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.

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 Prouse;--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.

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