1 86 The Life Worth Living 



you want? It is a matter of taste, and within 

 certain lines not in the least a question of duty, 

 although commonly supposed to be so. There 

 is no authority for that view anywhere. Tho- 

 reau's tastes are well defined. He loved to be 

 free, to be master of his times and seasons ; he 

 preferred long rambles to rich dinners, his own 

 reflections to the consideration of society, and 

 an easy, calm, unfettered life among green 

 trees to dull toiling at the counter of a bank. 

 And such being his inclination, he determined 

 that he would gratify it. 



In 1845, when twenty-eight years old, an age 

 by which the liveliest of us have usually de- 

 clined into some conformity with the world, 

 Thoreau, with a capital of less than twenty-five 

 dollars, and a borrowed axe, walked into the 

 woods by Walden Pond, and began his experi- 

 ment. He built himself a dwelling, and re- 

 turned the axe, he says, sharper than when he 

 borrowed it ; he reclaimed a patch of ground 

 where he cultivated beans, peas, potatoes, and 

 sweet-corn ; he had his bread to bake, his farm 

 to dig, and for six weeks in the summer he 

 worked as surveyor or carpenter. For more 



