Chapter 4. Sounds

Thomas Hood · Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 9:22 pm Post subject: Chapter 4. Sounds

Summary

life off the clock

wild plants

wild activities of the day

1. the train

2. bells

3. cows

4. whip-poor-wills

5. screech owls

6. hooting owl

7. rumbling of wagons over bridges

8. dogs

9. cows

10. frogs

11. the cock

12. domestic sounds

13. wild sounds

http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/walden/cha pter04.html
Walden Study Text

Saffron · Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:29 am Post subject:

I think that the following quote maybe my favorite or rather the one that hits nearest to home for me. I am most comfortable in the world when I feel I have a broad margin.

"I love a broad margin to my life"

The quote is taken from the second paragraph in IV Sounds. I think this paragraph articulates the crux of what Thoreau learned from his time at Walden Pond.

"There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life. sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revelry, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveler's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works."

Saffron · Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 7:37 am Post subject:

Here's an interesting little aside inspired by the following quote:

"It was pleasant to see my whole household effects out on the grass, making a little pile like a gypsy's pack."

There is a wonderful book, Material World that is a collection of photographs of people around the world with all of there belongings spread out in front of their house's.

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
In honor of the United Nations-sponsored International Year of the Family in 1994, award-winning photojournalist Peter Menzel brought together 16 of the world's leading photographers to create a visual portrait of life in 30 nations. Material World tackles its wide subject by zooming in, allowing one household to represent an entire nation. Photographers spent one week living with a "statistically average" family in each country, learning about their work, their attitudes toward their possessions, and their hopes for the future. [i]Then a "big picture" shot of the family was taken outside the dwelling, surrounded by all their (many or few) material goods.

http://www.amazon.com/Material-World-Global-Family-Portrait/dp/0871564 300

Thomas Hood · Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 11:46 am Post subject:

Saffron · Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 12:00 pm Post subject:

DWill · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 4:00 pm Post subject:

I like the passage Saffron showed us, too. For me, though, the broad margin is simply the freedom from entanglements that would prevent us from spending time on things that the rest of the world tells us are inessential.
I do wonder how characteristic it was of Thoreau to spend his time in this way, without any purpose. Did he really do this that often? I have an image of him as a very productive person during this time, in fact: tending to his notebooks; reading; getting his first book, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers" ready for publication; writing much of the material that would later appear in "Walden." Is it possible that the "loafer" is in part a literary creation? He left the woods probably in large part because of his need to get things done.

DWill[/i]

Thomas Hood · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 8:58 pm Post subject:

Saffron · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 9:21 pm Post subject:

DWill · Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 7:16 am Post subject:

Thomas Hood · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 8:37 pm Post subject:

DWill · Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2008 9:19 pm Post subject:

Tom, I think I was doing with the word "sensualist" something similar to what Thoreau himself liked to do--reconsider a word based on what its root suggests, rather than go along with the commonly accepted meaning. Thoreau seemed to hold sight and hearing in higher regard than the senses of taste and touch--the senses a common sensualist would be be likely to prize. Still, they are senses just as much as the others. The Eastern mystical ideal that he reveres would entail freeing oneself from attachment to all the senses, not just to the "grosser" ones of taste and touch.

Romaniticism as the rediscovery of feeling? The 18th century had plenty to say about feeling, but this was pre-Romantic. Doesn't it have more to do with the discovery or belief that human feeling finds some correspondence in nature, has a home there? This may be why the so-called pathetic fallacy did not seem such an error or stretch to Thoreau.

DWill

Thomas Hood · Posted: Thu Aug 28, 2008 12:05 am Post subject:

WildCityWoman · Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 1:09 am Post subject:

This reading of both chapters 3 and 4 tonight, led me to go to the window and feel the natural breeze, watching the trees sway for a few minutes.

And I wonder if that's just what the author intended . . . if he was conscious that someday people would read his story and enrich their lives with it.

Saffron · Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:51 am Post subject:

Thomas Hood

Saffron · Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:11 am Post subject:

Thomas Hood


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