230 
WALDEN. 
doubt such a clarifying process would be going on all 
the while. The governor and his council faintly remem¬ 
ber the pond, for they went a-fishing there when they 
were boys; but now they are too old and dignified to go 
a-fishing, and so they know it no more forever. Yet 
even they expect to go to heaven at last. If the legis¬ 
lature regards it, it is chiefly to regulate the number of 
hooks to be used there; but they know nothing about 
the hook of hooks with which to angle for the pond 
itself, impaling the legislature for a bait. Thus, even in 
civilized communities, the embryo man passes through 
the hunter stage of development. 
I have found repeatedly, of late years, that I cannot 
fish without falling a little in self-respect. I have tried 
it again and again. I have skill at it, and, like many 
of my fellows, a certain instinct for it, which revives 
from time to time, but always when I have done I feel 
that it would have been better if I had not fished. I 
think that I do not mistake. It is a faint intimation, yet 
so are the first streaks of morning. There is unques¬ 
tionably this instinct in me which belongs to the lower 
orders of creation; yet with every year I am less a 
fisherman, though without more humanity or even wis¬ 
dom ; at present I am no fisherman at all. But I see 
that if I were to live in a wilderness I should again be 
tempted to become a fisher and hunter in earnest. Be¬ 
side, there is something essentially unclean about this 
diet and all flesh, and I began to see where housework 
commences, and whence the endeavor, which costs so 
much, to wear a tidy and respectable appearance each 
day, to keep the house sweet and free from all ill odqrs 
and sights. Having been my own butcher and scullion 
and cook, as well as the gentleman for whom the dishes 
