咖乐美咖啡机1603使用方法

在我写下文那时——确切地讲，应该是文章的主体部分，独自住在森林里，跟最近的邻居也有一英里地的距离，我住的房子是我自己建造的，在麻萨诸塞州瓦尔登湖畔上，与大自然和谐相处，我靠自己的双手维持生计，并在那里住了两年零两个月。目前，我又恢复了惬意无比的旅居生活。

我不想让读者对我太过关注从而把我的生活搞得一团糟，镇上的人不要对我的生活方式过多地问询，这么讲可能有点不礼貌，在我看来，他们不是太过唐突，宏观来看，大家都非常纯朴非常礼貌。有人问我吃了什么，是否觉得孤单；是否害怕等等；也有人好奇我把多少收入投入了慈善事业；我供养了多少大家庭中的孩子。因此，如果本书中有我没回答到的问题，我请求那些对我没有特别兴趣的读者朋友们原谅。在大部分书中，没有用到“我”或“第一人称”；本书有；本书的自我主义是与其他书最大的区别。我们通常不记得这一点，毕竟，总是以第一人称在讲述。如果那里有我比较了解的人的话，我是不会谈论太多自己的话题的。可惜，以我狭隘的人生经验，我只能受限于这一主题。

此外，我以个人观点建议每一个作家，无论好坏，都要纯粹而真诚地写一下自己的生活，不只是听写他人的生活；有人会写生活在远离亲人的异国他乡；倘若他虔诚地生活，那肯定跟我一样生活在偏远之地。或许这些文字更可能是写给穷学生的。对其他读者来讲，他们会接受这个部分的。我相信没有人填补这个缝隙，写过这样的书，因为这本书可能是为某人量身打造的。

我非常高兴，读这些文字的人，不管是中国人还是麻萨诸塞州桑威奇岛上的人，或者是住在新英格兰的人，也无论你贫富，无论你身份如何，背景怎样，无论你在这个小镇上，还是在小镇之外，无论这个世界是什么样，不管它这幅糟糕的样子是否为其必然，也不管是否它能得以改善。我的日子大部分时间过得极为和谐，在任何地方，商店，工作室，田间。我发现这里的居民以各种不同的方式过着苦哈哈的日子，像是赎罪一样。听说，婆罗门教的教徒周身围火朝着太阳仰面而坐，或头朝下，脚朝上，倒挂在火上烘烤，或者扭动脖子凝视天堂，直到他们的身体无法恢复原状，只能吃流质食物为止；或者用锁链把脚铐在一棵树上终其一生；或者像毛毛虫一样用身体丈量大帝国的广度；或是单脚站在柱子顶端——而我日常所见景象与这些刻意而为之的苦事相比，有过之而无不及。赫拉克勒斯的12件难差都不足以与我的邻居们所做的事情相比较；因为那只是12件，是有盼头的；但是我从没看到这些男人猎杀或捕获过任何怪物，或是完成过一件苦差事。他们没有伊奥劳斯这样的朋友用烫熨斗去烧九头蛇怪海德拉长头的根部，以防打坎掉一个头，又会冒出两个来。

我看到镇上那些年轻男子的不幸来源于继承的农场，房屋，畜棚，牛，以及农具；获得这些东西要比丢掉容易得多。假如他们重新出生在空旷的牧场，由一只狼给他们喂奶，或许他们可以更清楚地看到自己被唤往怎样的田地里劳动，是谁给他们划分的土地？为何有人能享有60英亩土地的供养，他们只能吃土却还要受到谴责？为什么他们一出生就要自掘坟墓？人就应该过人的生活，跟好运气撞个满怀，尽己所能把日子过得好一点。我见过多少糟糕的灵魂近乎苦萎，在人生之路上负重蠕动，推动着它前面那75英尺长，40英尺宽的大谷仓，一个从未被清洗过的奥吉亚斯牛圈，和100英亩土地，耕种、锄草、放牧、还要护林！纵然没有财产继承权的人落得一身轻松，没有这些累赘，也得为了养活几立方英尺的凡胎肉身，加足马力憋屈度日啊。

人们只是在错误中劳作。矫健的身躯很快被梨头耕过，化为泥土中的肥料。正如古书中所言，他们的命运极为相似，通常这称之为一种必然性，他们被雇用，储存财富，这些财富遭到飞蛾和锈斑吞噬，并遭到小偷盗窃。这是一个愚蠢的生命，或许他们生前不明白，那么到生命最后的日子终会明白的。据说希腊神话中，杜卡利翁和皮拉夫妇从头顶向身后扔石头创造了人类，有诗云：——从此，人类成为坚硬之物，任劳任怨，

证明我们的身体本是岩石

与罗利咏汉的诗句有异曲同工之妙——

“从此，我们柔软而坚硬，历尽千帆，

证明我们的身体如石般坚硬。”

对错误的神谕如此盲目遵从，从头顶向后抛石头，从来不看石头所落何处。

大多数人，即使在这个相对自由的国度，单凭无知与错误，满载着虚幻的忧虑，忙于没完没了的粗活，即便这样，也从来摘取不到生命的硕果。他们的手指，由于过度劳苦，变得粗糙僵硬，抖动不止，对于摘取果实已经无能为力了。其实，辛劳的人们，日复一日，根本无暇顾及自己真正的完好性；他无法与人维系最坚毅的关系，他的劳动一到市场就贬值。他没有时间做别的，只是一台不停运转的机器。他怎能清楚地记得自己的无知呢——他完全仰仗无知而成长——谁会经常动脑子呢？在我们对他进行评价前，我们应该解决他们的温饱问题，用我们的热情滋养他们，那是我们的优良品质，正如果实表皮那层保护膜一样，需要精心料理才能得以完好保存，可往往我们对人对己都没有那么温和。

我们很清楚，许多人的生活很艰难，有时候，可以说是连呼吸都困难。我不怀疑本书的读者中，有人连吃下肚的晚餐钱都付不了，或者付不起穿在身上的衣服和鞋子钱，再或者是早已一身褴褛，能读到这几页文字还得借点或者偷点时间，从债主那里偷取一小时。显然，你们是过着多么东躲西藏的糟糕生活，我的亲身经历让我更加明白，生活上捉襟见肘，就要拼命工作，努力还债，身陷古老的泥沼中，拉丁文称之为“aes alienum”，意为“别人的铜币中”，为别人挣钱；在别人的铜币的奴役下，活着，死去，归于尘土；总是保证明天还，明天还，今天就死掉了，债务还未偿清；不知用了多少法子，点头哈腰低三下四说上一箩筐好话，请求体谅，总算没有进监狱；撒谎，拍马屁，投票，把自己萎缩到谄媚的小果壳里，或者吹牛把自己吹到大气里，直到哗一下蒸发为无有，或许你说服你的邻居让你帮他做鞋子，或缝帽子，或做外套，或做辆车，或帮他代买食品；奔忙中你把自己熬出病了，你可能攒钱为了抗过患病的日子，你们把钱塞进旧箱子里，或者藏在抹灰墙后，或者，更安全一点，放在银行的砖房里；无论存放在哪里，无论藏了多少，或者无论少得有多可怜。

我有时候会诧异我们竟会如此愚不可及，我几乎要说，居然实行罪恶滔天的，从外国引进的黑人奴隶制，有这么多头脑精明的奴隶主，奴役奴隶们达到南北通吃的地步。而且几乎看不到一个南方的奴役监守人；有个北方的监守人简直是糟透了；但是最糟糕的莫过于人去奴役自己。还谈什么人类的神圣与伟大！看看公路上的赶马人，日夜兼程赶往市场的路上；在他的内心，有什么神圣的思想在萌动呢？一个把喂马和饮马视为最高使命的人！与运输利益相比，他的命运算什么？还不是给一位繁忙的绅士赶车吗？他有何神圣，有何不朽可言呢？看看他有多畏首畏尾，有多战战兢兢，既不能不朽也不神圣，而是自己思想的奴隶和囚犯，他所干的行业就挣来这么个名声。公众思想与个人思想相比，公众思想就是个无能的暴君。一个人对自己的思考才能决定，或者准确地印证他的命运。即使在印度西部地区谈论心灵与想象的自我解放——那里何来一个带来光明的威伯福斯呢？想想看，这片土地上的女人们编织着梳妆用的坐垫等死，一点都不关心自己的命运！仿佛蹉跎岁月与永恒无伤呢。

大多数人过着死灭槁木一般的生活。所谓的听天由命，是一种得到证实的绝望。小到绝望的城市，大到绝望的国家。他们以水貂和麝鼠的勇毅来宽慰自己。被固化的思想和潜意识里的绝望深埋于所谓的人类游戏与娱乐之下。他们不玩儿，因为玩儿这种事情是下班之后做的事情，不过，不做绝望的事，才是智慧的一种表征。

在我们用教理问答提出人生最好的结局是什么，以及生命的真谛和意义是什么时，人们似乎谨慎地选择了生活的共通模式，因为在他们眼里，没有什么能与之相比拟的。他们知道自己别无选择，机警健康的人都知道太阳终古常新。摒弃偏见从来都不晚。无论多么古老的思想和行为，没有考证就不可相信。今天的每个人，要么在重复中度日，要么在沉默中生活，或许明天会成为一种虚幻，思想如烟般虚无飘渺，有人将其寄希望于能给他们的土地泼洒雨水的一片乌云。老人们说你做不到的那些事，你发现你能做到。老人有老一套，新人有新一套。老人们根本不知道让火苗得以为继就要注入新的燃料；年轻人在锅底加点干木头，像小鸟一样在地球上盘旋，谚语称之为“气死老头子”。这个时代也好不到哪里去，老年人还没达到指导年轻人的地步，因为他们收获的并没有失去的多。我们几乎要怀疑，即使最聪明的人，是否已经收获了地地道道的生命价值呢。实际上，老年人根本没有什么可给年轻人的重要忠告，他们自己的经验尚且支离破碎，且他们的生活又是如此沦为惨痛的失败，他们一定承认这一切是自己造成的；也许他们拥有某些信仰，这信仰与他们的经历是相悖的，可惜，他们不同以往那么年轻力壮了。我在这个星球上已经生活了约有30年了，还没听家里的长辈讲过一些有价值的甚至是严肃的建议。他们什么都没告诉过我，可能是讲不出什么中肯的建议吧，这是我还没有充分体验过的生活，老年人体验过了，但却于我无用。如果我得到了个人认为有价值的人生经验，我一定会这样想，这个嘛，前辈们可没有讲过。

一位农夫对我说，“你不能只靠蔬菜生活，因为蔬菜没有骨头所需的养分”；他虔诚地花时间奉上自己的骨骼，跟在靠吃草长骨头的牛身后，边走边说，尽管田地凹凸不平，牛在前面拉着他和笨重的耕地犁一路前行。有些东西在某些圈子里—譬如最无助的病人中——是必需品，在另外的圈子却成了奢侈，再换成别的圈子，又成了闻所未闻的东西。

对一些人来说，人们赖以生存的所有土地，都已被他们的先辈走过了，高山、溪谷、等等所有这些东西都受到了先辈们的关怀和爱戴。约翰·伊夫林（1620-1706,英国作家和园艺家）曾说过，“睿智的所罗门规定树木之间应有的距离；罗马长官也曾规定，你多久可以光顾邻国的土地捡拾那落下来的橡子，这么做既不算非法入侵，又保证了应该属于邻国的份额。”希波克拉底（公元前460-公元前约377,希腊名医，号称医药之父）甚至留下了教我们如何剪指甲的方法；要剪得不长不短，与手指头齐平，毋庸置疑，枯燥与乏味会僭越耗尽生命的多彩与快乐，这种事情可与亚当（《圣经》中上帝所造的第一人）的年龄相匹敌。但是人的能力从未被准确地测定过，我们也无法通过往事去判定人类能做什么，因此被突破的事情少之又少。目前为止，无论你有多么失败，“不要懊恼，我的孩子，因为哪有人会叫你做你没做过的事情呢？”

我们可能会用一千种法子浅偿生活；譬如说，向地球洒下光辉，使我的豆子成熟的，和照耀着太阳系内所有星球的，是同一个太阳。如果我早明了这个道理，就能避免某些错误。可惜，我锄地的时候这束光没有照进我的思想。挂于穹顶之上的星斗亦散发着点点星光！遍布世界各个角落的不同物种正在同一时刻想着同一件事情！自然及人生，如同我们的几项章程一样，变化无常。谁能妄言他人的生命有什么样的可能？还有什么比瞬间洞悉彼此的眼神更伟大的奇迹吗？我们本应在一小时之内，就经历这世上的所有时代；哦，时代的所有世界，其中包括历史，诗歌，神话！——我不知道，品读哪个人的经历会有这些描述更惊人更广阔呢。

凡是我的邻居们认为还不错的，大部分我却觉得不怎么样，如果有什么要我反思的，大概就是我做人的堂堂正正了吧。我这般贤德，会有什么样的促狭鬼得空绊我一绊呢？你也许会讲最聪明的话，老人家—您活了七十岁，过得也算体面—可我却听到一个美妙的声音，叫我远远地躲开这一切。一代人摒弃上一代人的精神，犹如抛弃搁浅了的船一样。

我认为，我们坚定地相信要远胜于我们相信。我们在别处真诚地给予付出时，可能常常忽略了对自我的关怀。大自然既能包容我们的长处，也能包容我们的弱点。持续的愁闷和压力几乎成了不治之症。我们天生就爱夸大工作的重要性；且说我们有多少没有做的工作？或者说，倘若我们生病了怎么办？我们是多么谨小慎微啊！如果可以绕开信仰，我们就决定不靠它生活；白天我们都绷得紧紧的，晚上我们违心地为自己祈祷，却把自己交给命运。因此，我们彻彻底底的被迫求生存，一面敬畏我们的生命，一面又否认改变的可能性。我们说，只能这样活着；然而，办法如同一个圆的半径那么多。一切改变皆为需要思考的奇迹；可是，这个奇迹发生的可能性是那么遥不可及。孔子说过，“知之为知之，不知为不知，是知也。”只要有一人把想象的事实当作自己理解的事实，我料想，所有的人最终都在那个基础上建设自己的生活。

让我们稍微想一下，我指出来的大部分烦恼和愁虑是什么，我们为之愁烦的必要有多大，或者至少还得小心谨慎的必要有多大。尽管向外在文明迈进，如果仅仅是了解生活所需是什么，用什么方法来获得这些东西；或者查阅有关商人的古书，看看那时候的人们在商店里最常购买的东西是什么，商店里存什么货，毛利最大的食品杂货是什么的话，对于过一种原生态的远古生活倒是大有裨益。时代在进步，人类生存的基本法则却几乎没有多大影响，就像我们的骨骼，古今无不同。

我的理解是，所谓生活必需品，是人类通过自己努力而来的一切，换句话说，它从一开始起（或者经过长期使用的），真正对人类特别重要的却很少，很多人，无论是出于野蛮、贫穷，还是哲学的原因，是不靠它生活的。不过，有一样必需品必不可少，那就是食物。对于原野上的野牛而言，如果他找不到森林或山阴处的栖身之地，那他的必需品就是几英寸高的嫩草和可以饮用的水。野兽需要的，不外乎就是食物和栖身之处。准确来讲，在这种气候下，人类的必需品分为这么几大类：食物，居所，衣服，和燃料；只有满足这些基本需求，我们才有自由享受真正的人生，并追求成功。人类的发明创造，不仅限于房屋，还有衣服和熟食；也许是偶然发现火可以取暖，便加以利用它，起初，用火是一种奢侈，最终发展为现在唾手可得的必需品。我们发现，猫和狗也有第二天性。只要住得舒服，穿得恰当，无疑我们就会暖和；但是，如果我们住的地方太热，穿得太厚，或者燃料加得太多，外部的热量就大大超过了我们体内的热量，那不等于烘烤人体吗？自然科学家达尔文说，在他自己开派对时，火地岛上那些穿得很厚实的土著居民坐得离火炉很近也不觉得热，他惊讶地看到，在远处的那些一丝不挂的野蛮人“在这样的烘烤之下，身上却淌着汗。”因此，我们被告知，赤身裸体的新荷兰人若无其事地走来走去，欧洲人却冻得在自己的衣服里瑟瑟发抖。难道不能实现兼具野蛮人的结实和文明人的智慧吗？据德国化学家李比希所言，人体是一个火炉，食物作为燃料，维持肺里的消耗。天气冷我们就吃得多，天气暖我们就吃得少。动物的热量消耗得很慢，如果热量消耗得快，疾病和死亡就找上门了；或者换句话说，缺乏燃料，或通风有问题，火就会熄灭。当然，生命的热量不可与火混为一谈；不过大致类似。因此，从上述内容来看，动物的生命几乎等同于动物的体温；因为，可以把食物当作燃料来维持身体的热量——而燃料会用来烹煮食物，或者以外部添加的方式来取暖——住所和衣服也是这样产生和吸收热能的。

因此，人体最大的需求就是要保暖，要保有维持生命的热量。我们为此会相应地历尽艰辛，不仅要有吃的、穿的、和住的，还要有床，床品是我们的睡衣，攫取鸟巢里和鸟儿胸脯上的羽毛，在一个栖身地里打造另一个栖身地，如同鼹鼠在自己的地洞尽头做了一个茅草窝一样！穷人成天抱怨这个世界的寒冷，然而肉体上的冷并不比社会冷，我们坦率地指出自身的很多弊病。夏天，有些气候区，可以说是让人类过上了神仙日子。除了烹煮食物，燃料没有什么使用的必要了；阳光普照大地，很多水果在它的照耀下熟透了；通常，食物的花样越发多了，也容易得到，衣服和房子完全用不到或者部分用不到了。现如今，在这个国度，我看到劳动人民的一些工具：一把刀，一把斧子，一把锹，一辆独轮手推车等等，灯光，文具，和几本书，这些归于次要物品了，可是这些东西总共也花不了几个钱 。曾有那么一些人，真是不够聪明，跑去地球的另一边，到那些环境恶劣，又不卫生的地区，把自己投入到生意中，10或20年就过去了，他们可能为了谋生——把日子过得温暖舒适——最终客死新英格兰。富豪们获得的，不足以用舒适温暖来形容，而是热得异常；正如我前文提到的，他们简直是在烘烤中度日，当然，是时髦感地烘烤。

多数奢侈品以及所谓的舒适生活用品并非不可或缺，还极大地妨碍人类进步。就奢侈和舒适度而言，较之穷人，最睿智的人的生活则过得更为简单朴素。中国、印度、波斯、和希腊的先哲们之思想不谋而合，外在，他们过得比谁都清贫；内里，他们却比谁都富有。我们对他们知之甚少。显然，我们又知道不少。近代改革者与民族救星亦是如此。人唯有站在自甘清贫的位置，方能公正睿智地观察人类生活。无论在农业，商业，文学还是艺术界，奢侈生活结出的果实仍是奢侈。时下很多哲学教授并非哲学家。只因教授曾一度过着令人羡慕的生活，教授便令人羡慕不已。要成为哲学家，不仅要有睿智的思想，甚至于建立一个学派，且热爱智慧，以至于智慧地生活，过一种纯粹、独立、达观和充满希望的生活。哲学是解学人生问题，不仅仅在理论上，还要体现在实践中。学者和思想家取得的巨大成功通常类似于侍者式的成功，不是王者式的，也非强者式的。他们只是遵从流俗，生活上做了一个转变，实际上，同父辈们一般无二，更谈不上成为促进人类伟大进步的先驱了。那人类为什么退化了呢？什么使得许多家族败落呢？什么是摧毁民族的奢侈本质？难道我们能保证自己的生活中没有奢侈吗？而哲学家超越了他的年龄，甚至是超越了他生命的外在形式。他的衣食住行不同于同时代的人。一个人既然做了哲学家，岂能没有比别人更好的办法来维持他生命的热量呢？

一个人有了我讲过的若干方式保暖时，他接下来需要什么呢？当然不是要更多温暖、更多更丰富的食物、更大更豪华的房子、更好更多的衣服、更多更持久更旺盛的火苗等等诸如此类的东西。他得到这些生活必需品时，就不会再要那些剩余物品了，而是有了其他选择；那就是，从卑微的苦力中解脱，开始度假，经历生命中的奇遇。似乎这里的泥土很适合种子生长，因为它的根奋力地往土里钻，它的芽玩强不屈地透到地面上来。人类把自己牢牢地扎根于土地，为什么就不能同样恰如其分地上升到天空中去呢？——因为，名贵植物的价值是由远离地面、在空气和阳光的恩赐下结出的果实来评定的，不可与低矮的蔬菜相提并论，那些蔬菜，即使是两年生的品种，也只被栽培到把根扎好为止，为了长得好，顶上的枝头通常会被剪掉，因此，到了花季，人们多半很难区分它们彼此了。

我没有要给坚定果敢的人立什么条条框框的意思，无论在天堂还是地狱，他们只在乎自己的事情，也许会建造比富豪们的还要阔气的房子，花销也大得惊人，并没有因此而穷困潦倒，真不知道他们是怎样过日子的——如果的确像人们梦想的那样，有这样的人，我也不会去建议他们一二，他们从现实境况中获得鼓舞和灵感，对现状爱得如胶似漆——且某种程度上，我认为自己也属于这一类人；我不想对那些无论处于什么境况都安于现状的人说些什么，反正人家知道自己的境况究竟如何——主要是对那些不满足于现状的人说，他们本可以改善自己的生活，但他们白白地把自己耗在了抱怨自己的命运不济，时事艰难上。有些人苦兮兮地不知疲倦地抱怨一切事物，因为，他们——用他们自己的话说——应该这样做。在我心目中，还有一种人表面看起来很富有，但实质上穷得很，他们积攒了一点废铜烂铁，却不知道如何去运用，或者干脆丢掉，就这样不觉间给自己上了金镣铐或者银镣铐。倘若我一说我过去是怎样按自己的意愿打发日子的，可能会让对我的过去略有了解的读者们欣喜不已；肯定会让那些一无所知的人大吃一惊。我就略略谈一谈我特别喜欢的事情吧。不管天气怎样，我日日夜夜时时刻刻都在考虑改善眼下的境况，并在拐杖上刻下记号；站在过去和未来这两个永恒的交汇点上，确切地说，正是现在这一时刻；我也是脚尖点着起跑线。请原谅，有些话比较晦涩，因为，较之大多数人，我的工作更为神秘，不是我存心要保密，之所以这样，是因为这跟工作的性质有密切关系。我愿意分享我知道的一切，永远不会在我的大门上写出“不准入内”几个字。

很久以前，我丢了一只猎狗，一只棕色马，和一只斑鸠，而且我至今还在寻找它们的路上。我向许多游客打听它们的下落，讲了呼唤它们的声音。曾有一两个人说他们听到过狗吠声和马蹄声，甚至还看见过消失在云端的斑鸠，他们看起来很焦急地要找回它们，就好像是他们丢失了自己的东西似的。特别期望，哪怕不能看到日出的壮美，只看看清晨的样子也好，如果可能，还可以欣赏大自然的本色！无论严寒酷暑，多少个清晨，邻居还未曾起床忙活自己的营生，我已经在矿上了！无疑，镇上的很多居民曾见我下班回家，有要赶在天黑前到达波士顿的农夫，也有忙着去砍柴的樵夫。说真的，我从没在太阳升起的时刻助它一臂之力，但是，请不要怀疑，只要赶在日出之前到达矿场，这已经是无足轻重的事情了。

多少个秋冬，我都在镇外度过，试图聆听风中的声音，并把它传递出去！我为此几乎投入了所有的资金，把气力全用在了生意上，顶着风奔波劳碌。倘若有这样那样的有关党派的风声，那肯定会成为最新消息登在公报上。其他时间，我守候在峭壁或树旁的天文观测台上，给新人发送电报；或者傍晚时分，站在小山丘上，等待幕色降临，我可能会捕捉到些什么，尽管我从来没捕捉到过多少东西，且这本就不多的东西就像天赐的吗哪一样，会再次在阳光下消溶于无形。

很长一段时间，我在一家杂志社当记者，杂志的发行量不是很大，我的信息量却很大，杂志社的编辑从来不觉得我的稿子适于出版，这对于作家们来说是再稀松平常不过了，我的辛勤劳动换来的只有痛苦。然而，这种情形下，我的痛苦却是它自身的回馈。

多年来，我自封为暴风雪和暴风雨预测员，且我忠于职守；我还兼任测量员，测查公路以外的森林小道和所有交叉道路是否畅通无阻，我还测查过四季通行的峡谷桥梁，道桥上公众川流不息，足以证实它们具有很高的利用率。

我曾负责照看过镇上还没驯化的牲畜，它们常常逃离栅栏，这可让一个尽忠职守的牧人吃尽了苦头；我还得留意它们有没有躲在农场的某个僻静处或角落里；尽管我不清楚约拿和所罗门有没有在某块田地里干活；这本不关我的事。我还负责给红色的越橘、沙樱、荨麻树、红松、黑梣树，白葡萄和黄色紫罗兰浇水，要不然这些植物在干旱季节会干枯而死。

总之，我就这么着在那干了很长时间，我可以毫不夸张地说，我一直尽心尽力尽职尽责，直到后来事态越来越明显，我的乡邻们根本不把我放在本镇公职人员之列，也不给我挂个有合理津贴的闲职。我发誓，我的帐目绝对真实可靠，当然，从来没有人去审计过，更遑论认可了，我的薪水依然微薄，事情就这么着了。好在我心大，根本没把这事儿搁在心上。

自那以后没多久，一个四处漂泊的印第安人到我附近的一个知民律师家卖篮子。“你要买篮子吗？”他问道，“不，我们不需要，”有人答道。“天哪！”印第安人一面往大门外走，一面叫道，“你的意思是要把我们饿死吗？”他看见那些勤劳的白人邻居们过得如此滋润富有——律师只是编排一些话，像变魔术似的，财富和地位就跟着来了——印第安人自言自语道：我要做点生意；我要去编篮子；编这玩意儿我准行。他认为他编好篮子，就大功告成了，然后白人会买下他的篮子。他没有察觉到对他来说很有必要的一件事，就是让别人觉得值得购买，或者换句话说，至少让人有这种值得买下篮子的想法，要不然就做点别的让人真真觉得值得买下的东西。我也编过一种质地精美的篮子，但是我没有做到让任何白人觉得一看就想买的地步。可我一点儿也不觉得编篮子值得我去花时间，我不是琢磨怎样让人觉得值得购买我的篮子，而是研究干嘛非要卖篮子。人们夸赞和认为成功的生活只是生活的其中一种罢了。我们为什么要贬低另一种生活来夸大某一种生活呢？

发现我的乡亲们不可能给我在法院留一席之地了，也不会给个助理牧师职位，或者别的糊口生计做做，于是，我只好另谋出路，我要比往日更专注地把脸转向森林，我对那里的一花一木有很深的情感。我决定立马做生意，不等筹措资金到位，就带上我已经赚到的这点小钱奔向瓦尔登湖。我的初衷既不是为了在那过俭朴生活，也不是为了在那儿过奢侈日子，而是做点烦恼最小化的私人买卖；没一点基本的业务常识和生意头脑，一路上困难重重，即使一筹莫展，似乎也没有太悲观。

我一直竭力养成严谨的经商习惯；这些习惯对每个人都十分有必要。如果你跟中国人做交易，那么在塞勒姆海湾建一些小房子，有这么个固定地方就够了。你可以出口这些本国产品，比方说纯正的土特产，有冰啦，松木料啦，一点花岗岩啦，而且都是本国商船运输。这些都会是不错的经营项目。你要亲自监督所有细节的地方；同时还要身兼数职，飞行员、船长、货主、承保人；又买又卖，还要做帐目；阅读收到的每一封信件，发出的信件都要自己写，自己审阅；不分昼夜地监管进口商品御货；几乎在同一时间，你要在沿海各地方奔波劳碌——因为经常最大的货运会送到新泽西岸上；自己收发电报，不知疲倦地发送到世界各地，跟所有驶往海岸线的货船进行通讯；保持商品发货量稳定，为遥远的高价市场供货；自己要了解供货国家的市场行情，各地的战争与和平状态，以及预计当地的交易趋势和社会文明程度——利用考察的结果，使用新辟的航道和所有改进的航海技术；——研究航海图，弄清楚暗樵、新的灯塔和航标的位置，一次又一次地校正对数表，因为一旦计算错误，本应驶向友好码头的货船会走偏，在岩石上撞个粉身碎骨——法国航海家拉·彼鲁兹（1741-1788）的未知命运（据说1788年他的船只在澳大利亚的博特尼湾登陆后杳无音讯）就是一个例子；——要不断精进科学知识，研究从迦太基的探险家汉诺和腓尼基人到当代所有伟大的发现者、航海家和商人们的一生；最后，时不时地清点一下船上的货物，方能确定货船该停靠在何方。交赋给一个人的劳动任务有计算利润啦和损失啦，利息啦，毛重啦等等问题，一切都要计算精准，就像一个万事通一样。我想过，瓦尔登湖是个做生意的理想之地，不仅因为那里有铁路和采冰业；还有诸多有利因素，将其泄露恐怕不是个上上策；那里是个不错的港口，有很好的基础。没有涅瓦河那样的沼泽地需要填埋；尽管你到处打桩加固。据说涅瓦河只要发大水，西风卷着冰块和洪水能把圣彼德堡从地球表面给冲走。

流动资金还没有到位，我却先做起生意来了，搞事业没点办法怎么能行呢，很难想象哪来的办法。说起衣服，马上涉及到了实际问题，也许我们置办衣服时，受新奇事物和别人对其的看法所引领，其实并不在意它是否真正具有实用性。让有工作的人提到衣服，首先，想到的是维持生命的温度；其次，在大庭广从之下遮盖起自己一丝不挂的身子；然后他才可能判断，不往衣柜里增添衣服的情况下，还需要完成多少必要和重要的工作。国王和女王为彰显他们的威严，有专人给他们裁制衣服，但一套衣服只穿一次，所以体会不到穿上合身衣服的舒适感。他们最多好比高高挂起干净衣服的衣架罢了。而我们的衣服，日积月累，已然与我们融为了一体，而且服装能凸显穿衣人的个性，即使坏了也舍不得丢掉，如同舍不得丢掉我们的身体一样，仿佛要给它疗救一下似的，如此庄严肃穆，因此一再拖延。有人穿了打补丁的衣服，在我眼里，他们并没有低人一等；我敢肯定，为了赶时髦，或者至少要穿不打补丁的干净衣服，人们会更加焦虑，他们全然不管自己有没有一颗健康的良心。如果衣服上的破洞没有缝补，或许最坏的结果就是落个不拘小节的名声吧。我有时候会用这种想法来测试熟人——谁会穿个打补丁的，或者膝盖上多了两条线缝的裤子呢？大部分人认为，倘若他们穿了那样的衣服，他们的前程会被毁掉。对他们来讲，拖一条伤腿蹒跚而行到镇上也比穿一条破马裤出去强。通常，如果一场事故发生在一位绅士的腿部，是可以康复如初的；但是同样的事故发生在他的马裤上，那就没办法了；他脑子里想的，不是真正令人敬佩的东西，而是受人尊敬的东西。我们认识的人很少，认识的外套和马裤却不计其数。用你的衣服装扮一个稻草人，而一旁的你毫无形象可言，有谁不会迅速对稻草人致敬呢？一天，经过麦田时，通过不远处的桩子上挂的一顶帽子和一件外套，我才认出农场的主人。他只是比我上次见他时更黝黑了。我听说有一只狗守着它主人的衣服，只要有生人靠近放衣服的地儿，它就狂叫不止，但是让它安静也很容易，只要一个赤身裸体的小偷就可以了。有一个有趣的问题：如果扒去人类的衣服，那他们离他们的相对地位有多远，这样的情形下，你能在任何一群文明人中肯定地说出，谁是最受尊敬的阶层吗？奥地利女探险家艾达·劳拉·法伊弗在她的探险生涯中，从东到西游历列国，差不多到了亚洲境内的俄罗斯时，她说外出见官员时，感觉非得换掉旅行装不可，因为她“目前在一个文明的国度，那里的人是以衣取人的。”甚至在你的新英格兰小镇，有谁发了意外之财，只在外表打扮上去体现，几乎会受到全世界的尊敬。不过，受到如此尊敬的人，尽管人数众多，但他们没有宗教信仰，真需要派个传教士给他们。再说，衣服是一针一线缝起来的，你会说那是一种没有止尽的工作；至少，女人的衣服是永远都做不完的。

一个终于找到工作的人，就不用穿新衣服了；对他而言，穿旧衣服便可以，即便那件衣服不知在小屋里搁置了多久，灰尘满满。英雄脚上的旧鞋比他的仆从脚上的旧鞋还要久延岁月——如果一位英雄有过仆从的话——光脚丫的历程比穿鞋子的历程还久远，反正英雄光脚丫走路也可以。只有参加社交晚宴和去议会大厅的人才需要穿新衣服，他们的衣服换了一套又一套，如同官场上换了一拨又一拨人似的。不过，如果我的夹克，裤子，帽子和鞋适合穿去礼拜上帝，那就这么穿；不是吗？有谁会注意到自己的旧衣服，旧外套其实已经磨坏了，变成了其最初的块状，因此也没有送给某个穷小子的必要了，说不定那个穷小子还会转送给比他更穷的人穿呢，或者是送给更富有的人，因为即使没有这东西，他可以照样过日子，我想，要引起注意的是需要新衣服的企业，而不是穿新衣服的人。如果没有新人，怎能制做合身的新衣服呢？如果你在这样的企业里，不妨穿上旧衣服试试。人之所需，并非有事可做，而是要成大事，或者说，要做大人物。也许我们根本不应该置办新衣服，我们穿的破旧一点脏一点，如此这般从心所欲，或做生意或扬帆远航，直到那时我们方有新人穿旧衣之感，如同新酒盛入陈年老瓶一样。我们的换衣季节，犹如家禽，必是人生中的转角。潜水鸟隐到人迹罕至的湖里过度去了。蛇蜕皮，毛毛虫化茧成蝶，皆是如此这般奋力挣扎，向外扩展；因为衣服是我们的外包装和尘世纠缠的烦恼罢了。要不然，就会发觉我们在虚假的船旗下航行，到头来不可避免地被我们的思想和整个人类所厌弃。

我们的衣服穿了一件又一件，就好像我们长得如同外源性植物一样，自是无须多言。通常，我们外面穿的那些花里胡哨的薄衣是我们的表皮，或者称其为假皮，而这种假皮与我们的生命无关紧要，即便剥在这里那里都不会有致命伤害；我们一直穿在身上的较厚一点的衣服是有细胞组织的皮肤，或者叫做皮层；不过，我们的衬衫却是我们的韧皮，或称之为真皮，只要不脱去这层真皮，人类就不会有任何烦恼和损伤。我认为，在某些季节，所有人都会穿上某种等同于衬衫的东西。一个穿着朴素的人，在黑暗中就不会迷失自己，他生活的方方面面都如此紧凑踏实，有备无患，倘使有敌人来攻城，他也能像个老哲人一样，从容地走出大门，即使赤手空拳，也无任何惧怕。多数情形下，一件厚衣可抵得上三件薄衣了，消费者在自己真正能承受的价格范围内买到便宜的衣服；买一件厚衣服需要花掉5美元，但是能穿好多年，一条厚马裤2美元，一双牛皮靴1.5美元，一顶夏凉帽两角半，一顶冬帽六角二分半，或者花点小钱在家就能做出质地很好的帽子，一个穷人自己挣钱去置办这样一套行头，何愁找不到向他表示敬意的聪明人呢？

我要定制一款别致的衣服，女裁缝听了一本正经地对我说，“现在人家都不时兴做这个啦，”这话里头根本不对“人家”加以强调，她仿佛引用了一个像命运三女神那样毫无情面的权威似的，我发现很难得到我想要的款式了，只因为女裁缝不愿相信我真的想要那个款式，好像是我随便说说而已。在我听到这个耐人寻味的句子时，那一刻，我陷入了沉思，提醒自己把每个词都分开来解读，可能会领悟到其中的含义吧，看看人家跟我有多大的血缘关系，跟我有多亲近，在一件跟我如此密切相关的事情上人家有多大的权威；最后，我决定同样神秘兮兮地回答她，丝毫不强调“人家”二字——“是的，前阵子人家不时兴这个款了，但眼下人家又时兴啦。”倘若她不量我的穿衣尺寸，只量我的肩宽，把我当作一个晾衣服的钉子，这样的量法有何用处呢？我们既不膜拜为人间带来各种美的美惠三女神，也不膜拜掌管人运命的珀尔茜三女神，只膜拜时尚女神。她纺线、编织、剪裁，具有百分百的权威。巴黎的猴王戴了一位游客的帽子，然后全美国的猴子都会戴游客的帽子。有时候，我很绝望，这世上一些十分单纯而朴实的事情要靠他人的帮助才能完成。首先，人们经过一个强力压榨机，把原有的老旧观念挤出来，这样他们的两腿再也无法站立；人群中有人会想入非非，生出这些怪念头，没有人知晓是什么时候从卵里孵化出来的，即使用火攻都灭不掉，你还耗尽了体力。即便如此，我们会铭记将某种埃及小麦传递下来的一个木乃伊。

大体说来，让本国或别国的服装上升到艺术尊严的层面，我认为不妥。如今，人们将就着能有什么就穿什么。仿佛遭遇海难的水手，在海滩上捡到什么穿什么，过不了多久，就不分时间地点地嘲笑彼此的穿着不伦不类。

每一代人都嘲笑过去的时尚，虔诚地追逐新潮流。看到享利八世（1491-1547）或伊丽莎白一世（1533-1603）时期的服装，我们会笑得前仰后合，仿佛穿上这衣服活像食人岛上的岛王与岛后。

一个不穿衣服的人是可怜而荒唐的。唯以严肃的目光正视穿衣这件事，且在衣服里诚实地度过一生，方能抑制嘲笑，并对人们所穿的衣服肃然起敬。

让一个腹痛发作的小丑下台，基于他的职业特征，他也不得不以愉悦别人的方式离开。士兵被炮弹击中时，他身上被炸烂的衣服堪比帝王的紫袍高贵。

如今的男女们都喜欢既纯洁又有原始味道的新款式，那不知让多少人摇起万花筒，眯起眼睛打量，他们看能不能从中发现今天这一代人所需求的那种独特的图形。

生产商早已摸清这种品味仅仅是一只之兴。只是改变一点纹路、或多或少变换一下颜色，便形成了两种不同的款式，一种款式会很快销售一空，另一种却在售货柜上安然不动，尽管这种事情时有发生，可是过上一个季节，之前卖不动的款式又变成最时髦的款了。相对来说，文身不是所谓的恶习，可是文身不能仅用残忍来形容了，因为刺花要进行到皮肤深处，而且不可更改。

我不相信，我们的工厂体系是人们有衣可穿的最佳模式。工作人员日复一日变得更像英国人了；这不足为奇，据我的所见所闻，他们的主要目的不是让人们穿得舒服又体面，而是，毫无疑问，让企业里美金大大的有。从长远来看，人们只击中他们瞄准的东西，不过他们可能很快就倒下了，所以，他们把目标定得高一些为好。

至于居所，我不否认这是眼下的生活必需品，虽然在较之本国还要寒冷的国家里，有的人没房子照样过日子。苏格兰旅行家塞缪尔·莱恩说过：“拉普兰人身穿皮衣，头和肩套在皮袋里，每晚都睡在雪地里…….冷到一定程度，即使套上任何羊毛衣物，暴露在风雪中也会让一个生命消逝”

莱恩曾看到他们就这样酣然入睡。他还曾说过，“他们并不比别人更耐寒。”不过，也许，人类在地球上还没生活多久就发现有个房子十分便利，家庭生活也舒适很多，此话原意是指房子比家庭更重要；即使这些事情在那样的气候区非常少见，并具有偶然性，一提到房子，我们首先会想到冬天和雨季，但是一年中三分之二的时间，除了遮阳伞，用不到房子的。

在我们的气候区，到了夏天，以前，几乎只盖一个被单就过夜。印第安公报当中，棚屋成为一天行程的象征，树皮上刻画的一排棚屋，意味着大多数时候他们需要在帐篷里度过。人生下来并非如此四肢强壮有力，所以他得寻思着缩小自己的世界，譬如说用墙板围一个刚好容下他的空间。

人类早先是光着身子在户外活动；不过，在温暖宜人的天气里，自然是愉快的，但是在雨季和冬天的夜间，谈什么火辣辣的日头，要不是人类及时用房屋把自己遮盖起来，也许在萌芽状态就给冻灭迹了。据说，寓言故事里的亚当和夏娃穿衣服之前是用树枝树叶遮蔽身体的。人类想要一个家——一个温暖舒适的地方，首先要身体的温暖，然后才是情感的温暖。

我们可以想象一下，在人类初期，一些有想法的人开始住进了岩洞。每个孩子都在重演这一历程，某种程度上，他们喜欢呆在户外，哪怕外面又潮湿又冷呢。孩子们玩造房子，骑木马，都是出于本能吧。

有谁会不记得年少时找寻一座叠岩，或走近一个岩洞时的兴趣呢？这是人类与生俱来的渴望，最原始的祖先把不寻常的方面遗留给了我们。我们把洞居改造成了有屋顶的房子，或棕榈叶，或树皮和大树枝，或亚麻布，或草和麦秆，或屋板和屋瓦，或石头和瓦片的屋顶。

最终，我们不知道住在户外是种什么样的感觉，我们的家庭生活比想象的更美好，跟户外生活大相径庭。也许，假如未来无论白天还是黑夜，大部分时候，我们和天体之间没有任何阻挡，假如诗人不在屋顶下吟诗作赋，或者圣人长期住在屋内，大概还不错。鸟儿不会在洞内唱歌，鸽子也不会在鸽棚内珍爱它们的纯洁。

然而，假如有人构建一所房子，那他就得学着像新英格兰人那样精明一点，免得后来会发现自己置身于一个济贫院，一所走不出去的迷宫，一个博物馆，一’个贫民所，一个监狱，或一个宏伟的坟墓中。首先想想，一所栖息处的绝对必要性是多么渺小。

我曾见过这个镇子里的佩诺布斯科特的印第安人，住在薄薄的棉布帐篷里，他们周围的雪下到一英尺厚时，我料想，他们倒乐意雪下得再厚点，可以为他们挡挡寒风。为自由地实现特有的追求，我对何以让生活步入正轨而困惑，这一点在过去可比现在更让我懊恼，可惜呀，不知怎么地，我现在已经麻木了，过去我常看见铁道旁有个巨大的箱子，6英尺长，3英尺宽，夜里工人们会把他们的工具锁在里面；要我说，每个生活艰难的人都可以花一美元买这么个箱子，且，在上面钻上几个孔，让空气得以流通，至少，到了夜晚或雨天可以钻进去，再者，把顶盖钩下来，这么一来，他就有了自由，爱其所爱，放飞灵魂。

这个点子似乎并不很糟，不管怎样，都不会是一个遭人白眼的选择。你乐意多晚睡就多晚睡，想什么时候起床就什么时候起，从心所欲，乘一时之偶性，来一场说走就走的跨国之旅，绰云而去，没有任何房东或店老板追着你要房租。很多人却为了给一个更大更奢侈的箱子付租金被活活累死了，而在这样的一个箱子里不会被冻死。我绝没有开玩笑的意思。经济学是一门学问，尽管不受重视，但不能将其摒弃。

对于几乎在户外干粗活的劳动者来讲，一间舒适的房子几乎完全取材于自然，由手工制造而成。丹尼尔·戈金曾是马萨诸塞州的印第安殖民群体领导人，1674年，他写道，“他们住过最好的房子是用树皮遮盖的，整洁、紧密、又保暖，在树木汁液充沛的季节将树皮剥下来，再用树皮发绿的沉重树干压成大薄片…有种相对逊色的材质是盖一层用香蒲编成的草席，香蒲席也能一定程度上防风保暖，但是不如树皮的好…我见过一些房子有60-100英尺长，30英尺宽…我经常借住在他们的棚屋里，发现这些棚屋跟英国最好的房子一样暖和。”丹尼尔·戈金还说，他们通常在屋内齐齐整整地铺一层厚实的精美刺绣垫子，摆放着各种家具。最早以前，印第安人在抵挡冷风侵袭上曾先进了很多，他们在屋顶的洞上方挂了一块可来回移动的垫子。这样的一间小屋最多一到两天便盖好了，拆与建也就几小时的事情；且家家都有这么一座小棚屋，有的棚屋里还有单间。

原始时期，每家都有一间称得上最好的房子，对于那些要求不高的人足够了；不过，我认为自己的以下言语十分靠谱，尽管天空中的鸟儿有巢居，狐狸有洞居，原始部落有棚屋，而现代的文明社会里有房子的家庭未及一半。在大的乡镇或城市尤其文明，有房的人却很少。

其余的人要为遮身避体的外衣支付房租，寒来暑往，必不可少，那些钱足够到乡村买一座棚屋了，如今却助长了他们的贫穷。我在此并没有坚持说租房比不得买房好，不过，显然原始人类之所以拥有自己的房子，是因为房子的造价低廉，而通常文明人租房子住是因为买不起房子。长期下去，他连房租都未必付得起。然而，有人答道，穷苦的文明人通过付房租从而有一个住的地方，这个地方较之原始棚屋简直堪称皇宫了。

一年的房租从25美元到100美元不等（这是乡下的价格），宽敞的房子里，干净的墙漆或壁纸，拉姆福德壁炉，抹灰衬墙，百叶窗，铜质水泵，弹簧锁，宽大的地下室，以及许多别的东西，给人一种先进了几世纪的优越感。不过，有人说享受这些玩意儿的通常是贫穷的文明人，没有这些玩意儿的原始人却有作为一个原始人的富有，怎么会出现这样的局面呢？

如果说文明让人类生活真正得以改善的话——我认为，说得很是，虽然只有最聪明的人能够提升他们的生活质量——那么一定说明能在不增加太多造价的基础上造出更好的房子来；依我看，所谓物价是以或短或长的岁月为代价交换而来的。

在这附近，一所普通的住宅成本大概是800美元，即使一个人不用担负起养家糊口的重任，也需要劳动10-15年才可攒下这么一大笔，——按一人一天赚一美元来算，如若有人赚得多些，别的人就赚得少了；——因此，一般来讲，他花半辈子的岁月才能挣得一套独立居所。

如果我们假设他租房子住的话，这只不过是个无奈之举，在两件难事上选择其一而已。你说，原始人类有没有智慧用他的棚屋交换一个满屋之物耀眼争光，使人头悬目眩的皇宫呢？也许猜得到，我几乎把所有的多余房产变为现金储存起来，以备未来不时之需，目前，个人考虑的重心在支付火葬费上，不过，也许一个人用不着去埋葬自己。

然而，这指出了文明人与原始人之间最大的区别；且为了维系这个种族，使其臻于完美，他们给文明人的生活制定了一种制度，这无疑为我们的利益着想，无奈在这种制度下，个人生活很大程度上受到了损害。但是，我想说，获得目前这种好处的牺牲有多么大，且建议，我们或许可以这样子生活，获取好处的同时不用遭受任何不好。你们说穷人与你们同在，或者父亲吃了酸葡萄会酸到孩子的牙齿，所言何意啊？

“主耶和华说，我指着我的永生起誓，你们在以色列不会有不再使用这句俗语的机会。”

“看吧，所有人皆属于我；父亲是，儿子亦是：犯罪的，则必亡。”

我想到我的邻居们，康科德的农民，他们至少同其他阶层的人一样富有，我发现大部分人二十年，三十年，甚至四十年如一日地苦干，有可能会成为农场的真正主人，农场通常是他们附带抵押继承来的，要么就是靠借贷买来的——我们且把三分之一的苦力当作房子的成本费——但是，通常，他们还是买不起。

说真的，这个产权负担有时候大大超过了农场的价值，因此农场本身就是一个极大的负担，可是发现，仍旧有人会继承它，继而正如他所言，对它实在太熟悉了。我向评估官咨询时，得知他们不能马上脱口而出镇上十几个无任何负担的农场主时，令我惊讶不已。如果你想了解这些农庄的历史，咨询他们抵押贷款的银行就行了。

靠劳动来支付农场债务者寥寥，随便哪个邻居都能知道其姓甚名谁。我怀疑康科德是否能找出三个这样的人。人们茶余饭后谈论的商人，占比很大，甚至达到了97%，他们的失败是注定的，农夫亦是如此。不过，至于商人，有人恰如其分地说，他们的大部分失败并不真正是投资失利，只是因为烦事纠缠，未能履行承诺之失败；也就是说道德破产。

但是，这就意味事情向无限糟糕的一面发展，且让人想到，可能甚至连那3%的人也难以拯救自己的灵魂，不过，他们破产要比实实在在破产的人惨多了。破产与抵赖债务皆为一块块跳板，从这些跳板上腾跃、翻筋斗过来的文明占比不小，然而，原始人站的却是没有弹性的饥荒板块。康科德每年都会举办农业展览会，仿佛农业这台机械的所有环节都运转自如似的。

农民按固有的方式竭力解决生存问题，这方式却比问题本身更令人费解。他把那点微薄的收入寄希望于群牛身上，运用纯熟的技能，用一根细若发丝的套索为自己设下陷阱，去捕捉舒适和独立自主的生活，不料，只略略的一转身，自己的一条腿却陷入其中。这便是他贫穷的原故；且基于相似的原因，尽管我们周围充斥着奢华，与原始人的上千种舒适相比，我们都穷得很。正如乔治·查普曼的诗文所言，

“这虚假的人类社会——

为了追寻尘世的伟大，

天堂里的惬怀如空气般缥缈。”

农民有了自己的房子，他不是变得更富有了，而是更贫穷了，房子束缚了他。我明白，希腊神话中的非难指责和嘲弄之神莫摩斯对智慧女神密涅瓦创造的房子提出强烈异议，“密涅瓦所造的房子无法自由移动，而移动房子可以避开不堪的邻里”；可能还会呼吁我们的房子不够宽大，以致于身在其中不像是在房子里，更像是在牢坑里；要避开不堪的邻居说明我们自己还需要修行。我了解，在这个镇上至少有一两个家庭，盼了近一代人想要卖掉郊外的房子，回归农村，但是未能如愿，只有亡灵才能获此自由罢。

的确，多数人或买或租，最终有了一套家庭设施先进的现代化房屋。文明提升了我们的住房，但并不等于它提升了住在房子里的人类。它创造了一座座王宫，但要创造贵族王孙和国王并非易事。且如果文明人的追求不比原始先民的追求更有价值，如果他花大半生只是忙忙的获取所有生活必需品和舒适的享受， 那为什么他非要有一所比原始棚屋更好的房子呢？

可是，穷困的少数人又该怎么个活法呢？也许会发现，外部境遇高于原始先民的人与外部境遇在原始先民之下的人成等比例关系 。一个阶层的奢华是靠另一个阶层的贫穷支撑起来的。一边是王宫，另一边是贫民所和“沉默的穷人”。金字塔是无数以大蒜充饥的劳工为法老建造的坟墓，而他们自己故去后可能连个风光的丧礼都没有。

修整王宫门楣的匠人夜晚就回到也许连原始棚屋都不如的小屋里。有人认为往往显示文明存在的一个国家里，大多居民的生活条件不至于降到原始层面，这就错了。我所说的是没落的穷人，还不曾谈到没落的富人。要明白这一点，我无需遥望，只稍稍看一眼铁路旁到处撒落的小屋，那是最不彰显文明的了；我每天散步时看见人们挤在小屋里，为了屋里有点光亮，冬天也大敞着门，试想一下，没有取暖的木堆，长期住在其内，朔风凛凛，侵肌裂骨，老少皆养成了蜷缩的习惯，苦不堪言，且他们的四肢和官能的正常生长都受到了抑制。

不妨把爱尔兰人的身体条件与北美印第安人的，或南太平洋岛民的，或任何没有跟文明人接触而未退化的其他原始先民的身体条件比比看。话说回来，我不怀疑原始先民的统治者跟文明人的统治者一样聪明。

他们的状况只证明，与文明并存的东西是何等不堪。我现在几乎不需要提起南方各州的劳工，这个国家主要的出口商品都是他们生产的，而他们自己本身就是南方的主要的产品。不过，还是别扯远了，谈谈那些中产阶层吧。

大多数人似乎从来没有想过何谓房子，实际上他们不需要把自己的生活搞得如此窘迫，只因为他们认为一定要有一所像邻居那样的房子，却穷苦了一辈子。仿佛要穿上一件裁缝为他量身定制的外套一样，或者，逐渐丢弃了棕榈叶帽子或土拨鼠皮帽，而由于买不起一顶王冠就埋怨生活的艰难。

造一所比我们住的房子更方便也更奢华的房子也不无可能，可那样的房子大家都承认买不起。难道我们就要一直设法获得更多这些身外之物，对拥有的少而不满足吗？

难道体面的居民要这般呕心历血地用准则和事例教导年轻人在老死前一定要多多奋斗富余的亮皮鞋，雨伞，和专供接待虚无宾客的大厅吗？为什么我们的家具不能像阿拉伯人或印第安人的那样简简单单呢？我每每想到民族救星，我们将其奉为来自天堂的神明，带来了上天赐予人类的礼物，内心却看不到任何在德行和智慧上有助于他上司的随从。

目前，我们的房子里塞满了家具，脏乱不堪，一位称职的主妇会把大部分东西清到垃圾道里，早上的活儿不可撂下不做，早上的活儿啊！在奥罗拉的晨光里，门农（奥罗拉之子）的琴音里，这世人早晨应该做什么来着？我办公桌上有三块石灰岩，但是我很害怕每日家为它们去除灰尘，我脑海中的家具仍尚未除尘，恶心的我一气之下把它们从窗户上扔出去了。那么，我怎样才能有一所带家具的房子呢？我宁愿坐在户外，因为青草上没有灰尘，除非有人在那里翻了土。

贪图奢侈，挥霍无度，正是骄奢淫逸之徒开创了时尚，民众会不知疲倦地跟风。某位下榻在所谓高档酒店的游客很快会印证这一点，因为酒店老板会把他当作亚述巴尼拔（亚述末代国王，在他统治时期，亚述的疆土和军国主义达到了崩溃前的巅峰），且如果他任由自己奢华无度，他的阳光之气包管很快就消失殆尽。

我想，我们在火车车箱里，钱花在奢侈上总比花在安全和便利上的多，结果让安全和便利缺席的车箱，几乎等同于一个现代化休息厅了，沙发，褥榻，遮阳帘，还有百十来样富有东方意趣的物件，我们将这些物件随身携带到西方来，其是，这些玩意儿是原为裙钗女子和六宫粉黛发明的，乔纳森知道他们的名字一定会羞死的。我宁愿坐在一颗南瓜上，整个南瓜都是我的领地，也不愿跟人挤在一块丝绒软榻上。

我宁愿驾一辆牛车，奔走在坦途上，享受自由流畅的空气，也不愿在观光车里一路闻着浊气飞向高空。

远古时期的人类生活非常简单，又赤身裸体，很能说明这个好处，至少，这种简单与朴素让他成为大自然中的匆匆过客。吃饱睡好后，精神抖擞，再次思忖自己的自然之旅。走到哪里哪里就是他的家，栖于天地间，或穿过山谷，或越过平原，或攀上山顶。但是，你看！人类变成了他们工具的工具。饿了就自己摘野果吃的人变成了农夫；站在树下避风雨的人变成了管家。

我们现在不再露营过夜了，在地球上定居下来，把天堂给忘了。我们信奉基督，只是把它作为改良农业的方法而已。我们为这个世界建造了家宅，紧接着就挖掘坟墓。最精美的艺术品表达的是，人类为摆脱上述枷锁做出的努力，但是，我们的艺术效果只是让这种低级的精神状态变得舒适，却忘记了还有更高级的精神状态。在这个村子里实际上没有好艺术品的容身之地，就算有什么艺术品流传下来，我们的生活、房子、街道，也没办法给它配置一个适合的底座。

既没有挂起画作的钉子，也没有放置英雄或圣人半身像的架子。我一想到房子是如何建造的，钱款已付清还是未付清，他们的自身经济是如何管理和维系的，我就诧异，客人在赏玩壁炉上那些花里胡哨的东西时，地板别一不留神哗啦一下塌下去，让他坠入地下室，重重地摔到某块坚硬而忠实的地基上去。

我无法忽视，所谓富有精致的生活是一件越级攀升的事情，我欣赏不了点缀这种生活的精致艺术品，我已全面集中在人们向精致生活的跳跃上；因为我记得，以人类的肌肉所能达到的最高跳跃记录，还是流浪的阿拉伯人保持的，据说他们从平地上能跳到离地25英尺之高。没有人为支撑，人类一定会从那个高度再次回落到地面上的。

我不禁首先要问问粗俗的业主，谁给的你勇气？你在失败的97%中，还是成功的3%中呢？请回答我这些问题，那么，也许我会瞅瞅你那些花里忽哨的小物件，然后发现它们只不过是些装饰品罢了。把马车置于马前，既不美观又无用处。在我们用漂亮的物件装饰房子前，墙壁势必会被剥掉一层皮，我们的生命也势必被剥掉一层皮，还有美丽的家政和美好的生活为基础：现在，审美情趣大都在既无房子又无管家的户外培养的。

爱德华·约翰逊在其《神奇的造化》一书中谈到了这个小镇的早期居民，作者跟他们是同时代人，他告诉我们“他们自己在山脚下的土里挖个窑洞作为最初的避风港，然后把土堆到木材上，地上生个火堆，烟雾袅袅升腾，直抵洞顶。”他们还未曾为自己建造“房子”，爱德华·约翰逊说，“上帝保佑，土地为他们带来了充饥的面包，”，第一年的谷物收成惨淡，“他们不得不把面包切得薄之又薄，方可度过一个漫长的季节。”

1650年，新尼德兰州部长用荷兰文为那些希望占用土地的人写的文件中特别提到，“新尼德兰，特别是新英格兰人，他们起初无法如愿建造农舍，就在地下挖出一个方形的坑，类似于地窑，6-7英尺深，长和宽皆以他们中意为准，四周立一圈木板，衬上树皮或别的什么东西，以防止泥土从缝隙中渗进来；地面铺上木板，用护壁板搭在上方作为天花板，架起一个圆木屋顶，顶上再盖一层树皮或绿草皮，这样他们全家便可在这些干爽温暖的房子里住上2年，3年，甚至4年，里面还根据人口数量做出一些小单间，这可以理解。”

殖民地初创时期，新英格兰的权贵们最早的房子也是这样的，其中有两个原由：其一，为了避免把时间浪费在建造房子上导致下一季度粮食短缺；第二，为了不让他们从农场大批买来的穷苦劳力们灰心丧气。三四年的光景，国家的农业逐渐发达，他们花数千元为自己建造了漂亮的房子。

我们先祖住在地下室，至少说明他们是谨小慎微的，似乎他们的原则是首先要满足更为紧迫的需求。但是现在更紧迫的需求满足了吗？我一想到要购置一套奢华住宅就胆怯，因为，这么说吧，国家还不曾适应人类文化，我们仍然被迫把我们的精神粮食切得薄之又薄，其薄比起我们的祖先切他们的口粮有过之而无不及。

甚至在最原始时期，也不是把所有建筑装饰置之不顾，而是要把与我们的生活息息相关的房子首先要打理得漂亮一些，犹如甲壳类水生动物的壳居一样，适当为宜，不要让它承载太多。但是，哎！我去过一两个房子，自然知道它们里面布置成了什么样。

尽管我们今天没有退步到住山洞、住棚屋、穿兽皮的这种地步，但是接受人类的发明创造和工业，尽管代价昂贵，当然也是再好不过了。在类似我们这样的街区，板材、木瓦、石灰、和砖块都比适宜的山洞、整原木、大量的树皮、甚至是调和的黏土或平整的石头这些东西还要便宜好找。我能把这个话题讲得如此透彻明白，是因为无论从理论上还是实践上我都太了解它了。略动一动脑筋，我们就可以对这些材料加以利用，变得比现在最富有的人还富有，使我们的文明成为一种福祉。文明人不过是更有见识更聪明的原始人罢了，不过，我还是赶紧去做自己的实验吧。

大约在1845年3月底，我借到了一把斧头在瓦尔登湖畔坎下一些树木，那里距我打算造房子的地方最近，一开始砍倒了一些高大挺拔，但树龄不大的雪松做木材。开了头就很难不向人家借这借那的，不过，也许，能让你的同胞们对你的造房计划产生一点点兴趣也不失为一种最大的慷慨之举吧。

斧头的主人把斧头递给我时说这可是他的宝贝疙瘩哩；殊不知，我还回去的时候比借的时候锋利多了。我砍树的地方是一个景色宜人的山坡，遍布都是松木，透过松林，朝瓦尔登湖，和树林里的一块小小的空地望去，松松和山核桃树密密立立。

湖上的冰还未完全化掉，虽然有些地方化开了，不过是些黑黢黢的水洞。我砍树那段日子里略落了一点雪；但是我经过铁道回家途中的大部分地方还是在朦胧的大气中微微发光的黄沙包，铁道也在春光的照耀下闪闪发亮，我听到云雀、京燕以及其他鸟儿唱起了欢快的歌儿，跟我们一起迎接新的一年。

大好的春日里，人类对寒冬的不满已经同大地一起消融，蛰伏的生命也开始了自我舒展。一天，我的斧头从柄上掉下来了，于是我砍了一段碧绿的山核桃树枝做了一个楔子，用石头把它钉进去，又把整把斧子浸在瓦尔登湖的水里，以使木楔子膨胀，看到一条花蛇窜到水中并伏到了湖底，很显然毫无不适感，竟跟我在那儿呆的时间一样久，大概有1刻多钟；也许因为他还没有从蛰伏状态完全复苏吧。

在我看来，正是缘于这样的原因，人类目前仍在低级原始状态停步不前；不过，如果他们能受到春之活力的影响，奋发图强，他们的生活一定会上升到更高级更优雅的层面。我之前在乍暖还寒的清晨看到小径上那些蛇的身体还处于似醒未醒之间，等待阳光来温暖它们。4月1日那天下了雨，雨水融化了冰霜，早些时候还起了大雾，我听到一只离群的鸽子在瓦尔登湖上一面盘旋，一面啼叫，似乎是迷路了，活像迷雾精灵似的。

因此，我连续几天砍树，劈材，削立柱、椽子，全靠了我这把小斧头，没有多少值得传播或学者式的思想，只是独自哼唱，——

人类说自己才学渊博；

但是，你瞧！他们插上了翅膀——

艺术啦，科学啦，

以及上千种电器啦；

其实，只有吹过的一阵风

才是他们知道的全部。

我把主要用的木材劈成6英寸见方，大部分立柱只劈两边，椽子和地板木料只劈一面，剩下的地方保留树皮，因此，这种木料跟锯的一样平直，却比锯的更结实。那些残根剩段也别有洞天，我小心地在每根棍上做了榫卯，因为这次我还借了别的工具。我在森林里呆的时间不是很长；我以前常常带着我的晚餐——黄油面包——当午餐，到森林里读读包裹黄油面包的报纸，中午就坐在我曾砍断的大松枝上吃黄油面包，我的面包里还透着些许松香味，因为我手上涂了厚厚一层松脂。在我完工前，与其说我是松树的敌人，倒不如说是朋友，尽管我砍倒一些树，却对它越发熟悉了。有时候，我的斧头发出的声响会引来一位森林漫步者，于是我们就在我曾砍下的那些碎木屑上愉快地聊聊天。

四月中旬，我虽不紧不慢地干活，却完成了大半，房子起了框架，终于立起来了。为了弄到板材，我早已买下了爱尔兰人詹姆斯·科林斯在菲奇伯格铁路旁的小棚屋。据说他的棚屋真真是不错，可以说是罕有的。我打电话说要去看棚屋时，他不在家。

我在外面转了转，起初并没有被屋内的人发现，因为窗户又深又高。这座棚屋小小的，屋顶破败不堪，别的没什么好看的，周围的垃圾有5英尺那么高，肥堆似的。屋顶算是最完好的了，虽然严重变形且被日光晒老化易碎了。没有门槛，不过门板下给母鸡留了一条进出的通道。科林斯太太走到门口，邀请我到屋里瞧瞧。

我一进屋倒先把母鸡给赶进去了。里面伸手不见五指，地板脏得不像样，凉嗖嗖，湿乎乎的，住在里面很容易生病，连这一块那一块的板材大概也经不起挪动了。

她点亮一盏灯让我看看屋顶和墙面，还有延伸到床底下的地板，并提醒我小心踩到地窑里，地窑是两英尺深的土洞。用她自己的话说，“顶是好的，四周一切都是好的，窗户也是好的”——原来那两个方框框也只有夜猫从那儿出出进进。

屋里有一个火炉、一支床、一个坐的地方、一个在那个房子里出生的婴儿、一把丝质的太阳伞、一面镶金边儿的镜子、小橡树上固定着一台新式咖啡机，笼共就这些。价格很快就谈妥了，因为詹姆斯这时也回来了。当晚我付给他4美元25分，他将于次日凌晨5点搬出，不得再卖与他人；6点钟棚屋产权归我。

他叫我最好早点搬过去，估计有人就地租和燃料上会提出某些模糊不清又蛮不讲理的要求。他向我保证这是唯一的麻烦。6点钟我在路上碰到了他们一家。那一大堆东西便是他们的全部家当了——床、咖啡机、镜子、母鸡——除了猫；猫跑进森林成了一只野猫，且，我后来听闻，她掉入了捕捉土拨鼠的陷阱，所以，最终成了一只死猫。

当天早上，我拆了这个小木屋，拔掉钉子，一小车一小车地运到了瓦尔登湖边上，把木板铺到那儿的草地上，放太阳底下，往白晒晒并且让变形的恢复恢复。我开在林荫道上时，一只早起的乌鸫冲我乱叫了一两声。

一名年轻的帕特里克居心叵测地对我说，我的邻居西利——爱尔兰人——在运输期间把尚好一点的、笔直的、能用的小钉、U形钉、和长钉揣到他自己兜里了，我回去接班时，心内满是春日情怀，毫不在意地望着那堆废墟似的东西；西利也站在那儿，说：“没什么可干的活啦。”他同大伙无异，一副事不关己的样子，让这件看似微不足道的小事犹如特洛伊城诸神大撤离似的。

我把地窖挖在了一座小山的南坡下，一只土拨鼠曾在这儿挖过洞，我铲掉漆树和黑梅树的根，一直挖到几乎寻不到植物痕迹的一处优质沙土上，地窖6英尺见方，7英尺深，再冷的冬天也不怕把土豆冻坏了。因窖壁挖成了倾斜的，所以没有砌石头；阳光怎么也晒不到里面去，沙土也始终不会变。这个活花了2小时。我对这种破土挖洞的活分外开心，因为几乎在所有的纬度上，人类只要动工挖洞，便是为了寻求这种衡温。在大城市里最豪华的房子底下仍有地窖存在，一如从前，在里面存储一些块根植物，很久以后，等到上层建筑不存在了，留下这地底的凹陷处供后人评论吧。所谓房子，只不过是通往地窖的玄关罢了。

最后，到了5月初，在一些熟人的帮助下，我的房子起了框架，机缘巧合，还因此提升了邻里关系。没有人建他们自己的房子时比我更荣幸了。我相信，注定某一天，他们会出力建造起许多高楼大厦。

7月4日，我开始住进了自己的房子，那时候木板安装和屋顶竣工不久，因为木板的楔边都是精心制作的，所以房雨效果很好，不过，在镶嵌木板前，我在屋子的一端垒了一个烟囱，所用石头有两车之多，全是我从瓦尔登湖抱上山的。

秋季，我锄完地，就建好了烟囱，还没必要生火取暖前，一大早，我在屋外的地上露天做饭，这种模式，我还是认为，从某些方面来讲，它比平常的方式要更便利更惬意一些。要是面包还没烤好，下起了暴风雨，我就在火上方固定了几块木板遮挡一下，自己坐在木板下看着我的长棍面包，意趣无穷，时间就这样愉快过去了。

那些天，我手上的活很多，就忙里偷闲稍读一读废报纸，或铺地上，或放架子上，或充当桌布，颇有一番意趣，实际上，其乐趣与读《伊利亚特》无不同。

还是颇值得花时间建造一所房子的，甚至用心程度要更胜于我，譬如说，从人的天性来考虑人的基本需求，一扇门，一扇窗，一个地窑，一间阁楼。也许我们找到比满足暂时性的需求更好的理由之前，不再建什么上层建筑了。

人类给自己建造房子跟鸟儿给自己筑巢一样合情合理。谁人知道如果人类靠自己的双手建造了自己的房屋，简单朴实地养活一家人，那么富有诗情画意的才能就会得到普遍发展，好比鸟儿普遍都能投入地唱歌一样呢？

可是，哎！我们如那八哥和布谷鸟一般，他们把蛋下到了其他鸟筑起的巢里，啁啾着自我陶醉，其声难听极了，很不讨人喜。难道我们永远把建造房子的快乐让给木匠师傅吗？在多数人类经验中，建筑等同于什么呢？我做过的很多行业中，从未见过一个人从事一份像给自己建造房子这样如些简单而自然工作。我们皆属于社会。

不只有裁缝会缝制衣服；牧师，商人，和农夫同样可以做嘛。这种分工到哪里才是个头啊？分工最终能达到什么目的呢？诚然，别人也可帮我动动脑子嘛；不过，如果他动脑筋思考是为了不让我自己动脑筋，那就不可取了。

说真的，这个国家的所谓建筑师，至少我听说过一位建筑师有这样一种思想，让建筑装饰成为一种真理的核心，一种必要性，因此才能称之为美，仿佛这是上帝给予他的启示。或许他个人看来，一切都美轮美奂，不过，这只比平常的半吊子艺术好了那么一点点。

感性的人对建筑进行改造，也是动动飞檐，不从根基改造。只是斟酌如何让建筑装饰囊括真理的核心，其实，每颗糖豆里可能都有一颗杏仁或葛缕子籽——尽管我坚持不加糖的杏仁最有益健康——居民，即住在里头的人，何不真正打造打造房子的里里外外，至于装饰品，让它们随喜随喜就好了嘛。有头脑的人认为，装饰品只是表面的东西，纯属皮毛罢了——犹如乌龟的斑纹外壳，或贝类的珍珠母光泽，难不成老百汇居民的纽约三一教堂还要立那样一个规定吗？但是，人类跟他房子的建筑风格没有关系，好比乌龟跟龟壳的花纹毫无关系一样；军人也不至于无聊到在他的军旗上色彩鲜明地写下自己的骁勇。

敌人一眼就可以看穿，考验一到，他可能会吓得面色惨白。依我看，这个男人好像从飞檐上俯下身子，怯怯地对那些粗俗的居民咕唧他那半真不假的理论，其实人家知道的比他还多。我目前见过的建筑之美，我知道，是由内部逐渐向外部延伸的；迎合了居住者的需求和性格，居住者才是独一无二的建筑师——源于无知无觉的真实和崇高，不曾在意外表怎样，若还有什么附加的美注定会产生的话，那么此前必定有过一种类似的无知无觉的生命之美。

这个国家最具吸引力的房子，正如油漆匠所知，通常是穷人住的最本色、最简陋的木屋和农舍；这些小屋的外壳，即外表，没有什么特别之处，是居民的生活让它们别具特色；同样有趣的，还有居民在市郊建的箱式木屋，他的生活如想象中那般简单惬意，他的房子在风格上几乎没有追求一丁点儿外观效果。

大部分建筑装饰都是中空的，九月份的一场飓风一股脑就给吹掉了，就像吹掉借来的羽毛一样，于建筑表面丝毫无伤。对于地窑里既没有橄榄，也没有美酒的人来讲，就算不懂建筑风格也无所谓。

如果在文学作品里同样追求装饰风格，《圣经》的缔造者，如同我们教堂的设计师一样，把许多的时间花在它们的门楣上，那结果会怎样？纯文学，建筑艺术和它们的教授因此而诞生，一个人切实关心的是，怎样把几根木条子斜置于他的头上方或他的脚下方，和在他的箱式房刷什么颜色。

他斜置木条，给房子上色，略能说明有其实际意义；不过，居民的灵魂正离他们而去，那就无异于自己打造了一副棺材——即坟墓建筑——而“木匠”的另一个名字叫“棺材匠”。

有人说，对生活绝望或了无兴趣之时，不妨在你脚下抓起一把泥土，用它把你的房子刷成土黄色。他会想到那是他最终的小小归宿吗？还是抛掷一枚硬币来定夺吧。他一定有大量的闲暇吧！你为什么要抓起一把泥土？最好把你的房子刷成你肤色那样的；让它变成惨白吧，否则它会为你感到脸红的。提升村舍建筑风格的决心多强烈啊！等你把建筑装饰为我准备妥当了，我一定采用。

冬天还没到，我就建好了烟囱，并在房子两边铺了木瓦，防雨效果甚好，木瓦是从原木上砍下的最好的木片，不太齐整，树汁又多，于是，我用刨子把它们的边缘刨平了。

这样，我就有一所严丝密合的抹灰房子了，10英尺宽，15英尺长，8英尺高的角柱，一间阁楼，一间储藏室，每面墙上都有一个大窗户，两个活动天窗，房子一端有一个入户门，门对面还有一个砖砌的壁炉。

以下是我房子所用材料的确切花销，我用的这些材料都是寻常价，但是，不算人工，因为所有的活都是我自己干的；且我列得很详细，因为很少人能够给出他们建房子花销的准确数字，如果有，能分开列出不同材料的价格的人还是少之又少：——

Boards...............................................$8.03⅟2, mostly shanty boards.

木板…………………………………….8.035美元，大多用的是旧棚屋木板

Refuse shingles for roof sides………………4.00

屋顶两侧用的旧木瓦………………………….4美元

Laths…………………………………………….1.25

板条………………………………………………1.25美元

Two second-hand windows with glass……..2.43

两扇带玻璃的二手窗户……………………….2.43美元

One thousand old brick………………………4.00

1000块旧砖头…………………………………4美元

Two casks of lime................................2.40 That was high.

2桶石灰………………………………….2.4美元，买贵了

Hair..................................................0.31 More than I needed.

毛发…………………………………..0.31美元,买多了

Mantle-tree iron……………………………..0.15

壁炉架铁料…………………………………..0.15美元

Nails…………………………………………….3.90

钉子……………………………………………..3.9美元

Hinges and screws…………………………….0.14

合页和螺丝……………………………………..0.14美元

Latch………………………………………….0.10

门闩……………………………………………0.1美元

Chalk……………………………………………0.01

粉笔……………………………………………..0.01美元

Transportation.......................................1.40 I carried a good part

——on my back.

运输费…………………………………….1.4美元，大部分自己背过去的

In all………………………………………..$28.12⅟2

合计………………………………………..28.125美元

这些是所有的材料，不包括木材，石头，和沙子，那些是我按照政府公地上造房定居者应享受的极力领取的。我还用建房子剩下的木料在房子旁边做了个小柴房。

我打算建造一座房子，比康科德主街道上的任何房子都要富丽堂皇，不仅要比现在这所更让我喜欢，造价还不要超过这个。从而我发现，学生花比每年支付的住宿费贵不了多少的钱就可以得到一所可以一辈子住下去的房子。

仿佛我言过其实似的，我的理由是，我在夸赞人类，并非夸赞我自己；我的缺点和前后矛盾并不会影响我禅述的真实性。尽管我有那么多空话和虚伪之处——但是我发现小麦很难跟糠皮分开，不过，我跟别人一样为此感到非常抱歉——可是在这方面，我还要挺直腰杆，自由地呼吸。这对身心来说是莫大的宽慰；我坚信自己不会赔身下气地做魔鬼的代理人。

我会尽量为真理讲一句好话。在剑桥学院，一位学生的住宿费是每天30美元，他们的宿舍面积也就比我的房子稍微大一点，尽管建筑公司有其优势，一个屋檐下并排建了32间房，里面的人有诸多不便，还要忍受邻居发出的噪音，而且还有可能住到四楼去。

我不禁想到，如果在这些方面我们有更多真知灼见，不仅可以减少教育需求，因为，人类已经获得的教育够多了，而且接受教育要交的费用也多半会消失。

学生在剑桥或其他学校拥有的这些便利，学生或其他人付出巨大的生命代价，他们这两方面管理得当，这种代价会少10倍。最花钱的这些东西却从来不是学生最想要的。比如说，在学期费用帐单上，学费是最重要的一项，而跟最有教养的同辈人一道研习，会得到最有价值的教育，还不产生任何费用。

通常，创办一所学院的方式是靠一美元一美分一点点集资来的，然后，极端盲目地遵守劳动分工的原则——未曾慎重地遵循过这种原则，招来一个承包商，承包商却把它当作一项投机项目，然后，他雇用一些英国人和其他技术人员果真开始打地基了，据说，到学校上学的学生为了接受教育把自己安置在学校；因为这些疏忽，一代又一代人不得不掏钱缴学费。

我认为，为了学生或那些渴望通过上学能够获益的人，自己动手打地基要比以上这种做法好得多。学生有条不紊地躲避一些必要的人类劳动，获取了他们渴望的闲暇和休息，这闲暇既不光彩又没益处，独有得闲方可结出硕果的经历诓骗了他自己。“但是，”有人说，“你不是说学生要靠双手代替大脑工作吗？”我真真没这个意思，不过，我的意思是，某些事情，学生们不妨多想一想；我意思是他们不该游戏人生，或只是研究人生，在这场昂贵的游戏中，社会是鼓励他们的，定要从始至终要非常认真地体验生活。年轻人不赶快投入生活实践，怎能更好地学会生活呢？

我认为，这么做可让他们的思维就像做数学题一样得到训炼。譬如说，如果我希望一个男孩去学习有关艺术或科学的知识，我就不走寻常路，因为那只不过把他送到了邻近某位教授的地儿去，在那儿什么都教，什么都练，唯独生活艺术不教不练；——看世界要透过望远镜或显微镜来看，却从不用他的肉眼看；去研究化学，却不晓得他的面包是怎么做成的，或研究力学，却不懂得力从何而来；发现了抵达海王星的数颗新卫星，却没察觉他眼里的尘埃，或者说没有发现他自己是一颗什么漂泊不定的卫星；或在端详一滴醋里的怪物时，被游荡在他周围的怪物吞噬掉。

男孩要为自己制一把大折刀，自己挖矿，自己冶炼，大量阅读相关书籍——或者男孩去教育机构上冶金学的课程，与此同时，收到他父亲奖励的罗杰斯牌大折刀，到月底时哪种方式进步最大呢？哪种得到的大折刀最可能切到他的手指呢？…让我吃惊的是，我离开曾学习航海的学院，反而对航海更了解了！为什么，如果我到港口乘船而下，就对航海更了解了。甚至是贫无立锥之地的学生都学过政治经济学，他们只被教过了，而等同于哲学的生活经济学，老实说，不是我们的大学所能教授的。结果是，学生在阅读亚当·斯密、李嘉图和萨伊的政治经济学时，不免会让他父亲负债累累。

随着有了我们的很多大学，所以有了一百项“现代化先进设施”；从而它们成了一种假象；先进并不代表总是正面的。那家伙很早就对这些设施入了股，又进行若干的后期投资，所以会不断地索取复利，至死方休。我们的发明华而不实，只能分散我们做正经事的精力，加重心灵的重量。

它们是对不先进的方面做出了改进的工具，这方面早已实现而且很容易实现；就像通往波士顿或纽约的铁路一样。我们急急忙忙地创造一条从缅因州到德克萨斯州的磁性电报线路；可是，缅因州和德克萨思州之间可能没什么重要的事情要传达。这种尴尬境地就像把一名老实男子介绍给一位高贵的聋子女士，待他出现后，把她的号角状助听器的一端放进他手里，他却无话可说。似乎主要目的是快速把话说完，而不是去理智地说话一样。

我们渴望在大西洋挖海底隧道，短短几周，让旧世界近乎成了新世界；但是，也许，漂洋过海传入美国人耳朵里的第一消息是阿德莱德公主患了百日咳。毕竟，人类骑着每分钟跑了一英里的马，也没带来多么重要的信息；他不是一名布道者，他也没有改变吃蝗虫和野蜂蜜的习性。我怀疑，飞童是否曾带到磨坊一粒种子去。

有人跟我说，“你不攒钱这点让我很纳闷；你爱旅行；你可以今天就乘车去趟菲奇伯格，看看乡下的样子。”不过，我可没那么傻。我听说速度最快的旅客都是行动派。我跟我的朋友说，我们试试看谁第一到那儿。距离是三十英里；费用是90美分。这几乎是一天的薪水。

我记得，在这条路上干活的工人一天只挣60美分。那好，我现在就出发，步行去，天黑前到达；我一个星期以来，我一直以那个速度出行。与此同时，你可以把路费挣出来，明天的某个时刻就到了，也可能是今天晚上也到了，如果你足够幸运，能及时找到一份工作。你会在那里工作大半天，这期间你不在去菲奇伯格的路上。所以说，如果铁路四通八达，我认为我应该一直在你前头；至于看农村和体验乡村生活，我得跟你完全绝交了。

这是通用法则，不曾有人超越，至于铁路，我们会说它长远而辽阔。让铁路环绕世界，服务于全人类，等同于将这个星球的表面整个铲平了。人类尚不明确是否要坚持这种合股经营的方式，用铁锹一直挖下去，要不了多久，便能分文不花的乘火车到达任何地方；尽管人群波涛似的涌进车站，乘务员大喊：“全部上车！”只见烟雾四起，蒸气袅袅升腾，你会发现乘车者寥若星辰，其余人等皆被火车碾压过去了——可能会称之为“一起悲惨事故。”

无疑，挣到车费的人最终可以乘车，就是如果他们活得够久，不过，到那时，他们可能游兴索然了。为了在耄耋之年享受一份令人置疑的自由，把生命的最美时光耗在了赚钱中，这让我想起早期去印度赚钱的英国人，他可能返回英国过上富有诗意的生活。他本应该马上建造阁楼去。“什么！”在这片土地上，住在棚屋里的百万爱尔兰人吼道，“难道我们修建这条铁路不是一桩好事吗？”是的，我答道，相对来说，还是不错的，要不然你可能会更糟糕；但是，把你当作我自己的兄弟，我希望，比起在这里挖土，你能更好的利用你的时间。

在我的房子完工前，希望通过一些诚实而愉快的方式，赚上10到20美金，应付我的额外花销，我在房子附近耕种了约2英亩半松软的沙土地，主要种了豆子，也有一小部分地种了土豆，玉米，豌豆和大头菜。所有地加起来，通共有11英亩，大部分栽种了松树和山核桃树，上个季度，每英亩收入8美元又8分钱。一位农夫说，“这块地没啥用处，只好养一群吱哇乱叫的松鼠了。”

我在地里什么肥料都没有上，因为我不是这块地的主人，只是一名合法的定居者，也不打算再栽种这么多了，也没有一下子把地锄完。我耕地耕出好几根树桩来，这给我提供了好长时间的燃料，留下几小圈未垦之地，所以，一入夏，一眼就能看出，那里的豆苗长势更加繁盛。

我屋后那些枯树——大部分卖不掉的木头，和瓦尔登湖上的浮木，使我的燃料富富有余。我不得已雇用了一组牲畜和一个人帮忙耕地，虽然还是我自己手扶梨。我的农场在第一季度就在农具、种子、农活等等，支出14.72美元。玉米种子是人送的。这实在不值一提，除非你种的东西过于多了。除了一些豌豆和甜玉米之外，我还收获了20蒲式耳豆子，和18蒲式耳土豆。黄玉米和大头菜种得太晚了，没什么收成。我农场总共收入23.44美元。

Deducting the outgoes.....................14.72

——扣除支出费用……………………14.72美元

There are left……………………………..$8.71

还剩………………………………………..8.71美元

除了消耗掉的以外，那时我手头上估计还有价值4.5美元的产品——我点钱足以弥补我没有种植的那一点儿菜蔬了。通盘考虑，我认识到人类灵魂和眼下的重要性，尽管我的实验占据了短暂的时光，不，甚至在一定程度上，正是因为时间短暂这一特点，我相信，我那一年的收成要比康科德的任何农夫的都要好。

次年，我依然出乎其类，拔乎其萃，因为我用锹铲平了所有我需要的土地，约有1/3英亩，且这两年我吸取到一些经验，至少没有被满仓满有关农牧业的名著所吓倒，其中包括亚瑟·杨的著作，如果有人住在这里过简朴的生活，只吃他自己种的玉米，吃多少种多少，不去交换不甚多的更奢侈更昂贵的东西，他需要耕种的土地只需要几竿就可以了，锹挖代替牛耕，时不时地选块新地代替给种过的土地施肥，这会更省钱，一切必要的农活，只需要在夏季抽空干几小时就干完了；如此，他就不会像现在这样跟一头耕牛、或一所房子、或一头奶牛、亦或一头猪身拴在一起了。

我想公正地谈谈这个话题，且作为一个对目前经济与社会筹措的成功与失败不感兴趣的人。我比康科德任何农夫更独立，因为我没有把自己跟房子，或者农场捆绑在一起，而是从心所欲的生活，所谓从心所谓，就是随时都在变化。除了已经比他们过得更殷实之外，如果我的房子被烧了或庄稼歉收了，我还可以跟先时一样过得很好。

说真的，这样一个无量智慧的民族，前不见古人，后不见来者，就算有，是不是尽如人意，我不敢保证。不过，我从没驯养过一匹马或一头牛，让它为我干任何它能干的活，只因为我害怕自己成了一个马夫或一个牛倌；这么做的话，是否社会就成了得胜者，我们能肯定一个人的所得不是另一个人的失去吗？马倌跟他的主人同样有理由感到满意吗？诚然，没有牛马的帮助，某些公有工作就完不成，还让人类跟牛和马共享这份殊荣；在那种情形下，难道我们就可以得出结论，人类就不能做出更有价值的工作吗？

人类在牛马的帮助下，开始从事的不只是毫无必要或者毫无艺术性的工作，还有奢侈而无用的工作，少数人就不免会跟牛群全部交换工作，或者，换句话说，成为最健壮者的奴仆。这样，人类的内心不仅为动物操劳，不过，具有象征意义的是，他的身体也在为动物劳作。虽然，我们有许许多多结实的砖房或石头房，但是，农夫的繁荣景象仍取决于谷仓是否盖过了房子。据说这座小镇这一带有最大的牛圈和马厩，且毫不逊色于公共建筑物；但是这个县里几乎没有供自由礼拜或自由演讲的礼堂。

但是，国家为什么不通过他们的抽象思维的力量，而要靠建筑来纪念他们自己呢？一部《福音之歌》比东方各国的所有废墟更加令人称颂！艾菲儿铁塔和宫殿是君主的奢侈。一个朴素而独立的头脑不会把脑筋动在任何竞价上。天才不是哪个皇帝的仆人，也不是贵重的银子、金子、或大理石，只一小撮人另当别论。

请问，开凿那么多石头，图什么？我在奥卡迪亚没见过有人对石头敲敲打打。很多国家几近疯狂，他们靠留下石雕的数量来实现永垂不朽的雄心。如果付出同样的辛苦来打磨刨光他们的气质会怎样？一个正确的思想要比一个高耸入月的纪念碑更值得流传。我更喜欢看到石头留在原地不动。底比斯的壮丽是庸俗的壮丽。

较之一个对生活的真实目标渐行渐远的百门底比斯城，划分老实人的田地界线的一竿的石墙要更合情合理。粗暴野蛮的信仰和文明建起了宏伟的殿堂；但是，你可能称之为基督教的却什么都没有修建。一个国家敲打的大多数石雕仅仅轮为它的坟墓，它把自己给活埋了。就金字塔而言，本身倒没什么好诧异的，事实上，可以看到那么多人，低到了尘埃里，不惜消耗自己的生命，去建造一个坟墓，埋葬某些野心勃勃的傻瓜。倒不如淹死在尼罗河里，然后他的尸体给狗吃了，还显得更聪明些，也更有气概些。我或许还会为他们或他找些借口，可惜我没这闲工夫。

至于建造者的信仰和艺术爱好，放眼整个世界，也是一样的，无论建筑物是埃及城堡还是美国银行。造价总是大大超越了实用价值。主要动机是虚荣心，对大蒜、面包、和奶油的热爱才出力相助。巴尔科姆是一位前程似锦的年轻建筑设计师，对维特鲁威追随倍至，他用坚硬的铅笔和尺子设计的图纸，交给了多布森父子采石公司。历时30个世纪时，向下看吧，人类开始仰望它了。

至于你的高塔和纪念碑，这座小镇曾一度出现一群疯狂的家伙，他们要挖到中国去，他挖了那么远，正如他所说，他听到了中国的锅里和水壶里的的咕嘟声；但是，我认为我不会迷失方向去羡慕他挖的洞。很多人关注着东西方的纪念碑——要了解是谁建造了它们。而我呢，还是乐意知道当时谁不肯建造它们——是谁不屑于这种区区小事。不过，还是继续做我的数据统计吧。

当时，我在村里干过的行当有手指头那么多，有测量，木工活及其他不同类型的日工活，挣到13.34美元。8个月的火食费，也就是说，从头一年的7月4日至次年的3月1日，这其间做了这些估算，即使我在那里住了两年多——不算我种植的土豆，一点嫩玉米和一些豌豆，也不算最后我手头上存货的价值——有

Rice…………………………$1.73

大米…………………………1.73美元

Molasses...........................1.73 Cheapest form of the Saccharine.

糖蜜…………………………1.73美元最便宜的一种糖精

Rye meal……………………..1.04

黑麦粉……………………………1.04美元

Indian meal......................0.99 Cheaper than rye.

印第安粉………………….0.99美元比黑麦便宜

Pork…………………………..0.22

猪肉…………………………..0.22美元

All experiments which failed：

全部买来的东西：

Flour...............................0.88 Costs more than Indian meal,

both money and trouble.

面粉………………………0.88美元,比印第安粉贵，费钱又费力

Sugar…………………………0.80

糖……………………………0.8美元

Lard………………………..0.65

猪油………………………..0.65美元

Apples………………………..0.25

苹果………………………..0.25美元

Dried apple………………….0.22

苹果干………………………..0.22美元

Sweet potatoes………………0.10

红薯……………………………0.1美元

One pumpkin………………..0.06

一个南瓜…………………….0.06美元

One watermelon…………….0.02

一个西瓜………………………0.02美元

Salt…………………………..0.03

盐……………………………0.03美元

是的，我总共吃掉8.74美元，都在这儿；不过，我不应该没羞没臊地公布我的罪过，如果我不知道大多数读者跟我一样有罪过，且他们的行为公布出来，恐怕未必比我的好吧。次年，有时候我会去抓很多鱼当晚餐。有一次，我甚至还宰杀了一只糟蹋过我豆田的旱獭——它正在轮回转生，正如一名鞑靼人提议——吃掉它，部分原因是为了尝试；但是，即使它有股麝香味儿，但它确实给了我短暂的愉悦，我明白，长久享用这种美味是不可取的，哪怕你请村里的屠夫把你的旱獭做成一道佳肴也不行。

同时期内的衣服和一些额外花销，尽管少，但是从这个条目里也能推算出来，总共8.4美元

Oil and some household utensils……..2.00

油和一些家用器皿………………………2美元

因此，所有的支出，除了洗衣费和和缝补费，因为大部分活是外面找人代劳的，且他们的帐单还不曾收到——这些是全部支出了，再说，在世界上的这方土地，一切生活方式都免不了这笔必要开支——有

House………………………………….$28.12

房子…………………………………….28.12美元

Farm one year………………………….14.72

全年农场的花销……………………………14.72美元

Food eight months…………………….8.74

8个月的火食费………………………….8.74美元

Clothing, etc., eight months………..8.40

八个月的衣服等花销…………………8.4美元

Oil, etc., eight months...................2.00

——

八个月的油等花销…………………2美元

In all…………………………………$61.99

合计………………………………….61.99美元

不过，这些统计数字微不足道，且，似乎没什么意义，不过，正因为有了一定的完整性，也就有了一定的价值。但凡开销过的，我都入帐了。从上述估算来看，似乎我一周光火食费就有27分钱。此后近两年来，我吃的无外乎就是不放酵母粉的黑麦粉和印第安粉，土豆，大米，少盐猪肉，糖蜜，和盐。我这种喜欢印度哲学的人，把大米作为主食，再合适不过了。要应付某些鸡蛋里挑骨头的人提出的异议，我也不妨申明一下，如果我偶尔出去下个馆子，正如我过去常在外头用餐那样，我相信以后有外出用餐的机会，这会经常打乱我的家务开支计划。但是外出用餐，我说过，是常有的事，像这样的一份比较申明，一点也不受影响。

经过两年的实践我知道，即使在这个纬度上，一个人要获取必要的食物，一点都不费劲，真是令人难以置信；人可以像动物一样享用简单的饮食，还能获得健康和力量。我烹调了一道特别满意的晚餐，从多方面来说都是满意的，我只是从玉米地里摘来一碟马齿苋（拉丁文学名叫Portulaca oleracea），煮熟，放了盐。我之所以用拉丁语给它取学名，是因为太好吃了。在和平时期，在寻常的中午，有煮熟的甜玉米享之不尽，还有盐可以加，请问一个睿智的人还有什么渴求的呢？

即使我略略变换一下口味，也是为了满足口腹之欲而已，不是为了健康考虑。人类曾处于忍饥挨饿的境地，不是因为必需品的匮乏，而是因为缺乏奢侈品；我认识一位贤惠女子，她认为自己的儿子之所以失去了生命，只是因为他拒绝喝饮用水。

读者朋友会察觉到，我是从经济视角来探讨这个话题的，而不是从饮食视角探讨，他也不会冒险去尝试我这种节制生活，除非他有一个存货很多的大餐柜。

我起初做面包只用印第安粉和盐，烘焙地道的锄头点心，我把它们放到一块木瓦上或者造房子锯下的木材一端，再移到户外的火堆上烘烤；不过，常常烤糊，还有一股松木味儿。我还试过用面粉做；但是，最后发现黑麦粉跟印第安粉混合起来最方便也最满意。天冷的时候，连续烘焙几根长棍面包，像一个埃及人小心翼翼地孵化小鸡一样，照看，翻面儿，真真意趣无穷也。

它们是我烘烤熟的真正的谷物果实，我感觉，它们像其他甜美的果实似的，有一种香味，我把这种果实包在布里，尽可能地把这种香气保存得久一些。

我研究了古代至关重要的面包制作工艺，参考相关的权威著作，一直追溯到原始时期，最早发明的面包是不发酵的，当时，人类的饮食首次从食用坚果和生肉的野蛮状态，变得温和而精致了，随着我的研究进程逐渐推进，据说，由于面团的偶然变酸，从而学会了发酵方法，此后，经过种种发酵方法，直到我做出“香甜美味诱人的面包”为止，也就是主食面包。

有人认为发酵菌是面包的灵魂，酵母菌遍布面包里的每一个细胞组织，像女灶神维斯太的圣火一样被虔诚地保存下来——我估计，几瓶珍贵的酵母最初还是五月花号带来的，为美国解决了问题，它的影响力依然在不断上升、膨胀、蔓延，在美国大地上的面浪里翻滚着——这酵母引子是我定期从村里虔诚领来的，直到后来，我在某个早晨忘记了使用规则，用开水烫死了我的酵母菌，通过这次意外，我发现竟然不是非用酵母不可——因为我的发现不是胡编乱造的，而是经过分析发酵过程得来的——且我很高兴从那以后我用不到它了，尽管大部分家庭主妇很认真地向我保证，不放酵母的面包就不会是安全有益健康的面包，老人们预言说我很快会失去生命力的。

我还发现酵母不是一种必要成分，而且不用酵母一年以后，我还在这片土地上活得好好的；我很高兴摆脱掉兜里不揣一瓶酵母这样一桩琐事了，有时候瓶子爆开，酵母粉都漏掉了，搞得我好不尴尬。兜里不揣酵母，感觉更轻松更体面了。

人类这种动物比其他任何动物更能适应一切气候与环境.我既不在我的面包里放苏打粉，也不放其他酸性物质和碱面。

看来我是根据公元前2世纪时期的马库斯·波修斯·卡托的配方做面包。“Panem depsticium sic facito.Manus mortariumque bene lavato. Farinam in mortarium indito, aquae paulatim addito, subigitoque pulchre. Ubi bene subegeris, defingito, coquitoque sub testu.”这段拉丁文，理解为，——“做揉面面包是这样的，把你的手和槽形容器洗干净”

把面粉倒入槽内，慢慢加水，把它彻底揉透。把面揉好之后，捏成形，盖上盖子就可以烘焙了，“也就是放在烘焙锅里。没有一个字提到发酵的。不过，我不经常用这种面包。有一次，我囊中无钱，一个多月没有见到面包。”

这片土地上的每个新英格兰人都不靠远方那摇摆不定的市场，就很容易种植做面包的黑麦或印第安玉米。我们与简单和独立还相距甚远，在康科德，商店里罕有售卖新鲜香甜的面粉，而且粗加工的玉米糁和谷物几乎没有人食用了。

通常，农夫把自己种的粮食喂了牛和猪，却在商店掏大价钱买到不太好的面粉。我明白自己能够很容易地种植一两蒲式耳黑麦或印第安玉米，因为前者会种在最贫脊的土地上，后者也不需要最好的土地，用手磨就能磨成粉，没有大米和猪肉，照样过日子；如果我一定要吃些浓缩糖的话，通过试验我发现，我能用南瓜或甜菜做出质量上乘的蜜糖来，我知道自己只需要栽几棵槭树就更容易弄出糖了，这些槭树还在生长，我就用不同的替代品来取代我上面提到的那些东西。“因为”，正如先祖们唱到，——

“我们可以用南瓜、欧洲萝卜和核桃树叶酿成美酒来滋润我们的嘴唇”

这样，就我的食物而言，我可以避免一切交易和物物交换了，而且已经有一所房子可住，只要保持有衣可穿，有燃料可用就行了。我目前穿的马裤是在一农户家织的——感谢上苍，人类还有这么多美德；因为我认为从农夫降到工人如同从人类降到农夫一样伟大而让人难忘；——且在这个村庄，初来乍到，燃料真是能坑死人的事儿。至于土地呢，如果不允许我继续依法占用，我就用我耕种的土地的出让的价格购买一英亩——也就是8美元零8分钱。但是，事实上，我认为，由于我占用了它，反而提高了土地的价值。

有一部分人不相信，有时候问我这样那样的问题，比方说，是不是我认为自己光吃蔬菜就可以活下去；这问到了事情的根源上——因为根源是信念——我习惯了这样回答，我靠木板上的钉子，照样能活下去。如果他们连这都不明白，那不管我说多少，他们还是不明白。对我来说，我很高兴听到有人尝试这种实验；一位年轻男子尝试了两星期的艰苦生活，用牙齿啃带穗的生玉米吃。 松鼠群同样试过，而且成功了。人类对这些实验颇有兴趣，尽管几个行动不便的，或者在磨坊里有三分之一产权的老妇人，对此试验可能会惊恐万状。

有一部分家具是自己亲手做的——剩下的那部分家具也没花什么钱，所以我没有记帐——包括一张床，一张餐桌，一个办公桌，三把椅子，直径为3英寸的圆镜，一把火钳和一副壁炉柴架，一个水壶，一个平底锅，一个煎锅，一把长柄勺，一个脸盆，两幅刀钗，三个盘子，一个杯子，一把小勺，一个油壶，一个蜜糖罐，一个漆过的台灯。没有人穷到需要坐在南瓜上。那就成了瞎混日子了。在村里的阁楼上，有很多我特别喜欢的椅子是可以带走的。

家具！谢天谢地，我可以坐，也可以站，不用家具公司的帮忙。看着他的家具—一堆不值钱的空箱子——装进驶向村里卡车，青天白日之下，众目睽睽之下，除了哲学家，谁不会羞愧得无地自容呢？那是斯波尔丁家具吧。

光靠观察这么一车家具，我分辨不出这是属于所谓的富人的，还是属于一个穷人的；家具的主人总是看起来穷苦不堪。当然，这些东西你拥有的越多你就越穷。每车看起来好像有十几个棚屋里的东西；如果一个棚屋穷困不堪，那这一车岂不是穷了十几倍。请问，为啥我们搬家要扔掉我们的家具，最后从这个地方到另一个地方新购置家具，然后让这些家具白白被烧毁呢？

就像如果把所有这些圈套都扣到一个人的腰带上，然后他经过我们撒下绳索而不拽着绳索的荒野——拽着他的圈套，他就动弹不得。他是一只侥幸的狐狸，只是把尾巴留在了陷阱里。麝鼠会咬断它的第三条腿来逃掉。人类失去他的灵活性就不足为怪了。他多久去一次鬼门关！“先生，恕我冒昧，你说的鬼门关是什么意思？”

如果你是一位先知，无论何时，你见到一个人就会看到他拥有的一切，哦，他后面还有好多他假装不是自己的东西，即使橱柜房用具和一切零碎物件，不值什么，他都要留着，舍不得烧掉，似乎他要拉着这个套艰难前行。

一个人穿过节孔或大门的时候，他那拉家具的雪橇却穿不过去，我认为，这个人就走在了鬼门关。我听说有些萧洒、看起来结实的人，貌似自由，应有尽有，样样具备，说他的“家具”要不要上保险时，我不觉同情起来。“不过，我会对我的家具做什么呢？”

——还有，我那美丽的蝴蝶被粘在了蜘蛛网上。即使那些看起来很长时间没有任何家具的人，如果你打听一下更多细节，你会发现，某人的马厩里还存放着一些家具呢。我把如今的英国视作一位老绅士，带一大堆行李出行，都是长期持家过日子积攒下来的劳什子，他没勇气烧掉；大箱子，小箱子，手提箱，还有大大小小的包裹。

至少要把前三样扔掉吧。抬这些东西的力量超过了一位带着床行走的健康人，我肯定建议病人要把他的床放下再跑。我见过一位移民扛着一大捆行李摇摇晃晃走着，行李里面包含了他的全部家当——看起来就像他脖子上长了一个大瘤子——我同情他，不是因为那是他的全部家当，而是因为他带着全部家当行走。

如果我一定要拖着我的圈套，我会保重身体，带点轻便的，不要夹到我的要害部位。不过，也许从不把手伸向圈套，才是最明智的。

顺便说一下，我发现我不用花窗帘钱，因为，我没有窥探者，无需去遮挡什么，除了太阳和月亮——而且我乐意让它们看进来。月亮既不会让牛奶变味，也不会污染我的肉，太阳既不会伤到我的家具，也不会让我的地毯褪色；如果他有时候一位太过热情的朋友，躲到大自然提供的帘子后面去，要比往家用开支上添一笔费用经济多了。一次，一位女士送给我一块垫子，但是，我屋内没有铺垫子的地方，也没有时间屋里屋外地打扫它。只好谢绝了，我还是喜欢在门前的草地上擦自己的鞋底。把抑制烦恼的开始才是最好的。

没过多久，我出席了辅祭的财产拍卖会，因为他这一生没有白活：——“人死后，他们的罪恶还在。”

跟往常一样，大部分东西从他父亲在世时便开始积攒的不值钱的东西。其中还有一条干巴的绦虫。现在，在他的阁楼里和其他满是灰尘的旮旯里躺了半个世纪之后，这些东西没被烧掉；取代火堆，或纯粹毁坏的，是一场拍卖会，换句话说，是让它们增值。邻居位渴望收集来观赏它们，一股脑全买下了，小心翼翼地运到他们自家的阁楼里和落了尘土的旮旯里，静静地躺在那里，直到清算他们的财产时，它们再开启新一轮的搬家模式。而人终归于尘土。

也许，我们不妨有效地效仿一下原始民族的习惯，因为他们每年无论如何都要举行抛却苦难的活动；无论他们有没有付诸实际，但他们对事态都有自己的看法。

如果我们庆祝类似的“街头表演活动”或“第一批果实成熟盛宴”，像巴特拉姆描述穆克拉斯族印第安人的风俗那样，岂不是好事？“一个小镇在街头庆祝的时候，”巴特拉姆说，“大家早给自己准备好了新衣服，还有新的炒锅、平底锅、其他家用器具和家具，他们把自己穿破的衣服和其他破烂收在一起，清理了自己的房子，院子，和整个小镇的污垢，还有剩余的粮食和其他旧物，都堆一了一起，一把火烧了个真干净。然后他们服药斋戒三日，小镇上没有一点烟火。斋戒期间，他们清心寡欲。大赦令宣布；所有的罪犯都可以回到他们的小镇。”

“到了第四日早上，在祭司摩擦着干木头，在公共广场上点燃新的火种，小镇上的家家户户都从这里取得了新燃的、纯净的火苗。”

然后，他们用新鲜谷物和新鲜水果设宴，一连三天载歌载舞，“接下来的四天，周边小镇上的朋友用类似的方式净化，并穿戴齐备了来拜访他们，大家一起共庆节日。”

墨西哥人每隔五十二年也举行相似的净化活动，他们相信，每五十二年结束，就该弃绝一次世俗。

我几乎没听说过比这更虔诚的圣事了，像字典中定义的那样，“内在的心灵美的外在可见体现，”除此之外，我不怀疑他们当初这样做是上天的直接启示，尽管《圣经》上没有相关记录。

五年多光景，我完全靠自己的双手劳动养活自己，我发现，一年工作六个星期，我就能满足所有生活上的花销。整个冬天，以及夏天的大部分时光，我可以自由自在地学习。我不遗余力地去办学，发现，我 的收支相抵，确切地讲，是入不敷出。因为我不得不穿正装去教学，信不信由你，相应地，同时也浪费了我的时间。

尽管我办学教书不是为了我的同事好，只为糊口罢了，这次办学以失败告终了。我试过做生意，但是我发现起码要在那个领域里干十年时间，那了那时，我可能在走向魔鬼的路上。实际上，那时候，我恐怕正在做所谓的大生意。以前我到处看我要干什么去谋生，遵从新朋友的意愿，我脑海中要想一些悲惨的经历，已经让我伤透了脑盘，我经常认真地想过去采摘黑浆果算了；我肯定能做，挣点小钱也够花了——因为我最拿手的本领是需求很少——只需要一丁点钱，我傻傻地认为，对我素常的心情基本没有影响。

我的熟人们毫不犹豫去经商的，要么去上班的，我深信这个职业最像他们的职业；整个夏天，在山脉一带采摘路上碰到的浆果，后来又粗心大意地丢掉了；那么，就喂了阿德墨托斯的羊群吧。我也梦想着采集野生草药，或者用拉干草的卡车给热爱森林的村民带去常青树，甚至运到城市里去。不过，从那以后，我才明白，贸意对它负责的每件事情都下了诅咒；即使你经营天堂里福音，也逃不掉贸易的全部诅咒。

有些事情我就特别喜欢，特别珍惜我的自由，我付出辛苦并能取得成功，我不希望把时间花在赚取华丽地毡或其他优质家具上，或是精美的烹饪术上，或修建一所古希腊或歌特式风格的房子。如果有人唾手可得这些东西，且到手后他知道如何使用它们，我就让他们追求好了。有的人真“勤劳，”似乎是为了劳动而热爱劳动，或者，也许因为劳动让他们避开了更糟的伤害；既如此，我现在也没什么好说的了。

那些人不知道要比他们现在享受的闲暇还要多的闲暇做什么，我建议他们双倍地努力工作——工作到他们能买得起他们自己为止，然后获取自由身。我通过亲身经历发现日工比任何职业都要独立，尤其因为一年只需要工作30-40天就能养活一个人。劳动者的一天随着日落而结束，那么他就有他的劳动选择自由和独立性；但是他的雇主日积月累地投机，年复一年，都没有喘息的机会。

简言之，我相信信仰和经验，如果我们只是活得简单聪明，在这个星球上坚持自己不是吃苦，而是消遣；因为民族越朴素，娱乐就越不真实。一个人没有必要要靠额头上的汗水生存，除非他比我更容易出汗。

我熟悉一名年轻男子，继承了几亩良田，他跟我说，如果他有办法的话，他觉得他应该像我这样生活。不管出于什么原因，我并不愿意有人采用我的生活模式；因为，在他还没有学会我的生活方式以前，我可能又摸索出了另外一种生活方式，我希望世界上尽可能有各种与众不同的人；但愿每一个人都能够认真地找到或追求他自己的生活方式，而不是他父亲或他母亲，或者他邻居那样的生活方式。

年轻人可以搞建筑、务农、或航海，只要让他能够一往无前，他告诉我说他乐意做就完了。从微观角度看，我们只是聪明而已，正如水手或逃犯那样仰望星空罢了；不过这已经足够为我们的生活做向导了。我们可能无法在一定的时间到达我们的港口，但是我们在自己的节奏里一直向前。

毋庸置疑，即便这样，对一个人实用，对一千个人就更实用了，如同一所大房子不一定就比一所小房子贵，由于是只有一个屋顶，一个地窖，以及用一面墙隔开的几间公寓。不过，就我自己而言，我更喜欢独立的居所。此外，自己建立一所房子要比说服另一人共享一面墙的好处要来得容易些；且你住公寓，由于共享墙体，所以会更省钱，必定是薄薄的一面墙，万一另一边住的是个糟糕的邻居，连他那边的墙体都不去修缮的。

达成最佳合作的通常极极有限而且是表面上的；略微真实的合作仿佛不存在似的，是一种安安静静的和谐。如果一个人有信仰，无论走哪儿他都会跟有相同的信仰的人合作；如果他没有信仰，无论他跟谁作伴，他会继续跟世界上的其他人一样生活着。合作好好赖赖，就是我们要共同生活。

我听闻有两青年男子近期决定一起去环球世界，其中一人囊中羞涩，一路上在桅杆前，在耕梨后辛辛苦苦赚取旅行费，另一位却在兜兜里揣着一张支票。不难发现，他们的合作长久不了，因为其中一人的经济压根就难以维系。在他们的旅途中遇到第一个利益危机时就得散伙。综上所述，正如我前面提到过的，如今，一个人就可以来一场说走就走的旅行；如果要与另一个结伴而行，就需要等另一人准备好才可以启程，这距他们动身可能需要很长时间。我的一些老乡认为这种行为太自私了。我承认，迄今为止，我仅对慈善事业尽了一点微薄之力。基于一种社会责任感，我做过一些贡献，当然其中也有乐善好施的成分。有人使出浑身解数说服我帮帮镇上的穷困家庭；如果我无所事事的话——撒旦会给闲人找事情做——我会试着让自己忙于慈善之类的事情。可是，每当我一头扎进这方面工作的时候，我就帮助一部分穷人在各方面过得像我自己一样舒适，把帮助他们过上幸福的生活当成一种责任，还硬着头皮给他们提出了脱贫建议，他们却义无反顾的选择穷下去。我们镇上的男男女女已在想方设法为自己的同胞们谋福祉，我相信，至少使人不去做缺乏人情味的事情。做慈善，你得有像做别的事情那样的头脑。做慈善，也是一种高尚的职业。另外，说句公道话，可能听起来很奇怪，我确信这种事不合我的脾性。也许我不该摒弃这种特殊的使命，社会需要我去拯救宇宙，使其免于毁灭；我坚信，在某个美丽的地方，至今有一种神奇的力量在护它周全。我肯定不会阻挡任何人发挥他的天赋；于是有人全身心地投入我不愿意去做的事情，我会说，即使世人将其称之为干坏事，他们很可能会这样说，你也要咬咬牙坚持下去。

我没有说自己的论据很奇特的意思；无疑，许多读者朋友们也会做出类似辩白。在做某件事情的时候——我的邻居们要说这是做好事，我不会加入——我会毫不犹豫地说自己是一名出色的雇工；到底出色在哪里，那是我雇主的事情。我做的有多好，按对这个好字的通常理解，那不是我的分内之事，而且并非刻意而为之。人们几乎都这样说，从此时此地的你开始，不以变得更有价值做好事，而以心存善念做好事。如果我以这种口吻说教的话，倒不如说，做个好人吧。好比太阳升起，用自己的火光照亮了球球或一颗六等星星后，就应该停下来一样。像罗宾古德非洛那样，爬在每个小屋的窗外偷窥，让人精神错乱，肉也腐坏了，让黑暗清晰可见，他那让人愉快的温暖和善心并没有日益增长，直到他变如此光芒万丈，没有人能看清他的脸，接下来，也就是说与此同时，在自己的轨道上，绕着地球做好事，或者更确切地说，如同更加真实的哲学发现的那样，地球绕着太阳转，从而得到恩泽。法厄同通过惠泽世人，希望证明自己的天神出生，就驾着太阳的四马金车出游，但是有一天，车偏离了轨道，天堂下面的几个街区的房子烧着了，就连地球的表面也烧焦了，烧干了每个泉眼，造就了撒哈拉大沙漠，最后，朱庇特一声劈雳把他劈死在地，太阳为他的死悲痛不已，整整一年没有发光。

善良变了味，那真是奇臭无比。如同人的腐尸，神的腐尸一般。如果我确切地知道有人专程来我们做好事的话，那我得逃命去了，就像躲避非洲沙漠上干热的风一样，也就是西蒙风，刮得你满嘴，满鼻，满耳朵都是土，直到把你闷死为止，就怕他对我做好事——它的病毒会同我的血液掺在一起。不——要是真这样的话，我宁愿遭受灾难，那样来得更自然一些。要是我饿了，有人过来喂我，或是我冷，他过来温暖我，或者我掉入沟渠，他把我拉上来，对我来说，他算不上一个好人。我可以给你找来一条纽芬兰狗，能做的不比那少。广义上来讲，慈善并不是去关爱同胞。以霍华德的善举来说，他无疑是一个大善人，一个令人尊敬的人，他的善良也得到到了回报；比较而言，在我们最值得帮助的时候，如果他们的慈善没落实到我们最好的土地上面，即使有一百个霍华德又有什么用？我从没听说过有哪个慈善会议提出给我或者像我这样的人做点好事。

耶稣会会士被印第安人吓怕了，那些被绑在桩子上的印第安人，竟向行刑者提出了一些新的折磨方式。他们遭受肉体的折磨，却并不屈服，有时候他们对传教士给予的安慰也无动于衷；你们应该奉行的法则是，在他们行刑时，少在他们耳边说些规劝之类的话就行，至于他们是怎么被折磨死的，他们却毫不在乎，反倒还有点喜欢自己的敌人，对后者的恶行几乎全部给宽恕了。

要确保你给穷人的帮助，是他们最需要的，尽管穷人远远地落在你的后面是真实存在的。如果你给钱，那你得跟他们一起花掉，不要只把钱丢给他们就完事。有时候，我们会犯一些奇奇怪怪的错误。穷人通常没那么饿，也没那么冷，他们只是脏一些，穿得破一些，举止粗俗一些，这多半是因为他的品味，并不单单是他的命运。如果你给他钱，他也许会买更多的破烂衣服。我一般会可怜那些粗笨的爱尔兰劳工，他们在湖上凿取冰块，干活把衣服磨破了，而我穿得相对干净，时髦一些，却冻得瑟瑟发抖，一个侵肌裂骨的大冷天，一个落水的人来我家取暖，我看到他脱掉三条裤子，两双袜子，才露出皮肤，尽管他们的穿着又脏又破，没错，他还是拒绝了我送的衣服，他已经有很多富余的衣服了。他需要帮助的只是这次落水事件。于是，我开始可怜我自己，我发现送我一件法兰绒T恤要比送他一家现成的服装店更加功德无量。有上千人在砍掉罪恶的枝叉，只有一人把罪恶的根砍掉了，也许他就是穷人身上花的时间和金钱最多的人，通过他的生活方式产生的苦难也最多，尽管他设法挽求，但徒劳无功。道貌岸然的奴隶主拿出奴隶们创造的十分之一的收益，给奴隶们购买一个星期天的自由。有人通过雇用穷人去厨房干活，以显示他们对穷人的善良。他们亲自干活岂不是更有慈悲心吗？你炫耀说拿出自己收入的十分之一做了慈善；也许你应该拿出收入的十分之九去行善，善始善终嘛。即使这样，社会收回来的也只有财富的十分之一。这应该归咎于财富占有者的慷慨大方，还是公正的法官的粗心大意？

做慈善几乎是唯一让人类大加赞扬的美德。不，这个评价太高了；是因为我们的自私，才会对它有过高的评价。

那是阳光明媚的一天，一个健壮的穷人在康科德向我夸赞镇上的一位市民，因为，他说，他对穷人很友好；这个穷人也就是他自己。对人友好的叔叔阿姨们要比真正的神父圣母们更受人尊敬。有一次，我听到一神父在讲述英国，他又聪明又有学识，他先是列举了科学界，文学界，以及政治界的知名人士，有莎士比亚、培根、克伦威尔、弥尔顿以及牛顿等人。又讲了基督教的英雄们，仿佛那是他的职业，他把他们（基督教的英雄们）捧到了天上，使他们成为伟人中的伟人。其中有佩恩、霍华德和弗莱夫人。人们一定认为他在胡扯。最后那三位不是最优秀的英国人；只不过，也许吧，是他心目中的最佳慈善人而已。

做慈善得到的赞扬，我不会做出任何贬损，只求把公平公正给予那些用生命和劳动为人类造福的人。我主要看重的不是一个人的正直和善心，那不过是他的枝枝叶叶罢了。我们把枯萎的绿植拿来做成药茶，给病人服下，但效果甚微，江湖医生大都是这么用的。我想要的是一个人能开花结果；香味从他那里瓢到我这里来一些，在我们的交流中弥漫着成熟的香气。他的善心肯定不是一星半点，也不是临时起意，而是持久的丰余。这是一种下意识行为，没花他一分钱。而慈善掩盖了万恶。慈善家们那一文不值的悲悯经常围绕着人类，营造一种气氛，也就是所谓的同情心。我们该传达的是我们的勇气，不是绝望，传达我们的健康和安逸，不是疾病，还要当心别让疾病通过感染四处蔓延。从哪个南方平原上传来的豪哭？我们要给哪个纬度上的异教徒送去光明？哪个纵欲无度而残暴的人需要我们去救赎？如果人得了病，他就不能履行自己的职责，如果他肠胃不舒服——那他就值得同情——他就要着手改造——这个世界。作为宇宙的一个缩影，他发现——一个真正的发现——是他发现的——这个世界一直在吃青苹果；在他眼里，说实在的，地球本身就是一颗巨大的青苹果，想想都觉得吓人，人类的孩子在苹果还没有成熟就去啃，这太冒险了；大型慈善机构很快就寻到了爱斯基摩人和巴塔哥尼亚人，还体察了人口密集的印度和中国村庄；这样，通过几年的慈善活动，与此同时，有权势的人利用他达到了他们自己的目的，无疑，他治愈了自己的消化不良反应，地球的一侧脸颊或双颊泛着淡淡的红润，似乎它要开始成熟了，生活的粗鄙也消失不见，甚至还透着点甜，生活变得生机勃勃。我想不出有比我犯的错误更大的错误。我从没认识过，以后也不会认识，比我自己更坏的人了。

我相信，让改革者如此这般悲伤的，不是他对身处苦难的同胞们表示同情，而是，尽管他是上帝最神圣的儿子，他自己心里不安。把这一切纠正过来吧，让春天来到他身边吧，让他的床榻迎接黎明吧，他会毫无歉意地抛弃他慷慨的同伴们。我不反对咀嚼烟叶的原因是，我从不嚼烟草；嚼烟草的人终究会为自己的行为付出代价；尽管我嚼过的东西也不少，这不影响我去反对。如果你不慎踏入慈善行业，别让你的左手知道你的右手在干什么，因为不值得知道。救起落水的人就系好鞋带，该干嘛干嘛。

跟圣徒交流的时候，我们的举止被摧毁了。我们的赞美诗中回荡着亵渎上帝和永远容忍他的悦耳之声。有人会说，哪怕是先知和救世主，也只是抚慰人们的恐惧，不会证实他的希望。哪里也没有记载对生命的馈赠表示满意，对上帝的赞颂有丝毫难忘之情。一切健康与成功对我有好处，无论多么遥不可及；一切疾病和失败让我悲伤，让我难过，它或许很同情我，或者我同情它，那么，如果我们真的采用印第安式的，顺应自然的，有吸引力的，或者合乎人性的手段重振人类，那么，我们首先要像大自然一样简单美好，额头上的满天乌云全都散去，在我们的毛孔里注入一点活力。不要做穷人的监督者，要努力成为世界上最崇高的人。

我在设拉子谢赫·萨迪的著作《蔷薇园》里读过这样一句话“有人问一个聪明人：上帝创造了那么最好的果树，单把不结果实的柏树称为自由树，这其中有什么奥妙吗？他回答道：每种果树都只在特定的季节才会茂盛、开花结果，过了它的季节，便会干枯凋零；只有柏树不为四季所限，四季常青，所以叫自由。

——短暂的一切不要贪求；

哈里发的光荣已成虚无，

巴格达城外的江水万古长流！

你应像枣树那样慷慨大度；

即使你一无所有，

也应像柏树一样无拘无束。”

附加诗篇

贫穷的托词，

可怜兮兮的穷鬼，你实在太放肆，

竟要求在苍穹底下有一席之地，

你的破棚屋或者木桶，

培养一些懒惰的的，或者迂腐的德行

在免费的阳光下，在清凉的泉水边

嚼野菜啃根须，你的右手

从思想上扯去人类的热情

美德之花在热情中灿然开放，

你贬损了大自然，又让感官麻木不仁，

像蛇发女妖那样，将活人僵化。

我们不需要这个沉闷的社会

你务必要克制，

我们也不需要不自然的愚蠢

不懂何谓快乐，何谓悲伤；也不懂你的无奈

假意赞美被动的坚持

置于积极头上。这卑微的一家人，

把他们的位置固定在平庸之辈，

成为你奴性的思想；但是我们推崇

这种美德，承认节制

勇敢慷慨的行为，庄严宏伟，

纵览一切的审慎，无边无际的

宽宏大度，还有那种英雄的美德，

自古以来没有留下一个名称，

只有一些典型，比如赫拉克勒斯，

阿喀琉斯，忒修斯。回到你可憎的陋室；

你看到了文明的新天地时，

仔细研究会知道最有价值的是什么。

When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.

I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained. I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no particular interest in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of these questions in this book. 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 anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. 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; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits.

I would fain say something, not so much concerning the Chinese and Sandwich Islanders as you who read these pages, who are said to live in New England; something about your condition, especially your outward condition or circumstances in this world, in this town, what it is, whether it is necessary that it be as bad as it is, whether it cannot be improved as well as not. I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways. What I have heard of Bramins sitting exposed to four fires and looking in the face of the sun; or hanging suspended, with their heads downward, over flames; or looking at the heavens over their shoulders "until it becomes impossible for them to resume their natural position, while from the twist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the stomach"; or dwelling, chained for life, at the foot of a tree; or measuring with their bodies, like caterpillars, the breadth of vast empires; or standing on one leg on the tops of pillars -- even these forms of conscious penance are hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes which I daily witness. 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. They have no friend Iolaus to burn with a hot iron the root of the hydra's head, but as soon as one head is crushed, two spring up.

I 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. 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? They have got to live a man's life, pushing all these things before them, and get on as well as they can. How many a poor immortal soul have I met well-nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture, and woodlot! The portionless, who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh.

But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before. It is said that Deucalion and Pyrrha created men by throwing stones over their heads behind them:--

Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque laborum,

Et documenta damus qua simus origine nati.

Or, as Raleigh rhymes it in his sonorous way,--

"From thence our kind hard-hearted is, enduring pain and care, Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are."

So much for a blind obedience to a blundering oracle, throwing the stones over their heads behind them, and not seeing where they fell.

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. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance -- which his growth requires -- who has so often to use his knowledge? 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.

Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour. It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by experience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offenses; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay up something against a sick day, something to be tucked away in an old chest, or in a stocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, in the brick bank; no matter where, no matter how much or how little.

I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, I may almost say, as to attend to the gross but somewhat foreign form of servitude called Negro Slavery, there are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both North and South. 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! What is his destiny to him compared with the shipping interests? Does not he drive for Squire Make-a-stir? 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. Self-emancipation even in the West Indian provinces of the fancy and imagination -- what Wilberforce is there to bring that about? Think, also, of the ladies of the land weaving toilet cushions against the last day, not to betray too green an interest in their fates! As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, 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. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody 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. What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. Old people did not know enough once, perchance, to fetch fresh fuel to keep the fire a-going; new people put a little dry wood under a pot, and are whirled round the globe with the speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the phrase is. 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 anything of absolute value by living. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that experience, and they are only less young than they were. 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 anything 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.

One farmer says to me, "You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones with"; and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle. Some things are really necessaries of life in some circles, the most helpless and diseased, which in others are luxuries merely, and in others still are entirely unknown.

The whole ground of human life seems to some to have been gone over by their predecessors, both the heights and the valleys, and all things to have been cared for. According to Evelyn, "the wise Solomon prescribed ordinances for the very distances of trees; and the Roman praetors have decided how often you may go into your neighbor's land to gather the acorns which fall on it without trespass, and what share belongs to that neighbor." Hippocrates has even left directions how we should cut our nails; that is, even with the ends of the fingers, neither shorter nor longer. Undoubtedly the very tedium and ennui which presume to have exhausted the variety and the joys of life are as old as Adam. But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little has been tried. Whatever have been thy failures hitherto, "be not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to thee what thou hast left undone?"

We might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; as, for instance, that the same sun which ripens my beans illumines at once a system of earths like ours. If I had remembered this it would have prevented some mistakes. This was not the light in which I hoed them. The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant and different beings in the various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at the same moment! Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant? 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.

The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? You may say the wisest thing you can, old man -- you who have lived seventy years, not without honor of a kind -- I hear an irresistible voice which invites me away from all that. One generation abandons the enterprises of another like stranded vessels.

I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength. 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! 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. 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 as 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. 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.

Let us consider for a moment what most of the trouble and anxiety which I have referred to is about, and how much it is necessary that we be troubled, or at least careful. It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life and what methods have been taken to obtain them; or even to look over the old day-books of the merchants, to see what it was that men most commonly bought at the stores, what they stored, that is, what are the grossest groceries. For the improvements of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man's existence; as our skeletons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors.

By the words, necessary of life, I mean whatever, of all that man obtains by his own exertions, has been from the first, or from long use has become, so important to human life that few, if any, whether from savageness, or poverty, or philosophy, ever attempt to do without it. To many creatures there is in this sense but one necessary of life, Food. To the bison of the prairie it is a few inches of palatable grass, with water to drink; unless he seeks the Shelter of the forest or the mountain's shadow. None of the brute creation requires more than Food and Shelter. The necessaries of life for man in this climate may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several heads of 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. Man has invented, not only houses, but clothes and cooked food; and possibly from the accidental discovery of the warmth of fire, and the consequent use of it, at first a luxury, arose the present necessity to sit by it. We observe cats and dogs acquiring the same second nature. By proper Shelter and Clothing we legitimately retain our own internal heat; but with an excess of these, or of Fuel, that is, with an external heat greater than our own internal, may not cookery properly be said to begin? Darwin, the naturalist, says of the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, that while his own party, who were well clothed and sitting close to a fire, were far from too warm, these naked savages, who were farther off, were observed, to his great surprise, "to be streaming with perspiration at undergoing such a roasting." So, we are told, the New Hollander goes naked with impunity, while the European shivers in his clothes. Is it impossible to combine the hardiness of these savages with the intellectualness of the civilized man? According to Liebig, man's body is a stove, and food the fuel which keeps up the internal combustion in the lungs. In cold weather we eat more, in warm less. The animal heat is the result of a slow combustion, and disease and death take place when this is too rapid; or for want of fuel, or from some defect in the draught, the fire goes out. Of course the vital heat is not to be confounded with fire; but so much for analogy. It appears, therefore, from the above list, that the expression, animal life, is nearly synonymous with the expression, animal heat; for while Food may be regarded as the Fuel which keeps up the fire within us -- and Fuel serves only to prepare that Food or to increase the warmth of our bodies by addition from without -- Shelter and Clothing also serve only to retain the heat thus generated and absorbed.

The grand necessity, then, for our bodies, is to keep warm, to keep the vital heat in us. What pains we accordingly take, not only with our Food, and Clothing, and Shelter, but with our beds, which are our night-clothes, robbing the nests and breasts of birds to prepare this shelter within a shelter, as the mole has its bed of grass and leaves at the end of its burrow! The poor man is wont to complain that this is a cold world; and to cold, no less physical than social, we refer directly a great part of our ails. The summer, in some climates, makes possible to man a sort of Elysian life. Fuel, except to cook his Food, is then unnecessary; the sun is his fire, and many of the fruits are sufficiently cooked by its rays; while Food generally is more various, and more easily obtained, and Clothing and Shelter are wholly or half unnecessary. At the present day, and in this country, as I find by my own experience, a few implements, a knife, an axe, a spade, a wheelbarrow, etc., and for the studious, lamplight, stationery, and access to a few books, rank next to necessaries, and can all be obtained at a trifling cost. Yet some, not wise, go to the other side of the globe, to barbarous and unhealthy regions, and devote themselves to trade for ten or twenty years, in order that they may live -- that is, keep comfortably warm -- and die in New England at last. The luxuriously rich are not simply kept comfortably warm, but unnaturally hot; as I implied before, they are cooked, of course a la mode.

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. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. We know not much about them. It is remarkable that we know so much of them as we do. The same is true of the more modern reformers and benefactors of their race. None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty. Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art. There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a noble race of men. But why do men degenerate ever? What makes families run out? What is the nature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are we sure that there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopher is in advance of his age even in the outward form of his life. He is not fed, sheltered, clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries. How can a man be a philosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better methods than other men?

When a man is warmed by the several modes which I have described, what does he want next? Surely not more warmth of the same kind, as more and richer food, larger and more splendid houses, finer and more abundant clothing, more numerous, incessant, and hotter fires, and the like. When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced. The soil, it appears, is suited to the seed, for it has sent its radicle downward, and it may now send its shoot upward also with confidence. Why has man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in the same proportion into the heavens above? -- for the nobler plants are valued for the fruit they bear at last in the air and light, far from the ground, and are not treated like the humbler esculents, which, though they may be biennials, are cultivated only till they have perfected their root, and often cut down at top for this purpose, so that most would not know them in their flowering season.

I do not mean to prescribe rules to strong and valiant natures, who will mind their own affairs whether in heaven or hell, and perchance build more magnificently and spend more lavishly than the richest, without ever impoverishing themselves, not knowing how they live -- if, indeed, there are any such, as has been dreamed; nor to those who find their encouragement and inspiration in precisely the present condition of things, and cherish it with the fondness and enthusiasm of lovers -- and, to some extent, I reckon myself in this number; I do not speak to those who are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and they know whether they are well employed or not; -- 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. There are some who complain most energetically and inconsolably of any, because they are, as they say, doing their duty. I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters.

If I should attempt to tell how I have desired to spend my life in years past, it would probably surprise those of my readers who are somewhat acquainted with its actual history; it would certainly astonish those who know nothing about it. I will only hint at some of the enterprises which I have cherished.

In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, 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; to toe that line. You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint "No Admittance" on my gate.

I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them, describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves.

To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter, before yet any neighbor was stirring about his business, have I been about mine! No doubt, many of my townsmen have met me returning from this enterprise, farmers starting for Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going to their work. It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it.

So many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside the town, trying to hear what was in the wind, to hear and carry it express! I well-nigh sunk all my capital in it, and lost my own breath into the bargain, running in the face of it. If it had concerned either of the political parties, depend upon it, it would have appeared in the Gazette with the earliest intelligence. At other times watching from the observatory of some cliff or tree, to telegraph any new arrival; or waiting at evening on the hill-tops for the sky to fall, that I might catch something, though I never caught much, and that, manna-wise, would dissolve again in the sun.

For a long time I was reporter to a journal, of no very wide circulation, whose editor has never yet seen fit to print the bulk of my contributions, and, as is too common with writers, I got only my labor for my pains. However, in this case my pains were their own reward.

For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and rain-storms, and did my duty faithfully; surveyor, if not of highways, then of forest paths and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and ravines bridged and passable at all seasons, where the public heel had testified to their utility.

I have looked after the wild stock of the town, which give a faithful herdsman a good deal of trouble by leaping fences; and I have had an eye to the unfrequented nooks and corners of the farm; though I did not always know whether Jonas or Solomon worked in a particular field to-day; that was none of my business. I have watered the red huckleberry, the sand cherry and the nettle-tree, the red pine and the black ash, the white grape and the yellow violet, which might have withered else in dry seasons.

In short, I went on thus for a long time (I may say it without boasting), faithfully minding my business, till it became more and more evident that my townsmen would not after all admit me into the list of town officers, nor make my place a sinecure with a moderate allowance. My accounts, which I can swear to have kept faithfully, I have, indeed, never got audited, still less accepted, still less paid and settled. However, I have not set my heart on that.

Not long since, a strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the house of a well-known lawyer in my neighborhood. "Do you wish to buy any baskets?" he asked. "No, we do not want any," was the reply. "What!" exclaimed the Indian as he went out the gate, "do you mean to starve us?" Having seen his industrious white neighbors so well off -- that the lawyer had only to weave arguments, and, by some magic, wealth and standing followed -- he had said to himself: I will go into business; I will weave baskets; it is a thing which I can do. 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. I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had not made it worth any one's while to buy them. 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. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

Finding that my fellow-citizens were not likely to offer me any room in the court house, or any curacy or living anywhere else, but I must shift for myself, I turned my face more exclusively than ever to the woods, where I was better known. I determined to go into business at once, and not wait to acquire the usual capital, using such slender means as I had already got. My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles; to be hindered from accomplishing which for want of a little common sense, a little enterprise and business talent, appeared not so sad as foolish.

I have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits; they are indispensable to every man. If your trade is with the Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough. You will export such articles as the country affords, purely native products, much ice and pine timber and a little granite, always in native bottoms. These will be good ventures. To oversee all the details yourself in person; to be at once pilot and captain, and owner and underwriter; to buy and sell and keep the accounts; to read every letter received, and write or read every letter sent; to superintend the discharge of imports night and day; to be upon many parts of the coast almost at the same time -- often the richest freight will be discharged upon a Jersey shore; -- to be your own telegraph, unweariedly sweeping the horizon, speaking all passing vessels bound coastwise; to keep up a steady despatch of commodities, for the supply of such a distant and exorbitant market; to keep yourself informed of the state of the markets, prospects of war and peace everywhere, and anticipate the tendencies of trade and civilization -- taking advantage of the results of all exploring expeditions, using new passages and all improvements in navigation; -- charts to be studied, the position of reefs and new lights and buoys to be ascertained, and ever, and ever, the logarithmic tables to be corrected, for by the error of some calculator the vessel often splits upon a rock that should have reached a friendly pier -- there is the untold fate of La Prouse; -- universal science to be kept pace with, studying the lives of all great discoverers and navigators, great adventurers and merchants, from Hanno and the Phoenicians down to our day; in fine, account of stock to be taken from time to time, to know how you stand. It is a labor to task the faculties of a man -- such problems of profit and loss, of interest, of tare and tret, and gauging of all kinds in it, as demand a universal knowledge.

I have thought that Walden Pond would be a good place for business, not solely on account of the railroad and the ice trade; it offers advantages which it may not be good policy to divulge; it is a good port and a good foundation. No Neva marshes to be filled; though you must everywhere build on piles of your own driving. It is said that a flood-tide, with a westerly wind, and ice in the Neva, would sweep St. Petersburg from the face of the earth.

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. Kings and queens who wear a suit but once, though made by some tailor or dressmaker to their majesties, cannot know the comfort of wearing a suit that fits. They are no better than wooden horses to hang the clean clothes on. Every day our garments become more assimilated to ourselves, receiving the impress of the wearer's character, until we hesitate to lay them aside without such delay and medical appliances and some such solemnity even as our bodies. 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. But even if the rent is not mended, perhaps the worst vice betrayed is improvidence. I sometimes try my acquaintances by such tests as this -- Who could wear a patch, or two extra seams only, over the knee? Most behave as if they believed that their prospects for life would be ruined if they should do it. It would be easier for them to hobble to town with a broken leg than with a broken pantaloon. Often if an accident happens to a gentleman's legs, they can be mended; but if a similar accident happens to the legs of his pantaloons, there is no help for it; for he considers, not what is truly respectable, but what is respected. We know but few men, a great many coats and breeches. Dress a scarecrow in your last shift, you standing shiftless by, who would not soonest salute the scarecrow? Passing a cornfield the other day, close by a hat and coat on a stake, I recognized the owner of the farm. He was only a little more weather-beaten than when I saw him last. I have heard of a dog that barked at every stranger who approached his master's premises with clothes on, but was easily quieted by a naked thief. It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes. Could you, in such a case, tell surely of any company of civilized men which belonged to the most respected class? 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." Even in our democratic New England towns the accidental possession of wealth, and its manifestation in dress and equipage alone, obtain for the possessor almost universal respect. But they yield such respect, numerous as they are, are so far heathen, and need to have a missionary sent to them. Beside, clothes introduced sewing, a kind of work which you may call endless; a woman's dress, at least, is never done.

A man who has at length found something to do will not need to get a new suit to do it in; for him the old will do, that has lain dusty in the garret for an indeterminate period. Old shoes will serve a hero longer than they have served his valet -- if a hero ever has a valet -- bare feet are older than shoes, and he can make them do. Only they who go to soires and legislative balls must have new coats, coats to change as often as the man changes in them. But if my jacket and trousers, my hat and shoes, are fit to worship God in, they will do; will they not? Who ever saw his old clothes -- his old coat, actually worn out, resolved into its primitive elements, so that it was not a deed of charity to bestow it on some poor boy, by him perchance to be bestowed on some poorer still, or shall we say richer, who could do with less? 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. All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. The loon retires to solitary ponds to spend it. Thus also the snake casts its slough, and the caterpillar its wormy coat, by an internal industry and expansion; for clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal coil. Otherwise we shall be found sailing under false colors, and be inevitably cashiered at last by our own opinion, as well as that of mankind.

We don garment after garment, as if we grew like exogenous plants by addition without. 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. I believe that all races at some seasons wear something equivalent to the shirt. It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly that, if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety. While one thick garment is, for most purposes, as good as three thin ones, and cheap clothing can be obtained at prices really to suit customers; while a thick coat can be bought for five dollars, which will last as many years, thick pantaloons for two dollars, cowhide boots for a dollar and a half a pair, a summer hat for a quarter of a dollar, and a winter cap for sixty-two and a half cents, or a better be made at home at a nominal cost, 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?

When I ask for a garment of a particular form, my tailoress tells me gravely, "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" -- "It is true, they did not make them so recently, but they do now." Of what use this measuring of me if she does not measure my character, but only the breadth of my shoulders, as it were a peg to bang the coat on? We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same. I sometimes despair of getting anything quite simple and honest done in this world by the help of men. They would have to be passed through a powerful press first, to squeeze their old notions out of them, so that they would not soon get upon their legs again; and then there would be some one in the company with a maggot in his head, hatched from an egg deposited there nobody knows when, for not even fire kills these things, and you would have lost your labor. Nevertheless, we will not forget that some Egyptian wheat was handed down to us by a mummy.

On the whole, I think that it cannot be maintained that dressing has in this or any country risen to the dignity of an art. At present men make shift to wear what they can get. Like shipwrecked sailors, they put on what they can find on the beach, and at a little distance, whether of space or time, laugh at each other's masquerade. Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new. We are amused at beholding the costume of Henry VIII, or Queen Elizabeth, as much as if it was that of the King and Queen of the Cannibal Islands. All costume off a man is pitiful or grotesque. It is only the serious eye peering from and the sincere life passed within it which restrain laughter and consecrate the costume of any people. Let Harlequin be taken with a fit of the colic and his trappings will have to serve that mood too. When the soldier is hit by a cannonball, rags are as becoming as purple.

The childish and savage taste of men and women for new patterns keeps how many shaking and squinting through kaleidoscopes that they may discover the particular figure which this generation requires today. 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, though it frequently happens that after the lapse of a season the latter becomes the most fashionable. Comparatively, tattooing is not the hideous custom which it is called. It is not barbarous merely because the printing is skin-deep and unalterable.

I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing. The condition of the operatives is becoming every day more like that of the English; and it cannot be wondered at, since, as far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that corporations may be enriched. In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.

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. Yet he adds, "They are not hardier than other people." But, probably, man did not live long on the earth without discovering the convenience which there is in a house, the domestic comforts, which phrase may have originally signified the satisfactions of the house more than of the family; though these must be extremely partial and occasional in those climates where the house is associated in our thoughts with winter or the rainy season chiefly, and two thirds of the year, except for a parasol, is unnecessary. In our climate, in the summer, it was formerly almost solely a covering at night. In the Indian gazettes a wigwam was the symbol of a day's march, and a row of them cut or painted on the bark of a tree signified that so many times they had camped. Man was not made so large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world and wall in a space such as fitted him. 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 comfort, first of warmth, then the warmth of the affections.

We may imagine a time when, in the infancy of the human race, some enterprising mortal crept into a hollow in a rock for shelter. Every child begins the world again, to some extent, and loves to stay outdoors, even in wet and cold. It plays house, as well as horse, having an instinct for it. Who does not remember the interest with which, when young, he looked at shelving rocks, or any approach to a cave? It was the natural yearning of that portion, any portion of our most primitive ancestor which still survived in us. 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 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, if the poet did not speak so much from under a roof, or the saint dwell there so long. Birds do not sing in caves, nor do doves cherish their innocence in dovecots.

However, if one designs to construct a dwelling-house, it behooves him to exercise a little Yankee shrewdness, lest after all he find himself in a workhouse, a labyrinth without a clue, a museum, an almshouse, a prison, or a splendid mausoleum instead. Consider first how slight a shelter is absolutely necessary. I have seen Penobscot Indians, in this town, living in tents of thin cotton cloth, while the snow was nearly a foot deep around them, and I thought that they would be glad to have it deeper to keep out the wind. Formerly, when how to get my living honestly, with freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a question which vexed me even more than it does now, for unfortunately I am become somewhat callous, I used to see a large box by the railroad, six feet long by three wide, in which the laborers locked up their tools at night; and it suggested to me that every man who was hard pushed might get such a one for a dollar, and, having bored a few auger holes in it, to admit the air at least, get into it when it rained and at night, and hook down the lid, and so have freedom in his love, and in his soul be free. This did not appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable alternative. You could sit up as late as you pleased, and, whenever you got up, go abroad without any landlord or house-lord dogging you for rent. Many a man is harassed to death to pay the rent of a larger and more luxurious box who would not have frozen to death in such a box as this. I am far from jesting. Economy is a subject which admits of being treated with levity, but it cannot so be disposed of. A comfortable house for a rude and hardy race, that lived mostly out of doors, was once made here almost entirely of such materials as Nature furnished ready to their hands. Gookin, who was superintendent of the Indians subject to the Massachusetts Colony, writing in 1674, says, "The best of their houses are covered very neatly, tight and warm, with barks of trees, slipped from their bodies at those seasons when the sap is up, and made into great flakes, with pressure of weighty timber, when they are green.... The meaner sort are covered with mats which they make of a kind of bulrush, and are also indifferently tight and warm, but not so good as the former.... Some I have seen, sixty or a hundred feet long and thirty feet broad.... I have often lodged in their wigwams, and found them as warm as the best English houses." He adds that they were commonly carpeted and lined within with well-wrought embroidered mats, and were furnished with various utensils. The Indians had advanced so far as to regulate the effect of the wind by a mat suspended over the hole in the roof and moved by a string. Such a lodge was in the first instance constructed in a day or two at most, and taken down and put up in a few hours; and every family owned one, or its apartment in one.

In the savage state every family owns a shelter as good as the best, and sufficient for its coarser and simpler wants; but I think that I speak within bounds when I say that, though the birds of the air have their nests, and the foxes their holes, and the savages their wigwams, in modern civilized society not more than one half the families own a shelter. In the large towns and cities, where civilization especially prevails, the number of those who own a shelter is a very small fraction of the whole. The rest pay an annual tax for this outside garment of all, become indispensable summer and winter, which would buy a village of Indian wigwams, but now helps to keep them poor as long as they live. I do not mean to insist here on the disadvantage of hiring compared with owning, but it is evident that the savage owns his shelter because it costs so little, while the civilized man hires his commonly because he cannot afford to own it; nor can he, in the long run, any better afford to hire. 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 fire-place, back plastering, Venetian blinds, copper pump, spring lock, 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; and 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. An average house in this neighborhood costs perhaps eight hundred dollars, and to lay up this sum will take from ten to fifteen years of the laborer's life, even if he is not encumbered with a family -- estimating the pecuniary value of every man's labor at one dollar a day, for if some receive more, others receive less; -- so that he must have spent more than half his life commonly before his wigwam will be earned. If we suppose him to pay a rent instead, this is but a doubtful choice of evils. Would the savage have been wise to exchange his wigwam for a palace on these terms?

It may be guessed that I reduce almost the whole advantage of holding this superfluous property as a fund in store against the future, so far as the individual is concerned, mainly to the defraying of funeral expenses. But perhaps a man is not required to bury himself. 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. What mean ye by saying that the poor ye have always with you, or that the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge?

"As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel.

"Behold all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die."

When I consider my neighbors, the farmers of Concord, who are at least as well off as the other classes, I find that for the most part they have been toiling twenty, thirty, or forty years, that they may become the real owners of their farms, which commonly they have inherited with encumbrances, or else bought with hired money -- and we may regard one third of that toil as the cost of their houses -- but commonly they have not paid for them yet. It is true, the encumbrances sometimes outweigh the value of the farm, so that the farm itself becomes one great encumbrance, and still a man is found to inherit it, being well acquainted with it, as he says. 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. What has been said of the merchants, that a very large majority, even ninety-seven in a hundred, are sure to fail, is equally true of the farmers. With regard to the merchants, however, one of them says pertinently that a great part of their failures are not genuine pecuniary failures, but merely failures to fulfil their engagements, because it is inconvenient; that is, it is the moral character that breaks down. 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. Bankruptcy and repudiation are the springboards from which much of our civilization vaults and turns its somersets, but the savage stands on the unelastic plank of famine. Yet the Middlesex Cattle Show goes off here with eclat annually, as if all the joints of the agricultural machine were suent.

The farmer is endeavoring to solve the problem of a livelihood by a formula more complicated than the problem itself. To get his shoestrings he speculates in herds of cattle. With consummate skill he has set his trap with a hair spring to catch comfort and independence, and then, as he turned away, got his own leg into it. This is the reason he is poor; and for a similar reason we are all poor in respect to a thousand savage comforts, though surrounded by luxuries. As Chapman sings,

"The false society of men --

-- for earthly greatness

All heavenly comforts rarefies to air."

And when the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him. As I understand it, that was a valid objection urged by Momus against the house which Minerva made, that she "had not made it movable, by which means a bad neighborhood might be avoided"; and it may still be urged, for our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them; and the bad neighborhood to be avoided is our own scurvy selves. I know one or two families, at least, in this town, who, for nearly a generation, have been wishing to sell their houses in the outskirts and move into the village, but have not been able to accomplish it, and only death will set them free.

Granted that the majority are able at last either to own or hire the modern house with all its improvements. While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings. And if the civilized man's pursuits are no worthier than the savage's, if he is employed the greater part of his life in obtaining gross necessaries and comforts merely, why should he have a better dwelling than the former?

But how do the poor minority fare? Perhaps it will be found that just in proportion as some have been placed in outward circumstances above the savage, others have been degraded below him. The luxury of one class is counterbalanced by the indigence of another. On the one side is the palace, on the other are the almshouse and "silent poor." The myriads who built the pyramids to be the tombs of the Pharaohs were fed on garlic, and it may be were not decently buried themselves. The mason who finishes the cornice of the palace returns at night perchance to a hut not so good as a wigwam. It is a mistake to suppose that, in a country where the usual evidences of civilization exist, the condition of a very large body of the inhabitants may not be as degraded as that of savages. I refer to the degraded poor, not now to the degraded rich. To know this I should not need to look farther than to the shanties which everywhere border our railroads, that last improvement in civilization; where I see in my daily walks human beings living in sties, and all winter with an open door, for the sake of light, without any visible, often imaginable, wood-pile, and the forms of both old and young are permanently contracted by the long habit of shrinking from cold and misery, and the development of all their limbs and faculties is checked. It certainly is fair to look at that class by whose labor the works which distinguish this generation are accomplished. Such too, to a greater or less extent, is the condition of the operatives of every denomination in England, which is the great workhouse of the world. Or I could refer you to Ireland, which is marked as one of the white or enlightened spots on the map. Contrast the physical condition of the Irish with that of the North American Indian, or the South Sea Islander, or any other savage race before it was degraded by contact with the civilized man. Yet I have no doubt that that people's rulers are as wise as the average of civilized rulers. Their condition only proves what squalidness may consist with civilization. I hardly need refer now to the laborers in our Southern States who produce the staple exports of this country, and are themselves a staple production of the South. But to confine myself to those who are said to be in moderate circumstances.

Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. As if one were to wear any sort of coat which the tailor might cut out for him, or, gradually leaving off palm-leaf hat or cap of woodchuck skin, complain of hard times because he could not afford to buy him a crown! It is possible to invent a house still more convenient and luxurious than we have, which yet all would admit that man could not afford to pay for. Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less? Shall the respectable citizen thus gravely teach, by precept and example, the necessity of the young man's providing a certain number of superfluous glow-shoes, and umbrellas, and empty guest chambers for empty guests, before he dies? Why should not our furniture be as simple as the Arab's or the Indian's? When I think of the benefactors of the race, whom we have apotheosized as messengers from heaven, bearers of divine gifts to man, I do not see in my mind any retinue at their heels, any carload of fashionable furniture. Or what if I were to allow -- would it not be a singular allowance? -- that our furniture should be more complex than the Arab's, in proportion as we are morally and intellectually his superiors! At present our houses are cluttered and defiled with it, and a good housewife would sweep out the greater part into the dust hole, and not leave her morning's work undone. Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon, what should be man's morning 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. How, then, could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless where man has broken ground.

It is the luxurious and dissipated who set the fashions which the herd so diligently follow. The traveller who stops at the best houses, so called, soon discovers this, for the publicans presume him to be a Sardanapalus, and if he resigned himself to their tender mercies he would soon be completely emasculated. I think that in the railroad car we are inclined to spend more on luxury than on safety and convenience, and it threatens without attaining these to become no better than a modern drawing-room, with its divans, and ottomans, and sun-shades, and a hundred other oriental things, which we are taking west with us, invented for the ladies of the harem and the effeminate natives of the Celestial Empire, which Jonathan should be ashamed to know the names of. I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion. I would rather ride 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.

The very simplicity and nakedness of man's life in the primitive ages imply this advantage, at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. When he was refreshed with food and sleep, he contemplated his journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world, and was either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing the mountain-tops. But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper. We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of agri-culture. We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten. There is actually no place in this village for a work of fine art, if any had come down to us, to stand, for our lives, our houses and streets, furnish no proper pedestal for it. There is not a nail to hang a picture on, nor a shelf to receive the bust of a hero or a saint. When I consider how our houses are built and paid for, or not paid for, and their internal economy managed and sustained, I wonder that the floor does not give way under the visitor while he is admiring the gewgaws upon the mantelpiece, and let him through into the cellar, to some solid and honest though earthy foundation. I cannot but perceive that this so-called rich and refined life is a thing jumped at, and I do not get on in the enjoyment of the fine arts which adorn it, my attention being wholly occupied with the jump; for I remember that the greatest genuine leap, due to human muscles alone, on record, is that of certain wandering Arabs, who are said to have cleared twenty-five feet on level ground. Without factitious support, man is sure to come to earth again beyond that distance. The first question which I am tempted to put to the proprietor of such great impropriety is, Who bolsters you? Are you one of the ninety-seven who fail, or the three who succeed? Answer me these questions, and then perhaps I may look at your bawbles and find them ornamental. The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must be stripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living be laid for a foundation: now, a taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, where there is no house and no housekeeper.

Old Johnson, in his "Wonder-Working Providence," speaking of the first settlers of this town, with whom he was contemporary, tells us that "they burrow themselves in the earth for their first shelter under some hillside, and, casting the soil aloft upon timber, they make a smoky fire against the earth, at the highest side." They did not "provide them houses," says he, "till the earth, by the Lord's blessing, brought forth bread to feed them," and the first year's crop was so light that "they were forced to cut their bread very thin for a long season." The secretary of the Province of New Netherland, writing in Dutch, in 1650, for the information of those who wished to take up land there, states more particularly that "those in New Netherland, and especially in New England, who have no means to build farmhouses at first according to their wishes, dig a square pit in the ground, cellar fashion, six or seven feet deep, as long and as broad as they think proper, case the earth inside with wood all round the wall, and line the wood with the bark of trees or something else to prevent the caving in of the earth; floor this cellar with plank, and wainscot it overhead for a ceiling, raise a roof of spars clear up, and cover the spars with bark or green sods, so that they can live dry and warm in these houses with their entire families for two, three, and four years, it being understood that partitions are run through those cellars which are adapted to the size of the family. The wealthy and principal men in New England, in the beginning of the colonies, commenced their first dwelling-houses in this fashion for two reasons: firstly, in order not to waste time in building, and not to want food the next season; secondly, in order not to discourage poor laboring people whom they brought over in numbers from Fatherland. In the course of three or four years, when the country became adapted to agriculture, they built themselves handsome houses, spending on them several thousands."

In this course which our ancestors took there was a show of prudence at least, as if their principle were to satisfy the more pressing wants first. But are the more pressing wants satisfied now? When I think of acquiring for myself one of our luxurious dwellings, I am deterred, for, so to speak, the country is not yet adapted to human culture, and we are still forced to cut our spiritual bread far thinner than our forefathers did their wheaten. Not that all architectural ornament is to be neglected even in the rudest periods; but let our houses first be lined with beauty, where they come in contact with our lives, like the tenement of the shellfish, and not overlaid with it. But, alas! I have been inside one or two of them, and know what they are lined with.

Though we are not so degenerate but that we might possibly live in a cave or a wigwam or wear skins today, it certainly is better to accept the advantages, though so dearly bought, which the invention and industry of mankind offer. In such a neighborhood as this, boards and shingles, lime and bricks, are cheaper and more easily obtained than suitable caves, or whole logs, or bark in sufficient quantities, or even well-tempered clay or flat stones. I speak understandingly on this subject, for I have made myself acquainted with it both theoretically and practically. 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. The civilized man is a more experienced and wiser savage. But to make haste to my own experiment.

Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house, and began to cut down some tall, arrowy white pines, still in their youth, for timber. 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; but I returned it sharper than I received it. 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. The ice in the pond was not yet dissolved, though there were some open spaces, and it was all dark-colored and saturated with water. There were some slight flurries of snow during the days that I worked there; but for the most part when I came out on to the railroad, on my way home, its yellow sand heap stretched away gleaming in the hazy atmosphere, and the rails shone in the spring sun, and I heard the lark and pewee and other birds already come to commence another year with us. They were pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man's discontent was thawing as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to stretch itself. One day, when my axe had come off and I had cut a green hickory for a wedge, driving it with a stone, and had placed the whole to soak in a pond-hole in order to swell the wood, I saw a striped snake run into the water, and he lay on the bottom, apparently without inconvenience, as long as I stayed there, or more than a quarter of an hour; perhaps because he had not yet fairly come out of the torpid state. It appeared to me that for a like reason men remain in their present low and primitive condition; but if they should feel the influence of the spring of springs arousing them, they would of necessity rise to a higher and more ethereal life. I had previously seen the snakes in frosty mornings in my path with portions of their bodies still numb and inflexible, waiting for the sun to thaw them. On the 1st of April it rained and melted the ice, and in the early part of the day, which was very foggy, I heard a stray goose groping about over the pond and cackling as if lost, or like the spirit of the fog.

So I went on for some days cutting and hewing timber, and also studs and rafters, all with my narrow axe, not having many communicable or scholar-like thoughts, singing to myself, --

Men say they know many things;

But lo! they have taken wings --

The arts and sciences,

And a thousand appliances;

The wind that blows

Is all that any body knows.

I hewed the main timbers six inches square, most of the studs on two sides only, and the rafters and floor timbers on one side, leaving the rest of the bark on, so that they were just as straight and much stronger than sawed ones. Each stick was carefully mortised or tenoned by its stump, for I had borrowed other tools by this time. My days in the woods were not very long ones; yet I usually carried my dinner of bread and butter, and read the newspaper in which it was wrapped, at noon, sitting amid the green pine boughs which I had cut off, and to my bread was imparted some of their fragrance, for my hands were covered with a thick coat of pitch. Before I had done I was more the friend than the foe of the pine tree, though I had cut down some of them, having become better acquainted with it. Sometimes a rambler in the wood was attracted by the sound of my axe, and we chatted pleasantly over the chips which I had made.

By the middle of April, for I made no haste in my work, but rather made the most of it, my house was framed and ready for the raising. I had already bought the shanty of James Collins, an Irishman who worked on the Fitchburg Railroad, for boards. James Collins' shanty was considered an uncommonly fine one. When I called to see it he was not at home. I walked about the outside, at first unobserved from within, the window was so deep and high. It was of small dimensions, with a peaked cottage roof, and not much else to be seen, the dirt being raised five feet all around as if it were a compost heap. The roof was the soundest part, though a good deal warped and made brittle by the sun. Doorsill there was none, but a perennial passage for the hens under the door board. Mrs. C. came to the door and asked me to view it from the inside. The hens were driven in by my approach. It was dark, and had a dirt floor for the most part, dank, clammy, and aguish, only here a board and there a board which would not bear removal. She lighted a lamp to show me the inside of the roof and the walls, and also that the board floor extended under the bed, warning me not to step into the cellar, a sort of dust hole two feet deep. In her own words, they were "good boards overhead, good boards all around, and a good window" -- of two whole squares originally, only the cat had passed out that way lately. There was a stove, a bed, and a place to sit, an infant in the house where it was born, a silk parasol, gilt-framed looking-glass, and a patent new coffee-mill nailed to an oak sapling, all told. The bargain was soon concluded, for James had in the meanwhile returned. I to pay four dollars and twenty-five cents tonight, he to vacate at five tomorrow morning, selling to nobody else meanwhile: I to take possession at six. It were well, he said, to be there early, and anticipate certain indistinct but wholly unjust claims on the score of ground rent and fuel. This he assured me was the only encumbrance. 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.

I took down this dwelling the same morning, drawing the nails, and removed it to the pond-side by small cartloads, spreading the boards on the grass there to bleach and warp back again in the sun. One early thrush gave me a note or two as I drove along the woodland path. I was informed treacherously by a young Patrick that neighbor Seeley, an Irishman, in the intervals of the carting, transferred the still tolerable, straight, and drivable nails, staples, and spikes to his pocket, and then stood when I came back to pass the time of day, and look freshly up, unconcerned, with spring thoughts, at the devastation; there being a dearth of work, as he said. He was there to represent spectatordom, and help make this seemingly insignificant event one with the removal of the gods of Troy.

I dug my cellar in the side of a hill sloping to the south, where a woodchuck had formerly dug his burrow, down through sumach and blackberry roots, and the lowest stain of vegetation, six feet square by seven deep, to a fine sand where potatoes would not freeze in any winter. The sides were left shelving, and not stoned; but the sun having never shone on them, the sand still keeps its place. It was but two hours' work. I took particular pleasure in this breaking of ground, for in almost all latitudes men dig into the earth for an equable temperature. Under the most splendid house in the city is still to be found the cellar where they store their roots as of old, and long after the superstructure has disappeared posterity remark its dent in the earth. The house is still but a sort of porch at the entrance of a burrow.

At length, in the beginning of May, with the help of some of my acquaintances, rather to improve so good an occasion for neighborliness than from any necessity, I set up the frame of my house. No man was ever more honored in the character of his raisers than I. They are destined, I trust, to assist at the raising of loftier structures one day. I began to occupy my house on the 4th of July, as soon as it was boarded and roofed, for the boards were carefully feather-edged and lapped, so that it was perfectly impervious to rain, but before boarding I laid the foundation of a chimney at one end, bringing two cartloads of stones up the hill from the pond in my arms. I built the chimney after my hoeing in the fall, before a fire became necessary for warmth, doing my cooking in the meanwhile out of doors on the ground, early in the morning: which mode I still think is in some respects more convenient and agreeable than the usual one. When it stormed before my bread was baked, I fixed a few boards over the fire, and sat under them to watch my loaf, and passed some pleasant hours in that way. In those days, when my hands were much employed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper which lay on the ground, my holder, or tablecloth, afforded me as much entertainment, in fact answered the same purpose as the Iliad.

It would be worth the while to build still more deliberately than I did, considering, for instance, what foundation a door, a window, a cellar, a garret, have in the nature of man, and perchance never raising any superstructure until we found a better reason for it than our temporal necessities even. There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter? What does architecture amount to in the experience of the mass of men? I never in all my walks came across a man engaged in so simple and natural an occupation as building his house. We belong to the community. It is not the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? and what object does it finally serve? No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.

True, there are architects so called in this country, and I have heard of one at least possessed with the idea of making architectural ornaments have a core of truth, a necessity, and hence a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. All very well perhaps from his point of view, but only a little better than the common dilettantism. A sentimental reformer in architecture, he began at the cornice, not at the foundation. It was only how to put a core of truth within the ornaments, that every sugarplum, in fact, might have an almond or caraway seed in it -- though I hold that almonds are most wholesome without the sugar -- and not how the inhabitant, the indweller, might build truly within and without, and let the ornaments take care of themselves. What reasonable man ever supposed that ornaments were something outward and in the skin merely -- that the tortoise got his spotted shell, or the shell-fish its mother-o'-pearl tints, by such a contract as the inhabitants of Broadway their Trinity Church? But a man has no more to do with the style of architecture of his house than a tortoise with that of its shell: nor need the soldier be so idle as to try to paint the precise color of his virtue on his standard. The enemy will find it out. He may turn pale when the trial comes. This man seemed to me to lean over the cornice, and timidly whisper his half truth to the rude occupants who really knew it better than he. What of architectural beauty I now see, I know has gradually grown from within outward, out of the necessities and character of the indweller, who is the only builder -- out of some unconscious truthfulness, and nobleness, without ever a thought for the appearance and whatever additional beauty of this kind is destined to be produced will be preceded by a like unconscious beauty of life. The most interesting dwellings in this country, as the painter knows, are the most unpretending, humble log huts and cottages of the poor commonly; it is the life of the inhabitants whose shells they are, and not any peculiarity in their surfaces merely, which makes them picturesque; and equally interesting will be the citizen's suburban box, when his life shall be as simple and as agreeable to the imagination, and there is as little straining after effect in the style of his dwelling. A great proportion of architectural ornaments are literally hollow, and a September gale would strip them off, like borrowed plumes, without injury to the substantials. They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar. What if an equal ado were made about the ornaments of style in literature, and the architects of our bibles spent as much time about their cornices as the architects of our churches do? So are made the belles-lettres and the beaux-arts and their professors. Much it concerns a man, forsooth, how a few sticks are slanted over him or under him, and what colors are daubed upon his box. It would signify somewhat, if, in any earnest sense, he slanted them and daubed it; but the spirit having departed out of the tenant, it is of a piece with constructing his own coffin -- the architecture of the grave -- and "carpenter" is but another name for "coffin-maker." One man says, in his despair or indifference to life, take up a handful of the earth at your feet, and paint your house that color. Is he thinking of his last and narrow house? Toss up a copper for it as well. What an abundance of leisure be must have! Why do you take up a handful of dirt? Better paint your house your own complexion; let it turn pale or blush for you. An enterprise to improve the style of cottage architecture! When you have got my ornaments ready, I will wear them.

Before winter I built a chimney, and shingled the sides of my house, which were already impervious to rain, with imperfect and sappy shingles made of the first slice of the log, whose edges I was obliged to straighten with a plane.

I have thus a tight shingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by fifteen long, and eight-feet posts, with a garret and a closet, a large window on each side, two trap doors, one door at the end, and a brick fireplace opposite. The exact cost of my house, paying the usual price for such materials as I used, but not counting the work, all of which was done by myself, was as follows; and I give the details because very few are able to tell exactly what their houses cost, and fewer still, if any, the separate cost of the various materials which compose them:--

Boards .......................... $ 8.03 , mostly shanty boards.

Refuse shingles for roof sides ... 4.00

Laths ............................ 1.25

Two second-hand windows

with glass .................... 2.43

One thousand old brick ........... 4.00

Two casks of lime ................ 2.40 That was high.

Hair ............................. 0.31 More than I needed.

Mantle-tree iron ................. 0.15

Nails ............................ 3.90

Hinges and screws ................ 0.14

Latch ............................ 0.10

Chalk ............................ 0.01

Transportation ................... 1.40 I carried a good part

------- on my back.

In all ...................... $28.12

These are all the materials, excepting the timber, stones, and sand, which I claimed by squatter's right. I have also a small woodshed adjoining, made chiefly of the stuff which was left after building the house.

I intend to build me a house which will surpass any on the main street in Concord in grandeur and luxury, as soon as it pleases me as much and will cost me no more than my present one.

I thus found that the student who wishes for a shelter can obtain one for a lifetime at an expense not greater than the rent which he now pays annually. If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself; and my shortcomings and inconsistencies do not affect the truth of my statement. Notwithstanding much cant and hypocrisy -- chaff which I find it difficult to separate from my wheat, but for which I am as sorry as any man -- I will breathe freely and stretch myself in this respect, it is such a relief to both the moral and physical system; and I am resolved that I will not through humility become the devil's attorney. I will endeavor to speak a good word for the truth. 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, though the corporation had the advantage of building thirty-two side by side and under one roof, and the occupant suffers the inconvenience of many and noisy neighbors, and perhaps a residence in the fourth story. I cannot but think that if we had more true wisdom in these respects, not only less education would be needed, because, forsooth, more would already have been acquired, but the pecuniary expense of getting an education would in a great measure vanish. 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. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made. The mode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of dollars and cents, and then, following blindly the principles of a division of labor to its extreme -- a principle which should never be followed but with circumspection -- to call in a contractor who makes this a subject of speculation, and he employs Irishmen or other operatives actually to lay the foundations, while the students that are to be are said to be fitting themselves for it; and for these oversights successive generations have to pay. I think that it would be better than this, for the students, or those who desire to be benefited by it, even to lay the foundation themselves. The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful. "But," says one, "you do not mean that the students should go to work with their hands instead of their heads?" I do not mean that exactly, but I mean something which he might think a good deal like that; I mean that they should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living? Methinks this would exercise their minds as much as mathematics. 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 to send him into the neighborhood of some professor, where anything 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, or mechanics, and not learn how it is earned; to discover new satellites to Neptune, and not detect the motes in his eyes, or to what vagabond he is a satellite himself; or to be devoured by the monsters that swarm all around him, while contemplating the monsters in a drop of vinegar. 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 meanwhile, and had received a Rodgers' penknife from his father? Which would be most likely to cut his fingers?... To my astonishment I was informed on leaving college that I had studied navigation! -- why, if I had taken one turn down the harbor I should have known more about it. Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.

As with our colleges, so with a hundred "modern improvements"; there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them. 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 but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. Either is in such a predicament as the man who was earnest to be introduced to a distinguished deaf woman, but when he was presented, and one end of her ear trumpet was put into his hand, had nothing to say. As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough. After all, the man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages; he is not an evangelist, nor does he come round eating locusts and wild honey. I doubt if Flying Childers ever carried a peck of corn to mill.

One says to me, "I wonder that you do not lay up money; you love to travel; you might take the cars and go to Fitchburg today and see the country." But I am wiser than that. I have learned that the swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot. I say to my friend, Suppose we try who will get there first. The distance is thirty miles; the fare ninety cents. That is almost a day's wages. I remember when wages were sixty cents a day for laborers on this very road. Well, I start now on foot, and get there before night; I have travelled at that rate by the week together. You will in the meanwhile have earned your fare, and arrive there some time tomorrow, or possibly this evening, if you are lucky enough to get a job in season. Instead of going to Fitchburg, you will be working here the greater part of the day. And so, if the railroad reached round the world, I think that I should keep ahead of you; and as for seeing the country and getting experience of that kind, I should have to cut your acquaintance altogether.

Such is the universal law, which no man can ever outwit, and with regard to the railroad even we may say it is as broad as it is long. To make a railroad round the world available to all mankind is equivalent to grading the whole surface of the planet. Men have an indistinct notion that if they keep up this activity of joint stocks and spades long enough all will at length ride somewhere, in next to no time, and for nothing; but though a crowd rushes to the depot, and the conductor shouts "All aboard!" when the smoke is blown away and the vapor condensed, it will be perceived that a few are riding, but the rest are run over -- and it will be called, and will be, "A melancholy accident." No doubt they can ride at last who shall have earned their fare, that is, if they survive so long, but they will probably have lost their elasticity and desire to travel by that time. 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. He should have gone up garret at once. "What!" exclaim a million Irishmen starting up from all the shanties in the land, "is not this railroad which we have built a good thing?" Yes, I answer, comparatively good, that is, you might have done worse; but I wish, as you are brothers of mine, that you could have spent your time better than digging in this dirt.

Before I finished my house, wishing to earn ten or twelve dollars by some honest and agreeable method, in order to meet my unusual expenses, I planted about two acres and a half of light and sandy soil near it chiefly with beans, but also a small part with potatoes, corn, peas, and turnips. The whole lot contains eleven acres, mostly growing up to pines and hickories, and was sold the preceding season for eight dollars and eight cents an acre. One farmer said that it was "good for nothing but to raise cheeping squirrels on." I put no manure whatever on this land, not being the owner, but merely a squatter, and not expecting to cultivate so much again, and I did not quite hoe it all once. I got out several cords of stumps in plowing, which supplied me with fuel for a long time, and left small circles of virgin mould, easily distinguishable through the summer by the greater luxuriance of the beans there. The dead and for the most part unmerchantable wood behind my house, and the driftwood from the pond, have supplied the remainder of my fuel. I was obliged to hire a team and a man for the plowing, though I held the plow myself. My farm outgoes for the first season were, for implements, seed, work, etc., $14.72 . The seed corn was given me. This never costs anything to speak of, unless you plant more than enough. I got twelve bushels of beans, and eighteen bushels of potatoes, beside some peas and sweet corn. The yellow corn and turnips were too late to come to anything. My whole income from the farm was

$ 23.44

Deducting the outgoes ............ 14.72

-------

There are left .................. $ 8.71

beside produce consumed and on hand at the time this estimate was made of the value of $4.50 -- the amount on hand much more than balancing a little grass which I did not raise. All things considered, that is, considering the importance of a man's soul and of today, notwithstanding the short time occupied by my experiment, nay, partly even because of its transient character, I believe that that was doing better than any farmer in Concord did that year.

The next year I did better still, for I spaded up all the land which I required, about a third of an acre, and I learned from the experience of both years, not being in the least awed by many celebrated works on husbandry, Arthur Young among the rest, that if one would live simply and eat only the crop which he raised, and raise no more than he ate, and not exchange it for an insufficient quantity of more luxurious and expensive things, he would need to cultivate only a few rods of ground, and that it would be cheaper to spade up that than to use oxen to plow it, and to select a fresh spot from time to time than to manure the old, and he could do all his necessary farm work as it were with his left hand at odd hours in the summer; and thus he would not be tied to an ox, or horse, or cow, or pig, as at present. I desire to speak impartially on this point, and as one not interested in the success or failure of the present economical and social arrangements. I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment. Beside being better off than they already, if my house had been burned or my crops had failed, I should have been nearly as well off as before.

I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men, the former are so much the freer. Men and oxen exchange work; but if we consider necessary work only, the oxen will be seen to have greatly the advantage, their farm is so much the larger. Man does some of his part of the exchange work in his six weeks of haying, and it is no boy's play. Certainly no nation that lived simply in all respects, that is, no nation of philosophers, would commit so great a blunder as to use the labor of animals. True, there never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be. However, I should never have broken a horse or bull and taken him to board for any work he might do for me, for fear I should become a horseman or a herdsman merely; and if society seems to be the gainer by so doing, are we certain that what is one man's gain is not another's loss, and that the stable-boy has equal cause with his master to be satisfied? Granted that some public works would not have been constructed without this aid, and let man share the glory of such with the ox and horse; does it follow that he could not have accomplished works yet more worthy of himself in that case? When men begin to do, not merely unnecessary or artistic, but luxurious and idle work, with their assistance, it is inevitable that a few do all the exchange work with the oxen, or, in other words, become the slaves of the strongest. Man thus not only works for the animal within him, but, for a symbol of this, he works for the animal without him. Though we have many substantial houses of brick or stone, the prosperity of the farmer is still measured by the degree to which the barn overshadows the house. This town is said to have the largest houses for oxen, cows, and horses hereabouts, and it is not behindhand in its public buildings; but there are very few halls for free worship or free speech in this county. It should not be by their architecture, but why not even by their power of abstract thought, that nations should seek to commemorate themselves? How much more admirable the Bhagvat-Geeta than all the ruins of the East! Towers and temples are the luxury of princes. A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince. Genius is not a retainer to any emperor, nor is its material silver, or gold, or marble, except to a trifling extent. To what end, pray, is so much stone hammered? In Arcadia, when I was there, I did not see any hammering stone. 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. I love better to see stones in place. The grandeur of Thebes was a vulgar grandeur. More sensible is a rod of stone wall that bounds an honest man's field than a hundred-gated Thebes that has wandered farther from the true end of life. The religion and civilization which are barbaric and heathenish build splendid temples; but what you might call Christianity does not. Most of the stone a nation hammers goes toward its tomb only. It buries itself alive. As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs. I might possibly invent some excuse for them and him, but I have no time for it. As for the religion and love of art of the builders, it is much the same all the world over, whether the building be an Egyptian temple or the United States Bank. It costs more than it comes to. The mainspring is vanity, assisted by the love of garlic and bread and butter. Mr. Balcom, a promising young architect, designs it on the back of his Vitruvius, with hard pencil and ruler, and the job is let out to Dobson & Sons, stonecutters. When the thirty centuries begin to look down on it, mankind begin to look up at it. As for your high towers and monuments, there was a crazy fellow once in this town who undertook to dig through to China, and he got so far that, as he said, he heard the Chinese pots and kettles rattle; but I think that I shall not go out of my way to admire the hole which he made. Many are concerned about the monuments of the West and the East -- to know who built them. For my part, I should like to know who in those days did not build them -- who were above such trifling. But to proceed with my statistics.

By surveying, carpentry, and day-labor of various other kinds in the village in the meanwhile, for I have as many trades as fingers, I had earned $13.34. The expense of food for eight months, namely, from July 4th to March 1st, the time when these estimates were made, though I lived there more than two years -- not counting potatoes, a little green corn, and some peas, which I had raised, nor considering the value of what was on hand at the last date -- was

Rice .................... $ 1.73 1/2

Molasses ................. 1.73 Cheapest form of the

saccharine.

Rye meal ................. 1.04 3/4

Indian meal .............. 0.99 3/4 Cheaper than rye.

Pork ..................... 0.22

All experiments which failed:

Flour .................... 0.88 Costs more than Indian meal,

both money and trouble.

Sugar .................... 0.80

Lard ..................... 0.65

Apples ................... 0.25

Dried apple .............. 0.22

Sweet potatoes ........... 0.10

One pumpkin .............. 0.06

One watermelon ........... 0.02

Salt ..................... 0.03

Yes, I did eat $8.74, all told; but I should not thus unblushingly publish my guilt, if I did not know that most of my readers were equally guilty with myself, and that their deeds would look no better in print. The next year I sometimes caught a mess of fish for my dinner, and once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my bean-field -- effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say -- and devour him, partly for experiment's sake; but though it afforded me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that a good practice, however it might seem to have your woodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher.

Clothing and some incidental expenses within the same dates, though little can be inferred from this item, amounted to

$ 8.40-3/4

Oil and some household utensils ........ 2.00

So that all the pecuniary outgoes, excepting for washing and mending, which for the most part were done out of the house, and their bills have not yet been received -- and these are all and more than all the ways by which money necessarily goes out in this part of the world -- were

House ................................. $ 28.12

Farm one year ........................... 14.72

Food eight months ....................... 8.74

Clothing, etc., eight months ............ 8.40-3/4

Oil, etc., eight months ................. 2.00

-----------

In all ............................ $ 61.99-3/4

I address myself now to those of my readers who have a living to get. And to meet this I have for farm produce sold

$ 23.44

Earned by day-labor .................... 13.34

-------

In all ............................ $ 36.78,

which subtracted from the sum of the outgoes leaves a balance of $25.21 3/4 on the one side -- this being very nearly the means with which I started, and the measure of expenses to be incurred -- and on the other, beside the leisure and independence and health thus secured, a comfortable house for me as long as I choose to occupy it.

These statistics, however accidental and therefore uninstructive they may appear, as they have a certain completeness, have a certain value also. Nothing was given me of which I have not rendered some account. It appears from the above estimate, that my food alone cost me in money about twenty-seven cents a week. It was, for nearly two years after this, rye and Indian meal without yeast, potatoes, rice, a very little salt pork, molasses, and salt; and my drink, water. It was fit that I should live on rice, mainly, who love so well the philosophy of India. To meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers, I may as well state, that if I dined out occasionally, as I always had done, and I trust shall have opportunities to do again, it was frequently to the detriment of my domestic arrangements. But the dining out, being, as I have stated, a constant element, does not in the least affect a comparative statement like this.

I learned from my two years' experience that it would cost incredibly little trouble to obtain one's necessary food, even in this latitude; that a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain health and strength. I have made a satisfactory dinner, satisfactory on several accounts, simply off a dish of purslane (Portulaca oleracea) which I gathered in my cornfield, boiled and salted. I give the Latin on account of the savoriness of the trivial name. And pray what more can a reasonable man desire, in peaceful times, in ordinary noons, than a sufficient number of ears of green sweet corn boiled, with the addition of salt? Even the little variety which I used was a yielding to the demands of appetite, and not of health. Yet men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries; and I know a good woman who thinks that her son lost his life because he took to drinking water only.

The reader will perceive that I am treating the subject rather from an economic than a dietetic point of view, and he will not venture to put my abstemiousness to the test unless he has a well-stocked larder.

Bread I at first made of pure Indian meal and salt, genuine hoe-cakes, which I baked before my fire out of doors on a shingle or the end of a stick of timber sawed off in building my house; but it was wont to get smoked and to have a piny flavor, I tried flour also; but have at last found a mixture of rye and Indian meal most convenient and agreeable. In cold weather it was no little amusement to bake several small loaves of this in succession, tending and turning them as carefully as an Egyptian his hatching eggs. They were a real cereal fruit which I ripened, and they had to my senses a fragrance like that of other noble fruits, which I kept in as long as possible by wrapping them in cloths. I made a study of the ancient and indispensable art of bread-making, consulting such authorities as offered, going back to the primitive days and first invention of the unleavened kind, when from the wildness of nuts and meats men first reached the mildness and refinement of this diet, and travelling gradually down in my studies through that accidental souring of the dough which, it is supposed, taught the leavening process, and through the various fermentations thereafter, till I came to "good, sweet, wholesome bread," the staff of life. Leaven, which some deem the soul of bread, the spiritus which fills its cellular tissue, which is religiously preserved like the vestal fire -- some precious bottleful, I suppose, first brought over in the Mayflower, did the business for America, and its influence is still rising, swelling, spreading, in cerealian billows over the land -- this seed I regularly and faithfully procured from the village, till at length one morning I forgot the rules, and scalded my yeast; by which accident I discovered that even this was not indispensable -- for my discoveries were not by the synthetic but analytic process -- and I have gladly omitted it since, though most housewives earnestly assured me that safe and wholesome bread without yeast might not be, and elderly people prophesied a speedy decay of the vital forces. 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; and I am glad to escape the trivialness of carrying a bottleful in my pocket, which would sometimes pop and discharge its contents to my discomfiture. It is simpler and more respectable to omit it. Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances. Neither did I put any sal-soda, or other acid or alkali, into my bread. It would seem that I made it according to the recipe which Marcus Porcius Cato gave about two centuries before Christ. "Panem depsticium sic facito. Manus mortariumque bene lavato. Farinam in mortarium indito, aquae paulatim addito, subigitoque pulchre. Ubi bene subegeris, defingito, coquitoque sub testu." Which I take to mean, -- "Make kneaded bread thus. Wash your hands and trough well. Put the meal into the trough, add water gradually, and knead it thoroughly. When you have kneaded it well, mould it, and bake it under a cover," that is, in a baking kettle. Not a word about leaven. But I did not always use this staff of life. At one time, owing to the emptiness of my purse, I saw none of it for more than a month.

Every New Englander might easily raise all his own breadstuffs in this land of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on distant and fluctuating markets for them. Yet so far are we from simplicity and independence that, in Concord, fresh and sweet meal is rarely sold in the shops, and hominy and corn in a still coarser form are hardly used by any. For the most part the farmer gives to his cattle and hogs the grain of his own producing, and buys flour, which is at least no more wholesome, at a greater cost, at the store. I saw that I could easily raise my bushel or two of rye and Indian corn, for the former will grow on the poorest land, and the latter does not require the best, and grind them in a hand-mill, and so do without rice and pork; and if I must have some concentrated sweet, I found by experiment that I could make a very good molasses either of pumpkins or beets, and I knew that I needed only to set out a few maples to obtain it more easily still, and while these were growing I could use various substitutes beside those which I have named. "For," as the Forefathers sang,--

"we can make liquor to sweeten our lips

Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips."

Finally, as for salt, that grossest of groceries, to obtain this might be a fit occasion for a visit to the seashore, or, if I did without it altogether, I should probably drink the less water. I do not learn that the Indians ever troubled themselves to go after it.

Thus I could avoid all trade and barter, so far as my food was concerned, and having a shelter already, it would only remain to get clothing and fuel. The pantaloons which I now wear were woven in a farmer's family -- thank Heaven there is so much virtue still in man; for I think the fall from the farmer to the operative as great and memorable as that from the man to the farmer; -- and in a new country, fuel is an encumbrance. As for a habitat, if I were not permitted still to squat, I might purchase one acre at the same price for which the land I cultivated was sold -- namely, eight dollars and eight cents. But as it was, I considered that I enhanced the value of the land by squatting on it.

There is a certain class of unbelievers who sometimes ask me such questions as, if I think that I can live on vegetable food alone; and to strike at the root of the matter at once -- for the root is faith -- I am accustomed to answer such, that I can live on board nails. If they cannot understand that, they cannot understand much that I have to say. For my part, I am glad to bear of experiments of this kind being tried; as that a young man tried for a fortnight to live on hard, raw corn on the ear, using his teeth for all mortar. The squirrel tribe tried the same and succeeded. The human race is interested in these experiments, though a few old women who are incapacitated for them, or who own their thirds in mills, may be alarmed.

My furniture, part of which I made myself -- and the rest cost me nothing of which I have not rendered an account -- consisted of a bed, a table, a desk, three chairs, a looking-glass three inches in diameter, a pair of tongs and andirons, a kettle, a skillet, and a frying-pan, a dipper, a wash-bowl, two knives and forks, three plates, one cup, one spoon, a jug for oil, a jug for molasses, and a japanned lamp. None is so poor that he need sit on a pumpkin. That is shiftlessness. There is a plenty of such chairs as I like best in the village garrets to be had for taking them away. Furniture! Thank God, I can sit and I can stand without the aid of a furniture warehouse. What man but a philosopher would not be ashamed to see his furniture packed in a cart and going up country exposed to the light of heaven and the eyes of men, a beggarly account of empty boxes? That is Spaulding's furniture. I could never tell from inspecting such a load whether it belonged to a so-called rich man or a poor one; the owner always seemed poverty-stricken. Indeed, the more you have of such things the poorer you are. Each load looks as if it contained the contents of a dozen shanties; and if one shanty is poor, this is a dozen times as poor. Pray, for what do we move ever but to get rid of our furniture, our exuvioe: at last to go from this world to another newly furnished, and leave this to be burned? It is the same as if all these traps were buckled to a man's belt, and he could not move over the rough country where our lines are cast without dragging them -- dragging his trap. He was a lucky fox that left his tail in the trap. The muskrat will gnaw his third leg off to be free. No wonder man has lost his elasticity. How often he is at a dead set! "Sir, if I may be so bold, what do you mean by a dead set?" If you are a seer, whenever you meet a man you will see all that he owns, ay, and much that he pretends to disown, behind him, even to his kitchen furniture and all the trumpery which he saves and will not burn, and he will appear to be harnessed to it and making what headway he can. I think that the man is at a dead set who has got through a knot-hole or gateway where his sledge load of furniture cannot follow him. I cannot but feel compassion when I hear some trig, compact-looking man, seemingly free, all girded and ready, speak of his "furniture," as whether it is insured or not. "But what shall I do with my furniture?" -- My gay butterfly is entangled in a spider's web then. Even those who seem for a long while not to have any, if you inquire more narrowly you will find have some stored in somebody's barn. I look upon England today 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. It would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his bed and walk, and I should certainly advise a sick one to lay down his bed and run. When I have met an immigrant tottering under a bundle which contained his all -- looking like an enormous wen which had grown out of the nape of his neck -- I have pitied him, not because that was his all, but because he had all that to carry. If I have got to drag my trap, I will take care that it be a light one and do not nip me in a vital part. But perchance it would be wisest never to put one's paw into it.

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. The moon will not sour milk nor taint meat of mine, nor will the sun injure my furniture or fade my carpet; and if he is sometimes too warm a friend, I find it still better economy to retreat behind some curtain which nature has provided, than to add a single item to the details of housekeeping. 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.

Not long since I was present at the auction of a deacon's effects, for his life had not been ineffectual:--

"The evil that men do lives after them."

As usual, a great proportion was trumpery which had begun to accumulate in his father's day. Among the rest was a dried tapeworm. And now, after lying half a century in his garret and other dust holes, these things were not burned; instead of a bonfire, or purifying destruction of them, there was an auction, or increasing of them. The neighbors eagerly collected to view them, bought them all, and carefully transported them to their garrets and dust holes, to lie there till their estates are settled, when they will start again. When a man dies he kicks the dust.

The customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be profitably imitated by us, for they at least go through the semblance of casting their slough annually; they have the idea of the thing, whether they have the reality or not. Would it not be well if we were to celebrate such a "busk," or "feast of first fruits," as Bartram describes to have been the custom of the Mucclasse Indians? "When a town celebrates the busk," says he, "having previously provided themselves with new clothes, new pots, pans, and other household utensils and furniture, they collect all their worn out clothes and other despicable things, sweep and cleanse their houses, squares, and the whole town of their filth, which with all the remaining grain and other old provisions they cast together into one common heap, and consume it with fire. After having taken medicine, and fasted for three days, all the fire in the town is extinguished. During this fast they abstain from the gratification of every appetite and passion whatever. A general amnesty is proclaimed; all malefactors may return to their town."

"On the fourth morning, the high priest, by rubbing dry wood together, produces new fire in the public square, from whence every habitation in the town is supplied with the new and pure flame."

They then feast on the new corn and fruits, and dance and sing for three days, "and the four following days they receive visits and rejoice with their friends from neighboring towns who have in like manner purified and prepared themselves."

The Mexicans also practised a similar purification at the end of every fifty-two years, in the belief that it was time for the world to come to an end.

I have scarcely heard of a truer sacrament, that is, as the dictionary defines it, "outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," than this, and I have no doubt that they were originally inspired directly from Heaven to do thus, though they have no Biblical record of the revelation.

For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands, and I found that, by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living. The whole of my winters, as well as most of my summers, I had free and clear for study. I have thoroughly tried school-keeping, and found that my expenses were in proportion, or rather out of proportion, to my income, for I was obliged to dress and train, not to say think and believe, accordingly, and I lost my time into the bargain. As I did not teach for the good of my fellow-men, but simply for a livelihood, this was a failure. I have tried trade but I found that it would take ten years to get under way in that, and that then I should probably be on my way to the devil. I was actually afraid that I might by that time be doing what is called a good business. When formerly I was looking about to see what I could do for a living, some sad experience in conforming to the wishes of friends being fresh in my mind to tax my ingenuity, I thought often and seriously of picking huckleberries; that surely I could do, and its small profits might suffice -- for my greatest skill has been to want but little -- so little capital it required, so little distraction from my wonted moods, I foolishly thought. While my acquaintances went unhesitatingly into trade or the professions, I contemplated this occupation as most like theirs; ranging the hills all summer to pick the berries which came in my way, and thereafter carelessly dispose of them; so, to keep the flocks of Admetus. I also dreamed that I might gather the wild herbs, or carry evergreens to such villagers as loved to be reminded of the woods, even to the city, by hay-cart loads. But I have since learned that trade curses everything it handles; and though you trade in messages from heaven, the whole curse of trade attaches to the business.

As I preferred some things to others, and especially valued my freedom, as I could fare hard and yet succeed well, I did not wish to spend my time in earning rich carpets or other fine furniture, or delicate cookery, or a house in the Grecian or the Gothic style just yet. If there are any to whom it is no interruption to acquire these things, and who know how to use them when acquired, I relinquish to them the pursuit. Some are "industrious," and appear to love labor for its own sake, or perhaps because it keeps them out of worse mischief; to such I have at present nothing to say. Those who would not know what to do with more leisure than they now enjoy, I might advise to work twice as hard as they do -- work till they pay for themselves, and get their free papers. For myself I found that the occupation of a day-laborer was the most independent of any, especially as it required only thirty or forty days in a year to support one. The laborer's day ends with the going down of the sun, and he is then free to devote himself to his chosen pursuit, independent of his labor; but his employer, who speculates from month to month, has no respite from one end of the year to the other.

In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial. It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do.

One young man of my acquaintance, who has inherited some acres, told me that he thought he should live as I did, if he had the means. 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. 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. It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course.

Undoubtedly, in this case, what is true for one is truer still for a thousand, as a large house is not proportionally more expensive than a small one, since one roof may cover, one cellar underlie, and one wall separate several apartments. But for my part, I preferred the solitary dwelling. Moreover, it will commonly be cheaper to build the whole yourself than to convince another of the advantage of the common wall; and when you have done this, the common partition, to be much cheaper, must be a thin one, and that other may prove a bad neighbor, and also not keep his side in repair. The only co-operation which is commonly possible is exceedingly partial and superficial; and what little true co-operation there is, is as if it were not, being a harmony inaudible to men. If a man has faith, he will co-operate with equal faith everywhere; if he has not faith, he will continue to live like the rest of the world, whatever company he is joined to. To co-operate in the highest as well as the lowest sense, means to get our living together. I heard it proposed lately that two young men should travel together over the world, the one without money, earning his means as he went, before the mast and behind the plow, the other carrying a bill of exchange in his pocket. It was easy to see that they could not long be companions or co-operate, since one would not operate at all. They would part at the first interesting crisis in their adventures. Above all, as I have implied, the man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off.

But all this is very selfish, I have heard some of my townsmen say. I confess that I have hitherto indulged very little in philanthropic enterprises. I have made some sacrifices to a sense of duty, and among others have sacrificed this pleasure also. There are those who have used all their arts to persuade me to undertake the support of some poor family in the town; and if I had nothing to do -- for the devil finds employment for the idle -- I might try my hand at some such pastime as that. However, when I have thought to indulge myself in this respect, and lay their Heaven under an obligation by maintaining certain poor persons in all respects as comfortably as I maintain myself, and have even ventured so far as to make them the offer, they have one and all unhesitatingly preferred to remain poor. While my townsmen and women are devoted in so many ways to the good of their fellows, I trust that one at least may be spared to other and less humane pursuits. You must have a genius for charity as well as for anything else. As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full. Moreover, I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution. Probably I should not consciously and deliberately forsake my particular calling to do the good which society demands of me, to save the universe from annihilation; and I believe that a like but infinitely greater steadfastness elsewhere is all that now preserves it. But I would not stand between any man and his genius; and to him who does this work, which I decline, with his whole heart and soul and life, I would say, Persevere, even if the world call it doing evil, as it is most likely they will.

I am far from supposing that my case is a peculiar one; no doubt many of my readers would make a similar defence. At doing something -- I will not engage that my neighbors shall pronounce it good -- I do not hesitate to say that I should be a capital fellow to hire; but what that is, it is for my employer to find out. What good I do, in the common sense of that word, must be aside from my main path, and for the most part wholly unintended. Men say, practically, Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness aforethought go about doing good. If I were to preach at all in this strain, I should say rather, Set about being good. As if the sun should stop when he had kindled his fires up to the splendor of a moon or a star of the sixth magnitude, and go about like a Robin Goodfellow, peeping in at every cottage window, inspiring lunatics, and tainting meats, and making darkness visible, instead of steadily increasing his genial heat and beneficence till he is of such brightness that no mortal can look him in the face, and then, and in the meanwhile too, going about the world in his own orbit, doing it good, or rather, as a truer philosophy has discovered, the world going about him getting good. When Phaeton, wishing to prove his heavenly birth by his beneficence, had the sun's chariot but one day, and drove out of the beaten track, 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.

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It is human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the African deserts called the simoom, which fills the mouth and nose and ears and eyes with dust till you are suffocated, for fear that I should get some of his good done to me -- some of its virus mingled with my blood. No -- in this case I would rather suffer evil the natural way. A man is not a good man to me because he will feed me if I should be starving, or warm me if I should be freezing, or pull me out of a ditch if I should ever fall into one. I can find you a Newfoundland dog that will do as much. Philanthropy is not love for one's fellow-man in the broadest sense. Howard was no doubt an exceedingly kind and worthy man in his way, and has his reward; but, comparatively speaking, what are a hundred Howards to us, if their philanthropy do not help us in our best estate, when we are most worthy to be helped? I never heard of a philanthropic meeting in which it was sincerely proposed to do any good to me, or the like of me.

The Jesuits were quite balked by those Indians who, being burned at the stake, suggested new modes of torture to their tormentors. Being superior to physical suffering, it sometimes chanced that they were superior to any consolation which the missionaries could offer; and the law to do as you would be done by fell with less persuasiveness on the ears of those who, for their part, did not care how they were done by, who loved their enemies after a new fashion, and came very near freely forgiving them all they did.

Be sure that you give the poor the aid they most need, though it be your example which leaves them far behind. If you give money, spend yourself with it, and do not merely abandon it to them. We make curious mistakes sometimes. Often the poor man is not so cold and hungry as he is dirty and ragged and gross. It is partly his taste, and not merely his misfortune. If you give him money, he will perhaps buy more rags with it. 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. This ducking was the very thing he needed. Then I began to pity myself, and I saw that it would be a greater charity to bestow on me a flannel shirt than a whole slop-shop on him. There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve. It is the pious slave-breeder devoting the proceeds of every tenth slave to buy a Sunday's liberty for the rest. Some show their kindness to the poor by employing them in their kitchens. Would they not be kinder if they employed themselves there? You boast of spending a tenth part of your income in charity; maybe you should spend the nine tenths so, and done with it. Society recovers only a tenth part of the property then. Is this owing to the generosity of him in whose possession it is found, or to the remissness of the officers of justice?

Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Nay, it is greatly overrated; and it is our selfishness which overrates it. A robust poor man, one sunny day here in Concord, praised a fellow-townsman to me, because, as he said, he was kind to the poor; meaning himself. The kind uncles and aunts of the race are more esteemed than its true spiritual fathers and mothers. I once heard a reverend lecturer on England, a man of learning and intelligence, after enumerating her scientific, literary, and political worthies, Shakespeare, Bacon, Cromwell, Milton, Newton, and others, speak next of her Christian heroes, whom, as if his profession required it of him, he elevated to a place far above all the rest, as the greatest of the great. They were Penn, Howard, and Mrs. Fry. Every one must feel the falsehood and cant of this. The last were not England's best men and women; only, perhaps, her best philanthropists.

I would not subtract anything from the praise that is due to philanthropy, but merely demand justice for all who by their lives and works are a blessing to mankind. I do not value chiefly a man's uprightness and benevolence, which are, as it were, his stem and leaves. Those plants of whose greenness withered we make herb tea for the sick serve but a humble use, and are most employed by quacks. I want the flower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse. His goodness must not be a partial and transitory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs him nothing and of which he is unconscious. This is a charity that hides a multitude of sins. The philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with the remembrance of his own castoff griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it sympathy. We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion. From what southern plains comes up the voice of wailing? Under what latitudes reside the heathen to whom we would send light? Who is that intemperate and brutal man whom we would redeem? If anything ail a man, so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even -- for that is the seat of sympathy -- he forthwith sets about reforming -- the world. Being a microcosm himself, he discovers -- and it is a true discovery, and he is the man to make it -- that the world has been eating green apples; to his eyes, in fact, the globe itself is a great green apple, which there is danger awful to think of that the children of men will nibble before it is ripe; and straightway his drastic philanthropy seeks out the Esquimau and the Patagonian, and embraces the populous Indian and Chinese villages; and thus, by a few years of philanthropic activity, the powers in the meanwhile using him for their own ends, no doubt, he cures himself of his dyspepsia, the globe acquires a faint blush on one or both of its cheeks, as if it were beginning to be ripe, and life loses its crudity and is once more sweet and wholesome to live. I never dreamed of any enormity greater than I have committed. I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself.

I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology. My excuse for not lecturing against the use of tobacco is, that I never chewed it, that is a penalty which reformed tobacco-chewers have to pay; though there are things enough I have chewed which I could lecture against. If you should ever be betrayed into any of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does, for it is not worth knowing. Rescue the drowning and tie your shoestrings. Take your time, and set about some free labor.

Our manners have been corrupted by communication with the saints. Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring Him forever. One would say that even the prophets and redeemers had rather consoled the fears than confirmed the hopes of man. There is nowhere recorded a simple and irrepressible satisfaction with the gift of life, any memorable praise of God. All health and success does me good, however far off and withdrawn it may appear; all disease and failure helps to make me sad and does me evil, however much sympathy it may have with me or I with it. If, then, we would indeed restore mankind by truly Indian, botanic, magnetic, or natural means, let us first be as simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our own brows, and take up a little life into our pores. Do not stay to be an overseer of the poor, but endeavor to become one of the worthies of the world.

I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz, that "they asked a wise man, saying: Of the many celebrated trees which the Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, they call none azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit; what mystery is there in this? He replied, Each has its appropriate produce, and appointed season, during the continuance of which it is fresh and blooming, and during their absence dry and withered; to neither of which states is the cypress exposed, being always flourishing; and of this nature are the azads, or religious independents. -- Fix not thy heart on that which is transitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will continue to flow through Bagdad after the race of caliphs is extinct: if thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date tree; but if it affords nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, like the cypress."

COMPLEMENTAL VERSES

The Pretensions of Poverty

Thou dost presume too much, poor needy wretch,

To claim a station in the firmament

Because thy humble cottage, or thy tub,

Nurses some lazy or pedantic virtue

In the cheap sunshine or by shady springs,

With roots and pot-herbs; where thy right hand,

Tearing those humane passions from the mind,

Upon whose stocks fair blooming virtues flourish,

Degradeth nature, and benumbeth sense,

And, Gorgon-like, turns active men to stone.

We not require the dull society

Of your necessitated temperance,

Or that unnatural stupidity

That knows nor joy nor sorrow; nor your forced

Falsely exalted passive fortitude

Above the active. This low abject brood,

That fix their seats in mediocrity,

Become your servile minds; but we advance

Such virtues only as admit excess,

Brave, bounteous acts, regal magnificence,

All-seeing prudence, magnanimity

That knows no bound, and that heroic virtue

For which antiquity hath left no name,

But patterns only, such as Hercules,

Achilles, Theseus. Back to thy loath'd cell;

And when thou seest the new enlightened sphere,

Study to know but what those worthies were.