Henry David Thoreau - Naturalist

My sojourn to Walden Pond has been somewhat exaggerated. True, I did live in a cabin I built on Walden Pond, but I was not as isolated as it has been reported. The property belonged to my dear friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. I was within easy walking distance to my family home where I spent many evenings with the Emerson's. 

The community of Concord, Massachusetts, was alive with writers and thinkers. They inspired me. Encouraged and aided by Mr. Emerson, I studied at Harvard and did quite well for a son of a pencil maker. However, the confines of academia were not for me. I tried teaching school but was dismissed by the headmaster because I refused to use the switch. 

I spent some time on Staten Island tutoring the children of Mr. Emerson's brother, and I was asked by Horace Greeley to be a reporter for the Brooklyn Tribune. I declined. I longed for the woods, to be alone with nature, my thoughts, and my writing. My decision to return to Concord and the outdoor life was made in 1845. 

The shanty I built was on a hillside that sloped down to Walden Pond. The furnishings were simple. I made the table, chair, and bed. My life too was simple. I followed no prescribed schedule, doing work in the garden when I felt like it, writing when the mood was upon me, and watching the ants hard at work on their little colonies. 

Neighbors and friends provided my provisions. In return, I labored for them wherever I could be of use. My social life consisted of the woodchucks, squirrels, ducks, and owls, as well as freethinking Transcendentalists who came to exchange ideas. Imagine the joy of communing with the likes of Hawthorne, Alcott, Fuller, and also Carlyle, when he came to America and visited Mr. Emerson. 

I was arrested for refusing to pay a poll tax. It was my contention that it was wrong to pay money to arm men who would kill others. I was somewhat contemptible about government, perhaps that and not the desire for solitude is what drove me to the woods. Of politics, I stated, the best government is not that which governs least, but that which governs not at all. 

For years, while nourishing my mind and spirit, I neglected my body. My food was often a few berries or a piece of fruitcake a kindly wife of a friend would insist I take with me after a visit. The cold winters in the shanty did nothing to better my condition. 

During my lifetime I had only a few of my pieces of writing published. I did not write for the people, but for myself. To me, the greatest living writer of the time was Walt Whitman. I suppose one could say he awed me. 

I considered myself a naturalist. I loved all of nature and it has been said that I saw God in most things. Tis true, while I had no use for churches or sermons, I believed all the earth was my church, and life foretold more than the mere words of a preacher. 

I passed on at an early age, 44, but oh how I had lived those years. How much fulfillment I had, most of all, I had contentment. If you wish to quote me on life, say that I believed that man is only the tool or vehicle. Mind alone is immortal! The thought is the thing! 

                

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