Januari 24, 2017
chapter 9the ponds sometimes, having had a surfeit of humansociety and gossip, and worn out all my village friends, i rambled still fartherwestward than i habitually dwell, into yet more unfrequented parts of the town, "to fresh woods and pastures new," or, whilethe sun was setting, made my supper of huckleberries and blueberries on fair havenhill, and laid up a store for several days. the fruits do not yield their true flavorto the purchaser of them, nor to him who raises them for the market.there is but one way to obtain it, yet few take that way.
if you would know the flavor ofhuckleberries, ask the cowboy or the partridge. it is a vulgar error to suppose that youhave tasted huckleberries who never plucked them. a huckleberry never reaches boston; theyhave not been known there since they grew on her three hills. the ambrosial and essential part of thefruit is lost with the bloom which is rubbed off in the market cart, and theybecome mere provender. as long as eternal justice reigns, not oneinnocent huckleberry can be transported
thither from the country's hills. occasionally, after my hoeing was done forthe day, i joined some impatient companion who had been fishing on the pond sincemorning, as silent and motionless as a duck or a floating leaf, and, after practising various kinds of philosophy, had concludedcommonly, by the time i arrived, that he belonged to the ancient sect of caenobites. there was one older man, an excellentfisher and skilled in all kinds of woodcraft, who was pleased to look upon myhouse as a building erected for the convenience of fishermen; and i was equally
pleased when he sat in my doorway toarrange his lines. once in a while we sat together on thepond, he at one end of the boat, and i at the other; but not many words passedbetween us, for he had grown deaf in his later years, but he occasionally hummed a psalm, which harmonized well enough with myphilosophy. our intercourse was thus altogether one ofunbroken harmony, far more pleasing to remember than if it had been carried on byspeech. when, as was commonly the case, i had noneto commune with, i used to raise the echoes by striking with a paddle on the side of myboat, filling the surrounding woods with
circling and dilating sound, stirring them up as the keeper of a menagerie his wildbeasts, until i elicited a growl from every wooded vale and hillside. in warm evenings i frequently sat in theboat playing the flute, and saw the perch, which i seem to have charmed, hoveringaround me, and the moon travelling over the ribbed bottom, which was strewed with thewrecks of the forest. formerly i had come to this pondadventurously, from time to time, in dark summer nights, with a companion, and,making a fire close to the water's edge, which we thought attracted the fishes, we
caught pouts with a bunch of worms strungon a thread, and when we had done, far in the night, threw the burning brands highinto the air like skyrockets, which, coming down into the pond, were quenched with a loud hissing, and we were suddenly gropingin total darkness. through this, whistling a tune, we took ourway to the haunts of men again. but now i had made my home by the shore. sometimes, after staying in a villageparlor till the family had all retired, i have returned to the woods, and, partlywith a view to the next day's dinner, spent the hours of midnight fishing from a boat
by moonlight, serenaded by owls and foxes,and hearing, from time to time, the creaking note of some unknown bird close athand. these experiences were very memorable andvaluable to me--anchored in forty feet of water, and twenty or thirty rods from theshore, surrounded sometimes by thousands of small perch and shiners, dimpling the surface with their tails in the moonlight,and communicating by a long flaxen line with mysterious nocturnal fishes which hadtheir dwelling forty feet below, or sometimes dragging sixty feet of line about the pond as i drifted in the gentle nightbreeze, now and then feeling a slight
vibration along it, indicative of some lifeprowling about its extremity, of dull uncertain blundering purpose there, andslow to make up its mind. at length you slowly raise, pulling handover hand, some horned pout squeaking and squirming to the upper air. it was very queer, especially in darknights, when your thoughts had wandered to vast and cosmogonal themes in otherspheres, to feel this faint jerk, which came to interrupt your dreams and link youto nature again. it seemed as if i might next cast my lineupward into the air, as well as downward into this element, which was scarcely moredense.
thus i caught two fishes as it were withone hook. the scenery of walden is on a humble scale,and, though very beautiful, does not approach to grandeur, nor can it muchconcern one who has not long frequented it or lived by its shore; yet this pond is so remarkable for its depth and purity as tomerit a particular description. it is a clear and deep green well, half amile long and a mile and three quarters in circumference, and contains about sixty-oneand a half acres; a perennial spring in the midst of pine and oak woods, without any visible inlet or outlet except by theclouds and evaporation.
the surrounding hills rise abruptly fromthe water to the height of forty to eighty feet, though on the southeast and east theyattain to about one hundred and one hundred and fifty feet respectively, within aquarter and a third of a mile. they are exclusively woodland. all our concord waters have two colors atleast; one when viewed at a distance, and another, more proper, close at hand.the first depends more on the light, and follows the sky. in clear weather, in summer, they appearblue at a little distance, especially if agitated, and at a great distance allappear alike.
in stormy weather they are sometimes of adark slate-color. the sea, however, is said to be blue oneday and green another without any perceptible change in the atmosphere. i have seen our river, when, the landscapebeing covered with snow, both water and ice were almost as green as grass.some consider blue "to be the color of pure water, whether liquid or solid." but, looking directly down into our watersfrom a boat, they are seen to be of very different colors.walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view.
lying between the earth and the heavens, itpartakes of the color of both. viewed from a hilltop it reflects the colorof the sky; but near at hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where you cansee the sand, then a light green, which gradually deepens to a uniform dark greenin the body of the pond. in some lights, viewed even from a hilltop,it is of a vivid green next the shore. some have referred this to the reflectionof the verdure; but it is equally green there against the railroad sandbank, and inthe spring, before the leaves are expanded, and it may be simply the result of the prevailing blue mixed with the yellow ofthe sand.
such is the color of its iris. this is that portion, also, where in thespring, the ice being warmed by the heat of the sun reflected from the bottom, and alsotransmitted through the earth, melts first and forms a narrow canal about the stillfrozen middle. like the rest of our waters, when muchagitated, in clear weather, so that the surface of the waves may reflect the sky atthe right angle, or because there is more light mixed with it, it appears at a little distance of a darker blue than the skyitself; and at such a time, being on its surface, and looking with divided vision,so as to see the reflection, i have
discerned a matchless and indescribable light blue, such as watered or changeablesilks and sword blades suggest, more cerulean than the sky itself, alternatingwith the original dark green on the opposite sides of the waves, which lastappeared but muddy in comparison. it is a vitreous greenish blue, as iremember it, like those patches of the winter sky seen through cloud vistas in thewest before sundown. yet a single glass of its water held up tothe light is as colorless as an equal quantity of air. it is well known that a large plate ofglass will have a green tint, owing, as the
makers say, to its "body," but a smallpiece of the same will be colorless. how large a body of walden water would berequired to reflect a green tint i have never proved. the water of our river is black or a verydark brown to one looking directly down on it, and, like that of most ponds, impartsto the body of one bathing in it a yellowish tinge; but this water is of such crystalline purity that the body of thebather appears of an alabaster whiteness, still more unnatural, which, as the limbsare magnified and distorted withal, produces a monstrous effect, making fitstudies for a michael angelo.
the water is so transparent that the bottomcan easily be discerned at the depth of twenty-five or thirty feet. paddling over it, you may see, many feetbeneath the surface, the schools of perch and shiners, perhaps only an inch long, yetthe former easily distinguished by their transverse bars, and you think that they must be ascetic fish that find asubsistence there. once, in the winter, many years ago, when ihad been cutting holes through the ice in order to catch pickerel, as i steppedashore i tossed my axe back on to the ice, but, as if some evil genius had directed
it, it slid four or five rods directly intoone of the holes, where the water was twenty-five feet deep. out of curiosity, i lay down on the ice andlooked through the hole, until i saw the axe a little on one side, standing on itshead, with its helve erect and gently swaying to and fro with the pulse of the pond; and there it might have stood erectand swaying till in the course of time the handle rotted off, if i had not disturbedit. making another hole directly over it withan ice chisel which i had, and cutting down the longest birch which i could find in theneighborhood with my knife, i made a slip-
noose, which i attached to its end, and, letting it down carefully, passed it overthe knob of the handle, and drew it by a line along the birch, and so pulled the axeout again. the shore is composed of a belt of smoothrounded white stones like paving-stones, excepting one or two short sand beaches,and is so steep that in many places a single leap will carry you into water over your head; and were it not for itsremarkable transparency, that would be the last to be seen of its bottom till it roseon the opposite side. some think it is bottomless.
it is nowhere muddy, and a casual observerwould say that there were no weeds at all in it; and of noticeable plants, except inthe little meadows recently overflowed, which do not properly belong to it, a closer scrutiny does not detect a flag nora bulrush, nor even a lily, yellow or white, but only a few small heart-leavesand potamogetons, and perhaps a water- target or two; all which however a bather might not perceive; and these plants areclean and bright like the element they grow in. the stones extend a rod or two into thewater, and then the bottom is pure sand,
except in the deepest parts, where there isusually a little sediment, probably from the decay of the leaves which have been wafted on to it so many successive falls,and a bright green weed is brought up on anchors even in midwinter. we have one other pond just like this,white pond, in nine acre corner, about two and a half miles westerly; but, though i amacquainted with most of the ponds within a dozen miles of this centre i do not know a third of this pure and well-like character. successive nations perchance have drank at,admired, and fathomed it, and passed away,
and still its water is green and pellucidas ever. not an intermitting spring! perhaps on that spring morning when adamand eve were driven out of eden walden pond was already in existence, and even thenbreaking up in a gentle spring rain accompanied with mist and a southerly wind, and covered with myriads of ducks andgeese, which had not heard of the fall, when still such pure lakes sufficed them. even then it had commenced to rise andfall, and had clarified its waters and colored them of the hue they now wear, andobtained a patent of heaven to be the only
walden pond in the world and distiller ofcelestial dews. who knows in how many unremembered nations'literatures this has been the castalian fountain? or what nymphs presided over itin the golden age? it is a gem of the first water whichconcord wears in her coronet. yet perchance the first who came to thiswell have left some trace of their footsteps. i have been surprised to detect encirclingthe pond, even where a thick wood has just been cut down on the shore, a narrow shelf-like path in the steep hillside, alternately rising and falling, approaching
and receding from the water's edge, as oldprobably as the race of man here, worn by the feet of aboriginal hunters, and stillfrom time to time unwittingly trodden by the present occupants of the land. this is particularly distinct to onestanding on the middle of the pond in winter, just after a light snow has fallen,appearing as a clear undulating white line, unobscured by weeds and twigs, and very obvious a quarter of a mile off in manyplaces where in summer it is hardly distinguishable close at hand.the snow reprints it, as it were, in clear white type alto-relievo.
the ornamented grounds of villas which willone day be built here may still preserve some trace of this. the pond rises and falls, but whetherregularly or not, and within what period, nobody knows, though, as usual, manypretend to know. it is commonly higher in the winter andlower in the summer, though not corresponding to the general wet anddryness. i can remember when it was a foot or twolower, and also when it was at least five feet higher, than when i lived by it. there is a narrow sand-bar running into it,with very deep water on one side, on which
i helped boil a kettle of chowder, some sixrods from the main shore, about the year 1824, which it has not been possible to do for twenty-five years; and, on the otherhand, my friends used to listen with incredulity when i told them, that a fewyears later i was accustomed to fish from a boat in a secluded cove in the woods, fifteen rods from the only shore they knew,which place was long since converted into a meadow. but the pond has risen steadily for twoyears, and now, in the summer of '52, is just five feet higher than when i livedthere, or as high as it was thirty years
ago, and fishing goes on again in themeadow. this makes a difference of level, at theoutside, of six or seven feet; and yet the water shed by the surrounding hills isinsignificant in amount, and this overflow must be referred to causes which affect thedeep springs. this same summer the pond has begun to fallagain. it is remarkable that this fluctuation,whether periodical or not, appears thus to require many years for its accomplishment. i have observed one rise and a part of twofalls, and i expect that a dozen or fifteen years hence the water will again be as lowas i have ever known it.
flint's pond, a mile eastward, allowing forthe disturbance occasioned by its inlets and outlets, and the smaller intermediateponds also, sympathize with walden, and recently attained their greatest height atthe same time with the latter. the same is true, as far as my observationgoes, of white pond. this rise and fall of walden at longintervals serves this use at least; the water standing at this great height for ayear or more, though it makes it difficult to walk round it, kills the shrubs and trees which have sprung up about its edgesince the last rise--pitch pines, birches, alders, aspens, and others--and, fallingagain, leaves an unobstructed shore; for,
unlike many ponds and all waters which are subject to a daily tide, its shore iscleanest when the water is lowest. on the side of the pond next my house a rowof pitch pines, fifteen feet high, has been killed and tipped over as if by a lever,and thus a stop put to their encroachments; and their size indicates how many years have elapsed since the last rise to thisheight. by this fluctuation the pond asserts itstitle to a shore, and thus the shore is shorn, and the trees cannot hold it byright of possession. these are the lips of the lake, on which nobeard grows.
it licks its chaps from time to time. when the water is at its height, thealders, willows, and maples send forth a mass of fibrous red roots several feet longfrom all sides of their stems in the water, and to the height of three or four feet from the ground, in the effort to maintainthemselves; and i have known the high blueberry bushes about the shore, whichcommonly produce no fruit, bear an abundant crop under these circumstances. some have been puzzled to tell how theshore became so regularly paved. my townsmen have all heard the tradition--the oldest people tell me that they heard
it in their youth--that anciently theindians were holding a pow-wow upon a hill here, which rose as high into the heavens as the pond now sinks deep into the earth,and they used much profanity, as the story goes, though this vice is one of which theindians were never guilty, and while they were thus engaged the hill shook and suddenly sank, and only one old squaw,named walden, escaped, and from her the pond was named. it has been conjectured that when the hillshook these stones rolled down its side and became the present shore.
it is very certain, at any rate, that oncethere was no pond here, and now there is one; and this indian fable does not in anyrespect conflict with the account of that ancient settler whom i have mentioned, who remembers so well when he first came herewith his divining-rod, saw a thin vapor rising from the sward, and the hazelpointed steadily downward, and he concluded to dig a well here. as for the stones, many still think thatthey are hardly to be accounted for by the action of the waves on these hills; but iobserve that the surrounding hills are remarkably full of the same kind of stones,
so that they have been obliged to pile themup in walls on both sides of the railroad cut nearest the pond; and, moreover, thereare most stones where the shore is most abrupt; so that, unfortunately, it is nolonger a mystery to me. i detect the paver. if the name was not derived from that ofsome english locality--saffron walden, for instance--one might suppose that it wascalled originally walled-in pond. the pond was my well ready dug. for four months in the year its water is ascold as it is pure at all times; and i think that it is then as good as any, ifnot the best, in the town.
in the winter, all water which is exposedto the air is colder than springs and wells which are protected from it. the temperature of the pond water which hadstood in the room where i sat from five o'clock in the afternoon till noon the nextday, the sixth of march, 1846, the thermometer having been up to 65â° or 70â° some of the time, owing partly to the sunon the roof, was 42â°, or one degree colder than the water of one of the coldest wellsin the village just drawn. the temperature of the boiling spring thesame day was 45â°, or the warmest of any water tried, though it is the coldest thati know of in summer, when, beside, shallow
and stagnant surface water is not mingledwith it. moreover, in summer, walden never becomesso warm as most water which is exposed to the sun, on account of its depth. in the warmest weather i usually placed apailful in my cellar, where it became cool in the night, and remained so during theday; though i also resorted to a spring in the neighborhood. it was as good when a week old as the dayit was dipped, and had no taste of the pump. whoever camps for a week in summer by theshore of a pond, needs only bury a pail of
water a few feet deep in the shade of hiscamp to be independent of the luxury of ice. there have been caught in walden pickerel,one weighing seven pounds--to say nothing of another which carried off a reel withgreat velocity, which the fisherman safely set down at eight pounds because he did not see him--perch and pouts, some of eachweighing over two pounds, shiners, chivins or roach (leuciscus pulchellus), a very fewbreams, and a couple of eels, one weighing four pounds--i am thus particular because the weight of a fish is commonly its onlytitle to fame, and these are the only eels
i have heard of here;--also, i have a faintrecollection of a little fish some five inches long, with silvery sides and a greenish back, somewhat dace-like in itscharacter, which i mention here chiefly to link my facts to fable.nevertheless, this pond is not very fertile in fish. its pickerel, though not abundant, are itschief boast. i have seen at one time lying on the icepickerel of at least three different kinds: a long and shallow one, steel-colored, mostlike those caught in the river; a bright golden kind, with greenish reflections and
remarkably deep, which is the most commonhere; and another, golden-colored, and shaped like the last, but peppered on thesides with small dark brown or black spots, intermixed with a few faint blood-red ones,very much like a trout. the specific name reticulatus would notapply to this; it should be guttatus rather. these are all very firm fish, and weighmore than their size promises. the shiners, pouts, and perch also, andindeed all the fishes which inhabit this pond, are much cleaner, handsomer, andfirmer-fleshed than those in the river and most other ponds, as the water is purer,
and they can easily be distinguished fromthem. probably many ichthyologists would make newvarieties of some of them. there are also a clean race of frogs andtortoises, and a few mussels in it; muskrats and minks leave their traces aboutit, and occasionally a travelling mud- turtle visits it. sometimes, when i pushed off my boat in themorning, i disturbed a great mud-turtle which had secreted himself under the boatin the night. ducks and geese frequent it in the springand fall, the white-bellied swallows (hirundo bicolor) skim over it, and thepeetweets (totanus macularius) "teeter"
along its stony shores all summer. i have sometimes disturbed a fish hawksitting on a white pine over the water; but i doubt if it is ever profaned by the windof a gull, like fair haven. at most, it tolerates one annual loon. these are all the animals of consequencewhich frequent it now. you may see from a boat, in calm weather,near the sandy eastern shore, where the water is eight or ten feet deep, and alsoin some other parts of the pond, some circular heaps half a dozen feet in diameter by a foot in height, consisting ofsmall stones less than a hen's egg in size,
where all around is bare sand. at first you wonder if the indians couldhave formed them on the ice for any purpose, and so, when the ice melted, theysank to the bottom; but they are too regular and some of them plainly too freshfor that. they are similar to those found in rivers;but as there are no suckers nor lampreys here, i know not by what fish they could bemade. perhaps they are the nests of the chivin. these lend a pleasing mystery to thebottom. the shore is irregular enough not to bemonotonous.
i have in my mind's eye the western,indented with deep bays, the bolder northern, and the beautifully scallopedsouthern shore, where successive capes overlap each other and suggest unexploredcoves between. the forest has never so good a setting, noris so distinctly beautiful, as when seen from the middle of a small lake amid hillswhich rise from the water's edge; for the water in which it is reflected not only makes the best foreground in such a case,but, with its winding shore, the most natural and agreeable boundary to it. there is no rawness nor imperfection in itsedge there, as where the axe has cleared a
part, or a cultivated field abuts on it. the trees have ample room to expand on thewater side, and each sends forth its most vigorous branch in that direction. there nature has woven a natural selvage,and the eye rises by just gradations from the low shrubs of the shore to the highesttrees. there are few traces of man's hand to beseen. the water laves the shore as it did athousand years ago. a lake is the landscape's most beautifuland expressive feature. it is earth's eye; looking into which thebeholder measures the depth of his own
nature. the fluviatile trees next the shore are theslender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are itsoverhanging brows. standing on the smooth sandy beach at theeast end of the pond, in a calm september afternoon, when a slight haze makes theopposite shore-line indistinct, i have seen whence came the expression, "the glassysurface of a lake." when you invert your head, it looks like athread of finest gossamer stretched across the valley, and gleaming against thedistant pine woods, separating one stratum of the atmosphere from another.
you would think that you could walk dryunder it to the opposite hills, and that the swallows which skim over might perch onit. indeed, they sometimes dive below thisline, as it were by mistake, and are undeceived. as you look over the pond westward you areobliged to employ both your hands to defend your eyes against the reflected as well asthe true sun, for they are equally bright; and if, between the two, you survey its surface critically, it is literally assmooth as glass, except where the skater insects, at equal intervals scattered overits whole extent, by their motions in the
sun produce the finest imaginable sparkle on it, or, perchance, a duck plumes itself,or, as i have said, a swallow skims so low as to touch it. it may be that in the distance a fishdescribes an arc of three or four feet in the air, and there is one bright flashwhere it emerges, and another where it strikes the water; sometimes the whole silvery arc is revealed; or here and there,perhaps, is a thistle-down floating on its surface, which the fishes dart at and sodimple it again. it is like molten glass cooled but notcongealed, and the few motes in it are pure
and beautiful like the imperfections inglass. you may often detect a yet smoother anddarker water, separated from the rest as if by an invisible cobweb, boom of the waternymphs, resting on it. from a hilltop you can see a fish leap inalmost any part; for not a pickerel or shiner picks an insect from this smoothsurface but it manifestly disturbs the equilibrium of the whole lake. it is wonderful with what elaboratenessthis simple fact is advertised--this piscine murder will out--and from mydistant perch i distinguish the circling undulations when they are half a dozen rodsin diameter.
you can even detect a water-bug (gyrinus)ceaselessly progressing over the smooth surface a quarter of a mile off; for theyfurrow the water slightly, making a conspicuous ripple bounded by two diverging lines, but the skaters glide over itwithout rippling it perceptibly. when the surface is considerably agitatedthere are no skaters nor water-bugs on it, but apparently, in calm days, they leavetheir havens and adventurously glide forth from the shore by short impulses till theycompletely cover it. it is a soothing employment, on one ofthose fine days in the fall when all the warmth of the sun is fully appreciated, tosit on a stump on such a height as this,
overlooking the pond, and study the dimpling circles which are incessantlyinscribed on its otherwise invisible surface amid the reflected skies and trees. over this great expanse there is nodisturbance but it is thus at once gently smoothed away and assuaged, as, when a vaseof water is jarred, the trembling circles seek the shore and all is smooth again. not a fish can leap or an insect fall onthe pond but it is thus reported in circling dimples, in lines of beauty, as itwere the constant welling up of its fountain, the gentle pulsing of its life,the heaving of its breast.
the thrills of joy and thrills of pain areundistinguishable. how peaceful the phenomena of the lake! again the works of man shine as in thespring. ay, every leaf and twig and stone andcobweb sparkles now at mid-afternoon as when covered with dew in a spring morning. every motion of an oar or an insectproduces a flash of light; and if an oar falls, how sweet the echo! in such a day, in september or october,walden is a perfect forest mirror, set round with stones as precious to my eye asif fewer or rarer.
nothing so fair, so pure, and at the sametime so large, as a lake, perchance, lies on the surface of the earth.sky water. it needs no fence. nations come and go without defiling it. it is a mirror which no stone can crack,whose quicksilver will never wear off, whose gilding nature continually repairs;no storms, no dust, can dim its surface ever fresh;--a mirror in which all impurity presented to it sinks, swept and dusted bythe sun's hazy brush--this the light dust- cloth--which retains no breath that isbreathed on it, but sends its own to float
as clouds high above its surface, and bereflected in its bosom still. a field of water betrays the spirit that isin the air. it is continually receiving new life andmotion from above. it is intermediate in its nature betweenland and sky. on land only the grass and trees wave, butthe water itself is rippled by the wind. i see where the breeze dashes across it bythe streaks or flakes of light. it is remarkable that we can look down onits surface. we shall, perhaps, look down thus on thesurface of air at length, and mark where a still subtler spirit sweeps over it.
the skaters and water-bugs finallydisappear in the latter part of october, when the severe frosts have come; and thenand in november, usually, in a calm day, there is absolutely nothing to ripple thesurface. one november afternoon, in the calm at theend of a rain-storm of several days' duration, when the sky was still completelyovercast and the air was full of mist, i observed that the pond was remarkably smooth, so that it was difficult todistinguish its surface; though it no longer reflected the bright tints ofoctober, but the sombre november colors of the surrounding hills.
though i passed over it as gently aspossible, the slight undulations produced by my boat extended almost as far as icould see, and gave a ribbed appearance to the reflections. but, as i was looking over the surface, isaw here and there at a distance a faint glimmer, as if some skater insects whichhad escaped the frosts might be collected there, or, perchance, the surface, being so smooth, betrayed where a spring welled upfrom the bottom. paddling gently to one of these places, iwas surprised to find myself surrounded by myriads of small perch, about five incheslong, of a rich bronze color in the green
water, sporting there, and constantly rising to the surface and dimpling it,sometimes leaving bubbles on it. in such transparent and seeminglybottomless water, reflecting the clouds, i seemed to be floating through the air as ina balloon, and their swimming impressed me as a kind of flight or hovering, as if they were a compact flock of birds passing justbeneath my level on the right or left, their fins, like sails, set all aroundthem. there were many such schools in the pond,apparently improving the short season before winter would draw an icy shutterover their broad skylight, sometimes giving
to the surface an appearance as if a slight breeze struck it, or a few rain-drops fellthere. when i approached carelessly and alarmedthem, they made a sudden splash and rippling with their tails, as if one hadstruck the water with a brushy bough, and instantly took refuge in the depths. at length the wind rose, the mistincreased, and the waves began to run, and the perch leaped much higher than before,half out of water, a hundred black points, three inches long, at once above thesurface. even as late as the fifth of december, oneyear, i saw some dimples on the surface,
and thinking it was going to rain hardimmediately, the air being full of mist, i made haste to take my place at the oars and row homeward; already the rain seemedrapidly increasing, though i felt none on my cheek, and i anticipated a thoroughsoaking. but suddenly the dimples ceased, for theywere produced by the perch, which the noise of my oars had seared into the depths, andi saw their schools dimly disappearing; so i spent a dry afternoon after all. an old man who used to frequent this pondnearly sixty years ago, when it was dark with surrounding forests, tells me that inthose days he sometimes saw it all alive
with ducks and other water-fowl, and thatthere were many eagles about it. he came here a-fishing, and used an old logcanoe which he found on the shore. it was made of two white pine logs dug outand pinned together, and was cut off square at the ends. it was very clumsy, but lasted a great manyyears before it became water-logged and perhaps sank to the bottom.he did not know whose it was; it belonged to the pond. he used to make a cable for his anchor ofstrips of hickory bark tied together. an old man, a potter, who lived by the pondbefore the revolution, told him once that
there was an iron chest at the bottom, andthat he had seen it. sometimes it would come floating up to theshore; but when you went toward it, it would go back into deep water anddisappear. i was pleased to hear of the old log canoe,which took the place of an indian one of the same material but more gracefulconstruction, which perchance had first been a tree on the bank, and then, as it were, fell into the water, to float therefor a generation, the most proper vessel for the lake. i remember that when i first looked intothese depths there were many large trunks
to be seen indistinctly lying on thebottom, which had either been blown over formerly, or left on the ice at the last cutting, when wood was cheaper; but nowthey have mostly disappeared. when i first paddled a boat on walden, itwas completely surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak woods, and in some ofits coves grape-vines had run over the trees next the water and formed bowersunder which a boat could pass. the hills which form its shores are sosteep, and the woods on them were then so high, that, as you looked down from thewest end, it had the appearance of an amphitheatre for some land of sylvanspectacle.
i have spent many an hour, when i wasyounger, floating over its surface as the zephyr willed, having paddled my boat tothe middle, and lying on my back across the seats, in a summer forenoon, dreaming awake, until i was aroused by the boattouching the sand, and i arose to see what shore my fates had impelled me to; dayswhen idleness was the most attractive and productive industry. many a forenoon have i stolen away,preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day; for i was rich, if not inmoney, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent them lavishly; nor do i regret that i
did not waste more of them in the workshopor the teacher's desk. but since i left those shores thewoodchoppers have still further laid them waste, and now for many a year there willbe no more rambling through the aisles of the wood, with occasional vistas throughwhich you see the water. my muse may be excused if she is silenthenceforth. how can you expect the birds to sing whentheir groves are cut down? now the trunks of trees on the bottom, andthe old log canoe, and the dark surrounding woods, are gone, and the villagers, whoscarcely know where it lies, instead of going to the pond to bathe or drink, are
thinking to bring its water, which shouldbe as sacred as the ganges at least, to the village in a pipe, to wash their disheswith!--to earn their walden by the turning of a cock or drawing of a plug! that devilish iron horse, whose ear-rendingneigh is heard throughout the town, has muddied the boiling spring with his foot,and he it is that has browsed off all the woods on walden shore, that trojan horse, with a thousand men in his belly,introduced by mercenary greeks! where is the country's champion, the mooreof moore hill, to meet him at the deep cut and thrust an avenging lance between theribs of the bloated pest?
nevertheless, of all the characters i haveknown, perhaps walden wears best, and best preserves its purity.many men have been likened to it, but few deserve that honor. though the woodchoppers have laid barefirst this shore and then that, and the irish have built their sties by it, and therailroad has infringed on its border, and the ice-men have skimmed it once, it is itself unchanged, the same water which myyouthful eyes fell on; all the change is in me.it has not acquired one permanent wrinkle after all its ripples.
it is perennially young, and i may standand see a swallow dip apparently to pick an insect from its surface as of yore. it struck me again tonight, as if i had notseen it almost daily for more than twenty years--why, here is walden, the samewoodland lake that i discovered so many years ago; where a forest was cut down last winter another is springing up by its shoreas lustily as ever; the same thought is welling up to its surface that was then; itis the same liquid joy and happiness to itself and its maker, ay, and it may be tome. it is the work of a brave man surely, inwhom there was no guile!
he rounded this water with his hand,deepened and clarified it in his thought, and in his will bequeathed it to concord. i see by its face that it is visited by thesame reflection; and i can almost say, walden, is it you? it is no dream of mine,to ornament a line; i cannot come nearer to god and heaventhan i live to walden even. i am its stony shore, and the breeze that passes o'er;in the hollow of my hand are its water and its sand,and its deepest resort
lies high in my thought. the cars never pause to look at it; yet ifancy that the engineers and firemen and brakemen, and those passengers who have aseason ticket and see it often, are better men for the sight. the engineer does not forget at night, orhis nature does not, that he has beheld this vision of serenity and purity once atleast during the day. though seen but once, it helps to wash outstate street and the engine's soot. one proposes that it be called "god'sdrop." i have said that walden has no visibleinlet nor outlet, but it is on the one hand
distantly and indirectly related to flint'spond, which is more elevated, by a chain of small ponds coming from that quarter, and on the other directly and manifestly toconcord river, which is lower, by a similar chain of ponds through which in some othergeological period it may have flowed, and by a little digging, which god forbid, itcan be made to flow thither again. if by living thus reserved and austere,like a hermit in the woods, so long, it has acquired such wonderful purity, who wouldnot regret that the comparatively impure waters of flint's pond should be mingled with it, or itself should ever go to wasteits sweetness in the ocean wave?
flint's, or sandy pond, in lincoln, ourgreatest lake and inland sea, lies about a mile east of walden. it is much larger, being said to containone hundred and ninety-seven acres, and is more fertile in fish; but it iscomparatively shallow, and not remarkably pure. a walk through the woods thither was oftenmy recreation. it was worth the while, if only to feel thewind blow on your cheek freely, and see the waves run, and remember the life ofmariners. i went a-chestnutting there in the fall, onwindy days, when the nuts were dropping
into the water and were washed to my feet;and one day, as i crept along its sedgy shore, the fresh spray blowing in my face, i came upon the mouldering wreck of a boat,the sides gone, and hardly more than the impression of its flat bottom left amid therushes; yet its model was sharply defined, as if it were a large decayed pad, with itsveins. it was as impressive a wreck as one couldimagine on the seashore, and had as good a moral. it is by this time mere vegetable mould andundistinguishable pond shore, through which rushes and flags have pushed up.
i used to admire the ripple marks on thesandy bottom, at the north end of this pond, made firm and hard to the feet of thewader by the pressure of the water, and the rushes which grew in indian file, in waving lines, corresponding to these marks, rankbehind rank, as if the waves had planted there also i have found, in considerablequantities, curious balls, composed apparently of fine grass or roots, ofpipewort perhaps, from half an inch to four inches in diameter, and perfectlyspherical. these wash back and forth in shallow wateron a sandy bottom, and are sometimes cast on the shore.
they are either solid grass, or have alittle sand in the middle. at first you would say that they wereformed by the action of the waves, like a pebble; yet the smallest are made ofequally coarse materials, half an inch long, and they are produced only at oneseason of the year. moreover, the waves, i suspect, do not somuch construct as wear down a material which has already acquired consistency. they preserve their form when dry for anindefinite period. flint's pond!such is the poverty of our nomenclature. what right had the unclean and stupidfarmer, whose farm abutted on this sky
water, whose shores he has ruthlessly laidbare, to give his name to it? some skin-flint, who loved better thereflecting surface of a dollar, or a bright cent, in which he could see his own brazenface; who regarded even the wild ducks which settled in it as trespassers; his fingers grown into crooked and bony talonsfrom the long habit of grasping harpy- like;--so it is not named for me. i go not there to see him nor to hear ofhim; who never saw it, who never bathed in it, who never loved it, who never protectedit, who never spoke a good word for it, nor thanked god that he had made it.
rather let it be named from the fishes thatswim in it, the wild fowl or quadrupeds which frequent it, the wild flowers whichgrow by its shores, or some wild man or child the thread of whose history is interwoven with its own; not from him whocould show no title to it but the deed which a like-minded neighbor or legislaturegave him--him who thought only of its money value; whose presence perchance cursed all the shores; who exhausted the land aroundit, and would fain have exhausted the waters within it; who regretted only thatit was not english hay or cranberry meadow- -there was nothing to redeem it, forsooth,
in his eyes--and would have drained andsold it for the mud at its bottom. it did not turn his mill, and it was noprivilege to him to behold it. i respect not his labors, his farm whereeverything has its price, who would carry the landscape, who would carry his god, tomarket, if he could get anything for him; who goes to market for his god as it is; on whose farm nothing grows free, whose fieldsbear no crops, whose meadows no flowers, whose trees no fruits, but dollars; wholoves not the beauty of his fruits, whose fruits are not ripe for him till they areturned to dollars. give me the poverty that enjoys truewealth.
farmers are respectable and interesting tome in proportion as they are poor--poor farmers. a model farm! where the house stands like afungus in a muckheap, chambers for men, horses, oxen, and swine, cleansed anduncleansed, all contiguous to one another! stocked with men! a great grease-spot, redolent of manuresand buttermilk! under a high state of cultivation, beingmanured with the hearts and brains of men! as if you were to raise your potatoes inthe churchyard! such is a model farm.
no, no; if the fairest features of thelandscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest menalone. let our lakes receive as true names atleast as the icarian sea, where "still the shore" a "brave attempt resounds." goose pond, of small extent, is on my wayto flint's; fair haven, an expansion of concord river, said to contain some seventyacres, is a mile southwest; and white pond, of about forty acres, is a mile and a halfbeyond fair haven. this is my lake country. these, with concord river, are my waterprivileges; and night and day, year in year
out, they grind such grist as i carry tothem. since the wood-cutters, and the railroad,and i myself have profaned walden, perhaps the most attractive, if not the mostbeautiful, of all our lakes, the gem of the woods, is white pond;--a poor name from its commonness, whether derived from theremarkable purity of its waters or the color of its sands.in these as in other respects, however, it is a lesser twin of walden. they are so much alike that you would saythey must be connected under ground. it has the same stony shore, and its watersare of the same hue.
as at walden, in sultry dog-day weather,looking down through the woods on some of its bays which are not so deep but that thereflection from the bottom tinges them, its waters are of a misty bluish-green orglaucous color. many years since i used to go there tocollect the sand by cartloads, to make sandpaper with, and i have continued tovisit it ever since. one who frequents it proposes to call itvirid lake. perhaps it might be called yellow pinelake, from the following circumstance. about fifteen years ago you could see thetop of a pitch pine, of the kind called yellow pine hereabouts, though it is not adistinct species, projecting above the
surface in deep water, many rods from theshore. it was even supposed by some that the pondhad sunk, and this was one of the primitive forest that formerly stood there. i find that even so long ago as 1792, in a"topographical description of the town of concord," by one of its citizens, in thecollections of the massachusetts historical society, the author, after speaking of walden and white ponds, adds, "in themiddle of the latter may be seen, when the water is very low, a tree which appears asif it grew in the place where it now stands, although the roots are fifty feet
below the surface of the water; the top ofthis tree is broken off, and at that place measures fourteen inches in diameter." in the spring of '49 i talked with the manwho lives nearest the pond in sudbury, who told me that it was he who got out thistree ten or fifteen years before. as near as he could remember, it stoodtwelve or fifteen rods from the shore, where the water was thirty or forty feetdeep. it was in the winter, and he had beengetting out ice in the forenoon, and had resolved that in the afternoon, with theaid of his neighbors, he would take out the old yellow pine.
he sawed a channel in the ice toward theshore, and hauled it over and along and out on to the ice with oxen; but, before he hadgone far in his work, he was surprised to find that it was wrong end upward, with the stumps of the branches pointing down, andthe small end firmly fastened in the sandy bottom. it was about a foot in diameter at the bigend, and he had expected to get a good saw- log, but it was so rotten as to be fit onlyfor fuel, if for that. he had some of it in his shed then. there were marks of an axe and ofwoodpeckers on the butt.
he thought that it might have been a deadtree on the shore, but was finally blown over into the pond, and after the top hadbecome water-logged, while the butt-end was still dry and light, had drifted out andsunk wrong end up. his father, eighty years old, could notremember when it was not there. several pretty large logs may still be seenlying on the bottom, where, owing to the undulation of the surface, they look likehuge water snakes in motion. this pond has rarely been profaned by aboat, for there is little in it to tempt a fisherman. instead of the white lily, which requiresmud, or the common sweet flag, the blue
flag (iris versicolor) grows thinly in thepure water, rising from the stony bottom all around the shore, where it is visited by hummingbirds in june; and the color bothof its bluish blades and its flowers and especially their reflections, is insingular harmony with the glaucous water. white pond and walden are great crystals onthe surface of the earth, lakes of light. if they were permanently congealed, andsmall enough to be clutched, they would, perchance, be carried off by slaves, likeprecious stones, to adorn the heads of emperors; but being liquid, and ample, and secured to us and our successors forever,we disregard them, and run after the
diamond of kohinoor.they are too pure to have a market value; they contain no muck. how much more beautiful than our lives, howmuch more transparent than our characters, are they!we never learned meanness of them. how much fairer than the pool before thefarmer's door, in which his ducks swim! hither the clean wild ducks come.nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her. the birds with their plumage and theirnotes are in harmony with the flowers, but what youth or maiden conspires with thewild luxuriant beauty of nature?
she flourishes most alone, far from thetowns where they reside. talk of heaven! ye disgrace earth. > chapter 10baker farm sometimes i rambled to pine groves,standing like temples, or like fleets at sea, full-rigged, with wavy boughs, andrippling with light, so soft and green and shady that the druids would have forsaken their oaks to worship in them; or to thecedar wood beyond flint's pond, where the trees, covered with hoary blue berries,spiring higher and higher, are fit to stand
before valhalla, and the creeping juniper covers the ground with wreaths full offruit; or to swamps where the usnea lichen hangs in festoons from the white sprucetrees, and toadstools, round tables of the swamp gods, cover the ground, and more beautiful fungi adorn the stumps, likebutterflies or shells, vegetable winkles; where the swamp-pink and dogwood grow, thered alderberry glows like eyes of imps, the waxwork grooves and crushes the hardest woods in its folds, and the wild hollyberries make the beholder forget his home with their beauty, and he is dazzled andtempted by nameless other wild forbidden
fruits, too fair for mortal taste. instead of calling on some scholar, i paidmany a visit to particular trees, of kinds which are rare in this neighborhood,standing far away in the middle of some pasture, or in the depths of a wood or swamp, or on a hilltop; such as the blackbirch, of which we have some handsome specimens two feet in diameter; its cousin,the yellow birch, with its loose golden vest, perfumed like the first; the beech, which has so neat a bole and beautifullylichen-painted, perfect in all its details, of which, excepting scattered specimens, iknow but one small grove of sizable trees
left in the township, supposed by some to have been planted by the pigeons that wereonce baited with beechnuts near by; it is worth the while to see the silver grainsparkle when you split this wood; the bass; the hornbeam; the celtis occidentalis, or false elm, of which we have but one well-grown; some taller mast of a pine, a shingle tree, or a more perfect hemlockthan usual, standing like a pagoda in the midst of the woods; and many others i couldmention. these were the shrines i visited bothsummer and winter. once it chanced that i stood in the veryabutment of a rainbow's arch, which filled
the lower stratum of the atmosphere,tinging the grass and leaves around, and dazzling me as if i looked through coloredcrystal. it was a lake of rainbow light, in which,for a short while, i lived like a dolphin. if it had lasted longer it might havetinged my employments and life. as i walked on the railroad causeway, iused to wonder at the halo of light around my shadow, and would fain fancy myself oneof the elect. one who visited me declared that theshadows of some irishmen before him had no halo about them, that it was only nativesthat were so distinguished. benvenuto cellini tells us in his memoirs,that, after a certain terrible dream or
vision which he had during his confinementin the castle of st. angelo a resplendent light appeared over the shadow of his head at morning and evening, whether he was initaly or france, and it was particularly conspicuous when the grass was moist withdew. this was probably the same phenomenon towhich i have referred, which is especially observed in the morning, but also at othertimes, and even by moonlight. though a constant one, it is not commonlynoticed, and, in the case of an excitable imagination like cellini's, it would bebasis enough for superstition. beside, he tells us that he showed it tovery few.
but are they not indeed distinguished whoare conscious that they are regarded at all? i set out one afternoon to go a-fishing tofair haven, through the woods, to eke out my scanty fare of vegetables. my way led through pleasant meadow, anadjunct of the baker farm, that retreat of which a poet has since sung, beginning,-- "thy entry is a pleasant field,which some mossy fruit trees yield partly to a ruddy brook,by gliding musquash undertook, and mercurial trout,darting about."
i thought of living there before i went towalden. i "hooked" the apples, leaped the brook,and scared the musquash and the trout. it was one of those afternoons which seemindefinitely long before one, in which many events may happen, a large portion of ournatural life, though it was already half spent when i started. by the way there came up a shower, whichcompelled me to stand half an hour under a pine, piling boughs over my head, andwearing my handkerchief for a shed; and when at length i had made one cast over the pickerelweed, standing up to my middle inwater, i found myself suddenly in the
shadow of a cloud, and the thunder began torumble with such emphasis that i could do no more than listen to it. the gods must be proud, thought i, withsuch forked flashes to rout a poor unarmed so i made haste for shelter to the nearesthut, which stood half a mile from any road, but so much the nearer to the pond, and hadlong been uninhabited:-- "and here a poet builded,in the completed years, for behold a trivial cabinthat to destruction steers." so the muse fables. but therein, as i found, dwelt now johnfield, an irishman, and his wife, and
several children, from the broad-faced boywho assisted his father at his work, and now came running by his side from the bog to escape the rain, to the wrinkled, sibyl-like, cone-headed infant that sat upon its father's knee as in the palaces of nobles,and looked out from its home in the midst of wet and hunger inquisitively upon the stranger, with the privilege of infancy,not knowing but it was the last of a noble line, and the hope and cynosure of theworld, instead of john field's poor starveling brat. there we sat together under that part ofthe roof which leaked the least, while it
showered and thundered without. i had sat there many times of old beforethe ship was built that floated his family to america. an honest, hard-working, but shiftless manplainly was john field; and his wife, she too was brave to cook so many successivedinners in the recesses of that lofty stove; with round greasy face and bare breast, still thinking to improve hercondition one day; with the never absent mop in one hand, and yet no effects of itvisible anywhere. the chickens, which had also taken shelterhere from the rain, stalked about the room
like members of the family, too humanized,methought, to roast well. they stood and looked in my eye or peckedat my shoe significantly. meanwhile my host told me his story, howhard he worked "bogging" for a neighboring farmer, turning up a meadow with a spade orbog hoe at the rate of ten dollars an acre and the use of the land with manure for one year, and his little broad-faced son workedcheerfully at his father's side the while, not knowing how poor a bargain the latterhad made. i tried to help him with my experience,telling him that he was one of my nearest neighbors, and that i too, who came a-fishing here, and looked like a loafer, was
getting my living like himself; that i lived in a tight, light, and clean house,which hardly cost more than the annual rent of such a ruin as his commonly amounts to;and how, if he chose, he might in a month or two build himself a palace of his own; that i did not use tea, nor coffee, norbutter, nor milk, nor fresh meat, and so did not have to work to get them; again, asi did not work hard, i did not have to eat hard, and it cost me but a trifle for my food; but as he began with tea, and coffee,and butter, and milk, and beef, he had to work hard to pay for them, and when he hadworked hard he had to eat hard again to
repair the waste of his system--and so it was as broad as it was long, indeed it wasbroader than it was long, for he was discontented and wasted his life into thebargain; and yet he had rated it as a gain in coming to america, that here you couldget tea, and coffee, and meat every day. but the only true america is that countrywhere you are at liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to dowithout these, and where the state does not endeavor to compel you to sustain the slavery and war and other superfluousexpenses which directly or indirectly result from the use of such things.for i purposely talked to him as if he were
a philosopher, or desired to be one. i should be glad if all the meadows on theearth were left in a wild state, if that were the consequence of men's beginning toredeem themselves. a man will not need to study history tofind out what is best for his own culture. but alas! the culture of an irishman is anenterprise to be undertaken with a sort of moral bog hoe. i told him, that as he worked so hard atbogging, he required thick boots and stout clothing, which yet were soon soiled andworn out, but i wore light shoes and thin clothing, which cost not half so much,
though he might think that i was dressedlike a gentleman (which, however, was not the case), and in an hour or two, withoutlabor, but as a recreation, i could, if i wished, catch as many fish as i should want for two days, or earn enough money tosupport me a week. if he and his family would live simply,they might all go a-huckleberrying in the summer for their amusement. john heaved a sigh at this, and his wifestared with arms a-kimbo, and both appeared to be wondering if they had capital enoughto begin such a course with, or arithmetic enough to carry it through.
it was sailing by dead reckoning to them,and they saw not clearly how to make their port so; therefore i suppose they stilltake life bravely, after their fashion, face to face, giving it tooth and nail, not having skill to split its massive columnswith any fine entering wedge, and rout it in detail;--thinking to deal with itroughly, as one should handle a thistle. but they fight at an overwhelmingdisadvantage--living, john field, alas! without arithmetic, and failing so."do you ever fish?" i asked. "oh yes, i catch a mess now and then when iam lying by; good perch i catch."--"what's
your bait?""i catch shiners with fishworms, and bait the perch with them." "you'd better go now, john," said his wife,with glistening and hopeful face; but john demurred. the shower was now over, and a rainbowabove the eastern woods promised a fair evening; so i took my departure. when i had got without i asked for a drink,hoping to get a sight of the well bottom, to complete my survey of the premises; butthere, alas! are shallows and quicksands, and rope broken withal, and bucketirrecoverable.
meanwhile the right culinary vessel wasselected, water was seemingly distilled, and after consultation and long delaypassed out to the thirsty one--not yet suffered to cool, not yet to settle. such gruel sustains life here, i thought;so, shutting my eyes, and excluding the motes by a skilfully directed undercurrent,i drank to genuine hospitality the heartiest draught i could. i am not squeamish in such cases whenmanners are concerned. as i was leaving the irishman's roof afterthe rain, bending my steps again to the pond, my haste to catch pickerel, wading inretired meadows, in sloughs and bog-holes,
in forlorn and savage places, appeared for an instant trivial to me who had been sentto school and college; but as i ran down the hill toward the reddening west, withthe rainbow over my shoulder, and some faint tinkling sounds borne to my ear through the cleansed air, from i know notwhat quarter, my good genius seemed to say- -go fish and hunt far and wide day by day--farther and wider--and rest thee by many brooks and hearth-sides without misgiving. remember thy creator in the days of thyyouth. rise free from care before the dawn, andseek adventures.
let the noon find thee by other lakes, andthe night overtake thee everywhere at home. there are no larger fields than these, noworthier games than may here be played. grow wild according to thy nature, likethese sedges and brakes, which will never become english bay.let the thunder rumble; what if it threaten ruin to farmers' crops? that is not its errand to thee.take shelter under the cloud, while they flee to carts and sheds.let not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. enjoy the land, but own it not.through want of enterprise and faith men
are where they are, buying and selling, andspending their lives like serfs. o baker farm!"landscape where the richest element is a little sunshine innocent."..."no one runs to revel on thy rail-fenced lea."... "debate with no man hast thou,with questions art never perplexed, as tame at the first sight as now,in thy plain russet gabardine dressed."... "come ye who love,and ye who hate, children of the holy dove,and guy faux of the state,
and hang conspiraciesfrom the tough rafters of the trees!" men come tamely home at night only from thenext field or street, where their household echoes haunt, and their life pines becauseit breathes its own breath over again; their shadows, morning and evening, reachfarther than their daily steps. we should come home from far, fromadventures, and perils, and discoveries every day, with new experience andcharacter. before i had reached the pond some freshimpulse had brought out john field, with altered mind, letting go "bogging" ere thissunset. but he, poor man, disturbed only a coupleof fins while i was catching a fair string,
and he said it was his luck; but when wechanged seats in the boat luck changed seats too. poor john field!--i trust he does not readthis, unless he will improve by it-- thinking to live by some derivative old-country mode in this primitive new country- -to catch perch with shiners. it is good bait sometimes, i allow. with his horizon all his own, yet he a poorman, born to be poor, with his inherited irish poverty or poor life, his adam'sgrandmother and boggy ways, not to rise in this world, he nor his posterity, till
their wading webbed bog-trotting feet gettalaria to their heels. chapter 11higher laws as i came home through the woods with mystring of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, i caught a glimpse of awoodchuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour himraw; not that i was hungry then, except for that wildness which he represented. once or twice, however, while i lived atthe pond, i found myself ranging the woods, like a half-starved hound, with a strangeabandonment, seeking some kind of venison
which i might devour, and no morsel couldhave been too savage for me. the wildest scenes had become unaccountablyfamiliar. i found in myself, and still find, aninstinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, andanother toward a primitive rank and savage one, and i reverence them both. i love the wild not less than the good.the wildness and adventure that are in fishing still recommended it to me.i like sometimes to take rank hold on life and spend my day more as the animals do. perhaps i have owed to this employment andto hunting, when quite young, my closest
acquaintance with nature. they early introduce us to and detain us inscenery with which otherwise, at that age, we should have little acquaintance. fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, andothers, spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part ofnature themselves, are often in a more favorable mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, thanphilosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation.she is not afraid to exhibit herself to the traveller on the prairie is naturally ahunter, on the head waters of the missouri
and columbia a trapper, and at the falls ofst. mary a fisherman. he who is only a traveller learns things atsecond-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. we are most interested when science reportswhat those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is a truehumanity, or account of human experience. they mistake who assert that the yankee hasfew amusements, because he has not so many public holidays, and men and boys do notplay so many games as they do in england, for here the more primitive but solitary amusements of hunting, fishing, and thelike have not yet given place to the
former. almost every new england boy among mycontemporaries shouldered a fowling-piece between the ages of ten and fourteen; andhis hunting and fishing grounds were not limited, like the preserves of an english nobleman, but were more boundless even thanthose of a savage. no wonder, then, that he did not oftenerstay to play on the common. but already a change is taking place,owing, not to an increased humanity, but to an increased scarcity of game, for perhapsthe hunter is the greatest friend of the animals hunted, not excepting the humanesociety.
moreover, when at the pond, i wishedsometimes to add fish to my fare for variety. i have actually fished from the same kindof necessity that the first fishers did. whatever humanity i might conjure upagainst it was all factitious, and concerned my philosophy more than myfeelings. i speak of fishing only now, for i had longfelt differently about fowling, and sold my gun before i went to the woods. not that i am less humane than others, buti did not perceive that my feelings were much affected.i did not pity the fishes nor the worms.
this was habit. as for fowling, during the last years thati carried a gun my excuse was that i was studying ornithology, and sought only newor rare birds. but i confess that i am now inclined tothink that there is a finer way of studying ornithology than this. it requires so much closer attention to thehabits of the birds, that, if for that reason only, i have been willing to omitthe gun. yet notwithstanding the objection on thescore of humanity, i am compelled to doubt if equally valuable sports are eversubstituted for these; and when some of my
friends have asked me anxiously about their boys, whether they should let them hunt, ihave answered, yes--remembering that it was one of the best parts of my education--makethem hunters, though sportsmen only at first, if possible, mighty hunters at last, so that they shall not find game largeenough for them in this or any vegetable wilderness--hunters as well as fishers ofmen. thus far i am of the opinion of chaucer'snun, who "yave not of the text a pulled hen thatsaith that hunters ben not holy men." there is a period in the history of theindividual, as of the race, when the
hunters are the "best men," as thealgonquins called them. we cannot but pity the boy who has neverfired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected. this was my answer with respect to thoseyouths who were bent on this pursuit, trusting that they would soon outgrow it. no humane being, past the thoughtless ageof boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature which holds its life by the sametenure that he does. the hare in its extremity cries like achild. i warn you, mothers, that my sympathies donot always make the usual phil-anthropic
distinctions. such is oftenest the young man'sintroduction to the forest, and the most original part of himself. he goes thither at first as a hunter andfisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of a better life in him, he distinguisheshis proper objects, as a poet or naturalist it may be, and leaves the gun and fish-polebehind. the mass of men are still and always youngin this respect. in some countries a hunting parson is nouncommon sight. such a one might make a good shepherd'sdog, but is far from being the good
shepherd. i have been surprised to consider that theonly obvious employment, except wood- chopping, ice-cutting, or the likebusiness, which ever to my knowledge detained at walden pond for a whole half- day any of my fellow-citizens, whetherfathers or children of the town, with just one exception, was fishing. commonly they did not think that they werelucky, or well paid for their time, unless they got a long string of fish, though theyhad the opportunity of seeing the pond all the while.
they might go there a thousand times beforethe sediment of fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their purpose pure; but nodoubt such a clarifying process would be going on all the while. the governor and his council faintlyremember the pond, for they went a-fishing there when they were boys; but now they aretoo old and dignified to go a-fishing, and so they know it no more forever. yet even they expect to go to heaven atlast. if the legislature regards it, it ischiefly to regulate the number of hooks to be used there; but they know nothing aboutthe hook of hooks with which to angle for
the pond itself, impaling the legislaturefor a bait. thus, even in civilized communities, theembryo man passes through the hunter stage of development. i have found repeatedly, of late years,that i cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect.i have tried it again and again. i have skill at it, and, like many of myfellows, a certain instinct for it, which revives from time to time, but always wheni have done i feel that it would have been better if i had not fished. i think that i do not mistake.it is a faint intimation, yet so are the
first streaks of morning. there is unquestionably this instinct in mewhich belongs to the lower orders of creation; yet with every year i am less afisherman, though without more humanity or even wisdom; at present i am no fishermanat all. but i see that if i were to live in awilderness i should again be tempted to become a fisher and hunter in earnest. beside, there is something essentiallyunclean about this diet and all flesh, and i began to see where housework commences,and whence the endeavor, which costs so much, to wear a tidy and respectable
appearance each day, to keep the housesweet and free from all ill odors and sights. having been my own butcher and scullion andcook, as well as the gentleman for whom the dishes were served up, i can speak from anunusually complete experience. the practical objection to animal food inmy case was its uncleanness; and besides, when i had caught and cleaned and cookedand eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me essentially. it was insignificant and unnecessary, andcost more than it came to. a little bread or a few potatoes would havedone as well, with less trouble and filth.
like many of my contemporaries, i hadrarely for many years used animal food, or tea, or coffee, etc.; not so much becauseof any ill effects which i had traced to them, as because they were not agreeable tomy imagination. the repugnance to animal food is not theeffect of experience, but is an instinct. it appeared more beautiful to live low andfare hard in many respects; and though i never did so, i went far enough to pleasemy imagination. i believe that every man who has ever beenearnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition has beenparticularly inclined to abstain from animal food, and from much food of anykind.
it is a significant fact, stated byentomologists--i find it in kirby and spence--that "some insects in their perfectstate, though furnished with organs of feeding, make no use of them"; and they lay it down as "a general rule, that almost allinsects in this state eat much less than in that of larvae. the voracious caterpillar when transformedinto a butterfly... and the gluttonous maggot when become a fly" contentthemselves with a drop or two of honey or some other sweet liquid. the abdomen under the wings of thebutterfly still represents the larva.
this is the tidbit which tempts hisinsectivorous fate. the gross feeder is a man in the larvastate; and there are whole nations in that condition, nations without fancy orimagination, whose vast abdomens betray it is hard to provide and cook so simpleand clean a diet as will not offend the imagination; but this, i think, is to befed when we feed the body; they should both sit down at the same table. yet perhaps this may be done.the fruits eaten temperately need not make us ashamed of our appetites, nor interruptthe worthiest pursuits. but put an extra condiment into your dish,and it will poison you.
it is not worth the while to live by richcookery. most men would feel shame if caughtpreparing with their own hands precisely such a dinner, whether of animal orvegetable food, as is every day prepared for them by others. yet till this is otherwise we are notcivilized, and, if gentlemen and ladies, are not true men and women.this certainly suggests what change is to be made. it may be vain to ask why the imaginationwill not be reconciled to flesh and fat. i am satisfied that it is not.is it not a reproach that man is a
carnivorous animal? true, he can and does live, in a greatmeasure, by preying on other animals; but this is a miserable way--as any one whowill go to snaring rabbits, or slaughtering lambs, may learn--and he will be regarded as a benefactor of his race who shall teachman to confine himself to a more innocent and wholesome diet. whatever my own practice may be, i have nodoubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement,to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each
other when they came in contact with themore civilized. if one listens to the faintest but constantsuggestions of his genius, which are certainly true, he sees not to whatextremes, or even insanity, it may lead him; and yet that way, as he grows moreresolute and faithful, his road lies. the faintest assured objection which onehealthy man feels will at length prevail over the arguments and customs of mankind. no man ever followed his genius till itmisled him. though the result were bodily weakness, yetperhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, forthese were a life in conformity to higher
principles. if the day and the night are such that yougreet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scentedherbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal--that is your success. all nature is your congratulation, and youhave cause momentarily to bless yourself. the greatest gains and values are farthestfrom being appreciated. we easily come to doubt if they exist. we soon forget them.they are the highest reality. perhaps the facts most astounding and mostreal are never communicated by man to man.
the true harvest of my daily life issomewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening.it is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which i have clutched. yet, for my part, i was never unusuallysqueamish; i could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it werenecessary. i am glad to have drunk water so long, forthe same reason that i prefer the natural sky to an opium-eater's heaven.i would fain keep sober always; and there are infinite degrees of drunkenness. i believe that water is the only drink fora wise man; wine is not so noble a liquor;
and think of dashing the hopes of a morningwith a cup of warm coffee, or of an evening with a dish of tea! ah, how low i fall when i am tempted bythem! even music may be intoxicating. such apparently slight causes destroyedgreece and rome, and will destroy england and america.of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes? i have found it to be the most seriousobjection to coarse labors long continued, that they compelled me to eat and drinkcoarsely also.
but to tell the truth, i find myself atpresent somewhat less particular in these respects. i carry less religion to the table, ask noblessing; not because i am wiser than i was, but, i am obliged to confess, because,however much it is to be regretted, with years i have grown more coarse andindifferent. perhaps these questions are entertainedonly in youth, as most believe of poetry. my practice is "nowhere," my opinion ishere. nevertheless i am far from regarding myselfas one of those privileged ones to whom the ved refers when it says, that "he who hastrue faith in the omnipresent supreme being
may eat all that exists," that is, is not bound to inquire what is his food, or whoprepares it; and even in their case it is to be observed, as a hindoo commentator hasremarked, that the vedant limits this privilege to "the time of distress." who has not sometimes derived aninexpressible satisfaction from his food in which appetite had no share? i have been thrilled to think that i owed amental perception to the commonly gross sense of taste, that i have been inspiredthrough the palate, that some berries which i had eaten on a hillside had fed mygenius.
"the soul not being mistress of herself,"says thseng-tseu, "one looks, and one does not see; one listens, and one does nothear; one eats, and one does not know the savor of food." he who distinguishes the true savor of hisfood can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise. a puritan may go to his brown-bread crustwith as gross an appetite as ever an alderman to his turtle. not that food which entereth into the mouthdefileth a man, but the appetite with which it is eaten.
it is neither the quality nor the quantity,but the devotion to sensual savors; when that which is eaten is not a viand tosustain our animal, or inspire our spiritual life, but food for the worms thatpossess us. if the hunter has a taste for mud-turtles,muskrats, and other such savage tidbits, the fine lady indulges a taste for jellymade of a calf's foot, or for sardines from over the sea, and they are even. he goes to the mill-pond, she to herpreserve-pot. the wonder is how they, how you and i, canlive this slimy, beastly life, eating and drinking.
our whole life is startlingly moral.there is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice.goodness is the only investment that never fails. in the music of the harp which tremblesround the world it is the insisting on this which thrills us. the harp is the travelling patterer for theuniverse's insurance company, recommending its laws, and our little goodness is allthe assessment that we pay. though the youth at last grows indifferent,the laws of the universe are not indifferent, but are forever on the side ofthe most sensitive.
listen to every zephyr for some reproof,for it is surely there, and he is unfortunate who does not hear it.we cannot touch a string or move a stop but the charming moral transfixes us. many an irksome noise, go a long way off,is heard as music, a proud, sweet satire on the meanness of our lives. we are conscious of an animal in us, whichawakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers. it is reptile and sensual, and perhapscannot be wholly expelled; like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy ourbodies.
possibly we may withdraw from it, but neverchange its nature. i fear that it may enjoy a certain healthof its own; that we may be well, yet not the other day i picked up the lower jaw ofa hog, with white and sound teeth and tusks, which suggested that there was ananimal health and vigor distinct from the spiritual. this creature succeeded by other means thantemperance and purity. "that in which men differ from brutebeasts," says mencius, "is a thing very inconsiderable; the common herd lose itvery soon; superior men preserve it carefully."
who knows what sort of life would result ifwe had attained to purity? if i knew so wise a man as could teach mepurity i would go to seek him forthwith. "a command over our passions, and over theexternal senses of the body, and good acts, are declared by the ved to be indispensablein the mind's approximation to god." yet the spirit can for the time pervade andcontrol every member and function of the body, and transmute what in form is thegrossest sensuality into purity and devotion. the generative energy, which, when we areloose, dissipates and makes us unclean, when we are continent invigorates andinspires us.
chastity is the flowering of man; and whatare called genius, heroism, holiness, and the like, are but various fruits whichsucceed it. man flows at once to god when the channelof purity is open. by turns our purity inspires and ourimpurity casts us down. he is blessed who is assured that theanimal is dying out in him day by day, and the divine being established. perhaps there is none but has cause forshame on account of the inferior and brutish nature to which he is allied. i fear that we are such gods or demigodsonly as fauns and satyrs, the divine allied
to beasts, the creatures of appetite, andthat, to some extent, our very life is our disgrace.-- "how happy's he who hath due place assignedto his beasts and disafforested his mind! can use this horse, goat, wolf, and ev'rybeast, and is not ass himself to all the rest! else man not only is the herd of swine,but he's those devils too which did inclinethem to a headlong rage, and made them worse." all sensuality is one, though it takes manyforms; all purity is one.
it is the same whether a man eat, or drink,or cohabit, or sleep sensually. they are but one appetite, and we only needto see a person do any one of these things to know how great a sensualist he is.the impure can neither stand nor sit with purity. when the reptile is attacked at one mouthof his burrow, he shows himself at another. if you would be chaste, you must betemperate. what is chastity? how shall a man know if he is chaste?he shall not know it. we have heard of this virtue, but we knownot what it is.
we speak conformably to the rumor which wehave heard. from exertion come wisdom and purity; fromsloth ignorance and sensuality. in the student sensuality is a sluggishhabit of mind. an unclean person is universally a slothfulone, one who sits by a stove, whom the sun shines on prostrate, who reposes withoutbeing fatigued. if you would avoid uncleanness, and all thesins, work earnestly, though it be at cleaning a stable.nature is hard to be overcome, but she must be overcome. what avails it that you are christian, ifyou are not purer than the heathen, if you
deny yourself no more, if you are not morereligious? i know of many systems of religion esteemedheathenish whose precepts fill the reader with shame, and provoke him to newendeavors, though it be to the performance of rites merely. i hesitate to say these things, but it isnot because of the subject--i care not how obscene my words are--but because i cannotspeak of them without betraying my impurity. we discourse freely without shame of oneform of sensuality, and are silent about another.
we are so degraded that we cannot speaksimply of the necessary functions of human in earlier ages, in some countries, everyfunction was reverently spoken of and regulated by law. nothing was too trivial for the hindoolawgiver, however offensive it may be to modern taste. he teaches how to eat, drink, cohabit, voidexcrement and urine, and the like, elevating what is mean, and does notfalsely excuse himself by calling these things trifles. every man is the builder of a temple,called his body, to the god he worships,
after a style purely his own, nor can heget off by hammering marble instead. we are all sculptors and painters, and ourmaterial is our own flesh and blood and bones. any nobleness begins at once to refine aman's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them. john farmer sat at his door one septemberevening, after a hard day's work, his mind still running on his labor more or less.having bathed, he sat down to re-create his intellectual man. it was a rather cool evening, and some ofhis neighbors were apprehending a frost.
he had not attended to the train of histhoughts long when he heard some one playing on a flute, and that soundharmonized with his mood. still he thought of his work; but theburden of his thought was, that though this kept running in his head, and he foundhimself planning and contriving it against his will, yet it concerned him very little. it was no more than the scurf of his skin,which was constantly shuffled off. but the notes of the flute came home to hisears out of a different sphere from that he worked in, and suggested work for certainfaculties which slumbered in him. they gently did away with the street, andthe village, and the state in which he
lived. a voice said to him--why do you stay hereand live this mean moiling life, when a glorious existence is possible for you? those same stars twinkle over other fieldsthan these.--but how to come out of this condition and actually migrate thither? all that he could think of was to practisesome new austerity, to let his mind descend into his body and redeem it, and treathimself with ever increasing respect.
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