At a certain season of our life omed to consider
every spot as te of a hus surveyed
try on every side hin a dozen miles of where I live. In
imagination I all the farms in succession, for all were
to be bougheir price. I walked over each farmers
premises, tasted h him,
took any price, mortgaging it to him in my
mind; even put a -- took everyt a deed of
it -- took o talk --
cultivated it, and oo to some extent, I trust, and hdrew
on. this
experience entitled me to be regarded as a sort of real-estate
broker by my friends. , t live, and the
landscape radiated from me accordingly. is a a
sedes, a seat? -- better if a country seat. I discovered many a
site for a likely to be soon improved, w
too far from t to my eyes the village
oo far from it. ell, t live, I said; and there I
did live, for an er life; saw how I could
let t ter the spring
come in. ture inants of they may
place t ticipated. An
afternoon sufficed to lay out to orc, and
pasture, and to decide o
stand before ted tree could be seen to
t advantage; and t it lie, fallow, perchance, for a
man is ricion to things which he can
afford to let alone.
My imagination carried me so far t I even he refusal of
several farms -- ted -- but I never got my
fingers burned by actual possession. t t I came to
actual possession he hollowell place, and had
begun to sort my seeds, and collected materials o make a
on or off before the owner gave me
a deed of it, his wife -- every man has such a wife -- changed her
mind and , and en dollars to release
o speak trut ten cents in the world, and
it surpassed my aritic to tell, if I man wen
cents, or ogether. however,
I let en dollars and too, for I had carried
it far enougo be generous, I sold he farm for
just , and, as a rich man, made him a
present of ten dollars, and still en cents, and seeds, and
materials for a I had been a
ric any damage to my poverty. But I retained the
landscape, and I it yielded
a o landscapes,
quot;I am monarch of all I survey,
My rigo dispute.quot;
I ly seen a poet
valuable part of a farm, he
a fe for
many years w admirable
kind of invisible fence, , milked it, skimmed
it, and got all t the skimmed
milk.
ttractions of to me, s
complete retirement, being, about the village, half a
mile from t neiged from the highway by a
broad field; its bounding on the owner said
protected it by its fogs from frosts in t was
noto me; tate of the house and
barn, and ted fences, ween
me and t occupant; trees,
nas, s kind of neig
above all, tion I from my earliest voyages up
the house was concealed behind a dense grove of red
maples, te to
buy it, before tor finisting out some rocks,
cutting dorees, and grubbing up some young
bircure, or, in s, had made
any more of s. to enjoy tages I was ready
to carry it on; like Atlas, to take the world on my shoulders -- I
never compensation -- and do all
tive or excuse but t I might
pay for it and be unmolested in my possession of it; for I knew all
t it abundant crop of the kind I
ed, if I could only afford to let it alone. But it turned out
as I have said.
All t I could say, t to farming on a large
scale -- I ivated a garden -- I had had my
seeds ready. Many t seeds improve h age. I have no
doubt t time discriminates bethe bad; and when
at last I s, I so be disappointed.
But I o my fellows, once for all, As long as possible
live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference wher
you are committed to a farm or ty jail.
Old Cato, icaquot; is my quot;Cultivator,quot; says -- and
translation I he passage
-- quot;ting a farm turn it t
to buy greedily; nor spare your pains to look at it, and do not
t enougo go round it once. tener you go the
more it is good.quot; I t buy
greedily, but go round and round it as long as I live, and be buried
in it first, t it may please me t last.
t experiment of this kind, which I purpose
to describe more at lengtting the experience
of to one. As I propose to e an
ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as cicleer in the
morning, standing on , if only to wake my neighbors up.
I took up my abode in t is, began to
spend my nig, was on
Independence Day, or t
finiser, but the rain,
plastering or che walls being of rough,
ained boards, cool at
nig we uds and freshly planed door and
a clean and airy look, especially in the
morning, imbers urated I fancied
t by noon some s gum o my
imagination it retained t this
auroral cer, reminding me of a certain ain
ered
cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and w
trail s. the winds which passed over my dwelling were
sucains, bearing the broken
strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. the morning
ion is uninterrupted; but few
are t . Olympus is but tside of th
everywhere.
t a
boat, ent, which I used occasionally when making excursions
in till rolled up in my garret; but the
boat, after passing from o ream of
time. itantial ser about me, I had made some
progress totling in tly
clad, of crystallization around me, and reacted on the
builder. It ive someure in outlines. I
did not need to go outdoors to take tmosphere
none of its fres so muchin
doors as be, even in t her.
t;An abode birds is like a meat
seasoning.quot; Suc my abode, for I found myself suddenly
neigo t by having
caged myself near t only nearer to some of those
to those
smaller and more ters of t which never, or
rarely, serenade a villager -- the
scarlet tanager, the whip-poor-will, and many
others.
I ed by t a mile and a
, in
t of an extensive town and Lincoln, and
about t our only field knoo fame, Concord
Battle Ground; but I te
s, covered h wood, was my
most distant week, w on
t impressed me like a tarn he side of a
mountain, its bottom far above ther lakes, and, as
t ts nig,
and s soft ripples or its smooth
reflecting surface was revealed, ws, like gs, were
stealtion into t the
breaking up of some nocturnal conventicle. to
rees later into the sides
of mountains.
t value as a neigervals
of a gentle rain-storm in August, wer being
perfectly still, but t, mid-afternoon he
serenity of evening, and thrush sang around, and was heard
from so s
sucime; and tion of t being,
ser, full of light and
reflections, becomes a lower self so muche more
important. From a op near by, whe wood had been
recently cut off, ta southe
pond, tation in the shore
te sides sloping toward eacher
suggested a stream flo in t direction through a wooded
valley, but stream t ween and
over to some distant and he
inged anding on tiptoe I could
catcill bluer and more
distant mountain ranges in t, true-blue coins from
, and also of some portion of t in
otions, even from t, I could not see over or
beyond t is o er
in your neigo give buoyancy to and float th. One
value even of t you
see t eart continent but insular. tant
as t it keeps butter cool. he pond from
toime of flood I
distinguised perhing valley,
like a coin in a basin, all the pond appeared like
a t insulated and floated even by t of
interverting er, and I t
dry land.
till more contracted, I did
not feel cro. ture enough
for my imagination. teau to we
sretco and the
steppes of tartary, affording ample room for all the roving families
of men. quot;t beings who enjoy
freely a vast ; -- said Damodara, when his herds required new
and larger pastures.
Botime o those
parts of to tory w
attracted me. here I lived was as far off as many a region viewed
nigronomers. e are to imagine rare and delectable
places in some remote and more celestial corner of tem,
beellation of Cassiopeias Chair, far from noise and
disturbance. I discovered t my ually s site in
suc forever ne of the
universe. If it o settle in ts near
to to Aldebaran or Altair, then I was
really t an equal remoteness from the life which I had
left beo my nearest
neigo be seen only in moonless nights by him. Such was
t part of creation wted;
quot;t did live,
And s as high
As s whereon his flocks
Did ;
she shepherds life if his flocks always
o ures ts?
Every morning ion to make my life of equal
simplicity, and I may say innocence, ure herself. I have
been as sincere a wors up
early and bat was a religious exercise, and one
of t t cers were
engraven on tub of King tco t:
quot;Reneely eac again, and again, and
forever again.quot; I can understand t. Morning brings back the
ed by t o
making its invisible and unimaginable tour tment at
earliest daing h door and windows open, as I
could be by any trumpet t ever sang of fame. It was homers
requiem; itself an Iliad and Odyssey in ts own
it; a
standing advertisement, till forbidden, of ting vigor and
fertility of t memorable
season of t
somnolence in us; and for an least, some part of us awakes
. Little is to be
expected of t day, if it can be called a day, to w
a by the mechanical nudgings of some
servitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and
aspirations from ions of celestial
music, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air --
to a he darkness
bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less t.
t man eacains an earlier,
more sacred, and auroral profaned, has
despaired of life, and is pursuing a descending and darkening way.
After a partial cessation of he soul of man, or
its organs rated eacries
again can make. All memorable events, I should
say, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphe
Vedas say, quot;All intelligences a; Poetry and
art, and t and most memorable of tions of men, date
from sucs and he
c t sunrise. to him whose
elastic and vigorous t keeps pace he day is a
perpetual morning. It matters not he
attitudes and labors of men. Morning is where
is a da to throw off sleep.
t men give so poor an account of they have
not been slumbering? t sucors. If they
been overcome hey would have performed
somet
only one in a million is aellectual
exertion, only one in a o a poetic or divine life.
to be ao be alive. I met a man who was
quite awake. he face?
e must learn to rea by
mec by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which
does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more
encouraging fact tionable ability of man to elevate
is someto be able to
paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a
fes beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and
paint tmosphrough which we look, which
morally o affect ty of t is the
of arts. Every man is tasked to make s
details, emplation of elevated and
critical ry
information as , tinctly inform us how
t be done.
I to to live deliberately, to
front only tial facts of life, and see if I could not learn
o teac, I
lived. I did not life, living is
so dear; nor did I ise resignation, unless it e
necessary. I ed to live deep and suck out all the marrow of
life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all
t life, to cut a broad so drive
life into a corner, and reduce it to its lo terms, and, if it
proved to be mean, the whole and genuine meanness of
it, and publiss meanness to t o
kno by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in
my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange
uncertainty about it, he devil or of God, and have
some it is to
quot;glorify God and enjoy ;
Still s; tells us t
we were long ago co men; like pygmies we figh
cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best
virtue s occasion a superfluous and evitable chedness.
Our life is frittered aail. An man has hardly need
to count more ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add
en toes, and lump t. Simplicity, simplicity,
simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as t a
ead of a million count half a dozen, and
keep your accounts on your t of this
corms and
quicksands and tems to be allo a man
o live, if founder and go to ttom and not
make at all, by dead reckoning, and be a great
calculator indeed wead of
t be necessary eat but one; instead of a
ion. Our
life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, s
boundary forever fluctuating, so t even a German cannot tell you
is bounded at any moment. tion itself, s
so-called internal improvements, wernal
and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown
establis, cluttered ure and tripped up by its own
traps, ruined by luxury and of calculation
and a he
only cure for it, as for tern and
more tan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It
lives too fast. Men t it is essential t tion have
commerce, and export ice, and talk telegraph, and ride
ty miles an a doubt,
wtle
uncertain. If get out sleepers, and forge rails, and
devote days and nigo t go to tinkering upon our
lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads
are not built, to if ay
at railroads? e do not
ride on t rides upon us. Did you ever t
t underlie the railroad? Each one is a man,
an Irishey
are covered hey
are sound sleepers, I assure you. And every fe is
laid do, if some he pleasure of riding
on a rail, otune to be ridden upon. And when
t is walking in his sleep, a supernumerary
sleeper in tion, and wake op
t it, as if this were an
exception. I am glad to kno it takes a gang of men for every
five miles to keep t
is, for t time get up again.
e of life? e are
determined to be starved before we are a
stitcime saves nine, and so take a titches
today to save nine tomorrow. As for work, we any of any
consequence. e Vitus dance, and cannot possibly
keep our ill. If I s the
paris is, setting the bell,
tskirts of Concord,
notanding t press of engagements which was his excuse so
many times t almost say,
but sound, not mainly to save
property from t, if ruth, much
more to see it burn, since burn it must, and known, did
not set it on fire -- or to see it put out, and ,
if t is done as he parish
cself. akes a er dinner,
but ;
as if t of mankind ood inels. Some give
directions to be her
purpose; and to pay for it, tell hey have dreamed.
After a nig.
quot;Pray tell me anyt o a man anywhere on
t; -- and over a man
to River; never
dreaming t h cave
of t t of an eye himself.
For my part, I could easily do t-office. I think
t tant communications made t.
to speak critically, I never received more tters
in my life -- I e t he
postage. t is, commonly, an institution through which
you seriously offer a man t penny for s which is so
often safely offered in jest. And I am sure t I never read any
memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or
murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel
eamboat blohe
estern Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers
in ter -- her. One is enough. If
you are acquainted do you care for a myriad
instances and applications? to a p is
called, is gossip, and t and read it are old women over
tea. Yet not a feer there was
suc one of to learn
t arrival, t several large squares of
plate glass belonging to tablis he
pressure -- news w mige a
twelve years, before accuracy.
As for Spain, for instance, if you knohrow in Don Carlos
and ta, and Don Pedro and Seville and Granada, from time to
time in t proportions -- the names a
little since I sa when
otertainments fail, it rue to tter, and give
us as good an idea of t state or ruin of things in Spain as
t succinct and lucid reports under the
ne t significant scrap of
ne quarter ion of 1649; and if you have
learned tory of her crops for an average year, you never need
attend to t tions are of a merely
pecuniary cer. If one may judge he
nes, a French
revolution not excepted.
ne to kno is which
;Kieou- dignitary of tate of ei)
sent a man to Kseu to knohe
messenger to be seated near ioned erms:
is your master doing? t: My
master desires to diminiss, but
come to the philosopher
remarked: a a ; the
preacead of vexing their day
of rest at t conclusion
of an ill-spent the fresh and brave beginning of a new
one -- ail of a sermon, s
;Pause! Avast! , but
deadly slo;
Seemed for soundest truths, while
reality is fabulous. If men eadily observe realities only,
and not alloo be deluded, life, to compare it h
sucale and the Arabian
Nigertainments. If ed only able and
to be, music and poetry reets.
only great and
and absolute existence, t petty
fears and petty pleasures are but ty. this
is alhe eyes and
slumbering, and consenting to be deceived by sablish
and confirm tine and everywhere, which
still is built on purely illusory foundations. Children, who play
life, discern its true laions more clearly than men, who
fail to live it hey are wiser by
experience, t is, by failure. I
quot;there was a kings son, who, being expelled in infancy from his
native city, o
maturity in t state, imagined o belong to the barbarous
race ers having
discovered o ion
of er was removed, and o be a prince.
So soul,quot; continues t;from tances
in akes its oil truth
is revealed to it by some eac knoself to
be Bra; I perceive t s of Nehis
mean life t penetrate the
surface of t t is wo be. If a
man soy, where,
t;Mill-damquot; go to? If he should give us an
account of ties recognize
tion. Look at a meeting-house, or a
court-
t true gaze, and to
pieces in your account of teem trute, in the
outskirts of tem, be star, before Adam and
after t man. In eternity true and
sublime. But all times and places and occasions are now and
es in t moment, and will never
be more divine in to
appre all ual
instilling and drency t surrounds us. the
universe constantly and obediently anso our conceptions;
or slorack is laid for us. Let us
spend our lives in conceiving t or tist never
yet some of erity at
least could accomplis.
Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be
track by every nutsos
falls on t us rise early and fast, or break fast,
gently and perturbation; let company come and let company
go, let termined to make a
day of it. ream? Let
us not be upset and overerrible rapid and whirlpool
called a dinner, situated in this
danger and you are safe, for t of th
unrelaxed nerves, , looking another
ied to t like Ulysses. If tles, let it
ill it is s pains. If the bell rings, why
s kind of music they are like.
Let us settle ourselves, and downward
tradition,
and delusion, and appearance, t alluvion whe globe,
ton and Concord,
tate, try and philosophy and
religion, till o a tom and rocks in place, which we
can call reality, and say, take; and then begin,
dappui, belo and fire, a place
ate, or set a lamp-post safely,
or per a Nilometer, but a Realometer, t future
ages mig of shams and appearances had
gatime to time. If you stand riging and face to
face to a fact, you s surfaces,
as if it er, and feel its s edge dividing you
t and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your
mortal career. Be it life or deaty. If we
are really dying, let us tle in our ts and feel
cold in tremities; if us go about our
business.
time is but tream I go a-fis it; but
ect is.
Its t slides a eternity remains. I would drink
deeper; fistom is pebbly ars. I
cannot count one. I kno t letter of t. I
ting t I as he day I was
born. tellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way
into t of t h
my . I feel all
my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me t my
ures use t
and fore pa I hrough
t t vein is somews;
so by thin rising vapors I judge; and here I
o mine.