from "Walking"
Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862)
When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall? Even some sects of philosophers have felt the necessity of importing the woods to themselves, since they did not go to the woods.…Of course it is of no use to direct our steps to the woods, if they do not carry us thither. I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society. But it sometimes happens that I cannot easily shake off the village.
The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is—I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods? I suspect myself, and cannot help a shudder, when I find myself so implicated even in what are called good words—for this may sometimes happen.…
Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past. Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barnyard within our horizon, it is belated. That sound commonly reminds us that we are growing rusty and antique in our employments and habits of thought. His philosophy comes down to a more recent time than ours.
There is something suggested by it that is a
newer testament—the gospel according to this moment. He has not fallen astern;
he had got up early and kept up early, and to be where he is is to be in season,
in the foremost rank of time. It is an expression of the health and soundness of
Nature, a brag for all the world—healthiness as of a spring burst forth, a new
fountain of the Muses, to celebrate this last instant of time.
"Walking" was published in
the Atlantic Monthly after Thoreau's death.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
was an American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher, renowned for his
masterwork, Walden (1854), and for having been a vigorous advocate
of civil liberties, as evidenced in the essay “Civil Disobedience” (1849).
source: Encyclopedia Britannica online
