th a stab of satire, he describes
contemporary mankind in a phrase: "All the day long on the alert, at
night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to
uncertainties." It is not likely that the public will be much affected
by Thoreau, when they blink the direct injunctions of the religion they
profess; and yet, whether we will or no, we make the same hazardous
ventures; we back our own health and the honesty of our neighbours for
all that we are worth; and it is chilling to think how many must lose
their wager.

In 1845, twenty-eight years old, an age by which the liveliest have
usually declined into some conformity with the world, Thoreau, with a
capital of something less than five pounds and a borrowed axe, walked
forth into the woods by Walden Pond, and began his new experiment in
life. He built himself a dwelling, and returned the axe, he says with
characteristic and workmanlike pride, sharper than when he borrowed it;
he reclaimed a patch, where he cultivated beans, peas, potatoes, and
sweet corn; he had his bread to bake, his farm to dig, and for the
matter of six weeks in the summer he worked at surveying, carpentry, or
some other of his numerous dexterities, for hire. For more than five
years this was all that he required to do for his support, and he had
the winter and most of the summer at his entire disposal. For six weeks
of occupation, a little cooking and a little gentle hygienic gardening,
the man, you may say, had as good as stolen his livelihood. Or we must
rather allow that he had done far better; for the thief himself is
continually and busily occupied; and even one born to inherit a million
will have more calls upon his time than Thoreau. Well might he say,
"What old people tell you you cannot do, you try and find you can." And
how surprising is his conclusion: "I am convinced that _to maintain
oneself on this earth is not a hardship, but a pastime_, if we will live
simply and wisely; _as the pursuits of simpler nations are still the
sports of the more artificial_."

When he had enough of that kind of life, he showed the same simplicity
in giving it up as in beginning it. There are some who could have done
the one, but, vanity forbidding, not the other; and that is perhaps the
story of the hermits; but Thoreau made no fetich of his own example, and
did what he wanted squarely. And five years is long enough for an
experiment, and to prove the success of transcendental Yankeeism. It is
no