Walden Part 1: Economy, Chapter 3

As described in recent posts, I’m creating a new adaptation of Walden by Henry David Thoreau. After months of editing and research, I’m excited to finally share the first several chapters with you. The following is chapter three, which includes edits by myself and Billy Merrell, my co-editor. Please note that the printed edition will include annotations for reference material and words or phrases that bear explanation. For more about this project and the forthcoming Kickstarter campaign, read this post. If you’re just now jumping in, you’ll find chapter one here.

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3. Building

Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, near the place where I intended to build my house. I began to cut down some tall, arrowy white pines, still in their youth, for timber. It’s hard to begin without borrowing, but it may be the most generous approach, as it permits others to take an interest in your enterprise. As he released his hold on the axe, the owner said it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it sharper than I received it. The hillside where I worked was pleasant, covered with pine woods, through which I looked out at the pond, and a small open field in the woods where pines and hickories were springing up. The ice in the pond had not yet dissolved, though there were some open spaces, and it was all dark and saturated with water. There were some slight snow flurries during those days. But for the most part, when I came out to the railroad on my way home, its yellow sand heap gleamed in the hazy atmosphere, the rails shone in the spring sun, and I heard larks, pewees, and other birds already coming to begin another year with us. Those were pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man’s discontent was thawing alongside the earth, and the life that had hibernated began to stretch itself. One day, my axehead had come off. I cut a green hickory for a wedge, driving it with a stone, and placed the axe to soak in a pond hole to swell the wood. At that moment, I saw a striped snake run into the water, and he lay on the bottom, apparently without inconvenience, for more than fifteen minutes. Perhaps he had not yet completely shaken off his torpid state. It appeared to me that for a similar reason men remain in their low and primitive condition. But if they should feel the influence of the spring of springs arousing them, they would rise out of necessity to a higher, more ethereal life. I had previously seen snakes on frosty mornings laying across my path with portions of their bodies still numb and inflexible, waiting for the sun to thaw them. On the first of April it rained and melted the ice, and in the early part of the day, which was very foggy, I heard a stray goose groping about over the pond and cackling as if lost, or like the spirit of the fog.

So I worked for some days cutting and shaping timber, as well as studs and rafters, all with my narrow axe, not having many communicable thoughts, though I sang all the while:

Men say they know many things;
But see! They have taken wings —
The arts and sciences,
And a thousand appliances;
The wind that blows
Is all that anybody knows.

I cut the main timbers six inches square, most of the studs on two sides, and the rafters and floor timbers on one side, leaving the rest of the bark on, so that they were just as straight and much stronger than sawed ones. I had borrowed other tools by this time, and each stick was carefully mortised or tenoned by its stump. My days in the woods were not very long, though I usually carried my lunch of bread and butter, and read the newspaper in which it was wrapped, sitting among the freshly cut green pine boughs. To my bread they imparted some of their fragrance, for my hands were covered with a thick coat of sap. By the time my work was done, I had become more the friend than the foe of the pine tree, though I had cut down some of them. Sometimes a rambler in the wood was attracted by the sound of my axe, and we chatted pleasantly over the chips which I had made.

I made no haste in my work, but rather made the most of it. By the middle of April, my house was framed and ready for raising. I had already bought the house of James Collins, an Irishman who worked on the Fitchburg Railroad, for boards. James Collins’ shanty was considered an uncommonly fine one. When I came to see it he was not at home. I walked around the outside, at first unobserved from within, the window being so deep and high. It was small, with a peaked cottage roof, and not much else to be seen, the dirt being raised five feet all around as if it were a compost heap. The roof was the soundest part, though the sun had made it warped and brittle. There was no doorsill, but a perennial passage for the hens under the door board. Mrs. C. came to the door and invited me to view it from the inside. The hens were driven in by my approach. It was dark, and had a dirt floor for the most part — dank, clammy, and aguish, with only here and there a board which would not bear removal. She lit a lamp to show me the inside of the roof and the walls, and also that the board floor extended under the bed, warning me not to step into the cellar, a sort of dust hole two feet deep. In her own words, they were “good boards overhead, good boards all around, and a good window.” All told, there was a stove, a bed, a place to sit, an infant in the house where it was born, a silk umbrella, a gilt-framed looking-glass, and a patent new coffee grinder nailed to an oak sapling. The bargain was soon concluded, for James had in the meanwhile returned. I to pay four dollars and twenty five cents tonight, he to vacate at five tomorrow morning, selling to nobody else meanwhile. I to take possession at six. It would be good, he said, to be there early, and anticipate certain unclear but wholly unjust claims on the score of ground rent and fuel. This he assured me was the only impediment. At six I passed him and his family on the road. One large bundle held everything they owned — bed, coffee grinder, looking-glass, hens — all but their cat. She took to the woods and became a wild cat, and, as I learned afterward, stepped in a trap set for woodchucks, and so became a dead cat at last.

I dismantled this house the same morning, drew the nails, and moved it to the pond’s shore by small cartloads, spreading the boards on the grass to bleach and warp back again in the sun. One early thrush gave me a note or two as I drove along the woodland path. I was treacherously informed by a young Irishman that a man named Seeley, in the intervals of my carting, transferred the still tolerable, straight, and drivable nails, staples, and spikes to his pocket. When I came back to pass the time of day, he stood and looked up, with an unconcerned face and spring thoughts, at the devastation; there being a shortage of work, as he said. He was there to represent spectatordom, and help make this seemingly insignificant event on par with the removal of the gods of Troy.

I dug my cellar in the side of a hill sloping to the south, where a woodchuck had formerly dug his burrow, down through sumach and blackberry roots, and the lowest stain of vegetation, six feet square by seven deep, to a fine sand where potatoes would not freeze in any winter. The sides were left for shelving, and not stoned. But the sun had never shone on them, and the sand still keeps its place. It was a mere two hours’ work. I took particular pleasure in this breaking of ground, for in nearly all latitudes people dig into the earth for an equable temperature. Under the most splendid house in the city, one still finds the cellar where they store their roots as in old times. Long after the superstructure has disappeared, posterity marks its dent in the earth. The house is still little more than a sort of porch at the entrance of a burrow.

With the help of some acquaintances, I set up the frame of my house in the beginning of May, more to create an ideal occasion for neighborliness than from any necessity. No man was ever more honored in the character of his raisers than I. They are destined, I believe, to assist at the raising of loftier structures one day. I began to occupy my house on the 4th of July, as soon as it was boarded and roofed. The boards were carefully feather-edged and lapped, so that it was perfectly impervious to rain. Before boarding I laid the foundation of a chimney at one end, bringing two cartloads of stones up the hill from the pond in my arms. I built the chimney after my hoeing in the fall, before a fire became necessary for warmth, doing my cooking in the meanwhile outdoors on the ground, early in the morning. I still think this method is in some respects more convenient and agreeable than the usual one. When it stormed before my bread was baked, I fixed a few boards over the fire, and sat under them to watch my loaf, and passed some pleasant hours in that way. In those days, when my hands were often employed, I read little. But the smallest scraps of paper which lay around afforded as much entertainment, in fact answered the same purpose, as the Iliad.

It would be worthwhile to build even more deliberately than I did. We might consider, for instance, what foundation a door, a window, a cellar, or an attic have in the nature of man, and perhaps never raise any superstructure until we found a better reason for it than our temporal necessities. There’s some of the same wholesomeness in building one’s own house that there is in a bird’s building its own nest. If all of us constructed our dwellings with our own hands, and provided food for our selves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty might be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are building. Instead, we act like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveler with their chattering and unmusical notes. Should we continue to resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter? What does architecture amount to in the experience of most people? In all my walks, I never came across a man engaged in so simple and natural a project as building his house. We belong to the community. It isn’t the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? And what purpose does it finally serve? No doubt another person may also think for me; but it isn’t therefore desirable that they should do so to the point where I no longer think for myself.

Yes, there are so-called architects in this country. I have heard of at least one who proposed the idea of imbuing architectural ornaments with a core of truth, a necessity, and therefore a beauty, as if it were a revelation to him. A sentimental reformer in architecture, he began at the cornice, not at the foundation. His concern was how to put a core of truth within the ornaments — that every sugarplum might have an almond or caraway seed in it — and not how the inhabitant might build truly within and without, and let the ornaments take care of themselves. A person has no more to do with the architectural style of their house than a tortoise with that of its shell, or a shellfish with its mother-of-pearl tints. Nor must the soldier be so idle as to try to paint the precise color of his virtue on his standard. The enemy will find it out. He may turn pale when the trial comes.

This architect seemed to me to lean over the cornice, and timidly whisper his half truth to the occupants who knew it better. What architectural beauty we now see has gradually grown from within, out of the necessities and character of the habitant, who is the only true builder. It stems from some unconscious truthfulness, and nobility, with no thought for the appearance. Whatever additional beauty of this kind is produced will be preceded by a similar unconscious beauty of life. Some of the most interesting dwellings in the world, as many painters know, are the most humble cabins and cottages of the poor. It’s the life of the inhabitants whose shells they are, and not any peculiarity in their surfaces, which makes them picturesque. The citizen’s suburban box will be equally interesting when their life becomes as simple and as agreeable to the imagination, and there is as little straining after impact in the design of his dwelling. Many architectural ornaments are literally hollow, and a September gale would strip them off without harming the core structure. Those who have no olives nor wine in the cellar can do without architecture. What if a similar fuss were made about the ornaments of style in literature, and the architects of our Bibles spent as much time about their cornices as the architects of our churches? A man is deeply concerned with how a few sticks are slanted over or under him, and what colors are painted on his box. It would carry some meaning if, in any earnest sense, he slanted them and painted the box himself. But when the spirit leaves the body, he might as well have constructed his own coffin — the architecture of the grave — whereby carpenter is just another name for coffin-maker. One man says, in his despair or indifference to life, “pick up a handful of the earth at your feet, and paint your house that color.” Is he thinking of his last and narrow house? Toss a coin for it as well. What an abundance of leisure he must have! Why do you pick up a handful of dirt? It would be better to paint your house your own complexion. Let it turn pale or blush for you. An enterprise to improve the style of cottage architecture! When you have got my ornaments ready, I will wear them.

Before winter I built a chimney, and shingled the sides of my house. They were already impervious to rain, with imperfect and sappy shingles made of the first slice of the log, whose edges I straightened with a plane.

In the end, I had a tightly shingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by fifteen long, with eight feet posts, a loft, a closet, a large window on each side, two trap doors, one door at the end, and a brick fireplace on the opposite wall. The exact cost of my house, including all materials (but not counting the work, all of which was done by myself) are listed below. I give the details because few of us are able to tell exactly what our houses cost, and fewer still, if any, can list the separate costs of the various materials which compose them.

Boards — mostly from the shanty $8.03 1/2
Refuse shingles for roof sides 4.00
Laths 1.25
Two second-hand windows with glass 2.43
One thousand old brick 4.00
Two casks of lime 2.40
Hair — more than I needed 0.31
Mantle-tree iron 0.15
Nails 3.90
Hinges and screws 0.14
Latch 0.10
Chalk 0.01
Transportation—I carried a good part on my back 1.40
In all: $28.12 1/2

These are all the materials, besides the local timber, stones, and sand, which I claimed by squatter’s right. I also built a small woodshed, made mostly of the stuff which was left after building my house.

I intend to build a house which will surpass any on the main street in Concord in grandeur and luxury, as soon as it pleases me as much and will cost no more than my present one.

From my experiment, I found that the student who wants a shelter can obtain one for a lifetime at an expense no greater than the annual rent they now pay. If I boast too much, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself. My shortcomings and inconsistencies do not affect the truth of my statement. Notwithstanding much hypocrisy — chaff which I find difficult to separate from my wheat, but for which I am as sorry as any one — I will breathe freely and stretch myself in this respect, as it is such a relief to both the moral and physical system. I’m determined not to become the devil’s attorney through humility, and therefore I’ll try to speak a good word for the truth. At Cambridge College, the cost to rent a student’s room, which is only a little larger than my own, is thirty dollars a year. The occupant suffers the inconvenience of many noisy neighbors. I think that if we had more wisdom in this area, not only would we need less education, since more would have already been acquired, but the pecuniary cost of an education would all but vanish. The conveniences which a student requires at Cambridge or Princeton cost them or a family member ten times as much as they would with better management on both sides of the table. The most expensive things in education are never the things a student needs most. While tuition is the costliest item on the list, far more value is gleaned from the education a student gets by associating with their most cultivated classmates at no cost whatsoever.

The way a college is founded, usually, is first to raise money, and secondly to call in a contractor who makes this a subject of speculation. He employs workers to lay the actual foundations, while the prospective students are preparing themselves for it; and successive generations have to pay for these oversights. I think it would be better if the students, or other people who wish to receive some benefit from the college, lay the foundation themselves. Students who secure their coveted leisure by systematically shirking any labor necessary to mankind obtain nothing more than an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding themselves of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful. “But,” you might say, “are you saying that students should go to work with their hands instead of their heads?” I do not mean that exactly, but I mean something which they might see as very similar to manual labor. I’m saying that students should not play life, or merely study it while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. What better way could young people learn to live than by trying the experiment of living? This would exercise their minds as much as mathematics. If I wanted a student to know something about the arts and sciences, for instance, I would not pursue the usual course, which is merely to send them into the vicinity of some professor, where anything is professed and practiced except the art of life. Otherwise, they might survey the world through a telescope or a microscope, and never with their natural eye; to study chemistry, and never learn how their bread is made. They might discover new satellites to Neptune, but never detect the motes in their eyes. Who would have learned the most at the end of a month: the student who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this, or the student who had attended lectures on metallurgy, and had received a penknife as a gift from his parents? Which would be most likely to cut his fingers? To my astonishment, on leaving college I discovered that I had studied navigation. If I had taken one walk along the harbor I would have learned more about it. Even the poor student studies and is taught political economy, while the economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is that while the student is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his parents or his future self into irretrievable debt.

As with our colleges, so with a hundred other ostensible improvements. There is an illusion around them, and rare is the true advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest till the end for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them. Many of our inventions amount to no more than pretty toys, which distract our attention from deeper things. They are merely improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already too easy to arrive at, as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to send messages from Maine to Texas. But perhaps Maine and Texas have nothing important to communicate. Either is in a predicament akin to a man who’s eager to meet a distinguished deaf woman, but when he’s introduced, and one end of her ear trumpet is put into his hand, he has nothing to say. It is as if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perhaps the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that some princess has the whooping cough. After all, the man whose horse trots a mile a minute doesn’t carry the most important messages. He is no evangelist, nor does he come round eating locusts and wild honey. I doubt if any racehorse ever carried corn to the mill.

Someone says to me, “I’m surprised that you don’t save money; you love to travel. You might take the train to Fitchburg today and see the country.” But I am wiser than that. I’ve learned that the swiftest traveler goes on foot. I say to my friend, “Suppose we try to see who will get there first. The distance is thirty miles, and the fare is almost a day’s wages. Well, I will start now on foot, and get there before night. You will in the meantime have earned your fare, and arrive there some time tomorrow, or possibly this evening, if you are lucky enough to get a job on such short notice. Instead of going to Fitchburg, you will be working here for most of the day. And so, if the railroad reached around the world, I think that I would stay ahead of you. And as for seeing the country and getting experience of that kind, I would have to leave your acquaintance altogether.”

Such is the universal law, which none of us can outwit, and even with regard to the railroad we might say it is as broad as it is long. To make a railroad round the world available to all mankind is equivalent to grading the whole surface of the planet. We have a hazy notion that if we continue this building of better roads long enough, everyone will eventually ride wherever they please, in next to no time, and for nothing. A crowd rushes to the depot, and the conductor shouts “All aboard!” But when the smoke is blown away and the vapor condensed, we may perceive that only a few are riding, and the rest are run over. It will be called, and will be, “a sad accident.” No doubt some can ride at last who have finally earned their fare, that is, if they survive so long, but they will probably have lost their elasticity and desire to travel by that time.

We spend the better part of our lives earning money in order to enjoy a questionable freedom during the final days of it. This reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune, so that he might return to England and live the life of a poet. He should have gone up into his attic and sat down to write at the outset.

“What!” exclaim a million Irishmen starting up from all the shanties in the land, “Are you saying this railroad which we have built is not a good thing?” Yes, I answer, comparatively good, that is, you might have done worse. But I wish, as you are brothers of mine, that you could have spent your time in better ways than digging in this dirt.

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The story continues in chapter four. Until the Kickstarter campaign begins on February 16, I’ll post a chapter each week until the first six are up on Medium. If you want to read the rest of this adaptation, then I invite you to support the campaign when it comes out and help us bring this book to life!

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