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2021年1月20日发(作者：促进)
2.

Where I Lived,






and What I Lived for

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At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of
a house. I have thus surveyed the country on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. In
imagination I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were to be bought, and I knew
their
price.
I
walked
over
each
farmer's
premises,
tasted
his
wild
apples,
discoursed
on
husbandry with him, took his farm at his price, at any price, mortgaging it to him in my mind;
even put a higher price on it--took everything but a deed of it--took his word for his deed, for I
dearly love to talk--cultivated it, and him too to some extent, I trust, and withdrew when I had
enjoyed it long enough, leaving him to carry it on. This experience entitled me to be regarded
as
a
sort
of
real- estate
broker
by
my
friends.
Wherever
I
sat,
there
I
might
live,
and
the
landscape
radiated
from
me
accordingly.
What
is
a
house
but
a
sedes,
a
seat--better
if
a
country seat. I discovered many a site for a house not likely to be soon improved, which some
might have thought too far from the village, but to my eyes the village was too far from it. Well,
there I might live, I said; and there I did live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life; saw how I
could let the years run off, buffet the winter through, and see the spring come in. The future
inhabitants of this region, wherever they may place their houses, may be sure that they have
been anticipated. An afternoon sufficed to lay out the land into orchard, wood- lot, and pasture,
and to decide what
fine oaks or pines should be left to stand before the door, and whence
each blasted tree could be seen to the best advantage; and then I let it lie, fallow, perchance,
for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.






My imagination carried me so far that I even had the refusal of several farms--the refusal
was all I wanted--but I never got my fingers burned by actual possession. The nearest that I
came to actual possession was when I bought the Hollowell place, and had begun to sort my
seeds, and collected materials with which to make a wheelbarrow to carry it on or off with; but
before the owner gave me a deed of it, his wife--every man has such a wife--changed her mind
and wished to keep it, and he offered me ten dollars to release him. Now, to speak the truth, I
had but ten cents in the world, and it surpassed my arithmetic to tell, if I was that man who
had ten cents, or who had a farm, or ten dollars, or all together. However, I let him keep the
ten dollars and the farm too, for I had carried it far enough; or rather, to be generous, I sold
him the farm for just what I gave for it, and, as he was not a rich man, made him a present of
ten dollars, and still had my ten cents, and seeds, and materials for a wheelbarrow left. I found
thus
that
I
had
been
a
rich
man
without
any
damage
to
my
poverty.
But
I
retained
the
landscape, and I have since annually carried off what it yielded without a wheelbarrow. With
respect to landscapes,





My right there is none to dispute.





I have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having enjoyed the most valuable part of a farm,
while the crusty farmer supposed that he had got a few wild apples only. Why, the owner does
not know it for many years when a poet has put his farm in rhyme, the most admirable kind of
invisible fence, has fairly impounded it, milked it, skimmed it, and got all the cream, and left
the farmer only the skimmed milk.





The real attractions of the Hollowell farm, to me, were: its complete retirement, being,
about two miles from the village, half a mile from the nearest neighbor, and separated from
the highway by a broad field; its bounding on the river, which the owner said protected it by its
fogs from frosts in the spring, though that was nothing to me; the gray color and ruinous state
of the house and barn, and the dilapidated fences, which put such an interval between me and
the last occupant; the hollow and lichen-covered apple trees, nawed by rabbits, showing what
kind
of
neighbors
I
should
have;
but
above
all,
the
recollection
I
had
of
it
from
my
earliest
voyages
up
the
river,
when
the
house
was
concealed
behind
a
dense
grove
of
red
maples,
through
which
I
heard
the
house-dog
bark.
I
was
in
haste
to
buy
it,
before
the
proprietor
finished getting out some rocks, cutting down the hollow apple trees, and grubbing up some
young
birches
which
had
sprung
up
in
the
pasture,
or,
in
short,
had
made
any
more
of
his
improvements. To enjoy these advantages I was ready to carry it on; like Atlas,(2) to take the
world
on
my
shoulders--I
never
heard
what
compensation
he
received
for
that--and
do
all
those
things
which
had
no
other
motive
or
excuse
but
that
I
might
pay
for
it
and
be
unmolested
in
my
possession
of
it;
for
I
knew
all
the
while
that
it
would
yield
the
most
abundant crop of the kind I wanted, if I could only afford to let it alone. But it turned out as I
have said.






All that I could say, then, with respect to farming on a large scale--I have always cultivated
a garden --was, that I had had my seeds ready. Many think that seeds improve with age. I have
no doubt that time discriminates between the good and the bad; and when at last I shall plant,
I shall be less likely to be disappointed. But I would say to my fellows, once for all, As long as
possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed
to a farm or the county jail.







Old
Cato,(3)
whose

Re
Rustica
is
my

says-- and
the
only
translation
I
have seen makes sheer nonsense of the passage--
thus in your mind, not to buy greedily; nor spare your pains to look at it, and do not think it
enough to go round it once. The oftener you go there the more it will please you, if it is good.
I think I shall not buy greedily, but go round and round it as long as I live, and be buried in it
first, that it may please me the more at last.



------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------






The present was my next experiment of this kind, which I purpose to describe more at
length, for convenience putting the experience of two years into one. As I have said, I do not
propose
to
write
an
ode
to
dejection,
but
to
brag
as
lustily
as
chanticleer
in
the
morning,
standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up.






When first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my nights as well as
days
there,
which,
by
accident,
was
on
Independence
Day,
or
the
Fourth
of
July,
1845,
my
house
was
not
finished
for
winter,
but
was
merely
a
defence
against
the
rain,
without
plastering
or
chimney,
the
walls
being
of
rough,
weather-stained
boards,
with
wide
chinks,
which
made
it
cool
at
night.
The
upright
white
hewn
studs
and
freshly
planed
door
and
window casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers were
saturated with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them.
To
my
imagination
it
retained
throughout
the
day
more
or
less
of
this
auroral
character,
reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited a year before. This was an
airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail
her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of
mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning
wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it.
Olympus (4) is but the outside of the earth everywhere.






The only house I had been the owner of before, if I except a boat, was a tent, which I used
occasionally when making excursions in the summer, and this is still rolled up in my garret; but
the boat, after passing from hand to hand, has gone down the stream of time. With this more
substantial
shelter
about
me,
I
had
made
some
progress
toward
settling
in
the
world.
This
frame, so slightly clad, was a sort of crystallization around me, and reacted on the builder. It
was suggestive somewhat as a picture in outlines. I did not need to go outdoors to take the air,
for the atmosphere within had lost none of its freshness. It was not so much within doors as
behind
a
door
where
I
sat,
even
in
the
rainiest
weather.
The
Harivansa
(5)
says,

abode
without birds is like a meat without seasoning.
suddenly neighbor to the birds; not by having imprisoned one, but having caged myself near
them. I was not only nearer to some of those which commonly frequent the garden and the
orchard, but to those smaller and more thrilling songsters of the forest which never, or rarely,
serenade
a
villager--the
wood
thrush,
the
veery,
the
scarlet
tanager,
the
field
sparrow,
the
whip-poor-will, and many others.






I was seated by the shore of a small pond, about a mile and a half south of the village of
Concord and somewhat higher than it, in the midst of an extensive wood between that town
and Lincoln, and about two miles south of that our only field known to fame, Concord Battle
Ground; but I was so low in the woods that the opposite shore, half a mile off, like the rest,
covered with wood, was my most distant horizon. For the first week, whenever I looked out on
the pond it impressed me like a tarn high up on the side of a mountain, its bottom far above
the surface of other lakes, and, as the sun arose, I saw it throwing off its nightly clothing of
mist,
and
here
and
there,
by
degrees,
its
soft
ripples
or
its
smooth
reflecting
surface
was
revealed, while the mists, like ghosts, were stealthily withdrawing in every direction into the
woods, as at the breaking up of some nocturnal conventicle. The very dew seemed to hang
upon the trees later into the day than usual, as on the sides of mountains.






This small lake was of most value as a neighbor in the intervals of a gentle rain-storm in
August, when, both air and water being perfectly still, but the sky overcast, mid-afternoon had
all the serenity of evening, and the wood thrush sang around, and was heard from shore to
shore. A lake like this is never smoother than at such a time; and the clear portion of the air
above
it
being,
shallow
and
darkened
by
clouds,
the
water,
full
of
light
and
reflections,
becomes a lower heaven itself so much the more important. From a hill-top near by, where the
wood had been recently cut off, there was a pleasing vista southward across the pond, through
a wide indentation in the hills which form the shore there, where their opposite sides sloping
toward each other suggested a stream flowing out in that direction through a wooded valley,
but stream there was none. That way I looked between and over the near green hills to some
distant and higher ones in the horizon, tinged with blue. Indeed, by standing on tiptoe I could
catch a glimpse of some of the peaks of the still bluer and more distant mountain ranges in the
northwest,
those
true-blue
coins
from
heaven's
own
mint,
and
also
of
some
portion
of
the
village. But in other directions, even from this point, I could not see over or beyond the woods
which surrounded me. It is well to have some water in your neighborhood, to give buoyancy to
and float the earth. One value even of the smallest well is, that when you look into it you see
that earth is not continent but insular. This is as important as that it keeps butter cool. When I
looked across the pond from this peak toward the Sudbury meadows, which in time of flood I
distinguished elevated perhaps by a mirage in their seething valley, like a coin in a basin, all the
earth
beyond
the
pond
appeared
like
a
thin
crust
insulated
and
floated
even
by
this
small
sheet of interverting water, and I was reminded that this on which I dwelt was but dry land.






Though
the
view
from
my
door
was
still
more
contracted,
I
did
not
feel
crowded
or
confined
in
the
least.
There
was
pasture
enough
for
my
imagination.
The
low
shrub
oak
plateau to which the opposite shore arose stretched away toward the prairies of the West and
the
steppes
of
Tartary,
affording
ample
room
for
all
the
roving
families
of
men.

are
none happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon
his herds required new and larger pastures.






Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and
to those eras in history which had most attracted me. Where I lived was as far off as many a
region viewed nightly by astronomers. We are wont to imagine rare and delectable places in
some remote and more celestial corner of the system, behind the constellation of Cassiopeia's
Chair, far from noise and disturbance. I discovered that my house actually had its site in such a
withdrawn, but forever new and unprofaned, part of the universe. If it were worth the while to
settle in those parts near to the Pleiades or the Hyades, to Aldebaran (7) or Altair, then I was
really
there,
or
at
an
equal
remoteness
from
the
life
which
I
had
left
behind,
dwindled
and
twinkling with as fine a ray to my nearest neighbor, and to be seen only in moonless nights by
him. Such was that part of creation where I had squatted,--









And held his thoughts as high


As were the mounts whereon his flocks





Did hourly feed him by.

What should we think of the shepherd's life if his flocks always wandered to higher pastures
than his thoughts





Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say
innocence, with Nature herself. I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora (9) as the Greeks.
I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things
which I did. They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub of King Tching Thang
(10)
to
this
effect:

thyself
completely
each
day;
do
it
again,
and
again,
and
forever
again.
the faint hum of a mosquito making its invisible and unimaginable tour through my apartment
at earliest dawn, when I was sitting with door and windows open, as I could be by any trumpet
that
ever
sang
of
fame.
It
was
Homer's
requiem;
itself
an
Iliad
and
Odyssey
(11)
in
the
air,
singing
its
own
wrath
and
wanderings.
There
was
something
cosmical
about
it;
a
standing
advertisement, till forbidden, of the everlasting vigor and fertility of the world. The morning,
which
is
the
most
memorable
season
of the
day,
is
the
awakening
hour.
Then
there
is
least
somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest
of the day and night. Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we
are not awakened
by our Genius,
but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are
not
awakened by our own newly acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the
undulations
of
celestial
music,
instead
of
factory
bells,
and
a
fragrance
filling
the
air--to
a
higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be
good, no less than the light. That man who does not believe that each day contains an earlier,
more sacred, and auroral hour than he has yet profaned, has despaired of life, and is pursuing
a descending and darkening way. After a partial cessation of his sensuous life, the soul of man,
or its organs rather, are reinvigorated each day, and his Genius tries again what noble life it can
make.
All
memorable
events,
I
should
say,
transpire
in
morning
time
and
in
a
morning
atmosphere. The Vedas (12) say,
and the fairest and most memorable of the actions of men, date from such an hour. All poets
and heroes, like Memnon,(13) are the children of Aurora, and emit their music at sunrise. To