Walden Chapter 1 Notes #1

Walden Chapter 1 Notes #1

1. When Thoreau wrote Walden, he lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house he had built himself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts.

   • Author believes that everyone has a lot of unknown hardships.
   • The townsmen, after Thoreau’s absence, were very interested as to how he lived alone.
   • Thoreau wants everybody to know that whoever reads his story, it will be worth it for them, wherever they are from.

2. Author believes that people who are burdened with inherited farms, houses, barns, and cattle do not have any say in what to do with their lives.

   • They are digging their own graves as soon as they are born.
   • They are digging their own graves as soon as they are born.
   • Men do all this labor just to have it get ruined in the future.
   • Men at that time in the country are so caught up in work and labor that they can not afford to make friends, or it might decrease their worth and the money they make to take time off and spend it with their friends.

3. Author believes we do not treat ourselves and others tenderly.

   • Some people are lucky enough to not have to worry about being clothed or where their next meal was going to be.

4. Slavery is terrible.

   • People feel like gods when they own slaves.

5. Public opinion is nothing compared to private opinion.

6. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof.

   • People should and can change from tradition.
   • Sometimes, younger people know more and better than old people.
   • Author, even after 30 years, has yet to hear valuable advice from his seniors.

7. Author, even after 30 years, has yet to hear valuable advice from his seniors.

8. Life is lived by running thousands of tests.

9. The author believes in extraterrestrial life.

10. Author has neighbors who believe his soul is good.

11. Author believes we trust bargains more than we do ourselves

12. Nature is well adapted to our weakness as to our strength.

13. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do

    • Author believes that we are vigilant.
    • All change is a miracle to contemplate.
    • Author says we are compelled to live, and deny the possibility of change.

14. Living with only the necessities of life, a primitive and frontier life, is an advantage.

    • The necessities of life are Food, Shelter, Clothing, and Fuel.
      • Clothing is honestly not that necessarily, expensive clothing that is
        • Author believes that you should be aware of all enterprises that require new clothes
        • Clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal coil.
        • Clothing is just used to make people feel more comfortable, people can live without clothes
    • Food is regarded as the Fuel which keeps up the fire (warmth) within us, Fuel serves only to increase the warmth of our bodies, Shelter and Clothing serve only to retain the heat thus generated and absorbed.
    • The grand nexxessity for our body is heat.
    • Sun in warm weather acts as Fuel, and Food is generally more varied with the Sun, and Clothing and Shelter are more unnecessary.
    • The luxurious rich are not simply kept comfortably warm, but unnaturally hot.

15. Most of the luxuries are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

    • The wisest have lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor.
    • A philosopher should love wisdom as to live according to its dictates,a life of simplicity, independence, and trust.
    • A philosopher should solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.
    • How can a man be a philosopher and not maintain his vital heat by better methods than other men.
    • When a man has obtained all the necessities of life, they should adventure on life.
    • This book is not meant for the people happy with their current state of wealth or living conditions, but mainly to the mass of men who are discontented.

16. The author once lost a hound, a bay horse, and turtle dove, and has been searching for them ever since.

    • Author usually woke before the sun rose, and saw everyone going to their daily jobs when the sun rose.

17. The author was a reporter for a journal for a long time, yet his editor did not print the bulk of the author’s contributions.

    • Only got labor for his pains.
      • Only got labor for his pains.
    • Author then worked on a farm, where he did have more fun tending to nature, but still did not get paid that much.
    • The author studies how to avoid the necessity of selling products made from the author’s own labor.

18. Seeing that none of the townspeople wanted him, the author turned to the woods, and went to Walden Pond.

    • He went there to transace some private business with the fewest obstacles.
    • The author has always wanted to keep strict business habits.
    • People who work with the Celestial Empire, at some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, the amount of work you need to do is a lot, but it will be worth it for the ventures that come with the job.
    • Walden Pond was thought to have been a good place for business because it is a good post and a foundation

19. Shelter - Man was not made so large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world, and wall in a space such as fitted him.

    • He was at first bare and outdoors.
    • Young children really have a primitive and innate instinct to stay and love the outdoors, go exploring, and staying out the house.
    • You used to be able to sit up as late as you pleases, and whenever you got up, go abroad without any landlord or house-lord dogging you for rent.
    • Some people, who have lived with Native Americans, have seen how their houses, though not as technologically advanced, are as warm as the best English houses.
    • In modern civilized society not more than one half the families own a shelter.
    • Native Americans are richer because even though their living conditions are not advanced, even the cheaper houses are not worth all the work for a poor person.
    • The man who has actually paid for his farm with labor on it is so rare that every neighbor can point to him.
    • Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imposed rather than housed in them.
    • Poor people who help create the most massive monuments are usually never noticed for their work.
    • Are houses filled with a lot of unnecessary stuff, we pay more for luxury than safety and convenience.