Sunday, April 16, 2017

100 REFLECTIONS: The Sages of Concord #9

       PENANCE


          I would fain say something, not so much concerning the Chinese and Sandwich Islanders as you who read these pages, who are said to live in New England; something about your condition, especially your outward condition 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 cannot be improved as well as not. I have traveled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, in offices, and fields, the inhabitants appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways.  . . .The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve, and had an end; but I could never see that these men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor. They have no friend Iolaus to burn with a hot iron the root of the hydra’s head, but as soon as the head is crushed, two spring up.


                                                                                    from EconomyWalden

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