated with levity, but it cannot so be disposed of.]

      I like Jeff Crammer’s comment on Thoreau’s use of the word Economy in his annotated edition where he reminds us that Thoreau wrote “that the economy of living is synonymous with philosophy” further on in the chapter (paragraph #72 in this version).Oikonomia, from the Greek, meaning management of the (inner) household, which really is the business that Thoreau is about doing.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on January 5, 2015

      [as if we grew by exogenous plants by addition without.]

      In a recent episode of the podcast RadioLab titled “Worth,” one segment posed the question, “How Do You Put a Price Tag on Nature?” After considering the pros and cons of valuing Nature in either monetary or aesthetic terms, the segment asked (at just after 19′ 00″) if there might be “another way to think about the value of Nature” — a way that doesn’t invoke either money or beauty as measurement. One of the authors interviewed for the segment, J.B. MacKinnon,  suggests that we might think about the diversity of Nature as “an extension of our own brains,” a “pool of imagination and creativity from which we, as humans, are able to draw.”

      Thoreau’s persistent practice as a writer is to do just that: to make the phenomena and processes of Nature a means of investigating and characterizing who we are as human beings, how we live, and how we might live. In doing so, he also makes it a means of investigating the concept of worth itself. Walden is not simply a work that asks us to value Nature, but a work that asks us to examine and re-assess our values using the imaginative resources that Nature provides.

      Comment by William Morris on November 2, 2015

      [the lawyer had only to weave arguments]

      The use of “weave” here cleverly compares the lawyer’s livelihood with that of the Indian. It shows that they both do what they can do.

      Comment by Andrew Inchiosa on November 2, 2015

      [Thinking that when he had made the baskets he would have done his part, and then it would be the white man’s to buy them. He had not discovered that it was necessary for him to make it worth the other’s while to buy them, or at least make him think that it was so, or to make something else which it would be worth his while to buy.]

      Marx may sympathize with the above comment, in current society our worth, as well as others is contingent upon the material concrete value they can supply. Rather than exist in such a society Thoreau finds it preferable to live in Walden where he may determine his own worth

      Comment by William Morris on November 2, 2015

      [No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.]

      Thoreau’s observation of society here is similar to Pope Francis’s in On Care for Our Common Home, Lui’s in Rameau’s Nephew, and Marx’s in Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. We live in a society in which materialism, more specifically how well one conforms to the conventions of our materialist society, can be seen as more important than being a good person. At the very least, it’s better for getting ahead.

      Comment by Andrew Inchiosa on November 2, 2015

      [Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men’s while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them. The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind]

      Is the avoiding the necessity of selling baskets, a form of opting out of society? Is it possible to exist in society without engaging in the buying and selling?

      Comment by Alexandra Pownall on November 2, 2015

      [ He had not discovered that it was necessary for him to make it worth the other’s while to buy them, or at least make him think that it was so, or to make something else which it would be worth his while to buy.]

      This correlates well with what HIM said in Rameau’s Nephew. HIM describes his lifestyle as selling himself to others as something valuable. He passes himself off as an accomplished musical tutor, despite being quite inadequate and never imparting any knowledge unto others. But because he is perceived by an individual to have value, he does. The opposite occurs with the Indians baskets, because he might not have made something worth while, and failed to convince others that it was so, then he did not have valuable merchandise. Therefore value is only found in the individuals perception of a good or service. No value is actually seen in the inherent worth of an object only the importance placed on it by an individual.

      Comment by Dan Kim on November 2, 2015

      Society has wronged the protagonist by not giving him the credit for all the work he has done. The previous paragraphs (P27-29) explain the toil that the protagonist has done for society and has yet to be recognized for them.

      Comment by Ryan Michaelsen on November 2, 2015

      [As this business was to be entered into without the usual capital, it may not be easy to conjecture where those means, that will still be indispensable to every such undertaking, were to be obtained. As for Clothing, to come at once to the practical part of the question, perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty, and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility. Let him who has work to do recollect that the object of clothing is, first, to retain the vital heat, and secondly, in this state of society, to cover nakedness, and he may judge how much of any necessary or important work may be accomplished without adding to his wardrobe.]
      Here Thoreau analyzes man’s use of clothing. He suggests people are more concerned with the way they are perceived by others in society then the benefits the clothing offers to their survival. “Perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty, and a regard for the opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility.” This is comparable to Marx’s view about how the need for more possessions in a capitalistic society forces us to abandon part of who we are.
       

      Comment by Olivia Furness on November 2, 2015

      [He was at first bare and out of doors; but though this was pleasant enough in serene and warm weather, by daylight, the rainy season and the winter, to say nothing of the torrid sun, would perhaps have nipped his race in the bud if he had not made haste to clothe himself with the shelter of a house. Adam and Eve, according to the fable, wore the bower before other clothes. Man wanted a home, a place of warmth, or or comfort, first of physical warmth, then the warmth of the affections.]
      This quote shows the importance of shelter and protection. It relates to divinity because it mentions Adam and Eve, found in the Bible. This brings up the creation of Adam and Eve and how they valued shelter from the weather before clothes. This theme is still seen in the 19th century, where Walden is talking about how men would die if they didn’t create shelter. Relating to Locke, he talks about how people give up their natural freedom to assure the protection of their lives and their property. A shelter is necessary for survival and that can be seen since the beginnings of Christianity.

      Comment by Henrik Otterberg on September 16, 2017

      Thoreau borrows liberally here from a now largely forgotten treatise, Loring Dudley Chapin’s Vegetable Kingdom; or, Handbook of Plants and Fruits (New York, J. Lott, 1843). From Sattelmeyer’s Thoreau’s Reading (1988), item. 289, page 150, we learn that this book was part of Thoreau’s personal library, however without links to references in any of Thoreau’s notes, journals or published works. I discuss the passage in an article called “Figuring Henry” in The Concord Saunterer (22, 2014), and quote from there: “Chapin’s The Vegetable Kingdom not only sanctions Thoreau’s mentioned liber associations but suggests them outright, and in so doing deserves to be quoted at some length. In his section on exogenous plants, applicable to ”outside growers, such as the oak” (102; cf. 9), Chapin introduces the thick stem as a multilayered structure: ”The epidermis, cellular integument and cortex constitute the bark.” He then proceeds to describe the respective layers thus: ”The epidermis /…/ is also called the cuticle, as the scarf or outer skin of animals is called. It varies in thickness in plants, from the delicate rose-leaf to the ragged bark of the oak or walnut /…/. It peels off in the birch, etc., as with animals, not possessing, as with them, vitality” (65f.) In turn, ”[t]he cellular integument or texture is next beneath the epidermis, or cuticle. It is the ’true skin’ and the depository of color as in animals and man, alike in the white Caucasian and black African” (66). And further into the layer, Chapin explains, ”[t]he cortex [ensues] directly beneath the cellular structure. /—/ The inner part [of the cortex], called the liber, is the seat of the principle and vital functions of the plant. The name is from a book, the leaves of which it resembles in its annual layers deposited by the descending sap. It is a kind of net work resembling cloth. As a new layer is formed, the old one of bark is pushed outward which readily loses its vital principle and forms an inert crust. It is of liber that cloth is made, as with flax, the paper-mulberry, etc. This being the vital part of the plant, it cannot be destroyed with impunity. The most recently formed part of the liber, between the wood and the bark, remains inactive during the repose of vegetation. After affecting the development of buds and the formation of new wood and bark it hardens, as in previous years, and loses its power” (66). [It would be gratifying to be able to consult Thoreau’s copy of Chapin regarding possible annotations at the relevant junctures, but the volume evidently passed into private hands in 1963, as made clear by Walter Harding in his annex article ”A New Checklist of the Books in Henry David Thoreau’s Library” in Studies in the American Renaissance 1983, ed. J. Myerson (Charlottesville: Univ. Press of Virginia, 1984), p. 158; cf. Harding’s original notation regarding Chapin’s botany in Thoreau’s Library (Charlottesville: Univ. Press of Virginia, 1957), p. 40.]” -I have not seen reference to Chapin made to date in any published, annotated edition of Walden, of which the most ambitious remain Harding’s, van Doren Stern’s and Cramer’s, while over twenty have been issued over the years.

      Comment by Debra Schleef on September 23, 2017

      I had not seen this motivation put quite this way — not feeling a part of civic life.

       

      Comment by Maureen Sullivan on September 24, 2017

      [et not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men’s while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them. The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. ]

      This compares two men both making baskets but one focussing on how he can sell and the other, the complete opposite. This is interesting to note because the second man goes completely against what a normal person in society would think generally when making something.

      Comment by Debra Schleef on September 25, 2017

      I was transfixed by this as well. Is the idea to make the baskets solely for oneself?

      Comment by Cody McDaniel on September 25, 2017

      Thoreau makes a good point here that new enterprises should first be engaged in by ones old clothes. It is only when we recognize that we need to change our appearance to match how we are on the inside that we are safe from the common danger of being told to change our inside to match our appearance.

       

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 8, 2017

      I agree here with Thoreau that there is no right or wrong way to live your life. The way he communicates that is nuanced, though interesting, and well put.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 8, 2017

      I would say that the idea is definitely to make the baskets for oneself, and to focus on one’s own path metaphorically as opposed to making baskets for someone else, and living one’s life in whatever way the individual values it should be lived.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 8, 2017

      I enjoyed the juxtaposition of the two ways to make baskets, so to speak. I agree with you about people conforming to societal standards. However I’d be interested to hear whether you think society would function properly if all producers of goods made things according to their own interests? While Thoreau makes an intriguing point, would it realistically be applicable for everyone in a given society?

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 9, 2017

      This reminds me of a quote from Toni Morrison: “you can’t let the past strangle you if you’re going to go forward. but nevertheless, the past is not going anywhere.”

      Comment by Skye Bruggeman on October 22, 2017

      Thoreau makes the point several times throughout out walden that he is living for himself on not for others expectations, such as when he farms not to turn a profit but to develop self discipline.

      Comment by Benjamin Fritz on October 26, 2017

      Some quick but interesting commentary on the cultural differences between tribalistic and community serving culture Native Americans and the more self centered capitalism that was growing the early United States.

      Comment by Benjamin Fritz on October 26, 2017

      The age old philosophy of the need to be honest to oneself. It’s important to accept who we are because only then can we move forward and better ourselves.

      Comment by Benjamin Fritz on October 26, 2017

      This makes me wonder how long it will be before people in the future look back at what we wear to day as comically we do upon the styles of the 1800’s. This applies not only to clothes but culture, language and government as well.

      Comment by Sarah Alper on October 27, 2017

      This is true, Thoreau is very much about living for himself, and seems at least in this case to be slightly “judgy” of a person who does something for someone else but at the end he says “Why should we exaggerate any one kind of expense of the others?” meaning that he thinks that living your life Is within the eye of the beholder and that a person should live their life the way they want to.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on May 4, 2018

      [where is he so poor that, clad in such a suit, of his own earning, there will not be found wise men to do him reverence?]

      As Thoreau’s Persian translator in Iran, I am honored that I was able to discover an allusion to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar Act three, scene two in this sentence.  It is where Mark Antony points to Caesar’s dead body and says, “But yesterday the word of Caesar might / Have stood against the world. / Now lies he there, / And none so poor to do him reverence.” I have published this little discovery in Thoreau Society Bulletin.

      This allusion is in perfect harmony with Thoreau’s purpose in these sentences.  Thoreau is speaking about garments and coats and clothes in general and ends his argument by implying that Caesar’s dress does not make him rich enough for the poorest man in Rome to do him reverence.  As we remember how Mark Antony counts the cuts made by the daggers of Caesar’s friends in his mantle, we realize how vulnerable a dress is even when worn as a mantle by a man like Caesar.

      This little discovery is a souvenir of a whole nation who loved Thoreau and his Walden. I hope I will be remembered with this allusion in Walden.

      Comment by Clare Corbett on September 9, 2018

      In this paragraph, Thoreau makes a conversational move that is mentioned by Graff and Birkenstein. He starts by saying that many people believe that the way they dress influences the way people perceive them. Due to this belief, they will go out of their way to appear nicely dressed. They think that “their prospects for life would be ruined if they should…wear a patch, or two extra seams only, over the knee”. In their minds, dressing imperfectly will cause them to lose respect. Thoreau challenges their mindset by stating “no man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes”. He makes it clear that it is worthless to worry about what other people think of the way you dress. Ultimately, your behavior towards others will make a lasting impression. I find this to be a perfect example of “they say/I say” because he responds to the ideas of others with his own thoughts that are supported by evidence.

      Comment by Kathryn Capone on September 10, 2018

      [As for a Shelter, I will not deny that this is now a necessary of life, though there are instances of men having done without it for long periods in colder countries than this. Samuel Laing says that “The Laplander in his skin dress, and in a skin bag which he puts over his head and shoulders, will sleep night after night on the snow —in a degree of cold which would extinguish the life of one exposed to it in any woollen clothing.” He had seen them asleep thus. ]

      This relates to “They Say, I Say,” by the way in which the quote was framed. Here the quote is framed by first having an introductory statement, which sets up the quotation. He introduces it starting with the popular belief that a shelter is a “necessary of life.” The quote then proves the opposite and he gives his follow-up statements explaining the relevance. He mentions the domestic feeling of a home and how people are closed off in the walls, but a necessity for people to survive.

      Comment by Hannah Fuller on September 10, 2018

      To me it seems like Thoreau is saying that if society won’t offer him what he feels he needs, he is going to be accountable for his own life and his own narrative, and move into the woods. I think this is interesting because a lot of people want to be accepted into society, no matter the cost, but Thoreau is deciding to live a solitary life to find the things he needs.

      Comment by Hannah Fuller on September 10, 2018

      [Our outside and often thin and fanciful clothes are our epidermis, or false skin, which partakes not of our life, and may be stripped off here and there without fatal injury; our thicker garments, constantly worn, are our cellular integument, or cortex; but our shirts are our liber, or true bark, which cannot be removed without girdling and so destroying the man.]

      Here Thoreau seems to be using more common language, or at least phrasing his words in a way that people will understand and make connections with. I think it is interesting how Thoreau describes the different clothing as layers of skin, with the fanciful clothing as the outer layer and easily removed, and the inner layer being our core. What I take this to mean is that he is trying to get people to understand that clothing is just a materialistic thing and our true cores cannot be stripped away with layers of clothing.

      Comment by Alexandra Welker on September 10, 2018

      This paragraph is interesting to me. I find it kind of comical how the author obviously does not rely on God or seem to trust God throughout his writing yet he will use what others to say to justify his argument against luxurious spending on things particularly clothes. “But if my jacket and trousers, my hat and shoes, are fit to worship God in, they will do; will they not?”. As a Christian this comment is interesting to me because I have said and heard others say oh come to God as you are he does not care what you are wearing. I do believe that is true, but I see the authors point here. Why do we seem to care. He is trying to be accountable for his action of not buying new clothes by using a common thing people say to persuade them to think about his own choices in a new light.

      Comment by Alexandra Welker on September 10, 2018

      I want to say this paragraph shows his accountability for his choice of Walden Pond. He feels it would be a good place of business. I find it interesting that although he seems so down to earth I feel that he still tends to care greatly what others think of him. I feel like in this paragraph he is justifying his choice of living at Walden Pond.

      Comment by Adriana Straughter on September 10, 2018

      In this passage he expresses how he feels about the people ,his community not doing right by him. He has done so much but has not got his proper recognition

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 10, 2018

      [I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes.]

      Thoreau uses conversational diction by quite succinctly voicing that he says that clothes do not make the man and that valuing a new fit suit and shiny dress shoes over a mans conscience is not preferable. He believes that all enterprises should eliminate the value of outward appearances to weed out the artificial value from the genuine.

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 10, 2018

      [ “They do not make them so now,” not emphasizing the “They” at all, as if she quoted an authority as impersonal as the Fates]

      I find this interesting because it strikes me as something covered in the beginning of critical analysis, the anonymity of “they” reminded me of the identity behind “the reader”. Who we picture as ‘they’ or ‘the reader’ is non specific. What is she referring to when she references “them” or who is she implying about?

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 11, 2018

      [ The manufacturers have learned that this taste is merely whimsical. Of two patterns which differ only by a few threads more or less of a particular color, the one will be sold readily, the other lie on the shelf, ]

      I find this interesting because it is applicable to today’s society. Though holed jeans and patches are the aesthetic norm of most clothing these days versus the time of pantaloons and dress shirts, the idea of ‘trend-setting’ and measuring our society through what materialistic value is still prevalent.  I cant fathom the amount of times i witnessed a style become so prevalent and then fall of the shelves in the next month, to be replaced by the next generation of temporary style.

      Comment by Una McGowan on September 11, 2018

      [When Madam Pfeiffer, in her adventurous travels round the world, from east to west, had got so near home as Asiatic Russia, she says that she felt the necessity of wearing other than a travelling dress, when she went to meet the authorities, for she “was now in a civilized country, where ——— — people are judged of by their clothes.”]

      This entire paragraph is a good example of Birkenstein and Graff’s “They Say/I Say” conventions. Thoreau cites his society’s tendency to judge people on their clothing and people’s vanity towards their outward appearance, but he disagrees with these habits and finds them frivolous. Clothing is, first and foremost, to retain heat when the weather is cold, at least to Thoreau. If he sees a man with a tear in his pants, that does not automatically make him lesser, in Thoreau’s eyes.

      Comment by Adriana Straughter on September 11, 2018

      Of course we see Walden point of view of living for yourself, making a way to live but at the same time the text also shows the dependency on the white male. White males in the day and age put others who aren’t ethically the same as themselves in hardships to the point of dependency of a race that has crippled them.

      Comment by Adriana Straughter on September 11, 2018

      Its funny how the way he’s dissecting the word they and almost connecting himself to who “they” were as almost  he was “they”. But there also accountability because hes noticing his actions towards her tone and how she spoke the words. his notices his actions

      Comment by Sophie Schapiro on September 11, 2018

      [“They do not make them so now,” not emphasizing the “They” at all, as if she quoted an authority as impersonal as the Fates, and I find it difficult to get made what I want, simply because she cannot believe that I mean what I say, that I am so rash. When I hear this oracular sentence, I am for a moment absorbed in thought, emphasizing to myself each word separately that I may come at the meaning of it, that I may find out by what degree of consanguinity They are related to me, and what authority they may have in an affair which affects me so nearly; and, finally, I am inclined to answer her with equal mystery, and without any more emphasis of the “they,”]

      This quotation is actually, I believe, one of the most notable points in this section. Not only relating to our often referred to “They Say, I Say”, it also relates to McIntyre’s idea of accountability. This area refers to “They Say, I Say” in the sense that we read it and question, “Who is they?”. If using basic knowledge, we can infer that it is the company or seamstress that manufactures the article of clothing he seeks. However, can we ever really know that if the speaker or author is not specific? This also ties into the concept of accountability because if we do not specify who is responsible, no one can be held accountable.

      Comment by Maya Garde on September 11, 2018

      One of  Griff and Brikenstein’s example is being a more effective writer by stating the comments of others and either agreeing or disagreeing with what the critics are saying. After explaining, Walden gives his own comment on the subject. For Walden even struggles with the relationship with fashion and it affects people’s lives with that especially his in a negative way. For Walden, wants to his garments made this way, however, fashion says that the pants can’t be made that way anymore. That agitates him for fashion or influencers of fashion shouldn’t have a say in what he should wear.

      Comment by John Serbalik on September 11, 2018

      He recognizes that even though people may not accept his ideas, he remains passionate to continue his endeavors. He settles on the fact that he will never be of a high status among his peers, but will not let that bother him.

      Comment by Adriana Straughter on September 13, 2018

      I find this thought to be interesting because Thoreau’s experience of making baskets, he found he was pleasing himself with his creations. Thoreau was not thinking about pleasing another male or person. But, when it came to the Indian men he was thinking of pleasing the white male. Thoreau is a white male who was and is better of himself. This Indian man may or may not have another way of income. Did Thoreau think about his cultural struggle as an Indian male in a society of white males? When you are a different race or ethnicity in the 19th century time period your dependency is on the white male to make a way of living.

      Comment by Adriana Straughter on September 13, 2018

      I understand Thoreau’s overall point of view of we shouldn’t live for others but for ourselves. We can’t seek our happiness in others but in ourselves but what if those options taken away from you and your only option was to live for the beholder itself.  How should we live then?

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      In class we spoke about this They Say/ I Say. Here Thoreau is examining the “power” of which the masses have dictated the simple choices of how to wear pants, or the style of pants to wear. It is something historical, and societal that leaves consequences on everyday lives. The notion that “something is this way,” because it has yet to be done “that way.”

      Comment by Jenna Doolan on May 8, 2019

      [No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience. ]

      This part of Walden, reminds me of the current society we live in today, that is obsessed with material possessions. With new new inventions and technology constantly coming out, it is easy to get caught up with and focus on who has what. I sometimes feel myself getting caught up in this never ending cycle of new gadgets. It seems like every time I buy a new phone or computer, something better is right around the corner. Society puts a lot of pressure on us to always have the best of everything, which creates a lot of anxiety. If we stopped judging each other on what material possessions we own, we could live more peacefully.

      Comment by Maeve Morley on February 11, 2020

      One of the strict business habits Thoreau describes, and wishes to develop is to learn and take advantage of all the new technology in relation to expeditions and navigation. What I found most intriguing about this passage is his vivid description of his personal concept of “business habits,” and everything that might encompass the world of business. He seems to describe business, not just solely for the purpose of monopoly and financial gain, but rather as an area of study representing a whole new world of learning and serving as a gateway for new inventions and improvements.

      Comment by Hannah Fahy on February 11, 2020

      The concept of removing oneself from modern society in order to conduct business with “the fewest obstacles” is something that could no longer be done today. Technology has become such an integral part of our everyday life as humans that it would be almost impossible to live without much, if any, technology. Money has become the only means of trade as you would be hard-pressed to find many businesses that would conduct old-fashioned trade. To get money, you need a job. Nearly every job requires technology which involves being a part of this modern society. This may be having to advertise your business online, driving to work, using computers, or even just using a phone. Living a so-called “simple life” without technology would only add obstacles instead of removing them in this day and age. This concept that Thoreau is detailing is now unique to an older time. I do wonder what today’s version of Walden would be. How could someone have the “fewest obstacles” to conducting their business when technology is necessary for almost everything in life.

      Comment by Jaffre Aether on February 11, 2020

      This passage sets up the frame of Thoreau’s argument effectively, as it cuts to the core of the attractive features of the industrial life. As we operate in a society of production, that needs to produce to stay viable, then it is natural that new trends must continually emerge. Thoreau talks of waste in relation to this, but the passage can also be read as the internalization of meaning into clothing. This example is also easily modernized, as our lives are led in exposure to the exact phenomenon that Thoreau is describing. However, post-industrial capitalism expands this maxim to a greater degree, such that concepts (such as nature) become warped into our consumptive desires. One only needs to think of a car commercial that promises you a rough and ready life, a life in touch with nature authentically, but a life, a meaning, that can only be acquired with the 2020 Jeep Wrangler. Technological advances have only led to better advertisements, and better advertisements have only led to further alienation.

      Comment by Henrik Otterberg on March 25, 2020

      This is wonderful, Paul, thank you so much for the imaginative perspective. It reminds me of a passage in Thoreau’s “A Winter Walk” essay of 1843, where he narrates coming to a woodcutter’s clearing on his ramble, and taking a sandwich break there (or was he merely reading from a discarded newspaper sandwich wrapper? Never mind.) At any rate, he finds a wood-chip at the site that intrigues him, and soon launches into a magnificent riff explaining how one may reconstruct the whole tree-felling episode from this one piece of evidence: how the woodcutter slanted his axe, drew force, how the tree toppled, and so on. Following the turtles all the way down, as it were, Thoreau argues next that the humble chip in fact contains inscribed a “a whole history of the world” to such an one patient and intelligent enough to read it so carefully and delicately. I find these “A Winter Walk” sentiments to dovetail with the ones you aptly unpack from the present Walden passage. Thanks you again. We need reminding of the boundless bounties of nature, particularly in today’s fervently human-wired world.

      Comment by Christopher Hager on March 25, 2020

      J.B. MacKinnon,  suggests that we might think about the diversity of Nature as “an extension of our own brains,” a “pool of imagination and creativity from which we, as humans, are able to draw.”

      Right now I’m reading Craig Childs’s Atlas of a Lost World, which quotes the neuroscientist John Allman saying, “Brains exist because the distribution of resources necessary for survival vary in space and time” (p. 53). Human brains would be vastly less developed if we lived in “regular and predictable surroundings.”  In this sense, the diversity of the natural world is not just a “pool of imagination and creativity,” as MacKinnon writes, but actually also the biological reason we have the ability to imagine and create in the first place.

      In this light, we may conceive of humans devoting their imaginative and intellectual abilities to the challenges of conservation as a form of gratitude, in roughly the same way some religious faiths think of cultivating one’s talents as way of worshiping a creator who so endowed them.

      Although I imagine there’s a simple technical explanation for why your 5-year-old comment appeared in my inbox this morning, Paul, but I prefer to see it as a half-magical phenomenon.  I wish you, yours, and the Geneseo community the best as we weather the present crisis.

      Comment by Priscilla Ford on May 20, 2020

      This passage is clearly talking about societal standards and mass consumerism. The taste for new patterns refers to peoples craving for new clothes. When new things arise, people will buy. Production companies are aware of this and use it to their advantage. Tattooing yourself an image by what you buy and what you wear can be something that is unalterable. Many people will try to dress a certain way in order to be seen in a certain way. If a celebrity is wearing 500 dollar gold hoops, people are going to scrap together 500 dollars and get those gold hoops. Ita all about an image, and that is what Thoreau is trying to say.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 3, 2021

      [Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men’s while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them]

      The metaphor of baskets can stand for any writer’s challenge: must I find a way to entice readers to buy my baskets (my books), just as advertising creates desires for things we don’t really need? Or can I find a way to write (or weave, or paint, or dance, etc.) without needing to make it my livelihood?

      Comment by kenneth demerchant on February 4, 2021

      in this part of the paragraph he means that with every new birth brings new life in the world which will bring more new possibilities and opportunities

      Comment by Liam Bilodeau on January 31, 2022

      [ No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience]

      Clothing remains a huge status symbol in society today.  Many people are anxious about not wearing what is trendy and what is new.  In fact, they could care less about their character than their avatar.

      Comment by brodiemesser on January 31, 2022

      [I sometimes despair of getting any thing quite simple and honest done in this world by the help of men.]

      I could definitely agree with this statement if he is talking about repetitive almost mind-numbing tasks and how many times these are more painful to do because there is no thinking involved.

      Comment by eman taha on February 1, 2022

      This paragraph emphasizes the idea of materialistic values in today’s society and is using clothing to do so. I think it’s interesting and something people really don’t think about, who are people buying expensive clothes for? themselves? or to be perceived a certain way by society? Thoreau explains how clothing and wealth intertwine; having certain clothes makes you look a certain way, this idea is like a little piece of just how much society focuses on materialistic value.You are seen differently by what you have or can afford.

      Comment by Judiah Strouse on February 1, 2022

      This is an interesting viewpoint of the societal niches that people can fill. Thoreau explains to the reader that in the most basic way, the Native has filled his role. He took something he was good at and attempted to make a contribution to society with it. However, in Western societies it isn’t that simple. The concept of communal “give and take” is not prevalent, instead the idea of “free market” is. The Native must not only make baskets, but he must also create a reason why somebody would want his baskets.

      Comment by Keera Lopusiewicz on February 1, 2022

      Within this paragraph, Thoreau exemplifies the rate in which the original intentions for man’s clothing – to warm, to conceal, and to work – is rapidly dismissing, and essentially becoming more a tool of aesthetics rather than a tool of utility. Society is becoming more concerned with outer appearances and obtaining fashionable attire that is reflective of social and financial class, rather than clothing that is universally essential to going about the daily chores of life that are untainted by the opinions and beliefs of others.

      Comment by Keera Lopusiewicz on February 1, 2022

      It seems as though Thoreau is essentially tying the loose ends of his argument regarding clothing and outer garments together in a metaphor that can be understood on a universally timeless level. Every layer of clothing that we adopt is merely temporary skin, and it can be stripped, whereas the flesh is the core that can never be simply stripped away without destroying ourselves in the process. He continues to allude to a theme of materialism in his bit that explains how one thick garment is the same as three thin ones. Whilst the thin shirts are lower in cost and would suit the needs of the customer for a limited period of time, a thicker coat for a fancier penny would last a man years longer that the common linen shirt. All in all, the message here to be reflective of society’s growing need for quantity rather than quality.

      Comment by Sarah Cronin on February 1, 2022

      I like how he incorporates Walden Pond, almost his place of comfort and peace. Interesting however that he chooses to conduct business here when he is so grounded in nature. I also wonder what he means when he says after that “it offers advantages which it may not be good policy to divulge” I’m just curious what he means by that exactly.

      Comment by Julianna Larue on February 1, 2022

      IS his point of view as a white man colonist? I am saying this by his brining up Indians and him saying “do they mean to starve us?”

      Comment by Julianna Larue on February 1, 2022

      I think he is saying how men wearing clothes, hides their true self because he said “was now in a civilized country where people are judged by their clothes.”

      Comment by Julianna Larue on February 1, 2022

      Calling men childish and savage like because of the growing market of clothing. Capitalism is a big theme in here

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 1, 2022

      What I think that he meant in this line of the paragraph is that people tend to hide their true self behind clothing and also use clothing as a way to show others their social class based on what they are wearing. The part with the “suit that fits” reminds me of people just trying to fit into the society without being able to be themselves because that’s how it works. Even though clothing should not testify whether a person is rich or poor that’s how people views us. If a piece of clothing is expensive people get obsessed with it and are always after it in order to buy it.

       

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 1, 2022

      I really liked this part. It really shows how people tend to put wealth and economy on top of everything. Is insane!!!

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 1, 2022

      What I see from this part of the paragraph is that he specifies how people follow others when it comes to what’s consider part of the “fashion moment”. Every generation has their own fashion and the more the people wear something the more the other people want to wear it too. Which is why if we look back at old fashion we think as “old” and “not trendy” anymore.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 2, 2022

      In that line and many others, he uses “civilized” with irony, as he sees judgment of people for their clothes as juvenile or un-civil(ized).

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 2, 2022

      Sarah, I take it to mean a vantage point (view on the pond & life) that he doesn’t want to make public because then others would come, and its solitude and specialness would vanish. I take his “business” as writing and conducting his ‘experiment in living.’

  • Spring 14-26 (44 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [and natural sentiments of man]

      Works of Mencius, (book VI, “Kaon Tsze,” part 1, chap. VIII, p. 2).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [the Nine-Acre-Corner bridge]

      In the southwest portion of Concord (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [the vilest sinner may return]

      “And while the lamp holds out to burn / The vilest sinner may return” (Isaac Watts, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, I, 88).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the second year was similar to it]

      T once again reminds us that he has combined the experiences of two years into one for the sake of unity.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [flowers born without seed.’]

      Ovid, Metamorphoses (I, ii, 89-96, 107-8).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [sticks]

      Bones or clappers that children use as rhythmical instruments.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [very slight and graceful hawk]

      A male marsh hawk.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [where was thy victory, then]

      “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (I Corinthians 15:55).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [need the tonic of wildness]

      Again, T’s belief that modern man needs contact with the wild to maintain his sanity and good health.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [bittern and the meadow-hen]

      Meadow-hen: T could have been referring to several marsh birds, most probably the coot, but possibly the Virginia rail or the sora rail (Teale, 1946, 262)

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [when we observe the vulture]

      Although fairly common there now, the turkey vulture was not found in Massachusetts in T’s day.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [had heard the wood-thrush]

      As Allen (1993) has pointed out, T almost invariably confuses the wood thrush and the hermit thrush. And since the wood thrush is a late spring arrival in Massachusetts, it is likely that he is referring to the hermit thrush here.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [leuciscus]

      A genus of fresh-water fish. In T’s time it was considered to include such fish as the dace, roach, minnow, and shiner, but today no fish now included in that genus are known to exist in Massachusetts (Allen, 1910).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [dead and is alive again]

      “For my son was dead, and is alive again” (Luke 15:24).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Turdus migratorius]

      The scientific name for the American robin.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [plump]

      Archaic name for a small flock.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [realization of the Golden Age]

      According to Greek mythology, the universe (Cosmos) was created from some unformed original state (Chaos); a Golden Age of innocence, peace, and happiness began soon thereafter (Thomas).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Aurora and the Nabathæan kingdom]

      An ancient Arab country east of present day Israel.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [seeds of cognate heaven.’]

      Ovid, Metamorphoses (I, ii, 61-2, 78-81).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [with the innocence of infancy]

      Once again, the romantic theme of the innocence of childhood.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the joy of his Lord]

      “Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord” (Matthew 25:23).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [and window]

      Phoebes often explore barns and sheds, searching for a site to build their nest.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [golden dust of the lotus]

      Calidas, Sacontala; or, The Fatal Ring (translated by Sir William Jones), speech of Dushmanta in act V.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [left Walden September 6th, 1847]

      People often wonder what happened to the cabin after T abandoned it. Zimmer gives a detailed and fascinating later history of both the cabin site and of the cabin itself. The cabin was sold, moved twice, and eventually was incorporated into a barn some miles away, where its particular boards are no longer identifiable. In 1872 a Mrs. Adams from Dubuque, Iowa, on visiting the original site of the cabin, decided it should be marked in some way, and so she gathered up a little cairn of stones. That started a tradition of visitors’ adding their own stones to the cairn. Over the years the cairn grew immense, though tourists as often carried away stones, for souvenirs, as added them to the pile. In 1945, in answer to questions raised about the accuracy of the cairn’s placement, Roland Robbins (1947) excavated the area and found the foundation of T’s cabin only a few feet from the cairn. That site is now marked with granite corner posts and chains. People continue to add to, and subtract from, the cairn. In recent years a new tradition has developed among the children of the area: It is bad luck to pass the cairn without setting a stone on it, even if only a pebble, since all the larger stones in the area have already been placed on the cairn.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [with that sport. The Merlin]

      This name is nowadays applied to the falcon.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [There was a dead horse]

      Richard O’Connor has told me that the dead horse had been thrown in the old cellar hole described in “Former Inhabitants” as “some homestead of the Stratton family,” and which is also described in T’s Journal for January 11, 1857 (IX, 214).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [that sometimes it has rained]

      “In the consulship of Manius Acilius and Gaius Porcius it rained milk and blood, and frequently on other occasions there it has rained flesh” (Pliny, Natural History, II, lvii). There is also a reference in the Concord Freeman for March 8, 1844, to a “rain of flesh and blood.” (I am indebted to Bradley Dean for these references.)

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [not bear to be stereotyped]

      That is, cast into a plate for permanent use.

      Comment by Kasey Krug on March 2, 2015

      I find it interesting that Thoreau only highlights on one spring in the woods. Throughout the chapter he seems fascinated by it and how its a time of awakening, but in the end he doesn’t even touch on his second spring.

      Comment by Natalie LaCourt on April 12, 2016

      Looking at this quote, it is hard to find Thoreau to be misanthropic. He seems to praise the innate innocence and purity of human nature. He urges us to forgive the faults of others and tells us that as nature recreates a new day, nature also conspires to refresh and purify humankind.

      Comment by Alexis Sammler on April 13, 2016

      [Walden is melting apace…Walden was dead and is alive again. But this spring it broke up more steadily, as I have said. ] 

      The cycling in nature is undeniable. Not only in nature, but in human nature. We sleep, and then wake. We go through the four seasons with nature, winter to spring; through this process, we become re-born in spring, we re-awaken in spring, and then we rest in winter.

       

      Comment by Sandy Brahaspat on April 3, 2020

      [Suddenly an influx of light filled my house, though the evening was at hand, and the clouds of winter still overhung it, and the eaves were dripping with sleety rain. I looked out the window, and lo! where yesterday was cold gray ice there lay the transparent pond already calm and full of hope as in a summer evening, reflecting a summer evening sky in its bosom, though none was visible overhead, as if it had intelligence with some remote horizon. ]

      I was particularly interested in the changes made in Versions A-G of Walden: A Fluid Text Edition in paragraph 15 because of the decision to omit this passage altogether. When I read this paragraph, the imagery of the passage was influential in my understanding of paragraph 19, because of the connections of light and dark, winter and spring, death and birth, that are meant to juxtapose each other. Whereas in Versions A-G, the imagery of the gray ice is completely missing and as a result, altered my connection to the remaining paragraphs. It makes me wonder why these lines of vivid description were deleted and why they were no longer relevant or necessary to the text.

       

      Comment by Lauren Beers on May 6, 2020

      The idea of nature living in the present because it has no choice is interesting. If there is too long of a time with or without rain or wind or sun everything can be damaged. This in many ways seems restricting but the opposite tone is often present when one thinks of nature. Thoreau makes a point to emphasize that the simplicity of nature, the inability to focus on anything except for the immediate is something we are often unable to do. This ties into the idea of weather and time both being cyclical. One may choose to focus on the immediate or they can start over with the new day, season, year etc.

      Comment by Emma Raupp on May 9, 2020

      [We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring]

      The “live in the moment” philosophy Thoreau expresses here endures into our present. We reduce the guilt and worry in our lives by trying to focus exclusively on the next step, or doing the next right thing, rather than torturing ourselves with mistakes we’ve made in the past or imagining hopeless futures as a result of these mistakes. Another philosophical notion that, perhaps, could be recalled more often in our present, is the tenacity of human will. Thoreau writes “to take advantage of every accident that befell us,” referencing the human capacity to re-claim and re-frame unfortunate circumstances to our advantage. Mistakes, tragedies, the turning of fate’s wheel… all offer us opportunities to change and grow. If we condemn ourselves for our pasts, that’s where we’ll stay. If we fear our future, we’ll never change to meet it. Accidents, however they happen and whatever they are, help define us as individuals. We should be grateful for the experiential knowledge and self knowledge we gain by making human errors, rather than ashamed of our imperfections. Shame and fear keep us “loitering in winter” unnecessarily, but if we endeavor to keep our minds in the present, we will always have access to the clean light of spring.

      Comment by Olivia Davis on May 13, 2020

      “A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts.”

      The metaphor of rain and grass representing a bad occurrence in life bringing on brighter days is very interesting. The line quoted above paints an image in the mind of rain falling and beautiful green grass sprouting because of it, which in turn allows us to have a more accepting view of hard times. To compare it to real life now, it made me think about COVID and what good things it could possibly bring upon us. Corona would be compared to the rain, the dark days that are negative. What could come of this? I am thinking that the ways we could benefit are things like people being more cautious and practicing healthy habits like hand washing and isolating themselves when sick. I also think about the people that have worked hard for months or years on end that are finally taking a break to breathe, and remembering old hobbies and things they enjoyed doing when they had the free time or were young. In some ways, the pause of the world could be a beautiful thing, a moment of realization for some people that they are not living their life and they need to take a step back on occasion to enjoy all the world has to offer. This is what came to mind when I read the first couple lines of this passage, because everything happening has a way of raining on your mind and causing negative thoughts, when there really could be a silver lining.

      Comment by Olivia Elliott on February 16, 2021

      It’s interesting that he was able to just sit back and watch all of the things that happen in nature. He really appreciated all of the qualities of nature which I find admirable.

      Comment by Rebecca Johnson on February 16, 2021

      I love how he describes the beginning of spring as though nature is reviving itself, taking a long-overdue breath. When he hears the robin sing, his line about it being “many a thousand years” since hearing their song, stood out to me.

      Comment by Sofie Wolters on February 17, 2021

      Geese migrating is one of the signs of spring. Thoreau being so close to nature and being able to witness them first hand must have been quite the experience. Fully focussed on nature’s signs, without distractions of society.

      Comment by Alec Marshall on February 17, 2021

      This is an amazing paragraph from Thoreau. His description brings the words to life and helps to paint a vivid picture for the reader. I can very easily envision a frozen pond in late winter/early spring, with the ice cracking apart and the sections of open water growing day by day

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 17, 2021

      Nice attention to details, Rebecca. I can imagine, after a long Mass winter back then, that the robin would seem to have been gone a long time. I think he’s also pointing to Nature’s eternal cycles, far beyond a human or bird’s life.

      Comment by Ainsley Owens on February 18, 2021

      I really enjoyed this paragraph. Thoreau discusses how thinking better thoughts can lead to living a better life. Looking at things with optimism can often make bad things less bad, which Thoreau touches upon. A lot of Thoreau’s writings are entirely based around not only nature but also the way he thinks and his own personal philosophy. Thoreau believes we are blessed to be alive no matter the circumstances and it is up to us to make the best out of what we are given in life, as he displays with his very simplistic and seemingly lonesome lifestyle.

      Comment by Liam Bilodeau on February 9, 2022

      [We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. ]

      That is a nice simile.  Grass does take a lot in.

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 10, 2022

      I really like the way he uses imagery in this paragraph, as I’m reading I can imagine clearly everything he is saying. Since the “spring” chapter started I can picture how the pond has been melting while spring time is coming, with the ice melting and cracking and making all those sounds.

      Comment by Zachary Vandecar on February 12, 2022

      [ they at once rose up with a great flapping of wings at the signal of their commander, and when they had got into rank circled about over my head]

      I think this description is interesting. It seems to me to make out these geese as a sort of military squad. I can see the comparison easily and there is certainly a similarity there, but I wonder if Thoreau purposefully described them like this.

  • Visitors 1-11 (66 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Twenty-five or thirty souls]

      Although it may seem that this would crowd his ten-by-fifteen-foot cabin, it was found by experimenting at the 1992 annual Thoreau Society meeting that thirty people could easily fit into that space and still leave room for a cot, a desk, a fireplace, and three chairs – as long as everyone stood up.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Visitors]

      For an analysis of the structure of this chapter, see Ross (1970). 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Tremont or Astor or Middlesex House]

      Three well-known hotels in T’s day, in Boston, New York, and Concord, respectively.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [all inhabitants a ridiculous mouse]

      “Mountains will labor, to bring forth a ridiculous mouse” (Horace, De Arte Poetica, I, 139).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [overcome its lateral and ricochet motion]

      T here shows a surprising technical knowledge of ballistic science. He refers to, the fact that a bullet travels several yards after leaving the muzzle before overcoming its wobble and achieving gyrostatic stability (Tate). 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [however, my withdrawing room]

      Originally the drawing room was the room to which ladies withdrew after dinner so that the men remaining behind might drink and smoke. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [to be stirring a hasty-pudding]

      Indian-meal mush, a popular New England breakfast dish. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [I could entertain thus a thousand]

      T is referring to the parable of the loaves and the fishes (Matthew 15).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [by any kind of Cerberus whatever]

      Pluto’s three-headed dog, who stood watch at the entrance to hell. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [noblest mind the best contentment has]

      Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I, i, 35.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [“brought two fishes that he had shot”]

      A Relation or Journall of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation at Plimouth in New Engand (London, 1622, part II). As Gottesman (1621) points out, T modernizes and regularizes his text frequently, and while “bought” is in his original, it seems likely that it should have read “brought.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [but a true Homeric or Paphlagonian man]

      Paphlagonia: an ancient region of northern Asia Minor. Since the mountainous interior was heavily forested, many of its people were woodsmen. The man was Alex Therien, a French Canadian (Shanley, 1957, 170). For a discussion of T’s friendship with Therien, see Bradford and see Harding (1991).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Achilles’ reproof to Patroclus]

      Significantly Achilles, in the Iliad, cultivates the friendship of Patroclus just as T was cultivating that of the woodcutter. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [we should greatly grieve]

      The Iliad, beginning of book XVI.    

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [white-oak bark under his arm]

      A powerful astringent frequently used in folk medicine. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [about twenty-eight years old]

      According to Concord town records, Therien was born in 1811 and so would have been thirty-four when T went to Walden.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [How thick the pigeons are!]

      The passenger pigeons, which were common in T’s day, are now extinct.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [live out his threescore years and ten]

      “The days of our years are three-score years and ten” (Psalms 90:10).

      Comment by Matt Spitzer on February 18, 2014

       

      Go check out the Fluid Text edition of Walden to see a poem Thoreau put in with Version A that subsequently never reappeared.

      What do we ask? | Some worthy task; | Never to run | Till that be done, | That never done | Under the sun…

      …………

      …Must we still eat | The bread we have spurned? | Must be rekindle | the faggots we’ve burned?

      Comment by Katie Allen on April 23, 2014

       [I think that I love society as much as most] I think the general idea about Walden, particularly held by the people who haven’t read it, is that Thoreau was an antisocial guy, and he built his cabin solely to get away from people. We know this isn’t true for many reasons. Throughout his stay at the Pond, he spent much of his time either walking into the village for company, or inviting visitors to his home. Also, though they aren’t people, Thoreau also enjoyed the animals found in the woods around him. He even says in this paragraph, “I am naturally no hermit.” This doesn’t sound like a man who wishes to be alone, does it? Not like this guy. I wonder if Thoreau would have lasted so long if he really did banish himself from society. I think he was far too social for that.

      Comment by Catherine McCormick on February 3, 2015

      I feel like Walden makes a good point in this passage. He describes the difference in the interactions when people have to make an effort to visit him. It seems like because it’s harder to get to him, his visitors are focused on making the best of the time they are there. It also seems like Walden is more starved for company so there is many stories and anecdotes to share.

      Comment by Jess Goldstein on February 8, 2015

      So does Thoreau like people or not? Wasn’t the whole point of Walden to get away from the hustle and bustle of the world and enjoy the simplicity of just being alone? If his whole view point towards people and society is to get away, then why does Thoreau suddenly start talking about how much he loves people? Is he afraid or self conscious about how readers will perceive him if Walden is basically just him telling people that he doesn’t need them and he would rather be alone. At first I didn’t mind Thoreau, although he is pretentious I do agree with some of his views and especially liked how passionate he was towards his ideas. In visitors he is basically saying “I think it is a good idea to get away from the restraints of society and just enjoy the simplicity of being by yourself and being one with nature. But i am not a hermit i love people! In fact if i were a bloodsucking leech i would grab onto somebody because i am so desperate for companionship right now”. I think what Thoreau needs to do is decide on his view and stick with it, it just makes it confusing when somebody says no to something and backs it up with yes.

      Comment by Aran Fox on February 8, 2015

      In a strange place in my life – considering Thoreau in the digital age – I find myself second-guessing previous pages based on this paragraph. Constantly, I am engaging with the world around me in ways unbelievably different than Thoreau ever did. I am plugged in: to my laptop, iPod, iPhone, TV, video games. The list goes on. So, when Thoreau proposes in “Reading” education that it would be ideal to be educated in the writers of antiquity, I begin to understand him as the erudite, but pompous sort. Yet, here he provides a suitable explanation for the relationship between nature and education that he holds in such esteem. Where the modern individual is plugged in all the time, the “wood-chopper” spends his time engaged almost exclusively in  natural and literary pursuits. The question that remains, of course, is how a modern individual is supposed to carry out this life of simplicity.

      Comment by Anthony Bettina on February 9, 2015

      Thoreau’s fickle attitude towards society causes one to wonder about his personality. The point of Walden was to get away from society in order to find himself, and understand the true importances in one’s life. Thoreau preaches the importance of learning through experience, whereas society preaches learning through the recitation of information. Thoreau contradicts himself in this passage in seemingly romanticizing said society. This may cause one to infer that Thoreau is unsure of his philosophical opinions, so he makes the decision to live in the woods in order to properly formulate them.

      Comment by Grace Rowan on February 9, 2015

      In agreement with both Jess and Anthony:
      This first paragraph seems to prove Thoreau as hypocritical. This whole book, up until this part, acknowledges the importance of leaving society in order to “find” yourself. Thoreau completely changes the thesis of this book in this paragraph. Whether or not you agree with what he says, you respect him for his strong opinion. However, Thoreau’s ideas are unclear which makes the reader question why he has isolated himself in the first place. This proves the point that Thoreau is simply a privileged man who was lucky enough to receive a Harvard education. He thinks he’s superior to those who do not go off and live in the woods, and yet, he “thinks he love[s] society as much as most.” Thoreau should establish one view point and maintain this idea throughout the book.

      Comment by William Foley on February 16, 2015

      To me, Thoreau seems like a man who has a lot of conflict in his mind and ideas. I think  while Thoreau might not like the direction society was headed, he did go to the woods to try and help people. To show them there were more genuine and natural connections to be made in their lives. Thoreau recognized his audience and how his claims were going to sound, and i think that is what constituted in his pretentious and elitist tone. So i do believe that he is a bit overboard with his elitism, but he does have some really great points that can be applied to both his society and today’s.

      Also, just an extra thought, the fact that he spent the time writing the book and trying to make somewhat of a difference, shows at least some sense of caring for others.

      Comment by Darby Daly on February 25, 2015

      I found the beginning of this paragraph especially interesting because of his explanation of the three chairs. Solitude, friendship, and society. These three things clearly have a more significant meaning than being just chairs. It is interesting to see how Thoreau categorized these three things through the use of single chairs. The idea that three chars represents society makes me wonder, because, apparently he does not seem to consider them to be “friends” if the exceed the amount of space that he has, yet he seems to enjoy their company. By friendship, I think Thoreau means that it’s simply being in the company of one other person that makes you friends, but when there are too many people to interact with on a personal level than you are in a society.

      Comment by Mariya Gunda on April 4, 2016

      I love how you pulled this out.  I agree with the number of people inhibiting friendships and that the smaller the amount of people the better.  Two is the perfect number because all of your attention may go towards that single person and their attention towards you.  However, I believe Th.’s favorite chair and number is one for Solitude.  he can pay more attention to himself and his own thoughts and beliefs and at the same time understand each thought or topic he may want to pursue and to truly let his thoughts unfold.  When it comes to friendships I believe that Th. would be fully behind the idea of befriending yourself first and knowing yourself so that way you could be more valuable to others.

      Comment by Maggie MacIntyre on April 13, 2016

      This passage reminds me of Emerson’s description of Thoreau–that he only needed to take a walk in the woods with a young boy in order to decide whether or not the boy was intelligent and likable. It is through silence and communication beyond our physical bodies and presences that we are able to connect with each other more authentically.

      Comment by Maggie MacIntyre on April 13, 2016

      This passage seems to expose both Thoreau’s ignorance and progressiveness all in one. Thoreau’s belief that you need not rest a reputation on a dinner says something about the way Thoreau feels towards women or at least the role of women. It could be argue that Thoreau disagrees with and rejects the notion that women are responsible for housekeeping and that their reputation lies on their dinners. It seems progressive for Thoreau to acknowledge that this role is ridiculous. However, he follows up that sentence by referring to a house as “a man’s house” as if it is the property of men and not women. There is no explicit mention of women at all in this passage and Thoreau’s rejection of gender roles is almost immediately reversed by his inability to address these issues as such.

      Comment by Tara Lurie on April 17, 2016

      Is Thoreau playing with “withdrawing'” in this passage? i find it interesting that Walter Harding commented on this specifically. I have never heard of “withdrawing” room before, and when first reading this I Googled the etymology. I discovered that Thoreau’s use is antiquated (used in this way only until the 18th century), and that “drawing room” was the much more common usage at the time. Considering Thoreau uses this old term as the word for his “best” room in the house, does this add any layers of complexity to his position on Visitors? Is it just another instance of nuanced humor? Certainly thought it was funny!

      Comment by Mary Robicheaux on October 8, 2017

      [but the most proper and considerate course.]

      I found it interesting that to Thoreau, not offering food to guests was considered polite and proper. This is opposite of today, as people now generally expect food to be offered when visiting someone’s house. If the host does not offer food or drink, the visitor might think less of his hospitality, which is contradictory to what Thoreau considered hospitable. Among many others, this is an example of how the times have changed in the past one hundred years.

      Comment by Elena Vasquez on October 9, 2017

      Thoreau references the three chairs, “one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.” It seems as those each chair is linked in some way, because he reference only three chairs make a society.

      Comment by Mary Robicheaux on October 11, 2017

      Well, since two chairs is considered friendship, and more than two people is a group, one can conclude that three chairs is a group. Society is essentially a group of people with a shared purpose or belief, so three chairs has potential to be a “society.”

      Comment by Mary Robicheaux on October 14, 2017

      “I am naturally no hermit” could be referring to the fact that humans are social beings and, by nature, don’t like to be alone for long periods of time.

      Comment by Josephine Gombert on October 14, 2017

      Does having those three chairs start a society? Is that how one starts to form?

      Comment by Skye Bruggeman on October 22, 2017

      Three chairs provides an interesting contrast to today, where the ‘society’ we are part often includes hundreds or thousands of people.

      Comment by Elena Vasquez on October 24, 2017

      It’s interesting, because the saying “threes a crowd” yet he has three chairs to describe society.

      Comment by Sarah Alper on October 27, 2017

      Like my fellow classmates, I’m interested in the way Thoreau uses his metaphor of chairs. I wonder what constitutes the order of the way he lists them off. I think it could either mean what he values to what he doesn’t or it could literally mean that one chair (because he is alone) stands for solitude, two for friendship (normally in reference to a friendly relationship between two people), but three for a group as it is no longer intimate and can therefore represent society plus a group of 3 people could be considered a society (maybe).

      Comment by Harris Schwab on April 23, 2018

      This seems to counter Schulz’ claim that Thoreau was misanthropic. Apparently, he loved to sit with others in the social bar-room. This sounds like the opposite of misanthropy, but it is obviously biased as it comes from Thoreau himself.

      Comment by Nicole Callahan on April 23, 2018

      [He interested me because he was so quiet and solitary and so happy withal; a well of good humor and contentment which overflowed at his eyes. ]

      This passage thoroughly debases any belief of misanthropy on Thoreau’s part. Any time Thoreau is given the chance to relay information about friends, it’s clear in his tone and reflections how much Thoreau cares about people. He is cognizant enough of his friends to denote their habits, to quote them offhand, and relishes in conveying simple yet animated portrayals of the people in his life.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 19, 2018

      What could Thoreau be getting at here? There are ways in which saying things through words do not have the same impact if it was said through silence? There is no greater connection then that of a connection?

      Comment by Danielle Crowley on February 28, 2020

      Right off the bat, there is a huge difference to Thoreau in this section. Previously he was discussing how enjoyable it was to be left alone in solitude, but here it is almost as if Thoreau is growing stir crazy. Right away Thoreau is talking about how his love for society and how he is naturally no hermit. Rather than giving an introverted vibe, right away it seems like a switch has flipped and Thoreau is now extroverted.

      Besides that, I found it interesting that Thoreau asserts to have had more visitors while living in the woods than in any other time of his life. I find it interesting that during a period in which Thoreau was seeking seclusion, he somehow struggled to find it.

      Comment by Christina Inter on March 1, 2020

      In this paragraph, Thoreau further discusses the unusual and overlook benefits to solitude. Despite being far from society, he has had more visitors and better quality company than when he ever lived closed to people. Thoreau states, “I had withdrawn so far within the great ocean of solitude, into which rivers of society empty…only the finest of sediment was deposited around me.” As Thoreau is so far out into ‘the ocean of solitude,’ the less preferable parts of society and people have been eroded by the time the water reaches him. Only people that truly care or are preferable company make the full journey to reach him now. His remoteness, his solitude, has ironically improve the quality of his social interactions through its ability to filter who appears at his door. Similar to the previous chapter, Thoreau discusses the benefits to solitude most would not consider.

      Comment by Leila Sassouni on March 3, 2020

      The beginning of this passage reminds me of “Solitude” as Walden discusses the silence and stillness in his surrounding environment. In the previous reading, he references the stillness of the world around him and how it led him to both forget about time and feel more lonely. I see that in this passage he comments on the great number of guests who have previously stood in house, due to an insufficient amount of chairs. I wonder if he deliberately has so few chairs because it makes him feel less lonely. Maybe having fewer chairs and seeing people need to stand around him makes him feel less lonely and more loved.

      Comment by Caroline Crimmins on March 3, 2020

      I agree with Christina’s point completely. After reading “Solitude,” I could see that Thoreau was unlike most people in the aspect that he felt comfortable by himself. Thoreau is more concerned about having good company every once in a while than having bad company every day. As Christina also mentions, Thoreau refers to his living situation as if he were in a great ocean, showing the great effort people must exert to go see him. Because of this trek, only the worthy people will visit him and their time will be spent worthwhile because it is so rare.

      Comment by Justin Colleran on March 3, 2020

      This section completely contrasts the last section since Thoreau talks about how much he loves guests, while in the last section he talked about how much he loved to be left alone. He talks about how his tiny little house can have so many people in there at a time, while other houses are grand and huge and feel more empty. In other words, it seems like he wants to be close with his guests, not push them away.

      Comment by Kira Baran on March 3, 2020

      This passage seems to echo ideas that Thoreau established in the previous chapter, “Solitude.” In that former chapter, Thoreau claims that society, and one’s visitors, are more often than not “cheap,” in that their conversations are built on “rules of etiquette and politeness.” In other words, there is a barrier of inauthenticity that prevents meaningful communication between him and his companions.

      However, in this latter passage, Thoreau restates–and even modifies–these claims. Although much of society may be lacking high-quality communicative skills and may find deep, meaningful conversations and friendships difficult to maintain, Thoreau clarifies that there are ultimately always “some” true friends who “will hardly fail one any where.” Thoreau uses another barrier–the barrier of geographic distance–to act as a test of true friendship.

      Thoreau’s solitude and geographical distance serves as a way to sift through society to identify faithful friends who will brave any distance to meet with him. As Thoreau discovers, voluntary solitude can be a good thing, and can actually increase one’s sense of companionship by increasing the quality (rather than quantity) of his friends. By playing hard to get, so-to-speak, Thoreau is able to weed through people with self-serving, “trivial,” or otherwise insubstantial interests in him, and instead identify true, meaningful friendships.

      Comment by Kyle Regan on March 3, 2020

      This chapter differs in the perspective you can gain on what type of person Thoreau is. From the last chapter I got the sense that he very much wanted to be in his house in a form of seclusion from the world. He loved that no other houses could be seen from his. He was content with being surrounded by nature. This chapter gives further insight that he is not just completely alone. He actually has more visitors than he ever did while in this secluded house surrounded by nature. This makes me see Thoreau in a different light than I thought of him from the last reading. In the first couple paragraphs he seems to quite enjoy having company come over. He doesn’t talk about people coming to his house the way I might have predicted after the last chapter.

      Comment by Maeve Morley on March 3, 2020

      The ideas from this particular chapter differs from Thoreau’s chapter on “Solitude.” In Solitude, Thoreau emphasizes his isolation and seclusion from the rest of the world. However, in this chapter he mentions receiving visitors more than he has ever before. In this sense, it makes me wonder if Thoreau enjoys both solitude and company, rather than just solitude which he encourages in his previous chapter.

      Comment by Hannah Fahy on March 3, 2020

      This section reminds me of “Solitude.” It’s a bit of a juxtaposition because at first, Thoreau wasn’t happy with the seclusion, however he warmed up to it, and that shows here. The language itself is very different. Thoreau used a lot of natural language in the last section, but here he uses artificial language which seems very different from the whole beginning of this book.

      Comment by Emma Annonio on March 3, 2020

      Thoreau’s use of language in “Visitors” is already very different from his other chapters as he uses abstract language and metaphorical phrases. In paragraph three, Thoreau describes the difficult task of creating enough distance between him and his guests to have an adequate conversation arguing there needs to be enough room for your thoughts. He begins to compare this to getting into “sailing trim” and the shooting of a bullet. He imagines sentences as if they are concrete and need to unfold into the area allowing them to fall into neutral territories. Thoreau makes it seem as though, he only wants to converse with himself explaining it is a luxury to talk across the pond and clearly one would not be able to hear another’s voice across the pond. This idea supports the title of the last chapter ‘Solitude’ where Thoreau explains to us that he never feels lonely and enjoys living in Solitude, which allows him to enjoy nature. In Visitors, perhaps this metaphorical conversation he was describing was not with another human at all but with nature or the pond itself. His tone of voice also seems to me more energetic and whimsical in these first couple of paragraphs almost as if he is going crazy from being in solitude for so long. I wonder if Thoreau will abandon this new use of language in the upcoming chapters or continue to use more figurative and abstract language. 

      Comment by Rachel Beck on March 3, 2020

      I find this section very interesting because Thoreau talks about what it is like when people come to visit him. He says that he’s had up to twenty-five or thirty people in his house at a time, even though in ‘Solitude’ he talked about how he preferred being alone. This particular passage makes me feel like Thoreau wasn’t as much as a hermit as I thought he was. He explains that he loves society as much as most, so he obviously had some sort of social life while staying at Walden. I believe that the line, “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society” paints a very vivid picture of the company that Thoreau kept.

      Comment by Sandy Brahaspat on March 3, 2020

      [He interested me because he was so quiet and solitary and so happy withal; a well of good humor and contentment which overflowed at his eyes. His mirth was without alloy. Sometimes I saw him at his work in the woods, felling trees, and he would greet me with a laugh of inexpressible satisfaction, and a salutation in Canadian French, though he spoke English as well.]

      Thoreau’s sentiment about the chopper and his good humour and content with his employment resonated with me because it reminded me of a comment Thoreau makes in “Solitude.” In this previous chapter, Thoreau writes: “The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome because he is employed.” It is quite clear that the idea that Thoreau brings up in this earlier chapter is present in his observation of the chopper and his overall disposition in regard to both his work (“I can enjoy myself well enough here chopping”) and his willingness to engage in social practices.

      Comment by Hannah Jewell on March 4, 2020

      This paragraph is unique and insightful as it portrays a new side of Thoreau’s experiences living in Walden. Previously, it seemed that he purposely isolated himself by through his living situation in order to avoid human contact as he discussed this in “Solitude.” This viewpoint changed within this chapter as it addressed how Thoreau did in fact have an appreciation for visitors and people in society as a whole.

      Comment by Abigail Henry on March 4, 2020

      [I THINK that I love society as much as most, and am ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my way.]

      Although it is the very beginning of the section, you can already see the contrast between this part and the previous section, ‘Solitude’. In ‘Solitude’, Thoreau discusses in depth what it is like to live alone, almost completely cut off from civilization. He seems to enjoy being alone for the most part with the occasional visitor. Here, however, his statement is contradictory. This makes it sound like being secluded is not all that he cracked it up to be, and that he would rather rejoin the rest of society.

      Comment by Claire Rogers on March 4, 2020

      Oh, so society isn’t full of gossips wasting their time with meaningless words anymore? Good to know, good to know. He does make at least one argument in paragraph seven here for why his visitors are pleasant and not objectionable, namely that they had to make their way out to Thoreau’s remote residence, but this is weak at best. I imagine this reflects his mental state after being relatively isolated for a long time, but the distinction between “bad” and “good” society comes off as being distinguished by whether or not they visit Thoreau. It is irritating, in no small part because I sympathised with Thoreau’s objections to “society,” nebulous as the term may be.

      Comment by Emma Raupp on March 4, 2020

      “In him the animal man chiefly was developed… But the intellectual and what is called spiritual man in him were slumbering as in an infant. He had been instructed only in that innocent and ineffectual way […] by which the pupil is never educated to the degree of consciousness, but only to the degree of trust and reverence, and a child is not made a man, but kept a child” 

      It’s clear that the intellectual man is of great importance to Thoreau. He takes some measure not to present the intellectual man as ‘superior’ to the ‘animal man’, but he does suggest the man of intellect has access to higher faculties and perhaps a higher mode of consciousness. What I cannot discern is whether or not Thoreau found children to possess some wisdom, or if, as it seems in the quote above, children and “childlike thoughts” occupy a lower level of consciousness.

      At the end of “Reading”, Thoreau writes: “I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.” Here, he indicates an unusual correlation between youth and wisdom. Earlier in “Reading”, he writes: “Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, failure.” Based on these quotes, it seems that children do occupy a space of unique wisdom, chiefly because their wisdom is not a result of experience, or that it’s based on limited experience. If children can “discern [the] true law and relations” of our world more than some grown men, what difference does it make if a man is “kept a child” in his education?

      That’s the crux of Thoreau’s dilemma, I think: education. Namely, the type of education we receive, the values of that education, and where it takes us. Men may be thoroughly educated, but if their education teaches them “trust and reverence” above all, then they will never learn to think for themselves and question the (seemingly) unquestionable. If that’s the sole education we receive, institutional change or reform is nigh on impossible. Even more dangerously, so is free thought. If we do not have the educational foundation to question what we’re told, we are unable to formulate our own opinions or form an individual perspective.

      Despite all this, Thoreau still appears to celebrate aspects of the child’s perspective. Perhaps he means to say that the quest for wisdom, depending on the type of education we receive, may actually lead us astray. In that sense, some of us were better off with the wisdom we gleaned from the world as children.

      Comment by Alyssa Harrington on March 4, 2020

      This passage of Solitude helps me realize what types of isolation everyone can go through at any given moment. With the way technology is today it should be easy for people to be able to connect and have a good social life. But that is not the case for some people. Which makes me think about the chair analogy that is brought into this paragraph. It makes me think of friending someone on social media, 1st chair. the second is liking or commenting on posts. the third chair is used when you actually message them or meet up in person and start to form a genuine connection. If you were to ever become famous the sentences following would apply largely to you since most people who come to visit you are unexpectantly large. Technology does have a hand in who becomes famous or not, but sometimes its just based on pure luck of being in the right place at the right time.

      Comment by Olivia Davis on March 7, 2020

      This passage reminded me a lot of Thoreau’s words in the previous chapter, “Solitude”. Thoreau says, “I had more visitors while I lived in the woods than at any other period in my life; I mean that I had some”. I took this as a statement of the quality of the visitors he had while in the woods. He secluded himself and enjoyed his peace, and so he drew visitors that were quality people and good company. In “Solitude”, Thoreau describes that he was far from town or neighbors. He was driving himself crazy at first. In this chapter, I can see that his perspective has changed, and though he is still far from neighbors, he now has visitors now and then that keep him company when he needs it. I also think that he may not actually have a higher number of visitors now than at any point in his life, but rather he needs less visitors because he is at peace, so the few he does have seems like plenty.

      Comment by anthony guttilla on March 23, 2020

      Right off the bat, this passage starts off different than most of the rest. While most passages are about solitariness or criticizing the way some others might live, this starts off with him saying he loves society. This is a little ironic considering he went to live as far away from society as he can for two years. The overall sound of this section is different too, it almost seems busier, with words like “souls”, and “exclaim”, and even with the quotes of conversations.

      Comment by Caroline Crimmins on May 7, 2020

      This is an interesting observation, Danielle! I feel that because Thoreau has so much seclusion, he is starting to want human interaction. I think that he realizes that some interactions bring him more joy than others, and he craves those in particular.

      Comment by Jose Romero on May 13, 2020

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

      I really love this quote because it is extremely powerful. In this paragraph, Thoreau visualizes the priorities in his life with chairs. First, he prioritizes solitude – something he has been practicing for a long time as seen in the previous passages. Then, he prioritizes friendships – or rather, human connections. Lastly, he worries about society, but the good it can bring. In a house so small, Thoreau sure knew how to make the most meaning out of it.

      Comment by Priscilla Ford on May 20, 2020

      To me, this seems like Thoreau is getting tired of isolation. Sure, he had stated once before that he wanted the isolation, and Walden was his way to enjoy himself and separate from others, but I think he partly wants to be with others again. Anyone can be away from people for a certain amount of time, but as the days go on, you’re gonna miss having interactions. Maybe Thoreau doesn’t know what he wants? He can type anything he can think pf, but without being in his head, can we ever truly know what he wants? Walden may bring him joy, but maybe he is seeking a deeper kinda joy that only society can bring him.

      Comment by Owen Amigo on February 11, 2021

      Nice metaphor relating his life to the ocean and the river of society flowing into it which only puts good people around him

      Comment by Judiah Strouse on February 25, 2022

      Oftentimes people attribute small homes to a sense of closeness or homeliness. However, Thoreau attributes it to a stuffy environment, one where people can’t voice their thoughts clearly because there isn’t enough room.

  • Economy 71-81 (104 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 20, 2014

      [much cant and hypocrisy,—chaff]

      One of many biblical allusions (as Jeremiah 23:28) to the difficulty of separating the wheat from the chaff.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [broad as it is long]

      This expression can be traced back at least to John Ray, English Proverbs (1678).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [humility become the devil’s attorney]

      In the Roman Catholic Church it is customary to appoint a cardinal as devil’s advocate to bring up every conceivable argument against the raising of a candidate to sainthood.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [Cambridge College]

      Harvard College, from which T graduated in 1837.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [in the fourth story]

      T had his own problems with a fourth floor dormitory room, for he occupied one in Hollis Hall when he was at Harvard (Salt, 9).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [speculation, and he employs Irishmen]

      Another reference to the fact that recent Irish immigrants were hired chiefly to do menial labor.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [are the keepers of men]

      “I understand you well, said my master, it is now very plain, from all you have spoken, that whatever share of reason the Yahoos pretend to, the Houyhnhnms are your masters” (Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, IV, iv).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [I did eat $8 74]

      Charles Anderson (27) points out that this is almost exactly the sum recommended by William Alcott, in The Young Housekeeper (Boston, 1838), for a healthy diet for that period of time. Since William Alcott was Bronson Alcott’s cousin, Anderson suggests T might have been familiar with the book. But as Yanella (24) says, such family budgets were common at the time, and T’s friend Horace Greeley printed them regularly in his New York Tribune. Wesolowski (141) evaluates T’s diet against modern nutritional standards and states that it does not imply “nutritional frugality.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [to construct a magnetic telegraph]

      Samuel F. B. Morse had invented the magnetic telegraph in 1835. It first reached Concord in 1851 after T had left Walden Pond.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [to a distinguished deaf woman]

      Harriet Martineau, who made a famous tour of America in 1834 and 1835.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [to tunnel under the Atlantic]

      They were not thinking seriously of tunneling the Atlantic, but they were attempting to lay an Atlantic cable.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [be that the Princess Adelaide]

      Possibly the Princess Adelaide (1792- 1849) who in 1818 married the Duke of Clarence, who became William IV in 1830. Although I have not succeeded in finding it, I would not be surprised if T was thinking of a specific item he had seen in a newspaper.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [eating locusts and wild honey]

      Wild honey: the food of John the Baptist in the desert (Matthew 3:4).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Childers]

      A famous racehorse in eighteenth-century England, owned by a Mr. Childers of Carr House.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [cars and go to Fitchburg]

      The terminus of the Boston and Fitchburg Railroad, which passed by Walden Pond.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [ninety cents]

      It is an indication of T’s preciseness that in the manuscript this reads one dollar, then is corrected to seventy cents, only to be changed in the page proof to ninety cents, with the marginal comment to the printer, “They have changed the fare within the last week” (Shanley, 1957, 36).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [will be, “A melancholy accident]

      A typical newspaper headline of T’s time.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [reminds me of the Englishman]

      T may be thinking of Robert Clive (Baron Clive of Passey), who served the British government in India and also wrote poetry.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [any on the main street]

      Main Street in Concord still displays a notable line of grand and luxurious mansions, some of the loveliest in any New England town. Ironically, shortly after T left the pond and before he published W, his parents purchased one of these mansions, spent money to make it even grander, and T lived there with them for the remainder of his life. The house was sold in 1988 for well over a million dollars.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [to lay the foundation themselves]

      One of Thoreau’s acquaintances, Horace Mann, then the president of Antioch College in Ohio, was developing a curriculum that involved studying and working outside the classroom.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [discover new satellites to Neptune]

      In 1846 William Lassell discovered a satellite of Neptune, a few months after the planet itself was first observed.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the motes in his eyes]

      “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own?” (Luke 6:41).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [on metallurgy at the Institute]

      In the 1840s technological institutes, such as the Rochester Institute of Technology, were being established in many American cities to help further the education of workingmen.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [penknife]

      Manufactured by Joseph Rodgers & Sons of Sheffield, England, long one of the most noted cutlers. Although T had written “Rogers’,” Shanley (1971, 397) corrected the spelling.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [that I had studied navigation]

      The Harvard College catalogs of the 1830s list “nautical astronomy” as one part of sophomore mathematics.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say]

      Adam Smith (1723-1790), Scottish economist, author of The Wealth of Nations; David Ricardo (1772-1823), English economist; and Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832), French economist (Yanella).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [I planted]

      In 1859 T replanted his old garden to trees, chiefly pines, for Emerson. Although the last of these trees has long since died, most of them having burned or blown down, their stumps can still easily be discerned a hundred feet or so north of his cabin site.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [and hickories, and was sold]

      Emerson records the purchase of this first of his Walden Pond woodlots in a letter to his brother William on October 4, 1844 (Rusk, III, 262). The lot was pie-shaped, with only the point touching the shore on what is now known as Thoreau’s Cove. Over the years, Emerson purchased other parcels, until he had bought most of the land around the pond. In 1922 his heirs deeded the property to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and it eventually became a state park.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [I put no manure whatever]

      The printer ignored T’s deletion of the word “whatever” in the page proof.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [a third of an acre]

      Richardson (175) suggests that T had a smaller crop the second year because a severe frost on June 12, 1846, destroyed many of his vegetables. But his decision to spade up less ground that year would normally have been made weeks earlier than that.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Arthur Young]

      Arthur Young wrote many books on agriculture, including Rural Oeconomy (London, 1773).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [use the labor of animals]

      T may have been thinking of his friend Bronson Alcott, whose transcendentalist community at nearby Harvard, Massachusetts, did not use work animals.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [gain is not another’s loss]

      “Gain cannot be made without some other person’s loss” (Publilius Syrus).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [free worship or free speech]

      T was speaking from bitter experience. In 1844 when Emerson wished to address a gathering of abolitionists on the anniversary of the liberation of the West Indian slaves, no Concord church would open its doors to the convention, and T finally obtained the use of the courthouse and rang the bell to announce the meeting (Cabot, 430).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [more admirable the Bhagvat-Geeta]

      This classic of Hindu religious literature was T’s favorite Oriental work. Stein, in his three articles on W, discusses at length the impact of the book on T.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [In Arcadia]

      A pastoral region in ancient Greece, now used figuratively as the name of an ideal land. Rees expounds at some length on the hammering stone. See also Reginald Cook.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [place. The grandeur of Thebes]

      Not the famous Greek city, but an ancient city in Egypt, also called Hecatompylos for its hundred gates. Thoreau may have read about it in Diodorus 1.15.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [a rod of stone wall]

      Since New England is a heavily glaciated area, the farmers gathered the many boulders on their land and formed stone walls to mark boundaries and fence in their farm animals.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [alive. As for the Pyramids]

      Emerson, in his Journal for August 18, 1852 (VIII, 320 ), attributes a very similar opinion of the worth of the pyramids to Horatio Greenough. But Greenough apparently made his statement that month, whereas T’s is recorded in his own Journal for April 21, 1852 (III, 454).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [or the United States Bank]

      A vogue for Egyptian-style architecture flourished in Philadelphia in the mid-nineteenth century, and the Second Bank of the United States there is a notable example of that style.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [bread and butter. Mr. Balcom]

      While there is a Balcomb family listed in the Concord records of T’s time, I can find no one of that name in the list of Massachusetts architects of that period. I suspect T was playing a little joke on one of his neighbors.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the back of his Vitruvius]

      A celebrated architect in the age of Augustus. His is the only classical work on architecture that is still extant.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [let out to Dobson & Sons]

      I can find no trace of any Dobsons in Concord records or in the directories of Massachusetts stonecutters of T’s time.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [stonecutters. When the thirty centuries]

      T probably meant to say forty centuries. Napoleon, in a short address to his soldiers in Egypt, said of the pyramids, “From the summit of those monuments forty centuries look down upon you.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [to dig through to China]

      There is in the Easterbrook Woods, north of Concord center, a slight excavation that is still pointed out as “the hole to China.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [1 73 ½]

      Cavell (30) suggests that T, in his use of fractions of cents, is parodying American methods of bookkeeping, but half-cent coins were still in circulation in the United States until the 1850s (Paul Williams, 1987).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Experiment which failed]

      In the first edition, the bracket covering “experiments which failed” did not include salt, but through a printer’s error, the bracket was extended in many later editions. This detail offers a simple check as to whether a particular edition has been edited with care.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [a woodchuck]

      There is a little legend, probably apocryphal, that T caught alive in a box trap one of the woodchucks that had been ravaging his beans. But not having the heart to kill it, he carted it off two miles and freed it, letting it become someone else’s worry (Canby, 219).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [his transmigration, as a Tartar]

      A resident of central Asia. Most Oriental religions include the doctrine of transmigration of the soul after death, even for animals. Sattelmeyer (63) suggests T is referring to Évariste Régis Hue’s Recollections of a Journey Through Tartary, Thibet and China.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the house, and their bills]

      Their bills: his mother and sisters did most such work for him as a friendly service.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [28 12½]

      Although Crawford asserts that the fractions did not appear in the original manuscript, that they were “whimsical additions” by T, Shanley has informed me that they are indeed there.

      Comment by Maya Merberg on February 2, 2015

      Here Thoreau condemns “‘modern improvements,'” and especially those that exist to improve the speed and efficiency of communication. He thinks that these advances improve the pace but not the quality of conversation.

      It’s hard to imagine, then, the disdain that he would’ve held for modern technology of today– especially social media platforms. I’m sure he would be dismayed by these websites in which one could argue that “the main object [is] to talk fast and not to talk sensibly” and which are full of celebrity gossip not much more interesting than Princess Adelaide having the whooping cough.

      Comment by Emily Hegarty on April 27, 2015

      This sounds like an early advocate of “service learning.”

      Comment by Olivia Furness on November 2, 2015

      [At Cambridge College the mere rent of a student’s room, which is only a little larger than my own, is thirty dollars each year,]

      It is very interesting how he built a house all by himself for only $28.50 and have it for life, yet going to college is that expensive each year.

      Accomplishing a lot on a little budget seems to bring him great pride. He likes to be self sufficient and we see this theme throughout the rest of the work.

      Comment by Debra Schleef on September 26, 2017

      There are some college founded on just this notion. Berea, for example.

      Comment by Debra Schleef on September 26, 2017

      it’s interesting how he’s dismantling everything those with power in his age would find important.

       

      Comment by Dana Carmeli on September 26, 2017

      This seems to be a common trope of professors today — not exactly the latter part of this excerpt but certainly, the part about cheating one’s self out of a wealth of knowledge, whether it come from books or from lived experience. I think this can be connected back to Reece in that the paths to Thoreau’s remade cabin are filled with tourists from all over the world. Perhaps they are followers of a particular movement, but often times, they simply visit a famous site for the ability to tell people that they have lived this particular experience. These experiences are commodified often times through the obvious form, social media, in order to define social, economic, and intellectual barriers that distinguish them from others they find inferior.

      Rather than ask the visitors if Walden had played “some role in the German and Scandavian enthusiasm for alternative fuel sources” or if they had “really come this far on pilgrimage,” he recognizes the language barrier and decides to isolate himself (Reece 267). Although understandable in Reece’s situation, I think about the similarities between Reece and Thoreau. Reece himself admits in an earlier chapter on Twin Oaks that he can’t see himself thriving in a real intentional community, preferring solitude and introspection. Thoreau of course returns to the outside world after two years in isolation but he, too, finds a special importance in the freedom of solitude.

      Comment by Dana Carmeli on September 26, 2017

      He’s definitely a blunt guy.

      Comment by Dana Carmeli on September 26, 2017

      Well I originally left a lengthy comment on this excerpt but I pretty much talked about the commodification of experiences rather than the value brought by knowledge or specific experiences. In Reece’s chapter, he mentions not knowing if the many visitors traveled to Walden Pond as a pilgrimage. Rather than asking (language barrier), he returns to his happy solitude, something it seems Thoreau enjoyed for quite some time.

      Comment by Dana Carmeli on September 26, 2017

      I think that this passage relates very closely to Reece’s connection between Thoreau and biblical Adam. Here, Thoreau engages in an indirect dialogue with people so blinded by their faith that they are made inactive by it. They seek the afterlife so dearly that they forget that the present time is as much a gift from the heavens as Heaven itself (at least as Thoreau might see it).

      I think this image of the man tilling the earth for a railroad and the promise of a greater future is tied to the confines of religion. Work, and you will be rewarded by a higher power. Tend to the earth in order to repay the creator for the original sin. It’s almost Marxist in a way, but Thoreau has a big problem with this sense of feeling all your life like you owe someone something. Living on his own for two years, Thoreau didn’t owe anyone anything, let alone a god. He worked for his own enjoyment and for his own purpose. As Reece mentions in the chapter I think Thoreau would support Emerson’s claim that we are ” ‘part or particle of God’ ” (268). We have something shared within all of us and are far closer than we are divided.

      Although I personally see the advantages of technology that globalizes the human experience and greater story, I see what Thoreau is trying to say here about the people who are consumed by their work and not by seeking their own form of pleasure. Religion causes people to forget that there is “heaven enough a half mile from Concord” (Reece 268). He encourages six days to consume nature’s “sublime revelations” and one day for physical exertion (Reece 261). I guess in summary, Thoreau contemplates the role of humans in both the Biblical and realistic sense a lot. His view of the world could be seen as its own doctrine.

      In a brief aside, Thoreau and doomsday preppers would not get along. They do not see the beauty of the earth, only its near demise and the promise of a wonderful afterlife. It’s kind of the way many of us live our lives knowing that extreme damage is being done to the earth but reassure ourselves by thinking we are happy in the moment. Are we getting the most out of this experience with life? Thoreau might think not.

      Comment by Dana Carmeli on September 26, 2017

      [Most of the stone a nation hammers goes toward its tomb only. It buries itself alive.]

      Wow. First thing that comes to mind is the debate over statues of Confederate generals and soldiers. I listened to an interesting debate on NPR when the monuments were being pulled down and one commentator mentioned that some countries do not erect statues that celebrate civil war heroes. These are simply further reminders of our differences and, moreso, our violence towards fellow citizens.

      Here, Thoreau is again commenting on the social class hierarchies: the worker restrained by the boss. Better to work for one’s self rather than spend one’s whole life creating a monument for someone else’s inevitable death.

      Comment by Lane Riggs on September 26, 2017

      I think this relates to our discussion last time, when we said that even when we are not working, we are still working. Similarly, there’s the idea that you’re supposedly to work hard your whole life and you can have fun when and only when you retire.

      And I agree with what Dana said, that this work relates to religion. You have to work hard and diligently to reach Heaven. And as we see in this paragraph, Thoreau is disagreeing with this notion.

      I like that he said a “questionable liberty.” It makes me think of his freedom found at Walden Pond. You don’t have to travel to find that kind of freedom, because sometimes it will happen anywhere, anytime, as long as you are in tune with yourself.

      Comment by Lane Riggs on September 26, 2017

      Makes me think of the previous comment I made, where I said we have to keep working. In this sentence, I think of a farmer who is almost forced to keep working while the herds are just existing, taking their time and enjoying life. Truly, I think animals are much freer than humans as they don’t have the same kind of need to do something. But with the existence of animals, man has to work. So I agree with Thoreau saying that the herds are the keepers of men while they get to live freely.

      Comment by Dana Carmeli on September 26, 2017

      Professor Schleef —

      What did you think about the segment where he writes, “Maine and Texas…have nothing important to communicate”? From my reading of it, it seems like he is saying that people from such different parts of the same country are so different that they need not share experiences with one another, or have no experiences to share at all.

      A similar thought came across my mind right after Donald Trump was elected: not many had expected this… We surround ourselves by those who agree with us, and often these fundamental agreements are separated by geographical location. Maybe the US is just too big to be operated by one government. Maybe our differences outnumber our similarities. What would Thoreau have to say about secession? Do we belong in our own “great utopia[s] of solitude” (Reece 256)?

      Comment by Savannah Robert on September 27, 2017

      The shakers did not believe they should be allowed to live in beauty.  As a result, every aspect in their lives were created beautifully.  Beauty followed utility as everything had a purpose in their society.  I believe the Shakers would agree with Thoreau in this matter.  The train would be considered a frivolous matter to the Shaker’s who would take the same walk as Thoreau.

      Comment by Debra Schleef on September 27, 2017

      wonder if Thoreau knew of the Shakers (probably) and they of Transcendentalism? And I think the Shakers would approve of Thoreau, but not the other way around.

       

      Comment by Debra Schleef on September 27, 2017

      My take was slightly different, namely, isn’t creating all of these technological advances putting the cart before the horse? What if Maine and Texas DON’T have anything to say to each other? Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but  rather like creating Facebook and mostly what people have to talk about are Candy Crush and their cute cats (exaggerating of course).

      Comment by Debra Schleef on September 27, 2017

      as for succession — Paul? I believe talk of the South seceding had been thrown around for a while prior to it actually happening, but I don’t know if HDT thought about it.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 9, 2017

      I enjoyed reading what you have to say about animal and human life. Humans are really just animals with larger brains comparatively to other animals. Thus I’d ask you if humans and animals have the same emotions and are equally free, and just have more complex or simple emotions? For example while I may worry about my grades in school, an animal may worry to the same extent about not having enough to eat. I think we are just as free as other animals, because while it often feels like we are restrained from the freedoms animals seem to have, the complexity of our species has given us opportunities other animals cannot fathom. Do you agree?

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 18, 2017

      This is an interesting connection, and I agree that Reece and Thoreau present similar viewpoints. In what ways do their views differ? I’m not as familiar with Reece so that’s why I’m asking.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 21, 2017

      Agreed, and the way that Thoreau went about enjoying his time at Walden pond is something I enjoy reading about specifically in this paragraph.

      Comment by Henrik Otterberg on February 23, 2018

      This is a very good question. As Thoreau’s next paragraph § 82 makes clear, the numbers given here are to be seen as “comparative” at best. In a generous mood, one might say that Thoreau’s narrator strives to enumerate what he can – while evaluating the costs of dinners and snacks granted by friends and family would be harder (and indeed impolite) to do. Most of us could probably relate to his experience as well – Thoreau was not, after all, striving for an isolated hermitage, cut off from all social relations. And he was evidently not more of a curmudgeon than that he received a fair amount of free meals, freely offered too.

      One might also ponder the incomplete numbers as symbolic of the impossibility of leaving an absolute autobiographical “account” at any time and place. Thoreau plays on this word in this chapter and others, from the looser sense of “narrative” over bookkeeping to the very ultimate statement: musing that his books have not at length been fully accounted for (i.e. audited), he hints (at least to this opinion) of the final Day of Accounts, and hence the verdict of a divine auditor for whom all numbers and balances are clear and can be weighed accurately.

      Something like this seems to be going on too in the earlier, dense passage on our donning our garments, and particularly on “liber” as synonymous of “shirt”. Liber also connotes bark and the leaves of a book – such as Thoreau is presenting us in “Walden”. He says it is possible to shed the outer bark without harm to the living tree, but eventually one reaches a limit beyond which further stripping becomes fatal. Perhaps then, Thoreau’s narrator is signaling the limits of privacy and ultimately of life possible to convey in writing, at least to human eyes: once he has given his account and/or shed bark/skin to us, it is at length up to us what to make of it. How do we compare to his project?

      Comment by Julia McGaugh on April 23, 2018

      [my shortcomings and inconsistencies do not affect the truth of my statement.]
      I find this line so important in our study of Thoreau. No person is without fault, and we often take any flaw or inconsistency in his argument first, as a flaw in his character, and second, to discount his accurate statements. Beyond Thoreau, even, we do this too often with people, too.

      Comment by Kathryn Capone on September 10, 2018

      [This spending of the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it, reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. ]

      This relates to the book, “They Say, I Say” by the use of the word “this.” Here, it is a pointer word that helps the flow of the writing and helps the reader to understand what the author is trying to say more efficiently. By clearly using “this” and explaining what “this” the author is talking about, it makes the writing easier to read and follow what the author is arguing.

      Comment by Nat Hilts on September 10, 2018

      In this paragraph, Thoreau converses with the students and the well-educated. The most prominent conversational move that Thoreau makes here (as Graff and Birkenstein may describe) is when Thoreau interjects his words with a ‘they say’ that may not have actually been said: “‘But,’ says one, ‘you do not mean that the students should go to work with their hands instead of their heads?'” Not only is it an exchange of they say/I say, it’s also a form of metacommentary that allows him to clarify his meaning.

      Comment by Alexandra Welker on September 10, 2018

      This is a great example of the “they say, I say” mentality. The author states the others comments then says how he is wiser and will walk instead of taking a car because it will be faster and cheaper. He is responding with a straight no. Not any okay but just no he doesn’t think it is right and won’t stand for the idea of doing it.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      Is Thoreau here  claiming that those who do not strive for what they want, are in realness hindering themselves from leaving a leisure-some life? A life in which Thoreau seems to imply is that of fraud from ones own search of experience.

      Comment by John Serbalik on September 18, 2018

      In this paragraph, Thoreau tackles one of the greatest issues about education that is still highly debated: Are the high costs of higher education worth it? An individual may learn highly valuable material, that at that time would be harder to access without formal education. This would make people feel they need to pursue a college degree in order to advance in life.

      Comment by Kathryn Capone on September 18, 2018

      [If I wished a boy to know something about the arts and sciences, for instance, I would not pursue the common course, which is merely merely to send him into the neighborhood of some professor, where any thing is professed and practised but the art of life;—to survey the world through a telescope or a microscope, and never with his natural eye; to study chemistry, and not learn how his bread is made]

      Thoreau is saying here that sending a student into the classroom doesn’t really teach all there is to know about a certain subject. He believes a person needs to see the world for himself or herself. He thinks this is a better use of a person’s mind, to think for himself or herself, instead of learning it from one person’s perspective. This is interesting because he doesn’t seem to trust the education system and how learning from professors, he believes isn’t valuable, which is very interesting. In our eyes, a professor is very knowledgable, but in his perspective, it isn’t as helpful for a student.

      Comment by Adriana Straughter on September 18, 2018

      I find it interesting that Thoreau speaks on the financial issues of college that is still talk about today. Not only is he talking about money he speaks on the education and how certain students get different courses. Being taught the wrong idea, not being taught actual knowledge that you can use outside of the classroom.

      Comment by Maya Garde on September 18, 2018

      [Which would have advanced the most at the end of a month,—the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this,—or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the Institute in the mean while, and had received a Rodgers’ penknife from his father? Which would be most likely to cut his fingers? ]

      It’s interesting that higher education is incomplete in teaching only the theoretical not having any hands-on experience. Therefore the one attended is more likely to cut himself for the hands-on experience is essential but is abandoned but the colleges to only speak and learn the theoretical.

      Comment by Madyson Gillanders on May 12, 2019

      [Those conveniences which the student requires at Cambridge or elsewhere cost him or somebody else ten times as great a sacrifice of life as they would with proper management on both sides. Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants.]
      Link to Cambridge College on Google Maps:
      https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1M0Ai9sR3tbtT36zPxj7ga94UkAWoSeA4&ll=42.377,-71.11666&z=14

      Comment by Danielle Crowley on February 15, 2020

      Over the course of the semester so far, we have spent a lot of time discussing how humans communicate, the various ways we communicate, and how communication has changed over the course the centuries. Here, Thoreau brings up an interesting point – we, as humans, spend so much time and effort on communication and building communication efforts but what if there is nothing to communicate at all? Thoreau writes, “They are but improves means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already too easy to arrive at… We are in greta haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate” (73). The notion that there may come a time where communication is not the most important thing to humans and to society as a whole is an interesting notion.

      While Thoreau brings up valid points that humanity itself is virtually obsessed with advancement and the need for advanced communication, I disagree with the notion that there may be nothing important to communicate. Communication is the very thing that allows the human race to survive. Whether it is telling your tribe not to eat a specific berry when we were hunters and gatherers, or today when we are communicating about policy, communication is the very thing that allows the world to function and for information to be carried from one place to another. The idea that at some point, this information will not need to be transferred to other people neglects an important part of human culture.

      Comment by Hannah Fahy on February 15, 2020

      I wonder what Thoreau would make of our technology today. I’m especially curious about abbreviations in the context of our discussions on language and technology with Thoreau’s idea that we are talking faster than we can sensibly. There are so many abbreviations such as “lol,” “jk,” “fyi,” and “asap” that people use on a daily basis, and those examples are only a select few. It’s not quite it’s own language, but I would argue that our abundance of abbreviations is a new type of texting literacy. You have to be literate in text slang in order to understand what people are saying when they use abbreviations.

      I’m not certain what Thoreau would make of it, but I lean toward believing that he wouldn’t like it. Something like “lol” which stands for “laugh out loud” has become filler in conversations over text. I highly doubt that every person truly laughs out loud every time they type “lol.” It’s a filler phrase now that just conveys mild humor. It’s something most people type without even thinking about it. As a society, we have the ability to talk to one another across any distance instantly. That’s quite fast communication, but we rarely give much thought to our words.

      Comment by Justin Colleran on February 16, 2020

      This paragraph is very interesting, since Thoreau is discussing traveling. He believes that we should travel places by foot if they are to travel anywhere. The way that I read it is that we should do this because we could get to a place faster. It also seems to me that Thoreau believes that transportation is way too expensive, saying that it is “almost a day’s wages” to travel. At the end of the paragraph, he also claims that he doesn’t believe in traveling that much. He says that if you believe in that, then you and him can no longer be friends.

      Comment by Sandy Brahaspat on February 16, 2020

      [Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. ]

      This particular line struck me because it reminded me of our current interaction with technology, specifically with social media. The insane ambition of perpetuating a memory of oneself is evidently clear with platforms like instagram, facebook and sometimes even twitter. As we all know, these platforms allow their users to document snapshots and pivotal moments in their lives with followers. But as younger generations begin to get caught up in the social media hysteria, it almost begins to appear as an obsession. Who gets the most followers, likes, comments, shares, retweets, etc. So, I agree with the language Thoreau uses to convey his criticism: some aspects of advanced technology can appear like an insane ambition.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on February 16, 2020

      This is a great question, Hannah. Thoreau’s relationship to technology is definitely a complicated one. As a land surveyor, he relied heavily on the surveying technology of his day. As a member of a family that manufactured pencils for a living, he was very interested in the technology of pencil-making and contributed his own important developments to that technology. And he said this about the railway: “What right has a man to ride in the cars who does not know by what means they are moved?” Of course, you’re also asking about his attitude toward linguistic invention. I suspect his attitude here would be complicated as well. In paragraph 10 he writes: “Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.” An excellent book on how the internet has affected language, by the way, is linguist Gretchen McCulloch’s Because Internet. It puts to rest many myths about how “lol” and other expressions — especially the myth that these expressions are born of laziness.

      Comment by Maeve Morley on February 16, 2020

      Ultimately, Thoreau is referring to the doubts that individuals share in terms of the advancement of technology and communication. He explains how these inventions serve as “improved means to an unimproved end.” Why are humans so eager to build inventions that connect opposite ends of the world together, and foster instantaneous communication? Do we need all of these inventions, and are they imperative to humanity and our every day lives? Thoreau seems to hint that the concerns critics of technology share is that the idea and sensibility behind humanity is lost in the wake of the creation of these inventions.

      Comment by Leila Sassouni on February 16, 2020

      \”How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?\”

      This question caught my attention as it relates closely to individuals who need to experience the world, both by observation and participation, to better understand it. Decades ago when technology was less rampant, adolescents were encouraged to physically go outside and explore. They didn\’t have technology, so they had to learn (through experience) what their function and/or place was in the world. Today, though, with the rise of technological use in younger generations of children, there is greater reliance on internet use and softwares to understand the world. This different lifestyle means that adolescents are less likely to\”experiment\” life or what it means to live. Youths today live in an entirely different manner than older generations, because of newer communicative and technological mechanisms.

      Comment by Mitchell Pace on February 17, 2020

      Thoreau seems to be speaking remorsefully about the views society continues to have on work. We are expected to work hard through most of our life and only truly living it many years down the line. Thoreau’s line, “but I wish, as you are brothers of mine, that you could have spent your time better than digging in this dirt,” is a direct reference to his desire that people experience and live life, not just kill themselves slowly living, working, for the sake of others instead of themselves. This mindset of working most of your life and retiring in older age still exists today and is a point of remorse for many that would probably agree with a lot of what Thoreau stated in this section, outside of this paragraph. That being said, Thoreau doesn’t think it is the worst thing to work, stating that the workers “might have done worse…” but you cannot escape the melancholy and regret in Thoreau’s writing at the state of the workforce spending most of their lives trapped by work that only brings them closer to death instead of living.

      Comment by Rachel Beck on February 17, 2020

      In this particular paragraph, Thoreau mentions the creation of the telegraph, stating that even though Maine and Texas have nothing important to communicate, society was, at one point, in great haste to construct a machine that would allow them to do so. This reminds me of Chapter Five in Gleick, mainly because this is where Gleick writes about the creation of the telegraph.

      Gleick talks about how fortunes could be made by creating the telegraph. It would bridge the gap between two separate places. It brought about the phenomenon of fast information from a distance, and this excited people. Thoreau believes, however that fast information is worthless when one is not talking sensibly.

      This really makes me wonder about how Thoreau would react to the technology we have nowadays. Phones and computers are even more advanced than the telegraph, and communication is so accessible that many conversations had over text are generally pointless. It’s definitely an interesting thought.

      Comment by Jaffre Aether on February 17, 2020

      When reading Walden, I believe most people believe these economical digressions the least enlightening part of Thoreau’s discourse on nature, modernity, and how to live on the land as we have grown alienated from the land. But I actually find these sections important, not on their own, but in total. The two important takeaways I gain from these digressions is the reminder that living this way is doable, and the contribution to the taxonomy of Thoreau’s authentic living. The first is noteworthy, but needs little explanation. The second deserves more attention. As we exist in the technological world, we have little need for a taxonomy of that kind of life; we already know it. But by Thoreau painstakingly laying out every detail (in this case, what he ate), he is showing us how we can live. This ‘how’ is the necessary addition to the ‘why.’ The how keeps us grounded while Thoreau responds on why we should live this way. This grandly relates back to our trials in modern life as well, for Thoreau offers us a framework for self-reliance that is well-worn by time, but still repairable for us. I also believe that this painstaking taxonomy is important to us now simply due to the marked rate of consumption that is now prevalent in our lives. By creating a list, we may all be able to more honestly reflect on what is important. Such as this, the how once again guides us when attempting to ask why.

      Comment by Claire Rogers on February 17, 2020

      Thoreau speaks well on the advancements of methods of communication in his time without the benefit of advancing that which is to be communicated. Certainly, he gets this point across well: What if there is indeed naught to say betwixt Texas and Maine? But, of course, just because one has nothing to say does not mean that such channels are devoid of words and words and words. Not unlike social media today, it is simply a flush of content that most often has no meaning behind it, no value. Indeed, most humans have nothing of import to say at most times. And yet, we speak anyway, to some extent under the allusion that we are saying something rather than just exercising our vocal cords, and to some extent because the ability to communicate constantly has made us afraid of silence. There is so much that is communicated today and so much that is received that even the few things of true import are lost and devalued in the storm.

      A pair of quotes from Kurt Vonnegut come to mind. First, to the basis of Thoreau’s point: “Who is more to be pitied, the writer who is bound and gagged by policemen or the one living in perfect freedom who has nothing to say?” And, form my favourite Vonnegut novel, Cat’s Cradle, which I think aptly summarizes social media and indeed much of the Information Age: “People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they’ll have good voice boxes in case there’s ever anything really meaningful to say.”

      Comment by Emma Raupp on February 17, 2020

      “Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What if equal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners? One piece of good sense would be more memorable than a monument as high as the moon.” 

      The way in which nations ‘perpetuate memories’ of themselves has been a concern before Thoreau wrote about it, and is still a concern in American society today. A glorious (but dishonest, and biased) American history may be analogous to the ‘hammered stone’ Thoreau talks about here. Americans take such pain to ensure the collective American memory is a positive one, rather than focusing on the reality of the American experience, which belies this rose-tinted memory. One of the many reasons “Make America Great Again” fails is because America was never objectively great, except perhaps to those working so hard to perpetuate (and create) false memories. The information we choose to preserve and the information we choose to erase (or, with a note of concern, information that is unethically erased) impacts the memory of our nation, so it’s important that we remain aware of this and alert to attempts to censor or stifle the spread of information– and whether that information is truly accurate and indicative of the nation it stands for.

      Comment by Alyssa Harrington on February 17, 2020

      When it comes to communication on this campus there is not a positive or informational impact from the administration aspect. When anything related to campus news comes out for the campus, everything goes haywire. For example, bringing communiation and knowledge about the library this semester has not had a positive impact on this campus. Overall, our enrollment rate is decreasing and our transfer out rate is increasing because the information about a possible renovation was not given to us.

      The open forum where we were able to communicate our issues was not helpful, since the communication from administration was not thought out, and really just beat around the bush with certain issues. I think if administration tried to get more information from how students actually feel on campus about issues, we would easily be able to start a positive impact on our communication as a campus and a community.

      Comment by Ainsley Owens on February 5, 2021

      This paragraph discusses the importance of nurturing a child’s natural skills & interests, rather than pushing a child down the common course from a young age. Thoreau discusses how tuition is very expensive in comparison to the cost of living and experiencing life and what it has to offer. He also makes the point that if a child has an interest in arts & sciences, the child should be allowed to pursue and supported in their decisions and futures, rather than forced into a different field because it is family tradition, or because it has the highest salary. Thoreau believes that life is not about the materialistic items that one can acquire but that the experiences, memories, and knowledge one acquires through living life are most important.

      Comment by Dylan Thorburn on February 7, 2021

      Thoreau writes that college was only created to generate profit and that every aspect of post-secondary learning is just something that allows students to find ways out of physical labor. He thinks people should “live” rather than “study” life. He writes that physical labor is a good way of learning how to live instead of going to college to learn the same things.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2021

      Good recap, Dylan. Do you agree with him or see college as different now?

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2021

      This is another key line, worth applying to phones, x-boxes, and other pretty toys. We know they’re distractions. Which recent inventions would you say are “pretty toys” and which have brought positive advances?

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2021

      [Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already too easy to arrive at]

      This is another key line, worth applying to phones, x-boxes, and other pretty toys. We know they’re distractions. Which recent inventions would you say are “pretty toys” and which have brought positive advances?

      Comment by Sarah Cronin on February 1, 2022

      In paragraphs 72 and 73, Thoreau brings down the education system and paints it in a negative light. It was interesting how he associates “modern improvements” as an illusion, how he sees greater benefit from working with your hands and not being “frivolous” in spending large amount of money on college and lectures. Ironic that he is so anti education when he is writing all these books, but it is interesting to see it in this light.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 2, 2022

      Yes, It IS ironic! He implies education could be much more practical. And the “modern improvements,” like the telegraph and railroad, seemed not to advance or improve life in any essential way.

      Comment by Zachary Vandecar on February 12, 2022

      [Which would have advanced the most at the end of a month,—the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this,—or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the Institute in the mean while, and had received a Rodgers’ penknife from his father?]

       

      Once again, Thoreau’s point is clever and clear to me I think. However, not everything can/should be learned by hands on experimentation right? It’s also worth mentioning that different people thrive under different learning environments. I wonder if this a fundamental flaw of philosophical writing, that the writer generalizes their own experiences too broadly.

      Comment by Patrick Cassidy on February 22, 2022

      Thoreau wanted to build a house that made the ones in town look inferior, but why would he build such a grand house so isolated?

  • Higher Laws (85 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [to play on the common]

      Most New England towns have an area near the center of town that was originally owned in common for the pasturing of farm animals. Nowadays town commons are used as public parks.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [that I was studying ornithology]

      T developed a life-long interest in the study of birds and was one of the earliest to advocate studying them in the wild rather than shooting them and studying their carcasses. He made a number of contributions to our knowledge of birds (Thoreau, 1993; Griscom).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [hunters as well as fishers of men]

      “And Jesus said unto them, Come after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men” (Mark 1:17).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [ben not holy men.’]

      “He yaf nat of that text a pulled hen. / That seith that hunters beth nat hooly men”(Chaucer, Prologue to Canterbury Tales, II, 178-9). But this is said of the monk, rather than the nun.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Humane Society]

      A generic term for charitable organizations formed to protect domestic animals from cruel treatment.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [“best men”, as the Algonquins]

      Indians of northeastern North America.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [distinctions]

      Literally, “love of man”. T is merely pointing out that his love is wider than that.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [seize and devour him raw]

      “Cynics may be inclined to suspect that an almost exclusive diet of rice, Indian meal, and molasses might reasonably be expected to make even woodchuck look strangely attractive to any man” (Krutch, 83).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [that wildness which he represented]

      T had a strong belief, as he said in his essay “Walking, or the Wild,” that “In wildness is the preservation of the world,” and this has become the motto of the present-day conservation movement (Burroughs; Oelschlaeger).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [it to me]

      Boudreau (1992) discusses T’s changing attitudes toward hunting, fishing, and trapping. In general T grew more ill at ease regarding these activities.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the Falls of St. Mary]

      The falls of the St. Mary River, in southeastern British Columbia.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [that man is a carnivorous]

      T misspelled this as “carniverous” in the first edition.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [sometimes eat a fried rat]

      T was probably referring here to the muskrat, which by some is considered edible (Bridgman, 295).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [of herself,” says Thseng-tseu]

      Confucius, The Great Learning, “Commentary of the Philosopher Tsang” (chap. VII, 2).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [from being the Good Shepherd]

      “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [The governor and his council]

      In Massachusetts, a Governor’s Council is elected to advise the governor in affairs of state.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [hooks to be used there]

      Limiting the number of hooks on a fishing line was a conservation measure.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [my case was its uncleanness]

      In the 1840s and 1850s, vegetarians and food faddists – Dr. Sylvester Graham among them – called for radical changes in diet. Adams and Hutter gives an amusing account of some of the food reforms suggested. Seybold (42) suggests that some of T’s vegetarian ideas were derived from his reading of Porphyry’s “On Abstinence from Animal Food.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [to leave off eating animals]

      Although T generally practiced vegetarianism, he did not confine himself wholly to that diet. For a discussion of his vegetarianism, see Joseph Jones, 1957.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [genius till it misled him]

      See Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” for the most noted exposition of this theme, an idea central to transcendentalism.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [to an opium-eater’s heaven]

      Opium addiction was common in T’s day. Witness Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [ones to whom the Ved]

      Rajah Rammohun Roy, Translation of Several … of the Veds (London, 1832, 21).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [appetite as ever an alderman]

      Aldermen are often depicted as lovers of exotic foods.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [with which it is eaten]

      “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man” (Matthew 15:18).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [in us, which awakens]

      T is probably thinking of Hawthorne’s short story “Egotism, or the Bosom Serpent” (Davidson, 1947).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [lower jaw of a hog]

      T describes this incident in his Journal for June 9, 1850 (II, 36). A later discovery of a hog’s jawbones is discussed by Sanborn (1909, I, 320).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [from brute beasts,” says Mencius]

      Mencius, Works (book IV [“Le Low”], part II, chap. XIX, p. 1).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [are declared by the Ved]

      Rajah Rammohun Roy, Translation of Several … of the Veds (London, 1832, 21).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [grossest sensuality into purityand devotion]

      T’s views on sexuality were even more conservative than those of most of his fellow Victorians and seem outlandish today. For a discussion of his sexuality, see Harding (1991).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [only as fauns and satyrs]

      In Roman mythology, a class of deities part human and part goat.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [rage and made them worse]

      John Donne, “To Sr Edward Herbert at Iulyers.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [be at cleaning a stable]

      That T practiced what he preached is evident in his Journal entry for April 20, 1841 (I, 250-1): “To-day I earned seventy-five cents heaving manure out of a pen.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [fill the reader with shame]

      T was undoubtedly thinking of the Hindu Laws of Menu, or the Vishnu Purana, which he had read in the H. H. Wilson translation (London, 1840).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [to the god he worships]

      “Ye are the temple of God” (I Corinthians 3:16).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [John Farmer sat at his door]

      Farmer is used as a type name, rather than referring to a specific individual. In the original manuscript it read “John Spaulding” (Stern). Spaulding was a common name in Concord in those days, though there seems to be no John Spaulding listed in the town records.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [he sat down to recreate]

      In the first edition, this word came at the end of a line of type and was broken into “rec-reate.” In T’s own copy, he corrected the syllabification, and a hyphen has crept into the word in some editions.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [one playing on a flute]

      T himself often loved to play his flute, particularly when in his rowboat on the pond.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 28, 2014

      [it in Kirby and Spence]

      William Kirby and William Spence, An Introduction to Entomology (Philadelphia, 1846, 258).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on February 1, 2014

      [Higher Laws]

      The phrase “Higher Laws” was very popular in the years prior to the Civil War, particularly among transcendentalists and abolitionists in their fight against the proslavery laws passed by Congress. As Theordore Parker once said, “To say that there is no law higher than what the State can make is practical atheism (Commager, 208). Higher laws, then, are the laws of one’s conscience. For an extended exposition of the term contemporary to Thoreau, see Hosmer. For a modern evaluation of the movement, see Madden. T’s most important discussion of the idea is in his essay “Civil Disobedience.” Pickard stresses that while the religious beliefs expressed in this chapter are highly unconventional by Christian standards, they contain the essentials of all religious experience. For more on the place of religion in this chapter, see Wolf. Rose discusses the humor in this chapter.

      Comment by Christine O'Neill on May 5, 2014

      [the laws of the universe] I’m taking an philosophy course called “Ethical Theory,” which is fascinating. Before reading this paragraph, I would have pegged Thoreau for an ethical relativist — that is, someone who believed we should respect and not interfere with the moral conventions of other cultures. He seems so worldly and is constantly enlightening readers with pearls of wisdom from around the world. Yet, here he presupposes moral absolutes, a “law of the universe” that operates independently of whatever “the youth” consider to be morally fashionable. You know, now that I think about it, Thoreau’s moral commentary is pretty irresponsible. Some of his asides are very flippant and end up creating an incoherent, unorganized portrait of what he believes. I mean of course he worships nature and all that, but can we place him in a moral category? Transcendentalism is a literary and philosophical movement, not really a moral one. Maybe I’m just trying to slap labels on something that can’t be labeled: a personal philosophy. Either way, I think his thoughts on morality could use a bit more organization and consistency.

      Comment by Kelly Langer on February 11, 2015

      [higher principles]- the pursuit in life.

      Aristotle’s Four Cardinal Virtues- Prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. Aristotle’s highest good is happiness.

      Kant’s highest good is good will. If there are not good intentions behind what is done then what is done is not good.

      Summum bonum- “the highest good” in Greek. The life of the righteous and/or the life led in Communion with God and according to God’s precepts.

      Comment by Emily Peterson on February 15, 2015

      Thoreau is making the claim that humans will never be “civilized” until they give up eating animals. This begs the question of what it means to be civilized. In urging others to not eat meat, it seems as though he is suggesting that as humans, we should not disturb nature and instead should try to live in harmony with it. Yet, the word civilization often lends the mind to the idea that humans should overcome or transcend nature—perhaps to harness it.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on February 15, 2015

      Great point, Emily. Thoreau’s equation of a “natural” way of living with “civilization” seems problematic. Is this in part because the concepts “nature” and “civilization” (or “culture”) are in themselves problematic?

      Comment by Jennifer Joyce on February 15, 2015

      The phrase, “fishers of men” struck me. Thoreau’s use of the Sunday school term reveals that he finds his greatness on par with that of Jesus. He thinks his way of life is divine, and recognizing the role of Christianity in Thoreau’s zeitgeist, it is an excellent term to elevate his ideology with the masses.

      Comment by Jake Trost on February 16, 2015

      This is a moment where Thoreau’s transcendentalist views come through very clearly.  Thoreau expounds upon the critical role that nature plays in his life, describing the details of his surroundings as “the highest reality.”  He is once again pointing to the importance of nature and of our roles in it as individuals with unique perspectives and interpretations of the world, over the importance of our role in society and the regulations that come with such an existence.  To him, “the faintest assured objection,” of an individual must come before “the arguments and customs of mankind.”

      Comment by Gabriel Karon on February 16, 2015

      When Thoreau writes, “He goes thither at first as a hunter and fisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of a better life in him, he distinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist it may be, and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind. The mass of men are still and always young in this respect” I believe he touches on a core issue in our society. He points out that largely our society teaches us to understand things by solely their utility – inevitably tied up in their ability to produce – and because of that too often we don’t fully mature as holistic human beings. The dichotomy he is engaging in about the importance of understanding nature in its relationship to ourself not as hunters and fishers but as poets and naturalists is the same as the one we today engage in when arguing for the importance of the humanities.

      Comment by Kasey Krug on February 22, 2015

      The quote “We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun” stuck out to me.” I interpreted this quote meaning that we cannot pity those who may not have had the same experiences as yourself. I feel this quote is important because a person has to remember that just because someone may not have the same experiences as you, it does not make them less than. 

      Comment by Austin Taylor on November 11, 2015

      T is discovering what is it is to be a human in nature, with all efforts going to self preservation. To refer to Harding’s comment on the passage, when one must forage and grow and hunt their own food as humans once did in the wilds, the prospect of small prey such as a woodchuck is a far more valuable take than anyone living in the modern community could appreciate. Human history is that of the hunter-gatherer, and here we see T entering the mindset and habits after being left to his own devices for some time.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on March 14, 2016

      Sandra Harbert Petrulionis examines the political uses of this phrase in “The ‘Higher Law’: Then and Now,” Thoreau Society Bulletin 262, Spring 2008 (5-7), available at the Internet Archive

      Comment by Ed Gillin on April 5, 2016

      Very interesting how this paragraph corresponds with the second paragraph of the “Sounds” chapter.  There are all kinds of inversions: morning becomes evening, warmth becomes coolness, the reverie of spirit is disrupted by the sounds of commerce (wagons on the road) in one, while incessant thoughts of work and practical plans become disrupted by the enchantment of a flute in the other.

      Professor Harding suggests that John Farmer is a sort of everyman figure.  But the parallelism noted above tells me that Henry Thoreau saw himself in this everyman quite clearly.  The penetrating question which an inner voice asks of him–“But how to come out of this condition and actually migrate thither?”–seems genuine and heartfelt.  This strikes me as an occasion to perceive that Thoreau’s counsels, which strike some as hectoring and egotistical, are often reflective.  Rather than putting himself above or outside our experience of life, he fixes himself firmly within it, showing us that the issues that command our most serious attention also commanded his.  I can’t help thinking that the wonderful final line was a resolution he himself had reached.

      Comment by Natalie LaCourt on April 5, 2016

      This seems like it should be a paragraph that would greatly confound readers. When Thoreau states, “The wonder is how they, how you and I, can live this slimy beastly life, eating and drinking,” it seems like this should be deterring to readers in some ways. Eating and drinking are such natural, sustaining ways of life for humans, yet here Emerson emphasizes that these things make us “slimy and beastly.” I think his argument can get confusing at times like these, when he really seems to be nitpicking humanity’s typical ways of life, and asking readers to become so intensely aware of activities that seem so natural to them at first.

      Comment by Natalie LaCourt on April 5, 2016

      The line “Nature is hard to be overcome, but she must be overcome” confuses me. It seems as if his main theme throughout the book is to be one with Nature, by overcoming societal pressures and fully immersing your life in Nature and living by the simple standards of Nature. Now telling readers to overcome Nature seems to be contradicting his message. Is Man’s natural inclination shameful and morally bad?

      Comment by Erin Dougherty on April 5, 2016

      At first I thought that Thoreau would see vegetarianism as unnatural because part of the “animal instinct” is to eat meat. Animals eat animals without a second thought, but perhaps it is humanity’s ability to think and sympathize that makes vegetarianism natural. Thoreau dislikes the messiness of hunting and sees it as preserving his “higher or poetic faculties” in abstaining from meat.

      Comment by Rachel Campbell on April 6, 2016

      I thought that Thoreau’s arguments against eating meat throughout the “Higher Laws” chapter were a bit lacking.  The impression that I got after reading this was that Thoreau did not stop eating animal flesh because he was overly concerned with animal welfare, rather, it seems he became a vegetarian merely because he felt it helped to “preserve his higher or poetic faculties” and that it elevated him to a greater spiritual level.  He admits in paragraph 3 that he, “did not pity the fishes nor the worms”.  In fact, he describes how he was born and raised with a hunting gun or fishing pole in his hand (he even states that this was the best education of his life…although perhaps partly due to the fact that this led him to spend large quantities of time in Nature).  He decided to end his carnivorous ways when he developed the belief that vegetarianism was something that seemed to be “more civilized” and the “destiny of the human race”.  Thus, vegetarianism, according to Thoreau, is ultimately about improving oneself, not necessarily about improving the lives and condition of other creatures (he is positioned on the anthropocentric side of the scale much more so than the biocentric side).  As a vegetarian, I was personally a bit dissatisfied with Thoreau’s arguments.  His claim that meat is “unclean” and “filthy” seemed to me to be almost ludicrous.  However, I think the biggest issue that I have with this chapter is the fact that Thoreau seems to hold his own personal elevation and spiritual ascension as the ultimate good–being a vegetarian merely helps him to achieve this egotistical goal.  Personally, I do not partake in the vegetarian diet because I believe it to help me, but because I think that it is innately good in and of itself.  Overall, I was a bit frustrated with Thoreau’s lack of giving any substantial reason for vegetarianism.  However, it should also be remembered that Thoreau is new to the herbivore lifestyle (he was literally just describing his fishing practices in the last chapter).  Perhaps this chapter should not be read as an argument primarily about vegetarianism (I personally don’t think Thoreau is a great authority on the subject), but rather as Thoreau’s personal contemplations concerning a new lifestyle choice and his inward struggle to reach a state of “glorious existence”.

      Comment by Mariya Gunda on April 6, 2016

      I read this passage slightly differently. While he does talk about the beastly lives that we may live when we consume flesh it is not so much the fact that we are spending time to eat but how we are eating. Prior to this he explains that it is ” Not that food which entereth into the mouth defileth a man, but the appetite with which it is eaten”. When he opens the chapter by talking about the woodchuck and the savage instinct that possesses him when it crossed his path, I believe that it is not the eating of meat that he is truly detesting as much as the idea that it is instinct and not intellect that propels the man forth. A man being blinded by instinct does not give time to intellect and in this way digresses as he follows those impulses to feed himself with meat and other delicacies. Man should have an appetite for genius not for meat, meat is as superficial as materialism and in a way I feel that Th. in this passage is only identifying yet another stage that man must go through in order to be fully susceptible to the truths of the universe and of existence altogether. Indulging the body in food is the same as man enveloping his life in the pursuit of materialistic joys that go no deeper than the surface. The part that you quoted reminds me of Emerson, he says “A man is fed, not that he may be fed, but that he may work”, this same idea exists in that quote. What we fuel ourselves with should not be a bigger concern than what we accomplish been filled (fueled) up.

      Comment by Ed Gillin on April 8, 2016

      Does it help, Natalie, that in context it seems that it is “human nature” Thoreau is referring to?  I’m not sure whether that perspective resolves all confusion, myself.  Remember, Emerson had insisted that one’s own body was a part of nature.  In “Esthetique du Mal” Wallace Stevens writes, “The greatest poverty is not to live / In a physical world.”  I regularly celebrate Thoreau for underscoring such an outlook.  Yet some passages in “Higher Laws” seem hung up on the suspicions of the body which may be found in certain long-lived Christian traditions (St. Paul, St. Augustine, etc.).

      Comment by William Foley on April 25, 2016

      “We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected.”

      This quote is by far the most significant when discussing what stood out to me in this book. I have had always been a more white collar worker and there was no time where that was more obvious than when i had to use a chisel on the Cabin. Never before had i put much stock into the skills that blue collar workers had. I always thought, I was smart and coordinated enough to figure it out. But actually there is definitely a true skill, one of the utmost practical importance, to an individual being good with their hands. It allows one to live and act deliberately, making their own choices and relying more on independence than anything else. While there is no doubt a vast amount of things one can learn as an intellectual, that does not elevate them to any higher status than their counterparts.

      I think it is definitely vital for one to get an education, but since my work on the cabin and remembrance of this quote, i have undoubtedly garnered a new respect and admiration for blue collar workers and the skills that go into it. And i realize now i could definitely be much more well-rounded in my thoughts and skills.

      Comment by Anthony Bettina on May 3, 2016

      “We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun” This quote in essence, is what Thoreau wants to explain to the reader throughout the entirety of this work. He is preaching experiential learning. We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun because he has been stripped of an experience that will make him more alive. Thoreau previously stated in Walden that he does not want to come close to death, and realize that he has never lived. He pities the boy who has never fired a gun, because he is noticing that he is not making the most of his life through experience. The best way to learn in the eyes of Thoreau is through expanding yourself and having a wide array of experiences.

      Comment by Mary Robicheaux on October 10, 2017

      I did not expect Thoreau to support vegetarianism mainly because I assumed he was like most people in that they thought eating meat was a natural way of life. However, Thoreau is not like most people, as he willingly lived alone in a cabin in the woods for two years, so my assumption that he would hold a common belief on food was not exactly logical. I respect his choice to avoid eating animals and can relate to his decision.

      Comment by Brian Lange on April 23, 2018

      [No humane being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature, which holds its life by the same tenure that he does. ]

      Considering Thoreau’s statements in the first paragraph of this section, how can he revere attitudes and actions which he also labels as inhumane?

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 19, 2018

      [Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of Nature themselves, are often in a more favorable mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation. ]

      Here Thoreau continues to raise nature as he has done countless times. Giving Her thanks for showing herself and letting him and others be apart of herself.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 19, 2018

      [ We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected. This was my answer with respect to those youths who were bent on this pursuit, trusting that they would soon outgrow it. No humane being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature, which holds its life by the same tenure that he does. ]

      It seems as though Thoreau here is explaining that the older one gets the more he loses his humanity, because he in a sense at his adolescent age is closes to it.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 19, 2018

      This claim of what is truly “civilized” in Thoreaus eyes pegs the reflection of nature itself. Thoreau feels not eating animals will show the true civilization of a group of people, however is this the true reflection of nature and it cycle?

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 19, 2018

      To progress, learn, and educate is to sculpt the mind and body.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 26, 2018

      [The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. ]

      We do not appreciate the simple, the “real” we are so easily tempted to ask for more. When there is but all that we can ask right in front of us.

      Comment by Jenna Doolan on May 8, 2019

      [The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.]

      In one of my other annotations, I discussed how the society we live in today, is obsessed with material possessions.In this Digital Age, there are constantly new distracting gadgets coming out that we easily become addicted to. This is one of my favorite quotes in Walden, because Thoreau mentions how its the intangible things in life, that hold the most beauty. I think it is important for us to see the value in nature and appreciate it while we still can. We bear the responsibility to save the Earth and just maybe if we saw it for its true beauty, we could.

      Comment by Danielle Crowley on March 23, 2020

      The bottom portion of this text I found interesting as it relates to the passing of time in a young boys life. I find that Thoreau is reflecting on the time it takes a boy to become a man and the necessary milestones one has to take to get to that point. While the milestones i find to be rather outdated. such as firing a gun, the notion of the time needed to become an adult is there.

      Comment by Hannah Fahy on March 25, 2020

      I, like most people, have been ridiculously bored lately. Don’t judge me, because I’m sure we’ve all done odd things during quarantine, but one of my hobbies has been following my cat around. It started as a joke because indoor cats are quarantine professionals, but I found it really interesting. I used to think that bird-watchers or anyone who studied wildlife was a little weird because it sounds so boring. I didn’t understand the point. However, I have a new appreciation for animals and hobbies like ornithology thanks to social distancing. I think it’s really interesting how Thoreau gave up his guns because there was a better way to study them. I understand why it’s important to study the biology of different animals, but I think it’s more interesting and more of a challenge to study their habitats, likes, dislikes, and habits. This might be the first time in the book I’ve seen eye to eye with Thoreau! There’s one good thing to come out of all of the craziness.

      Comment by Claire Rogers on March 26, 2020

      [No humane being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood]

      Ah, the cruelty of children. Certainly, there is a notable aspect of time here. Age is oft associated (for good or ill) with wisdom, and Thoreau here is certainly reflecting that in mentioning the sociopathic tendencies of children. I do quite enjoy children, but the absence of fully developed conceptions of morality is frequently rather terrifying. It is interesting to me, then, that Thoreau considers engaging this sociopathy a necessary part of a lad’s education, although certainly hunting instills the painfully gendered notions of “boyhood” into children who lack the ability to fully evaluate such a concept.

      Comment by Noah Lieberman on March 26, 2020

      This passage, about how a young man first experiences the forest and nature struck a chord with me as I have been walking the grounds of my childhood home. Returning to a place I had not planned to as an older man I see it in new ways and from a different perspective. Growing up where I did I never truly appreciated how it influenced the person I am. With lack of oversight and time on my own to spend as I chose the only thing for me to do was to play in the woods. Lacking the knowledge I have now, I saw none of the things I do in those woods now. Just as Thoreau describes, in coming to the woods with the most original parts of myself I saw no danger in the woods I played in or the icy streams I would cross on my own.  Seeing those streams with fish in them and the deer crossing through them, I thought of how they could provide me with nourishment if food became scarce. As an adult man, I first thought of the practical purposes of these living things around me for my needs as opposed to viewing them with the wonder and majesty they elicited in me as a child. This experience drew my mind from how much the place I am from has changed to how much I have changed myself.

      Comment by Danielle Crowley on April 3, 2020

      In regards to fluid text, this paragraph I found to be interesting. For starters, this paragraph wasn’t even included in earlier editions, this paragraph didn’t appear until late 1852-1853, nearly five years after Walden first began writing Walden in 1847. Another particularly interesting thing about this paragraph is that Thoreau didn’t change that much, many just the wording – changing things from present tense to past tense and revising the order of the words. Compared to the rest of this portion of the text, more revisions were made in other paragraphs that to this one, which also appeared much later than the others.

      Comment by Noah Lieberman on April 3, 2020

      In the fluid text edition, we can see the way in which Thoreau amends this passage by incorporating significance within the human experience. It is interesting to me that he makes this revision because of the way it shapes his world view and perspective on mankind. Thoreau’s belief we are most interested “when science reports what those men know practically or instinctively…” is one which could be extended to his ideas on how to judge right from wrong.

      Comment by Emma Raupp on April 4, 2020

      I was interested at looking at paragraph seven (beginning “if one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions…”) in the fluid text edition of Walden primarily to see context for the whimsical, poetic sentences concluding the paragraph: “The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.” Thoreau’s language in these sentences sounds more romantic than his usual, grounded-but-philosophical style.

      As it turns out, these two saccharine sentences remained the same through all seven versions. The romantics in us may rest assured that these words must have came into existence in a moment of passing genius, perfectly realized in a fleeting instance. Brilliance is as transient as the “segment of the rainbow” clutched momentarily by Thoreau; he must have seen something like brilliance in these sentences to cling to. What’s more revealing is the action in the surrounding lines.

      According to the earliest version from 1847, these two sentences were located at the very end of “Higher Laws.” In fact, only one sentence comes after them in Version A, which seems hastily tacked on: “But practically I am but only half-converted by my own arguments for I still fish.” Perhaps some of the beauty of the two sentences I mention above stems from the fact they were once the finale of a chapter, the final burst in a flow of thought. In Versions B-D, Thoreau deletes the self-conscious aside and ends “Higher Laws” with the rainbow. But the other sentence trailing off the end reveals how Thoreau was unsatisfied, even then, with this conclusion. In Version E, he expands on the line of thought he originally ended “Higher Laws” with, instead.

      Version E shows major revisions in “Higher Laws”: Thoreau changes the beginning of paragraph seven from first person perspective to third person: “I” to “one” or “his,” opening the discussion to his audience, rather than keeping it beholden to himself alone. He also perfects the transition between the end of paragraph seven and the new beginning of the eighth paragraph: the fried rat. For some reason, I found the transition from clutching a segment of rainbow to eating a fried rat “with a good relish” truly humorous. I bet that’s not what Thoreau intended, but the transition is amusingly jarring, and follows from the original tag-along sentence. The opening sentence of paragraph eight reflects a similar sentiment: Thoreau is half-converted by his own arguments because, despite his “true harvest” of highest reality, he knows eating a fried rat may be simultaneously necessary. This new sentence retains the honest self-assessment of the original, with more humor and structural style.

      Comment by Noah Lieberman on May 3, 2020

      I find it interesting though not all that surprising that Thoreau holds some unorthodox views for his time on matters of ethical consumption. His focus on isolation, self dependence, and non-harm seems at odds with the requirements of hunting and fishing. Though this being said, Thoreau’s background as an engineer means he could no doubt manufacture the means to do so on his own. It is an interesting dynamic of his character I want to explore. Thoreau’s seems interested in nature foremost, but has a great deal of technological understanding. I admire the way he has this knowledge, but applies rules of morality to it about how he uses it and for what purposes.

      Comment by Danielle Crowley on May 4, 2020

      Our final project group decided to use this portion of the Walden text to code our revisions and make a timeline of. This portion of the text I found had some very interesting revisions over the different versions of Walden, many of which focused on changing the word choice to make the text apply more generally as well as a series of additions made in pencil that seem to justify some of the thoughts Thoreau pens here, such as the portion of the text about the woodchuck. In the penciled in addition, Thoreau seems to justify that he wanted to eat the woodchuck to become closer with nature, which I also feel is a striking looking into the affects that living in the woods had on Thoreau’s mental health in the long term.

      Comment by Noah Lieberman on May 4, 2020

      Thoreau thinking about the way people take offense to discussion of fundamental bodily functions is a very modern and current topic within present day social discussion. It makes sense for Thoreau to think this way. His connection with the natural world and his time spent immersed in it has incensed him to the prudish ways of people who live in civilization. The way Thoreau talks about nobleness and the human body in the next paragraph support his moral message. In order for a person to make better of themselves and refine themselves, they must understand and accept what they are. There’s no use in dancing around human imperfection. Only once we understand our flaws, and the sometimes gritty truths of what we are, can we begin to improve.

      Comment by Noah Lieberman on May 7, 2020

      This point of discussion is an interesting one for what it speaks to within Thoreau’s ideas about experience. For Thoreau, his connection to nature and life comes from exposure to the opposite forces early on in his own time. Humanity’s appreciation for what is beautiful and kind only has its value in contrast to what is ugly and brutal in the world. I have often heard this kind of experience spoken about by people who have endured traumatic circumstances or dealt with very hard times. It takes exposure to those bad things in life in order to truly appreciate the good.

      Comment by Noah Lieberman on May 7, 2020

      Here we see what I’m currently writing about in our group project blog post exhibited in Thoreau’s words. It’s clear through his self reflection and analysis of his actions that he believes humanity has not lost its animal instincts. Given enough time in the woods, those base impulses will come out. The line here exemplifies this idea of Thoreau’s: “Thus, even in civilized communities, the embryo man passes through the hunter stage of development”. Thoreau believes you can take the man out of nature, but you can’t take the nature out of the man.

      Comment by Mitchell Pace on May 8, 2020

      Working with the multiple revisions of this paragraph in particular, Thoreau initially had the sentence, “But practically I am only half-converted by my own arguments as I still fish,” which only appeared in version A of this work. It’s removal is interesting as it seems with time that Thoreau’s arguments did convince him completely, or at least, the removal of the sentence seems to carry that denotation.

      Comment by Noah Lieberman on May 11, 2020

      The line of thinking Thoreau presents here connects with the topic of self improvement in our group blog post and reminds me of a quote by Alexis Carrel: “Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.”

      Comment by Noah Lieberman on May 11, 2020

      “There is never an instant’s truce between virtue and vice”. To me this rings home as a very defining aspect of Thoreau’s worldview. It is consistent with his rules for living within nature and more importantly, living in the moment. Thoreau says to “Live in each season as it passes; breath the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth”. I think Thoreau’s advice here is something to think about when it comes to living our lives the right way. None of us are programmed good. It takes conscious effort to do the right thing in every situation. Only by living in the moment and doing what we know in our hearts to be right can we live a life with minimal “sour notes” in the “rhythm” of our lives.

      Comment by Noah Lieberman on May 11, 2020

      “We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers. It is reptile and sensual, and perhaps cannot be wholly expelled; like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy our bodies. Possibly we may withdraw from it, but never change its nature”. These lines connect to what our group is writing about in our blog post and with the same kind of thoughts on change Thoreau presents later in the chapter. Like his analogy of man as a builder of a temple who must form himself in the process of remaking who he is, Thoreau presents another analogy here. He likens the mental aspect of this reformation to taming a wild beast inside of us. According to Thoreau, we cannot ever rid ourselves of that animal inside us. The best we can hope for is to control it and temper those instincts with stronger ones of kindness and admirable actions towards ourselves and others.

      Comment by Mariah Branch on May 12, 2020

      I found Thoreau’s claims about the “uncleanness” of eating meat to be quite interesting. His approach to vegetarianism is quite logical in that he found that he can be sustained by starches like “a little bread or a few potatoes” with “less trouble and filth.” Why would you use more energy just to kill and eat animals? It makes no sense exert extra energy in order to gain energy. Although it is simple, Thoreau’s argument is brilliant. I try my best to resist eating meat as I find the treatment of animals for mass production to be immoral. I wonder what Thoreau would think of the mass production and unsanitary conditions that animals are subject to today.

      Comment by Noah Lieberman on May 12, 2020

      This anecdote about John Farmer is an interesting one. Treating oneself with \”ever increasing respect\” is a concept which I think encapsulates the purpose of this chapter as a whole. Whatever actions Thoreau is promoting people to take, his intention is to that end. This connects with what we wrote in our blogpost about self improvement and bettering oneself ultimately being something we can observe in fluid text.

      Comment by Jose Romero on May 13, 2020

      I really like the way Noah expressed his sentiments in his first comment. Most of the time, it is traditional in many cultures for a father to take their child to a forest or to teach them how to fish. In my experience, I never went to a forest with my father or had any significant bonding moment since he worked a lot. However, in my future, I believe that I would like to learn how to camp and fish but make it a collaborative learning experience with my son. Most of the time, we are so focused on the things going on in our lives that we forget to zen our minds and focus on what we have. While the forest Thoreau mentions may represent a physical space, it also represents a mental space of freedom.

  • The Bean-Field 9-17 (49 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [My income was]

      “The master should have the selling habit, not the buying habit” (Cato, De Agri Cultura 2.7).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [a sacred art]

      Cook (1971, 41-2) relates this passage to a primitive use of magic.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [am by nature a Pythagorean]

      Pythagoras, an ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician, forbade his disciples to eat beans because he supposed them to have been produced from the same putrefied matter from which, at the creation of the world, man was formed.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [they mean porridge or voting]

      In the ancient world beans were often used as voting tallies.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [being in truth,” as Evelyn]

      John Evelyn, Terra: A Philosophical Discourse of Earth (London, 1729, 14-16).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Too much]

      T actually paid only about half the going rate at that time (Gross, 1985).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [and Congress help to distribute them]

      It was a popular custom in T’s day for congressmen to distribute free seeds to their constituents.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [not excepting our Cattle-shows]

      Middlesex County held a cattle show, or county fair, in Concord every year. T delivered his “The Succession of Forest Trees” lecture there in 1860.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [He sacrifices not to Ceres]

      The Roman goddess of corn and harvests.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [and the Terrestrial Jove]

      Terrestrial Jove: Jupiter, the Roman god of the earth.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [but to the infernal Plutus]

      Plutus, the Greek god of agricultural prosperity, is often confused with Pluto, the god of the underworld. Albanese (313) suggests that T referred to Plutus as infernal because he supposedly corrupted farmers into acquiring wealth.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [trumpet that sings of fame]

      “And the trumpet that sings of fame.” (Felicia Hemans, “The Landing of the Pilgrims”). Hemans was one of T’s favorite poets.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Mexican with a good relish]

      The United States was at war with Mexico during T’s stay at Walden. Need it be pointed out that T is using irony here?

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [motion of the elm-tree]

      In T’s day, elm trees lined most of Concord’s streets. They have long since been killed off by Dutch elm disease.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [was determined to know beans]

      A common expression in New England still is “He doesn’t know beans,” meaning the person is ignorant.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [long war, not with cranes]

      A reference to the simile in the opening lines of Iliad III.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [but with weeds, those Trojans]

      The enemies of the Greeks in the Iliad.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [a lusty crest-waving Hector]

      The son of King Priam and Hecuba, he was the most valiant of the Trojan warriors. The falling and rolling in the dust is described in the Iliad (22.330).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [says, “no compost or lætation]

      Laetation: manure.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [to this continual motion, repastination]

      Repastination: a second digging.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [being but the vicars succedaneous]

      Succedaneous: employed as a substitute.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [perchance, as Sir Kenelm Digby]

      English writer (1603-1665). “Vital spirits” is all T quotes from Digby, and even that he derives from Evelyn (West, 1971; Pebworth).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [twelve bushels of beans]

      T was probably the largest bean grower in Concord that year, for beans were not an important Concord crop (Gross, 1985).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [0 02]

      Crow fence: a scarecrow device.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [profit, as I have elsewhere]

      Elsewhere: in “Economy,” p. 55.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [fresh round and unmixed seed]

      An account of Squanto teaching the Pilgrims how to plant corn can be found in Alexander Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers (Boston, 1841, 231).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [risen out of the earth]

      Gozzi (1966) points out that T is too elliptical here, and we must insert after “earth” the words “rather we would deal with him as” to make sense of the sentence – which Shanley (1971, 399) does.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [fly, then close again -]

      Francis Quarles, “The Shepherd’s Oracles,” eclogue V.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [prairies and forests without distinction]

      “For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust” (Matthew 5:45).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [maximeque pius quaestus]

      “At best the most respected” (Cato, De Agri Cultura, introduction).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [same earth Mother and Ceres]

      “It was not without reason that they called the same earth ‘Mother’ and ‘Ceres’” (M. Terenti Varronis [Varro], Rerum Rusticarum [On Agriculture], 3.1.5). Saturn was the Greek god of agriculture. When he was banished from his throne by Jupiter, he fled to Italy and taught the natives there the art of agriculture.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [only hope of the husbandman]

      “The grain is so called from gerere; for the seed is planted that the ear may ‘bear’ (gerat) the grain… . The ear, however, which the peasants, in their old-fashioned way, call speca, seems to have got its name from spes: for it is because they hope (sperant) to have this grow that they plant” (Varro, Rerum Rusticarum, I.48.2-3).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [first but his last fruits]

      Referring to the Old Testament law that a man sacrifice to God the first fruits of his crops (Exodus 22:29).

      Comment by Christine O'Neill on February 10, 2014

      [Those summer days which some of my contemporaries devoted to the fine arts in Boston or Rome, and others to contemplation in India, and others to trade in London or New York, I thus, with the other farmers of New England, devoted to husbandry. ]

      Thoreau here expresses the issue of an authentic experience versus a mediated one. It’s hard to say if Thoreau is passing judgment on his contemporaries, especially because he often seems very taken by art, himself.

      Comment by Allison Fox on February 8, 2015

      Through his passionate devotion to Nature, Thoreau demonstrates his commitment and involvement in Transcendentalism. One of the “pillars” of the religious movement is the acknowledgment of the environment’s eminence. In a way, Nature is deified, and believed to embody religion and spiritually. Transcendentalists focus on the individual’s thoughts and feelings as opposed to the teachings of congregations. Above all else, Transcendentalists worship their physical surroundings. In this paragraph, Thoreau condemns the Farmer’s desecration of Nature. As Thoreau tirelessly labors over his bean field, he appreciates the challenge, as he is grateful to be the recipient of Nature’s food. Thoreau denounces the typical farmer for valuing the product over the process. Thoreau views farmers as avaricious beggars, who seek only to reap the offerings of their environment. He charges that Farmers do not pray to the Goddess of the harvest, but rather, to the God of wealth and greed. Thoreau states, “He [the farmer] knows Nature but as a robber”. As a Transcendentalist, Thoreau elevates himself above the general public. However, Thoreau reveals in a separate journal entry that he was once responsible for starting a forest fire.  He admits to marveling at the flames and not being “troubled” by the incident, since lightning bolts could have caused equal damage. I agree with Thoreau’s criticism of greed and human tendency to use Nature at their disposal. It is important to be mindful of your minute role in the world and Nature’s power to sustain it. It is also important for a preservationist to not burn down trees.

      Comment by Skye Bruggeman on October 19, 2017

      [the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not]

      Thoreau is able to truly enjoy this farming by taking a more passive approach. He focuses on the process of farming rather than just the profit.

      Comment by Skye Bruggeman on October 20, 2017

      Thoreau’s description of fighting a war with the weeds shows how dedicated he is to his farm and that it is about more than just turning a profit.

      Comment by Jeidah DeZurney on October 25, 2017

      I never really understood this line, nor have thought more in depth about it. It is really interesting how Thoreau can focus on the making of something, such as farming, and not necessarily care about the end product or profit. There are many examples of this throughout Walden.

      Comment by Tyler Merritt on October 26, 2017

      That’s a very good point. He really does care very strongly about his farm and all that is in it, and this really shows how he is such a determined person who doesn’t give up easily.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 19, 2018

      This sentence was very shocking that Thoreau dared to compare beans to men. But based of his previous assertive language is it possible Thoreau meant something deeper by this comparison?

      Comment by Michael Frederick on February 18, 2019

      “I felt as if I could spit a Mexican with a good relish…” This is an example of the Dionysian in Thoreau.  He is swept up by the martial spirit of music from the village and feels himself capable of violence but instead sublimates his energy into tending his bean-field, doing battle with weeds, or exercising his “chivalry” upon a woodchuck.

      Comment by Caroline Crimmins on March 7, 2020

      One part of “The Bean-Field” that brought me joy was in paragraph ten. Thoreau writes, “I was determined to know the beans”(Thoreau 20). As a fellow plant lover, I try to tend to my plants and care for them as best I can. Right now, I only have a bamboo plant and a succulent but I look forward to getting more. It made me happy to hear how hard he works and accommodates his produce because it shows how connected to nature and dedicated he was.

      Comment by Kira Baran on March 8, 2020

      The tone of this concluding passage serves as a continuation, and culmination, of Thoreau\’s tone throughout the rest of the passages within this section, \”The Bean-Field.\” Thoreau\’s tone is one of respect/humility/spirituality for nature, as well as the humans/organisms that collectively make it up; this tone in turn instills a sense of wonder and admiration in myself as a reader.

      The unpredictable nature of agricultural labor can easily cause a farmer to feel despair, frustration, and even self-pity if a bad crop fails to provide fruit (i.e., reward) for his/her labors. However, throughout this section, Thoreau talks of the fickle nature of nature itself in a grateful, respectful way. He personifies his beans, who become his friendly companions with whom he shares an \”intimate\” understanding of the hardships of surviving and thriving. He fights for his beans as their ally, \”coming to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thinning the ranks of their enemies\” (para. 10).

      And yet, even when the weeds or bad weather or woodchucks win, it is evident by this concluding paragraph that Thoreau maintains an optimistic attitude. He acknowledges that nature has nothing personal against his man-made \”fields,\” and that they are treated in the same way, \”without distinction,\” as the wild \”prairies and forests.\” I admire Thoreau\’s sense of humility here, as he acknowledges that there are larger powers at work beyond merely himself and his fields: \”These beans have results which are not harvested by me.\” Even his enemy, weeds, can prove useful to the birds. He learns from the squirrels not to allow \”anxiety\” to set in over the fact that a crop has failed. Ultimately, what is left is a peace of mind that everything, including Thoreau himself, serves a purpose and has a small sense of belonging in the vast scheme of things.

      Comment by Kyle Regan on March 8, 2020

      The end of this paragraph stuck out to me in the way that he perceives the work that he does. He starts the paragraph talking about the long hours that he would work everyday. In my mind it seems like I would feel very bored being out working the land all day. It seems like very mind numbing work to me. However, the way he talks about it is a long war. Everyday he goes out and rescues his beans. This romanticization of everyday life intrigued me in the sense that so many different consciousnesses have lived their lives this way over human history. I wonder what types of ways past humans have romanticized their everyday farming type jobs.

      Comment by Christina Inter on March 8, 2020

      Thoreau states that the sacredness of farming has been lost as the only object has become “to have large farms and large crops merely.” The act of farming has become a desperate chore necessary to fulfill the avarice of our culture. Farmers are unable to find simple pleasure in harvest as Thoreau does because they have large and competitive demands they must meet. This is similar to our current consumerist culture. I find it upsetting that products are made not for their quality but for how sellable they are to the consumer. Everything must be bigger and better. Social media and phones continue to engulf our lives, but the impact of such devices isn’t considered — it’s how marketable they are. In our culture, it is expected you must work hard to enjoy life. Why can’t we work without killing ourselves and still find simple enjoyments in life as Thoreau does?

      Comment by Emma Raupp on March 9, 2020

      Having abandoned the reverential attitude once afforded to simple tasks, we live the “meanest” and most desperate lives by using our time as a means to an end, where capital gain is more often the end. I couldn’t begin to tell you how often people have asked, after I tell them I’m an English major: “What are you going to do with that?” This question can be more accurately re-phrased as: “But how will you make money with your degree?” Thankfully, I don’t view my education as merely a means to an end. That’s along the lines of the mean and desperate way of living Thoreau mentions. Only a few adults in my life can fathom the value of an education outside STEM because money has become the fulcrum around which our lives turn. But, like Thoreau, I am determined not to revere capital gain, but rather, my unique experience as I’m living it. Most importantly, these are experiences that teach me something new, broaden my current perspective, or change my mind entirely.

      The thing is, when we act heedlessly and irreverently (e.g. rushing through your work just to get it done, angrily cleaning your room when you’re in a bad mood, doing anything half-heartedly or unconsciously), we forfeit our ability to enjoy the moment. The dinner you really don’t feel like making right now because there’s more “important” things on your to-do list was once considered a “sacred artform” with associated ceremonies and rituals. What we tend to forget is that it still could be, and perhaps it should be so.

      Any action may be elevated beyond banality if you approach it with due reverence, even mundane activities like making dinner or driving home from work. As humans, can we really afford to live without reverence? And I don’t mean religious reverence: if we can’t see the artistry in our daily tasks, the sacredness created in the sense that we are paying undivided attention to this action in this moment, what sort of life are we living? I agree with Thoreau, that an irreverent life seems degraded and mean. Many tasks we wouldn’t spare a second thought, like making dinner, driving to work, getting dressed for the day, etc. are robbed of their reverence by the press of time and money. If we took the adequate time and energy to do our daily tasks with the love and attention they deserve, our lives would be much more personally rewarding. And that’s about the best you can get out of life.

      Comment by Kira Baran on March 28, 2020

      In comparing this passage (The Bean-Field, para. 16) to its alternate versions (e.g. Version A as found in “Walden: A Fluid-Text Edition”), it is interesting to note the major revisions that were made to this specific paragraph. Here, Thoreau speaks on the lost tradition of “husbandry, a sacred art” in which farmers show respect and honor for the animals with which they work. Nowadays, he observes how farming is devoid of respect for animals, and is instead completed with “irreverent haste and heedlessness by us, our object being to have large farms and large crops merely.” (If only Thoreau could see the modern-day industrialization of factory farming compared to what it was in his time!)

      Yet, in alternate versions, after the aforementioned quoted sentence (ending with “. . . merely”), Thoreau adds in many more sentences on the subject–sentences which are missing in this edition here. In those versions, Thoreau goes on to describe the Egyptians’ practices of retiring their animals with honor and “respect” and “adoration,” rather than “enslaving” and “slaughtering” them. This “sacred” Egyptian custom reminds me of the Native Americans’ customs of honoring the animals which provided them with food.

      I personally find this added anecdote worthy of inclusion in this passage, because it provides more contextual insight leading up to the sentence where Thoreau briefly mentions our present-day “sacred” customs of “Cattle-shows and so-called Thanksgivings.” Here, Thoreau seems to be grudgingly giving modern-day Americans a smidgen of due respect, even if they otherwise fall short of the bar of respect and honor that Egyptian or Native American or Ancient Greek agriculturists held themselves to when working with animals, their “fellow laborers.” Here, Thoreau alludes to modern-day husbandry’s “sacred origin”; but without these added anecdotes explaining the origins in detail, readers lose out on much of what Thoreau is referencing.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on March 29, 2020

      What a thoughtful reading of this interesting passage, Kira! The manuscript page below and the two that follow it show Thoreau’s draft in the A version:

      Manuscript page from Walden Version A

      Manuscript page from Walden Version A Manuscript page from Walden Version A

      These images are from HM 924, The Manuscript of Walden, in the Huntington Library Digital Collection.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on March 29, 2020

      And here are the relevant images from Versions E and F.

      E Version:

      Manuscript image of Walden Version E Manuscript image of Walden Version E Manuscript image of Walden Version E

      F Version:

      Manuscript image of Walden Version F Manuscript image of Walden Version E Manuscript image of Walden Version E

  • Economy 59-70 (66 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [I have heard of one]

      As T points out in his Journal (III, 182- 3), this was Horatio Greenough, the sculptor. Matthiessen (153-7) and Metzger (79) both point out that this paragraph seems to reflect a gross misunderstanding of Greenough’s ideas. But Griffin demonstrates that T’s opinions were based on a letter Greenough had written Emerson, and not on his published theories.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [of March, 1845, I borrowed]

      According to tradition, T borrowed the ax from Bronson Alcott, and Alcott states, “When he [T] projected the Walden cabin he came to me and said, ‘Mr. Alcott, lend me an ax,’ and with this he built the temple of a grand primeval man.” But George Willis Cooke (81) says Emerson was the lender, and Ellery Channing, in his personal copy of W, has a note claiming the ax to be his. The real question is, Why did T have to borrow an ax in the first place? The year before he went to Walden to build his cabin, he and his father together built a house for the family, the one usually referred to as the Texas House. Surely he must have had tools to build that. And how do we explain the ax or axes that he refers to numerous times later in W? Did he finally acquire one of his own?

      Kappeler discusses the tools T probably used at Walden, thirty-one of them, and includes drawings of some of them.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [pines, still in their youth]

      Matson (68) wonders how T could be so naive as to use unseasoned pine for his studs, and what the resulting warping and shrinking of the wood must have done to his cabin. Yet the cabin remained sturdy for a number of years. For its later history, see Harding, Days (1993, 222-4).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [days cutting and hewing timber]

      Yannella (18) expresses his astonishment that T did not adopt the much simpler “balloon frame” construction, which was already popular around the country, but actually balloon framing is used only for houses of more than one story.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [of some of my acquaintances]

      Cooke (81) says these acquaintances were Alcott, Emerson, Ellery Channing, Burrill and George William Curtis, Edmund Hosmer and his sons John, Edmund, and Andrew. The Curtis brothers had been residents of Brook Farm before moving to Concord. George later became a well-known editor and critic. Hosmer was T’s favorite farmer, and his farm was a short distance from Walden.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [on the 4th of July]

      T was declaring his own independence. He was too astute not to take advantage of the symbolism of the day.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [do like cowbirds and cuckoos]

      The American cowbird and the English cuckoo lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, avoiding the task of providing for their offspring.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [ninth part of a man]

      “Nine tailors make but one man” is an old proverb that can be traced at least as far back as John Ray’s English Proverbs of 1678.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [division of labor to end]

      Masteller suggests that T is here parodying the house pattern books so popular in his day.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [have a core of truth]

      This is the fundamental theory of modern functional architecture. Significantly, Frank Lloyd Wright, our greatest modern architect, has said in a letter to me, “The history of American architecture would be incomplete without T’s wise observations on the subject.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [carefully feather-edged and lapped]

      On the boards to be nailed horizontally, the top and bottom edges were cut at forty-five-degree angles and overlapped so as to shed rain (Gottesman, 1559).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [same purpose as the Iliad]

      As we learn later, T brought his own copy of the Iliad out to the pond.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [built a chimney]

      The details of building his chimney can be found in the “House-Warming” chapter.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the apple of his eye]

      “He kept him as the apple of his eye” (Deuteronomy 32:10 ).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [lark and pewee]

      T refers to the meadowlark and the phoebe. Both begin singing in the Concord area in late March. He is not referring to the wood pewee, which does not arrive in Concord until late May.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the winter of man’s discontent]

      “Now is the winter of our discontent” (Richard III, I, i).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Lies high in my thought]

      T’s own poem. Although he quotes other authors frequently, he is always careful to put all but his own poetry within quotation marks.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the shanty of James Collins]

      There is no James Collins listed in Concord town records in T’s time, but some years ago I met a James Collins, then a resident of Lowell, Massachusetts, who claimed to be a descendant of this Collins. He was undoubtedly one of the many Irish who left their native country because of the potato famine and came to this country to work on the railroad as day laborers.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [worked on the Fitchburg Railroad]

      The railroad, running from Boston to Fitchburg, had reached Concord only the year before, in 1844. The tracks are still in use today.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [for boards. James Collins’ shanty]

      The site of Collins’s shanty is not known, but it was probably one of the little community of shanties constructed by the Irish laborers. The cellar holes of these shanties can still be found adjacent to the railroad tracks just north of Walden Pond.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [by a young Patrick]

      The name Yankees used for a typical Irishman.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Seeley]

      Concord town records list a William Seley at this time, but no Seeleys.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [of the gods of Troy]

      T is referring, in Virgil’s Aeneid, either to the theft of the Palladium by Odysseus and Diomedes (II, 351) or to Aeneas’s rescue of his household gods (1, 6). In either case, he is poking fun by contrasting the ne’er-do-well Collins with the heroic Greeks (Miller; Woodson, 1975).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the side of a hill]

      Ellery Channing wrote in his copy of W, “There is nothing like a hill here and never was …. H. means the small rise in the ground, but it is no hill, no 20 foot rise” (Sanborn, no hill, no 20 foot rise” (Sanborn, 1909).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [was but two hours’ work]

      Paul Williams (1971) asserts that in digging his cellar, T moved 194.25 cubic feet of dirt, weighing 9.7 tons, lifting it an average of six feet. Translating that into horsepower, one comes up with .03. An average person can work at a rate of from .033 to .05 horsepower, so T should not have had much difficulty in completing his task, as he says, in two hours, since he was digging mostly in sand.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [in the earth]

      There is still a noticeable dent in the earth nearly a century and a half after the cabin was moved away.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a tight shingled and plastered]

      He did not plaster the house until late fall (Robbins). See “House-Warming.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [house]

      This was no hut or shanty. It was sturdily built and survived being moved twice (Zimmer).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [8 03½]

      Half-cent coins were still in circulation then (Paul Williams, 1987).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Hair]

      Lime and hair were used to make plaster. The hair was added as a binder (Proulx).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Mantle-tree iron]

      A metal strip above a fireplace opening, supporting the masonry above.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Nails]

      Nails at this time typically sold for three cents a pound. Did he really use 130 pounds of nails (Kenner, 210)? That would have been more than enough to build an entire house. When the site was excavated in 1945, many bent nails were found, but not enough to account for all those nails (Robbins).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [28 12½]

      The modern replacement value of these materials would probably be four or five thousand dollars.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [of Broadway their Trinity Church]

      The famed church in downtown New York had been burned and rebuilt while T was at Walden.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [his virtue on his standard]

      T’s precise meaning here eludes me, but he is apparently alluding to ancient soldiers who painted on their shields the symbols of their supposed capabilities.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [which makes them picturesque]

      The vogue of the “picturesque” in the early nineteenth century was considerable, and T read avidly all the works of the Reverend William Gilpin on the subject (Templeman).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [hollow, and a September gale]

      The strongest winds of the year in the Concord area typically come in September.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [have no olives nor wines]

      That is, those who do not have rare and expensive foods in their homes.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [coffin-maker]

      In T’s time, one would order a coffin to be made by the local carpenter. In the first edition of W, T placed a comma after “carpenter.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [his last and narrow house]

      The grave.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the style of cottage architecture]

      For Wordsworth’s influence on this section and other portions of W, see Moldenhauer (1990).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [I claimed by squatter’s right]

      Although T liked to pretend that he was no more than a squatter on Emerson’s land, Canby (215) asserts that he had made an arrangement with Emerson to clear the land in return for its use.

      Comment by Austin Meredith on April 27, 2014

       When Thoreau wrote in his journal about someone “possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments having a core of truth,” he had just heard from Emerson about the musings of Horatio Greenough. However, by the time this journal material appeared in his book, Thoreau had had an opportunity to more familiarize himself with Greenough’s ideashttp://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/thumbnails/G/HoratioGreenoughand his derogation no longer pertained to that sculptor. The best fit for the person Thoreau was derogating, in Walden, would I believe be the New England architect Asher Benjamin.http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/thumbnails/B/AsherBenjamin

      Comment by Paul Schacht on January 4, 2015

      [It is difficult to begin without borrowing.]

      Although when he wrote these pages Thoreau “lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which [he] had built [himself],” his “experiment” in self-reliance begins, significantly, with an act of reliance on someone else. Through his deliberately graphic depiction of that act (the image of the axe’s owner releasing “his hold on it”) and his concession that it “is difficult to begin without borrowing,” Thoreau gives the lie to any notion that his sojourn in the woods represents a rejection of his fellow humans.

      Walter Harding has asked, “Why did T have to borrow an ax in the first place?” If we regard this detail in Thoreau’s narrative as primarily symbolic, the need to answer Harding’s question perhaps drops away.

      Comment by Dillon Murphy on January 31, 2015

      Though Thoreau seems to respect the closeness with nature and simple lives of the local native populations, here he is much harsher toward them. Referring to them as savages and degenerates, one can’t help but wonder how much he can really respect them while using such descriptors. Especially in light of his harsh critique of whom he here refers to as the “civilized man” through the entirety of Economy

      Comment by Sarah Kinzer on September 25, 2017

      Captured in Thoreau’s prose here is the excitement that I think people find when they first turn toward collective living. The “poetic faculty” of the simple work of determining how one will live is so natural that it could seem unimportant to someone on the outside of this experience. It seems needlessly basic, but that is exactly the point. The poetry is in the needlessness.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 9, 2017

      “I never in all my walks came across a man engaged in so simple and natural an occupation as building his house”

      Are man’s simplest occupations not eating, drinking, etc.?

      Comment by Abigail Henry on February 12, 2020

      [With a little more wit we might use these materials so as to become richer than the richest now are, and make our civilization a blessing.]

      Here, despite his earlier comments praising a more simplistic/naturalistic way of life, Thoreau discusses how technology has helped better society. In the modern world, technology has allowed society to advance significantly. As he discusses in this paragraph, an example of this is consumer goods (boards, bricks) being much more accessible to the general public. He believes it is in society’s best interest to use technology and its inventions to their full potential, as doing so would enrich civilization.

      Today, it seems as though this belief still holds true amongst us. We are constantly looking for the next best thing or ways to improve what we already have. We look for ways to make things more affordable, so more people can benefit from them.

      Comment by Abigail Henry on April 3, 2020

      [I speak understandingly on this subject, for I have made myself acquainted with it both theoretically and practically. ]

      Thoreau made only a few changes to this passage throughout the different versions of Walden, but the majority of them were made to this specific sentence. In Version A, Thoreau had originally written “advisedly” instead of “understandingly”. In Version B, he changed what used to be “gone into” into “made myself acquainted with”. I wonder what led him to make these changes. They do not change the meaning of the passage drastically, but I sense a slight shift in tone from giving advice to more speaking from experience.

      Comment by kenneth demerchant on February 4, 2021

      This means that if someone is more skilled in todays society they will likely to be more experienced, unlike the one who is savage they tend to be less skilled.

      Comment by Owen Amigo on February 6, 2021

      It is interesting that he had moved in on the 4th of July, almost as if he was celebrating a new birth of personal freedom. It is also intriguing that mentioned waiting to start building his chimney after finishing his hoeing in the fall; until it became necessary to focus on that aspect.

      Comment by Owen Amigo on February 6, 2021

      Thoreau exemplifies some of his knowledge on trees and his daily routine of cutting timber. His chopping sounds would also attract a wanderer every once in awhile, resulting in a friendly conversation. I wonder how these people viewed Thoreau?

      Comment by Gavin Vartanian on February 6, 2021

      This paragraph contains some very neat imagery. I also like the use of the word “slice” when describing a piece of a log.

      Comment by Katelyn Cummings on February 7, 2021

      [ At six I passed him and his family on the road. One large bundle held their all,—bed, coffee-mill, looking-glass, hens,—all but the cat, she took to the woods and became a wild cat, and, as I learned afterward, trod in a trap set for woodchucks, and so became a dead cat at last.]

      The family was told they had to leave their home and their their belongings with them. It sounds like they didn’t have a lot of notice that they were being evicted and only had a short time to pack up their lives and find else where to live. When they were moving they took what they could take but they ended up leaving the cat because she took off into the woods. Once they left, it came to Walden’s attention that their was a trap set for the woodchucks but the cat went into the trap and ended up dying. I wonder though, why didn’t they go and look for the cat when they were leaving?

      Comment by Katelyn Cummings on February 7, 2021

      I knew the value of money has increased over the years but I didn’t realize how much of an increase it was until I looked at this. Today a house like this might be $300,000 just to build but they built it only costing them about $2,812.50, this is less than the cost of a used car today. I also can’t believe that he carried a lot of the supplies on his back, it must have been heavy carrying the heavy items. I wonder how far of a walk he had to go?

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2021

      True, Kenny, though he also implies that “civilized man” is still “savage” in some ways, though more experienced and wiser.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2021

      Good question, Owen. From what I’ve read, some neighbors thought he was pretty eccentric, but this passerby sounds friendly.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2021

      I think people mostly kept cats back then to kill mice in the house. But if they didn’t have a house just then, I guess they didn’t need the cat? Also, they willingly sold their shack to Thoreau, so they weren’t technically evicted, though the way they traipse away sounds sad.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2021

      You bring up a great point– the costs then and now. So, he spent just $28 dollars and 12c on the house (and he’s kind of bragging about how cheap it is to build a simple house yourself.) There’s a handy cost calculator here https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1845?amount=28 that indicates his $28 would = about $960. today, which is still cheaper than your average pre-made garden shed.  He lived less than half a mile from the shanty he had bought from the Irish family, so that’s how far he hauled materials.

      Comment by Liam Bilodeau on January 31, 2022

      [It was a pleasant hillside where I worked, covered with pine woods, through which I looked out on the pond, and a small open field in the woods where pines and hickories were springing up.]

      Vivid imagery.

      Comment by brodiemesser on January 31, 2022

      Seeing the actual number of the certain materials he used was really interesting along with the prices too. I was definitely surprised these were included but was a nice addition to the paragraph.

      Comment by Judiah Strouse on February 1, 2022

      Many people like to say that Thoreau hated the presence of people, often relating his hermit life in his cabin to this point. But here in this paragraph we can see he had no such feelings. He appreciates his neighbors, honored by their presence and willingness to help.

      Comment by Valerie Hill on February 1, 2022

      My group talked about how cheap his house was to build, because we had converted the numbers and he didn’t even pay a full month’s rent for some places. And he even thought that some of the expenses were too high!

      Comment by Brenden Choate on February 1, 2022

      It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye. I immediately think of the golden rule treat others the way you want to be treated. If you borrow something from someone bring it back better than you got it. Also when he said to permit a fellow man to invest in your enterprise, it made me immediately think of going to ask someone to help you maybe start a business often times going to someone who already has knowledge that can invest that information into you to help.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 3, 2022

      Yes, he was not a hermit, though he was a person with fewer, very close friends, rather than a guy with multitudes of casual friends. The list of who the  “acquaintances” were (under Harding’s comment) also shows that his close friends were major intellectuals of the day– yet they managed to build the house. 🙂

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 3, 2022

      Yes, Brodie: It’s helpful for us to see costs, then vs now, and he included it to prove to his readers back then how cheaply one could get by, if one wanted to.

  • Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors 1-12 (52 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [mischievous boys, one Election night]

      According to the Concord Republican for May 28, 1841, it had been set on fire the previous Wednesday “by some graceless scamps” and burned to the ground. Election nights were often the occasion for mischief making on the part of the town’s young men. Since the fire alarm had not been rung until midnight, T was up late reading.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [edge of the village]

      T was then living with the Emersons, and the brook he speaks later of jumping was the Mill Brook, which runs between the Emerson and Breed properties (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [lost myself over Davenant’s Gondibert]

      William Davenant, Gondibert: An Heroick Poem (London, 1651).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [family complaint, having an uncle]

      T’s maternal uncle Charles Dunbar. T tells many tales of this eccentric uncle in his Journal (for example, VIII, 229-46).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [an Irishman, Hugh Quoil]

      A brief account of the death of Hugh Coyle [sic], from the Concord Freeman of October 3, 1845, is reprinted in Thoreau Society Bulletin 33 (1950, 3). T writes at great length on Quoil in his Journal (1, 414ff). There is further description of Quoil’s hut in T’s “A Winter Walk.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [attempt to read Chalmers’ collection]

      Alexander Chalmers, The Works of the English Poets from Chaucer to Cowper (21 vols., London, 1810). T is said to have read the entire set in his “spare” time while attending Harvard.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [nearest to the pond, Wyman]

      John Wyman, or Wayman (1730?-1800), in 1787 built his house at what is now the entrance to the Walden Pond State Reservation parking lot, on land then owned by Dr. Abel Prescott. He apparently stopped making pottery by 1810. As recently as the 1940s pottery shards could be picked up, but the land was regraded when the parking lot was put in, and they can no longer be found.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [taxes, and “attached a chip”]

      An old custom in which a sheriff symbolically attached a chip of wood if there was no other possession to place a lien on.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute]

      “Fix’d fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute” (Milton, Paradise Lost, II, 560).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [still nearer to town, Zilpha]

      Zilpha White had formerly been a slave. Although she attended church regularly, she was generally considered at least somewhat deranged. She died on April 16, 1820, and her obituary, which appeared in the Middlesex Gazette for April 22, 1820, has been reprinted in the Concord Saunterer 14 (Spring, 1979), 27.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [It fairly overcame my Nervii]

      “That day he overcame the Nervii” (Julius Caesar, III, ii, 178). The Nervii, a mixed Celto-Germanic tribe occupying Flanders, were defeated by Caesar in 57 B.C.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [all together. “It’s Baker’s barn]

      Both Jacob and James Baker lived south of Walden Pond. It is probably Jacob’s barn that is referred to here (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [It is the Codman place]

      The home of Lincoln’s wealthiest family, a magnificent mansion still standing west of the Lincoln railroad station.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [agent of the Insurance Company]

      The Middlesex Mutual Fire Insurance Company was established in Concord in 1826.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [lived Nutting]

      Stephen Nutting (1768-?) on April 1, 1792, purchased here a house, barn, and 113 acres of land. He was a bachelor.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [and Le Grosse]

      Francis Le Grosse (176?-1809) rented a house, barn, and small plot of land from Peter Wheeler. He, like T’s grandfather, was from the isle of Jersey.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the younger]

      Thomas Wyman (?-1843), John’s son, died at the age of sixty-nine. It was in the settlement of his estate that Emerson purchased the land at Walden upon which T built his cabin.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [of the potter’s clay]

      In his copy of W, T apparently deleted the words “clay and” and inserted a “?” after the word “use” in the next line.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [hearth, instead of a bowl]

      “The golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain” (Ecclesiastes 12:6).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [not even croaking, awaiting Reynard]

      The traditional literary name for a fox.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Roman wormwood and beggar-ticks]

      Beggar-tick: a pestilent weed whose seeds, when ripe, catch on the clothes of passersby.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Cato and Brister pulled wool]

      They were hired to scrape the wool from hides in the tanning process.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [near which my house stands]

      The road nearest T’s cabin led from Concord to Lincoln (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [Stratton, now the Alms House]

      The Concord Alms House, formerly the Stratton farm, was on Walden Street, across from the present-day fire station. Brister’s Hill is now cut by Walden Street (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [lived Cato Ingraham]

      Cato worked as a day laborer. He and his wife apparently kept a guest room for transients. He died in 1804, when slavery was still legal in Massachusetts. His cellar hole, according to Channing in his own copy of W, was “at the opening of the path from the Walden Road to Goose Pond.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [slave of Duncan Ingraham]

      Duncan Ingraham was Concord’s wealthiest citizen in the late eighteenth century, having made a good part of his fortune in the slave trade.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [Cato]

      Cato Uticensis, a grandson of M. Porcius Cato, whom T quotes so frequently in this book, was so named from his death at Utica.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [occupies an equally narrow house]

      The grave.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [on fire by English soldiers]

      Captured English soldiers were sometimes paroled to Concord until they could be exchanged.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [Brister’s Hill, lived Brister Freeman]

      T has here confused Sippio Brister with Brister Freeman. The former was a resident of Lincoln and the slave of the Hoar family there. Brister Freeman was a Concord resident and died there on January 31, 1822, at the age of seventy- eight. He worked as a barber and a nurse.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [Negro,” slave of Squire Cummings]

      A Concord physician of Scottish parentage who died in 1788 (Sanborn, 1909, II, 154).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [since I read his epitaph]

      It reads: “In memory of Sippio Brister, a man of Colour who died Nov. 1, 1820. Et. 61.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [in the retreat from Concord]

      The battle of April 19, 1775.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [some homestead of the Stratton]

      In his copy of W, T corrected this from “Stratten.” At the end of the seventeenth century, the Stratton· family owned most of the land on the west side of Walden Street, from the edge of Concord center to Walden Pond. The homestead T speaks of stood near the present intersection of Walden Street and Brister’s Hill Road. It was destroyed about 1770.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [many a thrifty village tree]

      In his copy of W, T adds at the end of this paragraph: “Surveying for Cyrus Jarvis Dec. 23 ’56 – he shows me a deed of this lot containing 6 A. 52 rods all on the W. of the Wayland Road – & ‘consisting of plowland, orchading & woodland’- sold by Joseph Stratton to Samuel Swan of Concord In holder Aug. 11th 1777·”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [you come to Breed’s location]

      According to T’s Journal for 1850 (II, 20), John C. Breed was a Concord barber. Byron Rees quotes a manuscript in the Concord Free Public Library: ‘John C. Breed. barber and drunkard, found dead in the road at last, in 1824 . . . an extreme instance of the power of appetite for rum … was its complete slave. He was all absorbed in it; he had no other want, no other affection. If he had opportunity to earn six cents by shaving, he would spend one cent for a cracker and five cents for his rum.” His cellar hole can still be found a few yards into the woods from the northern end of the Fairyland Woods parking lot on Walden Street (Gleason). Note that virtually all the “former inhabitants” of the Walden Pond area were social outcasts. Many of Concord’s residents of T’s time would thus have thought it an appropriate area for T to have settled in.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [has witnessed, including Bascom’s shop]

      According to the Yeoman’s Gazette for May 3, 1828, Bascom & Cole English and West Indian Shop, on Concord’s Mill Dam, burned down on the night of April 25, 1828, in one of the more spectacular fires in Concord’s business district.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [in season with our “tub”]

      In T’s day, fires were fought with little hand-drawn vehicles, usually referred to as tubs. Incidentally, T’s father was long active in the Concord fire company.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [that passage in the preface]

      Davenant, Gondibert, “The Author’s Preface.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [and wheel in Scripture]

      “Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand” (Jeremiah 18:6).

      Comment by Julia Kinel on February 19, 2015

      I noticed immediately that the first three former inhabitants that Thoreau listed were people of color (Cato Ingraham – a slave, Zilpha – a colored woman, Brister Freeman – a “handy negro”). Thoreau makes little to no other mention of the fact that they were all colored let alone make any racist remarks. However, in a chapter prior, Baker Farm, Thoreau does seem to make some remarks about the lifestyles of the Irish which could be viewed as racist. It’s just a good representation of the certain prejudices that people of that time commonly had and didn’t have.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on February 20, 2015

      If this paragraph doesn’t come up naturally in class discussion, Julia, I hope that you find a way to bring it up. The third and fourth sentences typify a certain aspect of Thoreau’s style. There are only “a few” who remember Cato’s “little patch” of walnuts, which he’s grown for a sensible and admirable reason. Why is he not better remembered? What’s the force of the second half of that sentence, in which we’re informed that the sensibly grown little patch of walnuts is taken by a “white speculator”? What is Thoreau implying by the sentence that follows: “He, too, however, occupies an equally narrow house at present”? There’s a lot being communicated here, but it’s all communicated through a careful strategy of indirection.

      Comment by Jennifer Joyce on February 22, 2015

      The reference to “an equally narrow house” baffled me initially, but after class discussion and reading the comments of Julia and Professor Schacht, I understand. The idea that we are all equal after we die immediately reminded me of Act 4 Scene 3 of Hamlet, after Polonius dies, when Hamlet’s joking about the worms that will feast on his corpse just as they would a beggar’s. I wonder if Thoreau was influenced by this scene.

      Comment by Jake Trost on February 23, 2015

      Thoreau seems to have a lot of respect for the lifestyle that Wyman lives.  He is “pleased to hear” that the art of pottery is still practiced, but it seems like it’s more from a social standpoint than an artistic one.  Wyman, who lives on the edge of civilization just as Thoreau does, is not “rich in worldly goods,” and has nothing but his craft and his descendants.  He is free of tax because he has nothing to give, which to Thoreau probably seems like the highest point of being.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 20, 2017

      Interesting details here regarding the potential influence of Wyman on Thoreau’s life and philosophies. The similarities between Thoreau and Wyman are striking, based on his description of Wyman.

      Comment by Madyson Gillanders on May 12, 2019

      [Here, by the very corner of my field, still nearer to town, Zilpha, a colored woman, had her little house, where she spun linen for the townsfolk, making the Walden Woods ring with her shrill singing, for she had a loud and notable voice. At length, in the war of 1812, her dwelling was set on fire by English soldiers, prisoners on parole, when she was away, and her cat and dog and hens were all burned up together. She led a hard life, and somewhat inhumane. One old frequenter of these woods remembers, that as he passed her house]
      Link to Zilpha’s house on Google Maps: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1M0Ai9sR3tbtT36zPxj7ga94UkAWoSeA4&ll=42.47023,-71.34819&z=14

      Comment by Madyson Gillanders on May 13, 2019

      [For human society I was obliged to conjure up the former occupants of these woods. Within the memory of many of my townsmen the road near which my house stands resounded with the laugh and gossip of inhabitants]

      https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1M0Ai9sR3tbtT36zPxj7ga94UkAWoSeA4&ll=42.4387,-71.34012&z=14

      Link to Walden Woods on Google Maps

      Comment by Maeve Morley on March 23, 2020

      This specific event where the Concord townspeople banded together to help put out a fire in a family’s home shares an undeniable connection with my own personal experiences during the COVID-19 outbreak. We see, and hear of so many grocery stores being out of complete stock of tissues, paper towels, Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer, baby diapers, etc. During a pandemic such as this, the first emotion people feel is terror, and in order to be safe and partake in any measures that they believe will ensure their safety, they clean out the shelves of their local grocery stores, especially now with the order to stay inside homes. However, many people don’t have the time, or financial means to stock up on products. Our family friends’ mother works at Albany Medical Hospital and has been working overtime and nonstop to assist those who are infected with the virus. In this case, all of the family members are unable to leave their home due to the possibility that they were exposed to the virus. In this unprecedented time, my parents took it upon themselves to shop for our family friends so they are able to have the things they need. Tragedies such as a family’s home being burned down, or a pandemic, are frequently seen as negative forces, and understandably so. However, during times like these it’s heartwarming to see the community come together, help, and lean on one another for support.

      Comment by Hannah Jewell on May 11, 2020

      I find this section interesting as Thoreau vividly recalls a moment in his life that has stuck with him. Although this must have been something that must have happened so fast, Thoreau can describe the happenings of the situations in great detail based on the surrounding nature, but I think more importantly, his interpretation of how the man felt about his being there.

      Comment by Mariah Branch on May 12, 2020

      I found Thoreau’s thoughts on Brister Freeman’s epitaph to be particularly interesting. He points out that the phrase, “man of color” suggests that he was discolored. This was profound to me because, as many activists remind us, white supremacists see white as the default. Here, Thoreau is subtly shedding light on the detrimental effects of race and how that aspect of Brister Freeman should not have to be clarified.

  • The Pond in Winter 1-10 (53 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [As I was desirous to recover]

      David Cooper has a most interesting analysis of this paragraph from a humanist and a post structuralist point of view.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [lost bottom of Walden Pond]

      For an extended discussion of T’s use of pond bottoms as a metaphor, see Michaels. See also Boone.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [with compass and chain and sounding line]

      In 1939 Edward S. Deevey rechecked T’s survey and analysis of Walden Pond with the latest scientific instruments and concluded that T was amazingly accurate in his observations, when one considers he was using the crudest of instruments, and that his contribution to the science of limnology was original and genuine (Deevey).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [visited two such Bottomless Ponds]

      New England has many traditions of “bottomless” ponds. In his Journal for September 15, 1850 (II, 68), T records visiting such ponds in Sudbury and beyond.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [other side of the globe]

      I have heard people theorize that Walden connects underground with a spring in the White Mountains, with Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, or with a pond on Cape Cod. Some present-day Concordians even assert that once the body of a man who had drowned in Walden eventually surfaced in nearby White Pond. Suggestions have been made for adding a dye to these other bodies of water to see if it comes out in Walden. To my knowledge, none of these experiments have ever been attempted, but some people still believe these old folktales.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [undoubted source of the Styx]

      According to the ancient Greeks, the river that flows around Hades.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [village with a “fifty-six]

      A fifty-six pound weight.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [assure my readers that Walden]

      See map on page 330.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [one hundred and two feet]

      On September 28, 1968, the New England chapter of the Marine Technology Society, using the latest oceanographic instruments, confirmed precisely this measurement (Concord Journal, October 3, 1968).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [A factory owner]

      Probably Calvin Damon, who in 1834 had established a factory in West Concord that prospered for many years.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [Of five coves]

      Meigs names, describes, and maps each of these coves.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [chasm must it have appeared]

      William Gilpin, Observations on the High-lands of Scotland, (London, 1808, II, 4).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [So high as heaved the tumid hills]

      Milton, Paradise Lost, VII, 288-90.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [the plain has been necessary]

      The first edition reads “have been.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 26, 2014

      [Ah, the pickerel of Walden]

      For a good discussion of the fish native to Walden Pond, see Ted Williams. There is a legend that some years ago a T admirer introduced into the pond every species of fish that T mentioned in his works. Many of these were trash fish, which soon crowded out the better fish. In 1968 the state deliberately poisoned the entire pond, killing off all the fish, and since then each year restocking the pond with game fish, many of them not natives, to please the “sportsmen” of the area.

      Boudreau (1974) gives an extended analysis of the creation of this paragraph, showing the impact of the philologist Richard Trent on T.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [the plains of the ether]

      Harivansa, ou Histoire de la Famille de Hari (Paris, 1834, II, 361).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [marmots in the surrounding hills]

      Woodchucks.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [luncheon in stout fear-naughts]

      Heavy woolen coats.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [scale of being are filled]

      The idea of the “great chain of being” was popular particularly in eighteenth-century England. See Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, 1933).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [is trumpeted in our streets]

      In T’s day, fish peddlers blew horns to announce their presence as they walked through the streets.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [in the animal kingdom Waldenses]

      Waldenses were a group of fifteenth-century Christian heretics whose purity and spirituality reflect morally the physical beauty of the pickerel (D’Avanzo, 1971). The pun on Walden hardly needs amplification.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on February 1, 2014

      [The Pond in Winter]

      Borck and Rothschild discuss this chapter, showing that it is carrying out the philosophy of the book as a whole.

      Comment by Hunter Rowell on February 12, 2014

      [Contemplate]

      I was wondering if anyone else felt that the key word of this particular chapter would be “Contemplate,” because of how Thoreau is constantly in thought and wonder in regards to nature and the world that he lives in. Through out the text, we do see Thoreau constantly contemplate, question and muse in regards to his surroundings and what he feels commenting about society. But I wonder too, if perhaps there is another focus word for this chapter that I might not be picking up on.

      Comment by Digital Thoreau on March 20, 2014

      You’ve plainly captured a central mood of Thoreau’s text, even though contemplate appears only twice in the entire work, muse only three times (and each time in the form of “the Muse”) and question only 11 times. But some of the most frequently occurring words in Walden (not counting words such as the, and, and if) are indeed focal points for the work’s mood and thought: man (268), life (194), pond (193), men (189), house (179), day (174), water (165), time (162), woods (150), nature (89). Know (107), think (86), and thought (82) are also high on the list, occurring more often than Walden (82). In “The Pond in Winter” itself, know and thought appear six times each; the most prevalent words are ice (35), pond (29), and water (29). Compare this to “Higher Laws,” where the most frequent words are man (19), life (14), and food (12). These counts come from putting the Gutenberg Project’s text of Walden into Voyant Tools.

      Comment by Emily Buckley-Crist on February 21, 2015

      This passage again raises the question of learning through experience or reading, a matter Thoreau seems to change his mind on every few pages. He writes “[the fisherman’s] life itself passes deeper Nature than the studies of the naturalist penetrate; himself a subject for the naturalist.” If these fisherman are so close to nature, then why do not naturalists (such as Thoreau) insist on studying them instead of trying to get closer to nature themselves? It seems as though Thoreau considers himself possibly to educated (through books, in this case) to achieve the fisherman’s level of closeness to nature.

      Comment by Digital Thoreau on February 22, 2015

      > > If these fisherman are so close to nature, then why do not naturalists (such as Thoreau) insist on studying them instead of trying to get closer to nature themselves?

      This is a great question, Emily. I wonder if you haven’t answered it yourself! Thoreau is indeed studying the fishermen here — not as completely as, say, an anthropologist might do, but more, perhaps, than his fellow Concordians or most others of his time. He does indeed seem to believe that they have a connection to nature that book-learning can’t provide — that isn’t even provided by the “study” of nature as naturalists (like Thoreau himself) undertake it. And so he’s taken the time here to observe their actions.

      Comment by Casey Vincelette on February 23, 2015

      Walter Harding’s above comment is very interesting and enlightening. When I first read this strange pluralization, I was not aware of this implication, and the all I could think of was how “Waldenses” sounded like “Hobbitses”, what the gollum repeatedly calls Sam and Frodo in the Lord of the Rings. When you think about it though, Thoreau is living out in the woods, willfully going against what society thinks is right for him, having seemingly given up hope for a conventional lifestyle. He is pursuing something which he feels he can only fully appreciate secluded in nature, something very– shall we say– precious to him. Time and time again, he struggles seemingly against himself, as if there are two arguing voices with opposing agendas contained within his person. These lead to erratic inconsistencies in his dialogue to the reader. Couple all this with his strange and intense affinity for fish, and it seems as if Thoreau shares a great deal of characteristics with Smeagol.

      Comment by Dillon Murphy on February 23, 2015

      Thoreau is clearly taking a moment to  brag about not only his ingenuity in measuring Walden’s depth but his initiative in taking the time to do so and in turn proving so many people wrong. The last line is of particular interest, especially when one considers what he means by “the infinite.” Generally speaking, phrases like that are a nod towards religion, or at the very least unexplainable phenomena. As a transcendentalist, Thoreau’s philosophies are grounded in at least some loose belief in God but as a man of science he detests the idea that anything could possibly be unexplainable

      Comment by Anthony Bettina on February 23, 2015

      Thoreau seems to have strong interest in the tactics the fisherman utilize, as seen in paragraphs three, and four. This may raise the question that Thoreau does not actually want to learn by experience, but rather learn through critiquing, and closely examining other’s experiences. Thoreau states that he believes in learning through experience, yet his actions here, and his actions in “The Baker Farm” contradict this notion. Thoreau wants to critique other’s experiences without actually partaking in said experiences himself. He is over-analytical, and it prohibits him from experiential learning.

      Comment by Maya Merberg on February 24, 2015

      Group three was discussing this passage earlier, and wondering if this was yet another of Thoreau’s contradictions– he seems to avoid modern technology yet here he employs it by using the stone and string, though it’s a rather simple example of technology. I don’t think Thoreau is quite contradicting himself here, because I don’t think he is totally against innovation. He opposes certain technological advances– guns, the postal service, etc.– but always for reasons that he articulates as other than the fact that they are simply technological advances. He doesn’t hate technology for technology’s sake, it seems. This example of the string and stone is about as advanced as other things he uses like his cabin or boat.

      Comment by Dillon Murphy on February 27, 2015

      I can honestly say I’d never expect to see a comparison between Thoreau and Smeagle here, but you present a compelling argument, Casey. But assuming Thoreau hasn’t been corrupted by some supernatural allure of the fish, my interpretation of his love for the pickerel takes a slightly different route. I had no knowledge of the Waldenses described in Harding’s footnote and so I attributed Thoreau’s appreciation of the pickerel in the same vein as his appreciation for most under-appreciated ways of life he discusses throughout the book. Since Walden is a call for people to realize there is another way of life he demonstrates this point in some very big ways, by building a cabin in the woods, but by little ways as well; you don’t have to buy into the zeitgeist of haddock superiority when the local pickerel is just as tasty and beautiful to boot.

      Comment by Kelly Langer on March 2, 2015

      Thoreau is fascinated by the other fishermen and this leads him to exploring their fishing pails and wondering how they caught the worms to go fishing with. Perhaps he sees this fisherman as primitive because of the tools that they are using, these tools are the simplest tools for fishing that he may have ever seen, just a stick with a line and that is it. Whereas the other fishermen have rods and reels, pails, and their methods for catching worms even in the winter. Thoreau’s own bias can be shown here, his love of ingenuity and craftsmanship and his near loathing of those that stick to their ways of doing things because it is the way that they have always done them, never learning or wanting to learn ‘the new way’ because it is not their way of doing it. Thoreau often contradicts himself and here he is doing it again by saying that a use of use simple tools is primitive while another’s use of reels is superior and that he looks more favorably upon the fisherman who uses technology, when prior to this he has said that he dislikes technology because it keeps humans from being one with nature, “From the cave we have advanced to roofs of palm leaves, of bark and boughs, of linen woven and stretched, of grass and straw, of boards and shingles, of stones and tiles. At last, we know not what it is to live in the open air, and our lives are domestic in more senses than we think. From the hearth to the field is a great distance. It would be well perhaps if we were to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction between us and the celestial bodies” (28). Thoreau seems like he cannot make up his mind on whether he likes technology or not- he likes it because it is fascinating and it is a showcase of human ingenuity, but he does not like it because it does indeed separate humans even further from nature and our natural state.

      Comment by Kaitlin Pfundstein on March 9, 2015

      Reading Thoreau’s documentation of being stranded alone at the pond during the harsh winter months definitely hit home, as I read this while hauled up in my residence hall during similar harsh winter conditions.  Thoreau watches people coming and going around the pond, just as we all watch people going to and from the dining halls, and this clearly gives Thoreau a lot of time to think and speculate on human thought and things of that nature.

      Comment by Ed Gillin on April 11, 2016

      This opening passage is a useful response to those (I’m thinking of Kathryn Schulz’s “Pond Scum” article) who view Transcendentalism as a scheme whereby individuals receive special revelations and–in Thoreau’s case–insufferably transmit their personal understandings to the rest of us.  Here Thoreau presents his own private consciousness first–what might be styled his ego.  He awakens asking those mysterious questions and initially criticizing himself for their lack of clarity or answer.  But then he allows his ego to “step aside” in the realization that Nature IS.  His personal response to this awareness is utterly passive.  He is a follower of Nature, not her high priest or interpreter.  He will set about his morning work–“if that be not a dream”–performing humble everyday tasks simply and evenly, but with the fresh reminder that “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”  He hasn’t changed the world; the world has changed him.

      Comment by Ed Gillin on April 11, 2016

      “For a good discussion of the fish native to Walden Pond, see Ted Williams.”

      Of all Walter Harding’s annotations, I think this one is my favorite. 🙂

      Comment by Kylie Sitar on April 11, 2016

      “It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it.”

      This quote really stood out to me in my reading of this chapter. I think that it speaks an immense amount to our nature as humans. I think that what Thoreau might be trying to get at is mans innate desire to be trusting. The majority of our lives revolve around following the rules that we have been told to follow and believing things that we are told to believe in. If you heard from numerous people that Walden Pond was bottomless, what reason do you have to go and check yourself if you believe what they are saying.

      It forced me to ponder whether Thoreau thinks that a trusting human nature is a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand I think that Thoreau is less than pleased with it because he argues throughout the book that one has to have their own first hand experiences. Hence, why he goes about the business of finding the true depth of the pond and other activities of similar nature. However, on the other hand, I think that he, in a way, might agree somewhat with this even if he would never admit it. He writes Walden with the intent of people learning from his own experiences and questions why people don’t live the way that he does.

       

      Comment by Ursula Quinn on April 12, 2016

      Primitive seems to be an interesting choice of word on Thoreau’s part. I think it lends itself to the simple, naturalistic approach that the described fisherman adopts. And indeed Thoreau would probably approve of  this method being not overly complicated, and a good use of nature’s potential. Yet, I can’t help but think of all the negative connotations and discourses surrounding “primitive” as a word, and connotations that Thoreau would have almost definitely known about. So, is his use of primitive just a a basic descriptor to move the narrative along or is there more? Like the possibility of reframing the word in different contexts–here I’m thinking of his and other Transcendentalists’ more positive relations with Native Americans who were often labeled as primitive.

      Comment by Peter Ku on April 12, 2016

      The  remarkable coincidence of the pond’s greatest depth intersecting the greatest length and breadth, add onto the almost magical qualities of the pond. The amazing depth of 107ft in such a small area, and the clear water that remains the same after years in a water bottle (Professor Gillin), lend the pond an air of mystery and curiosity. Some of the descriptions of the pond seem unbelievable, like how the factory owner doesn’t believe the pond is 107ft, and contribute to the magical qualities of the pond.

      Comment by Marissa Richman on April 13, 2016

      I find these few passages very telling of Thoreau’s character, which ultimately I find quite troubling. Though, on a positive note, I enjoy his depiction of the men fishing. Thoreau describes these seemingly mundane activities in such a beautiful way that even if someone has no interest in fish or fishing, they would still become engrossed in his portrayal. Moments like this, I truly appreciate the Walden experiment. Thoreau puts himself in a position where these ordinary events become momentous. As a result, he analyzes them closely, and subsequently, deeply enjoys them. I feel like in today’s society, we are missing this quality. Very rarely do people stop, look around, make observations, and enjoy their surroundings. Thoreau harps the importance of these actions in his writing. However, these passages also bother me because of Thoreau’s subtle arrogance. He acts as though he is viewing animals at a zoo when he is observing these people. I have it engraved in my mind that Thoreau is a pretentious hypocrite, so I might have a biased opinion. Nevertheless, I don’t like his judgmental comments as he relays what he sees. I get the impression that Thoreau cannot be subjective no matter what he is depicting. This really hinders his writing because the reader has a difficult time separating what Thoreau is actually seeing and what Thoreau is thinking.

      Comment by Katie Snider on April 13, 2016

      Throughout my reading of Walden, I have found myself frustrated with some of the comments made by Thoreau; he is incredibly presumptuous and conceited, and he is also very dismissive of anyone that isn’t him, as we see this again here in this paragraph. Thoreau is very insistent that people spend time in nature and appreciate the privacy it has to offer, yet here is a man doing exactly that and Thoreau dismisses him as “primitive” and amusing.

      It’s hard to pinpoint what Thoreau wants from other people; they don’t do as he does and he scoffs and wants nothing to do with them. They “follow” his example (or they make their own elective choice to be in nature), and he accuses them of doing it wrong. I almost always find myself asking what Thoreau wants from people, and this paragraph just confuses me further.

      Comment by Kaitlin Pfundstein on April 13, 2016

      I overall would like to comment on Thoreau’s structure and timeline of Walden.  We are taking a journey through the seasons, and Thoreau’s life during these seasons. In this chapter, we are deep in winter.  He “people watches” the individuals who are doing their part to help themselves and their families survive, fishing and hunting for sustenance.

      Comment by Autumn Arnold on April 13, 2016

      [What if all ponds were shallow? Would it not react on the minds of men? I am thankful that this pond was made deep and pure for a symbol. While men believe in the infinite some ponds will be thought to be bottomless.]

      I am struck by this passage as I feel as though as a species, mankind searches for the infinite and believes in the unknown yet the knowledge of knowing and understanding propels us to try to reach the bottom of any pond we come upon in life. Thoreau knows the depth of Walden Pond, and although it is not as deep as other bodies of water, it is deep for a pond which he will always be able to reach the bottom of. He will never find his footing, both literally and figuratively, if he were to dive into the pond. The infinite hope and curiosity of humankind is almost made arbitrary by Thoreau when he does learn the depth of the pond because it provides a concrete truth, yet the tangible knowing of how deep that is/feels will forever be unknown by him [Thoreau] and others.

      Comment by Autumn Arnold on April 13, 2016

      This is a great point, Kaitlin.  As we have discussed before, Thoreau has often compared the seasons  (specifically winter and spring)  to the eternal cycle of life. Knowing this, I found it quite completing that the final two chapters before the conclusion document his winter in Walden and its transformation into spring.

      Comment by James Douglass on May 11, 2016

      I love how Thoreau is recognizing a whole world underneath the ice. When he states, “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads,” I can’t help but think of the dozens of times I have been on a walk through some waterfall trail by the finger lakes or elsewhere. While walking, I am in awe of large towering water falls, but I am still more entranced by the beauty of the small creeks dripping through moss, the little flowers, salamanders, and mushrooms. Seeing “Heaven on earth” is not always the large grand things that scream for our attention. I think the greater things require a patient, watchful eye.

      Comment by Leila Sassouni on May 5, 2020

      This statement gave me a strange feeling … Thoreau is personifying Nature and appears to give her a physical presence. For some strange reason, this line does not sit well with me, it kind of feels like I’m in a horror movie and someone is about to jump out at me.

      Comment by Jaffre Aether on May 5, 2020

      [Cape becomes bar, and plain shoal, and valley and gorge deep water and channel.]

      I really like this sentence, not only just for his aesthetic sensibility in conveying image, but for what it means. Throughout this chapter, Thoreau is creating a detailed measurement of the Pond, and this sentence raises the depth conveyed by those measurements. I have noted before, and I continue to think this, that by Thoreau’s detailed taxonomy of Walden Pond, he is attempting to systematize the grand concept of Nature, into something communicable and conveyable. This is impossible to do. And it is these kinds of sentences where Thoreau can recognize that, as he gives up detail for grandness, and acknowledges there is a level of vastness unexplainable. Cape becomes bar, and one must live in the present.

      Comment by Hannah Jewell on May 12, 2020

      I find it interesting how Thoreau takes the time to describe the Walden Pond during the winter as this is just as much a season he encounters as any other, despite the pong being frozen over. Despite the common idea in literature that winter represents death, he finds the life that continues to exist through the winter, like how he says he could see the fish when he knelt down to drink the water.

      Comment by ethan okwuosa on February 5, 2022

      “It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it.”

      Is he trying to say, we believe what we hear (internet) and believe it before taking the time to process it?

      Comment by ethan okwuosa on February 5, 2022

       

       

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2022

      Yes! or without taking the time to gather some evidence for themselves. Then again, he’s thankful the pond is “deep and pure for a symbol” (of ?)

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 10, 2022

      “Man has a some right to fish”. I really liked that he added this on this paragraph because it explains part of the cycle of life. Humans need fish to eat and nature is the one giving it to them, but we also need to corporate with nature, as he says “I love to see Nature carried out in him”. T also explains that these “wild men” didn’t need to read a book or follow the instructions on how to go fishing, it was like a human trait that comes with us already and if it’s not like that we learn by looking at others.

      Comment by Danna Lucia Chavez Torres on February 10, 2022

      Could the meaning of “shallow” from the pond be related to how humans can also be shallow?

      What I mean by this is that humans tend to be superficial and the connections between emotions, knowledge, reasoning or character is not as deep as how it should be. This could also relate to the last chapter “solidity”, in which he explains the difference between being alone and feeling lonely.

      Comment by Judiah Strouse on February 25, 2022

      The best example of Thoreau’s scientific observations, without his detailed notes we wouldn’t have a good idea of what the environment was like during the 1800s.

  • Baker Farm (64 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Baker Farm]

      Robinson looks upon this chapter as a work of fiction and analyzes it as a short story. Scanlon sees this chapter as a parable of the fall of man.

      Baker Farm, the home of James Baker, is a short distance south of Walden Pond, in the town of Lincoln (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [that the Druids would have]

      An ancient Celtic race living in Britain to whom the oak tree was sacred.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [are fit to stand before Valhalla]

      In Scandinavian mythology, the hall of immortality into which the souls of heroes slain in battle are received.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [festoons from the black-spruce trees]

      In his copy of W, T corrected this to “white-spruce.” For his confusion of the two species, see the note in “Sounds,” p. 125. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [the waxwork grooves and crushes]

      Waxwork: now more commonly known as bittersweet. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [a shingle tree]

      A tree with wood especially good for making shingles.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [in the very abutment of a rainbow’s arch]

      Technically it is impossible to stand in the abutment of a rainbow’s arch, since rainbows are optical illusions and always appear directly ahead of a viewer, but T claims in his Journal (II, 382-3, and IV, 288) to have done this twice. Stewart claims it would have been possible.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [fancy myself one of the elect]

      T is here poking fun at the Puritan belief in God’s choosing certain individuals for redemption.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Benvenuto Cellini]

      Noted Italian sculptor, artist, and autobiographer (1500-1571). 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [the castle of St. Angelo]

      A castle in Rome that was originally the tomb of the emperor Hadrian.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [excitable imagination like Cellini’s]

      Cellini, Autobiography (book 1, chap. 128). This light is a phenomenon known as Heiligenschein and is explained in Minnaert (230-3). 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [led through Pleasant Meadow]

      Directly south of Walden Pond, on the shore of Fair Haven Bay (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Darting about]

      Ellery Channing, “Baker Farm,” Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist (Boston, 1902, 225), which gives slight variations in the lines.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [I “hooked” the apples]

      Hooked: stole.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [and scared the musquash]

      The Indian name for muskrat.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [That to destruction steers]

      Again, Channing’s “Baker Farm” (371), with slight variations.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [John Field, an Irishman]

      John Field was a real person. The birth of his daughter, mentioned just below, is recorded in the vital records of Lincoln for May 1844. T’s rather snide comments about Field reflects the typical stance of Concord Yankees then toward new immigrants. T, once he got to know the Irish better, changed his attitude completely and became their friend and protector. Since this all happened before W was pub- lished, Bridgman (107) quite legitimately asks why T did not modify his criticisms of the Irish in his text.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [to the wrinkled, sibyl-like]

      In Greek mythology, a Sibyl was granted as many years of life as she had grains of sand in her hand. The older she grew, the more decrepit and haggard she looked.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [it was as broad as it was long]

      “As broad as long.” An English proverb that can be traced back at least as far as John Ray’s English Proverbs (1678).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [men’s beginning to redeem themselves]

      T has an unwarranted reputation for wishing to abandon civilization. He states here that he would favor such an abandonment only if it redeemed men’s character – and he obviously believes that that would not be the result.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [giving it tooth and nail]

      Tooth and nail: a common phrase that can be traced as far back as Andria (1, 161) by Terence (c. 185-159 B.c.).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [who had been sent to school and college]

      Many of T’s contemporaries disparaged him for wasting his time at Walden after having obtained a college education.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Remember thy Creator in the days]

      “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth” (Ecclesiastes 12:1). See D’Avanzo (1982) for an extended analysis of this allusion.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [like these sedges and brakes]

      An imported crop used to feed cattle and horses, and which will grow here only when cultivated.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [And Guy Faux of the state]

      Guy Fawkes (1570-1606), who was hanged for conspiring to blow up the houses of Parliament.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [From the tough rafters of the trees]

      Ellery Channing, “Baker Farm” (370, 372), again with slight variations.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [his Adam’s grandmother]

      Field was following the customs of times so ancient they seemed to date back even further than Adam.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [get talaria to their heels]

      The winged sandals worn by several minor Greek gods, giving them swift and unimpeded flight through space.

      Comment by Katelyn Baroody on April 26, 2014

       [O Baker Farm!]We can see in the Fluid Text Edition of Walden that this poem, by Ellery Channing, is not included in any of the earlier editions.  These earlier versions, like this one, use paragraph six to focus on living freely and growing “wild according to thy nature,” as well. All, however, end paragraph six with the sentence, “The noblest life is continuous and unintermitting without pauses or waste.” Perhaps Thoreau thought it contradictory to follow this sentence with the poem, which in my reading feels like a slight pause amid the dense blocks of text.

      Comment by Julia Kinel on February 14, 2015

      Thoreau’s political beliefs came through strongly with this section. Clearly he is in full support of Capitalism. With a little research I’ve learned that Thoreau was a major classic liberal of the 19th century. This quote from Thoreau really sums up his beliefs; “I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least’; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe, ‘That government is best which governs not at all’; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.” (http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil1.html)

      Comment by Holly Gilbert on February 15, 2015

      Thoreau’s attitude towards the Field family only reminds me of our class discussions about Thoreau’s position of privilege. While he aspires to inspire his neighbors to embrace his philosophy, Thoreau is preaching to a group of people in a situation quite unlike his. An immigrant family, complete with several children (including an infant), would have a considerably more difficult time endeavoring to build their own”tight, light, and clean house” or spending their day fishing to feed the family. While Thoreau aims to improve their lives, he fails to understand how difficult it may be for John Field to drop his source of income or change his lifestyle significantly with so many people to provide for. Thoreau is mainly in charge of himself.

      Comment by Daisy Anderson on February 15, 2015

      I was shocked by how harsh Thoreau speaks about the Field family in this section. He goes so far as to call the baby a “starveling brat,” and his focus on the baby’s apparent self-delusion rather than its innocence is very off-putting. I can only picture Thoreau sitting with his nose in the air as this family invites him into their home. He also is very quick to lecture them about how to live their lives, and I can only imagine they were eager to get rid of him. All in all, the privileged perspective that Thoreau has really comes through here. He might not have been raised by a rich family, but he clearly has never lived in real poverty, either. Sure he can live simply in Walden Pond, but he isn’t supporting a family in it.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on February 15, 2015

      Julia: Can you share any of the sources that characterized Thoreau as a “classic liberal”? It’s no easy job to categorize Thoreau’s political and economic beliefs. More than a few readers have taken Thoreau’s statements in the essay you point to — “Civil Disobedience” — as an indication that he was fundamentally an anarchist. Anarchism can sound a lot like liberalism or even libertarianism because of its hostility to state control. But in some of its varieties (it has many), it’s combined with collective ownership of property as an ideal. That’s an ideal that both 19th c. classical liberalism and modern libertarianism reject. In his Journal entry for January 30, 1861, Thoreau writes that ” … It would be worth the while if in each town there were a committee appointed to see that the beauty of the town received no detriment. If we have the largest boulder in the county, then it should not belong to an individual, nor be made into door-steps.” He seems to doubt whether treating all property as private property is a good thing; and here, at least, he even seems to advocate legal regulations to keep certain areas of natural beauty outside the realm of the marketplace.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on February 15, 2015

      You make a good point here, Holly. In addition, Thoreau’s bigoted comments about Irish immigrants are painful to read. See Walter Harding’s comment above about Thoreau’s curious decision to leave these comments in Walden in spite of the fact that his attitude toward Irish immigrants had apparently changed.

      Comment by Allison Fox on February 15, 2015

      In this section, Thoreau uses the Field family and their failed farm to brandish Transcendentalism. He criticizes the farmer’s upkeep and fishing methods, and states that the cause for the family’s suffering is gluttony. Thoreau also pities the family for their “inherited Irish poverty” later on. Although I usually interpret Thoreau’s words with disapproval, I found a sliver of truth behind this paragraph. Thoreau closes with, “Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs”. Since the day on which we can stand on our won, we are subjected to expectations: we grow up following a fixed track of schooling, working, creating a family, working some more, and then dying. Thoreau asks, who is to say that this is the best and only route? People shape themselves to fit a mold; we pursue wealth, religious righteousness and any other virtue deemed desirable by society. And to what avail? Albert Einstein once said, “The one who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. But the one who walks alone is likely to find themselves in places no one has ever been before”. This idea of straying from the norm for personal betterment is Thoreau’s hope for humanity.  Thoreau may pitch far-fetched ideas and offer prejudiced pretensions, but his lobby for nonconformity is admirable. He makes us question why we place such gravity on trivial, man-made matters, and lead lives of ordinary convention.

      Comment by Melanie Weissman on February 15, 2015

      Thoreau states here that “as I did not work hard, I did not have to eat hard.” This is a perfect example of a law that exists in nature, but not in “civilized” society. In the world of business, many who work very hard do not earn enough money to “eat hard,” and conversely, those who “eat hard” are very often those who do little or no work at all and were merely fortunate enough to be born into wealth. How long in human history has this discrepancy existed? If everyone attempted to live off the land the way Thoreau did at Walden Pond, would this change?

      Comment by Jess Goldstein on February 15, 2015

      In Where I lived And What I Lived For Thoreau states ” I went to the woods because i wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if i could not learn what it had to teach..” If Thoreau wanted to live deliberately then shouldn’t part of him living deliberately be learning to accept the different ways people live their lives? Also Thoreau discusses how “I did not use tea, nor coffee, nor butter, nor milk, nor fresh meat, and so did not have to work to get them” how is this living deliberately? Not working for anything, but just taking the easy way out. For me i believe this goes against a lot of what Thoreau talks about. It seems like he is really into this idea of going the extra mile in studies. So why does he not apply this mantra to everything in life and not just studies.

      Comment by Grace Rowan on February 16, 2015

      Thoreau’s descriptive imagery of nature really tempts the reader to move to a forest and live his lifestyle. His ability to find beauty in simple aspects of nature shows how he values his unmaterialistic lifestyle.

      Comment by Kaitlin Pfundstein on February 16, 2015

      Throughout Walden, it seems as though Thoreau is very unaware of the fact that his life is more privileged than others.  When he tells the farmer that his clothes are cheaper than the farmer’s, it is clear Thoreau is not aware that not everyone can live his life and not everyone has his opportunities.

      Comment by Dillon Murphy on February 16, 2015

      Here we can see the importance of Thoreau’s ideas of waking his neighbors up, and the disappointment he experiences when they choose to stay asleep.  In response to Daisy, he’s probably harsh because he feels slighted by the family’s rejection of his offer for a new way of life

      Comment by Kasey Krug on February 16, 2015

      The comment in the paragraph suggesting that John Field will never read Walden stood out to. Thoreau seems to be putting down Field’s life style. I feel Thoreau does not want Field reading the novel because he is not worthy. Field is a poor un education Irish farmer, and Thoreau wants his book to reach the general population to spread his word. Apparently his word is meaningless to Fields/ he is not worthy of reading it.

      Comment by Alexa Krowiak on February 18, 2015

      I agree with Jessica. Thoreau tells us at the beginning of Walden that he wished to go into the woods and live deliberately, and he also tells us this way of live may not be for everyone.

      He makes that claim his beliefs won’t be imposed on other people, but we see in this section that clearly isn’t the case. He is pointing out the ways that the Field family and how if they live as he is, they will be better off. So I found this paragraph to be interesting, just because it is very contradictory of what we are told of his feelings at the beginning of Walden.

      Comment by William Foley on February 18, 2015

      Something that i think is very interesting to point out is Thoreau’s unwavering desire to tell others how they are supposed to live and what their experiences are supposed to be. This is concerning to me because it contradicts Thoreau’s idea of being an adventurous student. When being an adventurous student, one would believe that they would go out and experience whatever life threw at them. It would be a liberating experience. Under the ideology in this chapter, it would seem like Thoreau is actually trying to limit people’s mobility by trying to get them to follow directly in his footsteps. I would assume that following one man’s ideas would not be very intellectually expansive, while his idea of “adventurous student” suggests otherwise.

      Comment by Grace Rowan on February 20, 2015

      I think it’s important to point out Thoreau’s ignorance to the working family as a whole. Thoreau thinks he is superior to the Irish immigrant because he thinks John uses his money foolishly. It’s culturally insensitive for Thoreau to say that if the immigrant wasn’t materialistic about the food he bought, he would have more because of the current events of this time. Ireland was just getting over the potato famine, and Thoreau is saying this family should deny themselves “tea, coffee, milk, fresh meat.” Had Thoreau gone through any hardship in his life, he would not deny himself of such delicacy if he was given it.

      Comment by Ken Wolfson on November 8, 2015

      The Field family are an example of the kind of worker Thoreau examined in economy paragraph 49.  He’s working for his home his whole life and yet he’ll never have enough money to afford his own home or live comfortably.  I think Thoreau jumped at the opportunity to give his wisdom to one of the poor working class people and reacted badly when his philosophy was rejected.  Thoreau made a miscalculation as he’s never had to live in the working class and was educated formally and never had to raise a family.  His philosophy couldn’t apply to the Field family and didn’t work as a result.  He seems to have forgotten that he said that his philosophy didn’t work for everyone.

      Comment by Ed Gillin on April 5, 2016

      [to catch perch with shiners]

      In a chapter that has always troubled me a good deal, this element represents a climax of my frustration.  I need a fisherman to explain what Thoreau is trying to communicate.  Clearly he does better than John Field in their fishing venture, and (I presume) he uses a superior bait.  Is it that the shiner/perch combination is inherently bad?  Then why won’t Thoreau (who is uncharacteristically forward with advice throughout this chapter) tell “Poor John Field” the better way?  In my ignorance of fishing, I have sometimes guessed that Thoreau fishes with worms, and sees Field’s method (using worms to catch shiners to catch perch) as unnecessarily complicated.  But while I comprehend the metaphorical significance of this, I still can’t comprehend Thoreau’s (heartless?) refusal to explain.  I dislike the way he shares his scorn of Field’s “boggy ways” with the reader, but not with the person who could directly benefit.

      Comment by David Sabol on April 5, 2016

      Thoreau seems to depict the Irish family in a somewhat negative way. He depicts the children as almost grotesque, “cone headed” “sibyll-like”. And Thoreau also negatively, in that she elicits the pretense of work, but does not follow through, “the never absent mop in one hand, and yet no effects of it visible anywhere.” I was concerned about this depiction of John Field’s family. These depictions suggest that Thoreau is somewhat xenophobic. Something that again suggests this is that Thoreau, hypocritically, criticizes John Fields for “bogging” for money. Thoreau himself did something very similar for his beans, clearing the grass so his beans could grow. Why is John’s work considered more meaningless than Thoreau’s? The sad answer is that it is due to this xenophobic lens through which Thoreau is viewing, writing about the Field’s family.

      I just saw Professor Walter Harding’s anecdote on this same subject. Since Thoreau had had some sort of conversion in terms of xenophobia, then perhaps he is writing this section satirically to some degree.

      Either way, the narrating-Thoreau suggests Xenophobic tendencies in his depictions of the Field’s family, while Thoreau has in general been very forgiving to other people who don’t quite understand Thoreau’s philosophical views and who don’t live their lives according to his views.

      Comment by Natalie LaCourt on April 5, 2016

      Is this a sympathetic, inspiring or satirical image of this family? It seems to me that in  common terms, one should feel sympathy for this immigrant family living all alone and in such poverty. Perhaps one might also see inspiration in the story, by viewing the father as an inspirational figure, by working so hard to feed his large family. In my opinion though, Thoreau seems to frame them in  a satirical light, contrasting their style of life, to his more pure and simple mode of life. To me, this seems unfair of him, as him and this family are in such dramatically different situations and have such varying personality types.

      Comment by Lizzie Landrum on April 6, 2016

      I agree with David, it is difficult to see past Thoreau’s Xenophobic tendencies in this passage.  He frames the chapter as a whole around the idea that the Irish are less than people.  Before Thoreau even arrives at the Field’s dwelling he states after noticing his own sort of halo, that “the shadows of some Irishmen had no halo about them.”

      What concerns me further is Thoreau’s opinion that the Field’s poverty is a combination of choice and ignorance.  When they are being kind, extending shelter to a strange man in a thunderstorm, he insists on lecturing them on their frivolous expenses, claiming, “if he chose, he might in a month or two build himself a palace of his own; that I did not use tea, nor coffee, nor butter… But alas! the culture of an Irishman is an enterprise to be undertaken with a sort of moral bog hoe.”  This is the very sort of language that is still being used against immigrants.  This idea of a lack of work ethic of immigrants, or further that it is in their nature to be frivolous or lazy has created a culture of unsympathetic people.  Thoreau’s self-reliant philosophy is called into question here, when he attempts to put it into practice.  Is this justifiable in any way?

      Comment by Ed Gillin on April 8, 2016

      While this entire chapter distresses me greatly, I will defend Thoreau on two minor points that have come up in remarks above.

      It seems that he does not disdain John Field because he is “bogging” for money.  Since he initially credits Field as “honest” and “hard-working,” it seems rather that he sympathizes with the way he is being taken advantage of by the neighboring farmer.  (That farmer, note, is getting an acre of land cultivated for just ten dollars by an immigrant whose only tools are a spade and a hoe; the farmer doesn’t have to hire someone with a plow and oxen to do the work, presumably at a higher rate.)  I think the “shiftless man” business is one of those word-plays that sometimes go awry in interpretation. Does Thoreau refer to how Field is unable to shift for himself well against the shrewd Yankee who has manipulated him into so “poor a bargain”?

      The second point is that Thoreau doesn’t declare that Irishmen have no halos; he quotes an unnamed visitor.  The concept that some optical effect should avoid certain ethnic groups sounds absurd on the surface, of course.  As good an observer as Thoreau was, I have to believe he reports this remark to expose the sort of narrow-mindedness and bigotry that the immigrant Irish could expect to endure from his high-minded neighbors.

      All of which brings us back to the point that Thoreau often fails to reveal such humanity and understanding elsewhere in the chapter.

      Comment by Kaitlin Pfundstein on April 13, 2016

      Ah, the Baker Farm chapter.  In this chapter, Thoreau shows his colors as a bigot, in a way.  The way he talks about the Fields family is dripping with ignorance and a heavily condescending tone. It seems as though he doesn’t understand that the Fields family cannot live the life Thoreau does; they are a hardworking Irish farm family, not capable of spending all of their times pondering the finer things in life. Overall, the tone set in this chapter is close minded and does not show Thoreau in a positive light.

      Comment by Kristen Seaman on April 18, 2016

      I feel that this line perfectly demonstrates the arrogance that Thoreau feels towards John and his wife. He is comparing the water they drink to gruel. I read this line as, “Life here is built upon something as disgusting as gruel, therefore the life is equally as disgusting and of small value.” By comparing the water, a necessary component that is the source of life, to gruel, he is, in essence, saying that the entire life these people have built is disgusting to him.

      His arrogance is furthered in the coming lines, when he states “I am not squeamish in such cases where manners are concerned.” He is basically patting himself on the back for not becoming sick at a drink of their water, and showcasing how well-mannered he is. In actuality, though, there is nothing noteworthy about not offending a family’s livelihood. It is nothing to boast of, and is instead a simple aspect of being a decent person. However, due to his arrogance, Thoreau thinks it something to be proud of.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on April 18, 2016

      [shutting my eyes, and excluding the motes]

      Is there a reference here to Matthew 7: 1-5? We are admonished by Jesus to cast out the “beam” from our own eye before casting out the “mote” in the eye of our brother. In “shutting [his] eyes, and excluding the motes,” is Thoreau attempting to see more clearly as well as avoid ingesting the particulate matter in the water? Granted, a precise parallel to the passage in Matthew would require Thoreau to be excluding “beams,” but a precise parallel would also exclude the pun. And, of course, the general thrust of the passage – This water looks like gruel to me, but as it’s been offered by my brother, the right thing to do is drink it – is thoroughly consistent with the thrust of Matthew 7:1-5, as announced in the first line: “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”

      Comment by Paul Schacht on April 18, 2016

      As a follow-up to my suggestion of a possible Biblical parallel in “shutting my eyes, and excluding the motes,” it’s worth noting that the equation of motes-in-water and motes-in-the-eye is also consistent with Thoreau’s famous equation of water and eyes in “The Ponds”, par. 17: “A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. In “looking into” the lakelet of water handed him by John Field, Thoreau, then, would necessarily be forced to measure the depth of his own nature, including his own capacity for hypocrisy.

      Comment by Josephine Gombert on October 15, 2017

      Does he own land and rent it out? Or does he just let people use land if they come to him? This chapter was difficult for me to understand.

      Comment by Tyler Merritt on October 26, 2017

      Honestly, Thoreau comes off as being a jerk in this paragraph. I can’t say I’m surprised that this is his reaction if the water really wasn’t very good quality water or very clean, but he doesn’t try to hide that fact from us at all.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 19, 2018

      [But the only true America is that country where you are at liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to do without these, and where the state does not endeavor to compel you to sustain the slavery and war and other superfluous expenses which directly or indirectly result from the use of such things]

      I want to discuss this statement some more in class! He’s saying that many thing “America” is “this,” but in actuality, “that” is what you get. The idea that America is filled with superfluous expenses and superfluous people, with superfluous values.

      Comment by Sophie Schapiro on May 12, 2019

      [So I made haste for shelter to the nearest hut, which stood half a mile from any road, but so much the nearer to the pond, and had long been uninhabited]

      The Field Home on Baker Farm on the map:

      https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1M0Ai9sR3tbtT36zPxj7ga94UkAWoSeA4&ll=42.43052,-71.33695&z=14

      Comment by Sandy Brahaspat on March 26, 2020

      [We should come home from far, from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day, with new experience and character,]

      When I consider this particular passage in relation to our current struggle with social distancing, I begin to understand why being confined at home makes me feel so unfulfilled. Being stuck at home strips away the possibility of seeking out adventures, perils, or discoveries that Thoreau mentions in this passage. It then begs the question, if we are confined to our homes for an indefinite length of time, how do we seek out these adventures? Should we invent them, imagine them? In response to being confined indoors, I often find myself delving into reading literature, in an attempt to find an escape from the solitude. At least when I’m reading a novel, I can enter the fictional world and return to my normal life at my own pleasure, and in doing so, practicing what Thoreau champions: coming home (or back to our sad reality) from far away literary adventures.

      Comment by Alyssa Harrington on March 26, 2020

      I think this passage helps discuss the current situation occurring across the globe. The rainbow of this year is the start of a new semester and everyone saying that “2020 is going to be my year”. Then the descriptions of the sentence after is the wildfires in Australia and most recently this virus. When I first found out about this virus, I was nervous for when it was going to hit the US. And as fate would have it, now we have become the top country in the world with the highest number of cases. And the sentences following about the delay, to me, is in line with the precautions being taken in the country and in NY alone. I think that after this entire delay is over, I think we should use this to see all of the little things in life, and live in the moment. To all of the people who do not believe this, it is not a hoax, and this is a national pandemic that should not be taken lightly.

      Comment by Anne Baranello on March 29, 2020

      Reading through Walden consistently gives me the inspiration to go out and do that which I dream about, and find adventure along the way. This paragraph in particular talks about “coming home from afar…with new experiences and character”, but in our current situation that is not possible. The time that we have been given due to this virus and quarantine almost parallels that of Henry Thoreau and his isolation from society. Obviously we are not nearly as isolated nor solitary, but being that our ability to go out and socialize has been taken away from us, many people have been left with just their thoughts, and are learning for the first time just how surreal and eye-opening it is to think deeper.

      Comment by Mariah Branch on May 12, 2020

      Although Thoreau’s tone is one of disgust at the way John and his wife live, I see his description as one that praises nature itself. As Thoreau states, “such gruel sustains life here,” which is him convincing himself that the water is fine to drink. To me, this phrase suggests that even when nature is in its worse state, it is able to quench our thirst for life. Even in less-than-desirable circumstances, we are able to thrive and perhaps that says more about the resiliency of the human mind and body.

      Comment by Mitchell Pace on May 12, 2020

      [We should come home from far, from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day, with new experience and character,]

      There is nothing that sounds better to do in the world right now than experiencing it. While an impossibility at the moment, we can look at the world right now and think on what we should do when this is over. I imagine most people want nothing more than to go out there and make up for lost time. Thoreau had spent so much time experiencing nature in the woods, something like that would be lovely. So after quarantine, everyone should look for adventure because we have spent enough time trapped inside the same buildings with the same people; it is soon time to go out, meet new people, and have new experiences. When even Thoreau’s solitude is more social than our own, it is time to start living life.

      Comment by Jose Romero on May 13, 2020

      I really appreciate the way in which Mariah has constructed her response, it is well-written and also addresses my thoughts while reading this paragraph. It’s really important to note that during COVID-19, many people have been scared, nervous, anxious, stressed, and more. While nature has become something we cannot observe on a daily basis due to stay at home orders, it is still able to “quench our thirst for life” as Mariah states. Mother Earth is now under better conditions after people all around the world had to stay home. COVID-19 helped reduce pollution and most importantly, it allowed people an opportunity to really immerse themselves in a unique experience like no other.

  • Economy 45-58 (70 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [culture]

      The hyphenation and italic type call attention to the derivation of the word from the Latin agri cultura, the cultivation or tilling of a field.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [gradually leaving off palmleaf hat]

      Hats made of palm leaves were then fashionable in the summer.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [or cap of woodchuck skin]

      Hunters often made winter hats out of woodchuck fur.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [number of superfluous glow-shoes]

      A variant spelling of “galoshes,” overshoes for wet weather.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [part into the dust hole]

      A hole cut in the floor enabling one to sweep dust and debris directly into the basement.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [By the blushes of Aurora]

      Aurora: the Roman goddess of dawn.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [and the music of Memnon]

      Memnon: a king of Egypt. His subjects erected a statue of him that uttered a melodious sound every morning when the first rays of the sun fell upon it.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [who stops at the best]

      The printer of the first edition of W misread “best” as “lust,” with rather amusing results. Fortunately T caught the error in the proof sheets and corrected it.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [him to be a Sardanapalus]

      The last king of Assyria, whose effeminacy irritated his military officers and led them to revolt. See Byron’s tragedy of this name. Thoreau may have read of Sardanapalus in Diodorus 2.23.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [natives of the Celestial Empire]

      There was a vogue for Oriental decoration in the mid-nineteenth century, inspired by the China trade.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [which Jonathan]

      The name for a typical American, as “John Bull” was for an Englishman.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [an excursion train]

      A reference to his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne’s satire on liberal religions, “The Celestial Railroad.” “Malaria” literally means “bad air.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [he is admiring the gewgaws]

      Gaudy trifles.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [five feet on level ground]

      I have been unable to uncover T’s source for this tale.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [The cart before the horse]

      “Set the cart before the horse” (John Heywood, Proverbs, 1546).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Old Johnson]

      Edward Johnson, “Wonder-Working Providence of Sions Saviour,” A History of New England (London, 1654, chap. 36, p. 83). T has modernized the English slightly.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the Province of New Netherland]

      E. B. O’Callaghan, The Documentary History of the State of New York (Albany, 1851, IV, 31-2).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [culture]

      T was probably thinking of his friend Bronson Alcott’s book The Doctrine and Discipline of Human Culture (Boston, 1836).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the birds of the air]

      “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20 )

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Rumford fireplace]

      A nonsmoking fireplace invented by Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford (1753-1814).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [back plastering]

      Formerly builders plastered between the studding; now thick paper takes the place of this back plaster.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [ye have always with you]

      “For ye have the poor always with you” (Matthew 26:11).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [fathers have eaten sour grapes]

      “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge” (Ezekiel 18:2). See Taylor.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [that sinneth it shall die]

      Ezekiel 18:3-4.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Yet the Middlesex Cattle Show]

      The Middlesex Cattle Show was held in Concord each September, and T usually joined the throng visiting it. In 1860 he was its principal speaker, delivering a paper on “The Succession of Forest Trees.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [éclat]

      Ostentatious display.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the agricultural machine were suent]

      A dialect word meaning “proceeding regularly,” and more usually spelled “suant.” T’s usage is so unusual that it is often cited in dictionaries. He comments in some detail on this word in his Journal (III, 272).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [trap with a hair spring]

      The first edition of W reads “springe,” but Shanley (1971, 396) has changed it to “spring,” which is the spelling T uses in some of the early drafts.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [rarefies to air]

      George Chapman, The Tragedy of Caesar and Pompey, V, ii.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [valid objection urged by Momus]

      Among the ancients, a god of pleasure and the son of Nox, according to Hesiod. The following quotation is from the entry under Momus in Lempriere’s Bibliotheca Classica (New York, 1842, 744).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [against the house which Minerva]

      The Roman goddess of wisdom.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the almshouse and “silent poor”]

      “Silent poor” refers to a fund established in Concord in the eighteenth century for the care of those who hid their poverty to avoid going to the poorhouse.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [on garlic]

      “There are writings on the pyramids in Egyptian characters showing how much was spent on purges and onions and garlic for the workmen” (Herodotus 2.125).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [farther than to the shanties]

      Oddly enough, in his later chapter on “Former Inhabitants” of the area, T never mentions that there was a whole colony of such shanties, inhabited by Irish railroad workers, just a few hundred yards north of the pond, along the railroad tracks.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [of every denomination in England]

      England was the first nation to take advantage of the Industrial Revolution.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the white or enlightened spots]

      It was still the custom in T’s day to leave all unexplored areas white on the maps.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [physical condition of the Irish]

      T, in W, often speaks disparagingly of the Irish, who were at that time swarming into New England as a result of the potato famine. Finding only menial jobs open to them, they were forced to live in poverty and were openly despised by the resident Yankees. However, as T got to know them personally, he changed his mind about them and became their defender. Why he did not then excise his disparaging remarks is not known.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the laborers]

      Throughout his adult life T was actively engaged both in protesting slavery and in antislavery activities.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [staple production of the South]

      Slave breeding was one of the “‘industries” of the South at this time.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [moderate]

      In his own copy of W, T questioned the italicizing of this word by the printer.

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 21, 2014

      [Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon, what should be man’smorning work in this world? I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust.]

      It was asked earlier (comment on paragraph #53) why Thoreau never modified his disparaging remarks about the Irish, and I often wonder if Thoreau’s reflections of others are serving him as a mirror into himself? Are these disparaging comments self directed then, as he relates the need to dust off the pieces of limestone with subsuming the “morning work” (inner awakening regardless of time of day) of dusting off his mind.

      Comment by Kelsa Deacon on November 2, 2015

      [Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less?]

      Sort of relates to themes we have discussed in other works (The encyclical, Locke, Marx) in that, as a society, we are always in search of the “next best thing.” In this case, we are always trying to keep up with our neighbors or ensure our superiority over others we deem “savages.”

      Comment by Joshua Brand on November 2, 2015

      Human nature in this paragraph is seen with how people always feel the need to compete with each other. Neighbors look at each other with jealousy and always want to match or outdo others with material goods. We are too concerned with how people see our status and become obsessed with ourselves. We have this need to collect and live comfortably, but it ends up hindering our progress because it seems to be the only thing we care about. Marx’s ideas are related to this because he supports the idea that attaining too much material goods are counterproductive and people lose touch with their inner selves. The Papal Encyclical also follows this idea where he says we live in a throwaway culture with the amount of goods we attain.

      Comment by Ken Wolfson on November 2, 2015

      According to Thoreau, in the modern society labor often goes unrewarded.  Hard and honest work yields little positive results due to the convoluted rules of finance and farmers cannot change that and have to devote all their work just to avoid going bankrupt.  “The man who has actually paid for his farm with labor on it is so rare that every neighbor can point to him” (Thoreau).  Similarly, merchants often fail but not because of a lack of capital, but a lack of moral conviction to get their work done.  This is worse than the farmers; farmers are merely being beaten down by society while the merchants are actively sabotaging themselves.  But this puts an infinitely worse face on the matter, and suggests, beside, that probably not even the other three succeed in saving their souls, but are perchance bankrupt in a worse sense than they who fail honestly.  Despite all of these little breakdowns the financial world runs smoothly and without notice of its problems.  

      Comment by Maureen Sullivan on September 24, 2017

      [Nevertheless this points to an important distinction between the civilized man and the savage; and, no doubt, they have designs on us for our benefit, in making the life of a civilized people an institution, in which the life of the individual is to a great extent absorbed, in order to preserve and perfect that of the race. But I wish to show at what a sacrifice this advantage is at present obtained, and to suggest that we may possibly so live as to secure all the advantage without suffering any of the disadvantage.]

      Thoreau notes why some things have been designed regarding the civilized human, because it is suppose to benefit and help us. However, he points out that this can also hurt us. Is there a way to advance without any of the negative aspects?

      Comment by Debra Schleef on September 25, 2017

      [Most men appear never to have considered what a house is]

      I love this. Should we talk about it? What is a house? What is it for? Is it merely to provide privacy, to keep one from the elements?

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 9, 2017

      In my opinion negative aspects are unavoidable in life, and I think that it speaks to the beauty of life that there are negative aspects. Life is imperfect, and if it were, there wouldn’t be any point in any of us being here. Therefore the negative aspects are inherently a part of our lives as humans, and embracing them is what allows us to improve ourselves.

      Comment by Nathan Stivers on September 10, 2018

      Thoreau enters into a conversation with the farmers of Concord. This soon extends to every farmer, and relates their profession to ‘the merchant’ who he had already mentioned several times. Using this method of analysis, Thoreau is able to easily point out the shortcomings of each as it relates to their way of life.

      Comment by Andrew Shutes on September 10, 2018

      [But, answers one, by merely paying this tax the poor civilized man secures an abode which is a palace compared with the savage’s. An annual rent of from twenty-five to a hundred dollars (these are the country rates) entitles him to the benefit of the improvements of centuries, spacious apartments, clean paint and paper, Rumford fireplace, back plastering, Venetian blinds, copper pump, spring lock, a a commodious cellar, and many other things. But how happens it that he who is said to enjoy these things is so commonly a poor civilized man, while the savage, who has them not, is rich as a savage? If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the condition of man,—and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages,—it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly;]

      In this passage, Thoreau utilizes another technique from They Say/I Say, in which he briefly plays the role of the skeptic to support his argument. He has anticipated a possible criticism (that even the poorest of civilized society have palaces compared to “savages”) and in his writing, he quickly debunks such a critique. By stating and refuting an idea that opposes his argument, Thoreau is not just commenting on the flawed nature of his society, but he is also strengthening his credibility.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      In this instance it seems as though Thoreau could move from one level of abstraction to another, questioning the consequence in which the “minority” pays. While also implying the moral question of slavery, and dipping into the idea of capitalism, its pros and cons, and social classes…so on and so forth.

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on November 5, 2019

      I have been reading Walden for fifteen years and Emerson’s Nature for three years now. The comparison between these great books is the joy of my life.

      In Nature, Emerson says, “In God,  every end is converted into a new means. Thus the use of commodity, regarded by itself, is mean and squalid.”  This means that there should first be an end and then a means. What Thoreau is saying here is that man has not learned this lesson from God and is fascinated by a tool as merely a tool. By becoming a tool of our tools, we not only lose our own dignity and goal in life, but we also lose our connection to God and what he truly created us for.

      I am so glad that this site, The Thoreau Reader, keeps me connected to the parts of the US which I love.

      Ali from Iran

      Comment by Ainsley Owens on February 5, 2021

      [On applying to the assessors, I am surprised to learn that they cannot at once name a dozen in the town who own their farms free and clear. If you would know the history of these homesteads, inquire at the bank where they are mortgaged. The man who has actually paid for his farm with labor on it is so rare that every neighbor can point to him. I doubt if there are three such men in Concord]

      Thoreau makes the point that these farmers center their lives around their land & crop, exerting all of their time and effort into their farms. However, most of them still do not own the land they dedicate their lives to, even in cases where the farm was passed through generations. He makes the connection between this point and that of how the economy impacts society, be it positive or negative, although Thoreau seems to lean towards negativity.

      Comment by Owen Amigo on February 6, 2021

      What does he mean by “the country is not yet adapted to human culture”?

      Comment by Gavin Vartanian on February 6, 2021

      This paragraph sticks out to me because of the section of writing where he says, “I would rather ride on on earth in an ox cart with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train and breathe a malaria all the way”. From this section, I was able to pick up the theme of money not being happiness and fancy luxurious things will not always bring you happiness.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2021

      Good point, Ainsley. While some people manage to pay off their mortgages now, it was hard to ever pay off a farm’s mortgage, so the farmers around him lived and died without being free of debt. So he sees farmhouses and ownership a lot of land as somewhat imprisoning. That’s why, down in para 51, a farmer is poorer (unfree) rather than richer for having a house.

      Comment by Katelyn Cummings on February 7, 2021

      Most of the men believe a house is something that their neighbors have but not something they have. These men don’t have a lot of money to afford a big place to live. They don’t have to have what their neighbors have to consider themselves to have a house. A house can be anything that they live in, if they live in a tent than to them their tent is their house. A house doesn’t have to be something huge and glamorous it can be something small that works for them.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2021

      Good point, Gavin: Thoreau emphasizes that idea of money not buying happiness a lot in this chapter. The sentence before the one you chose is also famous–he’d also rather have some space for free (sitting on a pumpkin) than be crowded in a fancy train seat.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2021

      This is a very important line (buried in this paragraph), and worth considering whenever you’re about to spend a lot of money! Thoreau didn’t want to expend any life for material things, reasonably, since his life was quite short.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2021

      well said, Kati!

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2021

      Good question, Owen. Partly, he’s contrasting “human culture” to “agri-culture” in a sentence just before, and saying that once the settlers had larger farms and more crops, food, and wealth, they built big houses. That makes sense, but he would say we haven’t ‘satisfied’ our “pressing wants” yet for wiser, more meaningful lives, so we should put our energies into figuring out ourselves and our culture instead of building bigger houses. (I think that’s part of what he means anyway.)

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 10, 2021

      [the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run]

      This is a very important line (buried in this paragraph), and worth considering whenever you’re about to spend a lot of money! Thoreau didn’t want to expend any life for material things, reasonably, since his life was quite short.

      Comment by Liam Bilodeau on January 31, 2022

      Where did Thoreau live before going to Walden Pond?  Does he have a house?

      Comment by brodiemesser on January 31, 2022

      [And when the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it]

      This quote reminded me of the book Rich Dad Poor Dad that talks about financial literacy which is interesting to see something written so long ago making similar points about houses being a liability and not an asset.

      Comment by eman taha on February 1, 2022

      This sounds like Thoreau speaking on the way the world is changing but people and society isn’t changing to keep up. I think literally he’s talking about shelter, we are creating these homes, but allowing a certain type of person to inhabit them—wealthy people, when something like shelter should be affordable to everyone. I think he is calling wealthy men civilized but in a sarcastic tone, making fun of society for genuinely believing that.

      Comment by eman taha on February 1, 2022

      [men have become the tools of their tools.]

      !!! I thought this was an interesting way to describe society today. We mentioned this in class, the idea of us being kind of like tools to our phones. Or tools to society, we created something that evidently uses us?

      Comment by Keera Lopusiewicz on February 1, 2022

      From his views and observations on mankind’s perpetuating need for material belongings, not simply for their dutiful intents but for their aesthetic nature, we dive into Thoreau’s thoughts on our desire for warmth and comfort, and how this desire has been exemplified overtime to the point where we must compete with fellow neighbors. Compete for what? Pretty objects that have little barring on livelihoods, other than the burning of a whole in one’s own wallet. He explains how a house has become little about providing comfort and more about a reflection of one’s wealth (much like clothing). Moreover, we (taking up the perspective of a man that is a product of this specific time period) will see the riches of another fellow man and perceive ourselves as poor or unfortunate, simply because we do not possess fashionable furniture.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 3, 2022

      I didn’t know that book, but I Googled it, and I clearly should. Thanks for that connection! And it is interesting to look at where and when it is financially wiser Not to buy a house.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 3, 2022

      Yes, Eman, much of the time he uses “civilized,” he really means ‘uncivil’ or ‘primitive’ as in, not advanced. And he is commenting on wealthy vs poor here and in the next para., who often live in terrible conditions.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 3, 2022

      yes, well said, Keera. That status-seeking in houses is most noticeable in wealthy areas, where homes have stone gates or columns, etc. As the American love of home shows (HGTV!) shows, we’re still “studying to have more” pretty objects (granite counters! entertainment rooms!)

      I also love his line about throwing the things that need dusting out the window.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 3, 2022

      Oh, yes: in the case of phones, our phones (or social media, specifically) are definitely using us, harvesting our data, monopolizing our attention every moment…

  • Economy 82-97 (78 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [her disease sciatica. My furniture]

      Most of the furniture that T used at Walden is now on display in a room at the Concord Museum. In his Journal (III, 200) T says he carted all his furniture out to Walden in a hay-rigging.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [the auction of a deacon’s]

      Ellery Channing comments in his copy of W, “Deacon Brown, a penurious old curmudgeon, who lived next house to me in the middle of town, – a human rat.” T gives further details of this auction in his Journal (VI, 80).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [men do lives after them]

      Julius Caesar, III, ii.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [instead of a bonfire]

      The word was formerly applied to fires for the burning of heretics, proscribed books, etc.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [there was an auction]

      The emphasis is on the derivation of the word from the Latin auctio, meaning an increase, that is, in the price by bidding.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [semblance of casting their slough]

      A snake sheds its skin.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [objections of some inveterate cavillers]

      Although those cavillers still try to assert that T hastened to heed the sound of Mrs. Emerson’s dinner bell, since his cabin was a mile and a quarter from her kitchen door, he would have had to have remarkable hearing in order to hear it. Cooke (81) tells us, “It was T’s custom while at Walden to dine on Sundays with Emerson, and to stop at [Edmund] Hosmer’s on his way back to the pond, often remaining to supper.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [use as simple a diet]

      Much comment has been made about T’s diet. Many have thought it accounted for his poor health, but in general it was no worse, according to present-day standards, than that of most of his contemporaries. For a comprehensive analysis of his diet, see Stephen and Barbara Adams. See also Wesolowski.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [of purslane]

      A native of India, purslane is widely used around the world as a potherb. (Paul Williams, 1965).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [savoriness of the trivial name]

      He is using the word in the biological sense of a specific, as opposed to a generic, name. T is exceedingly careful in his choice of words, and one will often find his use of them will often find his use of them enlightening.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [he took to drinking water]

      The word “water” occurs 177 times in W (Ogden and Keller, 246), and T makes much symbolic use of it, as Gupta demonstrates.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [and salt, genuine hoe-cakes]

      A bread made of cornmeal, so called because it was originally baked on the blade of a hoe.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [an Egyptian his hatching eggs]

      “For the Egyptians do not use the birds for hatching the eggs, in effecting this themselves artificially by their own wit and skill in an astounding manner, they are not surpassed by the operations of nature” (Diodorus 1.74.4).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [bread,” the staff of life]

      “Bread … called the staff of life” (Matthew Henry, Commentaries, 1708).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [preserved like the vestal fire]

      In ancient Rome, a fire in the temple of Vesta was kept constantly burning. If the flame went out, it boded calamity.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [rising, swelling, spreading, in cerealian]

      Apparently T’s own coinage, but clear in its meaning and a pun on “cerulean.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [I put any sal soda]

      Crystallized sodium carbonate, used as a leavening agent.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Marcus Porcius Cato]

      Marcus Porcius Cato, De Agri Cultura, chap. 74. Seybold (55) points out that T apparently did not have access to this volume until 1851, so it was a late addition to W. Note that T almost invariably follows any Latin or Greek quotation with an English translation, often his own, for the convenience of the reader (Pritchard).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [parsnips and walnut-tree chips]

      T undoubtedly used John Warner Barber, Historical Collections … of … Massachusetts (Worcester, 1839, 195), where the whole, an untitled poem, is quoted.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the man to the farmer]

      When Adam was driven out of Eden, he was forced to become a farmer (Genesis 3:23).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [land I cultivated was sold]

      Raymond Adams (1948) gives an amusing account of Emerson’s purchase of the Walden land, telling how Emerson was outwitted by the farmer.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [as that a young man]

      Swift (103) identifies this young man as Isaac Hecker.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [or who own their thirds]

      A widow’s share, according to the laws of inheritance, was a third.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [skillet, and a frying-pan]

      Skillet and frying-pan: Although these two terms are now used interchangeably, both referring to round, shallow pans used for frying, then a skillet was sometimes thought of as being deeper and raised on legs.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [lamp]

      Japanned lamp: made of lacquer ware.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [That is Spaulding’s]

      There seems to be no record of a Concord Spaulding, but it was a common name in some of the neighboring towns.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [exuviæ]

      Latin for “castoff.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [He was a lucky fox]

      A reference to Aesop’s fable “The Fox Without a Tail.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [is at a dead set]

      A collegiate term meaning a complete failure in recitation.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [when I hear some trig]

      Neat, trim-looking.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [up his bed and walk]

      “Take up thy bed and walk” (John 5:8).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [moon will not sour milk]

      Sour milk: an old superstition.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [furniture or fade my carpet]

      Economical New England housewives kept the curtains drawn in their parlors to keep the sun from fading the carpet.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [transported them to their garrets]

      A cranny used for storage of seldom-used materials.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [dies he kicks the dust]

      T is probably thinking of the Iliad (22.330), wherein the death of Hector is usually described as his “kicking the dust.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [to celebrate such a “busk]

      Davidson (1947) points out the similarity between the description of the husk and Hawthorne’s short story “Earth’s Holocaust,” and suggests that T may have inspired Hawthorne to write the story.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [of first fruits,” as Bartram]

      William Bartram, Travels Through North and South Carolina … (Philadelphia, 1791, 507).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [The Mexicans]

      William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico (New York, 1843, book 1, chap. V).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [an inward and spiritual grace]

      Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (Springfield, Mass., 1848, 974).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [by working about six weeks]

      In his commencement speech at his graduation from Harvard, T suggested we should reverse the biblical order, working one day and resting six. He thus was practicing roughly what he had preached.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [have thoroughly tried school-keeping]

      T had three experiences as a schoolteacher. In order to earn some money, he left Harvard for a few months and taught in Canton. After graduation, he taught for a few weeks in the public schools in Concord. But when the authorities insisted that he use the rod, he whipped six children at random and then resigned. Shortly thereafter he started a private school with his brother John. The school pioneered many of the principles of modern education and was so successful that there was a waiting list of students. But it was later abandoned when John became too ill to teach. T also spent a number of months as a private tutor for Emerson’s nephews on Staten Island.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [to the wishes of friends]

      Fink (262) suggests T may here be referring to Emerson’s urging him to publish A Week at his own expense.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [keep the flocks of Admetus]

      Apollo, when banished from heaven, was forced to tend the flocks of Admetus, son of the king of Pherae, for nine years. This is a favorite allusion of T’s, and is found again and again in his writings. Seybold (59) thinks that T derived this legend from his reading of Alcestis, but the legend appears so frequently that it might have come from a number of other places.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on July 27, 2015

      [Furniture!]

      @walterharding identifies a sentence in “The Ponds,” par. 19, as “The shortest sentence in W.”: “Sky water.” “Furniture!” is even shorter.

      Comment by Kelsa Deacon on November 2, 2015

      [Nothing was given me of which I have not rendered some account.]
      Relates in part to the discussion we had regarding Marx’s ideas of the individual and the things one can produce. Much like one cannot create something without also using some contribution from another person, it seems impossible here that one can create or produce something without also putting themselves entirely into what they have produced.

      Comment by Ken Wolfson on November 6, 2015

      Thoreau talking about waste and excess.  It sounds like he’s mocking his neighbors for their wasteful habits, which would fall in line with his feelings throughout Walden.

      Comment by Ed Gillin on April 1, 2016

      [Furniture!]

      To be pedantic about it, both “Furniture!” and “Sky water” are technically sentence fragments.  By this standard the imperative “Simplify, simplify” of chapter 2 would become the shortest complete sentence in the book–which I kind of like, based on the notion of form following function.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on April 1, 2016

      Rubbish! 🙂

      Seriously, though, I stand by my claim here.

      An exclamatory sentence is a kind of sentence, not a fragment, and can consist of a single word. It needn’t contain a verb.

      Comment by Amber Parmelee on April 3, 2016

      Prof. Gillin, I like the way you are looking at this. I was wondering how one word, such as furniture, could even be considered an actual sentence.

      Comment by Ed Gillin on April 4, 2016

      And I stand by my statement!

      The above is what I take to be an exclamatory sentence, as opposed to the part of speech known as an interjection.

      In my reading, the remark about the preacher in paragraph #20 of “Where I Lived, And What I Lived For” consists of a single sentence.  Would you consider Thoreau to be quoting a speech consisting of three separate sentences?  (If so, “Furniture!” has some competition.)

      [smiley emoticon here, if I knew how]

      Comment by Paul Schacht on April 4, 2016

      Seriously? One sentence?

      (Another two sentences there, pal. Sorry.)

      It would be odd indeed not to consider Pause! as a complete sentence. It’s identical in form to sentences such as Leave! and Stop! All three are verbs in the imperative mood, with an implied subject of [You]. The case of Avast! is a little different. It compresses a Dutch expression that (as I read the dictionary) originally contained both a subject and a predicate into a single English word that can’t take a subject and therefore doesn’t operate as a verb. But used as the only word in a sentence, it enables the sentence to pass one of the typical tests for sentence-ness. It expresses a complete thought. Oxforddictionaries.com classifies it as an exclamation.

      But the key word in the antepenultimate sentence of that last paragraph is typical – as typically is the key word in the oxfordictionary.com definition you point to: A set of words that is complete in itself, typically containing a subject and predicate…

      English permits many atypical sentences. (Hooray! I hear Thoreau say to that. Interesting problem: If he were to say, Youbetcha! would that be a one-word sentence or a three-word sentence?). There can be sentences with neither subject nor predicate and sentences that are only “complete” when regarded in context, as in the second of these two:

      – Did Thoreau build his chimney inside the cabin or outside?
      – Inside.

      We agree on one thing: Furniture! is no longer than Pause! and Avast! (except in word-length). Of course, the latter two are being reported by Thoreau as spoken by someone other than himself – a distinction worth noting, I think. But they are indisputably “sentences in Walden,” so in some sense it would erroneous to suggest, as I originally did, that Furniture! holds the prize of “shortest sentence” by itself.

      By the way, to put a smiley in your post, just type it, like so: :)

      CommentPress will convert it to an icon. Is a smiley a sentence? No. But that “No” is. 🙂

      Comment by Ed Gillin on April 4, 2016

      Let us continue mountaineering on our mole-hill.

      Yes!  “No” is a sentence in your last example.  So is “Inside” in your prior example.  You present the reasoning in your remarks when you point out that key elements of a sentence may be left out but implied by usage or context.  That is, “No” implies a clear reading: “No, [a smiley is not a sentence].  “Inside” leaves out this language: “[Thoreau built his chimney] inside [his house].”

      The concept of “implied” sentence language is by no means the same as ambiguity.  I cannot justly claim “Inside” is a sentence if I take it to mean “Thoreau built his chimney inside a millennium” or “Thoreau filled an inside straight.”  Context, context.

      I cling to the element in the Oxford definition which your ellipsis dodges: “, and consisting of a main clause and sometimes one or more subordinate clauses.”

      Note that we cannot without risk make “Furniture!” serve our will.  One cannot argue that the implied elements in this “sentence” is something like “Furniture” [is unnecessary]!”  Someone else might equally argue that the “sentence” has a missing predication along these different lines: “I know that] furniture [is a necessity, but sometimes the thought of it drives me bonkers]!”  The “implied” concept cannot embrace two opposite meanings, however plausible each may be.  Grammar may be loose, but not that loose.

      Now an example of my own.  Take two (or three, if you must) statements:

      Drat, I lost my watch!

      Drat! I lost my watch!

      To me, there is no essential difference in meaning here.  I see an interjection followed by an exclamatory sentence in both instances.  You see, in the second instance (I presume) two exclamatory sentences.  Seeing no essential difference in meaning (as I do), I ask you: what, in the second instance, makes “Drat!” a sentence?  It seems to me your answer comes down to, the exclamation point makes it so.  Beware, my friend, for that way lie monsters.  Judging what a sentence is by the existence of capitalization or terminal punctuation is the stuff.  Of many a poorly constructed “sentence.”

      I’m happy enough to follow the school of linguists who discriminate a sentence from an “utterance” based on the rationale above.  Sometimes those traditional old definitions serve a purpose.

      🙂  And thank you for that!

       

      Comment by Debra Schleef on September 26, 2017

      [The human race is interested in these experiments]

      I am reminded how much of these new movements of aestheticism and simplicity are about food and waste. Also that we haven’t yet talked about dumpster diving. We should.

      Comment by Dana Carmeli on September 26, 2017

      [Yet I find it not to be an essential ingredient, and after going without it for a year am still in the land of the living]

      I think we can read into the subtext a little bit here. There are excesses in the bread’s ingredients that are seen as essential in making the best bread just as there are excesses in life that are seen as basic and necessary fundamentals to living a good life. Thoreau is saying, change the recipe a little bit. You might actually like it.

      Comment by Dana Carmeli on September 26, 2017

      [A lady once offered me a mat, but as I had no room to spare within the house, nor time to spare within or without to shake it, I declined it, preferring to wipe my feet on the sod before my door. It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.]

      What might Thoreau have to say about those who romanticize or aestheticize (not sure that’s even a word but let’s give it a shot) the concept of minimalism? It’s a reappearing phenomenon (there’s even a documentary about it on Netflix). If we are glorifying this lifestyle and commodifying it, are we truly living minimally?

      Comment by Lane Riggs on September 26, 2017

      The bread of life. Again, there are religious themes underlying (what seems like) every paragraph. This makes me think of the bread that Catholics receive during mass, which is God’s body. However, Thoreau said that he changed the recipe for the bread and said he went without essential ingredients for a year and is still in the land of the living. I take this to mean that, although there are religious undertones to finding yourself and reaching a certain kind of peace, you can still reach those things without religion. I say that because a lot of people believe you have to return to your religion to find that peace. Thoreau shows us you dont have to.

      Comment by Lane Riggs on September 26, 2017

      Goes back to last week when we were talking about Thoreau’s ideas still being relatable today. In this paragraph, he is talking about people owning furniture and too many other things. When you have too many things, he says, you are poor. I can agree with this. Material possessions don’t matter. Also, I like that Thoreau says, “I have pitied him, not because that was his all, but because he had all that to carry.” Sometimes it is hard to part from material possessions, and I can see how Thoreau would think that would drag someone down.

      Comment by Savannah Robert on September 27, 2017

      I agree Lane!  Are we happier now as a society now that we have material objects that would have been unavailable to us as little as one hundred years ago? Why is it not considered enough to have food and shelter and friends unless we have material objects to accompany them?

      Comment by Maureen Sullivan on September 27, 2017

      I think that’s a good question Savannah. Past the basic necessities to sustain life, why have we created endless material consumptions we think we need? But going off of that, if they are things that make us happy, is that not a good use of our own independent time away from work?

      Comment by Debra Schleef on September 27, 2017

      one might even say fetishize… this was sort of the point I was making Monday. People create a new kind of work out of this, which is often extreme. And of course it’s commodified, since there are tools, books, websites, videos etc. TO BUY to make your life less. (not that I am not guilty here).

      Comment by Elena Vasquez on October 9, 2017

      [Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances.]

      I like how he refers to “Man” as an animal, as he tends to want to simplify mans activities.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on December 9, 2017

      It might have been interesting to ask the monks at the abbey about this passage. 🙂

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 11, 2018

      I find it interesting that Thoreau went to the extent of conversational dialogue in his writing that he broke the fourth wall and directly addressed (as to what he presumed) would be the readers thoughts about his actions.

      Comment by Emma Annonio on February 16, 2020

      Thoreau notes here that it is very simple to obtain food from the land to sustain one’s life, but people are too concerned with obtaining luxury food instead. Today, while it might be common to have a small vegetable garden or go hunting here and there, most people rely on the processed food in grocery stores to sustain their health. To get to the grocery stores, one must use a car, or some other form of advanced transportation to get their. Even now traveling to get your own food is a thing of the past. Rapid communication has allowed for people to quickly call in take out orders and have their food at their doorstep within 30 minutes. Companies such as door dash allow you to send in grocery lists to then have all of your everyday groceries delivered straight to your door. I believe Thoreau would view these technologies and form of communication as a luxury and over exuberant. This technology is the exact opposite of what he believes will fulfill a simple life. But, is it possible to live a simple life in a world with such advanced technology? Maybe these programs are allowing those who have fast-paced lives make a weekly activity simple. With this, I wonder how Thoreau would view these instant grocery shopping programs.

      Comment by Caroline Crimmins on February 16, 2020

      I found this paragraph extremely interesting and relevant to the world today. Thoreau talks about how man only needs the necessities, but craves and yearns for the luxuries. Today, people in our society are always reaching for the best of the best. People update their iPhones every year, will spend hundreds (or thousands of dollars) for the newest technology, and focus on getting the latest and greatest technology. In Thoreau’s writing, we see that he truly attempts to live off necessities and appreciates that. However, technology can be beneficial to people around the world with food insecurity. Websites like free rice are easy ways to use technology in a positive way to provide grains of rice to people who need it. Although this meal is not luxurious like people in our society want, it helps provide the basic needs of a diet and allows people in need to have food in their stomachs. We should all appreciate the food we have because other people may struggle to get the foods we dislike. 

      If you would like to donate rice (for free) here is the link! https://freerice.com

      Comment by Christina Inter on February 16, 2020

      [I would observe, by the way, that it costs me nothing for curtains, for I have no gazers to shut out but the sun and moon, and I am willing that they should look in. ]

      I believe this quote serves as an example for the framework of the life Thoreau has created for himself. He lives by the simplest means possible as this  creates the most peaceful or least resistant life. Thoreau goes on to explain that he declined the humble addition of a mat to his home as he felt that it was not necessary to have one as he could wipe his feet off in the doorway. It is strange to think how accustomed we are to all the a material conveniences we have in our life or how we feel we need something. Thoreau challenges people to live without curtains in their own lives. When it comes to our technology, especially our phones, it\’s hard to picture life without it. People have a strong dependency on their technology and may find it hard to function without it and the conveniences it can offer. If we were to try to put down our phone or put less emphasis on them, as Thoreau has done with other luxuries in his life, I wonder how people would connect differently with their current experience. I also feel the concept of living without curtains is interesting — people feel such a need to protect their physical privacy yet live with little to no curtains in their social media lives.

      Comment by Hannah Jewell on February 16, 2020

      This passage was intriguing to me as it made me consider just how little it takes to get by, and even be satisfied as Thoreau says he was. It shows that living simply is not something that always needs to be seen as a negative thing. People in today’s society waste so much food as well as other luxuries that some countries don’t have at their disposal. Living a more simple life like Thoreau continues to encourage throughout his writing could also help humans to focus on the realities of life and issues that need fixing instead of being caught up in so many things that are essentially privileges to have. The same goes for technology. It would be entirely possible to get by without it, but it would make life much less convenient. I think Thoreau wants readers to consider what they take for granted and how they can change their lifestyles and perspectives even in any small ways possible, in order to contribute to the making of a greater society no matter where it might be.

      Comment by Kira Baran on February 17, 2020

      In this passage, I find Thoreau’s use of the word “savage” interesting, as it does not seem to be being used with the usual negative connotation that is typically attached to this word (especially looking back on older texts from today’s world). In praising other societies’ customs (e.g., of celebrating harvests), Thoreau mentions that his own society could gain something from other cultures.

      This casting away of ego-centrism is a concept that is echoed in Chapter 1 of Gleick’s The Information: “These Europeans spoke of the ‘native mind’ and described Africans as ‘primitive’ and ‘animistic’ and nonetheless came to see that they had achieved an ancient dream of every human culture.”

      As Thoreau adopts a minimalistic lifestyle detached from modern civilization, and explores other ways of living such as those common to non-Western cultures, the effect is that the language Thoreau uses also seems to change; it is almost as if he takes ownership of the word “savage,” giving it a more positive connotation as he empathetically gains respect for other cultures’ ways.

      Comment by Kyle Regan on February 17, 2020

      I

      Comment by Kyle Regan on February 18, 2020

      I enjoyed reading this paragraph because I think it is an interesting look into human nature over time. However, I think his own viewpoint is very biased towards his own way of life. He doesn’t really account for the reality of life for many and the changes to life that come with time. Maybe that in of itself is even more indicative of human nature. The first thing that jumped out to me was the sentence where he says that people starve for luxury and not necessity. It is very easy to feel like you do not have what you want from comparing oneself to others. In his opinion, they are just chasing luxuries as long as the necessities of food/water are taken care of. I think it is a valid point that still rings true today which is why it really jumped out to me. However, he talks about the way that things are from his opinion so matter of factually. He starts the paragraph off by saying that it cost him little trouble to get his own necessary food. His perspective is so extremely skewed towards his own experience. He says earlier in the reading that a days wages for a worker is somewhere around a dollar. Meanwhile his home cost under 30 dollars. I can’t imagine being able to get a property with 11 acres nowadays with essentially one months income in savings. Instead people should be paying around 30% of their yearly earnings on rent alone in todays time. From my perspective, he doesn’t take many factors into his broad conclusions of life. In many cases I see vast over-generalization as the definition of ignorance. 

      Comment by kenneth demerchant on February 4, 2021

      this quote means that when most bad things people do, it stays with them even after they die.

      Comment by Ainsley Owens on February 5, 2021

      [I look upon England to-day as an old gentleman who is travelling with a great deal of baggage, trumpery which has accumulated from long housekeeping, which he has not the courage to burn; great trunk, little trunk, bandbox, and bundle. Throw away the first three at least.]

      Thoreau again implies a minimalist lifestyle and mindset would prove beneficial for many, especially for those accustomed to modern accommodations and societal norms. Thoreau himself clearly appreciates the minimalist lifestyle, proven by the way he built his home and chose to live his life.

      Comment by Dylan Thorburn on February 7, 2021

      The foundations of making bread are similar to the foundations of life; the ingredients that make a good bread can be compared to the things that create a good life. Instead of sticking with what is known to make the best bread, try mixing in other ingredients to see if you can make a bread that tastes better for you; Thoreau is using making bread as a metaphor for living a better life.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2021

      Nicely said, Dylan. I think he also took pleasure in making his own bread, as he did in building his own house, growing his own crops, etc. He gained a sense of accomplishment and self-sufficiency, a sense that people still get from making bread or other necessary things for themselves.

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2021

      Absolutely, Ainsley. Do you think such minimalism is possible today, or desirable, or much sought after?

      Comment by Allison Cummings on February 7, 2021

      Yes, and often the evil haunts those still living, too, like a legacy of murder or pollution.

      Comment by Judiah Strouse on February 1, 2022

      Thoreau’s idea of families and people growing their own foodstuffs was not a new idea, nor did it end anytime soon. Even up to the Cold War era of the United States, advertisements constantly went out promoting families to grow small gardens and have a small chicken coop. It is only in today’s modern age where the idea of home-grown food is considered a niche topic of discussion.

      Comment by Zachary Vandecar on February 12, 2022

      [for the root is faith,]

      Is Thoreau suggesting that his faith that the food will sustain him important?

      [I am accustomed to answer such, that I can live on board nails]

      I don’t think faith will help you digest a nail, Thoreau. Maybe I have misinterpreted?

  • Economy 98-111 (66 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [The Jesuits]

      There are many such incidents recorded in The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, which were favorite reading for T. See, for example, XVII, 109 (Cleveland, 1898).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [Our manners]

      “Evil communications corrupt good manners” (I Corinthians 15:33).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [God and enduring him forever]

      The opening lines of the Shorter Catechism in The New England Primer are “Man’s chief End is to Glorify God, and to Enjoy Him for ever.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz]

      Musee-Huddeen Sheik Saadi, The Gulistan, or Rose Garden. Saadi, a Persian poet of the thirteenth century, was popular among the transcendentalists. Emerson wrote a preface to an English translation of The Gulistan. T’s quotation comes from chap. VIII, “Rules for Conduct in Life.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the Grecian or the Gothic]

      The Greek Revival in American architecture was nearing its end by the time T went to Walden, and was being replaced by the more ornate pseudo-Gothic style.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [and get their free papers]

      In colonial America, immigrants often indentured themselves to pay for their passage across the Atlantic. They were granted “free papers” when they had paid off their debt.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [sweats easier than I do]

      This paragraph, taken almost word for word from a letter T wrote Horace Greeley on May 19, 1848, provides an insight into his methods of composition.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [One young man]

      An interesting parallel to the story of the rich young man told in Luke 18.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [mode of living]

      It is important to call attention to this line, for so many ask, “What if everyone lived like T?” An anonymous reviewer of W in the National Anti-Slavery Standard for December 16, 1854, aptly commented, “No man could pursue his course who was a mere superficial imitator, any more than it would be a real imitation of Christ if all men were to make it their main business to go about preaching the gospel to each other.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [fugitive slave keeps the polestar]

      Fugitive slaves trying to make their way to Canada used the North Star as their guide.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [thousand, as a large house]

      T was probably thinking in particular of J. A. Etzler’s proposals, in his The Paradise Within the Reach of All Men, that the construction of huge apartment houses would save much time, money, and energy. T wrote a devastating review of the book for the Democratic Review (XIII, 1843, 427).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [before the mast]

      That is, as a sailor. On sailing vessels the crew traditionally slept in the front portion of the ship, ahead of the mast.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [carrying a bill of exchange]

      Bill of exchange: a kind of check directing a person to pay a second person a certain sum of money and charging it to the account of a third person.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [very little in philanthropic enterprises]

      Despite T’s protests to the contrary, he did perhaps more than any other Concordian to better the conditions of the Irish laborers of the town (Buckley; Ryan).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the devil finds employment]

      “The devil finds work for idle hands” is an old proverb that can be traced at least as far back as John Ray’s Compleat Collection of English Proverbs, 1670.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [As for Doing-good]

      Possibly a reference to Cotton Mather’s Essays to Do Good (1710), to Benjamin Franklin’s Dogood Papers, or, as Doudna suggests, to James Freeman Clarke’s writings.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Goodfellow]

      A merry domestic fairy known also as Puck (Midsummer Night’s Dream, II, i).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [meats, and making darkness visible]

      “No light, but rather darkness visible” (Paradise Lost, I, 63).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [him getting good. When Phaeton]

      The son of the sun in Greek mythology. The tale is told in Metamorphoses and many other classical sources. As Eddleman (64) shows, T here quotes almost word for word from Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [that will do as much]

      “Why a water spaniel would have done as much” (Richard B. Sheridan, The Rivals, I, i) (Stronks). T’s walking companion Ellery Channing owned a Newfoundland that often accompanied them on their walks.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Howard]

      John Howard (1726?-l790), English philanthropist and prison reformer.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [you would be done by]

      “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Luke 6:31).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [by, who loved their enemies]

      “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [them]

      “Then said Jesus, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Irish laborers who cut ice]

      For further details of the ice cutting, see “The Pond in Winter” chapter.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [ the extra garments which I offered him]

      Latin for “outside” and “inside.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [than a whole slop-shop]

      A store where cheap clothes were sold.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [I once heard a reverend]

      In all probability, this was the Reverend Frederick Henry Hedge, the Unitarian clergyman and transcendentalist from Bangor, Maine, who spoke on “The English Nation” before the Concord Lyceum on January 16, 1850 (Cameron, 1959, 164).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Penn, Howard, and Mrs. Fry]

      William Penn (1644-1718), Quaker reformer and founder of Pennsylvania; John Howard (1726?-1790), English prison reformer; and Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845), Quaker prison reformer.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [charity that hides a multitude of sins.]

      “Charity shall cover the multitude of sins” (I Peter 4:8).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [whom we would send light]

      T was always skeptical of Christian missionary efforts.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [a pain in his bowels]

      An ancient belief, as in Song of Solomon 5:4: “My bowels were moved for him.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [has been eating green apples]

      A traditional source of stomach upsets.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [let your left hand know]

      “But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth” (Matthew 6:3).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [by truly Indian, botanic, magnetic]

      One of the popular healing fads of T’s day was mesmerism, or animal magnetism.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [an overseer of the poor]

      Most New England towns of T’s day had an officer designated “overseer of the poor” who looked after their welfare.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [umbrageous, they call none azad]

      For a discussion of T as an azad, or free man, see Douglas Anderson.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [is transitory; for the Dijlah]

      Another name for the Tigris River. Also spelled Dijla or Dojail.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 29, 2014

      [proceeds of every tenth slave]

      The biblical injunction to tithe one’s income for the Lord. T, of course, sees the full irony of the situation.

      Comment by Debra Schleef on September 26, 2017

      [to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely;]

      In a nutshell. Nice.

      Comment by Dana Carmeli on September 26, 2017

      [pursue his own way, and not his father’s or his mother’s or his neighbor’s instead.]

      Comment on organized religion, perhaps?

      Comment by Lane Riggs on September 26, 2017

      I can agree with this thinking. When I get a moment to relax and take a minute to myself, that is when I feel the most myself. I am able to take a breath and think about things that I don’t have the time to when I am working. I can see how taking time to yourself can teach you new things about yourself, because that is when you are “maintaining one’s self”

      Comment by Dana Carmeli on September 26, 2017

      [ he burned several blocks of houses in the lower streets of heaven, and scorched the surface of the earth, and dried up every spring, and made the great desert of Sahara, till at length Jupiter hurled him headlong to the earth with a thunderbolt, and the sun, through grief at his death, did not shine for a year.]

      I’ve been reading a lot of Leslie Marmon Silko lately in class and this is a relationship with the earth that she associates with indigenous peoples. Whereas in Western traditions, the moment we are born we are told we must toil for our sins, the indigenous peoples of the Americas often believe that what is taken must be returned in a reciprocal rather than a greedy fashion.

      Comment by Lane Riggs on September 26, 2017

      I think he is overgeneralizing here, as he did when he said that someone older has nothing to teach him. “I never heard of a philanthropic meeting in which it was sincerely proposed to do any good to me, or the like of me.” I disagree with him on this point. I think there are plenty of good people out there that genuinely want to do good and aren’t looking to better themselves through doing that good. Most of the points I disagree with, I happen to do so because of the overgeneralizing Thoreau does.

      Comment by Dana Carmeli on September 26, 2017

      [It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do.]

      Even the phrase “earn his living,” we’re constantly thrown back into this guilt trip religion puts many of us through. Why should we be born only to earn our place in society, earn our breath? Didn’t nature provide this?

      Comment by Maureen Sullivan on September 27, 2017

      I find this section interesting as Thoreau mentions the different kind of mentalities of people and their work. For the people who like to work and think it keeps them out of trouble, he seems to not have a negative response to it. He seems to address that some people only work and that those people need to find activities that bring them happiness outside of it.

      Comment by Debra Schleef on September 27, 2017

      Yes, reading it now in the vein in which he have been discussing (overstating to make a point) I can see he does this frequently, and that it’s a writing trope. Still doesn’t mean I like it.

      Comment by Cody McDaniel on September 27, 2017

      I think i am in agreement with Thoreau here. It makes sense that the man that devotes his whole life to the Good is much better than a man that does something evil or just neutral and then gives a tenth of his income to help others. However, I think Thoreau is arrogant when he says that it is not good to give money to the poor because they will use it poorly. He surely does not know to what use it will be done and if an alcoholic will use half the money to feed his children and the other half to drink better booze isn’t it still good to give him money?

      Comment by Sarah Kinzer on October 2, 2017

      What I hear Thoreau advocating for most strongly is for us all to listen deeply to the soft voice of nature within us, our “true course,” and to tap into something bigger than us- our connection to everything else in the world. A deep love for all people and things.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 9, 2017

      I would lean towards saying it isn’t a specific reference to organized religion, though I’m honestly not sure. He certainly is advocating for listening to your gut, in my opinion.

      Comment by Mary Robicheaux on October 14, 2017

      I view this quote as saying one should simply do what he wants to do in life and not follow someone else’s path.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 18, 2017

      Don’t we have motivations for doing everything we do, no matter how altruistic we feel our actions are? Agree or disagree?

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 18, 2017

      I really enjoyed his reference to the Newfoundland dog, which is one of my favorite Dog breeds. They are known for being very loyal and nurturing dogs, despite their very large size. Thoreau is implying, however, that people have motivations behind good things they do for other people.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 18, 2017

      Really interesting anecdote here about the Indians who had the strength to suggest better “modes of torture to their tormentors.” This story is reminiscent of Thoreau’s arrest for refusing to pay taxes.

      Comment by Cassandra Pepe on September 11, 2018

      Thoreau would not want anyone to adopt his way of living because he appreciates the differences in narratives and individuals. He believes a child should pursue their own course of action for the future, rather than just inheriting their parents. He believes the youth can “build or plant or sail” so don’t hinder them from finding their own path. Our narratives don’t have a definitive ending, their a general direction of where were headed.

      Comment by Alexandra Welker on September 11, 2018

      [ Leave a comment on paragraph 106 0 Be sure that you give the poor the aid they most need]

      This line is how I feel about this paragraph. I think Thoreau is trying to say that you should try and figure out what would be the most helpful.

      For a real life example if there is a child who does not receive food at home asking for help would you give the child money or food? Not knowing anything about this child, I would give the child food. If I gave the child money how would I know that they are getting what they need if I did not take care of it myself. I gave them money and their parents stole it for their own personal use and I found out I would feel incredibly guilty.

      I am an advocate for giving to those in need, but I also say that before you give use your head. I want to know that I gave is for the use I want it to be.

      If you need a lot of things it is hard to decipher what the most important use of the gift would be which is part of the reason that if you give them a physical object instead of money then you know your charitable gift is doing what you intended it to do.

      Comment by Hannah Fuller on September 11, 2018

      [We make curious mistakes sometimes.]

      I find it interesting that Thoreau refers to helping the poor as a curious mistake because it is an act of kindness and generosity. While it is true that a poor person may use the money for something other than what it was intended for, i I don’t think it is ever a mistake to help another human being. The choices they make for themselves are on them, not you. I see this a lot today as well. For example, there are homeless people who ask for money and many people say that they won’t give money in fear that the person will choose to spend it on drugs or something like that. One could always buy the person a hot meal or a blanket instead, but i find it sad that some people just don’t give anything at all because of their pre-dispositions of homeless people.

      Comment by Grace Lawrence on September 16, 2018

      Thoreau is telling the reader that he believes that living is “but a pastime” because he has experience. He uses the they say/I say method by using his experience as a reliable source.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      I feel this paragraph highlights the reason in which Thoreau went to Walden in the first place, which was to in fact find or learn about himself. Not only to find or learn about who he was but to initiate the growth and evaluate who he wanted to become as a member in his “reality.” And how that growth would ultimately affect him.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      What could Thoreau mean by this? He could be stating the idea that philanthropy is something in which is only done because it is religiously right to do so. Thoreau could also be implying the simple exchange of generosity itself. Being generous is makes the giver feel good in his own right, as equally as the receiver feels from the generosity. If being generous did not make one feel good, and was not adopted and practiced by the masses, would anyone do it?

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 17, 2018

      Although Thoreau’s language could be a bit assertive in some cases he could be making a point about the situation he gives in these sentences. I know from experience when I would see a homeless person or a person begging for money on the streets of NYC my mother would teach me that you offer, meals and never money. Why aid in someones possible addiction, or bad habits? However I also have to disagree with the statement presented by Thoreau because if I am to think in such ways aren’t I also dictating what is right and wrong for someone else? Something earlier that Thoreau implied was preposterous when evaluating some  of societies short comings.  And is that the right thing to do?

      Comment by Andrew Shutes on September 18, 2018

      [I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account; for, beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father’s or his mother’s or his neighbor’s instead.]

      I find what Thoreau is saying here to be not only extremely interesting, but also wise beyond his years. Even though the whole book is centered around Thoreau’s accomplishments at Walden Pond, he takes the time to admit that his way of life isn’t the only or even the best way. Thoreau isn’t advocating for his way of life, he’s advocating for people to find their own way of life. What works for Thoreau may not work for others and he doesn’t presume to say that his method of living is above another. All that matters is that a person will live in a way that truly satisfies and challenges them, rather than live a certain life that is expected of them because they feel like they have no other choice.

      Comment by Grace Lawrence on September 18, 2018

      I like how Thoreau says that each individual person needs to find their own way of life. He states that he “would not have any one adopt [his] mode of living on any account” because it might not be the right way of living for other people. He easily could’ve discovered another way of living that suited him, meaning that there isn’t only one way to live a fulfilling life.

      Comment by Shakira Browne on September 18, 2018

      [I was wont to pity the clumsy Irish laborers who cut ice on the pond, in such mean and ragged clothes, while I shivered in my more tidy and somewhat more fashionable garments, till, one bitter cold day, one who had slipped into the water came to my house to warm him, and I saw him strip off three pairs of pants and two pairs of stockings ere he got down to the skin, though they were dirty and ragged enough, it is true, and that he could afford to refuse the extra garments which I offered him, he had so many intra ones.]

      He points out a man that has worked hard but still isn’t able to look fashionable while freezing. He brings the man into his house and gives him new clothes because he fell into a pond. Even when he is trying to be nice he still comes off as a rude person who doesn’t seem to care about other peoples well being.

      Comment by Una McGowan on September 18, 2018

      [The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do.]

      This part was really interesting to me, especially since I’ve recently been researching possible internship and work opportunities. As a History/English double major, everyone is always assuming that I want to pursue education or teaching as a career. I really don’t, and that made this feel really important as a sentiment. A person should be able to choose their own path and decide what to do with their life without people telling them what they should want.

      Comment by Olivia Davis on February 16, 2020

      “To maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial”. This point that Thoreau makes shows great connection to a topic discussed in Gleick’s Information. Thoreau discusses that we should live simply and wisely, and that men should not have to work hard to earn their living, life should be easy. This reminded me of Plato’s argument on the evolution of writing and written language; that it is better to keep life as simple as possible and not over complicate things. Plato was opposed to the creation and use of written language, wanting to keep language simple and oral. I think that Thoreau would have similar viewpoints, and been opposed to the evolution of technology and digital language.

  • Winter Animals (56 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [One old hunter]

      Woodson (1975, 554) argues convincingly that this is T’s old friend George Minott.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [used to come to]

      As T knew only too well, the hunter with his one bath a year was probably outdoing many of his neighbors. In his Journal for July 8, 1852 (IV, 202), T says, “One farmer, who came to bathe in Walden one Sunday while I lived there, told me it was the first bath he had had for fifteen years.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [could remember one Sam Nutting]

      In his Journal for March 10, 1853 (V, 16), T calls him “Old Fox” Nutting and records that he had killed moose as well as bear. T also says that he lived in Jacob Baker’s house in Lincoln (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [bears on Fair Haven Ledges]

      On Fair Haven Hill, southwest of Walden (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [he had seen a moose]

      After a lapse of nearly two centuries, moose have occasionally wandered down to Concord from the New Hampshire mountains in recent years.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [In the “Wast Book”]

      This old record book was found in Deacon Brown’s attic, and T quotes at length from it in his Journal for January 27, 1854 (VI, 77-9). Channing says it was Ephraim Jones’s book.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [credit “by ½ a Catt]

      Catt: in his copy of W, T queried whether this should be “calf” and adds “v. Mott ledger near beginning.” But various types of wildcat have been caught in Concord, and on October 15, 186o, T wrote a letter to the Boston Society of Natural History, presenting it with the skin of a Canada lynx killed in nearby Carlisle.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [of nothing but Baffin’s Bay]

      Baffin Bay, a part of the Arctic Ocean between Greenland and the Canadian arctic islands. T had a particular interest in the arctic regions and read widely about them.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [passed for sealers or Esquimaux]

      Now generally spelled “Eskimo.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [when I went to lecture]

      In his Journal for January 7, 1852 (III, 177), T describes walking to Lincoln in a snowstorm to lecture. He lectured professionally most of his adult life, and W, like many of his other works, was in large part first heard by his lecture audiences (Harding, 1948).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the very lingua vernacula]

      The native language of an area.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [for a day or two]

      Although T, in one of the W drafts, attributes this quotation to Audubon, I have been unable to find it in any of Audubon’s writings.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [as he walked the Wayland]

      A small town south of Concord.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [nearer, now from Well-Meadow]

      Well-Meadow was on the shore of Fair Haven Bay, about a mile southwest of Walden (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [in the old French war]

      The French and Indian War of 1754 to 1763.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [horns of the last deer]

      Deer nowadays overrun the area. With the return of forests, Concord is much wilder today than it was in T’s day.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [one gaunt Nimrod]

      “Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord” (Genesis 10:9).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [One had her form]

      Form: the resting place of a hare.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the breed of nobler bloods]

      “Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods” Julius Caesar, I, ii).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [levipes, light-foot, some think]

      “Lucius Aelius thought that the hare received its name lepus because of its swiftness, being levipes, nimblefoot” (Varro, Rerum Rusticarum 3.12).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [walk, beset with twiggy fences]

      Small fence built of twigs and placed across a rabbit’s run to divert it into a snare.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [snares, which some cow-boy]

      Not in the modern sense of the word, but a boy who attends cows.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [house between my own hut]

      Although many people refer to the building at Walden as a hut, T uses that term only twice in the whole book, once here and again eight paragraphs below. Robbins (10) points out that T refers to it as a house eighty-odd times, a lodge three times, a dwelling twice, and a homestead once.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [In Goose Pond]

      Strangely enough, Goose Pond is about a quarter of a mile northeast of Walden, while Lincoln is southeast.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [was my yard]

      In wintertime, moose tramp out an area in the woods where they herd together. A few lines above, T has tramped out his own yard.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Suddenly an unmistakable cat-owl]

      Great horned owl.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [mean by alarming the citadel]

      T is undoubtedly referring to the incident of the geese alarming the citadel when the Gauls took Rome in 390 B.C. See Livy, History of Rome 5.47.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [heard the whooping of the ice]

      Caused by expansion and contraction of the ice. See “The Pond in Winter.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [an inch wide]

      T tells of this incident in his Journal for November 3, 1852 (IV, 409).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [inconceivable haste with his “trotters]

      Hind legs.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [expression and a gratuitous somerset]

      Old spelling of somersault.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [those of a dancing girl]

      Dhawan (75) sees this as an allusion to Maya-Shakti, the creative activity of Brahma, but I doubt if T had this in mind.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [you could say Jack Robinson]

      Bartlett says this phrase is derived from a popular song written by a London tobacconist by the name of Hudson.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [up his clock]

      The squirrel when angry makes a chattering noise much like a noisy clock.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [frisk]

      In his copy of W, T corrected “brisk” to “frisk.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [woods at sunset to “bud”]

      To feed on the tree’s buds.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [on buds and diet-drink]

      T was hardly thinking of our present-day diet sodas, but of some nineteenth-century health food.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [following pack pursuing their Actæon]

      An ancient Greek hunter who, when he saw Artemis bathing, was changed into a stag and then devoured by his own dogs.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [returning with a single brush]

      Brush: foxtail.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [A hunter]

      T gives the detailed conversation with this man in his Journal (I, 398-9).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [woods again. That evening a]

      T is probably punning on Squire Weston, a character in Henry Fielding’s novel Tom Jones. Weston is a village a few miles southeast of Concord.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on February 1, 2014

      [Winter Animals]

      Charles Anderson (183) points out that there are more than seven hundred references to animals in W.

      Comment by Christine O'Neill on February 18, 2014

      [The squirrels also]

      In the Princeton Edition of the manuscript (the original), Thoreau preceded this sentence with, “All the emotions and the life of the squirrel imply spectators.” During his first revision, Version A, Thoreau opted for the simplified sentence in this text, which survived the subsequent six revisions. I can only speculate as to why Thoreau took it out, but I agree with his decision. Sometimes, being caught up in an artistic moment, a writer can be moved to make a profound statement where a simple one does the job more effectively without putting on airs. And seeing as he’s writing about squirrels… no airs necessary.

      Comment by Katie Allen on April 23, 2014

      [Sometimes I heard the foxes] This entire paragraph gives me the chills. I live in the countryside and always hear wild animals at night. Sometimes, I even hear coyotes howling and fighting one another. It really freaks me out. I wonder if Thoreau ever got scared at night when he heard sounds around his cabin, particularly when foxes would come near his window. The human mind tends to create stories, especially when alone! I would have gone a little crazy, I think.

      Comment by Katelyn Baroody on April 26, 2014

      I find Thoreau’s descriptions of the winter evening sounds here intriguing because I think most people associate winter, particularly winter nights, with silence. We always hear about quiet snowfall, and the only sound I personally associate with winter nights is the sound of a snowplow driving past my house in the early morning hours.The sound descriptions here serve to emphasize for me the varying degrees of solitude humans experience. Lying in bed and hearing the plow pass at night, I’m peacefully alone but the evidence of mankind is all around, from the objects in my house to the transient presence of another human driving on the street. We think of Thoreau as having more solitude, but this passage reminds us that he’s constantly accompanied by the natural presences of animals even in the quietest of times, and is never truly alone.

      Comment by Holly Gilbert on February 21, 2015

      The value Thoreau places on having a sparrow land on his shoulder highlights his view towards nature – the honors and adornments he could receive from society would mean little, but being so in tune with nature that animals are comfortable with his presence? That is what Thoreau takes pride in. It’s hard to imagine having such close contact with animals, especially when most I come across seem to be conditioned to be extremely wary of humans.

      Comment by William Foley on February 23, 2015

      I think the whole concept of the Pond being frozen, different from it’s natural state, and thus offering a different view or perspective is a pretty interesting concept that i believe can be tied in with Thoreau’s ideology on learning. Thoreau is conflicted in that he wants one to go out and experience all the different things life has to offer, but also wants to confine those experiences to just what he thinks is right. I think this pond being frozen and offering a different view could be seen as a metaphor for the things that Thoreau does not take into account when deciding upon what an experience should mean to a person.

      Comment by Maya Merberg on March 1, 2015

      Thoreau’s reiteration of the idea that animals and humans are somehow the same indicates to me that it’s an idea that’s pretty crucial to the book. I especially think comparing the foxes’ social order to “civilization” is striking because civilization is usually used to mean something that is very distinctly human– sometimes the word is reserved to refer to what is thought of as only the most “cultured” people. But Thoreau is (again) suggesting that there is something that ties all species together. We all have anxieties and struggles, the need for expression and to “run freely in the streets…”

      Comment by Marisa Drpich on April 18, 2016

      It is interesting to consider Thoreau being awakened by the sounds of the earth cracking from the bitter cold. His stay out in the woods definitely attributes to his keen sense of his surroundings. It seems Thoreau is perhaps a bit dramatic about his account of winter in this piece. I think fresh fallen snow, and a a pond thickly frozen over with ice are serene albeit cold images. I think Thoreau takes the idea of a cold harsh winter to a new level when describing a crack in the earth causes by the winter frost.

      Comment by Josephine Gombert on October 26, 2017

      It is very interesting to think that he is so connected to the earth that he enjoys listing to all the different sounds that go on. And being away from cars and busy streets allow you to really try and listen to every detail.

      Comment by Benjamin Fritz on October 26, 2017

      Much like how losing ones eyes lets them focus on their other senses Thoreau’s seclusion in the woods and mostly complete isolation from society has made him far more in tune with nature.

      Comment by Sarah Alper on October 27, 2017

      Thoreau seems to see the pond freezing as an open door for new experiences and enlightenments. He seems taken back by the winter at Walden and also in awe observing everything he once knew now covered with snow and mice. He felt that he was free, by being and experiencing snow, Walden to him seems more inviting and open the the nearby town which is saying something.

      Comment by Mariah Branch on May 12, 2020

      Thoreau claims that he “felt that [he] was more distinguished” when a sparrow landed on his shoulder “than [he] should have been by any epaulet [he] could have worn.” This assertion is an example of Thoreau’s profound respect and appreciation for nature. At the same time, it suggests that if you respect and care for nature, it will do the same for you. Instead of being bothered by Thoreau’s presence, the sparrow realizes that Thoreau is not there to interrupt his sanctity and decided to accompany him. This also suggests that Thoreau is not making these claims for human recognition and instead, he values how nature repays him.

      Comment by Hannah Jewell on May 12, 2020

      This is intriguing to me as it seems rare to find something I find humorous in Thoreau’s writing. I take him to be a very serious individual who sticks to his ways. I guess if you have as much of an opportunity to take in nature the way Thoreau does, you have a lot of time to form an opinion about something as simple as finding that you don’t have “much respect” for jays, and see them as “thieves” but find squirrels to be hardworking and taking what they deserve.

      Comment by Rick Visser on August 30, 2021

      Regarding “forms” and the difference between Rabbits and Hares, according to Wikipedia: 
      Hares and jackrabbits are leporids belonging to the genus Lepus. Hares are classified in the same family as rabbits. They are similar in size to rabbits and have similar herbivorous diets, but generally have longer ears and live solitarily or in pairs. They do not dig burrows, but nest in slight depressions called forms, often in long grass. Also unlike rabbits, their young are able to fend for themselves shortly after birth rather than emerging blind and helpless. Most are fast runners.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare

      Comment by Alireza Taghdarreh on August 30, 2021

      Although one of the main reasons for Thoreau’s going to Walden Pond was to see the spring come in, he does not restrict himself to life in the spring only. Winter has its own virtues.  New views from the surface of the firmly frozen ice are the souvenir of winter for Thoreau — and for us.

      Ali (Thoreau’s friend in Iran)

  • Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitors 13-24 (36 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [there was another welcome visitor]

      Amos Bronson Alcott, father of Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women. T makes the identification in his Journal for May 9, 1853 (V, 130). In his youth Alcott had been a peddler in the South. T was one of the first to recognize his strange genius, and Alcott one of the first to recognize T’s.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [blind that cannot see serenity]

      Thomas Storer, “Wolseius Triumphans,” in The Life and Death of Thomas Wolsey, Cardinall (1599).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [Having each some shingles of thought]

      Charles Anderson (73) points out that T has taken this passage almost word for word from his Journal for May 9, 1853 (V, 130-1), describing a conversation that took place years after he left Walden.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [The Vishnu Purana]

      H. H. Wilson, trans., The Vishnu Purana (London, 1840), 305.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Mortality]

      The title character in a novel by Sir Walter Scott. As Gottesman (1698) suggests, it was particularly appropriate because Old Mortality went from churchyard to churchyard cleaning and rechiseling old gravestones.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [but not for his beast]

      Inns in those days were accustomed to advertising “Entertainment for man and beast.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [grain of the pumpkin pine]

      First growth white pine, so called from the yellowish color of its wood.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [There was one other]

      Ralph Waldo Emerson.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [man approaching from the town]

      “But never more could see the man/ Approaching from the town” (“The Children in the Wood,” an old English ballad).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [ingenuus]

      Indigenous.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [a New England Night’s Entertainment]

      A play on Arabian Nights’ Entertainment.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [smelling as sweet]

      “Only the ashes of the just / Smell sweet and blossom in their dust” (James Shirley, “The Lady of Pleasure”).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [natural advantages,—no water privileges]

      The right to dam up a stream for water power.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [thrived here, making the wilderness]

      “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose” (Isaiah 35:1).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [of a more ancient city]

      In the fall of 1853 T read Austen Henry Layard’s Ninevah and Its Remains (New York, 1849) with its account of the discovery of numerous layers of archeological remains. See his Journal (VI, n, 15).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [philosopher, and the old settler]

      In “Solitude.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the great snow of 1717]

      Here T is quoting extensively from Cotton Mather’s description of the Great Snow, as referred to in previous chapters.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [of a pair of dividers]

      A compass used for measuring distances on maps.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [I have spoken of]

      T put a question mark in the margin of his copy of W after “of.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [smitten me on one cheek]

      “Whomsoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the deep tracks of a]

      Alex Therien, who was described at length in the “Visitors” chapter.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [of a long-headed farmer]

      Sanborn (1909, II, 167) identifies him as Edmund Hosmer. A detailed account of their friendship may be found in Brown (88-111).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [are “men on their farms]

      Emerson, “The American Scholar” (Gottesman, 1697).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [dismal tempests, was a poet]

      William Ellery Channing the Younger then lived on Punkatasset Hill on the opposite side of Concord.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [made many a “bran new”]

      More commonly, “brand new” – that is, so fresh from the furnace that it is still burning. Neufeldt (1989, 96) suggests T was punning here on Sylvester Graham’s health-food theories, but I doubt it, since this was the form he regularly used.

      Comment by Melanie Weissman on February 22, 2015

      A poet must be “actuated by pure love” not only for the reasons Thoreau describes, but also because, at least in modern-day America, it is incredibly difficult to make a living off of writing poetry, or making any kind of art for that matter. This was likely one of Thoreau’s biggest gripes with the society he rebelled against.

      Comment by Aran Fox on February 22, 2015

      [almost the only friend of human progress]

       

      Another moment of insight into Thoreau’s worldview. After looking into some of the Alcott’s contributions, I can’t help but wonder that they are somewhat more related to modern social progressive issues than Thoreau. That said, Thoreau contributed greatly with his abolitionist and civil disobedient writings. Alcott, however, appears to have a greater appreciation for society than Thoreau, the wild man in the woods, so to speak. Interesting that at the heart of Thoreau’s perception of their kindred spirit is a notion of being “freeborn and indigenous.” That in some way, it is the world that corrupts the spirit.

      Comment by Joshua Brand on November 13, 2015

      Here again we see how Thoreau values all types of intellect and work. “Nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love.” Not all people are able to see the value in poetry, but Thoreau as a writer, connects strongly with the poet. He also describes a writer’s spontaneous life and how their timing cannot be predicted. They act out of impulse, being motivated by their emotions to experience new things. Thoreau is representative of this idea through his actions in Walden.

      Comment by Ed Gillin on April 8, 2016

      A poem by one of Thoreau’s great admirers that’s worth a look: “Directive.”

      Comment by Christina Inter on March 23, 2020

      Thoreau states, “For a week of even weather I took exactly the same number of steps, and of the same length, coming and going, stepping deliberately…to such a routine winter reduces us…”  While Thoreau is referencing the difficulties of navigating a world dictated by harsh chill and snow, I feel the we have been similarly confined by the present circumstances. It is sad to think that as it has finally stopped snowing and the weather is beginning to warm, we are more trapped than before. Usually, this would be the time I would be excited and feel a sense of liberation from the shift in season — like the ability to leave the house without being burdened by layer upon layer to keep out the cold. Instead, we are more confined than we were in winter when we are forced to take shelter and limit our actions as Thoreau described. In our restricted circumstances, we must step in the tracks we’ve made and continue a semblance of a routine to navigate this strange new normal. It is important to keep in mind that while these measures may be restricting, they are for the benefit of all to create a world where we can all freely step out of our houses again without anyone being at risk.

      Comment by Rachel Beck on March 25, 2020

      The beginning of this paragraph reminds me of the current situation that many people around the world are in. Though Walden is talking about being snowed in, many people are being told to stay in their homes because of the coronavirus — to distance themselves from those around them. “When the snow lay deepest no wanderer ventured near my house for a week or a fortnight at a time.” This line reminds me of how people (including myself) are no longer visiting their friends and neighbors because they don’t want to contract this virus or spread it. Walden then goes on to talk about how he lived “as snug as a meadow mouse, or as cattle and poultry which are said to have survived for a long time buried in drifts, even without food.” Thankfully, we are still allowed to go to the grocery store to get food, so we don’t have to go without food, but I would definitely say that I am living snug.

      Comment by Kira Baran on March 25, 2020

      Regarding the topic of “time,” this passage reflects on the fact that people often forget that one’s physical presence is not necessary in order to impact the environment and surrounding ecosystem. One of the biggest fears that people have is being forgotten after they have passed away. It is true that memory can in a sense preserve a person’s existence; however, we often forget that other effects live on after us, too. For instance, plants “tended once by children’s hands . . . outlive them . . . and tell their story faintly to the lone wanderer a half century after they had grown up and died.” Likewise, even in winter, when birds have flown away and mammals have hibernated and people have moved to warmer places, it is comforting to remember that the cycle of life lives on despite the temporary physical absence of these beings.

      I recently read a short story, “Cathedral,” by Raymond Carver, and it occurred to me that both texts contain similar themes. Carver writes, “[G]enerations of the same families worked on a cathedral. . . . The men who began their life’s work on them, they never lived to see the completion of their work.” This quote connects to Thoreau’s aforementioned remarks on how humans’ actions last long after the humans’ living presence has ceased. Whether it be planting a garden, or building a cathedral, human activity lives immortally through the cycle of life and through the generations that are constantly coming into being. Just as the earth recycles the soil, so too is human existence and memory constantly being recycled in what becomes an overarching immortal cycle.

      Comment by Kira Baran on March 25, 2020

      During these unprecedented times, as the coronavirus pandemic runs its course, there are some surprisingly positive effects emerging that are rarely quite so visible during more ordinary times. Despite the social distancing practices taking place, in some ways our society has never been so close and connected socially. Over social media, people have been posting about eating together as a family once again, and hosting family board-game nights. People have been staying indoors and staying in touch digitally, in what have become unprecedented displays of neighborly outreach during hard times.

      These sentiments are reflected almost allegorically by Thoreau\’s observance that, \”The one who came from farthest to my lodge, through deepest snows and most dismal tempests, was . . . actuated by pure love.\” These themes also connect back to Thoreau\’s previous passages on \”Solitude\” and \”Visitors,\” in that it sometimes takes extreme social distancing to discover who one\’s true friends/family are. For, no matter the distance or dire situation, true love, loyalty, and companionship find a way in, in order to check up on their loved ones. The silver lining of a pandemic situation like this is that social distancing can in fact act as a filter/gateway; that is, solitude can act as a measure of loyalty, by setting the bar high for proving the distance one is willing to go in order to be a true friend to those in need.

      Comment by Sandy Brahaspat on March 26, 2020

      [I often performed this duty of hospitality, waited long enough to milk a whole herd of cows, but did not see the man approaching from the town.]

      I thought this was an interesting connection to time and patience, a lesson that the Vishnu Purana seems to be urging. I am intrigued by the idea that patience is required when time itself is fleeting in relation to the Visitor who never comes. The very concept of waiting long enough to milk a herd of cows for a singular visitor seems like something that in modern society, would never be tolerated. That being said, in the age of advanced technology that we live in, rapid responses and instant messages take the place of visitors, and even when we engage in these modes of communication, patience is a valuable skill to practice. I think this final passage highlights the importance of being mindful of the ways in which we manage our own time and how it influences our engagement and presence in the lives of others.

      Comment by Emma Raupp on March 26, 2020

      “Having each some shingles of thought well dried…”

      Thoreau seems, at times, critical of his neighbors, particularly the villagers and the family from the Baker Farm. His appreciation for more kindred spirits, like the poet and wandering philosopher, reveal his subtle value of company in Walden Woods. Solitude is liberating, but in the long winter months, a like-minded visitor is welcome change.

      Since the Covid-19 outbreak, many of us might feel critical of the company we unexpectedly have to keep. Or, grateful for a group of like-minded folks, but I’m willing to wager that’s not the case for everyone. But the important piece of wisdom Thoreau imparts upon us here is the value of a good conversation. It allows us to transcend our temporary quarantine: mentally, at least. Being fully engaged in a genuine conversation, even if you’re not lucky enough to have a philosopher on hand, allows us to “build castles in the air” which have no earthly hold. Especially with technology, we have the capacity to be together intellectually and spiritually: to Thoreau, this seems like the most vital connection. Deep in shared thought, we can be anywhere together, no longer moored solely to the present moment and its mounting stress.

       

      Comment by Jaffre Aether on May 8, 2020

      [ Yet I rarely failed to find, even in mid-winter, some warm and springy swamp where the grass and the skunk-cabbage still put forth with perennial verdure, and some hardier bird occasionally awaited the return of spring]

      I like this quote, as it touches on a feeling I always have in winter. Seeing little bits of grass peeping up, or a bird chirping is enough to lift the spirits, and not feel trapped in a desolate frost. There can be something to said here about looking into the intrusions of Thoreau’s text, where Thoreau makes a point to allow for these slips and observations that go against what is expected of the nature he is describing. Disconnect is something inherent to nature, there are always moments fluttering around that jolt you out of your reverie, even if as Thoreau says, his occurrence was a common one. For example, I see geese quite frequently on my bike rides, but they never fail to jolt me out of the state I was in (usually into a state of fear, I would much rather see a cardinal or robin). Anyhow, I love the way Thoreau can have such a depth of meaning in his comments on nature.

  • House-Warming 1-9 (45 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [for coddling]

      To treat with special care.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [I sometimes dream of a larger]

      The longest sentence in W – 341 words! Although this is, of course, a description of T’s Walden cabin, many Japanese students of T have pointed out that it is also an almost perfect description of a typical Japanese house which T could not have known, since Japan was not opened to the Western world until 1853, and Perry’s report on this was not published until 1856, two years after W.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [When chestnuts]

      Chestnuts have long since virtually disappeared from the area because of the chestnut blight.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [their long sleep]

      Again, T is punning on “sleeper,” the old name for a railroad tie.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [childhood, as I had told]

      Bickman (86) suggests that the word “been” was inadvertently dropped from between “had” and “told,” and since T seems not to have mentioned earlier his eating groundnuts in childhood, it is possible that that happened. However, Clapper (638) does not indicate a previous reference in any of the early drafts.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [water. Ah, many a tale]

      “Those evening bells! those evening bells! / How many a tale their music tells” (Thomas Moore, “Those Evening Bells”). T later wrote an extensive essay on “Autumnal Tints.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [do not know, avoiding winter]

      “Avoiding winter and unspeakable cold” (Iliad, 3.4).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [I studied masonry]

      The period after “masonry” was inadvertently omitted in the first edition.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [of the villages of Mesopotamia]

      T was much interested in the excavations that were going on in the Middle East during his lifetime and read widely the various reports about them.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [read the name of Nebuchadnezzar]

      T is referring to the handwriting on the wall (Daniel 5).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [served for my pillow]

      T is undoubtedly referring to Jacob’s pillow (Genesis 28:11) (D’Avanzo, 1977).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [not get a stiff neck]

      T is alluding to the many references in the Bible to the Jewish people as stiff-necked (Doudna).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [I took a poet]

      Ellery Channing, who slept on the floor under T’s cot.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [and imagination than fresco paintings]

      Painting with watercolor on wet plaster.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [couple of old fire-dogs]

      Andirons.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [chamber, parlor, and keeping-room]

      Keeping-room: New England term for a sitting room.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [et virtuti, et gloriæ erit]

      Cato, De Agri Cultura 3.2.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [materials, and without ginger-bread]

      The rococo scrollwork so popular in the outside decoration of houses in T’s day.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [with bare rafters and purlins]

      A piece of timber laid horizontally to support the rafters of a roof.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the king and queen posts]

      Two different types of support for a peaked roof. A king post is a vertical member connecting the apex of a triangular truss with its base. Queen posts, also vertical, connect the midpoints of the sides with the base.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [reverence to the prostrate Saturn]

      A Roman god who was worshiped by uncovering the head.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [in at the front door]

      There is an apocryphal story that T and Channing once set their compass toward a distant mountain peak, determining to walk to it in a straight line. Midway on their journey they came to a farmhouse in their path, but since the front and back doors (connected, as usual, by a long hall) were open and no one was in evidence, the two proceeded directly through the house.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [their way; but backing out]

      According to court etiquette, one should never turn one’s back on royalty.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [in the North West Territory]

      The area northwest of the Ohio River, set aside by the Continental Congress in 1787 for new states when the land was sufficiently populated. Out of it were formed Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [or the Isle of Man]

      A British island in the Irish Sea.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [and eat a hasty-pudding]

      A cornmeal mush then popular in New England as a breakfast food.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [which was once the totem of an Indian]

      T found this information in E. B. O’Callaghan, The Documentary History of the State of New York (Albany, 1849, I, 10).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [brought it]

      T read of this in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society for the Year 1794 (III, 219), where it says, “The crow brought them at first an Indian grain of corn … from the great God Cawantowwit’s field in the southwest.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [Some Indian Ceres or Minerva]

      Roman goddesses: Ceres, of harvests and corn; Minerva, of wisdom.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [our works of art]

      This has, on occasion, been done, as in the cornices and columns of the Department of Agriculture building in Washington, D.C.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [in my cellar a firkin]

      A small wooden vessel with the capacity of a quarter of a barrel.

      Comment by Katie Allen on April 23, 2014

      [this is one of those sayings] Here, Thoreau comments on the phrase, “The mortar on them was fifty years old, and was said to be still growing harder” by stating, “but this is one of those sayings which men love to repeat whether they are true or not.” I find it interesting that even today, in the information age, there are facts that have been disproven, and yet people still believe them. For example, 23 Things Everyone Believes That Have Been Disproven by Mythbusters is a list of just these types of phrases. Maybe Mythbusters can’t be trusted to disprove old wives tales, maybe people forget that the fact is untrue because they’ve heard it so frequently it seems like it must be true, or maybe the people who still believe in disproven facts just haven’t heard the truth yet. Either way, I find it funny that this was happening in Thoreau’s day and still happens now as well. I wonder if maybe people just become so set in their ways, they are willing to preach their beliefs to the ends of the earth no matter who tells them they’re wrong. And sometimes, maybe false rumors are more interesting than boring truths.

      Comment by Christine O'Neill on May 5, 2014

      I was looking at the Fluid Text Edition of Walden and it turns out that the first few paragraphs of this chapter — the ones describing his activities according to the months — were added only in the 5th draft. One of Harding’s theorys that I’ve researched while working with my Data Analysis group in ENGL340 is that Thoreau revised Walden with the intent of solidifying the year as a unifying device. There is evidence of this in other chapters too. Thoreau uses seasons and months not only to situate his reader in time, but as a thematic linchpin.

      Comment by Jess Goldstein on February 23, 2015

      So now Thoreau is back to saying he welcomes visitors? The wasps came and basically swallowed his home therefor deterring visitors from entering his home? Who are these people that Thoreau deems educated enough to be welcomed into Thoreau’s home. I did think it was cute that Thoreau felt complimented by the presence of the wasps, this paragraph in general gives Thoreau a humorous touch that he hasn’t really exhibited before. It was nice to see this part of him.

      Comment by Maggie MacIntyre on April 13, 2016

      I found the statement odd, “they gradually disappeared, into what crevices I do not know” considering the fact that Thoreau built this house. Shouldn’t he know, better than the wasps, every inch and crevice of that house?

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 19, 2018

      [They never molested me seriously, though they bedded with me; and they gradually disappeared, into what crevices I do not know, avoiding winter and unspeakable cold.]

      Thoreaus language is very peculiar…during his time was this common?

      Comment by Danielle Crowley on March 23, 2020

      [but when they saw that crisis approaching they beat a hasty retreat rather, as if it would shake the house to its foundations]

      In regards to the current situation, I feel like this portion of the text describes the situation rather well. When COVID19 first became a problem, many people saw it for what it was and followed the guidelines for social distancing and stayed home, trying to contain it, while others went to Florida and partied it up on the beaches. They saw the crisis and retreated to be safe.

      Comment by Emma Annonio on March 24, 2020

      [Already, by the first of September, I had seen two or three small maples turned scarlet across the pond, beneath where the white stems of three aspens diverged, at the point of a promontory, next the water]
      For me, the concept of time centers around nature. I will naturally wake up once light has begun to pour through my windows. I feel most productive and do my best work when the sun is still out. I have noticed on stormy days, when I am stuck inside I have to rely on technology to tell me what time it is, and how heavily this impacts on my productivity. For Thoreau, nature surrounds him all the time. He build his home on the Pond in accordance with nature so to not disturb it. He finds joy is being able to mark the change of the seasons by the leaves on the maple trees on the pond. He knows the weather is getting colder when the bees take shelter in his warm home. These natural events still happen today, but they don’t have the meaningful impact they should because of the prevalence of technology. It seems like time for Thoreau is in tune with his environment and he is able to adapt his life to how, and his schedule to how the natural environment changes indicating a change in time.

      Comment by Caroline Crimmins on March 25, 2020

      Thoreau’s point about natural and artificial effects was one that I really enjoyed. During the summer, I work at my local day camp as a lifeguard and a swim instructor. Because of this job and climate change, the weather is constantly changing. One day it will be perfectly sunny and just the right amount of warm. Other days it will be pouring for five minutes and calm for the next. Because of these variations, I have come to appreciate the true effects of the sun and its warmth. After finishing a lesson, I love to sit by the pool and let the sun wrap a warm blanket around me, rather than one of the basic white towels the camp supplies. This is one of my favorite feelings because in the rush and hurry of the day, the sun shines on my back with its warm and delicate rays, allowing my body to feel the perfect temperature. I would much rather be naturally dried by the sun than throwing a towel around me because I feel much more connected to nature. I try to leave time in my day to feel this happiness and appreciate the nature around me.

      Comment by Rachel Beck on March 25, 2020

      [I was pleased to see my work rising so square and solid by degrees, and reflected, that, if it proceeded slowly, it was calculated to endure a long time. The chimney is to some extent an independent structure, standing on the ground and rising through the house to the heavens; even after the house is burned it still stands sometimes, and its importance and independence are apparent.]

      Based on the way I am reading and comprehending this passage, I really like the message it is sending. It just goes to show that the more work and effort you put into something you are creating, the longer it will hold up. Even though it was built using second-hand bricks, Waldens chimney stood independently and he calculated that it would withstand the test of time. Walden also mentions Mesopotamia, and how it was built with second-hand bricks obtained from the ruins of Babylon. Through my past experiences of crafting things (whether it be painting canvases, writing essays, etc.), I have found that if I really focus on what I am doing, it always ends up being much better quality — even if I am not using the most quality products. (But at the same time, I do not understand what Walden means when he says it still stands sometimes, like, did his chimney fall over?)

      Comment by Hannah Fahy on March 25, 2020

      Some things are inevitable. The changing leaves is one of them. However, time has been weird lately. It just snowed in the end of March, and it looked wrong. It looked like time made a mistake. I think the way that the seasons blend and tug-a-war back and forth is fascinating. I can see what Thoreau is describing perfectly. It’s still too hot out, but there are dots in the line of trees that have succumbed to fall before it’s even begun. It’s like summer and fall are fighting or dancing between one another. However, time doesn’t stop for anyone, and eventually all the leaves change and fall.

      Comment by Paul Schacht on March 25, 2020

      I think your take on this passage is a good one, Rachel (although note that “Walden” is the name of the pond that figures centrally in the book, not the name of a person). In some ways this passage looks forward to paragraph 11 of the concluding chapter.

      Comment by Mitchell Pace on March 26, 2020

      The passage of time, as expressed by nature,  is always fascinating and beautiful. No matter what goes on in the world, it always seem that the leaves will change for Fall, Winter will strip them bare, then in spring life begins again. It is a beautiful cycle, even in the odd moments where it seems that nature forgets how things usually work, like the snow we just recently had on Long Island. But nothing is more incredible than how nature, and life, prevails over time. Like in Venice, where fish have returned to waters that are now clear despite how long they had been murky with the presence of man.

      Comment by Hannah Fahy on May 7, 2020

      Thoreau would’ve loved HGTV. In all seriousness, this is an interesting daydream for this book. Thoreau was in an isolated area in a small house, but here he dreams of a large, meeting room with many visitors. I hate relating everything back to COVID-19, but it’s similar to how I’ve seen friends and family react to isolation. Even people who are introverted with social anxiety are wishing for large gatherings. I hate crowds, but I want to go to a concert and stand is a huge crowd of people. Everyone is daydreaming about four walls that aren’t their own. It’s interesting to see how Thoreau’s experiment did this to him as isolation is doing it to us. It really shows that humans are social creatures even when we don’t claim to be.

      Comment by Anne Baranello on May 13, 2020

      This is SUCH an interesting paragraph – The metaphor Thoreau strikes up about a bedroom being a cell, a prison, instead of living quarters – how sectioning off the house is almost a sinister way to live, with suspicious amounts of privacy. The part that resonated with me the most was, “where a guest is to be presented with the freedom of the house, and not to be carefully excluded from seven-eighths of it.” Thoreau’s suddenly make me suspicious of my own house, my own bedroom that I’m currently sitting in. He just put living into an entirely new perspective – why live in a house if you’re going to exclude yourself from experiencing it? I always assumed that having a house to own – a piece of land – is freeing. You have your own space, and no one can reside without your permission, but now that I’m looking at my own house…a prison with cells doesn’t seem like a bad comparison. That’s not to mean I dislike the house I live in if anything I adore it – it’s old and cute and has character! But I could just as easily live there if it were one room. There’s no need for the divisions.

  • Brute Neighbors 1-9 (33 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 20, 2014

      [sentences of Con-fut-see]

      A variant spelling of Confucius.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [but a wild native kind]

      The Latin name, Mus Leucupus did not appear in the first edition, but T added it in his own copy.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [off the coast of Spain]

      Channing had sailed along the coast of Spain on his way to Italy in 1846.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [cannot resist. My brown bread]

      Bread sweetened with molasses and raisins, usually served with baked beans.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [where you see the johnswort]

      A common plant (Apios americana) of the area, which has edible tubers.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [or a budding ecstasy. Mem]

      Abbreviation for memorandum.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [quite too large; a shiner]

      A New England term for any small freshwater fish.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [one to a distinguished naturalist]

      Louis Agassiz (1807-1873). In the late 1840s T collected various specimens of fish, reptiles, and mammals for Agassiz, who was working on the classification of species at Harvard.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [at bopeep]

      A children’s game also known as peekaboo.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [I had a companion]

      Ellery Channing, T’s closest friend and first biographer. In the dialogue that follows, T is the hermit and Channing the poet. Charles Anderson (1968, 179) thinks, instead, that they represent two facets of T’s own personality. Shanley (1957, 80) suggests that T introduced this dialogue as a comic interlude because he felt the need of a descent from the level of “Higher Laws” to “Brute Neighbors.” Hodges suggests that the dialogue “has dramatized a state of spiritual emptiness and fraud, an unhappy possibility of following literally T’s ‘Higher Laws’” (I am not convinced). Blanding thinks this seems to have been modeled on the dialogues of the Angler, the Falconer, and the Hunter in Izaac Walton’s Compleat Angler.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [Hermit.]

      This is one of the rare times when T refers to himself as a hermit. Actually there was hardly a day when he did not either walk into town or have friends come out to visit him. His aunt Maria complained that everyone in Concord thought he had the right to picnic on the cabin doorstep. And the county women’s anti-slavery society (of which his mother was an officer) once held its annual meeting at the cabin.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [that a farmer’s noon horn]

      Farmers often rang a bell or sounded a horn to call their hired hands in from the fields for meals.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [and cider and Indian bread]

      Bread made of corn meal.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [not eat need not work]

       T is here reversing John Smith’s charge to his fellow colonists in Virginia (Smith, Travels and Works) [Edinburgh, 1910, Part I, 194]).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [for the barking of Bose]

      A then popular name for a pet dog.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 27, 2014

      [house. Say, some hollow tree]

      Charles Anderson (1968, 180) suggests that T was referring to Saint Bavo (c. 655), who lived in a hollow tree. George Fox, the Quaker theologian, is also said to have lived in a tree.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on February 1, 2014

      [Brute Neighbors]

      Brenner suggests that in this chapter, “One can observe the animal cosmos in its comparative levels of natural, unnatural, preternatural, and supernatural.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on February 1, 2014

      [I suspect that Pilpay & Co.]

      Pilpay, known also as Bidpai, was the reputed author of a collection of fables of East Indian origin. T was familiar with them in the Charles Wilkins translation, and Emerson had used some of them in the Dial (III, 1842, 82-5).

      Comment by Julia Kinel on March 2, 2015

      The first time I read this section I wondered whether Thoreau was considering himself the hermit or the poet. After scrolling through Harding’s comments it seems that Thoreau is in fact the hermit (that’s what I was thinking) and Channing was the poet. Harding also mentioned that this is one of the few times that Thoreau refers to himself as a hermit. I was surprised by that. However, after flipping through other parts of Walden that is true. I find it interesting that despite the fact that Thoreau very rarely mentioned his hermit-like qualities, I still viewed him as such. Just his beliefs about society and his whole “I’m gonna live in the woods alone” thing definitely make him look like a hermit. Yet what he says throughout the book actually implies that he was social.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 20, 2017

      Thoreau to me is largely the hermit, however should also legitimately be considered the poet. I think a lot of the beauty of his writing is tied to the fact that he jumps around between philosophical concepts, greek mythology, and simple mundane everyday tasks. His involvement in the community also is understated, so he can’t truly be considered a hermit.

      Comment by Conrad Parrish on October 20, 2017

      This is a truly admirable example of Thoreau’s peaceful interactions with his environment. Many people’s instinct would be to kill a mouse in their house, however even such a traditionally despicable animal such as a rat is welcome in the home of Thoreau.

      Comment by Mary Robicheaux on October 21, 2017

      I agree. While he did live alone, he was not in the middle of wilderness and had a nearby village to visit. He was maybe half of a hermit.

      Comment by Elena Vasquez on October 24, 2017

      But was he really a hermit? I think the solitude caused Thoreau to go a little crazy as all humans need companionship as we are a codependent species

      Comment by Elisabeth Strand on October 26, 2017

      I agree with this, I think this is why I find fault when he says “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” I can understand the last three but to portray love as a superfluous desire undermines the inherently social and interdependent nature of the human species.

      Comment by Sarah Alper on October 27, 2017

      I semi agree with this but I think Thoreau wanted to be a hermit even though humans are inherently social and codependent creatures. Maybe he was just suppressing his non-hermitness behind the person he wanted to be versus the person that he is.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 19, 2018

      [The mice which haunted my house were not the common ones, which are said to have been introduced into the country, but a wild native kind (Mus leucopus) not found in the village. I sent one to a distinguished naturalist, and it interested him much. When I was building, one of these had its nest underneath the house, and before I had laid the second floor, and swept out the shavings, would come out regularly at lunch time and pick up the crumbs at my feet. It probably had never seen a man before; and it soon became quite familiar, and would run over my shoes and up my clothes]

      Why is he ok with this?….

      Comment by Leila Sassouni on March 24, 2020

      [I wonder what the world is doing now. ]

      The state of the world right now is chaotic; the people who live in this world are contributing to the chaos. This noise is due to the unfortunate events of the recent pandemic, the coronavirus. This virus has caused a total uproar in the world. People who have unfortunately lost a job; people who know someone who is sick with the virus; people who fear their older relatives will be exposed due to others’ ignorance; people walking around wearing gloves and masks; people who continue to work voluntarily in spite of the dangers of this virus. My hope is that people are following necessary safety measures to ensure that this virus stops spreading as rapidly as it has. My hope is that people understand enough just how horrific and serious this virus is, and don’t see it as a joke. While I do have these hopes, I think some people continue to be ignorant and ignore the safety precautions communicated to them. This is what then causes people to erupt in more chaos because the people around them are contributing to this virus and its spreading. People do not realize that even just one person not following safety measures, such as social distancing, is contributing to the issue. The world needs peace, healing, and positivity. The world needs sanity.

      Comment by Olivia Davis on March 25, 2020

      “I wonder what the world is doing now.”

      “Why will men worry themselves so? He that does not eat need not work.”

      These two sentences stood out to me and felt very familiar due to the circumstances going on in the world right now. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many people across the world, including myself, have been forced to quarantine inside our houses and isolate, or “social distance” ourselves from those not immediately in our household. This has caused a weird phenomena that I have not before experiences- a feeling of wonder and uncertainty of what is really going on in the world while I’m stuck inside. The only connection I have is what I see online or in the news, which is unreliable and likely twisted. Furthermore, Thoreau’s comment on worrying and not working was prominent, because so many people have lost their jobs recently. Some of this population is now unable to eat due to the lack of money, so it is not that they “need not work,” but rather they can not work for reasons out of their control. This has definitely caused a tremendous amount of worry and concern, as people are forced to stay indoors and can not provide for their families. Outside resources are shut down. Times are hard and this is not something I ever thought I would experience.

      Comment by anthony guttilla on March 26, 2020

      Now more than ever, I am in my own head. Stuck at home all day with nobody to see and nowhere to go is starting to drive me a little bit crazy. Even with homework, video games, and Netflix, there is still a lot of time with absolutely nothing to do. So, I begin to think about life, or nature, or other lives. This paragraph is basically something i already thought about a couple days ago. Living in the woods, even with the gardening, hiking, and meditating, Thoreau probably has a lot of time to do nothing, so, he sits there and contemplates life.

      Comment by Abigail Henry on March 26, 2020

      [I will go with you gladly soon, but I am just concluding a serious meditation. I think that I am near the end of it. Leave me alone, then, for a while.]

      I think that these the lines are the ones that hit the closest to home for me during this COVID-19 pandemic. As someone who has several immunocompromised family members, I have to take self-quarantining very seriously. It\’s hard to be alone and stuck in my home for such a long period of time, but I know it\’s for the overall well-being of not only my family but the general population.

      It\’s difficult, too, watching people ignore the orders of isolation and continue about their normal lives (including some of my friends). I wish that they would understand that saying \”no\” to going out is no longer a choice in this situation, but a requirement. The longer people do not quarantine, the longer this pandemic will occur.

      For now, however, I [do not] think that I am near the end of it.

      Comment by Mitchell Pace on May 11, 2020

      [I wonder what the world is doing now.]

      This line, definitely relevant to the start of quarantine comes to mind again now as the semester is drawing to a close. Living in New York, stay at home is set to end on the 15th, but odds are that it will be pushed back again. This quote comes to mind then due to the fact that students will be done with their work for months. The structure that has kept many of us paying attention to time will be gone. With businesses still pretty much closed and the plan to open them back up a slow process, I too wonder what the world will be doing. How many people will just sit at home trying to kill time any way possible, how many will go out and risk their health? The world is still chaotic due to COVID-19 and now, with many of us losing this sense of order, it just feels as though that wondering about the rest of the world is all we can do.

      Comment by Jose Romero on May 13, 2020

      [the catching of the dinner was as much a social exercise as the eating of it.]

      The way in which Thoreau phrases this suggests that he did not mind when he wasn’t alone, he just liked to be surrounded by people he liked, respected, and were worthy of his time. He compared baiting the fish as a social exercise much like the actual eating of it. While Thoreau lived very far away, he still engages in some sort of social activity with his companion who even visited him from the other side of the town.

      Comment by Judiah Strouse on February 25, 2022

      An interesting dialogue between Thoreau and the many poets of the time. The main topic of discussion between the two parties seems to be work, and how much work should be done to receive rewards and favors. In this case, it seems that only a minimal amount should be expected. The poet collects bait for fishing, while the hermit fishes. In the end, the two enjoy each other’s company as friends with the transaction of labor complete.

  • The Pond in Winter 11-21 (36 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [circumstances, an Achillean shore]

      Achilles was born in Thessaly, according to tradition. T is probably referring to a rugged, mountainous shore.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [first page of the almanac]

      T was probably again thinking of the Old Farmer’s Almanac, which featured these illustrations on the front cover.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [hundred men of Hyperborean extraction]

      According to Greek legend, a people who lived in a land of plenty and perpetual sunshine beyond the north wind. T may have read of them in Diodorus (2.47).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [New England Farmer]

      The New England Farmer was an agricultural journal published at Quincy Hall in Boston. There was a New England Cultivator and a Boston Cultivator, both published in Boston.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [at work here in 46-7]

      Frederic Tudor, the “ice-king” of the nineteenth century New England ice industry, and his former partner, Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, engaged in a trade war in the mid-1840s. Rather than be forced to buy ice from Wyeth, who had a monopoly of the sources, Tudor, who shipped ice all over the world, did his own harvesting at Walden Pond. When Tudor won the war, he had no need for the Walden ice, so it was left to melt on the shores of the pond (Cummings). Harding (1968) reproduces Tudor’s memo of agreement with the Fitchburg Railroad on the ice rights for Walden Pond.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [the crust of the earth]

      Jacobs points out that in the use of “undulated” T anticipates by half a century the continental-drift theories of the early twentieth century.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [summer drink in the next]

      “But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:20).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [Yankee overseers, came from Cambridge]

      About fifteen miles east of Concord on the Fitchburg Railroad.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [quarter of a mile off]

      The Goose Ponds just east of Walden.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [Thus it appears]

      Van Doren (81) feels that this final paragraph of the chapter shows the direct influence of Sir Thomas Browne in its style.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [a corresponding depth of thought]

      T here refers to one of the beliefs of phrenology, a popular pseudoscience of his day that claimed a relationship between one’s character and the shape of one’s head.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [a gentleman farmer]

      Sanborn (1909, II, 205) says T identifies this farmer as Mr. Tudor.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [the ground down toward Tartarus]

      In Greek mythology, the lowest region of the underworld.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [ninth part of a man]

      An old proverb that can be traced back at least as far as John Ray’s English Proverbs (1678): “Nine tailors make but one man.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [Deep ruts and cradle-holes]

      Small depressions in a roadway that obstruct traffic.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [vast blue fort or Valhalla]

      In Scandinavian mythology, the hall of immortality.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [we see in the almanac]

      In the 1850s, issues of the Old Farmer’s Almanac, on the January page, depict winter as an old man.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [it never got to market]

      The real reason is given in note 2, page 292.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [the ice houses at Fresh Pond]

      In Cambridge.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [the lark and the reapers]

      He is probably referring to La Fontaine’s fable (IV, 22) “The Lark and Her Young Ones with the Owner of the Field,” which Emerson speaks of at some length under the title “The Lark and the Reaper” in the Dial (III, 414). In his manuscript commonplace book, now in the Library of Congress, T mentions reading this fable in J. Payne Collier, Old Ballads (London, 1843).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [the parable of the sower]

      The parable as told by Jesus (Matthew 13).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [Calcutta, drink at my well]

      Ice harvesting was a major industry in nineteenth-century New England, and ice was shipped to all these and many other ports.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta]

      One of the major Hindu sacred writings, and one particularly admired by T.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [of the gods have elapsed]

      According to Albanese (327), the Hindus equate 360 human years to one “year of the Gods”: “In the Rig Veda, Vishnu was only a minor sun deity, but later, merging his identity with that of two other gods, he attained cosmic importance as the preserver of the world…. Indra figures prominently in earlier Indian religion but then loses most of his importance. The ascendancy of Brahma and Vishnu belongs to a later period.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [the Ganges reading the Vedas]

      The sacred scriptures of the Hindus. T would be pleased to know that the Hindus received not only ice from Walden Pond, but his own writings as well. His work had a profound influence on Gandhi and his followers. And W has been officially translated into fifteen Indian languages by the government of India.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [the fabulous islands of Atlantis]

      A fabled land now supposedly at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [the Hesperides]

      Legendary Greek islands at the western extremity of the world.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [makes the periplus of Hanno]

      Hanno, a Carthaginian explorer, went to West Africa in 480 B.C. His report, “The Periplus of Hanno,” is considered the earliest extant eyewitness report of an explorer.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [floating by Ternate and Tidore]

      “Of Ternate and Tidor, whence merchants bring / Their spicy drugs” (Milton, Paradise Lost, II, 639). They are two of the Spice Islands in the Dutch East Indies.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [in ports of which Alexander]

      Alexander the Great became the most widely traveled man of his time.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [currents concur to individualize them]

      In his copy of W, T placed a “?” in the margin by these lines.

      Comment by Molly Cavanaugh on February 25, 2014

      The Valhalla of Thoreau’s wintertime observations completely alters the mood of the piece. While a solitary Northeastern winter is generally portrayed as cold and lifeless, Thoreau views it as majestic, bright, and purposeful.

      In Norse mythology, Valhalla served a purpose much like winter. It housed the heroic dead, as winter houses the pond and its occupants, the plants, and the trees.

      However, when the time comes, the brave occupants of Valhalla are destined to rise again, just as spring once more releases the captives of winter.

      Thoreau’s exploration of this idea in a single sentence solidifies the mood The Pond in Winter produces, one of stoic awe and ancient reverence.

      Comment by Joseph Fennie on April 11, 2016

      [It may be that he lays up no treasures in this world which will cool his summer drink in the next.]

      Thoreau once again criticizes a member of the Walden community with his religious values. He chastises the man who comes proactively to gather ice for the summer. There seems to be a bit of a change in Thoreau here since the beginning of Walden. He criticizes the man for disturbing nature for his own gain. A more ecocentric view is portrayed here. It seems that Thoreau is arguing that Nature should not serve man here even when the man does something hardly destructive to the environment (although Thoreau laments over his precious fish).

      Comment by Joseph Fennie on April 11, 2016

      [Calcutta, drink at my well] Ice harvesting was a major industry in nineteenth-century New England, and ice was shipped to all these and many other ports.

      Walter Harding leaves us this convenient note, which reveals the spread of the ice industry during Thoreau’s time. Interestingly, Thoreau seems pleased by the way technology allows us to connect with the eastern Asian sphere in terms of ice commerce. He ties this back to his side of the globe being connected to the former through their philosophy and teachings, which for Thoreau seems to be a rather good use of technology. This paragraph seems then to prove that Thoreau was not fully against technology and progress, but rather that he supported such efforts which elevated mankind.

      Comment by Peter Ku on April 12, 2016

      Discussing laws of nature, and the coincidence that the deepest depth of the pond intersects the greatest length and breadth, meeting at the exact middle, reminded me of the center of mass in humans.
      The two ideas aren’t strictly related in the definition of center of mass, but the idea that COM is the point at which objects rotate, if applied to the pond, seems to be most likely where the length and breadth meet at the deepest point. This is just a thought I had after reading paragraph nine, and paragraph twelve brought me back to this idea after Thoreau discussed the laws of nature. Thoreau says if we knew all of the laws of nature, we wouldn’t need much to infer particular results, particularly in his plan on White Pond. I just wonder if he thought about applying scientific laws of nature to his questions and observations at the time.

      Comment by Clare Corbett on May 10, 2019

      [Ice is an interesting subject for contemplation. They told me that they had some in the ice-houses at Fresh Pond five years old which was as good as ever. Why is it that a bucket of water soon becomes putrid, but frozen remains sweet forever? It is commonly said that this is the difference between the affections and the intellect.]

      [Fresh Pond]

      Fresh Pond on the map:

  • Brute Neighbors 10-18 (42 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [his arrival all the Mill-dam sportsmen]

      Again, in the center of Concord.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [October afternoon]

      T notes in his Journal (IV, 380) that this happened on October 8, 1852, well after he had left Walden.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [the direction he would take]

      The Ojibway Indians did learn how to predict where a loon would surface, and thus they could keep tracking it until it was winded, making it easy to capture (Sayre, 85).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [intelligence seems reflected in them]

      A small elevation about a quarter mile north of Walden (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [I observed two large ants]

      The battle of the ants, which follows, is one of the best-known passages in W. T uses the technique of the mock heroic, describing the battle in terms of a major engagement of nations (Adams, 1955). Francis Ross examines the rhetorical procedures and the use of point of view in this section. For a detailed analysis of this section, see O’Connell.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [Myrmidons]

      The warlike people of ancient Thessaly who accompanied Achilles, their king, to the Trojan War. They are popularly identified with the descendants of the transformed ants of the legend referred to in “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” (see Hahn).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [to go by the board]

      Literally, to fall overboard.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [Conquer or die.]

      The motto of the Duke of Kent. It was also emblazoned on the flag of the Bedford Minutemen at the battle of Concord (O’Connell).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [to return with his shield]

      “Another [Spartan woman], as she handed her son his shield, exhorted him, saying, ‘Either this or upon this’” (Plutarch, Sayings of Spartan Women, 16).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [saddle-bow]

      The arched front part of a saddle.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [Kirby and Spence]

      William Kirby and William Spence, An Introduction to Entomology, (Philadelphia, 1846, 361-2). Tripp shows how T made use of the Kirby and Spence text, changing the tone from heroic to mock heroic.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [they say that Huber]

      Pierre Huber, Recherches sur les Moeurs des Fournis Indigenes (Paris, 1810, chap. V), gives the account paraphrased by Kirby and Spence (Woodson, 1975).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [fit only to course]

      Course: pursue.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [of the gerbille family]

      A member of the mouse family.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [was called a “winged cat]

      A similar cat was found in West Virginia in 1959 (Thoreau Society Bulletin 68 [1959, 1]).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [pond, Mr. Gilian Baker’s.]

      According to Richard O’Connor, Gilian Baker is not listed either in Concord’s or Lincoln’s Births, Deaths, and Marriages or in county records. It is possible that T is giving a false name. As on other occasions, perhaps he thought the person would be unhappy about having his name in print.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [was a male or female]

      Most hybrids are sterile.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 21, 2014

      [as well as his horse]

      Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology, was a favorite of the Muses, and so has come to be considered the steed of poets.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [in gigs and on foot]

      Two-wheeled, open carriages.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [have been caught in the New York lakes]

      “Not long since we saw one of those birds, loons of usual size . . . it had been caught in Seneca Lake [in upstate New York] on the hook of what fishermen call a set-line, dropped to the depth of ninety-five feet, the birds having dived that distance to reach the bait. Several others have been caught in the same manner in Seneca Lake upon lines sunk from eighty to one hundred feet” (Susan Fenimore Cooper, Rural Hours (New York, 1850, 10]). T, in his Journal for October 8, 1852 (IV, 380), says he also found this information in a newspaper.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [merely the purity of infancy]

      Again, the transcendentalist belief in the superior moral sense of the uncorrupted child.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [turtle-doves]

      Now more commonly known as mourning doves.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [perchance he was some Achilles]

      Achilles, filled with resentment against Agamemnon, refused to participate in the Trojan War. But when his friend Patroclus was killed, he went forth to battle.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the fight recorded in Concord]

      The battle of Concord, of April 19, 1775, was of course one of the most famous in American history. The names and quotations given are familiar to any student of that battle.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [was an Austerlitz or Dresden]

      The sites of two of Napoleon’s bloodiest battles.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Hotel des Invalides]

      A huge hospital for disabled veterans in Paris, built by Louis XIV.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Æneas Sylvius]

      Pseudonym of Pope Pius II (1405-1464).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [pontificate of Eugenius the Fourth]

      Pope Eugene IV (1383-1447).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [no doubt that it was a principle they]

      The Americans much resented the use of Hessian mercenaries by the British.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [a three-penny tax]

      It was this tax by the British on the colonists that helped arouse much of their resentment, which led to the Revolution.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the battle of Bunker Hill]

      In Charlestown, Massachusetts, on June 17, 1775.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [is recorded by Olaus Magnus]

      Swedish archbishop (1490-1558).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the tyrant Christiern the Second]

      A Danish king (1481-1559) who imposed himself on Sweden with great cruelty, but who was eventually driven off.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [in the Presidency of Polk]

      James Polk was president from 1845 to 1849.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Webster’s Fugitive-Slave Bill]

      Daniel Webster was not the author of the fugitive slave bill, which authorized the arrest of escaping slaves by federal marshals, but he was roundly condemned by abolitionists for his part in its passage.

      Comment by Daisy Anderson on February 20, 2015

      This paragraph is an example of something I noticed throughout Thoreau’s stay at Walden, and especially when reading Selections from the Journals: Thoreau can act very childish at times. I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way, but rather than he does things that I can easily picture a little boy doing for amusement. He narrates a fight between ants as if it were a war, collects the ants, and watches until the end. In the Journals, he takes off after wildlife simply to play with it (the woodchuck, the fox, the flying squirrel) and likes to collect animals for a day just to observe them. It’s interesting to see how living in nature seems to bring him down to a basic mentality in the same way that he uses the opportunity to ponder thoughts that a child could never understand. It’s as if he’s physically reverted to childhood, but mentally grown into a philosopher.

      Comment by Allison Fox on February 22, 2015

      I found Thoreau’s fascination with the ant fight a bit odd, since he is not a fan of guns nor does he support war. Then again, Thoreau makes it clear that the woods accentuate his savage nature e.g., he spots a woodchuck and feels the urge to “devour it raw”. I was interested in Thoreau’s comparison of the red ant to Achilles and their thirst for bloodshed and vengeance. Above, Walter Harding clarifies the allusion: Achilles, the greatest Greek warrior, refused to fight, so his cousin, Patroclus, impersonated Achilles by wearing his helmet, in order to rally the Greeks. When Patroclus was killed, Achilles returned to battle. During combat Achilles killed Hector, a Trojan prince, and attached the corpse to his chariot, and paraded it around to satiate his rage: an ultimate act of dishonor. Also, in my learning of the myth Achilles and Patroclus carried out a romantic/sexual relationship, they weren’t just cousins, which explains Achilles immense grief and anger after Patroclus’ death.

      Comment by Kelly Langer on February 23, 2015

      I find it funny that Thoreau is comparing the war of the ants to the Trojan War, a war that lasted more than ten years and several epics were written about. A war that was fought because Helen was stolen from Sparta by prince Paris of Troy, her face was the face that launched ‘a thousand ships’. He also compares it to several other wars and bloody battles, but these are just ants fighting one another for ant territory and ant food. There is a song by Say Anything entitled Yellow Cat/ Red Cat in which the lead singer Max Bemis states, “I watched my yellow cat invade my red cat in the yard/
      The feline war has raged for years, so I assume it’d be too hard/ For me to drive my foot between them, I would never risk the scratch/ Just to prove to one or both of them/ A cat is just a cat.” This is possibly what Thoreau was experiencing that the ants were fighting for some purpose, whatever that purpose may be and they were fighting for strongly for it; in the end they are just ants, but he was not going to squish them and be caught up in their war or end it to abruptly instead he became a witness to their ant war and ant battles because even after squishing them their battles will still continue. Possibly this another metaphor for getting involved in the battles of other countries and foreign affairs.

      Comment by Darby Daly on February 25, 2015

      I feel that in this scene Thoreau may be thinking too far into what he is observing. If this is his regular way of thinking towards simple situations then his amount of knowledge is limiting him in regards to his observations.

      However, it is very interesting to see the analogy of which he compared the ant battle t the Trojan war. This may be a way in which Thoreau keeps himself entertained in his solitude. If this is the case, then Thoreau’s knowledge is not necessarily limiting how he reads other real life situations, it is only enhancing his methods of pleasure.

      Comment by Alexa Krowiak on February 26, 2015

      Even though it definitely can seem as though at first glance reading this paragraph we see Thoreau just simply coming up with this very comical situation with the ants giving them human-like characteristics and names for his entertainment- but I also think this paragraph can be seen in a different way.

      Thoreau could also be making a point in playing out this scenario to tell us that we tend to become some engrossed in our own lives and all of our stresses and worries that we are not also stopping to realize that there are other things going in the world and in the nature around us that we are not taking the time to stop and see.

      Comment by Elena Vasquez on October 24, 2017

      Thoreau links two ants fighting to the American soldiers. He is able to connect human qualities and aspects to creatures in nature.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 19, 2018

      [I was witness to events of a less peaceful character. One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other’s embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noon-day prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out.]

      This description of this battle is much like humans. Previously Thoreau seems to indicate that nature is almost harmless and harmonies in a sense, but this illustration shows that it can be brutal too. So are we as humans already apart of nature? Something that Thoreau says is not yet true.

  • Visitors 12-18 (35 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [I heard that a distinguished wise man]

      Probably Emerson.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [fine poetic consciousness]

      Again, probably Emerson.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [home-made Vermont gray]

      Homespun manufactured in Vermont.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [He had soaked hemlock leaves in water]

      He is referring to the hemlock tree (tsuga canadensis) and not the hemlock plant (Cicuta maculata), which is the deadly poison Socrates drank.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [very derivation of the word pecunia]

      The Latin word for money, pecunia, is derived from pecus, cattle. 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [a biped without feathers]

      “Man is the plume-less genus of bipeds” (Plato, Politicus, 266).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [are as bottomless even as Walden Pond]

      For more on Walden’s bottom, see “The Pond in Winter.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [offering to lend them a dipper]

      In his Journal (III, 198) T tells an anecdote of two young women who borrowed his dipper and failed to return it. He then adds, “They were a disgrace to their sex and to humanity. Pariahs of the moral world.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [men from the almshouse]

      The Concord almshouse (poorhouse), on Walden Street, was just across the fields from Emerson’s house.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [so called overseers of the poor]

      In many small New England towns, the offices of overseers of the poor and selectmen were combined.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [an inoffensive, simple-minded pauper]

      Channing suggests that this might have been one David Flint. A David Flint is listed in the Concord Register with the birth date of March 28, 1791.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [humble himself was he exalted]

      “He that shall humble himself shall be exalted” (Matthew 23:12). 

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [runaway slaves with plantation manners]

      While T unquestionably aided many escaped slaves on their way to freedom in Canada, he rarely if ever used his Walden cabin for this purpose, since it was too tiny and exposed to be used for hiding slaves (Harding, 1992). Rather, he used his parents’ house on Main Street, which was much larger. Conway (1, 141) gives a vivid account of T’s aiding a slave there.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [like the fox in the fable]

      Aesop, “The Cock and the Fox.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [“O Christian, will you send me back?”]

      “The hounds are baying on my track, / O Christian! Will you send me back?” (Elizur Wright, “The Fugitive Slave to the Christian,” in George W. Clark, The Liberty Minstrel [New York, 1845]). Note that T quotes the first line outside of quotation marks.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [forward toward the northstar]

      Escaped slaves traditionally used the North Star to guide their way to Canada and freedom.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [in which visitors should write their names]

      It was common in those days for tourist sites to keep a register in which visitors signed their names. One could be found at the top of Mount Washington, in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, as early as 1824.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Girls and boys and young women]

      Willis (91-4), a friend of the Alcotts, describes his visit, as a child, with T in his cabin.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [a ramble in the woods occasionally]

      In the first edition this was misspelled “occcasionally.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [Ay! there was the rub]

      “Ay, there’s the rub” (Hamlet, III, l),

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [where Dr. B. might be on hand]

      Dr. Josiah Bartlett was a Concord physician for over half a century.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [the self-styled reformers]

      Emerson’s home in Concord was a mecca for reformers from all over the world, and T frequently met many there. T gives a vivid account of three such reformers in his Journal for June 17, 1853 (V, 263).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [that lives in the house that I built]

      T’s parody of the familiar nursery rhyme “The House that Jack Built.”

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [I did not fear the hen-harriers]

      Various hawks, particularly the red-tailed hawk, that occasionally raided farmers’ flocks.    

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [I feared the men-harriers rather]

      Federal marshals searching for fugitive slaves.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 31, 2014

      [“Welcome, Englishmen!]

      Samoset’s greeting to the Pilgrim fathers upon their arrival in Plymouth. Cooper suggests that T was referring to his English friend Thomas Cholmondeley, but he did not meet Cholmondeley until the fall of 1854, after W was published. 

      Comment by Kelly Langer on February 4, 2015

      Girls and boys and young women generally seemed glad to be in the woods. They looked in the pond and at the flowers, and improved their time.

      They enjoyed what nature had to offer while others saw no benefit in living in the woods and in solitude away from others and the community. While others saw no profit in living in the woods the girls and boys and young women enjoyed the woods for what it was, they enjoyed nature as it is not for what money it could make or not make.

      Comment by Emily Peterson on February 4, 2015

      Here we see another one of Thoreau’s contradictions. In the section “Reading”, Thoreau remarks that he doesn’t recognize a difference between the illiteracy of one who cannot read at all, and one who only reads feeble and childish texts. Yet here we see him praise a man whose only books are an almanac and an arithmetic book. Thoreau cannot decide whether this man is a genius or an idiot, yet by his original claim that reading of classics is a necessity for the intellect, surely this strange man living in the woods would fall under his umbrella of illiteracy.

      Comment by Casey Vincelette on February 5, 2015

      A philosopher has had dealings with this idea: Gottfried Leibniz’s “best of all possible worlds” theory is essentially an extrapolated version of this “No, I like it well enough” sentiment. Regardless, I think that Leibniz and the woodchopper had entirely different intentions: Leibniz was utterly concerned with the nature of the universe, and the woodchopper, as far as I can tell from Thoreau’s description, doesn’t seem to care or let such abstractions bother him. Both seem to carry a sense of peace and order though.

      Comment by Dillon Murphy on February 9, 2015

      Thoreau’s contradictions are a welcoming indication of his humanity in my reading. They’re what keep him from sounding like a grumpy curmudgeon the whole time– he speaks in extremes in both directions and allows our interpretations to fall in the middle. He praises book-smarts but he also praises those with what I think he would deem “common sense.” He often makes remarks that those who dedicate themselves to academics as opposed to truly living are lacking in this quality. His Canadian friend may be lacking in intelligence (or may be well beyond what he seems, we don’t really know) but Thoreau enjoys his company and so praises him as a decent man, one better than those whom he dislikes

      Comment by Maya Merberg on February 15, 2015

      When Thoreau writes, “Ay! there was the rub,” I was struck for the second time by his allusion to the famous Hamlet soliloquy. The first was in Economy when he wrote, “For clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal coil.” The term “mortal coil,” as far as I can tell, was coined by Shakespeare in that speech, or at least that’s its most well known context.

      Thoreau seems to think very highly of Shakespeare, as obviously most people do, but it’s refreshing in Walden to see an appreciation that contrasts so starkly Thoreau’s typical disdain. He also mentions Shakespeare directly several times; earlier in this chapter he writes, “I did not know whether he was as wise as Shakespeare or as simply ignorant as a child

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 19, 2018

      [He would sometimes exclaim, “How I love to talk! By George, I could talk all day!” I asked him once when I had not seen him for many months, if he had got a new idea this summer. “Good Lord, “said he, “a man that has to work as I do, if he does not forget the ideas he has had, he will do well. May he the man you hoe with is inclined to race; then, by gorry, your mind must be there; you think of weeds.]

      In these sentences it seems as though this man is the subject of yet another painting that Thoreau describes earlier in the  book which is that of the ‘man who is illiterate and knows nothing else but the work in which is handed to him in society. Yet in this section Thoreau seems to be debating whether there is something to see in this individual.

      Comment by Amina Diakite on September 19, 2018

      Thoreau seems to suggest that there may be intellects who may not “have the means” of showing such genius to the world because they do not how to, or it could be because structurally they are not allowed to.

      Comment by Jaffre Aether on March 3, 2020

      [ And there he was to prove the truth of his words. He was a metaphysical puzzle to me. I have rarely met a fellow-man on such promising ground,—it was so simple and sincere and so true all that he said. And, true enough, in proportion as he appeared to humble himself was he exalted. ]

      While this section of Walden is unique in relation to what we have yet read, as it deals with interpersonal relationships, I believe it tracks along the theme of the novel effectively. It is quite easy to form the misconception that Thoreau advocates for an abdication from society, but this is clearly not the case; he enjoys company, but company that is not mediated through social expectation. Thus, it is his interaction with the pauper that proves this point. He discusses the way in which people viewed the pauper and other ‘inferior men’ as folks who were marginalized due to their subtly intrinsic non-conformance with the village. It is clear Thoreau still carried this internal bias within himself, but his interaction with this group i.e. the more marginalized only further confirms what he is trying to say. Living life deliberately is not a personal task, it is a communal one. Thoreau’s interaction with the pauper was deliberate and honest, and because of that, Thoreau was able to see that the societally inscribed value of the pauper was wrong, he was authentic about himself, and that was what matters most. I really like this section, because I was afraid Thoreau would dance around how to live authentically with others, choosing only to focus on the self, but it is clear that there is a pathway towards an authentic community within these lines. In honesty, it is this section that has felt most valuable because of that.

      Comment by Emma Raupp on May 9, 2020

      Reflecting on “Visitors” as Thoreau developed it between 1846 and 1854, there is a conscious effort to celebrate those individuals on the farthest vestiges of society– not unlike Thoreau himself– and to portray them in a favorable light. He suggests different types of genius in different ways of life, and doesn’t deign to place the value of one genius over another. Thoreau’s ear is impartial. He listens to everyone and everything with equal consideration. The only criticism he offers is of those whose opinions are most often trusted unequivocally by society: ministers, doctors, lawyers, and housewives. There is no reason their words should hold more weight than anyone else’s. In fact, we should doubt their opinions most of all.

      Thoreau was a mite more critical of society in earlier versions of “Visitors”– he omits a dramatic passage from the original manuscript, wherein two young women fail to return the water dipper they borrowed from him, and he writes them off as “pariahs of the moral world.” The original ending of “Visitors” were the lines: “these are the folks that worry the man / that lives in the house that I built”, which is a rather pessimistic reaction to society. In later versions, he tailors this chapter around the surprising wisdom we stand to gain from genuine interactions with all people, especially those who are overlooked by society. At this time, Thoreau also helped harbor escaped slaves on their journey to freedom in Canada. Although this occurred for the most part at his parent’s house in Concord (because the house at Walden Pond was too small), he transposes this event to “Visitors”, commenting on the extent of his empathy almost ten years before the Civil War.

  • House-Warming 10-19 (31 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [past serving the god Terminus]

      The Roman god of fire (Vulcan) and of boundaries (Terminus). In other words, the wood was no longer good for fencing, so he burned it.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the forest borderers of England]

      William Gilpin, Remarks on Forest Scenery (Edinburgh, 1834, II, 122) (Templeman; Boudreau, 1973).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [the venison and the vert]

      Vert: forest vegetation used as food by deer.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [I had been the Lord]

      William Gilpin, Remarks on Forest Scenery (II, 101ff). T comments at length on these passages in his Journal (III, 407-8).

      A lord warden in England is in charge of protecting the wildlife and greenery of a forest.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [Michaux]

      Francois Andre Michaux, Voyage a l’ouest des monts Alleghanys … (Paris, 1808) (Christie, 288).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [I did not plaster]

      According to his Journal (1, 387), T “Left house on account of plastering, Wednesday, November 12th, at night; returned Saturday, December 6th.” As Robbins (52) points out, T showed poor judgment in waiting until freezing weather, for a freeze could have damaged the drying plaster.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [operated like a burning glass]

      A magnifying glass used to concentrate the sun’s rays to start a fire.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [might say, steal, the fuel]

      In his Journal (III, 308), T tells us that this comment was inspired by seeing the Irishman Patrick Riordan carrying home an armful of faggots.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [burned it myself by accident]

      Again T is referring to the time he and Edward Hoar accidentally set fire to the woods on Fair Haven Bay. Haddin makes a comprehensive study of the fire imagery and particularly its psychological impact on T after letting this fire get away from him.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Goody Blake and Harry Gill]

      In Wordsworth’s poem “Goody Blake and Harry Gill,” Gill seizes Blake for taking sticks from a hedge for fuel. For Wordsworth’s impact on T, and particularly on this section of W, see Moldenhauer (1990).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [the village blacksmith to “jump]

      If an ax becomes blunt and some cutting steel remains, its edge can be improved by heating and hammering it, to thin the head and lengthen it.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird]

      Icarus, in Greek mythology, was the son of Daedalus, who made him wings to fly, but Icarus flew too close to the sun, melted the wax that held his wings in place, and plunged to his death.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [as big as my hand]

      Hellenbrand thinks he sees in the associated images of fire, bed, and hand a cryptic reference to masturbation.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [cellar, nibbling every third potato]

      Teale points out that since moles are completely carnivorous, it was undoubtedly the meadow mouse that was nibbling T’s potatoes.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [easy to cut their threads]

      A reference to the three Parcae (Fates) of Greek mythology: the first held the distaff of life, the second spun out the thread, and the third cut it.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [of the Unio fluviatilis]

      The common fresh-water clam.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [might have got good limestone]

      There is still a pit where limestone was mined in the Easterbrook country north of Concord center (Gleason).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [the old wood fire talked]

      These lines are from a poem by Ellen Hooper, published in the transcendentalist Dial (1, 1840, 193). T omits the first portion of the poem and changes the stanza breaks of the portion he prints. The poet’s name did not appear in the first edition, but T added it in his own copy.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [bread and meat are sweet]

      “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant” (Proverbs 9:17).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [made an expiatory offering]

      “The following is the Roman formula to be observed in thinning a grove. A pig is to be sacrificed, and [a] … prayer uttered” (Cato, De Agri Cultura 139).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [pardon this clear flame.]

      T’s poem. For extensive analyses see Matthiessen (165-6) and Cook (1971). Cook discusses the mythological background.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [on dating from Cold Fridays]

      The Cold Friday was January 19, 1810. T collects reminiscences of it in his Journal for January 22, 1857 (IX, 230 ).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 25, 2014

      [and Great Snows]

      The Great Snow was that of December 10, 1717, a famous description of which, by Cotton Mather, T quotes in his Journal for February 3, 1856 (VIII, 163-5).

      Comment by Emily Peterson on February 22, 2015

      I find Thoreau’s fascination with the ice to be intriguing, specifically his fascination with the transparent quality of the ice. This focus on transparency immediately makes me think about Emerson’s idea of the “transparent eyeball” which he goes on to explain by writing, “I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part and particle of God.” It seems here that Thoreau understands this idea that transparency is a means of connecting with nature and surrounding yourself with it. I think that this passage reflects Thoreau’s interest in the Emersonian idea that human beings should strive for the strongest relation ship to nature as possible.

      Comment by Mary Robicheaux on October 11, 2017

      [ I withdrew yet farther into my shell, and endeavored to keep a bright fire both within my house and within my breast.]

      I admire Thoreau’s continued motivation to keep his spirits up despite not exactly enjoying the winter, as shown by “I withdrew yet farther into my shell.” He did not have a choice about keeping a fire in the house, but he could have let the fire in his heart die down. I appreciate his earnest and enthusiasm.

      Comment by Jaffre Aether on March 26, 2020

      [In this town the price of wood rises almost steadily, and the only question is, how much higher it is to be this year than it was the last.]

      This notice of wood’s price rising by Thoreau is surprisingly relevant to our current state of political existence, and especially so in the time of the coronavirus. Wood is undeniably an essential facet of 19th century living, as it used for fire and building, two notions of either sustaining a residency or creating one. Yet, this essential need (or commodity) is lifted from the woods, which is what we all inherited equally, and sold for profit on a market. Wood has obviously diminished in its use value, but the overriding manipulation of living spaces by capitalism has not. If anything, the coronavirus has not exposed the flaws in the American healthcare system, but the system of rent. Rent continually rises higher each year, pricing families and communities out of neighborhoods they helped build, so a small group of landlords can accrue more and more profit. And in linking back to Thoreau (who makes it not a point in this passage, but broadly), the woods or land is a universal right. Moreover, at least the woodchoppers are providing the service of labor, landlords merely purchase a house, take your money, and if something goes awry, uses your money to fix it. To end with, one of the major themes Thoreau is carrying through this book, or maybe its better put as a major question, is his deep mistrust of intermediaries between nature and being; why do we need social norms or commodity to regulate our authentic being? This same question is arising with the Coronavirus, as the systems of profit are stripped of their entertaining or distracting facade.

      Comment by Abigail Henry on March 26, 2020

      [The next winter I used a small cooking-stove for economy, since I did not own the forest; but it did not keep fire so well as the open fire-place. Cooking was then, for the most part, no longer a poetic, but merely a chemic process.]

      This passage not only relates to time literally – “the next winter” – but also to time figuratively. Thoreau mentions how in the past, cooking was a meticulous process. Although, as time as passed, cooking has become a job done out of pure necessity. Perhaps this is due to the arrival of new technology and simpler ways of life that have formed over time. It shows that not everything is permanent; some things are subject to change.

      Comment by Mariah Branch on May 12, 2020

      \”Cooking was then, for the most part, no longer a poetic, but merely a chemic process.\”

      As Thoreau recalls, people spent time becoming the best at their craft and that includes cooking. Now, as he describes, cooking has become a necessary process that we do simply for our survival. I disagree with Thoreau\’s notions as we have access to an abundance of resources – including time (and Youtube). To me, cooking and baking have become more like hobbies that certain people choose to spend their time perfecting. Society is no longer bound by what is physically accessible to them, I can order fruits and vegetables that could never be grown in this country online if I wanted to. It is just a matter of how many people are taking the time to learn these things and consider them to be valuable.

      Comment by Priscilla Ford on May 20, 2020

      I would like to compare this paragraph to the situations we are living in due to the COVID 19 pandemic. What struck out to me first glance was when Thoreau said: “It is remarkable what value is still put upon wood even in this age…” This compares to the value put on hand sanitizer, cleaning supplies, and masks. In light of the pandemic, everything has been sold out and people are willing to pay triple the price just to get some of these “valuables.” In fact, while crazy, even toilet paper because of an extreme valuable that was completely sold out everywhere. People could gather these supplies in bulk and sell them for triple the price to needy people. These were worth value. “Neither could I do without them,” Thoreau says. Neither can we do without them, the United States says.

      Comment by Jada Ramsey on October 25, 2021

      [It is now many years that men have resorted to the forest for fuel and the materials of the arts;]

      *

      Comment by Jada Ramsey on October 25, 2021

      *

  • Title Page - 1854 Edition (6 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 3, 2014

      [WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS]

      Although the first edition gives the title Walden; or, Life in the Woods, on March 4, 1862, two months before he died, T wrote to his publishers, Ticknor & Fields, asking them to omit the subtitle in a new edition. They complied with this request, although it has rarely been followed since. Paul (75) suggests that T may have dropped the subtitle because he feared his audience was taking it too literally and thus missing the more important philosophy permeating the book. T could have derived the subtitle from his friend Charles Lane’s essay “Life in the Woods” in the Dial (IV, 1844, 415) or from John S. Williams, “Our Cabin; or, Life in the Woods” in the October 1843 American Pioneer (DeMott), but not from the then popular The Adirondack; or Life in the Woods, by J.T. Headley (New York, 1849), which did not appear until after T had used the subtitle in an advertisement for W in the back pages of the first edition of A Week. For a comprehensive study of the types of books on which T based the structure of W, see Linck Johnson. For a discussion of the organic structure of W, see Lane (1960). Kurtz is one o the most straightforward analyses of W’s style.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 3, 2014

      The drawing of T’s cabin was made by his sister Sophia, an amateur artist. T himself complained of it, “Thoreau would suggest a little alteration, chiefly in the door, in the wide projection of the roof at the front; and that the bank more immediately about the house be brought out more distinctly” (Sanborn, 1917, 338). Sanborn adds, “He must have noticed that her trees were first and pines, with a few deciduous tress that did not then grow there.” Ellery Channing thought it a “feeble caricature.” Other contemporary drawings of the cabin may be found in Meltzer and Harding (144-5).

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 3, 2014

      [to wake my neighbors up]

      The epigraph is quoted from the second chapter of W. It is omitted from many modern editions, and unfortunately so, for it sets the mood for the whole book. Broderick (1954) points out how this awakening and morning theme is a basic image carried throughout W. A possible source for T’s idea is Orestes Brownson’s statement in his Boston Quarterly Review in 1839 that he “aimed to startle, and made it a point to be as paradoxical and extravagant as he could.”

      Comment by Keith Badger on December 17, 2014

      Is there any possibility of Thoreau borrowing from the Christian tradition and positing “the woods” as a corollary of “wilderness”, where the demons (in us) are often portrayed and living? To reach one’s “higher self”, one must wake up inwardly to those elements that lead the soul (psychological and emotional state) astray.

      Comment by Mark Gallagher on February 17, 2019

      In his new book, Cryptic Subtexts in Literature and Film: Secret Messages and Buried Treasure (New York: Routledge, 2019), Steven F. Walker offers a new interpretation of Walden’s 1854 subtitle, “Life in the Woods.” It is well known that that subtitle was hardly original, having appeared in several publications prior to the publication of Walden, including an article of that name by Charles Lane which appears in the final issue of The Dial. Walker grants that Thoreau may have used the title “ironically,” that is, “as a vigorous rejoinder to the thesis of Lane’s Dial essay” (13). More intriguing, however, is Walker’s argument that Thoreau may have associated “life in the woods” with a phase of life known in Hindu as “vanaprastha” (literally translated as “life in the woods”)—“the third stage of life—that of the solitary, contemplative hermit living in the forest on the outskirts of the village—as described in The Laws of Manu” (14) which Thoreau read in Emerson’s library in 1840. “Such a new framing,” Walker says, “certainly provides a new perspective on Thoreau’s life-in-the-woods enterprise, which, for all its Yankee originality, also can be seen as a spiritual retreat based on an ancient Hindu paradigm of the stages of life” (16).

      Comment by Caroline Crimmins on February 12, 2020

      Caroline Crimmins
      Paragraph 1: Last semester I took Professor Cooper’s English 368 Connections in Recent Literature: Unplugged and ParaDigitial class and examined the relationship between books and technology. On the first day of class, we talked about how Thoreau was actually much closer to civilization than it seems in his writing. Although I cannot find the original map that I saw on my first day of class, this map also demonstrates that even though Thoreau was somewhat “tucked away” he was still decently close to civilization. He talks about occasionally catching people off the train to hear the town’s gossip, something he cannot resist. He also mentions occasionally wandering into town for the human connection that he sometimes yearned for. I believe that this is an interesting point to bring into his first chapter “Economy” because he talks to the reader about how he builds his own house that is meant to be so distant from society but in reality it is quite the opposite. This relates strongly to technology today because even people that claim they want to be distant from the innovations we are creating as a society are still somehow connected to technology in some way. Technology has a huge influence on our society and there is almost no way of having total seclusion from the world or from the devices we have invented and are still working on today.
       

  • Complemental Verses (5 comments)

    • Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 22, 2014

      [COMPLEMENTAL VERSES]

      This poem was taken from the Cavalier poet Thomas Carew’s masque Coelum Britannicum. They are the words of Mercury after “the fifth anti-masque of Gipsies.” They are “complemental,” rounding out a one-sided view of things. Bickman (51) says this poem has “been inserted not to support or amplify a text but, rather to disagree with or qualify it. It provides literally another voice from that of the author, asking the reader to consider also the obverse of everything just said.” Gozzi (1964) argues that T is presenting the argument that one needs spirituality as well as poverty for the ideal life.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [And, Gorgon-like]

      Any of three snake-haired sisters in Greek mythology whose glance changed the beholder to stone

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Achilles]

      In Homer’s Iliad, the Greek hero of the Trojan War.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 23, 2014

      [Theseus]

      In Greek legend, Theseus is famed for killing the Minotaur.

      Comment by Walter Harding (1917-1996) on January 24, 2014

      [THE PRETENSIONS OF POVERTY]

      This title is T’s own.

  • How To Read This Text (4 comments)

    • Comment by Digital Thoreau on March 30, 2016

      [ show you what other readers have been saying about Walden.]

      When you mouse over a reader’s comment, text that the reader has selected for commentary will appear highlighted. The selected text will also appear in boldface at the top of the comment.

      Comment by Digital Thoreau on March 30, 2016

      [if you begin by selecting some text in the paragraph with your cursor]

      You can use the tools at the top of the comment box to add some formatting to your comment and include links to other websites, other paragraphs in the text, such as paragraph 8 of the chapter “Reading,” and even other comments, such as Walter Harding’s comment on the town named “Reading” in “Reading” par. 8. You can embed some types of media in your comments – such as the video from Vimeo below – by merely pasting the embed code into the box.

      Comment by Digital Thoreau on March 30, 2016

      [Press “Filter Comments by Group” to bring up a list of all public groups and groups to which you belong]

      Tip: If you belong to many groups, uncheck “Show All Groups” at the top of the list, then select only the groups whose comments you’d like to view. Remember that another way to narrow the range of comments you see is to look under the “Activity” tag, where you can use the buttons to view only the most recent comments on a page or in the text, or to view only comments by readers you’ve “friended” in the network.

      Comment by Digital Thoreau on April 5, 2016

      [Longer chapters (for example, “Economy”) have been divided into two or more pages.]

      You can move forward to the next page or back to the previous by either returning to the left navigation menu or using the arrows at the top and bottom of the page.

Source: https://commons.digitalthoreau.org/walden/all-comments/