eserver.orgWalden - Chapter 22. Where I Lived, and What I Lived forThoreau Reader - Walden Contents - Next ChapterWalden Pond from Pine Hill, by Herbert W. Gleason, circa 1900.AT A CERTAIN season of our life we are accustomed to considerevery spot as the possible site of a house. I have thus surveyed thecountry on every side within a dozen miles of where I live. Inimagination I have bought all the farms in succession, for all were tobe bought, and I knew their price. I walked over each farmer'spremises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on husbandry with him,took his farm at his price, at any price, mortgaging it to him in mymind; even put a higher price on it—took everything but a deed ofit—took his word for his deed, for I dearly love to talk—cultivated it,and him too to some extent, I trust, and withdrew when I had enjoyedit long enough, leaving him to carry it on. This experience entitled meto be regarded as a sort of real-estate broker by my friends. WhereverI sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from meaccordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat?—better if a countryseat. I discovered many a site for a house not likely to be soonimproved, which some might have thought too far from the village,but to my eyes the village was too far from it. Well, there I might live,I said; and there I did live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life;saw how I could let the years run off, buffet the winter through, andsee the spring come in. The future inhabitants of this region, whereverthey may place their houses, may be sure that they have beenanticipated. An afternoon sufficed to lay out the land into orchard,wood-lot, and pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines shouldbe left to stand before the door, and whence each blasted tree could beseen to the best advantage; and then I let it lie, fallow, perchance, fora man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he canWalden - Chapter 2http://eserver.org/thoreau/walden02.html (1 of 13) [8/21/2003 4:06:48 PM]afford to let alone.[2] My imagination carried me so far that I even had the refusal ofseveral farms—the refusal was all I wanted—but I never got myfingers burned by actual possession. The nearest that I came to actualpossession was when I bought the Hollowell place, and had begun tosort my seeds, and collected materials with which to make awheelbarrow to carry it on or off with; but before the owner gave mea deed of it, his wife—every man has such a wife—changed her mindand wished to keep it, and he offered me ten dollars to release him.Now, to speak the truth, I had but ten cents in the world, and itsurpassed my arithmetic to tell, if I was that man who had ten cents,or who had a farm, or ten dollars, or all together. However, I let himkeep the ten dollars and the farm too, for I had carried it far enough;or rather, to be generous, I sold him the farm for just what I gave forit, and, as he was not a rich man, made him a present of ten dollars,and still had my ten cents, and seeds, and materials for a wheelbarrowleft. I found thus that I had been a rich man without any damage tomy poverty. But I retained the landscape, and I have since annuallycarried off what it yielded without a wheelbarrow. With respect tolandscapes,"I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute."(1)[3] I have frequently seen a poet withdraw, having enjoyed the mostvaluable part of a farm, while the crusty farmer supposed that he hadgot a few wild apples only. Why, the owner does not know it formany years when a poet has put his farm in rhyme, the mostadmirable kind of invisible fence, has fairly impounded it, milked it,skimmed it, and got all the cream, and left the farmer only theskimmed milk.[4] The real attractions of the Hollowell farm, to me, were: itscomplete retirement, being, about two miles from the village, half amile from the nearest neighbor, and separated from the highway by abroad field; its bounding on the river, which the owner said protectedit by its fogs from frosts in the spring, though that was nothing to me;the gray color and ruinous state of the house and barn, and thedilapidated fences, which put such an interval between me and thelast occupant; the hollow and lichen-covered apple trees, nawed byrabbits, showing what kind of neighbors I should have; but above all,the recollection I had of it from my earliest voyages up the river,when the house was concealed behind a dense grove of red maples,through which I heard the house-dog bark. I was in haste to buy it,before the proprietor finished getting out some rocks, cutting downthe hollow apple trees, and grubbing up some young birches whichhad sprung up in the pasture, or, in short, had made any more of hisimprovements. To enjoy these advantages I was ready to carry it on;Walden - Chapter 2http://eserver.org/thoreau/walden02.html (2 of 13) [8/21/2003 4:06:48 PM]like Atlas,(2) to take the world on my shoulders—I never heard whatcompensation he received for that—and do all those things which hadno other motive or excuse but that I might pay for it and beunmolested in my possession of it; for I knew all the while that itwould yield the most abundant crop of the kind I wanted, if I couldonly afford to let it alone. But it turned out as I have said.[5] All that I could say, then, with respect to farming on a largescale—I have always cultivated a garden—was, that I had had myseeds ready. Many think that seeds improve with age. I have no doubtthat time discriminates between the good and the bad; and when atlast I shall plant, I shall be less likely to be disappointed. But I wouldsay to my fellows, once for all, As long as possible live free anduncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you arecommitted to a farm or the county jail. [6] Old Cato,(3) whose "De Re Rustica" is my "Cultivator,"says—and the only translation I have seen makes sheer nonsense ofthe passage—"When you think of getting a farm turn it thus in yourmind, not to buy greedily; nor spare your pains to look at it, and donot think it enough to go round it once. The oftener you go there themore it will please you, if it is good." I think I shall not buy greedily,but go round and round it as long as I live, and be buried in it first,that it may please me the more at last.[7] The present was my next experiment of this kind, which Ipurpose to describe more at length, for convenience putting theexperience of two years into one. As I