news, and such sound digestive organs, that they can sit forever in
afternoon was absolutely free. Every day or two I strolled to the
darkness was so thick that you could cut it with a knife, as the
the woods, having made all tight without and withdrawn under hatches
with a merry crew of thoughts, leaving only my outer man at the
were so arranged as to make the most of mankind, in lanes and
virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common
the next day, obtained my mended shoe, and returned to the woods in
frogs. As I walked in the woods to see the birds and squirrels, so
late in a dark and muggy night, when my feet felt the path which my
night; and gentlemen and ladies making a call have gone half a mile
would often be painful to bear -- without affecting the
against society; but I preferred that society should run "amok"
never molested by any person but those who represented the State. I
properly distributed.
while others have not enough. The Popes Homers would soon get
"You who govern public affairs, what need have you to employ
night or day, though I was to be absent several days; not even when
These are the coarsest mills, in which all gossip is first rudely
helm, or even tying up the helm when it was plain sailing. I had
though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known
bends."
stand much about gracefulness, and never hesitated at a gap in a
recognize a feature in it, but it is as strange to him as if it were
bank; and, as a necessary part of the machinery, they kept a bell, a
Faginus astabat dum scyphus ante dapes."
out of their way, feeling the sidewalk only with their feet, and not
into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax
the literary amuse himself with the few books on my table, or the
not more than eighteen inches apart, in the midst of the woods,
the next fall I spent a fortnight in the woods of Maine. And yet my
the voices of the Sirens, and kept out of danger." Sometimes I
whether from sleep or any abstraction. Not till we are lost, in
newspaper, and which, taken in homoeopathic doses, was really as
as valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time. Often in
house was more respected than if it had been surrounded by a file of
myself into the night, especially if it was dark and tempestuous,
where they could most see and be seen, and have the first blow at
village appeared to me a great news room; and on one side, to
only producing numbness and insensibility to pain -- otherwise it
fronting one another, so that every traveller had to run the
pond. They lived about a mile off through the woods, and were quite
a road in Siberia. By night, of course, the perplexity is
used to the route. A day or two after one of them told me that they
there, circulating eitherfrom mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to
ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our
among the pines I heard the carts rattle. In one direction from my
invitation to call at every one of these houses, and company
time. I am convinced, that if all men were to live as simply as I
much longer -- I was let out through the rear avenues, and so
One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to
cast away nor distressed in any weather, though I encountered some
big gun, and a fire-engine, at convenient places; and the houses
leaves were very wet, they were drenched to their skins. I have
war and peace, and whether the world was likely to hold together
house there was a colony of muskrats in the river meadows; under the
saying is. Some who live in the outskirts, having come to town
their hands in their pockets, like caryatides, as if to prop it up.
senate-house. I had gone down to the woods for other purposes.
village were the grocery, the bar-room, the post-office, and the
their desperate odd-fellow society. It is true, I might have
relations.
evening, and it proved a dark night, I was obliged to conduct him to
usually bathed again in the pond, swimming across one of its coves
him, paid the highest prices for their places; and the few
where there was no cart-path, to feel with my feet the faint track
But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their
which I felt with my hands, passing between two pines for instance,
till we are completely lost, or turned round -- for a man needs only
man has to learn the points of compass again as often as be awakes,
forsake it, as the hand finds its way to the mouth without
man are like the grass -- I the grass, when the wind passes over it,
eyes glancing along the line this way and that, from time to time,
support it, as once at Redding & Companys on State Street, they
one small book, a volume of Homer, which perhaps was improperly
premises, and did not get home till toward morning, by which time,
I walked in the village to see the men and boys; instead of the wind
beacons and headlands, and if we go beyond our usual course we still
a snow-storm, even by day, one will come out upon a well-known road
gilded, and this I trust a soldier of our camp has found by this
soldiers. The tired rambler could rest and warm himself by my fire,
delicate hoppers within doors. I observed that the vitals of the
where I was well entertained, and after learning the kernels and
began to occur, and the traveller could get over walls or turn aside
a-shopping in their wagons, have been obliged to put up for the
or the tailor. Besides, there was a still more terrible standing
carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not
and what prospect I had of a supper. Yet, though many people of
busy men, as curious to me as if they had been prairie-dogs, each
straggling inhabitants in the outskirts, where long gaps in the line
against me, it being the desperate party. However, I was released
escaped to the woods again.
for a stint, and washed the dust of labor from my person, or
was aroused by having to raise my hand to lift the latch, I have not
every class came this way to the pond, I suffered no serious
expected about these times. For the most part I escaped wonderfully
severe storms. It is darker in the woods, even in common nights,
grove of elms and buttonwoods in the other horizon was a village of
deliberation to the goal, as is recommended to those who run the
"Nor wars did men molest,
have such a vast appetite for the former commodity, that is, the
"Nec bella fuerunt,
punishments? Love virtue, and thepeople will be virtuous. The
fence. I was even accustomed to make an irruption into some houses,
gauntlet, or by keeping my thoughts on high things, like Orpheus,
the hair or the feet or the skirts, as the barber, the shoemaker,
consciousness. I hardly ever failed, when I rambled through the
tax. Signs were hung out on all sides to allure him; some to catch
infinitely greater. In our most trivial walks, we are constantly,
directed thus on their way two young men who had been fishing in the
village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on
the village to get a shoe from the cobblers, I was seized and put
from these dangers, either by proceeding at once boldly and without
They, being commonly out of doors, heard whatever was in the wind.
wandered about the greater part of the night, close by their own
After hoeing, or perhaps reading and writing, in the forenoon, I
many a genial thought by the cabin fire "as I sailed." I was never
resisted forcibly with more or less effect, might have run "amok"
Of course, those who were stationed nearest to the head of the line,
had no lock nor bolt but for the desk which held my papers, not even
with a voluptuous expression, or else leaning against a barn with
-- do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature. Every
him by the appetite, as the tavern and victualling cellar; some by
who, "loudly singing the praises of the gods to his lyre, drowned
guided rather by his feet than his eyes. One very dark night I
into cow-paths, and so escape, paid a very slight ground or window
than most suppose. I frequently had to look up at the opening
as there had been several heavy showers in the meanwhile, and the
smoothed out the last wrinkle which study had made, and for the
kept nuts and raisins, or salt and meal and other groceries. Some
refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of
other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find
a nail to put over my latch or windows. I never fastened my door
men, women, and children, like cattle, at the door of its
to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost
eyes could not see, dreaming and absent-minded all the way, until I
public avenues without stirring, and let it simmer and whisper
and set sail from some bright village parlor or lecture room, with a
season to get my dinner of huckleberries on Fair Haven Hill. I was
digested or cracked up before it is emptied into finer and more
bolted suddenly, and nobody could tell my whereabouts, for I did not
been able to recall a single step of my walk, and I have thought
dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to
sitting at the mouth of its burrow, or running over to a neighbors
through them like the Etesian winds, or as if inhaling ether, it
to gossip. I went there frequently to observe their habits. The
which I had worn, or steer by the known relation of particular trees
curious, by opening my closet door, see what was left of my dinner,
gauntlet, and every man, woman, and child might get a lick at him.
bag of rye or Indian meal upon my shoulder, for my snug harbor in
the direction he was to pursue, and in keeping which he was to be
village, to see a row of such worthies, either sitting on a ladder
and yet find it impossible to tell which way leads to the village.
assistance. Several times, when a visitor chanced to stay into
very last sieveful of news -- what had subsided, the prospects of
When only beechen bowls were in request."
to, or recognize the authority of, the State which buys and sells
the fancy, as the dry goods store and the jewellers; and others by
that perhaps my body would find its way home if its master should
only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient
sunning themselves, with their bodies inclined forward and their
inconvenience from these sources, and I never missed anything but
heard of many going astray even in the village streets, when the
It was very pleasant, when I stayed late in town, to launch
Though he knows that he has travelled it a thousand times, he cannot
knowing when they turned. It is a surprising and memorable, as well
invariably, in the darkest night. Sometimes, after coming home thus
the cart-path in the rear of the house, and then point out to him
between the trees above the path in order to learn my route, and,
then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take place
