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I think that I love society as h to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded ht possibly sit out the sturdiest frequenter of the bar-room, if my business called me thither
I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society When visitors caer and unexpected nuenerally econoreat men and women a small house will contain I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once underaware that we had come very near to one another Many of our houses, both public and private, with their ale halls and their cellars for the storage of wines and other e for their inhabitants They are so vast and nificent that the latter seem to be only vermin which infest them I am surprised when the herald blows his summons before so out over the piazza for all inhabitants a ridiculous ain slinks into some hole in the pavement
One inconvenience I soetting to a sufficient distance fro words You want roo trim and run a course or two before they ht must have overcome its lateral and ricochet motion and fallen into its last and steady course before it reaches the ear of the hearer, else it h the side of his head Also, our sentences wanted room to unfold and form their columns in the interval Individuals, like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries, even a considerable neutral ground, between theular luxury to talk across the pond to a companion on the opposite side In in to hear -- we could not speak low enough to be heard; as when you throo stones into calm water so near that they break each other&039;s undulations If we are merely loquacious and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together, cheek by jowl, and feel each other&039;s breath; but if we speak reservedly and thoughtfully, ant to be farther apart, that all animal heat and moisture may have a chance to evaporate If ould enjoy the most intimate society with that in each of us which is without, or above, being spoken to, we must not only be silent, but commonly so far apart bodily that we cannot possibly hear each other&039;s voice in any case Referred to this standard, speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are s which we cannot say if we have to shout As the conversation began to assuradually shoved our chairs farther apart till they touched the wall in opposite corners, and then coh
My "best" roo room, always ready for company, on whose carpet the sun rarely fell, was the pine wood behind uests came, I took them, and a priceless domestic swept the floor and dusted the furniture and kept the things in order
If one guest caal meal, and it was no interruption to conversation to be stirring a hasty-pudding, or watching the rising andof a loaf of bread in the ashes, in the meanwhile But if twenty ca said about dinner, though therewere a forsaken habit; but we naturally practised abstinence; and this was never felt to be an offence against hospitality, but the most proper and considerate course The waste and decay of physical life, which so often needs repair, seeor stood its ground I could entertain thus a thousand as well as twenty; and if any ever went away disappointed or hungry from my house when they found me at home, they may depend upon it that I syh many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place of the old You need not rest your reputation on the dinners you give For my own part, I was never so effectually deterred fro a man&039;s house, by any kind of Cerberus whatever, as by the parade oneme, which I took to be a very polite and roundabout hint never to trouble hiain I think I shall never revisit those scenes I should be proud to have for the motto of my cabin those lines of Spenser which one of my visitors inscribed on a yelloalnut leaf for a card:--
"Arrived there, the little house they fill,
Ne looke for entertainment where none was;
Rest is their feast, and all things at their will:
The noblest mind the best contentment has"
When Winslow, afterward governor of the Plymouth Colony, ith a coh the woods, and arrived tired and hungry at his lodge, they ell received by the king, but nothing was said about eating that day When the night arrived, to quote their oords -- "He laid us on the bed with himself and his wife, they at the one end and we at the other, it being only planks laid a foot froround and a thin mat upon them Two more of his chief men, for want of room, pressed by and upon us; so that orse weary of our lodging than of our journey" At one o&039;clock the next day Massasoit "brought two fishes that he had shot," about thrice as big as a brea boiled, there were at least forty looked for a share in thehts and a day; and had not one of us bought a partridge, we had taken our journey fasting" Fearing that they would be light-headed for want of food and also sleep, owing to "the savages&039; barbarous singing, (for they use to sing theet hoth to travel, they departed As for lodging, it is true they were but poorly entertained, though what they found an inconvenience was no doubt intended for an honor; but as far as eating was concerned, I do not see how the Indians could have done better They had nothing to eat theies could supply the place of food to their guests; so they drew their belts tighter and said nothing about it Another ti a season of plenty with them, there was no deficiency in this respect
As for men, they will hardly fail one anywhere I had more visitors while I lived in the woods than at any other period in my life; I mean that I had some I met several there under more favorable circumstances than I could anywhere else But fewer came to see me on trivial business In this respect, my company ed by my reat ocean of solitude, into which the rivers of society empty, that for the most part, so far as my needs were concerned, only the finest sediment was deposited around me Beside, there afted to me evidences of unexplored and uncultivated continents on the other side
Who should coonian man -- he had so suitable and poetic a name that I am sorry I cannot print it here -- a Canadian, a woodchopper and post-maker, who can hole fifty posts in a day, who ht He, too, has heard of Homer, and, "if it were not for books," would "not knohat to do rainy days," though perhaps he has not read one wholly through for many rainy seasons Soht him to read his verse in the Testament in his native parish far away; and now I must translate to him, while he holds the book, Achilles&039; reproof to Patroclus for his sad countenance --
"Why are you in tears, Patroclus, like a young girl?"
"Or have you alone heard some news from Phthia?
They say that Menoetius lives yet, son of Actor,
And Peleus lives, son of AEacus, a the Myr died, we should greatly grieve"
He says, "That&039;s good" He has a great bundle of white oak bark under his ar "I suppose there&039;s no har to-day," says he To hi was about he did not know A more simple and natural man it would be hard to find Vice and disease, which cast such a sombre moral hue over the world, seemed to have hardly any existance for hiht years old, and had left Canada and his father&039;s house a dozen years before to work in the States, and earn money to buy a farm with at last, perhaps in his native country He was cast in the coarsest racefully carried, with a thick sunburnt neck, dark bushy hair, and dull sleepy blue eyes, which were occasionally lit up with expression He wore a flat gray cloth cap, a dingy wool-colored greatcoat, and cowhide boots He was a great consu his dinner to his work a couple of miles past my house -- for he chopped all summer -- in a tin pail; cold meats, often cold woodchucks, and coffee in a stone bottle which dangled by a string fro early, crossing et to his work, such as Yankees exhibit He wasn&039;t a-going to hurt himself He didn&039;t care if he only earned his board Frequently he would leave his dinner in the bushes, when his dog had caught a woodchuck by the way, and go back a mile and a half to dress it and leave it in the cellar of the house where he boarded, after deliberating first for half an hour whether he could not sink it in the pond safely till nightfall -- loving to dwell long upon these the, "How thick the pigeons are! If working every day were not -pigeons, woodchucks, rabbits, partridges -- by gosh! I could get all I should want for a week in one day"