Chapter 1. Economy

DWill · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 7:35 am Post subject:

Tom, thanks for your thoughtful reply. I, too, don't think that Emerson's eulogy could have fixed a negative view of Thoreau in the public's mind. There could be in the eulogy some trace of the conflicts between them, but it seems to be a judicious appraisal overall, full of admiration if not exactly of affection.

Emerson had the relative disadvantage of living so much longer than did Thoreau. His idealism had a longer time to decay and he became too accessible to the mainstream of the country. Emerson also had family to worry about, of course, but this is not an all-purpose excuse. I've read only the biography by Richardson (A Mind on Fire), which does not so much delve into the life as the intellectual development.

DWill

DWill · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 8:09 am Post subject:

I'm conscious of being behind in my inquiry into Walden, so will try to make up for lost time. Two things to bring up about "Economy" before moving on.

1. Could it be that T. was not well-nourished for much of the time he lived at the cabin? He speaks of being able to live not only on purslane, but on board nails ("for the root of the matter is faith.") He's exaggerating, but just because he doesn't die doesn't mean that he is giving his body what it needs. His "faith" cannot dictate to his body. We'll probably never know about this, because he may have quite regularly obtained "real" food from family and friends in town. Tom believes that his diet brought on the TB that killed him. I'm not sure about this. But he may have confused health with asceticism.

2. The appending of Thomas Carew's "The Pretensions of Poverty" to the "Economy" section might seem odd until we realize that T. was not claiming value for material self-denial, but for the freedom from spirit-sapping toil that denial could allow one to achieve. Once one has gotten clear of of all the "needs" that are not needs at all, T. says, then one can begin to soar, to fulfill one's true human potential.

........but we advance
Such virtues only as admit excess.
Brave, bounteous acts, regal magnificence,
All-seeing prudence, magnanimity
That knows no bound, and that heroic virtue
For which antiquity hath left no name,
But patterns only.....

T., I believe, through his experiment in Walden Woods, was only trying to show how we can have the benefits of civilization while avoiding its evils. He would not have made frequent trips to Concord and occasional trips to Cambridge to borrow books from Harvard library were this not so. We commonly say that anyone who tries to go back to nature and is living without contact with society is living like Thoreau. But such a person could be living very unlike Thoreau if he is not gaining the freedom to nourish his mind and spirit. If this person sees value in separation for its own sake, this is a hermit-like existence for which T. never shows an affinity.

DWill

Saffron · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 4:51 pm Post subject: Re: Thoreau's privy

Thomas Hood · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 5:44 pm Post subject: Re: Thoreau's privy

Thomas Hood · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 5:48 pm Post subject:

Saffron · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 6:42 pm Post subject: Re: Thoreau's privy

Jeanette · Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 4:25 am Post subject:

DWill said,

It's big downside. all right, but what's the alternative? What reasonable alternative does T really suggest?

I think T is suggesting that building a small cabin from second hand materials on a friend's property and living really simply and really really cheaply is an alternative. By by doing this we can we can be self supporting on one or two months work a year leaving us the remainder of the time to read, write, visit friends, go for lovely long walks in the woods, observe nature, contemplate the meaning of it all and entertain guests.
I'd like to think this is a reasonable alternative but I have my doubts. Having said that I have incoorporated some his ideas into my life ie live more cheaply, work part time, leaving more time to do the things important to me (like reading your posts)

Thomas Hood · Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 7:58 am Post subject: Re: Thoreau's privy

DWill · Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 7:01 am Post subject:

I'm not getting how the writer steps from Dickinson's poem to Walden. Just from the buzz of a fly to the hum of a mosquito, then drawing in the entire context the passage? It may be I am missing something. My suspicion is that writers influence and inspire other writers in general ways rather than in very specific ways as seems to be the claim here. But who knows.

I did have 2 other topics about "Economy."

1. "For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands." (1.91) It has been a long while since I read the Harding biography. I'd like to go back to it to get an idea of his way of earning a living during other years. It is difficult to tell from what point, post-Walden Pond, he is writing these words, since he revised the book, what, seven times?

2. His animadversion against philanthropy. I think I get his basic point--make yourself good first rather than doing good for others-- but it's surprising that he goes on at such length against it. Either he was truly worked up over people telling him he should do charitable work, as he mentions they did, or there was some great emphasis in the day placed on charity work that just rubbed him the wrong way. He suspects in others a motive for doing good that is not so praiseworthy:

"There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It is human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the African deserts called the simoom." (1.104)

We would be disappointed, I suspect, if Thoreau did not have a contrary opinion about most things. He seemed to delight in that, as Emerson mentions in his eulogy. I can certainly agree, though, with this statement:

"I once heard a reverend lecturer on England, a man of learning and intelligence, after enumerating her scientific, literary, and political worthies, Shakespeare, Bacon, Cromwell, Milton, Newton, and others, speak next of her Christian heroes, whom, as if his profession required it of him, he elevated to a place far above all the rest, as the greatest of the great. They were Penn, Howard, and Mrs. Fry. Every one must feel the falsehood and cant of this. The last were not England's best men and women; only, perhaps, her best philanthropists." (1.107)

DWill

P.S. to Tom: I noted that only the first 3 chapters of your webpage Walden came through--starts to get garbled in Chapter 4, then ends. But thanks.

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Thomas Hood · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 11:35 am Post subject:

DWill · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 12:52 pm Post subject:

Tom,
I'd have to strongly disagree with you. It's true that while the words "charity case" conjure up a negative image, if we consider charity to be identical with volunteerism and philanthropy, what is wrong with it? It's not my sense, either, that volunteerism or philanthropy is any part of a socialist system. I suspect that America leads the world in volunteerism/philanthropy. That is one thing, at least, that is still right about the country.

I wasn't saying HDT didn't have a leg to stand on. There are excesses in everything, and anything, including philanthropy, can be overvalued or done for the wrong motives.

In A Week, HDT makes an interesting comment on the river dams tht have prevented anadromous fish from returning to their spawning grounds. He says we are well acquainted with the idea of philanthropy, but have no awareness that our love needs to extend to ths other species as well. It's a biocentric viewpoint.

DWill

Thomas Hood · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 4:01 pm Post subject:

DWill · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 9:36 pm Post subject:

WildCityWoman · Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 1:16 am Post subject: The Poor Man's Tomato Soup

I think Thoreau would have liked this . . . a couple of weeks ago, I was involved in an online discussion about 'living cheaply' . . . somebody mentioned the poor man's tomato soup.

It was in relation to talking about 'bands' . . . an 'on the road' kind of economy - starving artists, kinda' thing.

I was curious about what this poor man's soup was and someone on that forum said he made it from catsup packages that you pick up in fast food places . . .

Well . . . I had to try it - I took a few packs I had in the fridge - don't know why I save them - when we picnic, I never think to take them along - anyway, I set about making the soup.

Click here for the results:

http://wildcity.proboards14.com/index.cgi?board=Archiving&action=displ ay&thread=3075


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