Page 11 (1/2)
As I ca lie thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tery then, except for that wildness which he represented Once or twice, however, while I lived at the pond, I foundthe woods, like a half-starved hound, with a strange abandonht devour, and no e for me The wildest scenes had become unaccountably familiar I found in her, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do e one, and I reverence theood The wildness and adventure that are in fishing still recommended it to me I like sometimes to take rank hold on life and spend my day more as the ani, when quite young, my closest acquaintance with Nature They early introduce us to and detain us in scenery hich otherwise, at that age, we should have little acquaintance Fisher their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of Nature the her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation She is not afraid to exhibit herself to them The traveller on the prairie is naturally a hunter, on the head waters of the Missouri and Columbia a trapper, and at the Falls of St Mary a fishers at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human experience
They mistake who assert that the Yankee has few amusements, because he has not so aland, for here the , and the like have not yet given place to the for es of ten and fourteen; and his hunting and fishing grounds were not lilish noblee No wonder, then, that he did not oftener stay to play on the co, not to an increased huareatest friend of the ani the Humane Society
Moreover, when at the pond, I wished sometimes to add fish to my fare for variety I have actually fished from the same kind of necessity that the first fishers did Whatever huainst it was all factitious, and concernedonly now, for I had long felt differently about fowling, and sold un before I went to the woods Not that I am less hus were much affected I did not pity the fishes nor the wor the last years that I carried a gun ht only new or rare birds But I confess that I a ornithology than this It requires so much closer attention to the habits of the birds, that, if for that reason only, I have been willing to o the objection on the score of humanity, I am compelled to doubt if equally valuable sports are ever substituted for these; and when some of my friends have asked me anxiously about their boys, whether they should let the that it was one of the best parts of h sportshty hunters at last, so that they shall not find gaetable wilderness -- hunters as well as fishers of men Thus far I am of the opinion of Chaucer&039;s nun, who
"yave not of the text a pulled hen
That saith that hunters ben not holy men"
There is a period in the history of the individual, as of the race, when the hunters are the "best onquins called theun; he is no lected This was my ansith respect to those youths ere bent on this pursuit, trusting that they would soon outgrow it No hue of boyhood, antonly murder any creature which holds its life by the same tenure that he does The hare in its extremity cries like a child I warn you, mothers, that my sympathies do not always make the usual philanthropic distinctions
Such is oftenest the young inal part of hioes thither at first as a hunter and fisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of a better life in hiuishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist it un and fish-pole behind Thein this respect In soht Such a onethe Good Shepherd I have been surprised to consider that the only obvious e, or the like business, which ever to e detained at Walden Pond for a whole half-day any of my fellow-citizens, whether fathers or children of the toith just one exception, was fishing Commonly they did not think that they were lucky, or well paid for their tih they had the opportunity of seeing the pond all the while Theywould sink to the botto process would be going on all the while The Governor and his Council faintly re there when they were boys; but now they are too old and dignified to go a-fishing, and so they know it no o to heaven at last If the legislature regards it, it is chiefly to regulate the nu about the hook of hooks hich to angle for the pond itself, iislature for a bait Thus, even in civilized coe of development
I have found repeatedly, of late years, that I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect I have tried it again and again I have skill at it, and, like many of my fellows, a certain instinct for it, which revives from time to time, but alhen I have done I feel that it would have been better if I had not fished I think that I do not mistake It is a faint inti There is unquestionably this instinct in s to the lower orders of creation; yet with every year I ah without more humanity or even wisdom; at present I am no fisherman at all But I see that if I were to live in a wilderness I should again be tempted to beco essentially unclean about this diet and all flesh, and I began to see where housework commences, and whence the endeavor, which costs so much, to wear a tidy and respectable appearance each day, to keep the house sweet and free fro been entleman for whom the dishes were served up, I can speak from an unusually complete experience The practical objection to animal food in ht and cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seenificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it came to A little bread or a few potatoes would have done as well, with less trouble and filth Like many of my contemporaries, I had rarely for many years used animal food, or tea, or coffee, etc; not so much because of any ill effects which I had traced to theination The repugnance to animal food is not the effect of experience, but is an instinct It appeared more beautiful to live low and fare hard in h to please ination I believe that every her or poetic faculties in the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain fronificant fact, stated by entoists -- I find it in Kirby and Spence -- that "soans of feeding, eneral rule, that almost all insects in this state eat much less than in that of larvae The voracious caterpillar when transforot when become a fly" content themselves with a drop or two of honey or sos of the butterfly still represents the larva This is the tidbit which teross feeder is a man in the larva state; and there are whole nations in that condition, nations without fancy or iination, whose vast abdomens betray them
It is hard to provide and cook so siination; but this, I think, is to be fed e feed the body; they should both sit down at the same table Yet perhaps this may be done The fruits eaten temperately need not make us ashamed of our appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest pursuits But put an extra condiment into your dish, and it will poison you It is not worth the while to live by rich cookery Mostwith their own hands precisely such a dinner, whether of anietable food, as is every day prepared for them by others Yet till this is othere are not civilized, and, if gentlegests what change is to be ination will not be reconciled to flesh and fat I am satisfied that it is not Is it not a reproach that man is a carnivorous anireaton other anio to snaring rabbits, or slaughtering laarded as a benefactor of his race who shall teach man to confine himself to a more innocent and wholesome diet Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the hu ani each other when they came in contact with the more civilized
If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions of his genius, which are certainly true, he sees not to what extremes, or even insanity, it rows more resolute and faithful, his road lies The faintest assured objection which one healthy uenius till it h the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conforht are such that you greet therance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, ratulation, and you have cause ains and values are farthest fro appreciated We easily coet thehest reality Perhaps the factsand most real are never communicated by man to ible and indescribable as the tints of ment of the rainbohich I have clutched
Yet, for my part, I was never unusually squeaood relish, if it were necessary I a, for the same reason that I prefer the natural sky to an opium-eater&039;s heaven I would fain keep sober always; and there are infinite degrees of drunkenness I believe that water is the only drink for a wisethe hopes of awith a dish of tea! Ah, ho I fall when I a Such apparently slight causes destroyed Greece and Roland and America Of all ebriosity, who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes? I have found it to be thecontinued, that they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also But to tell the truth, I find myself at present soion to the table, ask no blessing; not because I aed to confess, because, however rown more coarse and indifferent Perhaps these questions are entertained only in youth, as most believe of poetry My practice is "nowhere,"ed ones to whom the Ved refers when it says, that "he who has true faith in the O may eat all that exists," that is, is not bound to inquire what is his food, or who prepares it; and even in their case it is to be observed, as a Hindoo coe to "the time of distress"
Who has not sometimes derived an inexpressible satisfaction from his food in which appetite had no share? I have been thrilled to think that I owed a ross sense of taste, that I have been inspired through the palate, that soenius "The soul not being -tseu, "one looks, and one does not see; one listens, and one does not hear; one eats, and one does not know the savor of food" He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise A puritan ross an appetite as ever an alderman to his turtle Not that food which entereth into the mouth defileth a man, but the appetite hich it is eaten It is neither the quality nor the quantity, but the devotion to sensual savors; when that which is eaten is not a viand to sustain our animal, or inspire our spiritual life, but food for the worms that possess us If the hunter has a taste for e tidbits, the fine lady indulges a taste for jelly made of a calf&039;s foot, or for sardines frooes to the mill-pond, she to her preserve-pot The wonder is how they, how you and I, can live this sli
Our whole life is startlingly moral There is never an instant&039;s truce between virtue and vice Goodness is the only investment that never fails In the music of the harp which tre on this which thrills us The harp is the travelling patterer for the Universe&039;s Insurance Cooodness is all the assessrows indifferent, the laws of the universe are not indifferent, but are forever on the side of the most sensitive Listen to every zephyr for some reproof, for it is surely there, and he is unfortunate who does not hear it We cannot touch a string orway off, is heard as music, a proud, sweet satire on the meanness of our lives