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1When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in
2a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the
3labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again. I
4should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my
5townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all
6impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did
7not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I
8devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained. I will therefore
9ask those of my readers who feel no particular interest in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of these
10questions in this book. In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect
11to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is
12speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am
13confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or
14last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such
15account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a
16distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers,
17they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it
18may do good service to him whom it fits. I would fain say something, not so much concerning the Chinese and Sandwich
19Islanders as you who read these pages, who are said to live in New England; something about your condition, especially
20your outward condition or circumstances in this world, in this town, what it is, whether it is necessary that it be as
21bad as it is, whether it cannot be improved as well as not. I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in
22shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways.
23What I have heard of Brahmins sitting exposed to four fires and looking in the face of the sun; or hanging suspended,
24with their heads downward, over flames; or looking at the heavens over their shoulders "until it becomes impossible for
25them to resume their natural position, while from the twist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the stomach;"
26or dwelling, chained for life, at the foot of a tree; or measuring with their bodies, like caterpillars, the breadth of
27vast empires; or standing on one leg on the tops of pillars,--even these forms of conscious penance are hardly more
28incredible and astonishing than the scenes which I daily witness. The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in
29comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve, and had an end; but I could never
30see that these men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor. They have no friend Iolas to burn with a hot iron
31the root of the hydra's head, but as soon as one head is crushed, two spring up. I see young men, my townsmen, whose
32misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired
33than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with
34clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty
35acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they
36are 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
37many a poor immortal soul have I met well nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life,
38pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land,
39tillage, mowing, pasture, and wood-lot! The portionless, who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances,
40find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh. But men labor under a mistake. The better part
41of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as
42it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is
43a 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
44created men by throwing stones over their heads behind them:-- Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque laborum, Et
45documenta damus quâ simus origine nati. Or, as Raleigh rhymes it in his sonorous way,-- "From thence our kind
46hard-hearted is, enduring pain and care, Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are." So much for a blind obedience
47to a blundering oracle, throwing the stones over their heads behind them, and not seeing where they fell. Most men, even
48in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and
49superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil,
50are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by
51day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no
52time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance--which his growth requires--who has so often
53to use his knowledge? We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials, before we
54judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate
55handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly. Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard
56to live, are sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable
57to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are
58already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour. It is
59very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by experience; always on the
60limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins æs
61alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this
62other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor,
63to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offences; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into
64a nutshell of civility or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your
65neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him; making
66yourselves sick, that you may lay up something against a sick day, something to be tucked away in an old chest, or in a
67stocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, in the brick bank; no matter where, no matter how much or how little.
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