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When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I
lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house
which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in cord,
Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only.
I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner
in civilized life again.
I should not obtrude my affairs so mu the notiy
readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my
townsmen ing my mode of life, whie would call
imperti, though they do not appear to me at all imperti,
but, sidering the circumstances, very natural ai.
Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I
was not afraid; and the like. Others have been curious to learn
ortion of my ine I devoted to charitable purposes; and
some, who have large families, hooor children I maintained.
I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no particular
i io pardon me if I uake to answer some of these
questions in this book. In most books, the I, or first person, is
omitted; in this it will be retaihat, in respect to egotism,
is the main difference. We only do not remember that it is,
after all, always the first person that is speaking. I should not
talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as
well. Unfortunately, I am fio this theme by the narrowness
of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer,
first or last, a simple and sincere at of his own life, and not
merely what he has heard of other mens lives; some such at as
he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has
lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. Perhaps
these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students. As
for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply
to them. I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the
coat, for it may do good servi whom it fits.
I would fain say something, not so much ing the ese
and Sandwich Islanders as you who read these pages, who are said to
live in New England; something about your dition, especially your
outward dition or circumstances in this world, in this town, what
it is, whether it is necessary that it be as bad as it is, whether
it ot be improved as well as not. I have travelled a good deal
in cord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the
inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penan a thousand
remarkable ways. What I have heard of Bramins sitting exposed to
four fires and looking in the face of the sun; or hanging suspended,
with their heads downward, over flames; or looking at the heavens
over their shoulders "until it bees impossible for them to resume
their natural position, while from the twist of the neothing but
liquids pass into the stomach"; or dwelling, ed for life,
at the foot of a tree; or measuring with their bodies, like
caterpillars, the breadth of vast empires; or standing on one leg on
the tops of pillars -- even these forms of scious penance are
hardly more incredible and astonishing than the ses which I daily
witness. The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in parison
with those which my ne