10 
WALDEN. 
I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, I 
may almost say, as to attend to the gross but somewhat 
foreign form of servitude called Negro Slavery, there 
are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both 
north and south. It is hard to have a southern over¬ 
seer ; it is worse to have a northern one; but worst of all 
when you are the slave-driver of yourself. Talk of a 
divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the high¬ 
way, wending to market by day or night; does any 
divinity stir within him ? His highest duty to fodder 
and water his horses! What is his destiny to him com¬ 
pared with the shipping interests ? Does not he drive 
for Squire Make-a-stir ? How godlike, how immortal, is 
he ? See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all 
the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the 
slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself, a 
fame won by his own deeds. Public opinion is a weak 
tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a 
man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or 
rather indicates, his fate. Self-emancipation even in 
the West Indian provinces of the fancy and imagina¬ 
tion,— what Wilberforce is there to bring that about? 
Think, also, of the ladies of the land weaving toilet 
cushions against the last day, not to betray too green an 
interest in their fates ! As if you could kill time without 
injuring eternity. 
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. 
What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. 
From the desperate city you go into the desperate coun¬ 
try, and have to console yourself with the bravery of 
minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious 
despair is concealed even under what are called the 
games and amusements of mankind. There is no play 
