1 84 The Life Worth Living 



of self-improvement ; he saw duty and inclina- 

 tion in that direction. He had no money, and 

 it was a sore necessity which compelled him to 

 make money even the little he needed. There 

 was a love of freedom, a strain of the wild man, 

 in his nature that rebelled with violence against 

 the yoke of custom ; he was so eager to culti- 

 vate himself and to be happy in his own society, 

 that he could consent with difficulty even to 

 interruptions of friendship. "Such are my 

 engagements to myself that I dare not promise," 

 he once wrote in answer to an invitation ; and 

 the italics are his own. Thoreau is always 

 careful of himself, and he must think twice 

 about a morning call. Imagine him condemned 

 for eight hours a day to some uncongenial and 

 unmeaning business. He shrank from the very 

 look of the mechanical in life; all should, if 

 possible, be sweetly spontaneous. Thus he 

 learned to make lead-pencils, and when he had 

 gained the highest certificate and his friends 

 began to congratulate him on his establishment 

 in life, he calmly announced that he should 

 never make another. "Why should I?" said 

 he; "I would not do again what I have done 



