A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers - Pennsylvania State ...

sia, and Hindostan, the lands of contemplation and dwelling-places
of the ruminant nations. In the experience of this
noontide we could find some apology even for the instinct
of the opium, betel, and tobacco chewers. Mount Saber, according
to the French traveller and naturalist, Botta, is celebrated
for producing the Kat-tree, of which “the soft tops
of the twigs and tender leaves are eaten,” says his reviewer,
“and produce an agreeable soothing excitement, restoring
from fatigue, banishing sleep, and disposing to the enjoyment
of conversation.” We thought that we might lead a
dignified Oriental life along this stream as well, and the maple
and alders would be our Kat-trees.
It is a great pleasure to escape sometimes from the restless
class of Reformers. What if these grievances exist? So do you
and I. Think you that sitting hens are troubled with ennui
these long summer days, sitting on and on in the crevice of a
hay-loft, without active employment? By the faint cackling
in distant barns, I judge that dame Nature is interested still
to know how many eggs her hens lay. The Universal Soul, as
it is called, has an interest in the stacking of hay, the foddering
of cattle, and the draining of peat-meadows. Away in
Henry David Thoreau
97
Scythia, away in India, it makes butter and cheese. Suppose
that all farms are run out, and we youths must buy old land
and bring it to, still everywhere the relentless opponents of
reform bear a strange resemblance to ourselves; or, perchance,
they are a few old maids and bachelors, who sit round the
kitchen hearth and listen to the singing of the kettle. “The
oracles often give victory to our choice, and not to the order
alone of the mundane periods. As, for instance, when they
say that our voluntary sorrows germinate in us as the growth
of the particular life we lead.” The reform which you talk
about can be undertaken any morning before unbarring our
doors. We need not call any convention. When two neighbors
begin to eat corn bread, who before ate wheat, then the
gods smile from ear to ear, for it is very pleasant to them.
Why do you not try it? Don’t let me hinder you.
There are theoretical reformers at all times, and all the world
over, living on anticipation. Wolff, travelling in the deserts
of Bokhara, says, “Another party of derveeshes came to me
and observed, `The time will come when there shall be no
difference between rich and poor, between high and low,
when property will be in common, even wives and children.’”