“Loren Is”

Thanks to Whiskey River’s specific directions, I was finally able to Google this. The first one somehow seems appropriate here, doesn’t it?

Written as if one-year-old Loren is telling the story, its purpose is to help the reader cope with the large and small problems in their life. …

Loren is one of the founding members of The Hays County Green Party, and a proud member of the San Marcos River Foundation. …

Loren is an internationally acclaimed pioneer in the field of computer graphics. …

Loren is making viewers aware every weeknight on 10News. .

Loren is readily available to assist you with questions regarding property at the Charlevoix Country Club. …

Loren is without the slightest doubt the most determined, positive thinking, obstinate person I’ve ever met. …

Loren is hesitant to talk about his personal life or his family.

Loren is a bright, likeable, friendly, energetic young man who is very much in need of a family.

Loren is primarially made up of elves, faeries, druids, dryads, and centaurs, but also includes a number of other individuals that fight with the spirit of Loren!

Former Inhabitants and Winter Visitors

“Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.”
Abraham Lincoln

It is winter now on Walden Pond. Thoreau is cozy in his cabin, pulled close to his fire, watching the snow fall on his field.

He receives few visitors, certainly no idle hikers who might stop to talk. So on his infrequent walks, Thoreau, to keep himself company, conjures up old inhabitants who once lived near him.

These old inhabitants had been slaves, and the mention of them, Cato Ingraham, Zilpha, Brister Freeman and his wife Fenda, conjured up for me the necessity to review the approach of the Civil War during Thoreau’s life.

In 1860, 15 years after Thoreau wrote Walden and two years before his death, four million slaves inhabited the United States. That same year Abraham Lincoln was elected President; South Carolina seceded from the Union. The confederates fired upon Fort Sumter in 1861. He would have read of the battles between the Merrimack and the Monitor and discussed the battle at Shiloh.

Thus Thoreau would have known of the War, but would have been spared from experiencing it close at hand for no battles were fought in Massachusetts or neighboring states, New Hampshire and Connecticut.

Thoreau was involved, however, in one related aspect of the Civil War in that his family participated in the underground railroad. He hid slaves, drove them to the station, bought them tickets to aid their flight from their slavery, demonstrating his abolitionist views.

Besides the remains of slaves’ cabins, Thoreau ruminates about Breed’s location, the home of a demon who

first comes in the guise of a friend or hired man, and then robs and murders the whole family.

A not very comforting myth for a man living alone in a cabin isolated from the village.

Based upon “dubious tradition” a tavern also once stood near Walden Pond.

The remains of a burned hut reminds Thoreau of the night he and neighbors attempted to extinguish the flames, only to decide the cabin was too far gone and worthless. A relative of the burned out family returns to view the ashes and visits for a time with Thoreau.

Others lived beside the pond whom Thoreau mentions by name–the Nuttings and the Legrosse, Wyman the potter and an Irishman, Hugh Quoil who rumor had it had been a soldier at Waterloo.

All I know of him is tragic. He was a man of manners …[who] wore a great coat in midsummer, being affected with the trembling delirium, and his face was the color of carmine.

Apparently Quoil reinforced the stereotypical activity of drinking too much, but Thoreau is gentle. A poignant picture is painted of the house Quoil left behind upon his death on the road at the foot of Brister’s Hill. Thoreau calls in “an unlucky castle,” sheltering Quoil’s old clothes, his now broken pipe, and his soiled cards. He continues, noting the skin tanning on the cabin’s back wall, waiting to be used to keep Quoil warm.

The skin of a woodchuck was freshly stretched upon the back of the house, a trophy of his last Waterloo; but no warm cap or mittens would he want more.

Now only a dent in the earth marks the site of these dwellings, with buried cellar stones, and strawberries, raspberries, thimble-berries, hazel bushes, and sumachs growing in the sunny sward there;

Thoreau is left to wonder why the small village attached to these ruined cabins failed to thrive while Concord grew.

But this small village, germ of something more, why did it fail while Concord keeps its ground? Were there no natural advantages,–no water privileges, forsooth? Ay, the deep Walden Pond and cool Brister’s Spring,–privilege to drink long and healthy draughts at these, all unimproved by these men but to dilute their glass. They were universally a thirsty race. Might not the basket, stable-broom, mat-making, corn parching, linen-spinning, and pottery business have thrived here, making the wilderness to blossom like the rose, and a numerous posterity have inherited the land of their fathers?

Then the passage which has followed Thoreau into the 21st century–the fact that

…no weather interfered fatally with my walks, or rather my going abroad, for I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow-birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines;

We of ‘02 have trouble imagining anyone even parking at the far end of the lot to hike to shop at Safeway, let alone 10 miles to visit a tree.

Occasionally a poet tramps through the snow to visit Thoreau. I like to think it is Emerson, but Thoreau does not identify him.

A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted; but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who can predict his comings and goings?

The two men entertain each other, filling the silent, snow covered field with laughter.

Broadway was still and deserted in comparison. At suitable intervals there were regular salutes of laughter, which might have been referred indifferently to the last-uttered or the forthcoming jest. We made many a ‘bran new’ theory of life over a thin dish of gruel, which combined the advantages of conviviality with the clear-headedness which philosophy requires.

Thoreau capable of a pun? Shocking…who knew?

Another visitor is welcome on winter evenings.

One of the last of the philosophers,–Connecticut gave him to the world,–he peddled first her ware, afterwards, as he declares, his brains…His words and attitude always suppose a better state of things than other men are acquainted with, and he will be the last man to be disappointed as the ages revolve.

With his optimism, the philosopher was a counter balance to Thoreau’s concern about the future.

Then follows a quoted line that pinches me a little:

‘How blind that cannot see serenity!’

Thoreau wishes the philosopher would open a “caravansary” so that he could share his good thoughts. His sign would read

‘Entertainment for man, but not for his beast. Enter ye that have leisure and a quiet mind, who earnestly seek the right road.’ He is perhaps the sanest man and has the fewest crotchets of any I chance to know; the same yesterday and to-morrow…a blue-robed man, whose fittest roof is the overarching sky which reflects his serenity. I do not see how he can ever die; Nature cannot spare him.

At times a second visitor would make his way through the snow to Thoreau’s cabin and the three of them, the hermit, the philosopher, and the old settler would carry on lively conversations.

The path to the village remained open most of the time, and Thoreau made the hike in to visit friends in the village.

I had ‘solid seasons,’ long to be remembered, at his house in the village, and who looked in upon me from time to time; but I had no more for society there.

I’m bothered by that last sentence. Was there a disagreement that strained the relationship with the village friend? Or did Thoreau find this friend less agreeable than the poet, the philosopher, or the old settler? Or does he mean he just didn’t get to town very often?

Finally, there is an allusion to Eastern philosophy and just a hint of lonesomeness, not often found in the pages of Walden.

There too, as everywhere, I sometimes expected the Visitor who never comes. The Vishnu Purana says, ‘The house-holder is to remain at eventide in his courtyard as long as it takes to milk a cow, or longer if he pleases, to await the arrival of a guest.’ I often performed this duty of hospitality, waited long enough to milk a whole herd of cows, but did not see the man approaching from the town.

Winter deepens, Thoreau looks forward to visitors, observes ruined houses which remind him of earlier inhabitants.

I wonder, will there be an early spring?

Diane McCormick

I had a hard time finding any real point to “Former Inhabitants and Winter Visitors,” though it’s probably suggested by, “For human society I was obliged to conjure up the former occupants of these woods,” because the rest of the chapter, too, is about the people who visited him at Walden Pond.

His reminisces about former occupants includes his memory of a recent residence that burned down after he and others from the city were unable to extinguish the fire:

"It’s Baker’s barn," cried one. "It is the Codman place," affirmed another. And then fresh sparks went up above the wood, as if the roof fell in, and we all shouted "Concord to the rescue!" Wagons shot past with furious speed and crushing loads, bearing, perchance, among the rest, the agent of the Insurance Company, who was bound to go however far; and ever and anon the engine bell tinkled behind, more slow and sure; and rearmost of all, as it was afterward whispered, came they who set the fire and gave the alarm. Thus we kept on like true idealists, rejecting the evidence of our senses, until at a turn in the road we heard the crackling and actually felt the heat of the fire from over the wall, and realized, alas! that we were there.

Now to me the most interesting phrase here is “Thus we kept on like true idealists, rejecting the evidence of our senses…” Does this mean that Thoreau did not consider himself an idealist? After all, Emerson had stated in an earlier speech that what people called Transcendentalists were actually “Idealists.” Or is he merely making light of he and his friends?

Anyway, when Thoreau later returns to the smoldering returns of the farm he discovers the son of the homeowner:

He was soothed by the sympathy which my mere presence, implied, and showed me, as well as the darkness permitted, where the well was covered up; which, thank Heaven, could never be burned; and he groped long about the wall to find the well-sweep which his father had cut and mounted, feeling for the iron hook or staple by which a burden had been fastened to the heavy end — all that he could now cling to — to convince me that it was no common "rider." I felt it, and still remark it almost daily in my walks, for by it hangs the history of a family.

These “wells” become reminders for Thoreau of the former inhabitants because “Sometimes the well dent is visible, where once a spring oozed; now dry and tearless grass…” He even compares the act of covering up these wells to the welling up of tears: “What a sorrowful act must that be — the covering up of wells! coincident with the opening of wells of tears. These cellar dents, like deserted fox burrows, old holes, are all that is left where once were the stir and bustle of human life.”

As if to contrast man’s transitory nature with the enduring qualities of Nature, Thoreau notes the lilacs that had been planted by earlier inhabitants:

Still grows the vivacious lilac a generation after the door and lintel and the sill are gone, unfolding its sweet-scented flowers each spring, to be plucked by the musing traveller; planted and tended once by children’s hands, in front-yard plots — now standing by wallsides in retired pastures, and giving place to new-rising forests; — the last of that stirp, sole survivor of that family. Little did the dusky children think that the puny slip with its two eyes only, which they stuck in the ground in the shadow of the house and daily watered, would root itself so, and outlive them, and house itself in the rear that shaded it, and grown man’s garden and orchard, and tell their story faintly to the lone wanderer a half-century after they had grown up and died — blossoming as fair, and smelling as sweet, as in that first spring. I mark its still tender, civil, cheerful lilac colors.

This passage reminds me of Whitman’s “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” where the returning lilacs bring memories of those who have passed away. Somehow, at least in memory, people and Nature have merged.

The chapter ends with the memory of living, rather than dead, visitors. Thoreau seems fondest of

The one who came from farthest to my lodge, through deepest snows and most dismal tempests, was a poet. A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted; but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who can predict his comings and goings? His business calls him out at all hours, even when doctors sleep. We made that small house ring with boisterous mirth and resound with the murmur of much sober talk, making amends then to Walden vale for the long silences.

Other sources have identified this as Ellery Channing, son of the famous William Ellery Channing. The image here certainly contrasts with much of the rest of this section, and perhaps with Thoreau’s overall image itself.

Thoreau seems to save his greatest praise for Bronson Alcott:

One of the last of the philosophers — Connecticut gave him to the world — he peddled first her wares, afterwards, as he declares, his brains. These he peddles still, prompting God and disgracing man, bearing for fruit his brain only, like the nut its kernel. I think that he must be the man of the most faith of any alive. His words and attitude always suppose a better state of things than other men are acquainted with, and he will be the last man to be disappointed as the ages revolve. He has no venture in the present. But though comparatively disregarded now, when his day comes, laws unsuspected by most will take effect, and masters of families and rulers will come to him for advice.

and

He is perhaps the sanest man and has the fewest crotchets of any I chance to know; the same yesterday and tomorrow. Of yore we had sauntered and talked, and effectually put the world behind us; for he was pledged to no institution in it, freeborn, ingenuus. Whichever way we turned, it seemed that the heavens and the earth had met together, since he enhanced the beauty of the landscape. A blue-robed man, whose fittest roof is the overarching sky which reflects his serenity. I do not see how he can ever die; Nature cannot spare him.

And although Emerson is known to have visited Thoreau repeatedly at Walden Pond, there is barely a mention of him:

There was one other with whom I had "solid seasons," long to be remembered, at his house in the village, and who looked in upon me from time to time; but I had no more for society there.

Apparently the rift that separated the two men after Thoreau’s stay at Walden Pond was manifested in this slight of Emerson in the later publication of Walden Pond.

Loren

Winter’s Coming, Winter’s Coming

The wide-ranging chapter “House-Warming” seems to center on the concept of leading the simple life. It begins with a discussion of a “humble root” that has been neglected in modern times:

In these days of fatted cattle and waving grain-fields this humble root, which was once the totem of an Indian tribe, is quite forgotten, or known only by its flowering vine; but let wild Nature reign here once more, and the tender and luxurious English grains will probably disappear before a myriad of foes, and without the care of man the crow may carry back even the last seed of corn to the great cornfield of the Indian’s God in the southwest, whence he is said to have brought it; but the now almost exterminated ground-nut will perhaps revive and flourish in spite of frosts and wildness, prove itself indigenous, and resume its ancient importance and dignity as the diet of the hunter tribe.

Sounds a little like the argument that scientists are making even today about the reasons why it is important to keep native species from disappearing, doesn’t it?

Thoreau extends his praise of the “humble” to his own cabin:

My dwelling was small, and I could hardly entertain an echo in it; but it seemed larger for being a single apartment and remote from neighbors.

For me, at least, his description of his cabin brings to mind the huge “vacation homes” that are multiplying in the Northwest Forests. You have to wonder why people need that much house out in the forest; isn’t the point of a vacation home to get out in the woods rather than to hole up in some monstrous house watching satellite TV?

Thoreau goes from discussing his modest cabin to the ideal home:

A house whose inside is as open and manifest as a bird’s nest, and you cannot go in at the front door and out at the back without seeing some of its inhabitants; where to be a guest is to be presented with the freedom of the house, and not to be carefully excluded from seven eighths of it, shut up in a particular cell, and told to make yourself at home there — in solitary confinement.

And here I thought the idea of “great room” was contemporary. Of course, the Haida Indians in British Columbia seem to have thought of the idea even earlier than Thoreau. Still, there is something very special about a home that can foster both a sense of family and conserve resources.

It’s obvious that Thoreau shares the feelings about obscenely large houses that I expressed in an earlier entry :

I might visit in my old clothes a king and queen who lived simply in such a house as I have described, if I were going their way; but backing out of a modern palace will be all that I shall desire to learn, if ever I am caught in one.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The chapter ends with praise of the hearth fire, that mainstay of civilization:

How much more interesting an event is that man’s supper who has just been forth in the snow to hunt, nay, you might say, steal, the fuel to cook it with! His bread and meat are sweet. Not many people today can take pleasure in such activities obviously, but there is certainly truth in the idea that working out in the cold enhances our pleasure of standing in front of a warm fire.

Like a true conservationist, Thoreau does not take the cutting of wood lightly:

I would that our farmers when they cut down a forest felt some of that awe which the old Romans did when they came to thin, or let in the light to, a consecrated grove (lucum conlucare), that is, would believe that it is sacred to some god.

Our constant exposure to modern conveniences has largely made modern man unaware of the sources of his power, with unexpected results:

The next winter I used a small cooking-stove for economy, since I did not own the forest; but it did not keep fire so well as the open fireplace. Cooking was then, for the most part, no longer a poetic, but merely a chemic process. It will soon be forgotten, in these days of stoves, that we used to roast potatoes in the ashes, after the Indian fashion. The stove not only took up room and scented the house, but it concealed the fire, and I felt as if I had lost a companion.

Perhaps we, too sit in front of a fire to stir old memories of distant and simpler times. Sadly enough, there is so much pressure on Western wildernesses that camp fires have been banned in many areas to prevent the destruction of the trees that people have come to experience. A camp stove is really no substitute for a roaring camp fire on a cold night. There is the disturbing sense that some things have been lost forever, never to be regained as man progresses into an unknown future.

Loren

Walden, Chapter 13 House-Warming

When we lived in the country, autumn was the time to stack wood, haul hay for the horses, fill the fruit cupboard with canned peaches, and pears, jams and jellies.

During this earth mother phase I carefully followed my grandmother’s recipes for preserving the harvest. I still use a Kerr recipe booklet written during WW II. “Bring summer freshness to winter needs” it advises.

So reading about Thoreau’s preparations for winter brings back good memories.

I picture him carefully gathering and storing some provisions against the cold winter days. He “goes a graping,” admires cranberries growing, picks up chestnuts.

These nuts, as far as they went, were a good substitute for bread.

Finding a rare ground-nut, (apios tuberosa) inspires him to comment on the power of nature to overcome cultivated fields.

…but let wild nature reign here once more, and the tender and luxurious English grains will probably disappear before a myriad of foes, and without the care of man the crow may carry back even the last seed of corn to the great cornfield of the Indian’s God in the southwest, whence he is said to have brought it; but the now almost exterminated ground-nut will perhaps revive and flourish in spite of frosts and wildness, prove itself indigenous, and resume its ancient importance and dignity as the diet of the hunter tribe….and when the reign of poetry commences here, its leaves and string of nuts may be represented on our works of art.

The autumn colors inspire Thoreau to personification.

…and gradually from week to week the character of each tree came out, and it admired itself reflected in the smooth mirror of the lake.

Then the wasps move into the cabin, but even these cause Thoreau little concern.

The wasps came…and they gradually, disappeared, into what crevices I do not know, avoiding winter and unspeakable cold.

Remember Thoreau had built his cabin and now it is time to finish the fireplace for soon he will move indoors.

When I came to build my chimney I studied masonry.

I picked out as many fireplace bricks as I could find, to save work and waste, and I filled the spaces between the bricks about the fireplace with stones from the pond shore, and also made my mortar with the white sand from the same place.

The chimney is to some extent an independent structure, standing on the ground and rising through the house to the heavens; even after the house is burned it still stands sometime, and its importance and independence are apparent.

Should every apartment in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about the rafters? These forms are more agreeable to the fancy and imagination that fresco paintings or other the most expensive furniture. I now first began to inhabit my house, I may say, when I began to use it for warmth as well as shelter.

My dwelling was small,…but it seemed larger for being a single apartment and remote from neighbors.

Obviously Thoreau was going to be able to forage for food throughout the winter and make regular trips to the village for supplies. His cellar is not fully provisioned for the entire winter even for a light eater.

I had in my cellar a firkin (a barrel about a quarter full) of potatoes, about two quarts of peas with the weevil in them, and on my shelf a little rice, a jug of molasses, and of rye and Indian meal a peck each.

Thoreau was an advocate of the “great room,” so popular now in suburban houses. His dream house is one with a great open room that would be shared by everyone present–hardly the plan for a hermit.

I sometimes dream of a larger and more populous house, standing in a golden age, of enduring materials, and without gingerbread-work, which shall still consist of only one room, a vast, rude, substantial, primitive hall, without ceiling or plastering, with bare rafters and purlins supporting a sort of lower heaven over one’s head–useful to keep off rain and snow…

…where the weary traveller may wash, and eat, and converse, and sleep, without further journey; such a shelter as you would be glad to reach in a tempestuous night, containing all the essentials of a house, and nothing for house-keeping, where you can see all the treasures of the house at one view, and everything hangs upon its peg that a man should use;

…where to be a guest is to be presented with the freedom of the house, and not to be carefully excluded from seven eighths of it, shut up in a particular cell, and told to make yourself at home there,–in solitary confinement. Nowadays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance.

…the parlor is so far from the kitchen and workshop.

Thoreau describes his house and his desire to finish it before it gets too cold.

I did not plaster till it was freezing weather. …My house had in the meanwhile been shingled down to the ground on every side. In lathing I was pleased to be able to send home each nail with a single blow of the hammer, and it was my ambition to transfer the plaster from the board to the wall neatly and rapidly.

The days are not completely filled with chores, however. Thoreau spends time watching the formation of the first ice on the pond.

The first ice is especially interesting and perfect, being hard, dark, and transparent, and affords the best opportunity that ever offers for examining the bottom where it is shallow;

The pleasant days of fall grow colder.

At length the winter set in in good earnest, just as I had finished plastering, and the wind began to howl around the house as if it had not had permission to do so till then. Night after night the geese came lumbering in in the dark…

I withdrew yet farther into my shell, and endeavored to keep a bright fire both within my house and within my breast. My employment out of doors now was to collect the dead wood in the forest,…

Having a good stack of firewood is very important in the 1850s. Thoreau preferred burning it in an open fire, having little use for stoves.

It is remarkable what a value is still put upon wood even in this age and in this new country, a value more permanent and universal than that of gold . After all our discoveries and inventions no man will go by a pile of wood…the only question is, how much higher it is to be this year than it was the last.

I can answer Thoreau’s question. A cord of oak wood advertised on the Internet is going for $485. Does that price and the fact wood is for sale on the Net seem surreal to anyone else?

Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection.

It was I and Fire that lived there;

But man’s ability to provide warm shelter for himself does free time to create.

Thus he goes a step or two beyond instinct, and saves a little time for the fine arts.

Thoreau, who lived as close to Nature as one could, is aware of man’s frailty in extreme weather. I wonder what he would say about global warming?

We go on dating from Cold Fridays and Great Snows; but a little colder Friday, or greater snow, would put a period to man’s existence on the globe.

Thoreau, who has had a stove at some point, advocates the fireplace which provides more than warmth.

It will soon be forgotten, in these days of stoves, that we used to roast potatoes in the ashes,…The stove not only took up room and scented the house, but it concealed the fire, and I felt as if I had lost a companion. You can always see a face in the fire. The laborer, looking into it at evening, purifies his thoughts of the dross and earthiness which they have accumulated during the day…

We build a fire in the fireplace, too.

Diane McCormick

A Time Spent in Quiet Observation

The charm of “Brute Neighbors” is Thoreau’s leisurely description of the visitors to Walden Pond.
On this occasion a poet (Emerson?) comes to go fishing with Thoreau.

The conversation between the visitor, the Poet, and the Hermit, as Thoreau calls himself, is recorded.

The Hermit comments on the noises that break the noon day silence. He hears a “farmer’s noon horn, calling the field hands to their dinners. According to the Hermit, men work too hard to fill their lives with superfluity. Thoreau is happy and relaxed because he is satisfied with a loaf of brown bread washed down with water from the lake.

Why will men worry themselves so?He that does not eat need not work…And oh, the housekeeping! to keep bright the devil’s doorknobs, and scour his tubs this bright day! Better not keep a house. Say, some hollow tree; and then for morning calls and dinner-parties!

I may not be able to live in a tree now, but there is not a housewife among us who doesn’t focus on the line “Better not keep a house.” My theory is we would all be great poets and musicians if we spent our time creating instead of dusting.

It always seems to happen, even to the “Hermit” Thoreau. The Poet has interrupted his meditation. Drop-in company rarely drops in when you want them.

…but I am just concluding a serious meditation. I think that I am near the end of it. Leave me alone, then, for a while…Shall I go to heaven or a-fishing? …I was as near being resolved into the essence of things as ever I was in my life.

He fears he will not be able to continue.

My thoughts have left no track, and I cannot find the path again. What was it that I was thinking of?…There never is but one opportunity of a kind.

While the Hermit attempts to reconstruct his meditative thoughts, the Poet is advised to dig worms for the fishing expedition. A small discourse follows on the best location to find the largest worms.

The sport of digging the bait is nearly equal to that of catching the fish.

True enough, when the fisherman is responsible for acquiring the worms himself and cannot depend on a bait shop to provide them.

Here is a question for you. Does the Poet symbolize the romantic nature of man, calling him to an idyllic day spent fishing, interrupting the mystic who meditates to feed his soul? In other words, is Thoreau saying, “To heck with this meditation bit, I’m going fishing’? Is there really a Poet, or is it Thoreau himself giving in to his desire to spend time on the lake?

To have time to find pleasure in the simple tasks–digging worms, fishing, observing the mice and the song birds fill Thoreau’s days at Walden Pond. The otters and the raccoons also pay him visits.

You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.

Once, Thoreau seems to have spent the better part of a day, observing bellicose ants which have formed red and black armies.

It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battlefield I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war;–”the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely…It was evident that their battle-cry was Conquer or die. In the meanwhile there came along a single red [ant] whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles,…I was myself excited somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the less the difference….There was not one hireling there. I have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the results of this battle will be as important and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least.

The battle between the red and black ants fascinated Thoreau so much that toward the end of his observation, he gathers up three of the ants to take home.

I took up the chip on which the three I have particularly described were struggling, carried it into my house, and placed it under a tumbler on my window-sill…

What ensues is a battle outdone only by Russell Crowe in The Gladiator.

…when I looked again the black soldier had severed the heads of his foes from their bodies, and the still living heads were hanging on either side of him like ghastly trophies at his saddle-bow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever, and he was endeavoring with feeble struggles, being without feelers and with only the remnant of a leg, and I know not how many others wounds, to divest himself of them…

The victorious ant or at least the last one standing, falls from the window sill and Thoreau is left to wonder if he “spends the remainder of his days in some Hotel des Invalides.

The outcome of the war is never known.

I never learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of the war; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had my feelings excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity and carnage, of a human battle before my door.

Are these the observations of a man who thinks metaphorically, who is so connected to his surroundings that he can become absorbed in watching ants fight or of a man who needs something more to do? I find it interesting that Thoreau does not conclude human wars are as insignificant as ant battles; instead, he elevates ant warfare to the level of human struggle.

Thoreau has other “brute neighbors,” some which have wandered away from the village. He watches a dog running from his master, chasing mud-turtles, sniffing out old fox burrows and woodchucks’ holes.

A cat prowls through the forest grass, looking quite at home in spite of her earlier life spent curled up on the family rug.

A loon captivates Thoreau with his diving, disappearing, resurfacing on the lake; he listens to the deliberate howls of the bird.

This was his looning,–perhaps the wildest sound that is ever heard here, making the woods ring far and wide…he uttered one of those prolonged howls, as if calling on the god of loons to aid him.

The ducks on the lake also charm Thoreau.

…they would settle down by a slanting flight of a quarter of a mile on to a distant part [of the lake] which was left free; but what besides safety they got by sailing in the middle of Walden I do not know, unless they love its water for the same reason that I do.

Diane McCormick

A Refreshing Change of Pace

After the heavy thoughts found in “Higher Laws” it was quite refreshing to find Thoreau writing light-hearted, even amusing prose in “Brute Neighbors.” Even the chapter title seems to be meant ironically, because the animal neighbors are anything but “brutes.” Despite his humorous approach, Thoreau helps to remind the reader to what an extent animals play a part in our language and communication of the world.

Thoreau begins by humorously speculating that all animals are “beasts of burden:”

Why do precisely these objects which we behold make a world? Why has man just these species of animals for his neighbors; as if nothing but a mouse could have filled this crevice? I suspect that Pilpay & Co. have put animals to their best use, for they are all beasts of burden, in a sense, made to carry some portion of our thoughts.

This punning on burden still makes it clear that animals always have carried our thoughts whether merely in phrases like “eat like a pig” or as symbols of our feelings, as in The Seattle Seahawks.

Perhaps more importantly, animals serve as representatives, or symbols, of Nature, the Oversoul, serving this function exactly as we do:

The remarkably adult yet innocent expression of their [partridge chicks] open and serene eyes is very memorable. All intelligence seems reflected in them. They suggest not merely the purity of infancy, but a wisdom clarified by experience. Such an eye was not born when the bird was, but is coeval with the sky it reflects. The woods do not yield another such a gem. The traveller does not often look into such a limpid well.

Of course, few people have ever had the privilege of looking into the eyes of a partridge chick, but we certainly see their innocence and their trust in their mother to protect them. More importantly, their eyes allow the observer to see the sky itself reflected in them.

This peaceful moment is masterfully followed by a tumultuous event:

In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hillside of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus.

It’s hard to imagine a greater historical warrior than Achilles, but it’s a even harder to imagine “a single red ant” quite measuring up to his achievements. Still, such hyperbole worked as well in 1850 as it does today in modern cartoons.

Somehow Thoreau is even able to use this battle of the ants to make fun of how society inflates the significance of wars and battles:

I was myself excited somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the less the difference. And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers and for carnage it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight! Two killed on the patriots’ side, and Luther Blanchard wounded!

Strangely enough, Thoreau, even while showing how ridiculous man’s thirst for war is, is able to transform this battle into an exciting event:

Whether he finally survived that combat, and spent the remainder of his days in some Hotel des Invalides, I do not know; but I thought that his industry would not be worth much thereafter. I never learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of the war; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I had had my feelings excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity and carnage, of a human battle before my door.

If you’re able to transform a red soldier ant into a modern Achilles, why stop there? Why not create a cat that can fly:

This would have been the right kind of cat for me to keep, if I had kept any; for why should not a poet’s cat be winged as well as his horse?

If Pegasus is the poet’s source of inspiration, sure a flying cat would be a suitable source of inspiration for shorter poems.

The extended example of playing tag with the loon, though, is the center piece of this chapter. This mysterious interaction with the loon is both fascinating and intriguing:

But why, after displaying so much cunning, did he invariably betray himself the moment he came up by that loud laugh? Did not his white breast enough betray him? He was indeed a silly loon, I thought. .

Ah, but how could such a silly loon continue to elude Thoreau? As the chase continues,Thoreau reaches another conclusion:

I concluded that he laughed in derision of my efforts, confident of his own resources.

Thoreau moves from granting the loon “confidence in its resources” to having access to resources that are unavailable to mankind:

At length having come up fifty rods off, he uttered one of those prolonged howls, as if calling on the god of loons to aid him, and immediately there came a wind from the east and rippled the surface, and filled the whole air with misty rain, and I was impressed as if it were the prayer of the loon answered, and his god was angry with me; and so I left him disappearing far away on the tumultuous surface.

The loon is so much a part of nature that can taps into nature’s resources.

Later, observing ducks veer across the center of the lake, Thoreau notes:

… but what beside safety they got by sailing in the middle of Walden I do not know, unless they love its water for the same reason that I do.

Our love of nature causes us to share the feelings of those animals that inhabit the wild.

I imagine it’s the same love I felt for some resident ravens as I watched a flock of them drive off a much larger hawk circling their nesting areas. I sat fascinated for nearly ten minutes as the ravens dive bombed the hawk repeatedly while the hawk tried to ignore them and continue its circular hunt for food. But the flock was not to be ignored as they dove past the hawk, brushing its wings and its tail. Slowly, but inexorably the hawk swerved from its tight pattern and, when he had apparently left the ravens’ nesting area, raven after raven peeled off from the attack, seeking shelter in the tall firs that surround their nesting grounds.

If I had had just a little more imagination I imagine I could easily have conjured up images of the Red Baron being strafed by less heroic British pilots. But, alas, I was content to merely reflect on the persistence of the ravens and their ability to work together to protect their nesting area. Little wonder that I share the Northwest Indians’ admiration of these birds often lampooned as crows in less enlightened parts of the country.

This identification with animals is, of course, what all humans do and have done since our beginnings. One can only wonder how different we might be if we evolved in a world without animals, in a world where there is only mankind. Would we be the same without our dogs and cats, without Blake’s gentle lamb and fyrce
tyger?

Loren