The document is an excerpt from Walden by Henry David Thoreau. It discusses his experience living alone in a cabin he built near Walden Pond for over two years. He lived a simple life, growing his own food and earning a living through manual labor. Thoreau reflects on society's unnecessary struggles and preoccupation with wealth and status. He believes most people live lives of "quiet desperation" focused on superficial goals rather than seeking inner spiritual fulfillment.
First chapter of the epic fantasy novel "Mika Holdbrand: Diplomacy in Tradewind", the first in "Chronicles of the Apotheosis" series. Sinopsis:
The world of Timelah has enjoyed peace for centuries. A tense peace, in which their nations have looked at each other with distrust, but peace, after all. The two most powerful nations, the republic of Priseida and the country of Threecloud, the magicians' homeland, are now on the verge of a conflict fuelled by the expansionist wishes of the Knight Protector, ruler of Priseida. In this atmosphere of growing tension, Mika Holdbrand, consul stationed in Tradewind, works to fulfil the objective that the Knight Protector has set for him, which has nothing to do with the maintenance of peace between nations...
In this first novel of the Chronicles of the Apotheosis, a complex fresco is painted, plagued with characters whose lives will be swept away by the whirlwind of events. Politics, magic, action and fantasy go hand to hand in Timelah, a world that is about to suffer convulsions that will transform it forever.
many of these works, written in the spiritual sense, I ask as it were to read as though the spirit wrote it, it talks of the grandiose public, warring factions, a philosophical outset, and prose poetry
As men steer their ships by the attractions
of the star, so the world is guided by its
faith. God rules life, and the soul of man
is where God meets man and gives him com-
mission for the governance of the world. The
halls of palaces where kings meet ambassadors
are splendid with riches. How royal ought
to be the chambers where man meets God, and
into which come the royal retinues of noble
thoughts and faiths. We fill our houses with
tawdry decorations, but Emerson says: "The
best ornaments of our homes are the friends
who visit us." The guest-chamber is best
tenanted which has the noblest guests.
I. Things that Endure Page 1
II. The Cost of Reaching the Best 9
III. When Kindness is Unkind 17
IV. The Interweaving of the Days 27
V. Doing and Not Doubting 37
VI. No True Work Is Vain 43
VII. Be Thou a Blessing 51
VIII. Making a Living and Making a Life 59
IX. Our Lives Words of God 67
X. Two Ways 77
XL The Duty of Being Always Strong 85
XII. Strength for a New Year 93
XIII. More than Meat , 105
XIV. The Sin of Drifting 113
XV. The Value and Responsibility of One Life 121
XVI. The Folly of Drifting into Marriage 129
XVII. How Not to Show Sympathy 137
XVIII. Choosing Our Friends Page 145
XIX. The Entanglements of Love 157
XX. Learning the Lessons of Love at Home 165
XXI. Learning the Lessons of Patriotism 173
XXII. Is Worrying a Christian Duty? 181
XXIII. Making or Marring Beauty 189
XXIV. On the Footpath to Success 197
XXV. Causes of Failure 205
XXVI. Sticking to One's Calling 215
XXVII. The Misuse of the Gift of Speech 223
XXVIII. The Danger of Talking too Much 231
XXIX. Books Worth While 239
XXX. A Talk about Temper 247
XXXI. The Advantage of Keeping One's Temper 257
XXXII. The Grace of Being Obliging 265
XXXIII. What to Do with Our Money 273
XXXIV. What to Do with Our Hands 283
XXXV. Some Indirect Ways of Lying 291
XXXVI. Putting away Childish Things 299
XXXVII. Remember the Way 307
First chapter of the epic fantasy novel "Mika Holdbrand: Diplomacy in Tradewind", the first in "Chronicles of the Apotheosis" series. Sinopsis:
The world of Timelah has enjoyed peace for centuries. A tense peace, in which their nations have looked at each other with distrust, but peace, after all. The two most powerful nations, the republic of Priseida and the country of Threecloud, the magicians' homeland, are now on the verge of a conflict fuelled by the expansionist wishes of the Knight Protector, ruler of Priseida. In this atmosphere of growing tension, Mika Holdbrand, consul stationed in Tradewind, works to fulfil the objective that the Knight Protector has set for him, which has nothing to do with the maintenance of peace between nations...
In this first novel of the Chronicles of the Apotheosis, a complex fresco is painted, plagued with characters whose lives will be swept away by the whirlwind of events. Politics, magic, action and fantasy go hand to hand in Timelah, a world that is about to suffer convulsions that will transform it forever.
many of these works, written in the spiritual sense, I ask as it were to read as though the spirit wrote it, it talks of the grandiose public, warring factions, a philosophical outset, and prose poetry
As men steer their ships by the attractions
of the star, so the world is guided by its
faith. God rules life, and the soul of man
is where God meets man and gives him com-
mission for the governance of the world. The
halls of palaces where kings meet ambassadors
are splendid with riches. How royal ought
to be the chambers where man meets God, and
into which come the royal retinues of noble
thoughts and faiths. We fill our houses with
tawdry decorations, but Emerson says: "The
best ornaments of our homes are the friends
who visit us." The guest-chamber is best
tenanted which has the noblest guests.
I. Things that Endure Page 1
II. The Cost of Reaching the Best 9
III. When Kindness is Unkind 17
IV. The Interweaving of the Days 27
V. Doing and Not Doubting 37
VI. No True Work Is Vain 43
VII. Be Thou a Blessing 51
VIII. Making a Living and Making a Life 59
IX. Our Lives Words of God 67
X. Two Ways 77
XL The Duty of Being Always Strong 85
XII. Strength for a New Year 93
XIII. More than Meat , 105
XIV. The Sin of Drifting 113
XV. The Value and Responsibility of One Life 121
XVI. The Folly of Drifting into Marriage 129
XVII. How Not to Show Sympathy 137
XVIII. Choosing Our Friends Page 145
XIX. The Entanglements of Love 157
XX. Learning the Lessons of Love at Home 165
XXI. Learning the Lessons of Patriotism 173
XXII. Is Worrying a Christian Duty? 181
XXIII. Making or Marring Beauty 189
XXIV. On the Footpath to Success 197
XXV. Causes of Failure 205
XXVI. Sticking to One's Calling 215
XXVII. The Misuse of the Gift of Speech 223
XXVIII. The Danger of Talking too Much 231
XXIX. Books Worth While 239
XXX. A Talk about Temper 247
XXXI. The Advantage of Keeping One's Temper 257
XXXII. The Grace of Being Obliging 265
XXXIII. What to Do with Our Money 273
XXXIV. What to Do with Our Hands 283
XXXV. Some Indirect Ways of Lying 291
XXXVI. Putting away Childish Things 299
XXXVII. Remember the Way 307
Collection of Works done in Processing:
Tweetfreq: visualizing twiiter frequency
monofont: comparing monospaced fonts
Twitgrid: twitter timeline as a grid
FlickrTag: search Flickr
Hairball: visualizing complexity
hypecycle: modeling the Gartner Hype Cycle
Campaign: using the NYT API to show a geographic view of campaign finance
Organizational Measures: graphical format for baseline and target measures in an organization
FontPattern: Standard "calling cards" for fonts
Timeline: Showing timelines and milestones
Typesetting experiments: showing layout options
NFL: visualizing won-loss percentage
Genesis: Bible typesetting
Plotting: purchases vs. stock price
WalkingI wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom.docxcelenarouzie
Walking
I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister, and the school-committee, and every one of you will take care of that.
I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,—who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering: which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going à la Sainte Terre," to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer," a Saunterer,—a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.
It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearth-side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return,— prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again,—if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man, then you are ready for a walk.
To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I sometimes have a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves knights of a new, or rather an old, order,—not Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters or Riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust. The Chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the Rider seems now to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the Walker,—not the Knight, but Walker, Errant. He is a sort of fourth estate, outside of Church and State.
Digital HistoryPrintable VersionThe Meaning of July FoAlyciaGold776
Digital History
Printable Version
The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro
Digital History ID 3612
Author: Frederick Douglass
Date:1852
Annotation: On July 5, 1852, Douglass gave a speech at an event commemorating the signing of the
Declaration of Independence, held at Rochester's Corinthian Hall. It was a piercing speech. During the first part
of his speech he praises what the founding fathers did for this country, but his speech soon develops into a
condemnation of the attitude of American society toward slavery.
Document: Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the
Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men, too ‹ great enough to give frame to a
great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The
point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot
contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the
good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory....
...Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or
those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of
natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon
to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for
the blessings resulting from your independence to us?
Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these
questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a
nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not
thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell
the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that
man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."
But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included
within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance
between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common.‹The rich inheritance of
justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The
sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours,
not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty,
and call upon him to join you in ...
Is It Not Enough that We Are Torn From Our Country and FrieTatianaMajor22
“Is It Not Enough that We Are Torn From Our Country
and Friends?”: Olaudah Equiano Describes the Horrors of
the Middle Passage, 1780s
In one of the largest forced migrations in human history, up to 12 million
Africans were sold as slaves to Europeans and shipped to the Americas. Most
slaves were seized inland and marched to coastal forts, where they were chained
below deck in ships for the journey across the Atlantic or “Middle Passage,”
under conditions designed to ship the largest number of people in the smallest
space possible. Olaudah Equiano had been kidnapped from his family when he
was 11 years old, carried off first to Barbados and then Virginia. After serving in
the British navy, he was sold to a Quaker merchant from whom he purchased his
freedom in 1766. His pioneering narrative of the journey from slavery to
freedom, a bestseller first published in London in 1789, builds upon the
traditions of spiritual narratives and travel literature to help create the slave
narrative genre.
The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast, was the sea,
and a slave ship, which was then riding at anchor, and waiting for its cargo.
These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted into terror, when I
was carried on board. I was immediately handled, and tossed up to see if I were
sound, by some of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I had gotten into a
world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me. Their complexions, too,
differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke (which
was very different from any I had ever heard), united to confirm me in this
belief. Indeed, such were the horrors of my views and fears at the moment,
that, if ten thousand worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with
them all to have exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave in my
own country. When I looked round the ship too, and saw a large furnace of
copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained
together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no
longer doubted of my fate; and, quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I
fell motionless on the deck and fainted. When I recovered a little, I found some
black people about me, who I believed were some of those who had brought me
on board, and had been receiving their pay; they talked to me in order to cheer
me, but all in vain. I asked them if we were not to be eaten by those white men
with horrible looks, red faces, and long hair. They told me I was not, and one of
the crew brought me a small portion of spirituous liquor in a wine glass; but
being afraid of him, I would not take it out of his hand. One of the blacks
therefore took it from him and gave it to me, and I took a little down my palate,
which, instead of reviving me, as they thought it would, threw me into the
greatest consternation at the strange feeling it produced, having ne ...
OlallaRobert Louis StevensonNow, said the doctor, my part.docxcherishwinsland
Olalla
Robert Louis Stevenson
'Now,' said the doctor, 'my part is done, and, I may say, with some vanity, well done. It remains only to get you out of this cold and poisonous city, and to give you two months of a pure air and an easy conscience. The last is your affair. To the first I think I can help you. It fells indeed rather oddly; it was but the other day the Padre came in from the country; and as he and I are old friends, although of contrary professions, he applied to me in a matter of distress among some of his parishioners. This was a family - but you are ignorant of Spain, and even the names of our grandees are hardly known to you; suffice it, then, that they were once great people, and are now fallen to the brink of destitution. Nothing now belongs to them but the residencia, and certain leagues of desert mountain, in the greater part of which not even a goat could support life. But the house is a fine old place, and stands at a great height among the hills, and most salubriously; and I had no sooner heard my friend's tale, than I remembered you. I told him I had a wounded officer, wounded in the good cause, who was now able to make a change; and I proposed that his friends should take you for a lodger. Instantly the Padre's face grew dark, as I had maliciously foreseen it would. It was out of the question, he said. Then let them starve, said I, for I have no sympathy with tatterdemalion pride. There-upon we separated, not very content with one another; but yesterday, to my wonder, the Padre returned and made a submission: the difficulty, he said, he had found upon enquiry to be less than he had feared; or, in other words, these proud people had put their pride in their pocket. I closed with the offer; and, subject to your approval, I have taken rooms for you in the residencia. The air of these mountains will renew your
blood; and the quiet in which you will there live is worth all the medicines in the world.'
'Doctor,' said I, 'you have been throughout my good angel, and your advice is a command. But tell me, if you please, something of the family with which I am to reside.'
'I am coming to that,' replied my friend; 'and, indeed, there is a difficulty in the way. These beggars are, as I have said, of very high descent and swollen with the most baseless vanity; they have lived for some generations in a growing isolation, drawing away, on either hand, from the rich who had now become too high for them, and from the poor, whom they still regarded as too low; and even to-day, when poverty forces them to unfasten their door to a guest, they cannot do so without a most ungracious stipulation. You are to remain, they say, a stranger; they will give you attendance, but they refuse from the first the idea of the smallest intimacy.'
I will not deny that I was piqued, and perhaps the feeling strengthened my desire to go, for I was confident that I could break down that barrier if I desired. 'There is nothing offensive .
William Bradford, from History of Plimouth POllieShoresna
William Bradford, from
History of Plimouth Plantation (written between 1630-51)
AFTER they had lived in this city [Leyden, in the Netherlands] about some 11 or 12 years… and sundry of them were taken away by death, and many others began to be well stricken in years…. those prudent governors with sundry of the sagest members began both deeply to apprehend their present dangers, and wisely to foresee the future, and think of timely remedy. In the agitation of their thoughts, and much discourse of things hear about, at length they began to incline to this conclusion, of removal to some other place. Not out of any newfangledness, or other such like giddy humor, by which men are oftentimes transported to their great hurt and danger, but for sundry weighty and solid reasons….
Of all sorrows most heavy to be borne, was that many of their children, by these occasions, and the great licentiousness of youth in that country, and the manifold temptations of the
place, were drawn away by evil examples to extravagant and dangerous courses, getting the reigns off their necks, and departing from their parents. Some became soldiers, others took upon them far voyages by sea, and other some worse courses, tending to dissoluteness and the danger of their souls, to the great grief of their parents and dishonor of God. So that they saw their posterity would be in danger to degenerate and be corrupted.
Lastly, (and which was not least), a great hope and inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto, for the propagating and advancing the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world; yea, though they should be but even as stepping-stones unto others for the performing of so great a work. These, and some other like reasons, moved them to undertake this
resolution of their removal….
The place they had thoughts on was some of those vast and unpeopled countries of America, which are fruitful and fit for habitation, being devoid of all civil inhabitants, whether are only salvage and brutish men, which range up and down, little otherwise then the wild beasts of the same….
It was answered, that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courages. It was granted the dangers were great, but not desperate; the difficulties were many, but not invincible. For though there were many of them likely, yet they were not certain; it might be sundry of the things feared might never befall; others by provident care and the use of good
means, might in a great measure be prevented; and all of them, through the help of God, by fortitude and patience, might either be borne, or overcome… there ends were good and honorable; their calling lawful, and urgent; and therefore they might expect the blessing of God in their proceeding....
Being thus passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before ...
Booker T. Washington Delivers the 1895 Atlanta Compromise .docxjackiewalcutt
Booker T. Washington Delivers the 1895 Atlanta
Compromise Speech
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Directors and Citizens:
Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us a new era of industrial progress.
Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top
instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought than real estate or
industrial skill; that the political convention or stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy
farm or truck garden.
A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate
vessel was seen a signal,“Water, water; we die of thirst!” The answer from the friendly vessel at once
came back, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” A second time the signal, “Water, water; send us
water!” ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.”
And a third and fourth signal for water was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” The
captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of
fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering
their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations
with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: “Cast down your bucket
where you are”— cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom
we are surrounded.
Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. And in
this connection it is well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear, when it
comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man’s chance in the
commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our
greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses
of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in
proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour, and put brains and skill into the common
occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the
substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is
as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at
the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.
To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and
habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely-- having little or no money in my purse,
and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of
the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself
growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself
involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and
especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to
prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I
account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a
philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing
surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly
the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
Difficult Conversations Final DiscussionYou should be finishing .docxmecklenburgstrelitzh
Difficult Conversations Final Discussion
You should be finishing up the book this week and gathering your thoughts for your proposal submission. Please respond to these questions as you reflect on what you have read thus far, as well as reply to two classmates by the due date.
1. How do you decide whether to raise a difficult issue?
2. If you decide not to raise something but stay in the relationship, how do you cope with your thoughts and feelings so that they don't fester? How do you actually let go?
3. Can you think of a time in the past when you've successfully let go of an issue in a relationship?
4. Can you think of a time when you've tried to do this, and it hasn't worked? Why didn't it work?
As most classmates are working professionals, please have your answer posted by 10 a.m. on Sunday to give your classmates 24 hours to respond to your post.
YEARS
PROJECT M :USE 11
The Souls of Black Folk
W.E.B. Du Bois, Shawn Leigh Alexander
Published by University of Massachusetts Press
Bois, W.E.B. Du and Shawn Leigh Alexander.
The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches.
University of Massachusetts Press, 2018.
Project MUSE. muse.jhu.edu/book/59563.
For additional information about this book
https://muse.jhu.edu/book/59563
[ Access provided at 17 Aug 2020 23:33 GMT from University of California, Berkeley ]
https://muse.jhu.edu
https://muse.jhu.edu/book/59563
I
OF OUR SPIRITUAL STRIVINGS
O water, voice of my heart, crying in the sand,
All night long crying with a mournful cry,
As I lie and listen, and cannot understand
The voice of my heart in my side or the voice of the sea,
O water, crying for rest, is it I, is it I?
All night long the water is crying to me.
Unresting water, there shall never be rest
Till the last moon droop and the last tide fail,
And the fre of the end begin to burn in the west;
And the heart shall be weary and wonder and cry like the
sea,
All life long crying without avail,
As the water all night long is crying to me.
ARTHUR SYMONS.
BETWEEN me and the other world there is ever
an unasked question: unasked by some through
feelings of delicacy; by others through the dif-
fculty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, futter
round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way,
eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead
of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they
2 THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK
say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I
fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern out-
rages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am inter-
ested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion
may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be
a problem? I answer seldom a word.
And yet, being a problem is a strange experience, —
peculiar even for one who has never been anything else,
save perhaps in babyhood and in Europe. It is in the early
days of rollicking boyhood that the revelation frst.
Doe 1John Instructor HST 1200September 7, 2014Center .docxjacksnathalie
Doe 1
John
Instructor:
HST 1200
September 7, 2014
Center Title Here
Start your paper here. Your title should be in the same font and size (Times New Roman, 12) as the rest of your paper. Capitalize all key words of your title, but not articles and prepositions. Your title should not be underlined or in quotation marks. Be sure the entire text of your paper is double spaced. There should be no extra returns between paragraphs. New paragraphs should be indented one inch (which is the default tab setting on most campus computers). Instead of the full heading, pages that follow the opening page should use a header in the upper right corner: your last name and the page number.
Proofread all of your work very carefully. This includes more than just running a spell checker! It will not tell you if you typed the word defiantly instead of definitely, or allowed instead of aloud! Read your paper aloud to see where you might be repeating yourself, and to find places where pauses, breaks, or full stops naturally occur.
Our textbook is a compilation of selections from the Bedford/St. Martin's History and Culture Series and contains both primary and secondary sources. Therefore, proper citation is very complicated. I will allow the following when you cite work from the textbook: (The West and the World, page number). Work cited page is not necessary unless you use sources other than those provided by me. For help with in-text citations and the Works Cited page, go online or to the library to access additional Modern Language Association (MLA) citation and format information.
Please do not pad your word count with excessive block quotes. Even if quotes are properly used and cited, your Originality Report should not exceed 30%.
THE
INTERESTING NARRATIVE
OF
THE LIFE
OF
OLAUDAH EQUIANO,
OR
GUSTAVUS VASSA,
THE AFRICAN.
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be
afraid, for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my
song; he also is become my salvation.
And in that shall ye say, Praise the Lord, call upon his
name, declare his doings among the people. Isaiah xii. 2, 4.
LONDON:
Printed for and sold by the Author, No. 10, Union-Street,
Middlesex Hospital
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To the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and
the Commons of the Parliament
of Great Britain.
My Lords and Gentlemen,
Permit me, with the greatest deference and respect, to lay at your feet the following genuine Narrative; the chief design of which is to excite in your august assemblies a sens ...
1. Walden; or, Life in the Woods<br />Economy<br />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.<br />I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained. I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no particular interest in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of these questions in this book. In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits.<br />I would fain say something, not so much concerning the Chinese and Sandwich Islanders as you who read these pages, who are said to live in New England; something about your condition, especially your outward condition or circumstances in this world, in this town, what it is, whether it is necessary that it be as bad as it is, whether it cannot be improved as well as not. I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways. What I have heard of Bramins sitting exposed to four fires and looking in the face of the sun; or hanging suspended, with their heads downward, over flames; or looking at the heavens over their shoulders quot;
until it becomes impossible for them to resume their natural position, while from the twist of the neck nothing but liquids can pass into the stomachquot;
; or dwelling, chained for life, at the foot of a tree; or measuring with their bodies, like caterpillars, the breadth of vast empires; or standing on one leg on the tops of pillars - even these forms of conscious penance are hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes which I daily witness. The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve, and had an end; but I could never see that these men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor. They have no friend Iolas to burn with a hot iron the root of the hydra's head, but as soon as one head is crushed, two spring up.<br />I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born? They have got to live a man's life, pushing all these things before them, and get on as well as they can. How many a poor immortal soul have I met well-nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture, and woodlot! The portionless, who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh.<br />But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before. It is said that Deucalion and Pyrrha created men by throwing stones over their heads behind them:<br />Inde genus durum sumus, experiensque laborum,<br />Et documenta damus qua simus origine nati.<br />Or, as Raleigh rhymes it in his sonorous way,<br />quot;
From thence our kind hard-hearted is, enduring pain and care,<br />Approving that our bodies of a stony nature are.quot;
<br />So much for a blind obedience to a blundering oracle, throwing the stones over their heads behind them, and not seeing where they fell.<br />Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance - which his growth requires - who has so often to use his knowledge? We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.<br />Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour. It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by experience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offences; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay up something against a sick day, something to be tucked away in an old chest, or in a stocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, in the brick bank; no matter where, no matter how much or how little.<br />I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, I may almost say, as to attend to the gross but somewhat foreign form of servitude called Negro Slavery, there are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both North and South. It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself. Talk of a divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the highway, wending to market by day or night; does any divinity stir within him? His highest duty to fodder and water his horses! What is his destiny to him compared with the shipping interests? Does not he drive for Squire Make-a-stir? How godlike, how immortal, is he? See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. Self-emancipation even in the West Indian provinces of the fancy and imagination - what Wilberforce is there to bring that about? Think, also, of the ladies of the land weaving toilet cushions against the last day, not to betray too green an interest in their fates! As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.<br />The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.<br />When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true today may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. Old people did not know enough once, perchance, to fetch fresh fuel to keep the fire a-going; new people put a little dry wood under a pot, and are whirled round the globe with the speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the phrase is. Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that experience, and they are only less young than they were. I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me anything to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it. If I have any experience which I think valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my Mentors said nothing about.<br />One farmer says to me, quot;
You cannot live on vegetable food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones withquot;
; and so he religiously devotes a part of his day to supplying his system with the raw material of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerk him and his lumbering plow along in spite of every obstacle. Some things are really necessaries of life in some circles, the most helpless and diseased, which in others are luxuries merely, and in others still are entirely unknown.<br />The whole ground of human life seems to some to have been gone over by their predecessors, both the heights and the valleys, and all things to have been cared for. According to Evelyn, quot;
the wise Solomon prescribed ordinances for the very distances of trees; and the Roman praetors have decided how often you may go into your neighbor's land to gather the acorns which fall on it without trespass, and what share belongs to that neighbor.quot;
Hippocrates has even left directions how we should cut our nails; that is, even with the ends of the fingers, neither shorter nor longer. Undoubtedly the very tedium and ennui which presume to have exhausted the variety and the joys of life are as old as Adam. But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little has been tried. Whatever have been thy failures hitherto, quot;
be not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to thee what thou hast left undone?quot;
<br />We might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; as, for instance, that the same sun which ripens my beans illumines at once a system of earths like ours. If I had remembered this it would have prevented some mistakes. This was not the light in which I hoed them. The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant and different beings in the various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one at the same moment! Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology! - I know of no reading of another's experience so startling and informing as this would be.<br />The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? You may say the wisest thing you can, old man - you who have lived seventy years, not without honor of a kind - I hear an irresistible voice which invites me away from all that. One generation abandons the enterprises of another like stranded vessels.<br />I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength. The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick? How vigilant we are! determined not to live by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, quot;
To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.quot;
When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men at length establish their lives on that basis.<br />Let us consider for a moment what most of the trouble and anxiety which I have referred to is about, and how much it is necessary that we be troubled, or at least careful. It would be some advantage to live a primitive and frontier life, though in the midst of an outward civilization, if only to learn what are the gross necessaries of life and what methods have been taken to obtain them; or even to look over the old day-books of the merchants, to see what it was that men most commonly bought at the stores, what they stored, that is, what are the grossest groceries. For the improvements of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man's existence: as our skeletons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors.<br />By the words, necessary of life, I mean whatever, of all that man obtains by his own exertions, has been from the first, or from long use has become, so important to human life that few, if any, whether from savageness, or poverty, or philosophy, ever attempt to do without it. To many creatures there is in this sense but one necessary of life, Food. To the bison of the prairie it is a few inches of palatable grass, with water to drink; unless he seeks the Shelter of the forest or the mountain's shadow. None of the brute creation requires more than Food and Shelter. The necessaries of life for man in this climate may, accurately enough, be distributed under the several heads of Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel; for not till we have secured these are we prepared to entertain the true problems of life with freedom and a prospect of success. Man has invented, not only houses, but clothes and cooked food; and possibly from the accidental discovery of the warmth of fire, and the consequent use of it, at first a luxury, arose the present necessity to sit by it. We observe cats and dogs acquiring the same second nature. By proper Shelter and Clothing we legitimately retain our own internal heat; but with an excess of these, or of Fuel, that is, with an external heat greater than our own internal, may not cookery properly be said to begin? Darwin, the naturalist, says of the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, that while his own party, who were well clothed and sitting close to a fire, were far from too warm, these naked savages, who were farther off, were observed, to his great surprise, quot;
to be streaming with perspiration at undergoing such a roasting.quot;
So, we are told, the New Hollander goes naked with impunity, while the European shivers in his clothes. Is it impossible to combine the hardiness of these savages with the intellectualness of the civilized man? According to Liebig, man's body is a stove, and food the fuel which keeps up the internal combustion in the lungs. In cold weather we eat more, in warm less. The animal heat is the result of a slow combustion, and disease and death take place when this is too rapid; or for want of fuel, or from some defect in the draught, the fire goes out. Of course the vital heat is not to be confounded with fire; but so much for analogy. It appears, therefore, from the above list, that the expression, animal life, is nearly synonymous with the expression, animal heat; for while Food may be regarded as the Fuel which keeps up the fire within us - and Fuel serves only to prepare that Food or to increase the warmth of our bodies by addition from without - Shelter and Clothing also serve only to retain the heat thus generated and absorbed.<br />The grand necessity, then, for our bodies, is to keep warm, to keep the vital heat in us. What pains we accordingly take, not only with our Food, and Clothing, and Shelter, but with our beds, which are our night-clothes, robbing the nests and breasts of birds to prepare this shelter within a shelter, as the mole has its bed of grass and leaves at the end of its burrow! The poor man is wont to complain that this is a cold world; and to cold, no less physical than social, we refer directly a great part of our ails. The summer, in some climates, makes possible to man a sort of Elysian life. Fuel, except to cook his Food, is then unnecessary; the sun is his fire, and many of the fruits are sufficiently cooked by its rays; while Food generally is more various, and more easily obtained, and Clothing and Shelter are wholly or half unnecessary. At the present day, and in this country, as I find by my own experience, a few implements, a knife, an axe, a spade, a wheelbarrow, etc., and for the studious, lamplight, stationery, and access to a few books, rank next to necessaries, and can all be obtained at a trifling cost. Yet some, not wise, go to the other side of the globe, to barbarous and unhealthy regions, and devote themselves to trade for ten or twenty years, in order that they may live - that is, keep comfortably warm - and die in New England at last. The luxuriously rich are not simply kept comfortably warm, but unnaturally hot; as I implied before, they are cooked, of course a la mode.<br />Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. We know not much about them. It is remarkable that we know so much of them as we do. The same is true of the more modern reformers and benefactors of their race. None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty. Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art. There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly. They make shift to live merely by conformity, practically as their fathers did, and are in no sense the progenitors of a noble race of men. But why do men degenerate ever? What makes families run out? What is the nature of the luxury which enervates and destroys nations? Are we sure that there is none of it in our own lives? The philosopher is in advance of his age even in the outward form of his life. He is not fed, sheltered, clothed, warmed, like his contemporaries. How can a man be a philosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better methods than other men?<br />When a man is warmed by the several modes which I have described, what does he want next? Surely not more warmth of the same kind, as more and richer food, larger and more splendid houses, finer and more abundant clothing, more numerous, incessant, and hotter fires, and the like. When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced. The soil, it appears, is suited to the seed, for it has sent its radicle downward, and it may now send its shoot upward also with confidence. Why has man rooted himself thus firmly in the earth, but that he may rise in the same proportion into the heavens above? - for the nobler plants are valued for the fruit they bear at last in the air and light, far from the ground, and are not treated like the humbler esculents, which, though they may be biennials, are cultivated only till they have perfected their root, and often cut down at top for this purpose, so that most would not know them in their flowering season.<br />I do not mean to prescribe rules to strong and valiant natures, who will mind their own affairs whether in heaven or hell, and perchance build more magnificently and spend more lavishly than the richest, without ever impoverishing themselves, not knowing how they live - if, indeed, there are any such, as has been dreamed; nor to those who find their encouragement and inspiration in precisely the present condition of things, and cherish it with the fondness and enthusiasm of lovers - and, to some extent, I reckon myself in this number; I do not speak to those who are well employed, in whatever circumstances, and they know whether they are well employed or not; - but mainly to the mass of men who are discontented, and idly complaining of the hardness of their lot or of the times, when they might improve them. There are some who complain most energetically and inconsolably of any, because they are, as they say, doing their duty. I also have in my mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters.<br />If I should attempt to tell how I have desired to spend my life in years past, it would probably surprise those of my readers who are somewhat acquainted with its actual history; it would certainly astonish those who know nothing about it. I will only hint at some of the enterprises which I have cherished.<br />In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint quot;
No Admittancequot;
on my gate.<br />I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them, describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves.<br />To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter, before yet any neighbor was stirring about his business, have I been about mine! No doubt, many of my townsmen have met me returning from this enterprise, farmers starting for Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going to their work. It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it.<br />So many autumn, ay, and winter days, spent outside the town, trying to hear what was in the wind, to hear and carry it express! I well-nigh sunk all my capital in it, and lost my own breath into the bargain, running in the face of it. If it had concerned either of the political parties, depend upon it, it would have appeared in the Gazette with the earliest intelligence. At other times watching from the observatory of some cliff or tree, to telegraph any new arrival; or waiting at evening on the hill-tops for the sky to fall, that I might catch something, though I never caught much, and that, manna-wise, would dissolve again in the sun.<br />For a long time I was reporter to a journal, of no very wide circulation, whose editor has never yet seen fit to print the bulk of my contributions, and, as is too common with writers, I got only my labor for my pains. However, in this case my pains were their own reward.<br />For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow-storms and rain-storms, and did my duty faithfully; surveyor, if not of highways, then of forest paths and all across - lot routes, keeping them open, and ravines bridged and passable at all seasons, where the public heel had testified to their utility.<br />I have looked after the wild stock of the town, which give a faithful herdsman a good deal of trouble by leaping fences; and I have had an eye to the unfrequented nooks and corners of the farm; though I did not always know whether Jonas or Solomon worked in a particular field today; that was none of my business. I have watered the red huckleberry, the sand cherry and the nettle-tree, the red pine and the black ash, the white grape and the yellow violet, which might have withered else in dry seasons.<br />In short, I went on thus for a long time (I may say it without boasting), faithfully minding my business, till it became more and more evident that my townsmen would not after all admit me into the list of town officers, nor make my place a sinecure with a moderate allowance. My accounts, which I can swear to have kept faithfully, I have, indeed, never got audited, still less accepted, still less paid and settled. However, I have not set my heart on that.<br />Not long since, a strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the house of a well-known lawyer in my neighborhood. quot;
Do you wish to buy any baskets?quot;
he asked. quot;
No, we do not want any,quot;
was the reply. quot;
What!quot;
exclaimed the Indian as he went out the gate, quot;
do you mean to starve us?quot;
Having seen his industrious white neighbors so well off - that the lawyer had only to weave arguments, and, by some magic, wealth and standing followed - he had said to himself: I will go into business; I will weave baskets; it is a thing which I can do. Thinking that when he had made the baskets he would have done his part, and then it would be the white man's to buy them. He had not discovered that it was necessary for him to make it worth the other's while to buy them, or at least make him think that it was so, or to make something else which it would be worth his while to buy. I too had woven a kind of basket of a delicate texture, but I had not made it worth any one's while to buy them. Yet not the less, in my case, did I think it worth my while to weave them, and instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them. The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?<br />Finding that my fellow-citizens were not likely to offer me any room in the court house, or any curacy or living anywhere else, but I must shift for myself, I turned my face more exclusively than ever to the woods, where I was better known. I determined to go into business at once, and not wait to acquire the usual capital, using such slender means as I had already got. My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles; to be hindered from accomplishing which for want of a little common sense, a little enterprise and business talent, appeared not so sad as foolish.<br />I have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits; they are indispensable to every man. If your trade is with the Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough. You will export such articles as the country affords, purely native products, much ice and pine timber and a little granite, always in native bottoms. These will be good ventures. To oversee all the details yourself in person; to be at once pilot and captain, and owner and underwriter; to buy and sell and keep the accounts; to read every letter received, and write or read every letter sent; to superintend the discharge of imports night and day; to be upon many parts of the coast almost at the same time - often the richest freight will be discharged upon a Jersey shore; - to be your own telegraph, unweariedly sweeping the horizon, speaking all passing vessels bound coastwise; to keep up a steady despatch of commodities, for the supply of such a distant and exorbitant market; to keep yourself informed of the state of the markets, prospects of war and peace everywhere, and anticipate the tendencies of trade and civilization - taking advantage of the results of all exploring expeditions, using new passages and all improvements in navigation; - charts to be studied, the position of reefs and new lights and buoys to be ascertained, and ever, and ever, the logarithmic tables to be corrected, for by the error of some calculator the vessel often splits upon a rock that should have reached a friendly pier - there is the untold fate of La Perouse; - universal science to be kept pace with, studying the lives of all great discoverers and navigators, great adventurers and merchants, from Hanno and the Phoenicians down to our day; in fine, account of stock to be taken from time to time, to know how you stand. It is a labor to task the faculties of a man - such problems of profit and loss, of interest, of tare and tret, and gauging of all kinds in it, as demand a universal knowledge.<br />I have thought that Walden Pond would be a good place for business, not solely on account of the railroad and the ice trade; it offers advantages which it may not be good policy to divulge; it is a good port and a good foundation. No Neva marshes to be filled; though you must everywhere build on piles of your own driving. It is said that a flood-tide, with a westerly wind, and ice in the Neva, would sweep St. Petersburg from the face of the earth.<br />