“Thoreau’s Walden… which Chris has never heard and which can be read a hundred times without exhaustion. I try always to pick a book far over his head and read it as a basis for questions and answers, rather than without interruption. I read a sentence or two, wait for him to come up with his usual barrage of questions, answer them, then read another sentence or two. Classics read well this way. They must be written this way. Sometimes we have spent a whole evening reading and talking and discovered we have only covered two or three pages. It’s a form of reading done a century ago…when Chautauquas were popular. Unless you’ve tried it you can’t imagine how pleasant it is to do it this way.”

Excerpt From: Robert M. Pirsig. “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance.”

The great person never wants an opportunity to be great, but makes occasion for all about him.

I don’t know if Thoreau had Emerson in mind–but he could have.

At length, in the beginning of May, with the help of some of my acquaintances, rather to improve so good an occasion for neighborliness than from any necessity, I setup the frame of my house. No man was evermore honored in the character of his raisers than I. They are destined, I trust, to assist at the raising of loftier structures one day. (Walden, 49)

Thoreau’s acquaintances were Ralph Waldo Emerson, A. Bronson Alcott, William Ellery Channing, George William Curtis, Burrill Curtis, Edmund Hosmer, John Hosmer, Edmund Hosmer Jr., and Andrew Hosmer.
(The Days of Henry Thoreau, 181).

Walden Woods Project

1845

May 13
Where are the men who dwell in thought? Talk,—that is palaver! at which men hurrah and clap! The manners of the bear are so far good that he does not pay you any compliments.

May 14
Most men are easily transplanted from here there, for they have so little root—no tap root,—or their roots penetrate so little way, that you can thrust a shovel quite under them and take them up, roots and all.

Each one’s world is but a clearing in the forest, so much open and inclused ground. When the mail coach rumbles into one of these, the villagers gaze after you with a compassionate look, as much as to say: “Where have you been all this time, that you make your debut in the world at this late hour? Nevertheless, here we are; come and study us, that you may learn men and manners.

There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon at any other season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season. There is a time to watch the ripples on Ripple Lake, to look for arrowheads, to study the rocks and lichens, a time to walk on sandy deserts; and the observer of nature must improve these seasons as much as the farmer his. So boys fly kites and play ball or hawkie at particular times all over the State. A wise man will know what game to play to-day, and play it.

April 7. Tuesday. Went to wall:in the woods. WhenI had got half a mile or more away in the woods alone,and was sitting oil a rock, Nvas surprised to be joinedby It’s large Newfoundland dog Ranger, who hadsmelledme out and so tracked me.Would that I could add his woodcraft to my own! He would trot along before me as far as the winding wood-path allowed me to see him, and then, with the shortest possible glance over his shoulder, ascertain if I was following. At a fork in the road he would pause, look back at me, and deliberate which course I would take.

Weather changes at last to drizzling.
In criticising your writing, trust your fine instinct.There are many things which we come very near ques-tioning, but do not question. When I have sent offmy manuscripts to the printer, certain objectionablesentences or expressions are sure to obtrude themselves on my attention with force, though I had not con-sciously suspected them before. My critical instinct then at once breaks the ice and comes to the surface.

WALDEN CANDLE  /  $50

Did they read the book?

All enterprises must be self-supporting, must pay for themselves. The great art of life is how to turn the surplus life of the soul into life for the body — that so the life not be a failure. For instance, a poet must sustain his body with his poetry. As is said of the merchants, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the life of men is a failure, and bankruptcy may be surely prophesied. You must get your living by loving.

—Journal, March 13, 1853