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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library - PinkMonkey.com-Walden by Henry David Thoreau


pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business, and
endeavor to be what he was made.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such
desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his
companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let
him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far
away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple
tree or an oak. Shall he turn his spring into summer? If the condition
of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality
which we can substitute? We will not be shipwrecked on a vain
reality. Shall we with pains erect a heaven of blue glass over
ourselves, though when it is done we shall be sure to gaze still at the
true ethereal heaven far above, as if the former were not?

There was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed to strive
after perfection. One day it came into his mind to make a staff.
Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient,
but into a perfect work time does not enter, he said to himself, It
shall be perfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my
life. He proceeded instantly to the forest for wood, being resolved
that it should not be made of unsuitable material; and as he searched
for and rejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him,
for they grew old in their works and died, but he grew not older by a
moment. His singleness of purpose and resolution, and his elevated
piety, endowed him, without his knowledge, with perennial youth.
As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way,
and only sighed at a distance because he could not overcome him.
Before he had found a stock in all respects suitable the city of
Kouroo was a hoary ruin, and he sat on one of its mounds to peel the
stick. Before he had given it the proper shape the dynasty of the
Candahars was at an end, and with the point of the stick he wrote the
name of the last of that race in the sand, and then resumed his work.
By the time he had smoothed and polished the staff Kalpa was no
longer the pole-star; and ere he had put on the ferule and the head
adorned with precious stones, Brahma had awoke and slumbered
many times. But why do I stay to mention these things? When the
finishing stroke was put to his work, it suddenly expanded before the
eyes of the astonished artist into the fairest of all the creations of
Brahma. He had made a new system in making a staff, a world with
fun and fair proportions; in which, though the old cities and
dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken
their places. And now he saw by the heap of shavings still fresh at
his feet, that, for him and his work, the former lapse of time had
been an illusion, and that no more time had elapsed than is required
for a single scintillation from the brain of Brahma to fall on and
inflame the tinder of a mortal brain. The material was pure, and his
art was pure; how could the result be other than wonderful?

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as
the truth. This alone wears well. For the most part, we are not where
we are, but in a false position. Through an infinity of our natures, we
suppose a case, and put ourselves into it, and hence are in two cases
at the same time, and it is doubly difficult to get out. In sane
moments we regard only the facts, the case that is. Say what you
have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-
believe. Tom Hyde, the tinker, standing on the gallows, was asked if
he had anything to say. "Tell the tailors," said he, "to remember to
make a knot in their thread before they take the first stitch." His
companion’s prayer is forgotten.

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call
it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you
are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love
your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant,
thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is
reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the
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PinkMonkey.com Digital Library - PinkMonkey.com-Walden by Henry David Thoreau



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