Addresses — Thoreau's Study in the Woods. 251 



the ice was yet dissolved, and took possession of it the fourth of 

 July. He selected a building spot on a pleasant hillside covered 

 with pine woods, through which he looked out upon the pond. 

 Day after day, he went on cutting down and hewing into timber 

 the beloved pine, and I fancy he almost felt that he was doing a 

 sacriligeous act, and perhaps he, like a Roman of the olden time, 

 prayed, " Whatever god or goddess thou art, be propitious to me!" 

 His noon-day meal of bread and butter, which had imbibed the 

 fragrance of the pine, was greatly relished by him, while sitting 

 among the green pine boughs, reading the newspaper in which his 

 dinner had been wrapped. The days went merrily by, for the 

 robin, pewee and lark sung to him. He says they were pleasant 

 spring days, in which the winter of man's discontent was thawing 

 as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to 

 stretch itself. He dug the cellar of his house where a woodchuck 

 had formerly dug its burrow, down through sumach and blackberry 

 roots. He says, who knows but if men constructed their dwellings 

 with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and fami- 

 lies simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be uni- 

 versally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so en- 

 gaged. He also says, to maintain oneself on this earth is not a 

 hardship but a pleasure, if we live simply and wisely. 



When Thoreau's house was completed it had cost him twenty- 

 eight dollars and twelve cents; one dollar and eighty cents less 

 than the rent of a student's room in Cambridge village. His food 

 cost him, in money, about twenty-seven cents a week, his furniture 

 was most simple and inexpensive, consisting principally of a bed, 

 table, writing desk, three chairs, cooking utensils and a few dishes. 

 He says none are so poor that they need sit on a pumpkin. Nature 

 provided in the form of pine trees all the curtains that he required. 

 He says, " Thank God, I can sit and I can stand without the aid of 

 a furniture warehouse. My best room, however, my withdrawing 

 room, always ready for company, on whose carpet the sun rarely 

 fell, was the pine woods behind my house. Thither, on summer 

 days when distinguished guests came, I took them, and a priceless 

 domestic swept the floor, dusted the furniture, and kept the things 

 in order." 



His doors were never locked, and friends often came in to enjoy 

 the cheer of his little cabin when he was on his excursions, for he 



