WALDEN AND ON THE DUTY OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE. Henry David Thoreau

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СКАЧАТЬ of any company of civilized men, which belonged to the most

      respected class? When Madam Pfeiffer, in her adventurous travels round

      the world, from east to west, had got so near home as Asiatic Russia,

      she says that she felt the necessity of wearing other than a travelling

      dress, when she went to meet the authorities, for she “was now in a

      civilized country, where —— — people are judged of by their clothes.”

      Even in our democratic New England towns the accidental possession of

      wealth, and its manifestation in dress and equipage alone, obtain for

      the possessor almost universal respect. But they yield such respect,

      numerous as they are, are so far heathen, and need to have a missionary

      sent to them. Beside, clothes introduced sewing, a kind of work which

      you may call endless; a woman’s dress, at least, is never done.

      A man who has at length found something to do will not need to get a

      new suit to do it in; for him the old will do, that has lain dusty in

      the garret for an indeterminate period. Old shoes will serve a hero

      longer than they have served his valet,—if a hero ever has a

      valet,—bare feet are older than shoes, and he can make them do. Only

      they who go to soirées and legislative halls must have new coats, coats

      to change as often as the man changes in them. But if my jacket and

      trousers, my hat and shoes, are fit to worship God in, they will do;

      will they not? Who ever saw his old clothes,—his old coat, actually

      worn out, resolved into its primitive elements, so that it was not a

      deed of charity to bestow it on some poor boy, by him perchance to be

      bestowed on some poorer still, or shall we say richer, who could do

      with less? I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes,

      and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how

      can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before

      you, try it in your old clothes. All men want, not something to _do

      with_, but something to _do_, or rather something to _be_. Perhaps we

      should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until

      we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we

      feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like

      keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the

      fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. The loon retires to solitary

      ponds to spend it. Thus also the snake casts its slough, and the

      caterpillar its wormy coat, by an internal industry and expansion; for

      clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal coil. Otherwise we shall

      be found sailing under false colors, and be inevitably cashiered at

      last by our own opinion, as well as that of mankind.

      We don garment after garment, as if we grew like exogenous plants by

      addition without. Our outside and often thin and fanciful clothes are

      our epidermis, or false skin, which partakes not of our life, and may

      be stripped off here and there without fatal injury; our thicker

      garments, constantly worn, are our cellular integument, or cortex; but

      our shirts are our liber or true bark, which cannot be removed without

      girdling and so destroying the man. I believe that all races at some

      seasons wear something equivalent to the shirt. It is desirable that a

      man be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark,

      and that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly, that, if

      an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the

      gate empty-handed without anxiety. While one thick garment is, for most

      purposes, as good as three thin ones, and cheap clothing can be

      obtained at prices really to suit customers; while a thick coat can be

      bought for five dollars, which will last as many years, thick

      pantaloons for two dollars, cowhide boots for a dollar and a half a

      pair, a summer hat for a quarter of a dollar, and a winter cap for

      sixty-two and a half cents, or a better be made at home at a nominal

      cost, where is he so poor that, clad in such a suit, of _his own

      earning_, there will not be found wise men to do him reverence?

      When I ask for a garment of a particular form, my tailoress tells me

      gravely, “They do not make them so now,” not emphasizing the “They” at

      all, as if she quoted an authority as impersonal as the Fates, and I

      find it difficult to get made what I want, simply because she cannot

      believe that I mean what I say, that I am so rash. When I hear this

      oracular sentence, I am for a moment absorbed in thought, emphasizing

      to myself each word separately that I may come at the meaning of it,

      that I may find out by what degree of consanguinity _They_ are related

      to _me_, and what authority they may have in an affair which affects me

      so nearly; and, finally, I am inclined to answer her with equal

      mystery, and without any more emphasis of the “they,”—“It is true, they

      did not make them so recently, but they do now.” Of what use this

      measuring СКАЧАТЬ