History

CHAPTER 3– THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE QUEST

Thoreau believed that every man has within himself divine knowledge ; he set out to find it. This quest led him to frequent mental and occasional physical withdrawal from the world around him, and to disregard of outside opinion and authority. The truths he found within led him to a faith in the basic goodness of life which he then translated into beliefs on how life should be lived.

He early cultivated the habit of introspection and withdrawal, realizing that he could continue his quest only So long as he concentrated on it:

April 8. [1840] How shall I help myself? By withdrawing into the garret, and associating with spiders and mice, determining to meet myself face to face sooner or later. Completely silent and attentive I will be this hour, and the next, and forever. The most positive life that history notices has been a constant retiring out of life, a wiping one’s hands of it, seeing how mean it is and having nothing to do with it.³⁹

Recognizing how easily man may be distracted by the pressing trivialities of the moment,⁴⁰ he resolved to concentrate on aiding his soul’s development.⁴¹ To know himself required a “voluntary blindness”⁴² to the world for the inner voice.

This inner voice superseded both traditionally accepted wisdom⁴³ and popular opinion.⁴⁴ Obviously if he had within himself the certain knowledge of right and wrong, no outside authority — be it person or institution — could be closer to this source than himself.⁴⁵ Nor could he be closer to the inner voice of another than was that other; he could be neither subject nor master; neither could society safely legislate for either.

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39 J, pp. 132-3.

40 “The momentous topics of human life are always of secondary importance to the business at hand . . .” J, p. 173.

41 “But pray what has seeing to do with the soul that she must sit always at a window? — for I find myself always in the rear of my eye.” Miller, l65.

42 “It is only by a sort of voluntary blindness, and omitting to see, that we know ourselves . . .” J, p. 253.

43 “Whatever of past or present wisdom has published itself to the world, is palpable falsehood till it come and utter itself by my side.” J., p. 52.

44 “Let us know and conform only to the fashions of eternity.” J, p. 278.

45 “There is but one obligation, and that is the obligation to obey the highest dictate. None can lay me under another which will supersede this.” J., p. 279.

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Following his own conscience “in the sight of God and Nature[,]⁴⁶ regardless of what others might think, was both great freedom and heavy responsibility; his recognition of this ultimate accountability increased his awareness of the solitary nature of life :

How alone must our life be lived! We live on the seashore, and none between ourselves and the sea. . . . None are travelling one road so far as myself.

Each one marches in the van. . . . Parents and relatives but entertain the youth; they cannot stand between him and his destiny. This is the one bare side of every man. There is no fence; it is clear before him to the bounds of space.⁴⁷

Alone-ness , if not loneliness, was to evoke many a passage in the Journal as the solitary years unrolled — sometimes cries of joy at his eagle’s flight through lonely mountain air,⁴⁸ sometimes cries of pain at the solitary essence that could not be shared.⁴⁹ But never did he abandon the journey to stop at a roadside tavern, aware though he was of just how very much alone in his quest he was:

The sublime sentences of Menu carry us back to a time when purification and sacrifice and self-devotion had a place in the faith of men, and were not as now a superstition. They contain a subtle and refined philosophy, also, such as in these times is not accompanied with so lofty and pure a devotion.⁵⁰

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46 “What though friends misinterpret your conduct, if it is right in sight of God and Nature. The wrong, if there be any, pertains only to the wrongdoer, nor is the integrity of your relations to the universe affected …” J, p. 52.

47 J, p. 239.

48 “We are as much as we see. Faith is sight and knowledge …. Whoever has had one thought quite lonely, and could contentedly digest that in solitude, knowing that none could accept it, may rise to the height of humanity, and overlook all living men as from a pinnacle.” J, p. 248.

49 “Of all phenomena, my own race are the most mysterious and undiscoverable. For how many years have I striven to meet one, even on common manly ground, and have not succeeded!” J, p. l53.

50 J, p. 280.

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He came to see himself and others like him as pathfinders, discovering and stating truths that others would only later be able to accept.⁵¹ Despite occasional assertions that “fear of the world or consequences is swallowed up in a manly anxiety to do Truth justice”⁵² — indicating that perhaps sometimes the world struck back, — he spent these years carrying out the program he articulated as early as 1837:

As the least drop of wine tinges the whole goblet, so the least particle of truth colors our whole life. It is never isolated, or simply added as treasure to our stock. When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before. We go picking up from year to year and laying side by side the disecta membra of truth, as he who picked up one by one a row of a hundred stones, and returned with each separately to his basket.⁵³

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51 “All this Worldly Wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.” J., p. 162.

52 J, p. 28

53 J, p. 24.

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Believing as he did that “[T]ruth has properly no opponent, for nothing gets so far up on the other side as to be opposite[,]”⁵⁴ he followed wherever it led — and it led to a solitary course and a scorn for the weak-willed followers of public opinion.⁵⁵ But occasionally he may have wished the task were plainer: “It would be worthwhile,” he wrote in 1841, “once for all, fairly and cleanly to tell how we are to be used, as vendors of lucifer matches send directions in the envelope, both how light may be readily procured and no accident happen to the user[;]⁵⁶ nonetheless he did not waver.

The quest was the important thing– even recognition of the failure of his efforts to date had its use,⁵⁷ provided only that the effort was not abandoned. Ultimately it could fail only if he forgot that he was both body and spirit, ⁵⁸ or if he spent too much time expressing rather than developing his inner consciousness.⁵⁹

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54 J, p. 118.

55 “He is the best sailor who can steer within the fewest points of the wind, and extract a motive power out of the greatest obstacles. Most begin to veer and tack as soon as the wind changes from aft –ae and as within the tropics it does not blow from all points of the compass — there are some harbors they can never reach.” Miller, p. 170.

56 J, p. 179.

57 “If we only see clearly enough how mean our lives are, they will be splendid enough. Let us remember not to strive upwards too long, but sometimes drop plumb down the other way, and wallow in meanness. From the deepest pit we may see the stars, if not the sun.” J, p. 146.

58 “1 have lived ill for the most part because too near myself. I have tripped myself up, so that there was no progress for my own narrowness. I cannot walk conveniently and pleasantly but when I hold myself far off in the horizon. And the soul dilutes the body and makes it passable.” J., p. 322.

59 “Very dangerous is the talent of composition. I feel as if my life had grown more outward since I could express it.” J, p. 349.

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Denied recognition by most of his contemporaries as the searcher for truth that he was, denied recognition even as thinker of his own thoughts and not pilferer of Emerson’s, he occasionally became depressed by the contrast between his high thoughts and low status — but then he who wrote that “[a] man must find his own occasion in himself”⁶⁰ would wrestle his spirits back to equanimity,⁶¹ confident that his place in the divine scheme of things would eventually emerge.

His faith that all events are part of a divine plan made him cheerful and unafraid of life, confident that it was good. But the men around him he saw as neither cheerful nor unafraid.

The age is resigned. Everywhere it sounds a retreat, and the world has gone forth to fall back on innocence. Christianity only hopes. It has hung its harp on the willow and cannot sing a song in a strange land. It has dreamed a sad dream and does not yet welcome the morning with joy.⁶²

Comparing this dejection with the bravery of nature,⁶³ he cried that: “There is nowhere any apology for despondency. Always there is life which, rightly lived, implies a divine satisfaction.”⁶⁴ He began to spell out how he thought life should be lived, calling for men to livre with more enthusiasm.⁶⁵

Commonly we use life sparingly, we husband it as if it were scarce, and admit the right of prudence; but occasionally we see how ample and inexhaustible is the stock from which we so scantily draw, and learn that we need not be prudent, that we may be prodigal, and all expenses will be met.⁶⁶

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60 J, p 377.

61 “What a consolation are the stars to man! – so high and out of his reach, as is his own destiny. I do not know but my life is fated to be thus low and groveling always. I cannot discover its use even to myself. But it is permitted to see those stars in the sky equally useless, yet highest of all and deserving of a fair destiny…. I do not fear that any misadventure will befall them. Shall I not be content to disappear with the missing stars? Do I mourn their fate?” J, p. 339.

62 Miller, p. 144.

63 “We can conceive of a Bravery so wide that nothing can meet to befall it, so omnipresent that nothing can lie in wait for it, so permanent that no obstinacy can reduce it. The stars are its silent sentries by night, and the sun its pioneer by day. From its abundant cheerfulness springs flowers and the rainbow, and its infinite humor and wantonness produce corn and vines. J., p. 172.

64 J, p. 95

65 “All fair action in men is the product of enthusiasm.” Miller, p. 164.

66 J, p. 454.

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Life, he said, should be lived “on the stretch,”⁶⁷ with vigor and purpose, — for a man makes his own life.⁶⁸ Excessive caution, luxury and sloth,⁷⁰ lead to stagnation.

Men should live as though they owned the world, and not as though they had merely rented “a few acres of time and space” from which they could at any time be expelled.⁷¹ The only true repose, he said, “can only be the repose that is in entire and healthy activity. It must be a repose without rust. What is leisure but an opportunity for more complete and entre action?”⁷²

While living (in repose) by Walden Pond, he spelled out his thoughts on the active life:

Why not live a hard and emphatic life, not to be avoided, full of adventure and work, learn much in it, travel much, though it be only in these woods? I sometimes walk across a field with unexpected expansion and long-missed content, as if there were a field worthy of me. The usual daily boundaries of life are dispersed and I see in what field I stand.

. . .I say to myself: Yes, roam far grasp life and conquer it, learn much and live. Your fetters are knocked off; you are really free…. The noble life is continuous and unremitting. At least, live with a longer radius.

… Do not rest much. Dismiss prudence, fear, conformity. Remember only what is promised.⁷³

The above passage was written during Thoreau’s Walden years; obviously this proposed life of action should not be construed as one of aimless activity, or one leaving no time for serenity and contemplation — quite the contrary. Concurrent with entries on the necessity and desirability of an active life are such as these:

We may believe it, but never do we live a quiet, free life, such as Adam’s, but are enveloped in an invisible network of speculations. Our progress is only from one speculation to another, and only at rare intervals do we perceive that it is no progress. Could we for a moment drop this by-play, and simply wonder, without reference or inference!⁷⁴

But I will have nothing to do; I will tell fortune that I play no game with her and she may reach me in my Asia of serenity and independence if she can.⁷⁵

And this is the art of living, too — to leave our life in a condition to go alone, and not to require constant supervision. We will then sit down serenely to live, as by the side of a stove.⁷⁶

Are the opposing counsels irreconcilable? I think not. He is concerned that the action performed be worth performing,⁷⁷ and that it leave his life nonetheless serene. Serenity is the key. Without it any life, no matter how active, is wasted.”⁷⁸

All man’s activity should aid, not hinder, his pursuit of self-purification and self-discovery. Contemplation and activity are linked opposites — neither is more necessary than the other, neither is dispensible. Only in a life combining both could a man both hear his inner voice and follow where it would lead.

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67 J, p. 118.

68 “Man is the artificer of his own happiness. Let him beware how he complains of the disposition of circumstances, for it is his own disposition he blames.” J, p. 26.

69 “We must expect no income beside our outgoes — we must succeed now, and we shall not fail hereafter. So soon as we begin to count the cost the cost beings.” Miller, p. 214.

70 “They are fatally mistaken who think, while they strive with their minds, that they may suffer their bodies to stagnate in luxury or sloth. The body is the first proselyte the Soul makes. Our life is but the Soul made known by its fruits, the body.” J., p. 147.

71 “[The coward] does not dwell on the earth as though he had a deed of the land in his pocket … He has only rented a few acres of time and space, and thinks that every accident portends the expiration of his lease.” J, p. 99.

72 J, р. 294.

73 J, pp. 385-6

74 J, p. 61.

75 J, pp. 153-4.

76 J, p. 218.

77 “Who has not admired the twelve labors? And yet nobody thinks if Hercules had sufficient motive for racking his bones to that degree.” J. p. 79.

78 “Over and above a man’ business there must be a level of undisturbed serenity, only the more serene as he is the more industrious …

He must preside over all he does — If his employment rob him of a serene outlook over his life, it is but idle though it be measuring the fixed stars. He must know no distracting cares.” Miller, p. 184.

CHAPTER 2 — THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE DIVINE

Thoreau cannot be understood without full appreciation of his one central belief — that all creation is a unity, in which all creation is contained in its creator. On this one belief all else was built.

He believed in no anthropomorphic god. His Journal refers to the divine indifferently as God, the gods, The Great Spirit, etc., depending on the artistic necessity of the particular passage. His was not the personality Jehovah of the Old Testament, nor the God-man Christ of the New; rather, the divinity which created and ordered the universe was for him universal and all pervasive, not particular and separate.

Therefore he believed that the divine could be found within himself — not, as some religions held, outside himself.²

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² “The Great Spirit makes indifferent all times and places. . . . He is at work, not in my backyard, but inconceivably nearer than that. We are the subjects of an experiment how Singular.” The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Bradford Torrey, ed. (20 volumes, The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 1906) vol. 1, Journal 1837-1847, pp. 363-4. References to the Journal hereafter will be indicated simply by J.

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Evidences of the all-pervasive divinity were also manifest in the entire world surrounding man³— particularly in that world untouched by and indifferent to man called Nature. Love of God, then, roughly equates to love of the totality of existence,⁴ not love of a separate, though Superior, being. To obey God is to obey one’s own inner instincts– the “divine promptings” which inform anyone who listens What course he should follow throughout his life.⁵ It is to obey the promptings of enthusiasm, of 1mpulse,⁶ — and not to smother such impulses with the second-thoughts and hesitations natural to the intellect. It is to trust the unconscious mind—“the consciousness of God”⁷ — to be more in tune with the universe than is the consciousness of any one fragmentary individual.⁸

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³ “Any melodious sound apprises me of the infinite wealth of God.” Miller, p. 139.

⁴  “No sentiment is so rare as love of God, a universal love.” J., p. 326.

⁵  “The human soul is a silent harp in God’s quire, [sic] whose strings need only to be swept by the divine breath to chime in with the harmonies of creation.” J, p. 53.

⁶  “In enthusiasm we undulate to the divine spiritus — as the lake to the wind.” Miller, p. 193.

⁷  “The unconsciousness of man is the consciousness of God, the end of the world.” J, p. 119.

⁸    “Reason will be but a pale cloud, like the moon, when one ray of divine light comes to illumine the soul.” J, p. 360.

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It is to know good from evil, right from wrong,⁹ without need of or submission to outside authority.¹⁰ If anyone cannot feel the inner promptings, it is because he has stifled his access to the divine by too much concern with time and the world.¹¹ But he may always reform his ways and regain access to the inner light. No one, in Thoreau eschatology, is of necessity unregenerate:

Always the system shines with uninterrupted light, for, as the sun is so much larger than any planet, no shadows can travel far into space. We may bask in the light of the system, always may step back out of the shade.¹²

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⁹ “The fickle person is he that does not know what is true or right absolutely, — who has not an ancient wisdom for a lifetime, but a new prudence for every hour…. In general we must have a catholic and universal wisdom, wiser than any particular, and be prudent enough to defer to it always. We are literally wiser than we know. Men do not fall for want of knowledge, but for want of prudence to give wisdom the preference.” J, pp. 257-8.

¹⁰ “The religion I love is very laic. The clergy are as diseased, and as much possessed with a devil, as the reformers. They make their topic as offensive as the politician, for our religion is as unpublic and incommunicable as our poetical vein, and to be approached with as much love and tenderness.” J, p. 240.

¹¹ ”When we are awake to the real world, we are asleep to the actual. The sinful drowse to eternity, the virtuous to time.” J, p. 229.

¹²  J, p 100 .

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Continued efforts at self-purification will lead to a life conducted on a higher, more ethereal, plane. “For our aspirations there is no expression as yet,” he wrote, “but if we obey steadily, by another year we shall have learned the language of last year’s aspirations.”¹³

Every man has within himself the means to move ever closer to perfection, if he will but employ them. He who seeks shall find:

There is something proudly thrilling in the thought that this obedience to conscience and trust in God, which is so solemnly preached in extremities and arduous circumstances, is only to retreat to one’s self, and rely on our own strength.¹⁴

Careful attention to the soul, — not actions, how ever “holy,” — will enable one to avoid evil.¹⁵ A superior man’s example might furnish encouragement,¹⁶ but only his own interference prevents anyone from realizing his own potential.¹⁷

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¹³ J, p. 190.

¹⁴ J, p. 180.

¹⁵ “We do not avoid evil by hurry-skurry and fleetness in extenso, but by rising above [or] diving below its plane. . . . By our suppleness and speed we only fly before an evil, by the height of depth of our character we avoid it.” Miller, p. 154.

¹⁶ “I hear no good news ever but some trait of a noble character. It reproaches me plaintively. I am mean in contrast, but again am thrilled and elevated that I can see my own meanness , and again still , that my own aspiration is realized in that other.” J., p. 290.

¹⁷ “We are constantly invited to be what we are; as to something worthy and noble. I never waited but for myself to come round; none ever detained me, but I lagged or tagged after myself.” J., p. 91.

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To rely on impulse, and internal prompting, to serve as guide to proper action, or inaction, is not to surrender control to the emotions ; quite the contrary. “Passion and appetite are always an unholy land in which one may wage most holy war.”¹⁸ It was by conducting an “incessant surveillance” over himself that an individual might “subject passion and appetite to reason, and lead the life the imagination paints[.]¹⁹

He lamented that man, who had begun to achieve such scientific marvels, was still so far from being master of himself:

One would suppose that he who had counted the eyes of a fly and the nerves of a caterpillar, must have learned the whole duty of man in his youth. But alas, it is easier to make a white rose black . . . than to do one’s duty for five minutes. It is vastly easier to discover than to see when the cover is off.²⁰

His own path was filled with relapses and periods of stagnation, and at 24 he wrote: “After so many years of study I have not learned my duty for one hour.²¹ But if he was not yet able to reach the higher plane towards which he was striving, still his recognition of it and his desire for it were the products of past strivings, and anticipated the day when he would attain it, — and then would press toward goals higher still. Sure that he was travelling the right course, he did not despair. “I shall never be poor while I can command a still hour in which to take leave of my sin”²²[,] he wrote, and again:

I would be as clean as ye, o woods. I shall not rest until I be as innocent as you. I know that I shall sooner or later attain to an unspotted innocence, for when I consider that state even now I am thrilled.²³

Sitting, perhaps, in his cabin by the pond, he wrote : “To purify our lives requires simply to weed out what is foul and noxious and the sound and innocent is supplied, as nature purifies the blood if we will but reject impurities.”²⁴

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18 J, p. 55.

19 J, p. 70.

20 Miller, p. 166.

21 Miller, p. 213.

22, J, p. 214.

23 J, p. 302.

24 J, p. 483.

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There is much in Thoreau’s personal religion which is common to Oriental religions: Indeed, he could be suspected of imitation pure and simple were there not evidence that his natural thought inclined so before he came into contact with Eastern books.

In the very early Journal– August 1838– is a description of meditation which would not be unfamiliar to one who has practiced one of the various Eastern disciplines such as Zen or Yoga.

If with closed ears and eyes I consult consciousness for a moment, immediately are all walls and barriers dissipated, earth rolls from under me, and I float, by the impetus derived from the earth and the system, a subjective, heavily-laden thought, in the midst of an unknown and infinite sea, or else heave and swell like a vast ocean of thought, without rock or headland, where are all riddles solved, all straight lines making there their two ends to meet, eternity and space gambolling familiarly through my depths. I am from the beginning, knowing no end, no aim. No sun illumines me, for I dissolve all lesser lights in my own intenser and steadier light. I am a restful kernel in the magazine of the universe.²⁵

Similarly Eastern is his statement that sometimes, when at rest, “I almost cease to live and begin to be…. I am never so prone to lose my identity. I am dissolved in the haze.”²⁶ Losing identity, and ceasing to live, beginning to be, are seen as desirable and pleasant– as Easterners are inclined to see it — and not as unfamiliar and threatening, as Westerners might be inclined to regard it.

(Arthur Christy, writing on The Orient in American Trancendentalism, calls Thoreau a “New England Yogi, conditioned by his nativity and his moral and religious heritage.”²⁷ Noting that Thoreau “more than once” called himself a yogi, he states” “Perhaps his words are to be qualified; assuredly they cannot be ignored.”²⁸)

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25 J, pp. 53-4.

26 J, p. 75.

27 Arthur Christy, The Orient in American Transcendentalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1932, p. 207.

28 Ibid., p. 199.

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Upon becoming familiar with Hindu thought– which he much admired²⁹ — Thoreau extracted what he considered true and helpful and rejected the rest as inspired by the necessities of poetry or the maintenance of the social order. Thus in his writings we find an acceptance of the basic idea of Karma,³⁰ but a rejection of those consequences drawn from it in the East which he found repugnant — such as the caste system.³¹

Clearly, he was not the man to ape any system; the similarity of his expressed ideas to ideas long prevalent in the East must be seen as the result of affinity rather than of imitation. Such affinity is well demonstrated in statements such as “I wish I could be as still as God is[,]³² paradoxes such as [h]e will get to the goal first who stands stillest³³[,] and admonitions such as this: “Do not present a gleaming edge to ward off harm, for that will oftenest attract the lightning, but rather be the all-pervading ether which the lightning does not strike but purify.”³⁴

Weighing the validity of Hindu scriptures in his mind, he found that the wisdom they professed rang true :

Tried by a New England eye, or the more practical wisdom of modern times they are simply are oracles of a race already in its dotage, but held up to the sky, which is the only impartial and incorruptible ordeal, they are of a piece with its depth and serenity, and I am assured that they will have a place and significance, as long as there is a sky to test them by. They are not merely a voice floating in space for my own experience is the speaker.³⁵

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29 “Who is writing better Vedas? How science and art spread and flourished, how trivial conveniences were multiplied, that which is the gossip of the world is not recorded in them; and if they are left out of our scriptures, too, what will remain?” J, p. 263.

30 “If we were wise enough, we should see to what virtue we were indebted for any happier moment we might have, nor doubt we had earned this at some time.” J, p. 302.

31 “I was informed to-day that no Hindoo tyranny presided at the framing of the world – – that I am a freeman of the universe, and not sentenced to any caste.” J, p. 280.

32 J, p. 41.

33 J, p. 153

34 J, p. 148

35 Miller, p. 156.

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The Oriental strain in Thoreau’s thought — in fact, his religious thought in general, — is well illustrated by his reaction to the death by lockjaw of his beloved elder brother John in 1842, when Henry was 24. So deeply affected was he by the unexpected loss that he contracted a nearly fatal case of sympathetic lockjaw and spent much of the next month in apathetic listlessness. Six weeks elapsed without note in the Journal then it resumed with several passages on friendship, and on life and death. On March 11 occurs this entry :

We can only live healthily the life the gods assign us. I must receive my life passively as the willow leaf that flutters over the brook. I must not be for myself, but God’s work, and that is always good. I will wait the breezes patiently, and grow as Nature shall determine. My fate cannot but be grand so. We may live the life of a plant or an animal, without living an animal life. This constant and universal content of the animal comes of resting quietly in God’s palm. I feel as if [I] could at any time resign my life and the responsibility of living into God’s hands, and become as innocent, free from care as a plant or stone.

My life, my life: why will you linger? Are the years short and the months of no account? How often has long delay quenched my aspirations! Can God afford that I should forget him? Is he so indifferent to my career? Can heaven he postponed with no more ado? Why were my ears given to hear these everlasting strains which haunt my life, and yet to be prophaned by these perpetual dull sounds?

Our doubts are so musical that they persuade themselves.

Why, God, did you include me in your great scheme? Will you not make me a partner at last? Did it need there should be a conscious material?³⁶

This passage is a fair introduction to Thoreau’s thought about life, but it is easily misinterpreted. Many reading it, have written that it is a mourning of defeat. Faced with a fact– John’s death– which he could neither dodge nor rationalize away, they say, Thoreau gave up attempting to live, and began to run away, to hide, from a world and a life he was not strong enough to face.³⁷ I think this interpretation could hardly be more wrong. It stems from looking at Thoreau’s thoughts and actions from exclusively a Western point of view. What, to the Occidental, appear as defeat, passivity and evasion, may appear to the Oriental as victory, serenity, and concentration on proper priorities. Let us look again at the passage.

In the first paragraph he says he wishes to pursue serenity, to practice resignation, to await the divine promptings which will tell him how his life is to proceed. “My fate cannot but be grand so.” It is the next paragraph that has called forth from various critics accusations of blasphemy, bitterness, and despair. But does it warrant them? I think not.

“My life, my life! why will you linger? Are the years short and the months of no account? How often has long delay quenched my aspirations.” In the years he has sought to purify and perfect himself, he has made all too little progress. His life has “lingered” on too low a level, — as demonstrated by the violence of his reaction to John’s death, proving to him that he was as yet still far too little master of himself. He wished to proceed at once to a higher state.

“Can God afford that I should forget him? Is he so indifferent to my career? Can heaven be postponed with no more ado?” Is it, in other words, of no importance to the universal scheme of things if he cease trying to perfect himself, resting content with life led on a merely surface level? Does this not run contrary to the divinely implanted longing for self-betterment of the soul? Is it unimportant how many of his earthly years are wasted on a lower level while he futilely tries to ascend?

“Our doubts are so musical that they persuade themselves.” The all-too-real world around him constantly tempts him to forget the seemingly vain aspirations and longings and live for the moment, on his present level. Also, his emotional reaction to John’s death mocks his belief in the infallibility of his internal divinity as a source of strength.

Finally in the passage, he asks why God made him conscious of the existence of higher levels of being, but would not allow him to rise to them. “Did it need that there should be a conscious material?” Was it necessary to the plan that some who aspired to higher things be limited to the material?

It is true that this whole passage may be interpreted as a death-wish, however conceived. The tone, however, seems more impatience than defeat or despair. And, there is evidence that he found his beliefs — found his life — satisfying and fulfilling throughout these years. By Walden Pond, in 1845, he wrote :

Sometimes, when I compare myself with other men, methinks I am favored by the gods, They seems to whisper joy to me beyond my deserts, and that I do have a solid warrant and surety at their hands, which my fellows do not. I do not flatter myself, but if it were possible they flatter me. I am especially guided and guarded.³⁸

It could be argued that this is the voice of a man deluding himself, or even of a man overcome with pride and arrogance — but it hardly seems the desolate wail of the defeated.

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36 J, pp. 326-7.

37 One example is William Drake, The Depth of Walden Thoreau’s Symbolism of the Divine in Nature Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Arizona, 1967.

38 J, p. 365.

CHAPTER l — THE EARLY JOURNAL AS EVIDENCE

Thoreau’s Journal fills fourteen volumes, yet roughly half his adult years (1837-187) are covered in νolume one. At that, no entries remain for four of these years, (1843, 1844, 1848, and 1849) at all. This is so because the Journals of the early years were in large part discarded by him as not worth recopying, and partly dissected to provide material for various essays, lectures, articles, and two books.

Then, in 1849, his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, was still-born– due partly to a lack of preliminary publicity, partly to hostile or indifferent reviews, and partly to the nature of the book itself — difficult as it was for the public to accept.

The lack of response the book encountered led Thoreau to postpone indefinitely the publication of Walden, though that book was substantially complete at the time. It also forced him to re-adjust his goals and expectations: clearly he could not expect to live by his writings; neither could he be confident of an outlet for his thoughts in the market of the day.

Therefore, from 1850, he kept his journal as a literary enterprise — as in itself a work of art, rather than, as hitherto, a sort of halfway house between inspiration and its use elsewhere. This give the thirteen volumes spanning the years 1850- 1861 a form much less elliptical than that of volume one, which in some ways is unique. In the later volumes are (relatively) fewer quotations from his readings and fewer discourses on man’s duty and strivings, and on the possibilities of self perfection. Instead are found more long passages on nature and on the events of his days.

This difference in tone has been explained as due to his recognition of the incompatibility of his ideals and reality. It has been held that he surrendered his faith that they could be reconciled. Such theories will not be specifically refuted here– we are concerned with the early Journal only as evidence of his beliefs between ages twenty and thirty. But clues in the early Journal do indicate that his later years, far from being renunciation of his early hopes and beliefs, were in fact fulfillment and living-out of them.

It may be objected that this attempt to define Thoreau’s early views is without reference to the Week, Walden, or any of the essays and articles written in these years. But a short comparison of his Journal and his other works reveals no glaring inconsistencies, and it would be pointless and tedious to merely display parallel passages to attempt to prove that consistency; while a detailed examination of their relationship to the Journal would be far beyond the scope of this paper.¹ The years of the early Journal were consumed in Thoreau’s personal search for truths he could believe in and live by. Through the years 1837-1845 he absorbed ideas and influences — then he withdrew from the world for two years to put his many ideas and beliefs into coherent form. The writing of the Week and of Walden was as much discovery, probably, as it was synthesis, but the elements were drawn from the Journa1.

The two books are his tentative conclusions — the Journal of the preceding ten years are the beginnings and questionings that produced the books. The intermediate stages of the search are lost. The steps from initial inspiration to final statement he destroyed. No other writer ever left two-million-plus words so full of his inner life and so relatively empty of his external.

Why did Thoreau concern himself less with these problems after the 1840’s? Well, why does requited love write few sonnets? He had resolved the problems he had been concerned with and he went on to more fruitful contentions. Or so, at any rate, I believe.

———-

¹ At any rate, Bradford Torrey in the 1906 edition of the Journal, and Perry Miller, in Consciousness in Concord The Text of Thoreau’s Hitherto “Lost Journal” (1840-181) Together with Notes and a Commentary (Cambridge The Riverside Press, 1958), demonstrate convincingly that the two books and many articles drew heavily on Journal entries, revised and re-arranged. For that matter, many of the quotations cited here he re-worked and included in the books.

———-

For Thoreau, these were the crucial years, containing the chief influences on his development of opinions and values. A brief chronology of Some of these influences may be of interest.

In 1837 he began the life-long friendship with Emerson which enabled him to exchange ideas with one who understood. This sustaining relationship led to acquaintanceship with persons as diverse as Margaret Fuller and Harrison Blake.

In 1840 he and Bronson Alcott met and quickly developed a strong friendship. The founding of the Dial in that year first gave him public outlet for his writings.

In 1839 he and elder brother John spent two weeks on a boating trip; after John died in early 1842, Henry began to write A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.

In 1843 Thoreau failed in an attempt to break into the New York City publishing world, but in living half a year on Staten Island, did meet Horace Greeley, who consistently aided him thereafter in marketing his writings. Following his return from Staten Island, Thoreau never again considered moving from Concord.

From July 1845 to September 1847, of course, he lived in a cabin by Walden Pond, — which inspired Walden. In late July 1846 he spent a night in jail for refusing  to pay tax to a slave-holding government — which inspired “Civil Disobedience.” In the Spring of 1849 the Week was still-born, deferring any hope Thoreau may have had of earning a living by his writings; forcing him to consider once again how best to aspire and respire at the same time.

These were the years in which the man emerged. Throughout this time he was engaged in a long soliloquy. Let us turn to the views he espoused during his ten year apprenticeship to himself.

[Thanks to my friend Dave Garland, who converted my thesis from PDF form into something that can be printed here.]

THOREAU’S EARLY SOCIAL VIEWS

AS INFLUENCED BY HIS PERSONAL RELIGION

 

by Frank DeMarco

 

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the

Department of History in the Graduate College of

The University of Iowa

 

May, 1971

 

Thesis Supervisor a Professor Stow Persons
DEDICATION:

To those who agree that Thoreau

meant what he said, and was correct

in saying that “there is nowhere any

excuse for despondency. Always there is

life which,

rightly lived,

implies a divine satisfaction.”

 

and,

in particular,

to Jean
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 

The author appreciates the encouragement and

advice offered by Dr. Persons in the preparation of this paper.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER l — THE EARLY JOURNAL AS EVIDENCE

CHAPTER 2 — THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE DIVINE

CHAPTER 3 — THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE QUEST

CHAPTER 4 — THE INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETY

CONCLUSION

LIST OF REFERENCES

 

INTRODUCTION

In his journal for the years 1837-1847 Thoreau left evidence that his ideas on economics, politics, and society are all interrelated and all have a common source : the belief that all men have access within themselves to the divinity which orders the universe, and therefore may by attention to the promptings of their inner voice discover the manner of living which will best aid them to perfect themselves.

This belief led logically to his dismissal of outside authorities: There could be no higher authority outside an individual, either religious or secular, if each man carried within himself the ability to know what was right. It led to a concentration on the inner life, and consequently to a sort of impatience with the distraction often posed by the necessities of the outer one. It led to a preference for Nature, as the symbol of the Divine. Finally, it led to sweeping criticisms of the lives of men in the society in which he found himself, and to proposals for society which would offer more encouragement to the pursuit of the inner spiritual life.

Of course, the key idea is not Thoreau’s alone, or even primarily. It is the very essence of Transcendentalism; it is the idea which made Emerson so unpopular with orthodox churchmen of the time (and since). However, to merely call Thoreau a Transcendentalist is to place his uniqueness into a mold which, as it was designed to fit several, may not fit any very well.

I have tried to write about Thoreau without resorting to the standard labels. I am convinced that although they were originally manufactured to aid the understanding, they have become through constant and careless use and over-use, more obstruction than aid. He has been labelled anarchist, escapist, poet, naturalist, poet-naturalist, — deanthropocentrist even. Why? He himself said he wished to be considered a member of no group he had not joined.

These labels are not precise definitions of his thought, — merely convenient shorthand for specific aspects of his totality, aspects whose extent and limit is made clear ideally, in the context in which the shorthand is used. Obviously this is necessary to keep extensive statements within acceptable limits of space and patience — but unfortunately it is too short a jump from saying Thoreau was in some respects a certain type of naturalist, to saying Thoreau was a naturalist (presumably, ANY naturalist).

Because a man may contain certain characteristics commonly contained within a certain category does not mean that he may safely be taken to possess whatever characteristics the mention of that category may happen to suggest. I have tried in this paper to emphasize, not the uniqueness of the elements of Thoreau’s personal philosophy, — they are not unique, — but the uniqueness of the combinations as he put it together. Labels would, I feel, only distract.

A word is needed on the use of Thoreau’s journal entries to illustrate those beliefs defined in the text of this paper. It is true that strictly speaking, they prove nothing they merely illustrate. The sense of Thoreau’s thought can best — perhaps only — be caught by a reading of the Journal itself: The interpretation of quotations leads always to the question of what he did mean by this or that.

Ultimately this is a matter of individual judgment, for while some interpretations can safely be ruled out, one particular interpretation only cannot always be safely ruled in. However this much may be said: The interpretation has not been fabricated by the arbitrary selection of a few unrepresentative quotations, and cannot be easily refuted by other, contradictory, passages. Nor has he been quoted out of context: the non-sequential structure of the Journal to some extent obviates this danger. (He himself compared his structure of discrete paragraphs to a museum of statues, nowhere holding hands).

Thoreau is recognized as pioneer conservationist and ecologist, discoverer of the powerful social tool of Civil Disobedience, and protestor against materialism, slavery, and orthodoxy. With time he will come to be more widely famed, with Emerson, as one of the first American thinkers to combine the best of Oriental and occidental thought into a new synthesis acceptable to both traditions. The liberation of India demonstrates the usefulness of his synthesis to Eastern peoples; the destruction of legal Segregation here demonstrates its usefulness to Western peoples: Both events demonstrate its power. It seems safe to say that his influence can only continue to grow.

[Working backward from the year 2000 toward America’s beginnings.]

The long, long recovery

Roosevelt was not shy about trying new things. He told his subordinates to try something, and if it didn’t work, try something else. Anything but inaction. For a while, that new sense of energy did help. The economy began to improve, but only slowly. And although they didn’t know it, the efforts of Roosevelt and his congresses were being sabotaged by a theory. The theory was that whatever the government spent, it took out of the economy either by taxes or by borrowing, and therefore the best road to recovery was a policy of strict government economy. (This was, anyway, one of the things Roosevelt had pledged in his campaign, probably sincerely)

But in the circumstances, government action to prime the pump was probably the only thing that would have worked. The basic problem was lack of effective demand. There was a huge amount of potential demand: all those hungry people constituted a bottomless well of demand. In his second inaugural address, on January 20, 1937, he would describe the situation in a short sentence: “I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.” And the only way to turn potential demand into effective demand is to get money into people’s pockets. (If nobody has the price of a meal, it doesn’t matter how much food is available for sale.)

The question is, how do you accomplish the necessary task of putting money in people’s pockets to restart the economy without doing more harm than good? The only way the America of 1933 knew was jobs – and if nobody in the private sector had the money to start businesses to hire people, where were the jobs to come from, if not for the government? Roosevelt embarked on a massive program of public works, on the theory that (a) people needed work, (b) there was plenty of public work to be done, (c) hard times are the best and most economical times in which to embark on major projects, because money is cheap and so is labor. It worked pretty well, but as soon as the economy seemed to be recovering, there was pressure to reduce government expenditures, which withdrew the stimulus and threatened to resume the deflationary spiral.

No need to trace the eight years of Roosevelt’s two peacetime terms. Probably the most effective thing he did to stabilize the economy was to sponsor the Social Security Act, which assured seniors a basic pension, thus lifting a burden form their children and assuring that at least some of the potential demand became effective. In retrospect, it seems that everything he did was getting the country read to play a larger part in the next war and the years thereafter, but the future was as hidden from them then as it is from us now. If something prepared this country for the global role that was ahead, it was something more than human. Earlier ages would have called it divine providence.

So that’s how we went from the mini-boom and mini-bust that followed the end of World War I to the stock market of the Roaring Twenties, and the crash and the onset of the Hungry Thirties, on our way to the Fighting Forties. Nobody thought up a catchy name for the decade that followed the Gay Nineties or the one that included World War I, but it is to that time that we turn next.

Sunday, August 13, 2017

5:50 a.m. Well, the extremists got what they wanted in Charlottesville yesterday. Apparently, cadres within both sides wanted violence that could be blamed exclusively on the other side. And, as I said, they got what they wanted, and now we wait for the next provocation.

Isn’t it interesting how the people who push for confrontation never consider that perhaps they would lose an all-out conflict? What was the Civil War but the final settlement of an ongoing series of provocations and outrages that dated back at least to the 1830s? The slavers never considered that they might lose, but they did. The right wing today never considers that it might lose. It has the government, what it thinks is a majority of the people, and what it thinks is right on its side – just as the slavers did in the 1850s.

The left doesn’t have the government, but it has certainty of being right, and many within it are so intransigent that they want confrontation in order to – they think – make right prevail. Have any of them even heard of Weimar Germany? Do any of them consider that the fear they evoke is fueling the right-wing fanaticism quite as much as any talk-radio moron? No. They know they’re right, so they are immune to any suspicion that they may be also wrong.

I think historians will trace all this to the election of 1964, when people who were still reacting emotionally to the murder of John F. Kennedy voted for Lyndon Johnson. He, thinking he was Franklin Roosevelt, rammed Great Society legislation through his temporarily acquiescent Congress, and suddenly we got a glut of new federal programs that changed everything. Naturally it would take time to digest all this; naturally it would create backlash. The 1966 Congressional elections were a massive reversal of the 1964 mandate for change At the same time we got another war by fiat and indirection (the Gulf of Tonkin incident) which added its own confusion. (The right believed that in wartime, you supported the government; the left believed that it was wrong to support the war). In 1968 – after Robert Kennedy’s murder – a combination of George Wallace and Richard Nixon edged the Democrats out of the presidency.

The result was an intensification of the war between cultures that has poisoned our national life for more than 50 years so far.

What the right-wing and left-wing extremists have in common:

• They don’t think of themselves as being extreme. They think they are protecting the United States from those who would destroy our culture and values.
• They think that in any clash of extremes, they would “obviously” win, because they “obviously” represent the majority.
• They think their own values are being subverted deliberately by one or more conspiracies, and it never occurs to them that their own actions (including their words) may be fueling the fire.
• They feel justified in provoking violence if need be, to “wake people up.”
• They have no tolerance for other viewpoints, and little or no respect for other people’s right to express it. The left thinks it has the right to tell others how to speak (political correctness). The right does too, typically by engaging in violence against those who are too articulate or too prominent. (Someone should compile a list of social commentators who have been murdered by right-wing fanatics.)
• Somehow people can’t understand that fear breeds hatred, and hatred breeds counter-fear and counter-hatred, and the wheel ratchets upward, or rather, downward.

Oh, my country!

The odd thing is that Martin Luther King knew all this, and not only knew it, but helped organize an entire movement around the principle of non-violence. Had the Civil Rights protestors of the 1950s and early 1960s been violent, they would have been repressed by the forces of government at all levels, not merely at local and state levels as they were in the South. Instead, their non-violent examples aroused the conscience of the North and of many in the South, and, helped them carry the day. Kennedy’s wonderful TV speeches explained the moral heart of the issue in a way that would have been impossible if violence had been used by demonstrators as well as their official and unofficial opponents.

Non-violence worked! And as soon as it began to work, other more militant voices abandoned it.

Stokely Carmichael and others I can’t remember now thought non-violence was a manifestation of the Uncle Tom mentality. They intended to force change. Of course, what they did was to call forth a reaction that undercut the forces of reconciliation within the white community. Once Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were killed, where were the effective voices of reason and reconciliation? Where were those who appealed to hope and to our better nature, rather than to fear and our instinct to repress whatever opposed our values?

I have a friend who used to join antiwar protests until one day she realized that the emotional tone of the antiwar demonstrators was exactly the same as what they thought they were protesting. As somebody said, “I won’t attend an anti-war rally, but if you ever have a pro-peace rally, call me and I’ll be there.” Until people see the difference between acting from fear and acting from hope, between thinking they can combat hatred by opposing to it their own hatred, things will only get worse. What else could happen?

The way to pacify a situation is not to give in to hatred but to demonstrate that you have heard and understood the reasons for it. Demonizing does nothing but create more demons. We’ve gotten pretty good at that.

Two words that seem to have vanished from the national consciousness: Repentance, and Forgiveness. One repents not someone else’s sins, but one’s own. (And if you don’t think your side has any sins to repent, you are part of the problem.) One forgives as an extension of asking forgiveness. But neither of these is a popular platform. So much more satisfying to hate others! So much more satisfying to envision their overthrow! And, so puzzling that fear and hatred continue to grow.

Inexplicable, isn’t it?

 

[Working backward from the year 2000 toward America’s beginnings.]

The New Deal

Nobody really knows how many people were out of work by the election of 1932. What anyone could see, though, is that something was frighteningly wrong, and unless something was done, anything could happen. A few years later, Franklin Roosevelt was to say privately that the two most dangerous men in the country were Douglas MacArthur and Huey Long – one on the right, one on the left. Democracy had survived three years of depression. If the 1932 election did not improve matters, could the country survive – could the existing political system survive — until the next election in 1936?

Roosevelt was nationally known because, elected governor of New York state in 1928 and re-elected in 1930, he responded to the depression’s effects on his state with vigorous action that contrasted painfully with what was perceived to be the inaction of President Hoover on the federal level. Roosevelt campaigned pledging “a new deal for the American people,” and upon his election, a very interesting thing happened. I say “interesting,” but to the people at the time it was, at first, terrifying, and then became hopeful, and then, for a while, exhilarating.

1 Banks had been failing throughout the previous three years, but upon his election, they began to fail at a faster rate than ever, and the rate accelerated. During the winter of  1932-1933, 4,000 banks had been forced out of business. By the time he took office, people had lost all confidence. No one knew which banks were still solvent, if any. Sound and unsound banks alike were destroyed by panicky “runs” – depositors insisting on the immediate withdrawal of their money, which overwhelmed the bank’s financial reserves. (See “It’s a Wonderful Life” for an example of a run on the bank. George Bailey was lucky enough to have two dollars more than the investors demanded. Many other banks were not so fortunate.) There was a very real fear that the entire system would collapse.

2 In response, Roosevelt did three things.

(a) He exuded calm confidence, and promised immediate action. “This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” He said he hoped that a combination of legislation and executive action could overcome the problems facing the nation. But, if he did not receive cooperation or timely action from Congress, “I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”

(Roosevelt’s speech, which you can read or listen to: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/)

(b) He restored confidence in the banking system. Many states had decreed bank holidays, shutting the banks temporarily by law before they could be permanently shut by panic. On March 5, Roosevelt called Congress into immediate special session (rather than waiting for the new Congress to convene in December, as had always been the custom) to pass emergency banking legislation. On the 6^th, he issued a proclamation temporarily closing every bank in the nation. On the 9th, he sent the Emergency Banking Act to Congress, which gave the government authority to examine bank finances. It was approved within hours.

(c) He took to the radio to communicate to the people directly, hoping to instill confidence in the new banking reforms. The day before the approved banks were due to reopen, he made his first fireside chat, using a relaxed speaking style that made people feel as if he  were sitting in their homes speaking directly to them. An estimated sixty million Americans listened to the speech, and the next day, people started to put their money back into the banks. The immediate banking crisis was over. More important, ultimately, Roosevelt had found a way to bypass the largely hostile newspapers. His personal popularity among the people would give him powerful leverage with Congress. He wasn’t slow to realize it, or to put it to use.

3 The way Congress immediately passed the banking act showed Roosevelt that four months of cumulating panic between November 1932 and March 1933 had thoroughly scared the country and the Congress, and thus had given him a window of opportunity. Congress wouldn’t stay scared forever, so he struck while the iron was hot, resolved to introduce major initiatives while he had the chance. What followed has been called The Hundred Days. In the three months of that special session, the following acts were passed.

March 9 Emergency Banking Act

March 20 Government Economy Act

March 22 Beer-Wine Revenue Act

March 31 Creation of Civilian Conservation Corps

April 19 Abandonment of the Gold Standard

May 12 Federal Emergency Relief Act

May 12 Agricultural Adjustment Act

May 12 Emergency Farm Mortgage Act

May 18 Tennessee Valley Authority Act

May 27 Securities Act

June 5 Abrogation of Gold Payment Clause

June 13 Home Owners Loan Act

June 16 Glass-Steagall Banking Act

June 16 National Industrial Recovery Act

June 16 Emergency Railroad Transportation Act

June 16 Farm Credit Act

It was a revolution. The country could never return to what it had been on March 3, 1933. At the moment, few would have wanted to.

Summing up the New Deal: http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/museum/pdfs/actionguide.pdf