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1I think that I love society as much as most, and am ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any
2full-blooded man that comes in my way. I am naturally no hermit, but might possibly sit out the sturdiest frequenter of
3the bar-room, if my business called me thither. I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship,
4three for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but
5they generally economized the room by standing up. It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will
6contain. I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted
7without being aware that we had come very near to one another. Many of our houses, both public and private, with their
8almost innumerable apartments, their huge halls and their cellars for the storage of wines and other munitions of peace,
9appear to me extravagantly large for their inhabitants. They are so vast and magnificent that the latter seem to be only
10vermin which infest them. I am surprised when the herald blows his summons before some Tremont or Astor or Middlesex
11House, to see come creeping out over the piazza for all inhabitants a ridiculous mouse, which soon again slinks into
12some hole in the pavement. One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a
13sufficient distance from my guest when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your thoughts
14to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have
15overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the
16hearer, else it may plough out again through the side of his head. Also, our sentences wanted room to unfold and form
17their columns in the interval. Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a
18considerable neutral ground, between them. I have found it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to a companion on
19the opposite side. In my house we were so near that we could not begin to hear,--we could not speak low enough to be
20heard; as when you throw two stones into calm water so near that they break each other's undulations. If we are merely
21loquacious and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together, cheek by jowl, and feel each other's
22breath; but if we speak reservedly and thoughtfully, we want to be farther apart, that all animal heat and moisture may
23have a chance to evaporate. If we would enjoy the most intimate society with that in each of us which is without, or
24above, being spoken to, we must not only be silent, but commonly so far apart bodily that we cannot possibly hear each
25other's voice in any case. Referred to this standard, speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing;
26but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout. As the conversation began to assume a loftier
27and grander tone, we gradually shoved our chairs farther apart till they touched the wall in opposite corners, and then
28commonly there was not room enough. My "best" room, however, my withdrawing room, always ready for company, on whose
29carpet the sun rarely fell, was the pine wood behind my house. Thither in summer days, when distinguished guests came, I
30took them, and a priceless domestic swept the floor and dusted the furniture and kept the things in order. If one guest
31came he sometimes partook of my frugal meal, and it was no interruption to conversation to be stirring a hasty-pudding,
32or watching the rising and maturing of a loaf of bread in the ashes, in the mean while. But if twenty came and sat in my
33house there was nothing said about dinner, though there might be bread enough for two, more than if eating were a
34forsaken habit; but we naturally practised abstinence; and this was never felt to be an offence against hospitality, but
35the most proper and considerate course. The waste and decay of physical life, which so often needs repair, seemed
36miraculously retarded in such a case, and the vital vigor stood its ground. I could entertain thus a thousand as well as
37twenty; and if any ever went away disappointed or hungry from my house when they found me at home, they may depend upon
38it that I sympathized with them at least. So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better
39customs in the place of the old. You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give. For my own part, I was never
40so effectually deterred from frequenting a man's house, by any kind of Cerberus whatever, as by the parade one made
41about dining me, which I took to be a very polite and roundabout hint never to trouble him so again. I think I shall
42never revisit those scenes. I should be proud to have for the motto of my cabin those lines of Spenser which one of my
43visitors inscribed on a yellow walnut leaf for a card:-- "Arrivéd there, the little house they fill, Ne looke for
44entertainment where none was; Rest is their feast, and all things at their will: The noblest mind the best contentment
45has." When Winslow, afterward governor of the Plymouth Colony, went with a companion on a visit of ceremony to Massasoit
46on foot through the woods, and arrived tired and hungry at his lodge, they were well received by the king, but nothing
47was said about eating that day. When the night arrived, to quote their own words,--"He laid us on the bed with himself
48and his wife, they at the one end and we at the other, it being only planks laid a foot from the ground, and a thin mat
49upon them. Two more of his chief men, for want of room, pressed by and upon us; so that we were worse weary of our
50lodging than of our journey." At one o'clock the next day Massasoit "brought two fishes that he had shot," about thrice
51as big as a bream; "these being boiled, there were at least forty looked for a share in them. The most ate of them. This
52meal only we had in two nights and a day; and had not one of us bought a partridge, we had taken our journey fasting."
53Fearing that they would be light-headed for want of food and also sleep, owing to "the savages' barbarous singing, (for
54they used to sing themselves asleep,)" and that they might get home while they had strength to travel, they departed. As
55for lodging, it is true they were but poorly entertained, though what they found an inconvenience was no doubt intended
56for an honor; but as far as eating was concerned, I do not see how the Indians could have done better. They had nothing
57to eat themselves, and they were wiser than to think that apologies could supply the place of food to their guests; so
58they drew their belts tighter and said nothing about it. Another time when Winslow visited them, it being a season of
59plenty with them, there was no deficiency in this respect. As for men, they will hardly fail one any where. I had more
60visitors while I lived in the woods than at any other period in my life; I mean that I had some. I met several there
61under more favorable circumstances than I could any where else. But fewer came to see me on trivial business. In this
62respect, my company was winnowed by my mere distance from town. I had withdrawn so far within the great ocean of
63solitude, into which the rivers of society empty, that for the most part, so far as my needs were concerned, only the
64finest sediment was deposited around me. Beside, there were wafted to me evidences of unexplored and uncultivated
65continents on the other side.
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