The Sages of Concord: 100 REFLECTIONS: The Sages of Concord #29

Sunday, May 7, 2017

100 REFLECTIONS: The Sages of Concord #29

The Wreck of the Elizabeth

"Let me say to you and to myself in one breath, Cultivate the tree which you have found to bear fruit in your soil.. . . Do not trouble yourself to be religious; you will never get a thank-you for it. If you can drive a nail and have any nails to drive, drive them. If you have any experiments you would like to try, try them; now's your chance. Do not entertain doubts, if they are not agreeable to you."

from Thoreau's Journal, July 16 (?) 1850 shortly after combing the beaches of Fire Island following the drownings of Margaret Fuller, her husband, the Marquis d'Ossoli and their two-year-old son, Nino.

". . .whatever actually happens to a man is wonderfully trivial and insignificant, --even to death itself, I imagine. He complains of the Fates who drown him, that they do not touch him. They do not deal directly with him. I have in my pocket a button which I ripped off the coat of the Marquis of Ossoli on the seashore the other day. Held up, it interrupts the light and casts a shadow, an actual button so called, -- and yet all the life it is connected with is less substantial to me than my faintest dreams. This stream of events which we consent to call actual, and that other mightier stream which alone carries us with it, --what makes the difference? . . .We are ever dying to one world and being born into another, and possibly no man knows whether he is at any time dead in the sense in which he affirms that phenomenon of another, or not. Our thoughts are the epochs of our life: all else is but as a journal of the winds that blew while we were here.. . .

"There was nothing at all remarkable about them. They were simply some bones lying on the beach.They would not detain a walker there more than so much seaweed. I should think that the Fates would not take the trouble to show me any bones again, I so slightly appreciate the favor.

"Do a little more of that work which you have sometime confessed to be good,which you feel that society and your justest judge rightly demands of you. Do what you reprove yourself for not doing. Know that you are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with yourself for no reason. Let me say to you and to myself in one breath, Cultivate the tree which you have found to bear fruit in your soil.. . . Do not trouble yourself to be religious; you will never get a thank-you for it. If you can drive a nail and have any nails to drive, drive them. If you have any experiments you would like to try, try them; now's your chance. Do not entertain doubts, if they are not agreeable to you. Send them to the tavern. Do not eat unless you are hungry; there's no need of it. . . . As for health, consider yourself well, and mind your business. Who knows but you are dead already? . . .Do what nobody can do for you. Omit to do everything else."

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from WALDEN

I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. 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 what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained. I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no particular interest in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of these questions in this book. In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; that, in respect to egotism, is the main difference. We commonly 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 confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account 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 service to him whom it fits.

H.D. Thoreau