272 THE FRENCH BLOOD IN AMERICA 



what men call the " business of life" accorded little with 

 the aims and interests of Henry Thoreau. "He had 

 early discovered, by virtue of that keen insight which 

 looked through the outer husk of conventionality, that 

 what is called profit in the bustle of commercial life is 

 often far from being, in the true sense, profitable ; that 

 the just claims of leisure are fully as important as the 

 just claims of business ; and that the surest way of be- 

 coming rich is to need little ; in his own words, ' a man 

 is rich in proportion to the number of the things which 

 he can afford to let alone.' " 

 A Lover of Hc rcfuscd to pledge himself ' ' to some professional 



Nature x- o 1 



treadmill, and for the sake of imaginary ' comforts ' sac- 

 rifice the substantial happiness of life." He gave himself 

 over to a "loitering" in which idleness held no part. 

 Supporting himself by pencil-making, surveying, lectur- 

 ing and writing, as occasion demanded, he spent the bulk 

 of his time in the study of wild nature. "His business 

 was to spend at least one half of each day in the open 

 air ; to watch the dawns and the sunsets ; to carry ex- 

 press what was in the wind ; to secure the latest news 

 from forest and hilltoij, and to be ' self-appointed in- 

 spector of snow-storms and rain-storms.' " 



In 1845 he built a hut near Walden Pond and retired 

 to a closer intimacy with nature. " His residence on the 

 shore of Walden Pond has often been misinterpreted," 

 says Professor Bronson, in his History of American Liter- 

 ature. " It was only an episode in his life, and he never 

 meant to preach by it that all men should live in huts 

 or that civilization was a mistake. Rather it was a 

 demonstration, first to himself and then to others, that 

 man's happiness and higher life are not dependent upon 

 luxuries nor even upon external refinements." After 

 two years of life in his simple hermitage he returned to 

 Concord, where he supported his mother and sisters 

 largely through the old trade of pencil-making. He died 

 on May G, 18G2, at the age of forty-five. 



