WALDEN AND ON THE DUTY OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE. Henry David Thoreau

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 fireplace, 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 _éclat_ 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