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Henry David Thoreau S01E02
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00:00Major funding for Henry David Thoreau was provided by the Better Angels Society, Jeff Skoll, the Mansueto Foundation, Tyson Foods,
00:12and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.
00:15Funding was also provided by the Tyson Family Foundation, the Neil and Anna Rasmussen Foundation, and by the Better Angels
00:23Society members, the Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment and Mark A. Tracy.
00:30Additional funding was provided by Roxanne Quimby Foundation, Jim and Mona Mylan through the HeartSpace Fund, and Elizabeth Kenney.
00:45In the spring of 1845, Henry David Thoreau was 27 years old.
00:52For years, he had dreamed of spending time away from society, so he asked his friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo
01:01Emerson, if he could build a small one-room house on land that Emerson's family owned, not far from the
01:08village of Concord, Massachusetts.
01:12Emerson agreed.
01:21I want to go soon and live away by the pond, where I shall hear only the wind whispering among
01:30the reeds.
01:31It will be success if I shall have left myself behind, but my friends ask what I will do when
01:39I get there.
01:40Will it not be employment enough to watch the progress of the seasons?
01:46Henry David Thoreau.
01:50Still mourning the loss of his brother John, who had died three years before, and facing an uncertain future, Henry
01:59was ready to try what he called my own experiment.
02:03For the next two years, he would live in a small cabin at Walden Pond.
02:08There, he could focus on his writing, while contemplating the natural world and himself.
02:17He begins a lot with Emerson's ideas about nature and civilization.
02:22He has to try to put them into practice and see how they hold up.
02:27He's not going into the wilderness.
02:29He's not trying to be a hermit.
02:31He wants to position himself on the edge of society to see if he could live there, get by, and
02:39be happy about it.
02:41His stay would be interrupted by an expedition to the wilderness of northern Maine, and by a night in prison
02:48at the local jail, both of which would expand his understanding of freedom.
02:56Writing about his experiences would change the lives of countless others around the world for generations to come.
03:04After figuring out how to live, what does that mean?
03:07He really reduces that question to its absolute barest terms, and then proceeds to see what he can learn about
03:17being alive.
03:35July 5th, 1845.
03:40Yesterday, I came here to live.
03:56On July 4th, 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved into a 10-by-15-foot house on the northern shore of
04:05Walden Pond.
04:07He had built most of it himself, cutting down trees to make a post and being framed.
04:14Which friends helped him raise.
04:16He then attached siding from a shanty he had purchased from an Irish railroad worker, hauled up rocks from the
04:23pond for a chimney, and dug a root cellar.
04:27He moved in, bringing along his cane bed, green writing desk, a small table, and three chairs.
04:35One for solitude, he said, two for friendship, and three for society.
04:42Some people called it a lonely hut and a wooden ink stand.
04:49For Henry, it was home.
04:52My dwelling was small, and I could hardly entertain an echo in it.
04:58It was kitchen, chamber, parlor, and keeping room.
05:03I enjoyed it all.
05:14July 6th, I wish to meet the facts of life, the vital facts, which are the phenomena or actuality the
05:25gods meant to show us.
05:29Life, who knows what it is, what it does.
05:37July 7th.
05:39Tonight, as I sit by my door, I hear the far-off lowing of a cow.
05:46Why should I find anything to welcome me in such a nook as this?
05:54After the evening train has gone by and left the world to silence and to me,
06:01the whippoorwill chants her vespers for half an hour.
06:06And when all is still at night, the owls take up the strain like mourning women, their ancient Yululu.
06:20On most mornings, Henry got up at dawn to tend to his vegetable garden,
06:25including row after row of beans, an endless task,
06:30only made harder by the woodchucks that dined on the shoots.
06:35Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity,
06:41and I may say, innocence, with nature herself.
06:46I got up early and bathed in the pond.
06:49That was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did.
06:54Renew thyself completely each day.
06:58His morning bath, he describes as a religious exercise,
07:03not just as some sort of random dunk that he took in the pond,
07:07but as a sort of ritual act that has suddenly a significance beyond itself.
07:15Thoreau also said, I needed to clean the house.
07:17So I took all the furniture out,
07:19and the furniture was happy to have a little excursion into nature.
07:24He said, I almost regretted having to bring it back in.
07:28He waited until November to plaster his house,
07:31and before that, there were all these cracks where, you know,
07:35animals came in, bugs came in, and the air came in, and he loved that.
07:41In the afternoon, he often took long walks
07:45and made detailed field notes of everything he heard and saw,
07:50a practice he would continue for the rest of his life.
07:57Walking was a writing practice,
07:59a process of taking notes
08:01that would become the content of his journals
08:04as inspiration would spark to turn it into a kind of larger mythology.
08:10What he observed
08:12fed what he would write about,
08:16but what he wrote about
08:18would also lead him deeper back into observation.
08:23Thoreau filled page after page of his journal
08:26with reflections on nature and the human condition,
08:30often referencing Greek and Roman literature,
08:33as well as ancient Eastern texts
08:36like the Bhagavad Gita and Buddhist sutras.
08:40He's saying,
08:41all of these texts and traditions
08:43have something to teach me.
08:46Thoreau is taking his own experience,
08:49and he's elevating it.
08:53The vision of simplicity had been explored in Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism,
08:59but in Concord in 1845,
09:02I think it was something radical and liberating.
09:06So whether he knew those works or not,
09:08he inwardly rhymed with them.
09:13Thoreau would find a way to incorporate many of these ancient teachings
09:17into the project he went there to write.
09:20A book about the trip he took on the Concord and Merrimack rivers
09:24with his late brother, John.
09:28He strengthened and oriented himself in writing.
09:34Writing was a way of being alive
09:38that was deeply nourishing to him.
09:51I am convinced that to maintain one's self on this earth
09:56is not a hardship but a pastime
09:59if we will live simply and wisely.
10:07Throughout his stay at Walden Pond,
10:10Henry kept meticulous track of his finances.
10:13He needed to spend money on seed and other garden expenses,
10:17but he actually made money selling his produce.
10:21It cost him less than $20
10:23to live there for the first six months.
10:27The cost of a thing
10:29is the amount of what I will call life
10:32which is required to be exchanged for it.
10:36His goal is to remind us
10:39how much energy it takes,
10:42how much work it takes
10:43to make a living.
10:45But why are you making a living?
10:47Well, to buy these things.
10:49But why do you need these things?
10:52His focus was on
10:54how much do I have to work
10:55to secure my sustenance
10:57so that I can do what I really want to do.
11:00Our life is frittered away by detail.
11:04Let your affairs be as two or three
11:07and not a hundred or a thousand.
11:12Simplify.
11:13Simplify.
11:16I went to the woods
11:18because I wished to live deliberately.
11:22to front only the essential facts of life
11:25and see if I could not learn
11:27what it had to teach
11:30and not, when I came to die,
11:33discover that I had not lived.
11:40We all get lost
11:42in the challenges of everyday life.
11:46And our world has been set up
11:48to help you do that.
11:50As I understand it,
11:51the root of deliberate
11:52is from freedom.
11:54And it's to do something
11:56because you choose to,
11:59not because fate dictates it.
12:02On some days,
12:04he simply chose
12:05to do nothing.
12:09There were times
12:11when I could not afford
12:12to sacrifice the bloom
12:13of the present moment
12:14to any work,
12:16whether of the head or hands.
12:21Sometimes,
12:22having taken my accustomed bath,
12:25I sat in my sunny doorway
12:27from sunrise till noon,
12:31wrapped in a reverie
12:33amidst the pines
12:34and hickories
12:35and sumacs
12:36in undisturbed
12:38solitude and stillness,
12:41while the birds sang around
12:43or flitted noiseless
12:45through the house,
12:47until by the sun
12:48falling in
12:50at my west window
12:51or the noise
12:53of some traveler's wagon
12:54on a distant highway,
12:56I was reminded
12:57of the lapse of time.
13:02I grew in those seasons
13:04like corn in the night
13:07and they were far better
13:08than any work
13:09of the hands
13:11would have been.
13:13He practiced doing nothing,
13:15which can be the hardest thing
13:16of all for many of us.
13:18He saw the beauty
13:19of sitting still
13:20and he knew
13:21that if he just sat
13:22by his pond
13:23reflecting in every sense
13:25of that word,
13:26he could find everything
13:27he needed.
13:28He says that one
13:29of his job descriptions
13:30is to know
13:31the nick of time.
13:32to be able
13:32to notch it
13:33on his stick.
13:34He wants to be present.
13:36He gets down
13:37and on the ground
13:39to look at the battle
13:40of the black ants
13:41and the red ants
13:42at the pond.
13:44He goes into the shallows
13:46and he finds a way
13:46to pet fish.
13:49Try that sometime.
13:51You have to surrender
13:53to nature
13:54and nature's rhythms
13:55if you want to be whole.
13:58And you will see things
14:00you never saw before
14:01and what you see
14:02will mean more
14:03than it ever did.
14:09What sweet and tender
14:12the most innocent
14:13and divinely encouraging
14:15society there is
14:17in universal nature.
14:20There can be
14:21no really black melancholy
14:23to him who lives
14:25in the midst of nature
14:27and has still
14:28his senses.
14:31While I enjoy
14:32the sweet friendship
14:33of the seasons
14:34I trust that nothing
14:35can make life
14:36a burden to me.
14:38Here I know
14:40I am in good company.
14:51In his bean field
14:52as he's honing his beans
14:54he came across
14:55these arrowheads
14:56and stone implements
14:57of native peoples
14:59and he gets a sense
15:00that people have lived here
15:01for thousands of years
15:02whose lives are very much
15:03written on the land.
15:06He notices other signs
15:08in the landscape.
15:10He saw bricks
15:11he saw cellar holes
15:13he saw trees
15:15and bushes
15:16that are not native
15:17to Walden Woods.
15:19This meant someone
15:20had been there before.
15:21Who were they?
15:22Where had they gone?
15:24What was their story?
15:27For human society
15:28I was obliged
15:29to conjure up
15:30the former occupants
15:32of these woods.
15:33The woods which border it
15:35were notched
15:36and dotted here and there
15:37with their little gardens
15:39and dwellings.
15:40In this 19th century
15:41American New England town
15:42you think of
15:43this kind of thriving
15:45very close-knit community
15:46which Conker really was
15:47to a large degree.
15:49And then on the outskirts
15:50there were other people
15:52and Thoreau was fascinated
15:54by these people
15:54who were living on the edge
15:56living very close
15:57to the land.
15:59These were people
16:00who had been enslaved
16:01in his hometown.
16:03In the 1780s
16:05Massachusetts became
16:06the first state
16:07to make slavery illegal.
16:10But most black people
16:12in Concord
16:13had to choose
16:14between working
16:15as servants
16:15or scratching out
16:17a living on poor quality land
16:19that no white person
16:21wanted to farm.
16:23Sentiments don't change
16:25just because a law
16:26is enacted.
16:28The conditions
16:29of enslavement,
16:31of labor,
16:31those may change
16:33in the law
16:34but in practice
16:35it's really
16:36servitude for life.
16:40Using local lore
16:41and his own observations
16:43Thoreau pieced together
16:45the stories
16:45of what he called
16:46these former inhabitants
16:48which otherwise
16:50would have been
16:50all but lost
16:51from the historic record.
16:54As he's writing
16:55a biography
16:55of the green space
16:57that we know of
16:58as Walden Woods
16:59or Walden Pond
17:00he's also writing
17:01the biography
17:02of a black space.
17:04Down the road
17:05lived Brister Freeman
17:07slave of Squire Cummings
17:09once.
17:10There
17:11where grow still
17:12the apple trees
17:13which Brister planted
17:14and tended
17:15large old trees now.
17:17We're learning
17:18about a man
17:18who decided
17:19to claim for himself
17:20his new status
17:22as a free man
17:24but he couldn't plant
17:25a larger crop
17:27something more
17:28in line
17:28with what other
17:29Concord farmers
17:29were planting
17:30because it's not
17:32fertile soil
17:33so he's fairly able
17:35to make his way.
17:37Here
17:38by the very corner
17:39of my field
17:40still nearer to town
17:42Zilpha
17:43a colored woman
17:44had her little house
17:46where she spun linen
17:47for the townsfolk.
17:49He describes the life
17:50of Zilpha White
17:51who is eking out
17:53an existence.
17:55She spins threads
17:57in silks for
17:58the conquered women.
18:00She led a hard life
18:01and somewhat inhumane.
18:04One old frequenter
18:06of these woods
18:06remembers her
18:07muttering to herself
18:08over her gurgling pot
18:10ye're all bones
18:12bones.
18:14And he describes her
18:16as living a life
18:17that is cruel
18:18and witch-like.
18:19This woman in the woods
18:21who's overheard
18:22stirring a pot
18:23and saying
18:24bones
18:25all ye are
18:26are bones.
18:27And later
18:28he comes to a place
18:30where he says
18:30you know what
18:31she wasn't witch-like
18:33she's hungry.
18:36East of my bean field
18:37across the road
18:39lived Cato Ingraham
18:40slave of Duncan Ingraham
18:43of Concord Village
18:44who gave him permission
18:46to live in Walden Woods.
18:47And the man
18:48to whom Cato
18:49is enslaved
18:49says
18:50you have freedom
18:52but you will receive
18:53nothing from me.
18:55So Cato
18:56begins to try
18:56to make a life
18:57for himself.
18:59Cato has
19:00tried to secure
19:01a future
19:02by planting
19:03walnut trees
19:04but he's preparing
19:06for a future
19:06that he never
19:07gets to enjoy.
19:10What remains
19:11in the earth
19:12is central
19:13to African-American
19:14history.
19:16So planting
19:17walnut trees
19:18is a way
19:19of understanding
19:20that they were there
19:22and also
19:23they have ownership.
19:26Ultimately
19:26it is
19:27enslavement
19:28that kills him
19:29because
19:30the terms
19:30of his freedom
19:31are so
19:33qualified.
19:34They're so
19:35mean-spirited.
19:37And this is
19:38the story
19:38Henry tells us.
19:41Why did
19:42this small village
19:43fail?
19:43Thoreau asked.
19:45While Concord
19:45kept its ground.
19:49Thoreau
19:50is asking
19:50the question
19:52at the heart
19:53of American history
19:54at the heart
19:55of America
19:56itself.
19:58The question
19:58of why
19:59after slavery
20:00a community
20:02of formerly
20:02enslaved people
20:03could not
20:04be included,
20:06could not
20:06make themselves
20:08into a town
20:09that could
20:10survive and
20:11blossom,
20:12the gentlemen
20:13of Concord
20:14abandoned them
20:15to their freedom.
20:17He's trying
20:18to negotiate
20:19how there can
20:20be different
20:20histories alongside
20:22his at Walden
20:23because he gets
20:25to move wherever
20:26he wants to
20:27because he's
20:27a person of
20:28privilege.
20:29And all of that
20:31paves the way
20:32towards his
20:32increasing involvement
20:33in anti-slavery
20:35work and his
20:36outrage about
20:38injustice.
20:44The minister
20:45of the
20:46Congregationalist
20:47church
20:47once said
20:48who but
20:49some half
20:50crazy
20:50disgusted
20:51hermit
20:52would live
20:53alone
20:54and independent.
20:56So Thoreau's
20:57choice
20:57is a choice
20:59that
20:59his neighbors
21:00are going to
21:01think is
21:02really strange.
21:03Why would
21:04you live alone?
21:04I think he
21:05went to Walden
21:06not to escape
21:07human society
21:09but to find
21:10a vantage
21:10from which
21:11to look at
21:12it,
21:12criticize it.
21:15I am no more
21:16lonely than
21:17the loon
21:17in the pond
21:18that laughs
21:19so loud
21:19or the
21:20Walden pond
21:21itself.
21:22What company
21:23has that
21:24lonely lake
21:25I pray?
21:27I am no more
21:28lonely than
21:29a single
21:30mullein
21:30or dandelion
21:31in a pasture
21:32or a bean
21:33leaf.
21:34Or the north
21:35star
21:36or the south
21:37wind
21:37or the
21:38April shower
21:39or the first
21:40spider in a
21:41new house.
21:43I had more
21:44visitors while
21:45I lived in the
21:45woods than
21:46at any other
21:47period of my
21:47life.
21:49Walden was
21:50basically the
21:51town's backyard.
21:52It turned out
21:53not to be a place
21:54of solitude at all
21:55because he's right
21:56by the road
21:57and this is the
21:58town's favorite
21:58fishing hole
21:59and picnic spot.
22:01He received
22:02visitors regularly.
22:03His friend
22:05Ellery Channing
22:05stayed with him
22:06for two weeks
22:07sleeping on the
22:08floor.
22:09Bronson Alcott
22:10visited weekly.
22:12Others came by
22:14just out of
22:15curiosity.
22:17People are
22:18stopping by
22:18and he wants
22:20to tell them
22:20what he's doing
22:22and why he's
22:23trying to simplify
22:24his life.
22:26Every day or two
22:28I strolled to
22:28the village to
22:29hear some of
22:30the gossip which
22:31is incessantly
22:32going on there
22:33circulating either
22:35from mouth to
22:36mouth or from
22:37newspaper to
22:38newspaper which
22:40when taken in
22:41homeopathic doses
22:42was really as
22:44refreshing as the
22:46rustle of leaves
22:46and the peeping
22:48of frogs.
22:50He frequently
22:51headed into town
22:52to spend time
22:53with family and
22:54friends, work at
22:56the Thoreau pencil
22:57company and do
22:58chores at home.
22:59He also picked up
23:00supplies he needed
23:02and sometimes
23:03dropped off his
23:04laundry.
23:06When everyone
23:06pretends to hate
23:07Henry David Thoreau
23:09for exploiting female
23:10labor, they're
23:12pretending that the
23:13woman and his
23:13family were just
23:15domestic drudges
23:16that all they did
23:17was cook and
23:18wash clothes.
23:20These women
23:21were leaders.
23:22They were taking
23:23in the dirty
23:24laundry of America
23:25that is slavery.
23:26So the laundry
23:27question is dismissive
23:28of all that and
23:30all the other ways
23:31he was contributing.
23:33He paid rent
23:35to the family
23:35his whole adult
23:36life.
23:37He did a lot
23:39of manual labor
23:40as well as being
23:41a teacher, a nanny
23:43and housekeeper
23:46after learning the
23:47kernels and very
23:48last sieveful of
23:50news, what had
23:51subsided, the
23:53prospects of war
23:54and peace and
23:55whether the world
23:56was likely to hold
23:57together much
23:58longer, I was
24:00led out through
24:01the rear avenues
24:02and so escaped
24:04to the woods
24:05again.
24:07He kept himself
24:09unencumbered.
24:11No romantic
24:12relationships that
24:13we really know
24:14about.
24:14He didn't have
24:15children.
24:17So the ties that
24:18bind ordinary
24:20people, he was free
24:22of a lot of those
24:23and that was partly
24:24the basis of his
24:25freedom.
24:26He was one of the
24:28towns in many ways
24:29most social people
24:30because he walked
24:33around and talked
24:33to people constantly.
24:36Henry was a good
24:37friend, but he was
24:39a difficult friend
24:40sometimes.
24:42He expected so much
24:44of friendship.
24:45It's difficult for him
24:46to disagree with
24:47someone and still feel
24:49like he can go on
24:50being friends with you.
24:51One of his friends
24:52said of Thoreau that
24:53his thoughts burned
24:55like a flame in him
24:57because of the
24:58earnestness of his
24:59convictions.
25:01One of the ways you put
25:02ideas into practice is
25:03test them against other
25:04people's ideas so he
25:06enjoyed the argument,
25:07that it helped them
25:08refine his ideas.
25:11But he also had a sense
25:13of the other beings
25:14we share this planet
25:15with.
25:16This is a time where
25:18nature is either a
25:19threat or a resource.
25:20He's finding a whole
25:22other way to think
25:23about it.
25:24It was a real series
25:29of particular
25:30relationships with
25:31particular species,
25:33kinds of weather,
25:34nature, even
25:36individual organisms.
25:39He considered the
25:40plants and the beans
25:41and the moon his
25:43friends as well.
25:44And he said, how could
25:46he ever be lonely
25:46when we're part of the
25:48Milky Way?
25:49Not all of us have
25:50such an expansive sense
25:51of friendship.
25:58One day in the summer
26:00of 1846, after a year
26:03in his cabin, he went
26:05to town to pick up
26:06a mended shoe.
26:08There, he ran into
26:09the constable and tax
26:10collector, Sam Staples,
26:12who pointed out that
26:14Henry owed four years
26:15of state poll taxes,
26:17an annual fee that every
26:19adult male citizen was
26:21required to pay in order
26:23to vote.
26:24Sam offered to pay it
26:25for him, but Thoreau
26:27adamantly refused.
26:31I was seized and put
26:33into jail because I did
26:35not pay a tax to or
26:37recognize the authority
26:38of the state which buys
26:41and sells men, women,
26:43and children like cattle
26:45at the door of its
26:47Senate house.
26:49The economy of
26:50Massachusetts had
26:51depended on trade with
26:53the South, and they
26:55were still constrained by
26:56the times that actually
26:58permitted enslavement to
27:00exist in the first place.
27:02So by paying
27:03Massachusetts taxes, he
27:05continued to sustain this
27:07appalling, immoral,
27:09anti-American economic
27:11system.
27:12And then there's the
27:14Mexican-American war, which
27:17is not just a war between
27:19two nations.
27:20It's actually an American
27:22provocation and campaign to
27:24expand enslavement.
27:26It's a territory grab.
27:30Henry David sees this and
27:32decides, well, how is my name
27:34actually attached to these
27:36enterprises?
27:38The dollar can now have a
27:41different kind of currency.
27:44Henry was placed in an
27:45upstairs cell.
27:47He spent the night there
27:49viewing his hometown from
27:50the fresh perspective of a
27:52prison window, seeing more
27:55clearly, he said, the state
27:57in which I lived.
28:00Someone, probably his aunt
28:02Mariah, bailed him out.
28:03He was mad as the devil,
28:06Staples remembered, that
28:08someone had interfered and
28:10paid that tax.
28:13Within 30 minutes of his
28:14release, Henry found
28:16himself picking berries on
28:18Fairhaven Hill, surrounded
28:19by children.
28:21I joined a huckleberry party
28:23on one of our highest hills,
28:25he mused.
28:26And then the state was
28:28nowhere to be seen.
28:31The question of how to live a
28:33life of conscience is a major
28:35question for him.
28:36How do you go on living at a
28:39time when simply living your
28:41life seems complicit with
28:43something you find morally
28:44intolerable?
28:46Just a week after his night
28:48in jail, Thoreau invited the
28:50Concord Female Anti-Slavery
28:52Society to host their annual
28:54event at his cabin,
28:56commemorating the end of
28:58slavery throughout the British
28:59Empire.
29:01From Henry's open doorway, a
29:04slate of speakers addressed the
29:05small crowd, including William
29:08Henry Channing, a Unitarian
29:10minister who called for a new
29:12U.S.
29:12constitution that excluded
29:14slaveholding, and Louis Hayden,
29:17a rising abolitionist who had
29:19escaped from the plantation of the
29:21powerful Kentucky senator Henry
29:23Clay.
29:24Hayden told the audience the tragic
29:27story of his wife and child being
29:29sold away from him.
29:32And Thoreau starts to realize that
29:35he had a social and ethical
29:37responsibility to speak out.
29:40He needed to give this his time and
29:42attention in a deep way as well.
29:46Thoreau began to write in earnest on
29:49society's obligation to uphold the
29:51principles of freedom and justice,
29:53culminating in an extensive essay that
29:57would be published three years later.
30:00It would eventually be called
30:02Civil Disobedience.
30:05Under a government which imprisons any
30:08unjustly, the true place for a just
30:12man is also a prison.
30:15It is there that the fugitive slave and
30:19the Mexican prisoner on parole and the
30:23Indian come to plead the wrongs of his
30:26race should find them on that separate
30:30but more free and honorable ground where
30:35the state places those who are not with
30:38her but against her, the only house in a
30:43slave state in which a free man can abide
30:47with honor.
30:50In order to challenge the status quo, in
30:53order to recreate a new sort of society,
30:55there needs to be what Thoreau calls
30:57counter-friction.
30:58Slavery is a machine that is moving
31:02forward constantly.
31:04Friction creates heat and the machine
31:08itself breaks down.
31:11The human revolution in a single person
31:13can change the course of history.
31:18My Uncle Johnny went to prison.
31:21He encountered a young man by the name of
31:23Malcolm Little.
31:25And Uncle Johnny introduced Thoreau to
31:27Malcolm.
31:29The only place that a free man can abide with
31:31dignity in a slave state is in a jail cell.
31:34That resonated with Malcolm.
31:37That Thoreau would choose as a matter of honor,
31:40a jail cell.
31:43Malcolm Little would later be known as Malcolm X.
31:48During his prison years, he was often found
31:52reading the works of Thoreau.
31:57People just don't have brilliant ideas about
32:00justice and redemption from an empty blank slate.
32:06Martin Luther King was reading Thoreau.
32:10Civil disobedience, the words of Henry David Thoreau,
32:13could be used to disobey laws because they were unjust.
32:17So a person like a king or a Malcolm X found solace in what
32:22Thoreau was talking about.
32:25The first time Gandhi was imprisoned,
32:29somebody gave him a copy of Thoreau's civil disobedience.
32:34For him to read Thoreau was thinking on the same lines as he was.
32:40That's how Gandhi began his civil disobedience campaign.
32:45You need some adrenaline once in a while.
32:49You need a booster shot.
32:51And his essay provides that even this late in the 21st century.
32:57How do we talk about problems of conscience when you're in the minority and you feel like your country's moving
33:02in the wrong direction?
33:04He said,
33:05I feel called upon to right the wrongs of my country.
33:14The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe,
33:19where there is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry into their secrets
33:25and try their effect on our humanity.
33:30Their tops are sacred and mysterious tracts never visited.
33:38On August 31st, 1846, Thoreau left Walden Pond to join his cousin, George Thatcher,
33:47on an excursion to Katahdin in Maine, the highest mountain in the state.
33:54He brought along a small notebook and pencil to write about what he discovered there.
34:04He wanted to time travel to see what Massachusetts looked like a few generations before.
34:12And then come back and tell the tale of what he'd seen.
34:15That feels like the exact opposite of what he has at Walden Pond.
34:20It was a frontier that was very nearby.
34:23At the same time, he recognizes that it's not a pristine, untouched wilderness.
34:30You see industry.
34:34Bangor is the lumber capital of the world.
34:37Thoreau describes Bangor in 1846 as this cosmopolitan city right on the edge of wilderness.
34:46He also recognized that he was going through spaces that people had worked, traveled, and lived on
34:54for thousands and thousands of years.
34:57Thirteen miles north of Bangor,
35:00Henry stood on deck as their steamship passed a Penobscot reservation on Indian Island.
35:09He watched a native hunter get out of his canoe carrying a bundle of fur skins.
35:15And an empty keg of alcohol.
35:19This picture will do to have put before the Indian's history.
35:23That is, the history of his extinction.
35:28I observed some new houses among the weather-stained ones,
35:32as if the tribe had still a design upon life.
35:36But generally, they have a very shabby, forlorn, and cheerless look.
35:43The church is the only trim-looking building.
35:47Good Canadian, it may be, but it is poor Indian.
35:52These were once a powerful tribe.
35:55I even thought that a row of wigwams with a dance of powwows
35:59and a prisoner tortured at the stake would be more respectable than this.
36:06Oh, they're always saying that.
36:09We're the last of this, the last of that.
36:13If you knew what the hell we had to go through,
36:17yeah, we look woe-begone.
36:20This was our homeland.
36:24These are people who have been robbed of their territory
36:27and forced to live a very impoverished existence on the margins of society.
36:32And what Thoreau cannot see is that he's part of this world as well
36:34and part of the process that makes this happen.
36:37Standing there with that postcard view of Indian Island,
36:41looking for that noble savage,
36:45he's disappointed all his life.
36:48He's looking for relics.
36:50He's looking for relics and people, too.
36:55Thoreau is not coming to Maine really to engage with Native people at this point.
37:00He's going to find the biggest, wildest mountain he can find
37:03and see what's on top and bring that back.
37:08Once they reached the wilderness,
37:11they continued under the guidance of two white settlers
37:14who knew the terrain well.
37:21On September 5th, 73 miles north of Bangor,
37:25they paddled across Quakish Lake.
37:30We had our first but a partial view of Katahdin,
37:34its summit veiled in clouds like a dark isthmus in that quarter,
37:40connecting the heavens with the earth.
37:45After three more days of paddling,
37:48they arrived at the base of the mountain.
37:51At the summit of Mount Katahdin,
37:54it's unpredictable weather up there.
37:57If you're up there, be ready for anything.
38:00You're going to be tested.
38:02While the others set up camp,
38:05Henry tried to reach the summit alone, but failed.
38:09The next morning, the party set off together.
38:13Thoreau scrambled upward in earnest,
38:15leaving his fellow travelers far behind.
38:21I was deep within the hostile ranks of clouds,
38:24and all objects were obscured by them.
38:29The cloud line ever rising and falling with the wind's intensity,
38:34the mist driving ceaselessly between it and me.
38:38Henry, it was vast, titanic, and such as man never inhabits.
38:46He's freaked out.
38:48He was scared up there in a way that he had not been scared anywhere before.
38:55Henry never made it to the summit.
38:57He was forced to turn back.
39:00His companions were waiting for him below,
39:03and following a stream,
39:05they made their way to a meadow farther down the mountain.
39:10There, Thoreau made an exhilarating discovery,
39:14far more transcendent than what he had hoped to experience on the summit.
39:22He has this eerie feeling of displacement that really throws him.
39:28He's thinking about the fields in Concord
39:31and the field on the side of Mount Katahdin.
39:35These two places together, familiar and strange.
39:39I'm not even sure he quite understood what had happened to him at the time,
39:43because it's not until he's down the mountain
39:46and really letting it sink in and reflecting on it
39:50that he actually writes the memorable passage,
39:54Contact, Contact.
39:57I most fully realized that this was primeval, untamed,
40:03and forever untameable nature.
40:07Here was no man's garden, but the unhancelled globe.
40:13It was the fresh and natural surface of the planet Earth,
40:17as it was made forever and ever.
40:21I stand in awe of my body.
40:25This matter to which I am bound has become so strange to me.
40:31Talk of mysteries.
40:34Think of our life in nature.
40:36Daily to be shown matter.
40:39To come in contact with it.
41:01You can see Thoreau finding language failing him.
41:05Who are we and where are we aren't questions you want to answer.
41:10They're questions you want to live.
41:14Not till we are lost.
41:16In other words, not till we have lost the world
41:20do we begin to find ourselves
41:23and realize where we are
41:26and the infinite extent of our relations.
41:30The membranes between him and nature
41:33are completely dissolved.
41:35That sort of mystical, scary experience
41:38he brings with him.
41:42After two weeks in Maine,
41:44Henry arrived home.
41:46As he looked upon the familiar landscape
41:49that surrounded him,
41:50he realized what he had experienced at Katahdin
41:53could be experienced everywhere.
41:57And it was a feeling of wildness.
42:00And his writing starts to bubble
42:03with all the extraordinary observations
42:05he's able to make.
42:07Nature is all around us.
42:10It's right in the tree that you have
42:12walked by every day of your life.
42:14And then you see something new
42:16that you've never seen before.
42:18It blows you away.
42:23Speaking of autumn leaves,
42:25he said if this had happened only once,
42:29it would have gone down in mythology
42:31as one of those events we read about
42:33in Greek myth or whatever.
42:35That suddenly all the leaves turn red and yellow
42:39and the forest was on fire.
42:42But of course it happens every year
42:44and we take it for granted.
42:47This is the wonderful way
42:49in which Thoreau sometimes shocks you
42:51into an awareness
42:52that you should have had yourself
42:55but you didn't.
43:12He did some of his most brilliant writing
43:14in the winter.
43:17It was the time he went to his journal
43:20with new inspiration
43:21and a sense of digging in,
43:24exploring inner worlds.
43:26And then he'd go out
43:27and do things like study ice crystals
43:30and come to great cosmic realizations
43:32from the smallest of things
43:34to the largest of things.
43:36He loved cold.
43:41In the winter of 1847,
43:44Henry ventured outside
43:46not only to take long walks
43:48and ice skate,
43:49but to drill hundreds of holes in the ice
43:52to collect data
43:53about Walden's temperature and depth,
43:56culminating in a unique map of the pond.
44:01That same winter,
44:02a team of Irishmen
44:04came from Cambridge
44:05to harvest 10,000 tons of ice
44:07to sell for refrigeration.
44:11Henry studied the ice,
44:12noting the gradations of color,
44:15its changing texture,
44:17and how quickly it melted.
44:19And imagine just how far
44:21it could be shipped.
44:23Perhaps the inhabitants of Madras
44:25and Bombay
44:26and Calcutta
44:27will drink at my well,
44:29he wrote,
44:30so that Walden water
44:32is mingled
44:33with the sacred water
44:34of the Ganges.
44:36This is a way for him to say
44:38profound sacredness
44:40can be found anywhere
44:41if you commit
44:42to seeing it.
44:46March 26th.
44:49Suddenly,
44:50an influx of light
44:51filled my house.
44:54I looked out the window
44:56and, lo,
44:57where yesterday
44:58was cold gray ice,
45:00there lay the transparent pond,
45:02already calm
45:04and full of hope.
45:06I heard a robin
45:07in the distance,
45:08the first I had heard
45:10for many a thousand years.
45:13It was no longer
45:14the end of a season,
45:16but the beginning.
45:20Spring rain brought new life
45:22to the woods and fields
45:23around Thoreau's cabin
45:25and revealed
45:26an intriguing phenomenon
45:28that appeared
45:29in what he called
45:30the deep cut,
45:31a man-made excavation
45:33carved into the earth
45:35so that railroad tracks
45:36could be laid flat.
45:39When there was just
45:40the right amount of water,
45:41it would burst forth
45:42on the surface
45:43and start giving
45:44miniature rivulets
45:46of sand flows.
45:48He could see
45:49what looked like
45:50leaves of ferns,
45:52leaves of trees,
45:53trees that would just
45:54be created on the bank.
45:56I'm affected
45:57as if,
45:58in a peculiar sense,
46:00I stood in the laboratory
46:02of the artist
46:03who made the world
46:05and me
46:06had come to where
46:07he was still at work,
46:10strewing his fresh designs about.
46:13What is man
46:15but a mass
46:16of thawing clay?
46:19There is nothing
46:20inorganic.
46:23He sees life
46:24organizing itself
46:25through matter
46:26and he realizes
46:28that there
46:29is not only
46:30no divide
46:30between human
46:31and natural,
46:31there's really no divide
46:32between organic
46:34and inorganic.
46:35So we are in there.
46:37We're like the dirt.
46:38We're like the trees.
46:41We're matter.
46:42We have been created
46:43by this world
46:45and we are of it
46:46and part of it.
46:48He's starting
46:49to recognize
46:50the interconnection
46:52of everything.
46:53Even though
46:54we may not
46:55all speak
46:56the same language,
46:57we ultimately
46:58all depend
46:59upon the same air,
47:01the same water,
47:01the same soil.
47:03So the whole idea
47:04of a kinship
47:05with nature
47:06puts us
47:07in a place
47:08where we're responsible.
47:22Why I left the woods
47:24I do not think
47:25that I can tell.
47:28I've often wished
47:29myself back.
47:31Perhaps I wanted
47:32a change.
47:33There was a little
47:34stagnation,
47:35it may be.
47:38Perhaps if I lived
47:39there much longer,
47:41I might live
47:42there forever.
47:44One would think
47:45twice before
47:46he accepted heaven
47:47on such terms.
47:51On September 6th,
47:531847,
47:54after two years,
47:56two months,
47:57and two days,
47:58Henry David Thoreau
47:59left Walden Pond.
48:02He had completed
48:04the first draft
48:05of a manuscript
48:06about his river trip
48:07with John.
48:08And he had also
48:10begun drafting
48:10a second one
48:11about his experiences
48:13at Walden.
48:15Over the next
48:16seven years,
48:17he would revise it
48:18multiple times,
48:20incorporating
48:21ever deeper insights
48:22with each draft,
48:24and combining
48:25his two years
48:26of experiences
48:27into one
48:28cycle of seasons.
48:32Walden,
48:33or Life in the Woods,
48:34would be released
48:35in 1854.
48:38The book
48:39would eventually
48:40sell millions
48:41of copies,
48:42reaching into
48:44every corner
48:44of the globe.
48:47He's not someone
48:48who turned his back
48:49on his society
48:51to go live
48:52in the woods.
48:53He was writing
48:54a critique
48:55of the world
48:56he was born into.
48:58And he thought
48:59that what nature
49:00gave us
49:01was a firmer
49:02place to stand.
49:05I think there's
49:06a sense that
49:07if you walk
49:08and travel
49:08thoughtfully,
49:09then the land
49:10will tell you
49:11things about
49:13what it means
49:13to be part
49:13of this rhythm
49:14of life
49:15that feels
49:16very different
49:16from the frenetic
49:17pace of the village.
49:21I learned this,
49:23at least
49:24by my experiment.
49:26If one
49:27advances
49:28confidently
49:28in the direction
49:30of his dreams
49:31and endeavors
49:32to live the life
49:33which he has
49:34imagined,
49:34he will meet
49:36with a success
49:37unexpected
49:38in common hours.
49:41He will put
49:42some things behind,
49:43will pass
49:44an invisible boundary.
49:47new universal
49:49and more
49:50liberal laws
49:51will begin
49:52to establish
49:53themselves
49:53around
49:54and within him.
49:57And he will
49:58live with
49:59the license
50:00of a higher
50:01order of beings.
50:04He says
50:05you will cross
50:05an invisible boundary.
50:07Crossing
50:08the invisible boundary
50:09is the experiment
50:10that he was in.
50:12Thoreau is
50:13trying, I think,
50:14to show us
50:15that the divide
50:16that we assume
50:17is out there
50:18somehow dividing us
50:20from the natural world
50:21really doesn't exist.
50:23We must learn
50:24to reawaken
50:25and keep ourselves awake
50:29not by mechanical aids
50:31but by an infinite
50:33expectation
50:34of the dawn
50:36to carve
50:38and paint
50:38the very atmosphere
50:40and medium
50:41through which we look
50:43to affect the quality
50:45of the day
50:46that is the highest
50:48of arts.
50:50His insistence
50:52on practice
50:53it wasn't enough
50:54to have an idea
50:55you had to live it.
50:57If you wanted
50:58to reduce Walden
50:59to its essentials
51:00I would say
51:02its message is
51:02wake up
51:03we're sleepwalking
51:05through life
51:06a lot of the time.
51:08We have technologies
51:09for the avoidance
51:10of what's important.
51:12Look around you
51:14pay attention
51:15to what matters
51:16be conscious
51:17be.
51:21He never is asking
51:23people to go
51:24put up a shanty
51:25by a pond.
51:27He's saying
51:28each person
51:28is an individual
51:29so his message
51:31is to wake you up
51:33to your own life
51:34and then
51:36you follow it.
51:39Shortly
51:39after leaving Walden
51:41Thoreau wrote
51:42to his Harvard
51:43class secretary
51:44in response
51:45to a survey
51:46marking
51:47the 10 year
51:47anniversary
51:48of their graduation.
51:51I confess
51:52that I have
51:53very little
51:53class spirit
51:55however
51:56I will undertake
51:57at last
51:58to answer
51:59your questions
52:00as well as I can.
52:03I am not
52:04married
52:05I am
52:07a schoolmaster
52:08a private tutor
52:09a surveyor
52:11a gardener
52:13a farmer
52:13a painter
52:14I mean a house painter
52:16a carpenter
52:17a mason
52:18a day laborer
52:19a pencil maker
52:21a writer
52:22and
52:23sometimes a poet.
52:25For the last
52:26two years
52:27I have lived
52:28in Concord Woods
52:29alone
52:30something more
52:32than a mile
52:32from any neighbor
52:33in a house
52:34built entirely
52:35by myself
52:37I have found
52:38a way to live
52:39without
52:40what is commonly
52:41called
52:41employment
52:42or industry
52:43attractive
52:44or otherwise
52:46indeed
52:46my steadiest
52:47employment
52:48if such
52:49it can be called
52:50is to keep
52:51myself
52:51at the top
52:52of my condition
52:53and ready
52:54for whatever
52:55may turn up
52:56in heaven
52:57or on earth.
52:59isn't the whole
53:00point of living
53:00an experiment
53:01is to try
53:02something out
53:03and if it works
53:04you can then
53:05take it out
53:06into the world.
53:07I think maybe
53:08he understood
53:10that the problem
53:11of how to live
53:13was not something
53:14he was going to
53:15solve once
53:16but that was going
53:17to be an ongoing
53:18problem
53:20and that he was
53:20going to solve it
53:21different ways
53:22on different days
53:23in different experiments
53:25through the rest
53:26of his life
53:27It seemed to me
53:29that I had
53:30several more lives
53:31to live
53:32and could not
53:33spare any more
53:34time
53:35for that one
53:36I had
54:05I had
54:06take it
54:06I had
54:06I had
54:33Next time on Henry David Thoreau.
54:35I had several more lives to live.
54:38The point was to take Walden back out into the world.
54:42New pursuits.
54:43Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.
54:47And new discoveries.
54:49To hear this unaltered Indian language, it took me by surprise.
54:53The thing he models for us is a life committed to ongoing investigation.
54:58Rustling leaves, they teach us how to die.
55:01Don't miss the conclusion of Henry David Thoreau.
55:05Scan this QR code with your smart device to watch the whole series
55:10and learn more about Henry David Thoreau.
55:14The Henry David Thoreau DVD is available online and in stores.
55:19The series is also available with PBS Passport and on Amazon Prime Video.
55:25The digital companion soundtrack is also available online.
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56:14Major funding for Henry David Thoreau was provided by
56:17The Better Angels Society
56:19Jeff Skoll
56:21The Mansueto Foundation
56:24Tyson Foods
56:26And the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations
56:28Funding was also provided by
56:31The Tyson Family Foundation
56:33The Neil and Anna Rasmussen Foundation
56:35And by the Better Angels Society members
56:38The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment
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