Page 8 (1/1)

After hoeing, or perhaps reading and writing, in the forenoon, I usually bathed again in the pond, swi across one of its coves for a stint, and washed the dust of labor from my person, or smoothed out the last wrinkle which study had made, and for the afternoon was absolutely free Every day or two I strolled to the village to hear so on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in ho in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs As I walked in the woods to see the birds and squirrels, so I walked in the village to see thethe pines I heard the carts rattle In one direction from my house there was a colony of rove of ele of busy s, each sitting at the ossip I went there frequently to observe their habits The village appeared to reat news roo & Company&039;s on State Street, they kept nuts and raisins, or salt and roceries Some have such a vast appetite for the forans, that they can sit forever in public avenues without stirring, and let it sih the ether, it only producing numbness and insensibility to pain -- otherwise it would often be painful to bear -- without affecting the consciousness I hardly ever failed, when I rae, to see a row of such worthies, either sitting on a ladder sunning thelancing along the line this way and that, fro against a barn with their hands in their pockets, like caryatides, as if to prop it up They, being commonly out of doors, heard whatever was in the wind These are the coarsest ested or cracked up before it is emptied into finer and more delicate hoppers within doors I observed that the vitals of the village were the grocery, the bar-room, the post-office, and the bank; and, as a necessary part of the ine, at convenient places; and the houses were so arranged as toone another, so that every traveller had to run the gauntlet, and every et a lick at him Of course, those ere stationed nearest to the head of the line, where they could most see and be seen, and have the first blow at higling inhabitants in the outskirts, where long gaps in the line began to occur, and the traveller could get over walls or turn aside into cow-paths, and so escape, paid a very slight ground ortax Signs were hung out on all sides to allure him; so cellar; sooods store and the jeweller&039;s; and others by the hair or the feet or the skirts, as the barber, the shoemaker, or the tailor Besides, there was a stillinvitation to call at every one of these houses, and company expected about these tiers, either by proceeding at once boldly and without deliberation to the goal, as is recohts on high things, like Orpheus, who, "loudly singing the praises of the gods to his lyre, drowned the voices of the Sirens, and kept out of danger" Sometimes I bolted suddenly, and nobody could tell racefulness, and never hesitated at a gap in a fence I was even acustomed to make an irruption into so the kernels and very last sieveful of news -- what had subsided, the prospects of war and peace, and whether the world was likely to hold together h the rear avenues, and so escaped to the woods again

It was very pleasant, when I stayed late in town, to launch ht, especially if it was dark and tee parlor or lecture roo of rye or Indianht without and withdrawn under hatches with aonlyup the helht by the cabin fire "as I sailed" I was never cast away nor distressed in any weather, though I encountered some severe storhts, thanbetween the trees above the path in order to learn my route, and, where there was no cart-path, to feel with my feet the faint track which I had worn, or steer by the known relation of particular trees which I felt withbetween two pines for instance, not hteen inches apart, in the ht Soht, whenand absent- to raise my hand to lift the latch, I have not been able to recall a single step of ht that perhaps my body would find its way home if its master should forsake it, as the hand finds its way to the mouth without assistance Several ti, and it proved a dark night, I was obliged to conduct him to the cart-path in the rear of the house, and then point out to hi which he was to be guided rather by his feet than his eyes One very dark night I directed thus on their o youngin the pond They lived about a h the woods, and were quite used to the route A day or two after one of theht, close by their own pre, by which time, as there had been several heavy showers in the meanwhile, and the leaves were very wet, they were drenched to their skins I have heard of e streets, when the darkness was so thick that you could cut it with a knife, as the saying is So in their wagons, have been obliged to put up for the night; and gentleone half athe sidewalk only with their feet, and not knohen they turned It is a surprising and memorable, as well as valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time Often in a snow-storm, even by day, one will come out upon a well-known road and yet find it ih he knows that he has travelled it a thousand tie to hiht, of course, the perplexity is infinitely greater In our h unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands, and if we go beyond our usual course we still carry in ourcape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round -- for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost -- do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature Every ain as often as be awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations

One afternoon, near the end of the first suet a shoe from the cobbler&039;s, I was seized and put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the State which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle, at the door of its senate-house I had gone down to the woods for other purposes But, wherever a oes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain hi to their desperate odd-fellow society It is true, I ht have run "aainst society; but I preferred that society should run "a the desperate party However, I was released the next day, obtained et my dinner of huckleberries on Fair Haven Hill I was never molested by any person but those who represented the State I had no lock nor bolt but for the desk which held my papers, not even a nail to put over ht or day, though I was to be absent several days; not even when the next fall I spent a fortnight in the woods of Maine And yet my house was more respected than if it had been surrounded by a file of soldiers The tired rambler could rest and warm himself by my fire, the literary amuse himself with the few books onmy closet door, see as left of h many people of every class came this way to the pond, I suffered no serious inconvenience fro but one silded, and this I trust a soldier of our camp has found by this time I am convinced, that if alland robbery would be unknown These take place only in coot h The Pope&039;s Hoet properly distributed

"Nec bella fuerunt,

Faginus astabat dum scyphus ante dapes"

"Nor wars did men molest,

When only beechen boere in request"

"You who govern public affairs, what need have you to employ punishments? Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a corass, when the wind passes over it, bends"