180 LIBERTY AND A LIVING. 



curiously the man's habits and instinct of 

 studying causes and reasons rather than effects. 

 He says : " I suppose I have burned up a 

 good-sized tree to-night and for what? I 

 settled with Mr. Tarbell for it the other day ; 

 but that was n't a final settlement. I got off 

 cheaply from him. At last one will say : ' Let 

 us see, how much wood did you burn, sir?' 

 and I shall shudder to think that the next 

 question will be : ' What did you do while 

 you were warm ? " It is not enough to have 

 earned our livelihood. Either the earning 

 should have been serviceable to mankind or 

 something else must follow. To live is some- 

 times difficult, but it is never meritorious in 

 itself, and we must have a reason to give our 

 own conscience why we should continue to 

 exist upon this earth. Again he says, speaking 

 of his wood : " There is a far more important 

 and warming heat, commonly lost, which pre- 

 cedes the burning of the wood. It is the 

 smoke of industry, which is incense. I had 

 been so thoroughly warmed in body and spirit 

 that when at length my fuel was housed I 

 came near selling it to the ashman as if I had 

 extracted all its heat." Thus Thoreau was not 



