DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52538#0012
2
cares and constant anxiety concerning the merely physical
and temporal. He expressed his dissatisfaction in a letter to
his friend Ellery Channing, who replied :
“I see nothing for you on this earth but that field which I once
christened “ Briars;” go out upon that, build yourself a hut, and then
begin the process of devouring yourself alive.”
The next year, 1844, Thoreau resigned his position and
returned to Concord.
‘‘I have thoroughly tried school-keeping,” he writes, ‘‘but was
obliged to dress and train, not to say think and believe accordingly, and
I lost my time into the bargain.”
In 1843 he retired to Walden Woods, where he built him-
self with his own hands a hut on the shore of the pond.
Wonderful stories, resembling those told of St. Francis
of Assissi, are told of his intimacy with the wild animals in
the wood : “ The fishes swam into his hand ; the mice would
come and playfully eat out of his fingers, and the very mole
paid him friendly visits ; sparrows alighted on his shoulder at
his call . . . snakes coiled round his leg ... he
pulled the woodchuck out of his hole by the tail and took the
foxes under his protection from the hunters.”
It was while living at Walden, too, that he was seized
and put in goal for refusing to pay the taxes imposed by a
wholly iniquitous government.
For two years and a half he lived alone in his cabin ;
then when Mr. Emerson went to England, in 1847, he yielded
to the claims of friendship and went to stay with Mrs. Emer-
son and the children. His letters to Emerson during this
period are very interesting, and permit us to see how he was
held in esteem by the older members of the family and loved
by the children. After Emerson’s return home towards the
end of the next year Thoreau felt it his duty to assist in the
support of his own mother and sisters. He took up his
father’s trade of pencil-making, and continued to reside in the
town instead of returning to Walden. He lived, however, in
as absolute retirement and almost as much in Walden Woods
and at the heart of Nature as he had in his Walden cabin.
cares and constant anxiety concerning the merely physical
and temporal. He expressed his dissatisfaction in a letter to
his friend Ellery Channing, who replied :
“I see nothing for you on this earth but that field which I once
christened “ Briars;” go out upon that, build yourself a hut, and then
begin the process of devouring yourself alive.”
The next year, 1844, Thoreau resigned his position and
returned to Concord.
‘‘I have thoroughly tried school-keeping,” he writes, ‘‘but was
obliged to dress and train, not to say think and believe accordingly, and
I lost my time into the bargain.”
In 1843 he retired to Walden Woods, where he built him-
self with his own hands a hut on the shore of the pond.
Wonderful stories, resembling those told of St. Francis
of Assissi, are told of his intimacy with the wild animals in
the wood : “ The fishes swam into his hand ; the mice would
come and playfully eat out of his fingers, and the very mole
paid him friendly visits ; sparrows alighted on his shoulder at
his call . . . snakes coiled round his leg ... he
pulled the woodchuck out of his hole by the tail and took the
foxes under his protection from the hunters.”
It was while living at Walden, too, that he was seized
and put in goal for refusing to pay the taxes imposed by a
wholly iniquitous government.
For two years and a half he lived alone in his cabin ;
then when Mr. Emerson went to England, in 1847, he yielded
to the claims of friendship and went to stay with Mrs. Emer-
son and the children. His letters to Emerson during this
period are very interesting, and permit us to see how he was
held in esteem by the older members of the family and loved
by the children. After Emerson’s return home towards the
end of the next year Thoreau felt it his duty to assist in the
support of his own mother and sisters. He took up his
father’s trade of pencil-making, and continued to reside in the
town instead of returning to Walden. He lived, however, in
as absolute retirement and almost as much in Walden Woods
and at the heart of Nature as he had in his Walden cabin.