Walking
()
About this ebook
This new edition of Thoreau's classic work includes footnotes, images, and a biographical essay.
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American writer, thinker, naturalist, and leading transcendental philosopher. Graduating from Harvard, Thoreau’s academic fortitude inspired much of his political thought and lead to him being an early and unequivocal adopter of the abolition movement. This ideology inspired his writing of Civil Disobedience and countless other works that contributed to his influence on society. Inspired by the principals of transcendental philosophy and desiring to experience spiritual awakening and enlightenment through nature, Thoreau worked hard at reforming his previous self into a man of immeasurable self-sufficiency and contentment. It was through Thoreau’s dedicated pursuit of knowledge that some of the most iconic works on transcendentalism were created.
Read more from Henry David Thoreau
The Existential Literature Collection Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Daily Henry David Thoreau: A Year of Quotes from the Man Who Lived in Season Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cape Cod: Illustrated Edition of the American Classic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCivil Disobedience Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Essential Thoreau Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Oxford Book of American Essays Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Walden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFaith in a Seed: The Dispersion Of Seeds And Other Late Natural History Writings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Enlightenment Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCivil Disobedience and Other Essays (The Collected Essays of Henry David Thoreau) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Harvard Classics: All 71 Volumes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThoreau on Nature: Sage Words on Finding Harmony with the Natural World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Uncommon Learning: Henry David Thoreau on Education Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Essays: "This world is but a canvas to our imagination." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers: "Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth." Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Walden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCivil Disobedience and Other Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life Without Principle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCivil Disobedience and Other Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThoreau's Book of Quotations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSelections from the Journals Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWalden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Walking
Related ebooks
My First Kitty Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJust So Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Are the Ocean Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWalking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Kaira Jewel Lingo's We Were Made for These Times Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWinter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Albert Einstein: The incredible life, discoveries, stories and lessons of Einstein! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNature Classics: Seven Books Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of The Sixth Extinction: by Elizabeth Kolbert | Includes Analysis Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Camping with President Roosevelt Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNature and Other Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Winter (Barnes & Noble Digital Library): From the Journal of Henry David Thoreau Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Web of Life: Weaving the Values That Sustain Us Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Snake and the Salamander: Reptiles and Amphibians from Maine to Virginia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMountains of the Mind Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStalking Kilgore Trout Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Emperor's Embrace: Reflections on Animal Families and Fatherhood Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Now Comes Good Sailing: Writers Reflect on Henry David Thoreau Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Clean Start: Inspiring You to Eat Clean and Live Well with 100 New Clean Food Recipes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRaccoon in a Hole: Early Reader - Children's Picture Books Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWalden and Civil Disobedience Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Camping and Tramping with Roosevelt Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwo Little Savages Being the adventures of two boys who lived as Indians and what they learned Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsElephants: The Kings of the Land Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Quotable Thoreau Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Wilderness Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Christmas Carol Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Environmental Science For You
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homegrown & Handmade: A Practical Guide to More Self-Reliant Living Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Silent Spring Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Book of Nature Activities: A Year-Round Guide to Outdoor Learning Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shelter: A Love Letter to Trees Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - 10th anniversary edition: A Year of Food Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quickening: Creation and Community at the Ends of the Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mother of God: An Extraordinary Journey into the Uncharted Tributaries of the Western Amazon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Druidry Handbook: Spiritual Practice Rooted in the Living Earth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsApocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foraging for Beginners: Your Simplified Guide to Foraging Edible Plants for Survival in the Wild: Self-Sufficient Living Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Forest Walking: Discovering the Trees and Woodlands of North America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World Without Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sacred Plant Medicine: The Wisdom in Native American Herbalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Voyage For Madmen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Your Guide to Forest Bathing (Expanded Edition): Experience the Healing Power of Nature Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Building Natural Ponds: Create a Clean, Algae-free Pond without Pumps, Filters, or Chemicals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Walking
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Walking - Henry David Thoreau
Indians
The Essay
I WISH TO SPEAK A WORD for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.
I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks—who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre,
to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, There goes a Sainte-Terrer,
a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit[1] in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.
1 – A central figure in the First Crusade (1095-1099), Peter of Amiens (1050-1115).
IT IS TRUE, WE ARE but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours and come round again at evening to the old hearthside from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return—prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again—if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man—then you are ready for a walk.
To come down to my own experience, my companion and I, for I sometimes have a companion, take pleasure in fancying ourselves knights of a new, or rather an old, order—not Equestrians or Chevaliers, not Ritters[2] or Riders, but Walkers, a still more ancient and honorable class, I trust. The Chivalric and heroic spirit which once belonged to the Rider seems now to reside in, or perchance to have subsided into, the Walker—not the Knight, but Walker, Errant. He is a sort of fourth estate, outside of Church and State and People.
2 – ‘Ritter’ is the German word for ‘knight.’
WE HAVE FELT THAT WE almost alone hereabouts practiced this noble art; though, to tell the truth, at least if their own assertions are to be received, most of my townsmen would fain walk sometimes, as I do, but they cannot. No wealth can buy the requisite leisure, freedom, and independence which are the capital in this profession. It comes only by the grace of God. It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to become a walker. You must be born into the family of the Walkers. Ambulator nascitur, non-fit[3].
3 – Thoreau is riffing on the Latin poeta nascitur, non fit (poets, are born not made), replacing poeta with ambulator. ‘A walker is born, not made.’
SOME OF MY TOWNSMEN, it is true, can remember and have described to me some walks which they took ten years ago, in which they were so blessed as to lose themselves for half an hour in the woods; but I know very well that they have confined themselves to the highway ever since, whatever pretensions they may make to belong to this select class. No doubt they were elevated for a moment as by the reminiscence of a previous state of existence, when even they were foresters and outlaws.
"When he came to grene wode,
In a mery mornynge,
There he herde the notes small
Of byrdes mery syngynge.
"It is ferre gone, sayd Robyn,
That I was last here;
Me Lyste a lytell for to shote
At the donne dere."[4]
4 – From an early, anonymous Old English verse, A Gest Of Robyn Hode (c. 418-456).
I THINK THAT I CANNOT preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. You may safely say, ‘A penny for your thoughts, or a thousand pounds.’ When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them—as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon—I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.
I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring some rust, and when sometimes I have stolen forth for a walk at the eleventh hour, or four o’clock in the afternoon, too late to redeem the day, when the shades of night were already beginning to be mingled with the daylight, have felt as if I had committed some