From the beginning of Walden:
When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.
Henry David Thoreau published Walden in 1854. The book is constructed as a kind of a journal of his life, philosophical and social reflections, and astute observations of nature and his surroundings that are often intended to be metaphorical as well concrete. Walden itself is a very deep pond, and Thoreau was fond of plumbing its depths--a reference to his mind and soul as much to the body of water on which he rowed, in which he fished, and from which he drank.
Tom Morris and I sat in Thoreau's cabin and found ourselves talking of the parallels between Thoreau (1817-1862) and the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). Both were powerful intellects who lived the daily lives of near-monks, while also engaging in the debates and society of their day. Both traveled little, thought long, and wrote with lasting influence. Both died young, Thoreau at age 45, Kierkegaard at 42.
The cabin is of course a mock-up of the original, but because of Thoreau's detailed description of the cabin in Walden, the replica is quite exact. I found myself in a reflective mood as Tom and I sat in the evening light on Henry's two small chairs.
As we sat leaning back in our chairs, not facing each other directly but looking out the door and windows as we formed our thoughts, I was reminded of one of my favorite passages in Walden:
One inconvenience I sometimes experienced in so small a house, the difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest when we began to utter the big thoughts in big words. You want room for your thoughts to get into sailing trim and run a course or two before they make their port. The bullet of your thought must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it may plow out again through the side of his head. Also, our sentences wanted room to unfold and form their columns in the interval. Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between them. I have found it a singular luxury to talk across the pond to a companion on the opposite side. In my house we were so near that we could not begin to hear—we could not speak low enough to be heard; as when you throw two stones into calm water so near that they break each other's undulations. If we are merely loquacious and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together, cheek by jowl, and feel each other's breath; but if we speak reservedly and thoughtfully, we want to be farther apart, that all animal heat and moisture may have a chance to evaporate. If we would enjoy the most intimate society with that in each of us which is without, or above, being spoken to, we must not only be silent, but commonly so far apart bodily that we cannot possibly hear each other's voice in any case. Referred to this standard, speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout. As the conversation began to assume a loftier and grander tone, we gradually shoved our chairs farther apart till they touched the wall in opposite corners, and then commonly there was not room enough.
RSS Feed
iTunes Feed
Download
Tattle
