BRUTE NEIGHBORS

_By_ HENRY DAVID THOREAU

NOTE.--The author of this sketch, Henry David Thoreau, who lived
from 1817 to 1862, was one of the oddest of American men of genius.
He was educated at Harvard University, but he did not care, in the
common phrase, to "turn his learning to practical account;" that
is, save for a short time when he taught school, he did not make it
earn his living for him. His theory was that life and energy were
being wasted when a man spent in working more time than he
absolutely needed to in order to provide himself with necessities;
and this theory he carried out in his own life. While he lived in
Concord, he did odd jobs at carpentering, surveying, and gardening,
and worked for a time at his father's trade of pencil making.
However, he contended that a man was doing himself an injustice if
he kept on at that work after he had reached the point where he
could make no further improvement in his pencils.

From 1845 to 1847 Thoreau lived as a hermit in a hut which he had
built on the shore of Walden Pond, and the simple life he led there
gave him plenty of leisure for the things he liked best--the study
of nature, the grappling with philosophical problems, and the
society of friends. The result of the two years at Walden Pond was
his best book, _Walden, or Life in the Woods_, a work which is
distinguished for its peculiarly truthful and sympathetic studies
of nature.

Thoreau refused to perform any of the ordinary duties of a citizen;
he never voted, he never paid taxes. Once he was arrested because
he refused to pay his taxes, and was thrown into jail; his friends
remonstrated with him, but still he refused to pay. However, when
his friends paid the sum he made no objections to accepting his
release, nor did he in the future make any objections when his
friends quietly paid his taxes.

_The Pond in Winter_ and _Winter Animals_, which are contained in
this volume, are also from Thoreau.

Why do precisely these objects which we behold make a world? Why has man
just these species of animals for his neighbors; as if nothing but a
mouse could have filled this crevice? I suspect that Pilpay & Co. have
put animals to their best use, for they are all beasts of burden, in a
sense, made to carry some portion of our thoughts.

The mice