Solitude
This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and
imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty
in Nature, a part of herself. As I walk along the stony shore of the
pond in my shirt-sleeves, though it is cool as well as cloudy and windy,
and I see nothing special to attract me, all the elements are unusually
congenial to me. The bullfrogs trump to usher in the night, and the note
of the whip-poor-will is borne on the rippling wind from over the water.
Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away
my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled.
These small waves raised by the evening wind are as remote from storm
as the smooth reflecting surface. Though it is now dark, the wind still
blows and roars in the wood, the waves still dash, and some creatures
lull the rest with their notes. The repose is never complete. The
wildest animals do not repose, but seek their prey now; the fox, and
skunk, and rabbit, now roam the fields and woods without fear. They are
Nature's watchmen--links which connect the days of animated life.
When I return to my house I find that visitors have been there and left
their cards, either a bunch of flowers, or a wreath of evergreen, or a
name in pencil on a yellow walnut leaf or a chip. They who come rarely
to the woods take some little piece of the forest into their hands
to play with by the way, which they leave, either intentionally or
accidentally. One has peeled a willow wand, woven it into a ring, and
dropped it on my table. I could always tell if visitors had called in
my absence, either by the bended twigs or grass, or the print of their
shoes, and generally of what sex or age or quality they were by some
slight trace left, as a flower dropped, or a bunch of grass plucked and
thrown away, even as far off as the railroad, half a mile distant, or by
the lingering odor of a cigar or pipe. Nay, I was frequently notified of
the passage of a traveller along the highway sixty rods off by the scent
of his pipe.
There is commonly sufficient space about us. Our horizon is never quite
at our elbows. The thick wood is not just at our door, nor the pond, but
somewhat is always clearing, familiar and worn by us, appropriated and
fenced in some way, and reclaimed from Nature. For what reason have I
this vast range and circuit, some square miles of unfrequented forest,
for my privacy, abandoned to me by men? My nearest neighbor is a mile
distant, and no house is visible from any place but the hill-tops within
half a mile of my own. I have my horizon bounded by woods all to myself;
a distant view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one
hand, and of the fence which skirts the woodland road on the other. But
for the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. It
is as much Asia or Africa as New England. I have, as it were, my own sun
and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself. At night there was
never a traveller passed my house, or knocked at my door, more than if
I were the first or last man; unless it were in the spring, when at long
intervals some came from the village to fish for pouts--they plainly
fished much more in the Walden Pond of their own natures, and baited
their hooks with darkness--but they soon retreated, usually with light
baskets, and left "the world to darkness and to me," and the black
kernel of the night was never profaned by any human neighborhood. I
believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark,
though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been
introduced.
Yet I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most
innocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object,
even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man. There can be no
very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has
his senses still. There was never yet such a storm but it was Æolian
music to a healthy and innocent ear. Nothing can rightly compel a simple
and brave man to a vulgar sadness. While I enjoy the friendship of the
seasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me. The gentle
rain which waters my beans and keeps me in the house today is not drear
and melancholy, but good for me too. Though it prevents my hoeing them,
it is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as
to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the
low lands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and,
being good for the grass, it would be good for me. Sometimes, when I
compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the
gods than they, beyond any deserts that I am conscious of; as if I had
a warrant and surety at their hands which my fellows have not, and were
especially guided and guarded. I do not flatter myself, but if it be
possible they flatter me. I have never felt lonesome, or in the least
oppressed by a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks
after I came to the woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the near
neighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life. To
be alone was something unpleasant. But I was at the same time conscious
of a slight insanity in my mood, and seemed to foresee my recovery.
In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was
suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in
the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my
house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like
an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human
neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since.
Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and
befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of
something kindred to me, even in scenes which we are accustomed to call
wild and dreary, and also that the nearest of blood to me and humanest
was not a person nor a villager, that I thought no place could ever be
strange to me again.
"Mourning untimely consumes the sad;
Few are their days in the land of the
living,
Beautiful daughter of Toscar."
Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rain-storms in the
spring or fall, which confined me to the house for the afternoon as well
as the forenoon, soothed by their ceaseless roar and pelting; when an
early twilight ushered in a long evening in which many thoughts had time
to take root and unfold themselves. In those driving northeast rains
which tried the village houses so, when the maids stood ready with mop
and pail in front entries to keep the deluge out, I sat behind my door
in my little house, which was all entry, and thoroughly enjoyed its
protection. In one heavy thunder-shower the lightning struck a large
pitch pine across the pond, making a very conspicuous and perfectly
regular spiral groove from top to bottom, an inch or more deep, and four
or five inches wide, as you would groove a walking-stick. I passed it
again the other day, and was struck with awe on looking up and beholding
that mark, now more distinct than ever, where a terrific and resistless
bolt came down out of the harmless sky eight years ago. Men frequently
say to me, "I should think you would feel lonesome down there, and want
to be nearer to folks, rainy and snowy days and nights especially." I
am tempted to reply to such--This whole earth which we inhabit is but
a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant
inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be
appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not our
planet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the
most important question. What sort of space is that which separates
a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no
exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.
What do we want most to dwell near to? Not to many men surely,
the depot, the post-office, the bar-room, the meeting-house, the
school-house, the grocery, Beacon Hill, or the Five Points, where men
most congregate, but to the perennial source of our life, whence in all
our experience we have found that to issue, as the willow stands near
the water and sends out its roots in that direction. This will vary with
different natures, but this is the place where a wise man will dig
his cellar.... I one evening overtook one of my townsmen, who has
accumulated what is called "a handsome property"--though I never got a
fair view of it--on the Walden road, driving a pair of cattle to market,
who inquired of me how I could bring my mind to give up so many of the
comforts of life. I answered that I was very sure I liked it passably
well; I was not joking. And so I went home to my bed, and left him
to pick his way through the darkness and the mud to Brighton--or
Bright-town--which place he would reach some time in the morning.
Any prospect of awakening or coming to life to a dead man makes
indifferent all times and places. The place where that may occur is
always the same, and indescribably pleasant to all our senses. For the
most part we allow only outlying and transient circumstances to make our
occasions. They are, in fact, the cause of our distraction. Nearest
to all things is that power which fashions their being. Next to us the
grandest laws are continually being executed. Next to us is not the
workman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the
workman whose work we are.
"How vast and profound is the influence of the subtile powers of Heaven
and of Earth!"
"We seek to perceive them, and we do not see them; we seek to hear them,
and we do not hear them; identified with the substance of things, they
cannot be separated from them."
"They cause that in all the universe men purify and sanctify their
hearts, and clothe themselves in their holiday garments to offer
sacrifices and oblations to their ancestors. It is an ocean of subtile
intelligences. They are everywhere, above us, on our left, on our right;
they environ us on all sides."
We are the subjects of an experiment which is not a little interesting
to me. Can we not do without the society of our gossips a little while
under these circumstances--have our own thoughts to cheer us? Confucius
says truly, "Virtue does not remain as an abandoned orphan; it must of
necessity have neighbors."
With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. By a
conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their
consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent. We
are not wholly involved in Nature. I may be either the driftwood in the
stream, or Indra in the sky looking down on it. I may be affected by a
theatrical exhibition; on the other hand, I may not be affected by an
actual event which appears to concern me much more. I only know myself
as a human entity; the scene, so to speak, of thoughts and affections;
and am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote
from myself as from another. However intense my experience, I am
conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it
were, is not a part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience, but
taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play,
it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It
was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was
concerned. This doubleness may easily make us poor neighbors and friends
sometimes.
I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in
company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love
to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as
solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among
men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is
always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the
miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really
diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as
solitary as a dervish in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the
field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome,
because he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit
down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he
can "see the folks," and recreate, and, as he thinks, remunerate himself
for his day's solitude; and hence he wonders how the student can sit
alone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and "the
blues"; but he does not realize that the student, though in the house,
is still at work in his field, and chopping in his woods, as the farmer
in his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the
latter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it.
Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not
having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at
meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old
musty cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a certain set of
rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting
tolerable and that we need not come to open war. We meet at the
post-office, and at the sociable, and about the fireside every night;
we live thick and are in each other's way, and stumble over one another,
and I think that we thus lose some respect for one another.
Certainly less frequency would suffice for all important and hearty
communications. Consider the girls in a factory--never alone, hardly in
their dreams. It would be better if there were but one inhabitant to
a square mile, as where I live. The value of a man is not in his skin,
that we should touch him.
I have heard of a man lost in the woods and dying of famine and
exhaustion at the foot of a tree, whose loneliness was relieved by the
grotesque visions with which, owing to bodily weakness, his diseased
imagination surrounded him, and which he believed to be real. So also,
owing to bodily and mental health and strength, we may be continually
cheered by a like but more normal and natural society, and come to know
that we are never alone.
I have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning,
when nobody calls. Let me suggest a few comparisons, that some one may
convey an idea of my situation. I am no more lonely than the loon in the
pond that laughs so loud, or than Walden Pond itself. What company has
that lonely lake, I pray? And yet it has not the blue devils, but the
blue angels in it, in the azure tint of its waters. The sun is alone,
except in thick weather, when there sometimes appear to be two, but one
is a mock sun. God is alone--but the devil, he is far from being alone;
he sees a great deal of company; he is legion. I am no more lonely than
a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel,
or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook,
or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April
shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house.
I have occasional visits in the long winter evenings, when the snow
falls fast and the wind howls in the wood, from an old settler and
original proprietor, who is reported to have dug Walden Pond, and stoned
it, and fringed it with pine woods; who tells me stories of old time
and of new eternity; and between us we manage to pass a cheerful evening
with social mirth and pleasant views of things, even without apples
or cider--a most wise and humorous friend, whom I love much, who keeps
himself more secret than ever did Goffe or Whalley; and though he is
thought to be dead, none can show where he is buried. An elderly dame,
too, dwells in my neighborhood, invisible to most persons, in whose
odorous herb garden I love to stroll sometimes, gathering simples and
listening to her fables; for she has a genius of unequalled fertility,
and her memory runs back farther than mythology, and she can tell me the
original of every fable, and on what fact every one is founded, for the
incidents occurred when she was young. A ruddy and lusty old dame, who
delights in all weathers and seasons, and is likely to outlive all her
children yet.
The indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature--of sun and wind
and rain, of summer and winter--such health, such cheer, they afford
forever! and such sympathy have they ever with our race, that all Nature
would be affected, and the sun's brightness fade, and the winds would
sigh humanely, and the clouds rain tears, and the woods shed their
leaves and put on mourning in midsummer, if any man should ever for a
just cause grieve. Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I
not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?
What is the pill which will keep us well, serene, contented? Not my or
thy great-grandfather's, but our great-grandmother Nature's universal,
vegetable, botanic medicines, by which she has kept herself young
always, outlived so many old Parrs in her day, and fed her health with
their decaying fatness. For my panacea, instead of one of those quack
vials of a mixture dipped from Acheron and the Dead Sea, which come out
of those long shallow black-schooner looking wagons which we sometimes
see made to carry bottles, let me have a draught of undiluted morning
air. Morning air! If men will not drink of this at the fountainhead
of the day, why, then, we must even bottle up some and sell it in the
shops, for the benefit of those who have lost their subscription ticket
to morning time in this world. But remember, it will not keep quite till
noonday even in the coolest cellar, but drive out the stopples long
ere that and follow westward the steps of Aurora. I am no worshipper of
Hygeia, who was the daughter of that old herb-doctor Æsculapius, and
who is represented on monuments holding a serpent in one hand, and in
the other a cup out of which the serpent sometimes drinks; but rather
of Hebe, cup-bearer to Jupiter, who was the daughter of Juno and wild
lettuce, and who had the power of restoring gods and men to the vigor of
youth. She was probably the only thoroughly sound-conditioned, healthy,
and robust young lady that ever walked the globe, and wherever she came
it was spring.
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