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

      rich are not simply kept comfortably warm, but unnaturally hot; as I

      implied before, they are cooked, of course _à la mode_.

      Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are

      not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of

      mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever

      lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. The ancient

      philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than

      which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward.

      We know not much about them. It is remarkable that _we_ know so much of

      them as we do. The same is true of the more modern reformers and

      benefactors of their race. None can be an impartial or wise observer of

      human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary

      poverty. Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in

      agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art. There are nowadays

      professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to

      profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is

      not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so

      to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of

      simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some

      of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. The

      success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like

      success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely by

      conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the

      progenitors of a nobler race of men. But why do men degenerate ever?

      What makes families run out? What is the nature of the luxury which

      enervates and destroys nations? Are we sure that there is none of it in

      our own lives? The philosopher is in advance of his age even in the

      outward form of his life. He is not fed, sheltered, clothed, warmed,

      like his contemporaries. How can a man be a philosopher and not

      maintain his vital heat by better methods than other men?

      When a man is warmed by the several modes which I have described, what

      does he want next? Surely not more warmth of the same kind, as more and

      richer food, larger and more splendid houses, finer and more abundant

      clothing, more numerous incessant and hotter fires, and the like. When

      he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is

      another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to

      adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced.

      The soil, it appears, is suited to the seed, for it has sent its

      radicle downward, and it may now send its shoot upward also with

      confidence. Why has man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but

      that he may rise in the same proportion into the heavens above?—for the

      nobler plants are valued for the fruit they bear at last in the air and

      light, far from the ground, and are not treated like the humbler

      esculents, which, though they may be biennials, are cultivated only

      till they have perfected their root, and often cut down at top for this

      purpose, so that most would not know them in their flowering season.

      I do not mean to prescribe rules to strong and valiant natures, who

      will mind their own affairs whether in heaven or hell, and perchance

      build more magnificently and spend more lavishly than the richest,

      without ever impoverishing themselves, not knowing how they live,—if,

      indeed, there are any such, as has been dreamed; nor to those who find

      their encouragement and inspiration in precisely the present condition

      of things, and cherish it with the fondness and enthusiasm of

      lovers,—and, to some extent, I reckon myself in this number; I do not

      speak to those who are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and

      they know whether they are well employed or not;—but mainly to the mass

      of men who are discontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of

      their lot or of the times, when they might improve them. There are some

      who complain most energetically and inconsolably of any, because they

      are, as they say, doing their duty. I also have in my mind that

      seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who

      have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it,

      and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters.

      If I should attempt to tell how I have desired to spend my life in

      years past, it would probably surprise those of my readers who are

      somewhat acquainted with its actual history; it would certainly

      astonish those who know nothing about it. I will only hint at some of

      the enterprises which I have cherished.

      In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to

      improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the

      meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the

      present moment; to toe that line. You will pardon some obscurities, for

      there are more secrets in my trade than in most men’s, and yet not

      voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly

      tell all that I know about it, and never paint “No Admittance” on my

      gate.

      I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, and am still

      on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them,

      describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one

      or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even

      seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to

      recover them as if they had lost them themselves.

      To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible,

      Nature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter, before yet any

      neighbor was stirring about his business, have I been about mine! No

      doubt, many of my townsmen have met me returning from this enterprise,

      farmers starting for Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers