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1I do not mean to prescribe rules to strong and valiant natures, who will mind their own affairs whether in heaven or
2hell, and perchance build more magnificently and spend more lavishly than the richest, without ever impoverishing
3themselves, not knowing how they live,--if, indeed, there are any such, as has been dreamed; nor to those who find their
4encouragement and inspiration in precisely the present condition of things, and cherish it with the fondness and
5enthusiasm of lovers,--and, to some extent, I reckon myself in this number; I do not speak to those who are well
6employed, in whatever circumstances, and they know whether they are well employed or not;--but mainly to the mass of men
7who are discontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of their lot or of the times, when they might improve them.
8There are some who complain most energetically and inconsolably of any, because they are, as they say, doing their duty.
9I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross,
10but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters. If I should
11attempt to tell how I have desired to spend my life in years past, it would probably surprise those of my readers who
12are somewhat acquainted with its actual history; it would certainly astonish those who know nothing about it. I will
13only hint at some of the enterprises which I have cherished. In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have
14been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the
15past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. You will pardon some obscurities, for there
16are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I
17would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint "No Admittance" on my gate. I long ago lost a hound, a bay
18horse, and a turtle-dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them, describing
19their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse,
20and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them
21themselves. To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself! How many mornings,
22summer and winter, before yet any neighbor was stirring about his business, have I been about mine! No doubt, many of my
23townsmen have met me returning from this enterprise, farmers starting for Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going
24to their work. It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last
25importance only to be present at it. So many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside the town, trying to hear what
26was 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
27bargain, running in the face of it. If it had concerned either of the political parties, depend upon it, it would have
28appeared in the Gazette with the earliest intelligence. At other times watching from the observatory of some cliff or
29tree, to telegraph any new arrival; or waiting at evening on the hill-tops for the sky to fall, that I might catch
30something, though I never caught much, and that, manna-wise, would dissolve again in the sun. For a long time I was
31reporter to a journal, of no very wide circulation, whose editor has never yet seen fit to print the bulk of my
32contributions, and, as is too common with writers, I got only my labor for my pains. However, in this case my pains were
33their own reward. For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow storms and rain storms, and did my duty
34faithfully; surveyor, if not of highways, then of forest paths and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and ravines
35bridged and passable at all seasons, where the public heel had testified to their utility. I have looked after the wild
36stock of the town, which give a faithful herdsman a good deal of trouble by leaping fences; and I have had an eye to the
37unfrequented nooks and corners of the farm; though I did not always know whether Jonas or Solomon worked in a particular
38field to-day; that was none of my business. I have watered the red huckleberry, the sand cherry and the nettle tree, the
39red pine and the black ash, the white grape and the yellow violet, which might have withered else in dry seasons. In
40short, I went on thus for a long time, I may say it without boasting, faithfully minding my business, till it became
41more and more evident that my townsmen would not after all admit me into the list of town officers, nor make my place a
42sinecure with a moderate allowance. My accounts, which I can swear to have kept faithfully, I have, indeed, never got
43audited, still less accepted, still less paid and settled. However, I have not set my heart on that. Not long since, a
44strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the house of a well-known lawyer in my neighborhood. "Do you wish to buy any
45baskets?" he asked. "No, we do not want any," was the reply. "What!" exclaimed the Indian as he went out the gate, "do
46you mean to starve us?" Having seen his industrious white neighbors so well off,--that the lawyer had only to weave
47arguments, and by some magic, wealth and standing followed, he had said to himself; I will go into business; I will
48weave baskets; it is a thing which I can do. Thinking that when he had made the baskets he would have done his part, and
49then 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
50other'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
51his 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
52buy 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
53it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them. The life which men
54praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?
55Finding that my fellow-citizens were not likely to offer me any room in the court house, or any curacy or living any
56where else, but I must shift for myself, I turned my face more exclusively than ever to the woods, where I was better
57known. I determined to go into business at once, and not wait to acquire the usual capital, using such slender means as
58I had already got. My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact
59some private business with the fewest obstacles; to be hindered from accomplishing which for want of a little common
60sense, a little enterprise and business talent, appeared not so sad as foolish.
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