Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience
Walden chronicles the two years and two months Henry David Thoreau spent living alone in a small cabin he built himself on the shore of Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. Earning his living by the labor of his own hands, he records the practical details of his experiment—the economy of food, shelter, and clothing—alongside close observations of the seasons, the pond, animals, and his bean-field. Bound with it is "Civil Disobedience," his argument for refusing to support an unjust government, drawn from his own night in jail for declining to pay a poll tax.
Thoreau's purpose is to confront how most people live, burdened by needless possessions and dulled by mechanical toil. He urges simplicity, self-reliance, and deliberate living, insisting that we wake to the richness of the present moment. Its enduring power lies in this challenge to material convention and in its bold claim that the individual conscience stands above the demands of the state.
How it begins
"I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up." WALDEN Economy When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again. I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain.