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

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 every where 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 palmleaf 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 car-load 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 I 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