Post 2758083 by sjw@feminism.lgbt
 (DIR) More posts by sjw@feminism.lgbt
 (DIR) Post #2696889 by kro@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T08:24:38.074814Z
       
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       >TFW @awg never recites hamlet to me post by post until the entire work is complete.
       
 (DIR) Post #2696937 by awg@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T08:26:14.615489Z
       
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       @kro if you want Henry David Thoreau, I'm game.  Shakespeare, fuck no.
       
 (DIR) Post #2697038 by kro@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T08:30:55.757836Z
       
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       @awg Go for it. At least it'll drown out @nerthos being butthurt at me.
       
 (DIR) Post #2697123 by kro@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T08:35:43.179922Z
       
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       @awg I'm waiting. I demand the full script.
       
 (DIR) Post #2698256 by awg@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T09:27:08.701476Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @kro sorry for the delay.  took me a little time to strip out some quotes and set it up so it would parse as basic html.
       
 (DIR) Post #2698332 by kro@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T09:30:33.443283Z
       
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       @awg FULL SCRIPT
       
 (DIR) Post #2698446 by awg@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T09:35:13.596151Z
       
       2 likes, 1 repeats
       
       WALKINGby Henry David ThoreauI wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom andWildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merelycivil,–to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcelof Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make anextreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for thereare enough champions of civilization: the minister and theschool committee and every one of you will take care of that. I have met with but one or two persons in the course of mylife who understood the art of Walking, that is, of takingwalks–who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, whichword is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved aboutthe country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, underpretense of going à la Sainte Terre," to the Holy Land,till the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer,"a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Landin their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers andvagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the goodsense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the wordfrom sans terre without land or a home, which, therefore,in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home,but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret ofsuccessful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all thetime may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer,in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meanderingriver, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortestcourse to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed,is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort ofcrusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forthand reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even thewalkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-endingenterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round againat evening to the old hearth-side from which we set out. Halfthe walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on theshortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure,never to retun,–prepared to send back our embalmed heartsonly as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready toleave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife andchild and friends, and never see them again,–if you have paidyour debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs,and are a free man; then you are ready for a walk. To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for Isometimes have a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselvesknights of a new, or rather an old, order–not Equestriansor Chevaliers, not Ritters or Riders, but Walkers, a stillmore ancient and honorable class, I trust.  The chivalric andheroic spirit which once belonged to the Rider seems now toreside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the Walker–notthe Knight, but Walker Errant. He is a sort of fourth estate,outside of Church and State and People.We have felt that we almost alone hereabouts practiced thisnoble art; though, to tell the truth, at least if their ownassertions are to be received, most of my townsmen would fainwalk sometimes, as I do, but they cannot. No wealth can buythe requisite leisure, freedom, and independence which arethe capital in this profession. It comes only by the grace ofGod. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to becomea walker. You must be bon into the family of the Walkers.Ambulator nascitur, non fit. Some of my townsmen, it is true,can remember and have described to me some walks which theytook ten years ago, in which they were so blessed as to losethemselves for half an hour in the woods; but I know very wellthat they have confined themselves to the highway ever since,whatever pretensions they may make to belong to this selectclass. No doubt they were elevated for a moment as by thereminiscence of a previous state of existence, when even theywere foresters and outlaws.         "When he came to grene wode,            In a mery monynge,          There he herde the notes small            Of byrdes mery syngynge.         "It is ferre gone, sayd Robyn,            That I was last here;          Me lyste a lytell for to shote            At the donne dere."I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unlessI spend four hours a day at least–and it is commonly morethan that–sauntering through the woods and over the hillsand fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. Youmay safely say, A penny for your thoughts, or a thousandpounds. When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics andshopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon,but all the aftenoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so manyof them–as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not tostand or walk upon–I think that they deserve some creditfor not having all committed suicide long ago.I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day withoutacquiring some rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth fora walk at the eleventh hour, or four o'clock in the aftenoon,too late to redeem the day, when the shades of night werealready beginning to be mingled with the daylight, have felt asif I had committed some sin to be atoned for,–I confess thatI am astonished at the power of endurance, to say nothing ofthe moral insensibility, of my neighbors who confine themselvesto shops and offices the whole day for weeks and months, aye,and years almost together. I know not what manner of stuff theyare of–sitting there now at three o'clock in the aftenoon,as if it were three o'clock in the moning. Bonaparte may talkof the three-o'clock-in-the-moning courage, but it is nothingto the courage which can sit down cheerfully at this hour inthe aftenoon over against one's self whom you have known allthe moning, to starve out a garrison to whom you are bound bysuch strong ties of sympathy. I wonder that about this time,or say between four and five o'clock in the aftenoon, toolate for the moning papers and too early for the evening ones,there is not a general explosion heard up and down the street,scattering a legion of antiquated and house-bred notionsand whims to the four winds for an airing–and so the evilcure itself.How womankind, who are confined to the house still more thanmen, stand it I do not know; but I have ground to suspect thatmost of them do not stand it at all. When, early in a summeraftenoon, we have been shaking the dust of the village fromthe skirts of our garments, making haste past those houseswith purely Doric or Gothic fronts, which have such an air ofrepose about them, my companion whispers that probably aboutthese times their occupants are all gone to bed. Then it isthat I appreciate the beauty and the glory of architecture,which itself never tuns in, but forever stands out and erect,keeping watch over the slumberers.No doubt temperament, and, above all, age, have a good dealto do with it. As a man grows older, his ability to sit stilland follow indoor occupations increases. He grows vespertinalin his habits as the evening of life approaches, till at lasthe comes forth only just before sundown, and gets all the walkthat he requires in half an hour.But the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin totaking exercise, as it is called, as the sick take medicineat stated hours–as the swinging of dumb-bells or chairs;but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day. If youwould get exercise, go in search of the springs of life. Thinkof a man's swinging dumb-bells for his health, when thosesprings are bubbling up in far-off pastures unsought by him!Moreover, you must walk like a camel, which is said to bethe only beast which ruminates when walking. When a travelerasked Wordsworth's servant to show him her master's study,she answered, "Here is his library, but his study is outof doors."Living much out of doors, in the sun and wind, will no doubtproduce a certain roughness of character–will cause a thickercuticle to grow over some of the finer qualities of our nature,as on the face and hands, or as severe manual labor robsthe hands of some of their delicacy of touch. So stayingin the house, on the other hand, may produce a softnessand smoothness, not to say thinness of skin, accompaniedby an increased sensibility to certain impressions. Perhapswe should be more susceptible to some influences importantto our intellectual and moral growth, if the sun had shoneand the wind blown on us a little less; and no doubt it is anice matter to proportion rightly the thick and thin skin. Butmethinks that is a scurf that will fall off fast enough–thatthe natural remedy is to be found in the proportion which thenight bears to the day, the winter to the summer, thought toexperience. There will be so much the more air and sunshine inour thoughts. The callous palms of the laborer are conversantwith finer tissues of self-respect and heroism, whose touchthrills the heart, than the languid fingers of idleness. Thatis mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itselfwhite, far from the tan and callus of experience.When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods:what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or amall? Even some sects of philosophers have felt the necessityof importing the woods to themselves, since they did not go tothe woods. "They planted groves and walks of Platanes,"where they took subdiales ambulationes in porticos open tothe air. Of course it is of no use to direct our steps tothe woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed whenit happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily,without getting there in spirit. In my aftenoon walk I wouldfain forget all my moning occupations and my obligations tosociety. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shakeoff the village. The thought of some work will run in my headand I am not where my body is–I am out of my senses. In mywalks I would fain retun to my senses. What business have I inthe woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods? Isuspect myself, and cannot help a shudder when I find myselfso implicated even in what are called good works–for thismay sometimes happen.My vicinity affords many good walks; and though for so manyyears I have walked almost every day, and sometimes for severaldays together, I have not yet exhausted them. An absolutelynew prospect is a great happiness, and I can still get thisany aftenoon. Two or three hours' walking will carry meto as strange a country as I expect ever to see. A singlefarmhouse which I had not seen before is sometimes as goodas the dominions of the king of Dahomey. There is in facta sort of harmony discoverable between the capabilities ofthe landscape within a circle of ten miles' radius, or thelimits of an aftenoon walk, and the threescore years and tenof human life. It will never become quite familiar to you.Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as thebuilding of houses and the cutting down of the forest and ofall large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it moreand more tame and cheap. A people who would begin by buningthe fences and let the forest stand! I saw the fences halfconsumed, their ends lost in the middle of the prairie, andsome worldly miser with a surveyor looking after his bounds,while heaven had taken place around him, and he did not see theangels going to and fro, but was looking for an old post-holein the midst of paradise. I looked again, and saw him standingin the middle of a boggy Stygian fen, surrounded by devils,and he had found his bounds without a doubt, three littlestones, where a stake had been driven, and looking nearer,I saw that the Prince of Darkness was his surveyor.I can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles,commencing at my own door, without going by any house, withoutcrossing a road except where the fox and the mink do: firstalong by the river, and then the brook, and then the meadow andthe wood-side. There are square miles in my vicinity which haveno inhabitant. From many a hill I can see civilization and theabodes of man afar. The farmers and their works are scarcelymore obvious than woodchucks and their burrows. Man and hisaffairs, church and state and school, trade and commerce,and manufactures and agriculture even politics, the mostalarming of them all,–I am pleased to see how little spacethey occupy in the landscape.  Politics is but a narrow field,and that still narrower highway yonder leads to it. I sometimesdirect the traveler thither. If you would go to the politicalworld, follow the great road,–follow that market-man, keephis dust in your eyes, and it will lead you straight to it;for it, too, has its place merely, and does not occupy allspace. I pass from it as from a bean field into the forest,and it is forgotten. In one half hour I can walk off to someportion of the earth's surface where a man does not standfrom one year's end to another, and there, consequently,politics are not, for they are but as the cigar smoke of a man.The village is the place to which the roads tend, a sort ofexpansion of the highway, as a lake of a river. It is the bodyof which roads are the arms and legs–a trivial or quadrivialplace, the thoroughfare and ordinary of travelers. The wordis from the Latin villa which together with via, a way,or more anciently ved and vella, Varro derives from veho,to carry, because the villa is the place to and from whichthings are carried. They who got their living by teaming weresaid vellaturam facere. Hence, too, the Latin word _vilis_and our _vile_; also _villain_.  This suggests what kind ofdegeneracy villagers are liable to. They are waywon by thetravel that goes by and over them, without traveling themselves.Some do not walk at all; others walk in the highways; a few walkacross lots. Roads are made for horses and men of business. Ido not travel in them much, comparatively, because I am notin a hurry to get to any taven or grocery or livery-stable ordepot to which they lead. I am a good horse to travel, butnot from choice a roadster. The landscape-painter uses thefigures of men to mark a road. He would not make that use ofmy figure. I walk out into a nature such as the old prophetsand poets, Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in. You may nameit America, but it is not America: neither Americus Vespucius,nor Columbus, nor the rest were the discoverers of it. Thereis a truer amount of it in mythology than in any history ofAmerica, so called, that I have seen.However, there are a few old roads that may be trodden withprofit, as if they led somewhere now that they are nearlydiscontinued. There is the Old Marlborough Road, which does notgo to Marlborough now, methinks, unless that is Marlboroughwhere it carries me. I am the bolder to speak of it here,because I presume that there are one or two such roads inevery town.       THE OLD MARLBOROUGH ROAD.        Where they once dug for money, But never found any;        Where sometimes Martial Miles Singly files, And Elijah        Wood, I fear for no good: No other man, Save Elisha        Dugan– O man of wild habits, Partridges and rabbits,        Who hast no cares Only to set snares, Who liv'st all        alone, Close to the bone; And where life is sweetest        Constantly eatest.     When the spring stirs my blood      With the instinct to travel, I can get enough gravel     On the Old Marlborough Road.        Nobody repairs it, For nobody wears it; It is a living        way, As the Christians say.     Not many there be      Who enter therein,     Only the guests of the      Irishman Quin.     What is it, what is it      But a direction out there,     And the bare possibility        Of going somewhere?  Great guide boards of stone, But        travelers none; Cenotaphs of the towns Named on their        crowns.  It is worth going to see Where you might be.        What king Did the thing, I am still wondering; Set        up how or when, By what selectmen, Gourgas or Lee,        Clark or Darby?  They're a great endeavor To be        something forever; Blank tablets of stone, Where        a traveler might groan, And in one sentence Grave        all that is known Which another might read, In his        extreme need.  I know one or two Lines that would do,        Literature that might stand All over the land, Which a        man could remember Till next December, And read again        in the spring, After the thawing.     If with fancy unfurled      You leave your abode,     You may go round the world      By the Old Marlborough Road.At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is notprivate property; the landscape is not owned, and the walkerenjoys comparative freedom. But possibly the day will come whenit will be partitioned off into so-called pleasure grounds,in which a few will take a narrow and exclusive pleasureonly,–when fences shall be multiplied, and man traps andother engines invented to confine men to the public road, andwalking over the surface of God's earth shall be construedto mean trespassing on some gentleman's grounds. To enjoya thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from thetrue enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities, then,before the evil days come.What is it that makes it so hard sometimes to determine whitherwe will walk? I believe that there is a subtle magnetism inNature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct usaright. It is not indifferent to us which way we walk. Thereis a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness andstupidity to take the wrong one. We would fain take that walk,never yet taken by us through this actual world, which isperfectly symbolical of the path which we love to travel inthe interior and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we findit difficult to choose our direction, because it does not yetexist distinctly in our idea.When I go out of the house for a walk, uncertain as yet whitherI will bend my steps, and submit myself to my instinct todecide for me, I find, strange and whimsical as it may seem,that I finally and inevitably settle southwest, toward someparticular wood or meadow or deserted pasture or hill in thatdirection. My needle is slow to settle–varies a few degrees,and does not always point due southwest, it is true, and it hasgood authority for this variation, but it always settles betweenwest and south-southwest. The future lies that way to me,and the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that side.The outline which would bound my walks would be, not a circle,but a parabola, or rather like one of those cometary orbitswhich have been thought to be non-retuning curves, in thiscase opening westward, in which my house occupies the placeof the sun. I tun round and round irresolute sometimes for aquarter of an hour, until I decide, for a thousandth time,that I will walk into the southwest or west. Eastward I goonly by force; but westward I go free. Thither no businessleads me. It is hard for me to believe that I shall find fairlandscapes or sufficient wildness and freedom behind the eastenhorizon. I am not excited by the prospect of a walk thither;but I believe that the forest which I see in the westen horizonstretches uninterruptedly toward the setting sun, and thereare no towns nor cities in it of enough consequence to disturbme. Let me live where I will, on this side is the city, on thatthe wildeness, and ever I am leaving the city more and more,and withdrawing into the wildeness. I should not lay so muchstress on this fact, if I did not believe that somethinglike this is the prevailing tendency of my countrymen. Imust walk toward Oregon, and not toward Europe. And that waythe nation is moving, and I may say that mankind progressfrom east to west. Within a few years we have witnessed thephenomenon of a southeastward migration, in the settlement ofAustralia; but this affects us as a retrograde movement, and,judging from the moral and physical character of the firstgeneration of Australians, has not yet proved a successfulexperiment. The easten Tartars think that there is nothingwest beyond Thibet. "The world ends there," say they;"beyond there is nothing but a shoreless sea." It isunmitigated East where they live.We go eastward to realize history and study the works ofart and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we gowestward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise andadventure. The Atlantic is a Lethean stream, in our passageover which we have had an opportunity to forget the Old Worldand its institutions. If we do not succeed this time, there isperhaps one more chance for the race left before it arrives onthe banks of the Styx; and that is in the Lethe of the Pacific,which is three times as wide.I know not how significant it is, or how far it is an evidenceof singularity, that an individual should thus consent inhis pettiest walk with the general movement of the race;but I know that something akin to the migratory instinct inbirds and quadrupeds,–which, in some instances, is known tohave affected the squirrel tribe, impelling them to a generaland mysterious movement, in which they were seen, say some,crossing the broadest rivers, each on its particular chip,with its tail raised for a sail, and bridging narrower streamswith their dead,–that something like the furor which affectsthe domestic cattle in the spring, and which is referred to aworm in their tails,–affects both nations and individuals,either perennially or from time to time. Not a flock of wildgeese cackles over our town, but it to some extent unsettlesthe value of real estate here, and, if I were a broker,I should probably take that disturbance into account.   "Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages, And palmeres   for to seken strange strondes."Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire togo to a West as distant and as fair as that into which the sungoes down. He appears to migrate westward daily, and tempt usto follow him. He is the Great Westen Pioneer whom the nationsfollow. We dream all night of those mountain ridges in thehorizon, though they may be of vapor only, which were lastgilded by his rays. The island of Atlantis, and the islandsand gardens of the Hesperides, a sort of terrestrial paradise,appear to have been the Great West of the ancients, envelopedin mystery and poetry. Who has not seen in imagination, whenlooking into the sunset sky, the gardens of the Hesperides,and the foundation of all those fables?Columbus felt the westward tendency more strongly than anybefore. He obeyed it, and found a New World for Castile andLeon. The herd of men in those days scented fresh pasturesfrom afar.  "And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, And now  was dropped into the westen bay; At last he rose, and twitched  his mantle blue; To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new."Where on the globe can there be found an area of equal extentwith that occupied by the bulk of our States, so fertile andso rich and varied in its productions, and at the same time sohabitable by the European, as this is? Michaux, who knew butpart of them, says that "the species of large trees are muchmore numerous in North America than in Europe; in the UnitedStates there are more than one hundred and forty species thatexceed thirty feet in height; in France there are but thirtythat attain this size." Later botanists more than confirmhis observations. Humboldt came to America to realize hisyouthful dreams of a tropical vegetation, and he beheld itin its greatest perfection in the primitive forests of theAmazon, the most gigantic wildeness on the earth, which hehas so eloquently described. The geographer Guyot, himself aEuropean, goes further–further than I am ready to follow him;yet not when he says: "As the plant is made for the animal,as the vegetable world is made for the animal world, Americais made for the man of the Old World.... The man of the OldWorld sets out upon his way. Leaving the highlands of Asia,he descends from station to station towards Europe. Each ofhis steps is marked by a new civilization superior to thepreceding, by a greater power of development. Arrived at theAtlantic, he pauses on the shore of this unknown ocean, thebounds of which he knows not, and tuns upon his footprints foran instant." When he has exhausted the rich soil of Europe,and reinvigorated himself, "then recommences his adventurouscareer westward as in the earliest ages." So far Guyot.From this westen impulse coming in contact with the barrierof the Atlantic sprang the commerce and enterprise of modentimes. The younger Michaux, in his Travels West of theAlleghanies in 1802, says that the common inquiry in thenewly settled West was, "'From what part of the worldhave you come?' As if these vast and fertile regions wouldnaturally be the place of meeting and common country of allthe inhabitants of the globe."To use an obsolete Latin word, I might say, Ex oriente lux;ex occidente FRUX. From the East light; from the West fruit.Sir Francis Head, an English traveler and a Govenor-Generalof Canada, tells us that "in both the northen and southenhemispheres of the New World, Nature has not only outlined herworks on a larger scale, but has painted the whole picture withbrighter and more costly colors than she used in delineating andin beautifying the Old World.... The heavens of America appearinfinitely higher, the sky is bluer, the air is fresher, thecold is intenser, the moon looks larger, the stars are brighterthe thunder is louder, the lightning is vivider, the wind isstronger, the rain is heavier, the mountains are higher, therivers longer, the forests bigger, the plains broader." Thisstatement will do at least to set against Buffon's accountof this part of the world and its productions.Linnæus said long ago, "Nescio quæ facies læta, glabraplantis Americanis" (I know not what there is of joyous andsmooth in the aspect of American plants); and I think thatin this country there are no, or at most very few, Africanæbestiæ, African beasts, as the Romans called them, and that inthis respect also it is peculiarly fitted for the habitationof man. We are told that within three miles of the center ofthe East Indian city of Singapore, some of the inhabitantsare annually carried off by tigers; but the traveler can liedown in the woods at night almost anywhere in North Americawithout fear of wild beasts.These are encouraging testimonies. If the moon looks largerhere than in Europe, probably the sun looks larger also. Ifthe heavens of America appear infinitely higher, and thestars brighter, I trust that these facts are symbolical ofthe height to which the philosophy and poetry and religionof her inhabitants may one day soar. At length, perchance,the immaterial heaven will appear as much higher to theAmerican mind, and the intimations that star it as muchbrighter. For I believe that climate does thus react onman–as there is something in the mountain air that feeds thespirit and inspires. Will not man grow to greater perfectionintellectually as well as physically under these influences?Or is it unimportant how many foggy days there are in hislife? I trust that we shall be more imaginative, that ourthoughts will be clearer, fresher, and more ethereal, asour sky–our understanding more comprehensive and broader,like our plains–our intellect generally on a grander scale,like our thunder and lightning, our rivers and mountains andforests,–and our hearts shall even correspond in breadth anddepth and grandeur to our inland seas. Perchance there willappear to the traveler something, he knows not what, of lætaand glabra, of joyous and serene, in our very faces. Else towhat end does the world go on, and why was America discovered?To Americans I hardly need to say–      "Westward the star of empire takes its way."As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam inparadise was more favorably situated on the whole than thebackwoodsman in this country.Our sympathies in Massachusetts are not confined to New England;though we may be estranged from the South, we sympathize withthe West. There is the home of the younger sons, as among theScandinavians they took to the sea for their inheritance. Itis too late to be studying Hebrew; it is more important tounderstand even the slang of today.Some months ago I went to see a panorama of the Rhine. It waslike a dream of the Middle Ages. I floated down its historicstream in something more than imagination, under bridgesbuilt by the Romans, and repaired by later heroes, pastcities and castles whose very names were music to my ears,and each of which was the subject of a legend. There wereEhrenbreitstein and Rolandseck and Coblentz, which I knew onlyin history. They were ruins that interested me chiefly. Thereseemed to come up from its waters and its vine-clad hillsand valleys a hushed music as of crusaders departing for theHoly Land. I floated along under the spell of enchantment,as if I had been transported to an heroic age, and breathedan atmosphere of chivalry.Soon after, I went to see a panorama of the Mississippi, and asI worked my way up the river in the light of to-day, and sawthe steamboats wooding up, counted the rising cities, gazedon the fresh ruins of Nauvoo, beheld the Indians moving westacross the stream, and, as before I had looked up the Moselle,now looked up the Ohio and the Missouri and heard the legendsof Dubuque and of Wenona's Cliff–still thinking more ofthe future than of the past or present–I saw that this wasa Rhine stream of a different kind; that the foundations ofcastles were yet to be laid, and the famous bridges were yet tobe thrown over the river; and I felt that this was the heroicage itself, though we know it not, for the hero is commonlythe simplest and obscurest of men.The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild;and what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness isthe preservation of the World. Every tree sends its fibers forthin search of the Wild. The cities import it at any price. Menplow and sail for it. From the forest and wildeness comethe tonics and barks which brace mankind. Our ancestors weresavages. The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolfis not a meaningless fable. The founders of every state whichhas risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigorfrom a similar wild source. It was because the children of theEmpire were not suckled by the wolf that they were conqueredand displaced by the children of the northen forests who were.I believe in the forest, and in the meadow, and in the nightin which the con grows. We require an infusion of hemlockspruce or arbor vitæ in our tea. There is a difference betweeneating and drinking for strength and from mere gluttony. TheHottentots eagerly devour the marrow of the koodoo and otherantelopes raw, as a matter of course.  Some of our northenIndians eat raw the marrow of the Arctic reindeer, as well asvarious other parts, including the summits of the antlers, aslong as they are soft. And herein, perchance, they have stolena march on the cooks of Paris. They get what usually goes tofeed the fire. This is probably better than stall-fed beefand slaughterhouse pork to make a man of. Give me a wildnesswhose glance no civilization can endure,–as if we lived onthe marrow of koodoos devoured raw.There are some intervals which border the strain of thewood-thrush, to which I would migrate–wild lands whereno settler has squatted; to which, methinks, I am alreadyacclimated.The African hunter Cumming tells us that the skin of the eland,as well as that of most other antelopes just killed, emits themost delicious perfume of trees and grass. I would have everyman so much like a wild antelope, so much a part and parcel ofNature, that his very person should thus sweetly advertise oursenses of his presence, and remind us of those parts of naturewhich he most haunts. I feel no disposition to be satirical,when the trapper's coat emits the odor of musquash even; itis a sweeter scent to me than that which commonly exhales fromthe merchant's or the scholar's garments. When I go intotheir wardrobes and handle their vestments, I am reminded ofno grassy plains and flowery meads which they have frequented,but of dusty merchants' exchanges and libraries rather.A tanned skin is something more than respectable, and perhapsolive is a fitter color than white for a man–a denizen ofthe woods. "The pale white man!" I do not wonder that theAfrican pitied him. Darwin the naturalist says, "A white manbathing by the side of a Tahitian was like a plant bleachedby the gardener's art, compared with a fine, dark green one,growing vigorously in the open fields."Ben Jonson exclaims,– "How near to good is what is fair!"So I would say,– "How near to good is what is wild!"Life consists with wildness. The most alive is the wildest. Notyet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him. One whopressed forward incessantly and never rested from his labors,who grew fast and made infinite demands on life, would alwaysfind himself in a new country or wildeness, and surroundedby the raw material of life. He would be climbing over theprostrate stems of primitive forest trees.Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivatedfields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious andquaking swamps. When, formerly, I have analyzed my partialityfor some farm which I had contemplated purchasing, I havefrequently found that I was attracted solely by a few squarerods of impermeable and unfathomable bog–a natural sink inone coner of it. That was the jewel which dazzled me.  I derivemore of my subsistence from the swamps which surround my nativetown than from the cultivated gardens in the village. There areno richer parterres to my eyes than the dense beds of dwarfandromeda (Cassandra calyculata) which cover these tenderplaces on the earth's surface. Botany cannot go fartherthan tell me the names of the shrubs which grow there–thehigh-blueberry, panicled andromeda, lamb-kill, azalea,and rhodora–all standing in the quaking sphagnum. I oftenthink that I should like to have my house front on this massof dull red bushes, omitting other flower plots and borders,transplanted spruce and trim box, even graveled walks–tohave this fertile spot under my windows, not a few importedbarrow-fuls of soil only to cover the sand which was thrownout in digging the cellar. Why not put my house, my parlor,behind this plot, instead of behind that meager assemblageof curiosities, that poor apology for a Nature and art, whichI call my front yard? It is an effort to clear up and make adecent appearance when the carpenter and mason have departed,though done as much for the passer-by as the dweller within. Themost tasteful front-yard fence was never an agreeable objectof study to me; the most elaborate onaments, acon tops, orwhat not, soon wearied and disgusted me. Bring your sills upto the very edge of the swamp, then (though it may not be thebest place for a dry cellar,) so that there be no access onthat side to citizens. Front yards are not made to walk in,but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.Yes, though you may think me perverse, if it were proposed tome to dwell in the neighborhood of the most beautiful gardenthat ever human art contrived, or else of a dismal swamp,I should certainly decide for the swamp. How vain, then,have been all your labors, citizens, for me!My spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the outwarddreariness. Give me the ocean, the desert, or the wildeness! Inthe desert, pure air and solitude compensate for wantof moisture and fertility. The traveler Burton says ofit–"Your morale improves; you become frank and cordial,hospitable and single-minded.... In the desert, spirituousliquors excite only disgust. There is a keen enjoyment in amere animal existence." They who have been traveling longon the steppes of Tartary say, "On reentering cultivatedlands, the agitation, perplexity, and turmoil of civilizationoppressed and suffocated us; the air seemed to fail us,and we felt every moment as if about to die of asphyxia."When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, thethickest and most interminable and, to the citizen, mostdismal, swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place,–a sanctumsanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow, of Nature. Thewild wood covers the virgin mould,–and the same soil is goodfor men and for trees. A man's health requires as many acresof meadow to his prospect as his farm does loads of muck. Thereare the strong meats on which he feeds. A town is saved, notmore by the righteous men in it than by the woods and swampsthat surround it. A township where one primitive forest wavesabove while another primitive forest rots below–such a townis fitted to raise not only con and potatoes, but poets andphilosophers for the coming ages. In such a soil grew Homerand Confucius and the rest, and out of such a wildeness comesthe reformer eating locusts and wild honey.To preserve wild animals implies generally the creation of aforest for them to dwell in or resort to. So it is with man. Ahundred years ago they sold bark in our streets peeled fromour own woods. In the very aspect of those primitive and ruggedtrees there was, methinks, a tanning principle which hardenedand consolidated the fibers of men's thoughts. Ah! already Ishudder for these comparatively degenerate days of my nativevillage, when you cannot collect a load of bark of goodthickness, and we no longer produce tar and turpentine.The civilized nations–Greece, Rome, England–have beensustained by the primitive forests which anciently rottedwhere they stand. They survive as long as the soil is notexhausted. Alas for human culture! little is to be expectedof a nation, when the vegetable mould is exhausted, and it iscompelled to make manure of the bones of its fathers. Therethe poet sustains himself merely by his own superfluous fat,and the philosopher comes down on his marrow bones.It is said to be the task of the American "to work thevirgin soil," and that "agriculture here already assumesproportions unknown everywhere else." I think that the farmerdisplaces the Indian even because he redeems the meadow, andso makes himself stronger and in some respects more natural. Iwas surveying for a man the other day a single straight lineone hundred and thirty-two rods long, through a swamp at whoseentrance might have been written the words which Dante readover the entrance to the infenal regions,–"Leave all hope,ye that enter"–that is, of ever getting out again; where atone time I saw my employer actually up to his neck and swimmingfor his life in his property, though it was still winter. Hehad another similar swamp which I could not survey at all,because it was completely under water, and nevertheless, withregard to a third swamp, which I did survey from a distance, heremarked to me, true to his instincts, that he would not partwith it for any consideration, on account of the mud which itcontained. And that man intends to put a girdling ditch roundthe whole in the course of forty months, and so redeem it by themagic of his spade. I refer to him only as the type of a class.The weapons with which we have gained our most importantvictories, which should be handed down as heirlooms from fatherto son, are not the sword and the lance, but the bushwhack,the turf-cutter, the spade, and the bog hoe, rusted withthe blood of many a meadow, and begrimed with the dust ofmany a hard-fought field. The very winds blew the Indian'sconfield into the meadow, and pointed out the way which hehad not the skill to follow. He had no better implement withwhich to intrench himself in the land than a clam-shell. Butthe farmer is armed with plow and spade.In literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness isbut another name for tameness. It is the uncivilized free andwild thinking in Hamlet and the Iliad, in all the scripturesand mythologies, not leaned in the schools, that delightsus. As the wild duck is more swift and beautiful than thetame, so is the wild–the mallard–thought, which 'midfalling dews wings its way above the fens. A truly good bookis something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountablyfair and perfect, as a wild flower discovered on the prairiesof the west or in the jungles of the east. Genius is a lightwhich makes the darkness visible, like the lightning's flash,which perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself–andnot a taper lighted at the hearthstone of the race, whichpales before the light of common day.English literature, from the days of the minstrels to the LakePoets–Chaucer and Spenser and Milton, and even Shakespeareincluded–breathes no quite fresh and in this sense wildstrain. It is an essentially tame and civilized literature,reflecting Greece and Rome.  Her wildeness is a green wood,her wild man a Robin Hood. There is plenty of genial loveof Nature, but not so much of Nature herself. Her chroniclesinform us when her wild animals, but not when the wild man inher, became extinct.The science of Humboldt is one thing, poetry is anotherthing. The poet today, notwithstanding all the discoveriesof science, and the accumulated leaning of mankind, enjoys noadvantage over Homer.Where is the literature which gives expression to Nature? Hewould be a poet who could impress the winds and streams intohis service, to speak for him; who nailed words to theirprimitive senses, as farmers drive down stakes in the spring,which the frost has heaved; who derived his words as oftenas he used them–transplanted them to his page with earthadhering to their roots; whose words were so true and freshand natural that they would appear to expand like the buds atthe approach of spring, though they lay half smothered betweentwo musty leaves in a library,–aye, to bloom and bear fruitthere, after their kind, annually, for the faithful reader,in sympathy with surrounding Nature.I do not know of any poetry to quote which adequatelyexpresses this yeaning for the Wild. Approached from this side,the best poetry is tame. I do not know where to find in anyliterature, ancient or moden, any account which contents me ofthat Nature with which even I am acquainted. You will perceivethat I demand something which no Augustan nor Elizabethan age,which no culture, in short, can give. Mythology comes nearerto it than anything. How much more fertile a Nature, at least,has Grecian mythology its root in than English literature!Mythology is the crop which the Old World bore before itssoil was exhausted, before the fancy and imagination wereaffected with blight; and which it still bears, wherever itspristine vigor is unabated. All other literatures endure onlyas the elms which overshadow our houses; but this is like thegreat dragon-tree of the Westen Isles, as old as mankind, and,whether that does or not, will endure as long; for the decayof other literatures makes the soil in which it thrives.The West is preparing to add its fables to those of theEast. The valleys of the Ganges, the Nile, and the Rhine, havingyielded their crop, it remains to be seen what the valleys ofthe Amazon, the Plate, the Orinoco, the St. Lawrence, and theMississippi will produce.  Perchance, when, in the course ofages, American liberty has become a fiction of the past,–asit is to some extent a fiction of the present,–the poets ofthe world will be inspired by American mythology.The wildest dreams of wild men, even, are not the less true,though they may not recommend themselves to the sense whichis most common among Englishmen and Americans to-day. Itis not every truth that recommends itself to the commonsense. Nature has a place for the wild clematis as well as forthe cabbage. Some expressions of truth are reminiscent,–othersmerely sensible, as the phrase is,–others prophetic.Some forms of disease, even, may prophesy forms of health. Thegeologist has discovered that the figures of serpents, griffins,flying dragons, and other fanciful embellishments of heraldry,have their prototypes in the forms of fossil species whichwere extinct before man was created, and hence "indicatea faint and shadowy knowledge of a previous state of organicexistence." The Hindoos dreamed that the earth rested on anelephant, and the elephant on a tortoise, and the tortoise ona serpent; and though it may be an unimportant coincidence, itwill not be out of place here to state, that a fossil tortoisehas lately been discovered in Asia large enough to support anelephant. I confess that I am partial to these wild fancies,which transcend the order of time and development. They arethe sublimest recreation of the intellect. The partridge lovespeas, but not those that go with her into the pot.In short, all good things are wild and free. There is somethingin a strain of music, whether produced by an instrument orby the human voice–take the sound of a bugle in a summernight, for instance,–which by its wildness, to speak withoutsatire, reminds me of the cries emitted by wild beasts intheir native forests. It is so much of their wildness as Ican understand. Give me for my friends and neighbors wild men,not tame ones. The wildness of the savage is but a faint symbolof the awful ferity with which good men and lovers meet.I love even to see the domestic animals reassert their nativerights–any evidence that they have not wholly lost theiroriginal wild habits and vigor; as when my neighbor's cowbreaks out of her pasture early in the spring and boldly swimsthe river, a cold, gray tide, twenty-five or thirty rods wide,swollen by the melted snow. It is the buffalo crossing theMississippi. This exploit confers some dignity on the herdin my eyes–already dignified. The seeds of instinct arepreserved under the thick hides of cattle and horses, likeseeds in the bowels of the earth, an indefinite period.Any sportiveness in cattle is unexpected. I saw one day a herdof a dozen bullocks and cows running about and frisking inunwieldy sport, like huge rats, even like kittens. They shooktheir heads, raised their tails, and rushed up and down a hill,and I perceived by their hons, as well as by their activity,their relation to the deer tribe. But, alas!  a sudden loudWhoa! would have damped their ardor at once, reduced them fromvenison to beef, and stiffened their sides and sinews likethe locomotive. Who but the Evil One has cried "Whoa!" tomankind?  Indeed, the life of cattle, like that of many men,is but a sort of locomotiveness; they move a side at a time,and man, by his machinery, is meeting the horse and the oxhalf way. Whatever part the whip has touched is thenceforthpalsied. Who would ever think of a side of any of the supplecat tribe, as we speak of a side of beef?I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before theycan be made the slaves of men, and that men themselves havesome wild oats still left to sow before they become submissivemembers of society.  Undoubtedly, all men are not equally fitsubjects for civilization; and because the majority, like dogsand sheep, are tame by inherited disposition, this is no reasonwhy the others should have their natures broken that they maybe reduced to the same level. Men are in the main alike, butthey were made several in order that they might be various.If a low use is to be served, one man will do nearly or quiteas well as another; if a high one, individual excellence is tobe regarded. Any man can stop a hole to keep the wind away,but no other man could serve so rare a use as the author ofthis illustration did. Confucius says,–"The skins of thetiger and the leopard, when they are tanned, are as the skinsof the dog and the sheep tanned." But it is not the partof a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to makesheep ferocious; and tanning their skins for shoes is not thebest use to which they can be put.When looking over a list of men's names in a foreign language,as of military officers, or of authors who have written ona particular subject, I am reminded once more that there isnothing in a name. The name Menschikoff, for instance, hasnothing in it to my ears more human than a whisker, and it maybelong to a rat. As the names of the Poles and Russians are tous, so are ours to them. It is as if they had been named by thechild's rigmarole–Iery-wiery ichery van, tittle-tol-tan. Isee in my mind a herd of wild creatures swarming over theearth, and to each the herdsman has affixed some barbaroussound in his own dialect.  The names of men are, of course,as cheap and meaningless as Bose and Tray, the names of dogs.Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy if menwere named merely in the gross, as they are known. It wouldbe necessary only to know the genus and perhaps the race orvariety, to know the individual.  We are not prepared to believethat every private soldier in a Roman army had a name of hisown–because we have not supposed that he had a character ofhis own. At present our only true names are nicknames. I knewa boy who, from his peculiar energy, was called "Buster"by his playmates, and this rightly supplanted his Christianname. Some travellers tell us that an Indian had no namegiven him at first, but eaned it, and his name was his fame;and among some tribes he acquired a new name with every newexploit. It is pitiful when a man bears a name for conveniencemerely, who has eaned neither name nor fame.I will not allow mere names to make distinctions for me,but still see men in herds for all them. A familiar namecannot make a man less strange to me. It may be given toa savage who retains in secret his own wild title eaned inthe woods. We have a wild savage in us, and a savage name isperchance somewhere recorded as ours. I see that my neighbor,who bears the familiar epithet William or Edwin, takes it offwith his jacket. It does not adhere to him when asleep or inanger, or aroused by any passion or inspiration. I seem to hearpronounced by some of his kin at such a time his original wildname in some jaw-breaking or else melodious tongue.Here is this vast, savage, hovering mother of ours, Nature,lying all around, with such beauty, and such affection for herchildren, as the leopard; and yet we are so early weaned fromher breast to society, to that culture which is exclusivelyan interaction of man on man,–a sort of breeding in and in,which produces at most a merely English nobility, a civilizationdestined to have a speedy limit.In society, in the best institutions of men, it is easy todetect a certain precocity. When we should still be growingchildren, we are already little men. Give me a culture whichimports much muck from the meadows, and deepens the soil–notthat which trusts to heating manures, and improved implementsand modes of culture only!Many a poor sore-eyed student that I have heard of would growfaster, both intellectually and physically, if, instead ofsitting up so very late, he honestly slumbered a fool'sallowance.There may be an excess even of informing light. Niepce,a Frenchman, discovered "actinism," that power in thesun's rays which produces a chemical effect; that graniterocks, and stone structures, and statues of metal "are allalike destructively acted upon during the hours of sunshine,and, but for provisions of Nature no less wonderful, wouldsoon perish under the delicate touch of the most subtle ofthe agencies of the universe." But he observed that "thosebodies which underwent this change during the daylight possessedthe power of restoring themselves to their original conditionsduring the hours of night, when this excitement was no longerinfluencing them." Hence it has been inferred that "thehours of darkness are as necessary to the inorganic creation aswe know night and sleep are to the organic kingdom." Not evendoes the moon shine every night, but gives place to darkness.I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated,any more than I would have every acre of earth cultivated:part will be tillage, but the greater part will be meadowand forest, not only serving an immediate use, but preparinga mould against a distant future, by the annual decay of thevegetation which it supports.There are other letters for the child to lean than those whichCadmus invented. The Spaniards have a good term to express thiswild and dusky knowledge–Gramatica parda–tawny grammar,a kind of mother-wit derived from that same leopard to whichI have referred.We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of UsefulKnowledge. It is said that knowledge is power, and thelike. Methinks there is equal need of a Society for theDiffusion of Useful Ignorance, what we will call BeautifulKnowledge, a knowledge useful in a higher sense: for whatis most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceitthat we know something, which robs us of the advantage ofour actual ignorance?  What we call knowledge is often ourpositive ignorance; ignorance our negative knowledge. By longyears of patient industry and reading of the newspapers–forwhat are the libraries of science but files of newspapers–aman accumulates a myriad facts, lays them up in his memory,and then when in some spring of his life he saunters abroadinto the Great Fields of thought, he, as it were, goes to grasslike a horse and leaves all his haness behind in the stable. Iwould say to the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,sometimes,–Go to grass. You have eaten hay long enough. Thespring has come with its green crop. The very cows are drivento their country pastures before the end of May; though I haveheard of one unnatural farmer who kept his cow in the ban andfed her on hay all the year round. So, frequently, the Societyfor the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge treats its cattle.A man's ignorance sometimes is not only useful, butbeautiful–while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimesworse than useless, besides being ugly. Which is the bestman to deal with–he who knows nothing about a subject, and,what is extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or he whoreally knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all?My desire for knowledge is intermittent, but my desire to bathemy head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial andconstant. The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge,but Sympathy with Intelligence.  I do not know that this higherknowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel andgrand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency ofall that we called Knowledge before–a discovery that thereare more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in ourphilosophy. It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun. Mancannot know in any higher sense than this, any more than hecan look serenely and with impunity in the face of the sun:"You will not perceive that, as perceiving a particular thing,"say the Chaldean Oracles.There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a lawwhich we may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and forour convenience, but a successful life knows no law. It is anunfortunate discovery certainly, that of a law which binds uswhere we did not know before that we were bound. Live free,child of the mist–and with respect to knowledge we are allchildren of the mist. The man who takes the liberty to liveis superior to all the laws, by virtue of his relation to thelaw-maker. "That is active duty," says the Vishnu Purana,"which is not for our bondage; that is knowledge which isfor our liberation: all other duty is good only unto weariness;all other knowledge is only the cleveness of an artist."It is remarkable how few events or crises there are in ourhistories, how little exercised we have been in our minds,how few experiences we have had. I would fain be assured thatI am growing apace and rankly, though my very growth disturbthis dull equanimity–though it be with struggle through long,dark, muggy nights or seasons of gloom. It would be well if allour lives were a divine tragedy even, instead of this trivialcomedy or farce. Dante, Bunyan, and others appear to have beenexercised in their minds more than we: they were subjected toa kind of culture such as our district schools and colleges donot contemplate.  Even Mahomet, though many may scream at hisname, had a good deal more to live for, aye, and to die for,than they have commonly.When, at rare intervals, some thought visits one, as perchancehe is walking on a railroad, then, indeed, the cars go bywithout his hearing them. But soon, by some inexorable law,our life goes by and the cars retun.   "Gentle breeze, that wanderest unseen, And bendest the   thistles round Loira of storms, Traveler of the windy glens,   Why hast thou left my ear so soon?"While almost all men feel an attraction drawing them to society,few are attracted strongly to Nature. In their relation toNature men appear to me for the most part, notwithstandingtheir arts, lower than the animals. It is not often a beautifulrelation, as in the case of the animals. How little appreciationof the beauty of the landscape there is among us! We haveto be told that the Greeks called the world ??sµ??  Beauty,or Order, but we do not see clearly why they did so, and weesteem it at best only a curious philological fact.For my part, I feel that with regard to Nature I live a sortof border life, on the confines of a world into which I makeoccasional and transient forays only, and my patriotism andallegiance to the state into whose territories I seem to retreatare those of a moss-trooper.  Unto a life which I call naturalI would gladly follow even a will-o'-the-wisp through bogsand sloughs unimaginable, but no moon nor firefly has shownme the causeway to it. Nature is a personality so vast anduniversal that we have never seen one of her features. Thewalker in the familiar fields which stretch around my nativetown sometimes finds himself in another land than is describedin their owners' deeds, as it were in some faraway fieldon the confines of the actual Concord, where her jurisdictionceases, and the idea which the word Concord suggests ceases tobe suggested. These farms which I have myself surveyed, thesebounds which I have set up, appear dimly still as through amist; but they have no chemistry to fix them; they fade fromthe surface of the glass, and the picture which the painterpainted stands out dimly from beneath. The world with whichwe are commonly acquainted leaves no trace, and it will haveno anniversary.I took a walk on Spaulding's Farm the other aftenoon. I sawthe setting sun lighting up the opposite side of a stately pinewood. Its golden rays straggled into the aisles of the woodas into some noble hall. I was impressed as if some ancientand altogether admirable and shining family had settled therein that part of the land called Concord, unknown to me–towhom the sun was servant–who had not gone into societyin the village–who had not been called on. I saw theirpark, their pleasure-ground, beyond through the wood, inSpaulding's cranberry-meadow. The pines funished them withgables as they grew.  Their house was not obvious to vision;the trees grew through it. I do not know whether I heard thesounds of a suppressed hilarity or not.  They seemed to reclineon the sunbeams. They have sons and daughters.  They are quitewell. The farmer's cart-path, which leads directly throughtheir hall, does not in the least put them out, as the muddybottom of a pool is sometimes seen through the reflected skies.They never heard of Spaulding, and do not know that he is theirneighbor,–notwithstanding I heard him whistle as he drove histeam through the house. Nothing can equal the serenity of theirlives. Their coat-of-arms is simply a lichen. I saw it paintedon the pines and oaks.  Their attics were in the tops of thetrees. They are of no politics.  There was no noise of labor. Idid not perceive that they were weaving or spinning. Yet Idid detect, when the wind lulled and hearing was done away,the finest imaginable sweet musical hum,–as of a distant hivein May, which perchance was the sound of their thinking. Theyhad no idle thoughts, and no one without could see their work,for their industry was not as in knots and excrescences embayed.But I find it difficult to remember them. They fade irrevocablyout of my mind even now while I speak and endeavor to recallthem, and recollect myself. It is only after a long and seriouseffort to recollect my best thoughts that I become again awareof their cohabitancy. If it were not for such families as this,I think I should move out of Concord.We are accustomed to say in New England that few and fewerpigeons visit us every year. Our forests funish no mast forthem. So, it would seem, few and fewer thoughts visit eachgrowing man from year to year, for the grove in our mindsis laid waste,–sold to feed unnecessary fires of ambition,or sent to mill, and there is scarcely a twig left for themto perch on. They no longer build nor breed with us. In somemore genial season, perchance, a faint shadow flits across thelandscape of the mind, cast by the wings of some thought in itsvenal or autumnal migration, but, looking up, we are unableto detect the substance of the thought itself. Our wingedthoughts are tuned to poultry. They no longer soar, and theyattain only to a Shanghai and Cochin China grandeur. Thosegra-a-ate thoughts, those gra-a-ate men you hear of!We hug the earth–how rarely we mount! Methinks we mightelevate ourselves a little more. We might climb a tree, atleast. I found my account in climbing a tree once. It was atall white pine, on the top of a hill; and though I got wellpitched, I was well paid for it, for I discovered new mountainsin the horizon which I had never seen before,–so much more ofthe earth and the heavens. I might have walked about the footof the tree for threescore years and ten, and yet I certainlyshould never have seen them. But, above all, I discovered aroundme,–it was near the end of June,–on the ends of the topmostbranches only, a few minute and delicate red conelike blossoms,the fertile flower of the white pine looking heavenward. Icarried straightway to the village the topmost spire, andshowed it to stranger jurymen who walked the streets,–forit was court week–and to farmers and lumber-dealers andwood-choppers and hunters, and not one had ever seen the likebefore, but they wondered as at a star dropped down. Tell ofancient architects finishing their works on the tops of columnsas perfectly as on the lower and more visible parts! Naturehas from the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forestonly toward the heavens, above men's heads and unobserved bythem. We see only the flowers that are under our feet in themeadows. The pines have developed their delicate blossoms onthe highest twigs of the wood every summer for ages, as wellover the heads of Nature's red children as of her white ones;yet scarcely a farmer or hunter in the land has ever seen them.(post 1 of 2)
       
 (DIR) Post #2698481 by kro@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T09:36:29.478854Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @awg Shafted after an hour wait.image.pngimage.png
       
 (DIR) Post #2698493 by awg@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T09:36:58.142997Z
       
       4 likes, 2 repeats
       
       Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He isblessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passinglife in remembering the past. Unless our philosophy hearsthe cock crow in every ban-yard within our horizon, it isbelated. That sound commonly reminds us that we are growingrusty and antique in our employments and habits of thoughts. Hisphilosophy comes down to a more recent time than ours.  There issomething suggested by it that is a newer testament,–thegospel according to this moment. He has not fallen asten; hehas got up early and kept up early, and to be where he is,is to be in season, in the foremost rank of time. It is anexpression of the health and soundness of Nature, a brag forall the world,–healthiness as of a spring burst forth, anew fountain of the Muses, to celebrate this last instant oftime. Where he lives no fugitive slave laws are passed. Whohas not betrayed his master many times since last he heardthat note?The merit of this bird's strain is in its freedom from allplaintiveness. The singer can easily move us to tears or tolaughter, but where is he who can excite in us a pure moningjoy? When, in doleful dumps, breaking the awful stillness of ourwooden sidewalk on a Sunday, or, perchance, a watcher in thehouse of mouning, I hear a cockerel crow far or near, I thinkto myself, "There is one of us well, at any rate,"–andwith a sudden gush retun to my senses.We had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I waswalking in a meadow, the source of a small brook, when thesun at last, just before setting, after a cold grey day,reached a clear stratum in the horizon, and the softest,brightest moning sunlight fell on the dry grass and on thestems of the trees in the opposite horizon and on the leavesof the shrub-oaks on the hillside, while our shadows stretchedlong over the meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes inits beams. It was such a light as we could not have imagineda moment before, and the air also was so warm and serene thatnothing was wanting to make a paradise of that meadow. Whenwe reflected that this was not a solitary phenomenon, neverto happen again, but that it would happen forever and ever,an infinite number of evenings, and cheer and reassure thelatest child that walked there, it was more glorious still.The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible,with all the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities,and perchance as it has never set before,–where there is buta solitary marsh hawk to have his wings gilded by it, or onlya musquash looks out from his cabin, and there is some littleblack-veined brook in the midst of the marsh, just beginningto meander, winding slowly round a decaying stump. We walkedin so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered grass andleaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had neverbathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmurto it. The west side of every wood and rising ground gleamedlike the boundary of Elysium, and the sun on our backs seemedlike a gentle herdsman driving us home at evening.So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shallshine more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchanceshine into our minds and hearts, and light up our whole liveswith a great awakening light, as warm and serene and goldenas on a bank-side in Autumn.a28b77adecfce1f7b4792167fe9225d…
       
 (DIR) Post #2698568 by kro@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T09:39:42.263735Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @awg Ahh, so it was in the same thread.>TFW no notification because you untagged me making me think you started a new thread
       
 (DIR) Post #2698578 by awg@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T09:40:06.500948Z
       
       3 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @kro if you ask me or tija to simply regurgitate text, you can expect us to do some cursory work to ensure paragraph separation is intact and all characters parse as they should.
       
 (DIR) Post #2698608 by kro@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T09:41:16.392003Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @awg I'm not sure what that has to do with untagging me. lol
       
 (DIR) Post #2698908 by awg@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T09:53:35.647753Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @kro I'll expect your thoughts on this fine essay tomorrow (your time) come morn.fd86387a06530a8b70a1a3aef577ac5…
       
 (DIR) Post #2698932 by kro@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T09:54:20.972403Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @awg Sorry, I didn't get notifications. never saw the posts. :^)
       
 (DIR) Post #2699010 by kro@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T09:58:24.335964Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @awg Also it's already 2AM my time. I'm not writing a fucking essay on an essay this late.
       
 (DIR) Post #2699041 by awg@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T10:00:13.720737Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @kro I don't want an essay.  I just want some thoughts or impressions you have after reading.  and tomorrow is not today, it's tomorrow~7321a4f919c1bb90d572dd0e717b2cf…
       
 (DIR) Post #2699078 by kro@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T10:01:32.841351Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @awg Alright, mondey you'll hear my thoughts, promise.
       
 (DIR) Post #2702096 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T12:04:23.438808Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @awg @kro Who is that? Looks like prison.
       
 (DIR) Post #2702122 by awg@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T12:05:22.696473Z
       
       3 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @kro you don't know my dear Uncle Ted?f44606929ec76cc991660d28ab12dc5…
       
 (DIR) Post #2702133 by kro@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T12:05:57.858897Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @awg @rambeaucockius Awg pls
       
 (DIR) Post #2702153 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T12:06:55.890374Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @awg @kro You man THAT Ted? Is he still alive?
       
 (DIR) Post #2702155 by kro@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T12:07:10.965540Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @awg Who cares?
       
 (DIR) Post #2702163 by awg@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T12:07:21.428923Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @kro Yes.  he's still publishing books and correspondence, too.
       
 (DIR) Post #2702166 by awg@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T12:07:39.184208Z
       
       2 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @kro @rambeaucockius thanks for suggesting my next long post.
       
 (DIR) Post #2702401 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T12:15:38.524634Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @awg @kro Shakespeare seems to be always pointing at himself, like Orson Welles.
       
 (DIR) Post #2703773 by yuduki@aria.company
       2019-01-06T13:11:29.730725Z
       
       3 likes, 2 repeats
       
       @awg @kro @rambeaucockius remember the 14 words"the industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race"
       
 (DIR) Post #2709484 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-06T17:59:33.050365Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @yuduki @awg @kro Except  that there has been an industrial ie technological revolution going for the entire history of homo sapiens and probably for neanderthals too.
       
 (DIR) Post #2719567 by yuduki@aria.company
       2019-01-07T00:20:12.301375Z
       
       3 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @awg @kro "industry" refers to a very specific point in technological progress
       
 (DIR) Post #2728045 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-07T07:16:50.459420Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @yuduki @awg @kro According to whom?
       
 (DIR) Post #2741878 by yuduki@aria.company
       2019-01-07T16:16:50.579042Z
       
       2 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @awg @kro the dictionary
       
 (DIR) Post #2744481 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-07T19:39:31.845444Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @yuduki @awg @kro No, it doesn't. Industry is an activity, not a historical even.
       
 (DIR) Post #2753377 by awg@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-08T00:55:34.499196Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @yuduki @rambeaucockius @kro regardless, the term was defined long before Uncle Ted applied it.screenshot-20190108_0045.png
       
 (DIR) Post #2754407 by tija@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-08T01:37:22.105969Z
       
       1 likes, 2 repeats
       
       @awg @rambeaucockius @yuduki @kro Hun t the h𝒂re an d turn her 𝒅 own the r𝒐 cky roa d An 𝒅 all the w 𝒂y to D u blin’, whac k-f𝒐 l-la -de-da ­__arishima_alice_monobeno_drawn…
       
 (DIR) Post #2754494 by sjw@feminism.lgbt
       2019-01-08T01:41:03Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @tija @yuduki @awg @kro @rambeaucockius I wanna hugg, snugg, and fugg.
       
 (DIR) Post #2754889 by tija@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-08T01:58:12.402161Z
       
       5 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @sjw @rambeaucockius @kro @awg @yuduki1:Firefox_002.png
       
 (DIR) Post #2755532 by sjw@feminism.lgbt
       2019-01-08T02:28:53Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @tija @yuduki @awg @kro @rambeaucockius Why block?
       
 (DIR) Post #2756644 by tija@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-08T03:18:20.393522Z
       
       2 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @sjw @rambeaucockius @kro @awg @yuduki5de6ff633010765ede25c0e1a65b357…
       
 (DIR) Post #2756688 by sjw@feminism.lgbt
       2019-01-08T03:20:52Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @tija @yuduki @awg @kro @rambeaucockius I know. It's just that actual work was put into it.
       
 (DIR) Post #2756780 by sumika@anime.website
       2019-01-08T03:23:34.303710Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @tija I'm here to praise Alice, a thirsty but adorable girl
       
 (DIR) Post #2756811 by tija@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-08T03:25:55.460082Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @sjw @rambeaucockius @kro @awg @yuduki It wouldn’t be as good good without rustling someone’s jimmies.
       
 (DIR) Post #2757157 by camedei456@shitposter.club
       2019-01-08T03:37:56.341776Z
       
       0 likes, 1 repeats
       
       @tija @sjw @rambeaucockius @kro @awg @yuduki https://youtu.be/D8cvgQJFDeo
       
 (DIR) Post #2757989 by sjw@feminism.lgbt
       2019-01-08T04:13:42Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @camedei456 @yuduki @awg @kro @rambeaucockius @tija Gotta love those YouTube auto generated subtitles.
       
 (DIR) Post #2758083 by sjw@feminism.lgbt
       2019-01-08T04:16:11Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @tija @yuduki @awg @kro @rambeaucockius I just realised, what's up with those stats? They're way off.
       
 (DIR) Post #2760193 by tija@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-08T06:14:01.169974Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @sjw Stats never federate, so on Smug it’s the amounts of your locally mirrored profile.
       
 (DIR) Post #2760907 by sjw@feminism.lgbt
       2019-01-08T06:48:40Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @tija Ah, that makes sense.
       
 (DIR) Post #2776983 by yuduki@aria.company
       2019-01-08T13:41:05.526184Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @tija @sjw @rambeaucockius @kro @awg those knees, egads
       
 (DIR) Post #2776984 by tija@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-08T18:54:33.412542Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @yuduki @sjw @rambeaucockius @kro @awg I couldn’t find a better pic, so resorted to the folder with the art of a certain ladle licker.
       
 (DIR) Post #2777560 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-08T19:16:54.452072Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @awg @yuduki @kro You are using the second definition, after the semi-colon. That is not the necessary definition. The first phrase is.
       
 (DIR) Post #2777585 by yuduki@aria.company
       2019-01-08T00:35:06.970824Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @awg @kro an activity which only really started in the last two hundred years
       
 (DIR) Post #2777586 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-08T19:18:00.265482Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @yuduki @awg @kro The Renaissance was also an industrial revolution. And you could say the era we live in now is also, except it is more likely that humanity is always going through one.
       
 (DIR) Post #2785343 by yuduki@aria.company
       2019-01-09T00:32:42.075014Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @tija @sjw @rambeaucockius @kro @awg i think you might have the wrong person but okay
       
 (DIR) Post #2785344 by sjw@feminism.lgbt
       2019-01-09T00:44:02Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @yuduki @awg @tija @kro @rambeaucockius He was replying to you...
       
 (DIR) Post #2785900 by awg@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-09T01:08:49.676501Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @yuduki @kro >the second definitionthat's one definition, not two.in any case, I'm not seeing the point of this argument.  by your same reasoning, the Renaissance is not exceptional and its association with a period should be similarly meaningless, since "humanity is always going through" some form of revival of arts and culture.  if you're intent is to negate the premise of the work, you're welcome to do so.  but let's not waste time jockeying with semantics.4779f9d4a0b31d95c9b69af6d24de00…
       
 (DIR) Post #2785901 by yuduki@aria.company
       2019-01-09T00:30:19.531392Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @awg @kro that's not how a semicolon works, silly https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/234365/what-does-the-semicolon-in-the-dictionary-definition-of-a-word-mean/277444#277444
       
 (DIR) Post #2786042 by yuduki@aria.company
       2019-01-09T00:31:12.857880Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @awg @kro "renaissance factories" doesn't have the same ring to it
       
 (DIR) Post #2804146 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-09T15:41:52.768573Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @awg @yuduki @kro A semicolon separates separate items in a series.
       
 (DIR) Post #2804217 by yuduki@aria.company
       2019-01-09T15:43:50.775750Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @awg @kro with the implication that they're related
       
 (DIR) Post #2804218 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-09T15:46:05.045967Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @yuduki @awg @kro They are related because the "Industrial Revolution", which by convention in Western society refers to mechanization in the 19th Century, is an example of the the larger concept stated before the semicolon.
       
 (DIR) Post #2804351 by yuduki@aria.company
       2019-01-09T15:50:19.266130Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @awg @kro well, according to your use of the semicolon,language ; you
       
 (DIR) Post #2804352 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-09T15:52:03.051070Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @yuduki @awg @kro Chicago Manual of Style.
       
 (DIR) Post #2804383 by yuduki@aria.company
       2019-01-09T15:52:28.884134Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @awg @kro Any history book.
       
 (DIR) Post #2804384 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-09T15:53:45.577786Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @yuduki @awg @kro Except the one I read.
       
 (DIR) Post #2804410 by yuduki@aria.company
       2019-01-09T15:54:40.695238Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @awg @kro the chicago manual of style isn't a history book silly
       
 (DIR) Post #2804411 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-09T15:55:11.007593Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @yuduki @awg @kro It does talk about semicolons, however.
       
 (DIR) Post #2804491 by yuduki@aria.company
       2019-01-09T15:56:11.426401Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @awg @kro a first order logic book also talks about "or" but when people ask if you're a boy or girl the normal answer is not "yes"
       
 (DIR) Post #2804492 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-09T15:59:58.333660Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @yuduki @awg @kro Not sure of the relevance of this to the fact that industrial i.e., technological innovation has been a continuum in the history of Homo sapiens and probably even Neanderthals.
       
 (DIR) Post #2814348 by yuduki@aria.company
       2019-01-09T16:05:08.249336Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @awg @kro once again, technological innovation doesn't necessarily mean there was an industrial revolutioni understand if english is your only language but still
       
 (DIR) Post #2845617 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-10T21:52:47.356085Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @yuduki @awg @kro Yes, it does and is recognizable in any language, if the innovation is constant. Just as the fish bone evolved into the sewing needle hundreds of thousands of years ago.
       
 (DIR) Post #2845687 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-10T21:56:33.006895Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @yuduki @awg @kro That would depend on what you mean by revolution and how trivially the language you use regards the word.
       
 (DIR) Post #2849691 by yuduki@aria.company
       2019-01-11T00:18:41.750111Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @awg @kro would you say you use the word incredibly trivially then, since you'd apply the term to innovations that did not involve factories
       
 (DIR) Post #2899526 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-12T13:23:35.548480Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @yuduki @awg @kro That brings us back to the definition of industry then, which to my knowledge does not require factories or mass production.
       
 (DIR) Post #2899610 by yuduki@aria.company
       2019-01-12T13:28:22.965655Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @rambeaucockius @awg @kro well in most people's definitions they doso yeah since it boils down to a definition issue there's not much point continuing is it? hope you have a comfy day~
       
 (DIR) Post #2899622 by rambeaucockius@pl.smuglo.li
       2019-01-12T13:28:59.031801Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @yuduki @awg @kro My thought exactly. yawn.
       
 (DIR) Post #2899763 by sjw@neckbeard.xyz
       2019-01-12T13:35:27.406678Z
       
       2 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @awg @rambeaucockius @kro Yeah, we got caught playing the naked game and then he left do a really long time.