n dark winter mornings, or in short winter afternoons, I sometimes heard a pack of hounds threading all the woods with hounding cry and yelp, unable to resist the instinct of the chase, and the note of the hunting horn at intervals, proving that man was in the re
This is interesting because he comes into contact with so many wild animals and it must be interesting to live in such a place to experience these kinds of thing daily.
r the snow
The way that he says snow crust here. I don't think I have ever heard that used before but I imagine it is the top layer of snow the crunches under the feet. Almost like pizza crust that crunches.
r hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack and veer and hold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman; tricks which they will have less need to
It is interesting to me because he is always working so hard but when he starts talking about the times he is relaxing it seems like he never does anything but relax. I think this is because how he talks about nature and how he find the beauty in things around him.
ine. It was a pretty game, played on the smooth surface
This is interesting because many people get easily annoyed with birds especially if they are just playing around. However, I think that he always see the positive side to what is happening and that he thinks everything is happening for a reason,
ne afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler’s, I was seizedand put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the state which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle at the door of its senate-house
This is interesting and powerful because many people knew slavery was wrong but wouldn't go against authority. For him that was different and he saw right from wrong no matter who was telling him.
fter hoeing, or perhaps reading and writing, in the forenoon, I usually bathed again in the pond, swimming across one of its coves for a stint, and washed the dust of labor from my person, or smoothed out the last wrinkle which study had made, and for theafternoon was absolutely
I like this kind of his writing where he gets to talk about relaxing and enjoying the very small things in life such as bathing. I think that now people always want to be doing something so they take these things for granted.
s I drew a still fresher soil about the rows with my hoe, I disturbed the ashes of unchronicled nations who in primeval years lived under these heavens, and their small implements of war and hunting were brought to the ligh
It is interesting how just as he is hoeing the soil he is thinking about the history of the people who came before him and what they would be doing.
eanwhile my beans, the length of whose rows, added together, was seven miles already planted, were impatient to be hoed, for the earliest had grown considerably before the latest were in the ground; indeed they were n
In one of the first of Thoreaus's writings that we read he talks about how he does everything with his hands. Here he is again talking about wanting to work in the bean field with his hands. Maybe he feels more accomplished this way.
When I meet the engine with its train of cars moving off with planetary motion,—or, rather, like a comet, for the beholder knows not if with that velocity and with that direction it will ever revisit this system, since its orbit does not look like a
I like how he uses a simile to describe the train. Also what this does is it gives a visual of how fast the train moves. What is interesting is how he said it does not look like the train orbits which now that I think about it to me it always looks like a train goes one way and never comes back.
My house was on the side of a hill, immediately on the edge of the larger wood, in the midst of a young forest of pitch pines and hickories, and half a dozen rods from the pond, to which a narrow footpath led down the hill. In my front yard grew the strawberry, blackberry, and life-everlasting, johnswort and goldenrod, shrub-oaks and sand-cherry, blueberry and groundnut
He uses such description and detail. Again this gives a vivid picture of what the house was like. Then he goes on about the plants that decorate the outside and it just looks beautiful in my mind.
When my floor was dirty, I rose early, and, setting all my furniture out of doors on the grass, bed and bedstead making but one budget, dashed water on the floor, and sprinkled white sand from the pond on it, and then with a broom s
He gives very good description here. I can picture this scene in my head with all the furniture outside. Also him using sand to scrub the floor is so interesting.
did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans. Nay, I
A lot of people would like reading more especially if it was things that they enjoyed, but most of the time people have a lot of other things to do and get done. Reading is not at the top.
d. Much is published, bu
This may have a different meaning when this was written, but what I took from it and what I thought of when I read it was how much literature is posted online and never seen or only seen by few. There are endless sights for people to post stuff and it is more common to get books online instead of getting them in print.
ascertained, and ever, and ever, the logarithmic tables to be corrected, for by the error of some calculator the vessel often splits upon a rock that should have reached a friendly pier,—there is the untold fate of La Perouse;—universal science to be kept pace with, studying the lives of all great discoverers and navigators, great adventurers and merchants, from Hanno and the Phœnicians down to our day; in fine, account of stock to be taken from time to time, to know how you stand. It is a labor to task the faculties of a man,—such problems of profitand loss, of interest, of tare and tret, and gauging of all kinds in it, as demand a universal knowledge.I have thought that Walden Pond would be a good place for business, not solely on account of the railroad and the ice trade; it offers advantages which it may not be good policy to divulge; it is a good port and a good foundation. No Neva marshes to be filled; though you must every where build on piles of your own driving. It is said that a flood-tide, with a westerly wind, and ice in the Neva, would sweep St. Petersburg from the face of the earth.......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
Many people are always comparing themselves to others and trying to race the person next to them the whole time. When in reality what the other person has might not be what I want. This is a good example of knowing what you want in live not just trying to beat other people at life.
“Do you wish to buy any baskets?” he asked. “No, we do not want any,” was the reply. “What!” exclaimed the Indian as he went out the gate, “d
This is interesting because many people think they people with money should give to others who are in need and be more helpful. However, people don't always see who you are helping. For example if I gave every homeless person I saw I wouldn't have money to pay for myself.
ling them. The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expen
A lot of people think of success in one way and that is by how much money you have and what you buy with that money. However, there are many different ways to be successful. Each person has a different dream and goal in mind and when that person reaches what they want to achieve is when they become successful.
mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor.
This is interesting and I can agree, that people with the most luxuries and have the most comfort in their life tend to have simple lives. Where as people who are in poverty go through a lot more struggles that make their daily life have less comfort.
tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine.
In America today, to goal is work now rest later. So now people don't have a lot of leisure time because we have all become these machines doing the same routine working the same job and doing the same thing over and over.