88 
WALDEN. 
which means a bad neighborhood might be avoided ; 99 and 
it may still be urged, for our houses are such unwieldy 
property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed 
in them; and the bad neighborhood to be avoided is our 
own scurvy selves. I know one or two families, at 
least, in this town, who, for nearly a generation, have 
been wishing to sell their houses in the outskirts and 
move into the village, but have not been able to accom¬ 
plish it, and only death will set them free. 
Granted that the majority are able at last either to 
own or hire the modern house with all its improvements. 
While civilization has been improving our houses, it has 
not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. 
It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create 
noblemen and kings. And if the civilized man’s pur¬ 
suits are no worthier than the savage’s , if he is employed 
the greater part of his life in obtaining gross necessaries 
and comforts merely , why should he have a better dwell¬ 
ing than the former ? 
But how do the poor minority fare? Perhaps it 
will be found, that just in proportion as some have 
been placed in outward circumstances above the savage, 
others have been degraded below him. The luxury of 
one class is counterbalanced by the indigence of another. 
On the one side is the palace, on the other are the alms¬ 
house and “ silent poor.” The myriads who built the 
pyramids to be the tombs of the Pharaohs were fed on 
garlic, and it may be were not decently buried them¬ 
selves. The mason who finishes the cornice of the 
palace returns at night perchance to a hut not so good 
as a wigwam. It is a mistake to suppose that, in a coun¬ 
try where the usual evidences of civilization exist, the 
condition of a very large body of the inhabitants may 
