WALDEN AND ON THE DUTY OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE. Henry David Thoreau
he is poor; and for a similar reason we are all poor in respect
to a thousand savage comforts, though surrounded by luxuries. As
Chapman sings,—
“The false society of men—
—for earthly greatness
All heavenly comforts rarefies to air.”
And when the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the
poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him. As I understand
it, that was a valid objection urged by Momus against the house which
Minerva made, that she “had not made it movable, by which means a bad
neighborhood might be avoided;” and it may still be urged, for our
houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather
than housed in them; and the bad neighborhood to be avoided is our own
scurvy selves. I know one or two families, at least, in this town, who,
for nearly a generation, have been wishing to sell their houses in the
outskirts and move into the village, but have not been able to
accomplish it, and only death will set them free.
Granted that the _majority_ are able at last either to own or hire the
modern house with all its improvements. While civilization has been
improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to
inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create
noblemen and kings. And _if the civilized man’s pursuits are no
worthier than the savage’s, if he is employed the greater part of his
life in obtaining gross necessaries and comforts merely, why should he
have a better dwelling than the former?_
But how do the poor minority fare? Perhaps it will be found, that just
in proportion as some have been placed in outward circumstances above
the savage, others have been degraded below him. The luxury of one
class is counterbalanced by the indigence of another. On the one side
is the palace, on the other are the almshouse and “silent poor.” The
myriads who built the pyramids to be the tombs of the Pharaohs were fed
on garlic, and it may be were not decently buried themselves. The mason
who finishes the cornice of the palace returns at night perchance to a
hut not so good as a wigwam. It is a mistake to suppose that, in a
country where the usual evidences of civilization exist, the condition
of a very large body of the inhabitants may not be as degraded as that
of savages. I refer to the degraded poor, not now to the degraded rich.
To know this I should not need to look farther than to the shanties
which every where border our railroads, that last improvement in
civilization; where I see in my daily walks human beings living in
sties, and all winter with an open door, for the sake of light, without
any visible, often imaginable, wood pile, and the forms of both old and
young are permanently contracted by the long habit of shrinking from
cold and misery, and the development of all their limbs and faculties
is checked. It certainly is fair to look at that class by whose labor
the works which distinguish this generation are accomplished. Such too,
to a greater or less extent, is the condition of the operatives of
every denomination in England, which is the great workhouse of the
world. Or I could refer you to Ireland, which is marked as one of the
white or enlightened spots on the map. Contrast the physical condition
of the Irish with that of the North American Indian, or the South Sea
Islander, or any other savage race before it was degraded by contact
with the civilized man. Yet I have no doubt that that people’s rulers
are as wise as the average of civilized rulers. Their condition only
proves what squalidness may consist with civilization. I hardly need
refer now to the laborers in our Southern States who produce the staple
exports of this country, and are themselves a staple production of the
South. But to confine myself to those who are said to be in _moderate_
circumstances.
Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are
actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that
they must have such a one as their neighbors have. As if one were to
wear any sort of coat which the tailor might cut out for him, or,
gradually leaving off palmleaf hat or cap of woodchuck skin, complain
of hard times because he could not afford to buy him a crown! It is
possible to invent a house still more convenient and luxurious than we
have, which yet all would admit that man could not afford to pay for.
Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes
to be content with less? Shall the respectable citizen thus gravely
teach, by precept and example, the necessity of the young man’s
providing a certain number of superfluous glow-shoes, and umbrellas,
and empty guest chambers for empty guests, before he dies? Why should
not our furniture be as simple as the Arab’s or the Indian’s? When I
think of the benefactors of the race, whom we have apotheosized as
messengers from heaven, bearers of divine gifts to man, I do not see in
my mind any retinue at their heels, any car-load of fashionable
furniture. Or what if I were to allow—would it not be a singular
allowance?—that our furniture should be more complex than the Arab’s,
in proportion as we are morally and intellectually his superiors! At
present our houses are cluttered and defiled with it, and a good
housewife would sweep out the greater part into the dust hole, and not
leave her morning’s work undone. Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora
and the music of Memnon, what should be man’s _morning work_ in this
world? I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified
to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my
mind was all undusted still, and I threw them out the window in
disgust. How, then, could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit
in the open air, for no dust gathers on the