Bedtime Tale: Walden Chapter 1 Part 3

Enjoy this bedtime tale to help you drift off into a peaceful slumber. Tonight we read, Walden: Ch 1 Part 3, by Henry David Thoreau. Chapter One, Economy, describes Thoreau's embarking on a 2-year stay in the woods of Massachusetts by the Walden Pond. This audio is perfect for children or adults who want to relax, discover magic, or find adventure before a great night's sleep.

Transcript

Walden by Henry David Thoreau CHAPTER I.

ECONOMY PART III As this business was to be entered into without the usual capital,

It may not be easy to conjecture where those means,

That will still be indispensable to every such undertaking,

Were to be obtained.

As for clothing,

To come at once to the practical part of the question,

Perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty and a regard for the opinions of men in procuring it—that by true utility.

Let him who has work to do recollect that the object of clothing is,

First,

To retain the vital heat,

And secondly,

In this state of society,

To cover nakedness.

And he may judge how much of any necessary or important work may be accomplished without adding to his wardrobe.

Kings and queens,

Who wear a suit but once,

Though made by some tailor or dressmaker to their majesties,

Cannot know the comfort of wearing a suit that fits.

They are no better than wooden horses to hang the clean clothes on.

Every day our garments become more assimilated to ourselves,

Receiving the impress of the wearer's character,

Until we hesitate to lay them aside,

Without such delay and medical appliances,

In some such solemnity even as our bodies.

No man ever stood the lower,

In my estimation,

For having a patch in his clothes,

Yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety,

Commonly,

To have fashionable or at least clean and unpatched clothes than to have a sound conscience.

But even if the rent is not mended,

Perhaps the worst vice betrayed is improvidence.

I sometimes try my acquaintances by such tests as this.

Who could wear a patch or two extra seams only over the knee?

Most behave as if they believe that their prospects for life would be ruined if they should do it.

It would be easier for them to hobble to town with a broken leg than with a broken pantaloon.

Often,

If an accident happens to a gentleman's legs,

They can be mended.

But if a similar accident happens to the legs of his pantaloons,

There is no help for it,

For he considers,

Not what is truly respectable,

But what is respected.

We know but few men,

A great many coats and breeches.

Dress a scarecrow in your last shift.

You standing shiftless by,

Who would not soon as salute the scarecrow?

Passing a cornfield the other day,

Close by a hat and a coat on a stake,

I recognized the owner of the farm.

He was only a little more weather-beaten than when I saw him last.

I have heard of a dog that barked at every stranger who approached his master's premises with clothes on,

But was easily quieted by a naked thief.

It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.

Could you,

In such a case,

Tell surely of a company of civilized men which belong to the most respected class?

When Madame Pfeiffer,

In her adventurous travels around the world,

From east to west,

Had got so near home of Russia,

She says that she felt the necessity of wearing other than a traveling dress when she went to meet the authorities,

For she was now in a civilized country where people are judged of by their clothes.

Even in our democratic New England towns the accidental possession of wealth and its manifestation in dress obtain for the professor almost universal respect,

But they yield such respect,

Numerous as they are,

Are so far heathen and need to have a missionary sent to them.

Beside clothes introduced sewing,

A kind of work which you may call endless,

A women's dress at least,

Is never done.

A man who has at length found something to do will not need to get a new suit to do it in.

For him the old one will do.

That has lain dusty in the garret for an indeterminate period.

Old shoes will serve a hero longer than they have served his valet,

If a hero ever has a valet.

Bare feet are older than shoes,

And he can make them do.

Only they who go to soirees and legislative halls must have new coats,

Coats to change as often as the man changes in them.

But if my jacket and trousers,

My hat and shoes,

Are fit to worship God in,

They will do,

Will they not?

Whoever saw his old clothes,

His old coat,

Actually worn out,

Resolved into its primitive elements,

So that it was not a deed of charity to bestow it on some poor boy,

By him perchance to be bestowed on some poorer still,

Or shall we say richer,

Who could do with less?

I say,

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes,

And not,

Rather,

A new wearer of clothes.

If there is not a new man,

How can the new clothes be made to fit?

If you have any enterprise before you,

Try it in your old clothes.

All men want,

Not something to do with,

But something to do,

Or rather,

Something to be.

Perhaps we should never procure a new suit,

However ragged or dirty the old,

Until we have so conducted,

So enterprised,

Or sailed in some way,

That we feel like the new men in the old,

And that to retain it would be like keeping the wine in old bottles.

Our molting season,

Like that of the fowls,

Must be a crisis in our lives.

The loon retires to solitary ponds to spend it,

Thus also the snake casts its slough,

And the caterpillar its wormy coat.

By an internal industry,

An expansion,

For clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal coil.

Otherwise we shall be found sailing under false colors,

And be inevitably cashiered at last by our own opinion,

As well as that of mankind.

We don garment after garment,

As if we grow like exogenous plants by addition without.

Our outside,

And often thin and fanciful clothes,

Are our epidermis,

Or false skin,

Which partakes not of our life,

And may be stripped off here and there without fatal injury.

Our thicker garments,

Constantly worn,

Are our cellular integument,

Or cortex,

But our shirts are our liber,

Or true bark,

Which cannot be removed without girdling,

And so destroying the man.

I believe that all races,

At some seasons,

Wear something equivalent to the shirt.

It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on something in the dark,

And that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly that,

If an enemy take the town,

He can,

Like the old philosopher,

Walk out of the gate empty-handed,

Without anxiety.

While one thick garment is,

For most purposes,

As good as three thin ones,

And cheap clothing can be obtained at prices really to suit customers,

While a thick coat can be bought for five dollars,

Which will last as many years,

Thick pantaloons for two dollars,

Cowhide boots for a dollar and a half a pair,

A summer hat for a quarter of a dollar,

And a winter cap for sixty-two and a half cents,

Or better be made at home,

At a nominal cost.

Where is he so poor that,

Clad in such a suit,

Of his own earning,

There will not be found wise men to do him reverence?

When I ask for a garment of a particular form,

My tailoress tells me gravely,

They do not make them so now,

Not emphasizing the they at all,

As if she quoted an authority as impersonal as the fates,

And I find it difficult to get made what I want,

Simply because she cannot believe that I mean what I say,

That I am so rash.

When I hear this oracular sentence,

I am for a moment absorbed in thought,

Emphasizing to myself each word separately,

That I may come at the meaning of it,

That I may find out by what degree of consanguinity they are referring to me,

And what authority they may have an affair which affects me so nearly.

And finally,

I am inclined to answer with equal mystery,

And without any more emphasis of the they.

It is true,

They do not make them so recently,

But they do now.

Of what use this measuring of me,

If she does not measure my character,

But only the breadth of my shoulders,

As it were a peg to hang the coat on.

We worship not the graces,

Nor the fashion,

She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority.

The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler's cap,

And all the monkeys in America do the same.

I sometimes despair of getting anything quite simple and honest done in this world by the help of men.

They would have to be passed through a powerful press first,

To squeeze their old notions out of them,

So that they would not soon get upon their legs again.

And then there would be someone in the company with a maggot in his head,

Hatched from an egg,

Depositive there,

Nobody knows when.

For not even fire kills these things.

And you would have lost your labor.

Nonetheless,

We will not forget that some Egyptian wheat was handed down to us by a mummy.

On the whole,

I think that it cannot be maintained that dressing has in this or any other country risen to the dignity of an art.

At present,

Men make shift to wear what they can get.

Like shipwrecked sailors,

They put on what they can find on the beach,

And at a little distance,

Whether of space or time,

Laugh at each other's masquerade.

Every generation laughs at the old fashions,

But follows religiously the new.

We are amused at beholding the costume of Henry VIII,

Or Queen Elizabeth,

As much as if it was the king and queen of the cannibal islands.

All costume of a man is pitiful or grotesque.

It is only the serious eye peering from and the sincere life passed within,

Which restrain laughter and consecrate the costume of any people.

Let Harlequin be taken with the fit of the colic,

And his trappings will have to serve that mood,

Too.

When the soldier is hit by a cannonball,

Rags are as becoming as purple.

The childish and savage taste of men and women for new patterns keeps how many shaking and squinting through kaleidoscopes that they may discover the particular figure which this generation requires today.

The manufacturers have learned that this taste is merely whimsical.

Of two patterns which differ only by a few threads,

More or less of a particular color,

The one will be sold readily,

The other lie on the shelf,

Though it frequently happens that after the lapse of a season,

The latter becomes the most fashionable.

Comparatively,

Tattooing is not the hideous custom which it is called,

It is not barbarous merely because the printing is skin deep and unalterable.

I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing.

The condition of the operatives is becoming every day more like that of the English,

And it cannot be wondered at,

Since,

As far as I have heard or observed,

The principal object is,

Not that mankind may be well and honestly clad,

But,

Unquestionably,

That corporations may be enriched.

In the long run,

Men hit only what they aim at.

Therefore,

Though they should fail immediately,

They had better aim at something high.

As for shelter,

I will not deny that this is now a necessary of life,

Though there are instances of men having done without it for long periods in colder countries than this.

Samuel Lang says that the laplander in his skin-dress and in a skin-bag which he puts over his head and shoulders will sleep night after night on the snow,

In a degree of cold which would extinguish the life of one exposed to it in any woolen clothing.

He had seen them asleep thus,

Yet,

He adds,

They are not hardier than other people.

But,

Probably,

Man did not live long on the earth without discovering the convenience which there is in a house,

The domestic comforts which phrase many have originally signified the satisfactions of the house more than of the family.

Though these must be extremely partial and occasional in those climates where the house is associated in our thoughts with winter or the rainy season chiefly,

And two-thirds of the year,

Except for a parasol,

Is unnecessary.

In our climate,

In the summer,

It was formerly almost solely a covering at night.

In the Indian gazettes,

A wigwam was the symbol of a day's march,

And a row of them cut or painted on the bark of a tree signified that so many times they had camped.

Man was not made so large-limbed and robust that he must seek to narrow his world and wall in a space such as fitted him.

He was at first bare and out the doors,

But though this was a pleasant enough and serene and warm weather,

By daylight,

The rainy season in the winter,

To say nothing of the torrid sun,

Would perhaps have nipped his race in the bud if he had not made haste to clothe themselves with the shelter of a house.

Adam and Eve,

According to the fable,

Wore the bower before other clothes.

Man wanted a home,

A place of warmth or comfort,

First of physical warmth,

Then the warmth of affections.

We may imagine a time when,

In the infancy of the human race,

Some enterprising mortal crept into a hollow in a rock for shelter.

Every child begins the world again,

To some extent,

And loves to stay outdoors,

Even in wet and cold.

It plays house,

As well as horse,

Having an instinct for it.

Who does not remember the interest with which,

When young,

He looked at shelving rocks or any approach to a cave?

It was the natural yearning of that portion of our most primitive ancestor which still survived in us.

From the cave we have advanced to roofs of palm leaves,

Of bark,

Of linen woven and stretched,

Of grass and straw,

Of boards and shingles,

Of stones and tiles.

At last,

We know not what it is to live in the open air,

And our lives are domestic in more senses than we think.

From the hearth to the field is a great distance.

It would be well,

Perhaps,

If we were to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction between us and the celestial bodies.

If the poet did not speak so much from under a roof,

Or the saint dwell there so long.

Birds do not sing in caves,

Nor do doves cherish their innocence in dovecots.

However,

If one designs to construct a dwelling-house,

It behooves him to exercise a little Yankee shrewdness,

Lest after all he find himself in a workhouse,

A labyrinth without a clue,

A museum,

An almshouse,

A prison,

Or a splendid mausoleum instead.

Consider first how slight a shelter is absolutely necessary.

I have seen some Indians in this town living in tents in thin cotton cloth while the snow was nearly a foot deep around them,

And I thought that they would be glad to have it deeper to keep out the wind.

Formally,

When how to get my living honestly,

With freedom left for my proper pursuits,

Was a question which vexed me more than it does now,

For unfortunately I am become somewhat callous.

I used to see a large box by the railroad,

Six feet long by three feet wide,

In which the laborers locked up their tools at night,

And it suggested to me that every man who was hard pushed might get some,

For a dollar,

And having bored a few auger-holes in it,

To admit the errand at least,

Get into it when it rained,

And at night,

And hook the lid,

And so have the freedom in his love,

And his soul be free.

This did not appear the worst,

Nor by any means a despicable alternative.

You could sit up as late as you pleased,

And whenever you get up,

Go abroad without any landlord or house-lord dogging you for rent.

Many a man is harassed to death to pay the rent of a larger and more luxurious box,

Who would have frozen death in a box just as this.

I am far from jesting.

Economy is a subject which admits of being treated with levity,

But it cannot be so disposed of.

A comfortable house for a rude and hardy race,

That lived almost out of doors,

Was once made here almost entirely of such materials,

As nature furnished,

Ready to their hands.

Gookin,

Who was the superintendent of the Indian subject to the Massachusetts colony,

Writing in 1674,

Says,

The best of their houses are covered very neatly,

Tight and warm,

With barks of trees,

Slipped from their bodies at those seasons when the sap is up,

And made into great flakes,

With pressure of weighty timber,

When they are green.

This meaner sort are covered with mats which they make of a kind of bulrush,

And are also indifferently tight and warm,

But not so good as the former.

Some I have seen sixty or a hundred feet long,

And thirty feet broad.

I have often lodged in their wigwams,

And found them as warm as the best English houses.

He adds that they were commonly carpeted and lined with well-wrought embroidered mats,

And were furnished with various utensils.

The Indians had advanced so far as to regulate the effect of the wind by a mat suspended over the whole of the roof and moved by a string.

Such a lodge was in the first instance constructed in a day or two at most,

And taken down and put up in a few hours,

And every family owned one,

Or its apartment in one.

In the savage state every family owns a shelter as good as the best,

And sufficient for its coarser and simpler wants.

But I think that I speak within bounds when I say that,

Though the birds of the air have their nests,

And the foxes their holes,

And the savages their wigwams,

In modern civilized society not more than one half of the families own a shelter.

In the large towns and cities where civilization especially prevails,

The number of those who own a shelter is a very small fraction of the whole.

The rest pay an annual tax for this outside garment of all,

Become indispensable summer and winter,

Which would buy a village of Indian wigwams,

But now helps to keep them poor as long as they live.

I do not mean to insist here on the disadvantage of hiring compared with owning,

But it is evident that the savage owns his shelter because it costs so little,

While the civilized man hires his commonly because he cannot afford to own it,

Nor can he in the long run any better afford to hire.

But,

Answers one,

By merely paying this tax the poor civilized man secures an abode,

Which is a palace compared with the savages,

An annual rent of from twenty-five to a hundred dollars.

These are the country rates,

Entitles him to the benefit of the improvements of centuries,

Spacious apartments,

Clean paint and paper,

Rumfered fireplace,

Back plastering,

Venetian blinds,

Copper pump,

Spring lock,

A commodious cellar,

And many other things.

But how happens it that he who is said to enjoy these things is so commonly a poor civilized man,

While the savage who has them not is rich as a savage?

If it is asserted that civilization is a real advantage in the condition of man,

And I think that it is,

Though only the wise improve their advantages,

It must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly,

And the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it,

Immediately or in the long run.

An average house in this neighborhood costs perhaps eight hundred dollars,

And to lay up this sum will take from ten to fifteen years of the laborer's life,

Even if he is not encumbered with a family.

Estimating the value of every man's labor at one dollar a day,

For some receive more,

Others receive less,

So that he must have spent more than half his life,

Commonly,

Before his wigwam will be earned.

If we suppose him to pay a rent instead,

This is but a doubtful choice of evils.

Would the savage have been wise to exchange his wigwam for a palace on these terms?

And that is the end of our story this evening.

Until next time,

Sweet dreams.

Reviews

Thank you, Hilary! I didn’t hear much, maybe next time. 💕