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Henry David Thoreau - Season 1 - Episode 01: Who are We
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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 Milan through the HeartSpace Fund, and Elizabeth Kenney.
01:08Every now and then, a sentence, a paragraph, an essay continues to speak to people and has some value in
01:18the present.
01:18There is something incredibly powerful about taking someone else's words inside yourself, and your body is involved in those words,
01:30in making those words real.
01:32Words start wars. They save people, and they convert us from thinking one way to realizing that we're wrong in
01:44what we think.
01:45The stories we tell, the ways we think about the world, have huge consequences, and so do our actions.
01:58Ideas shape reality, and they can change the world.
02:04His life was a relentless search for truth.
02:08His words have inspired revolutions, social movements, and environmental actions all around the world for more than 150 years.
02:18His name was Henry David Thoreau.
02:30I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.
02:37To live so sturdily and spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life.
02:44To drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.
02:50And if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish
02:58its meanness to the world.
03:00Or, if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it
03:08in my next excursion.
03:13Most people today would say, why am I not happy?
03:18They realize that the path that they took to happiness has not precisely worked out for them.
03:26Thoreau was trying to make sense of life.
03:29He lived exactly the way he wanted to live.
03:33And there was an enormous freedom for him that most people just don't get.
03:39The things he's getting at were mostly ignored then, and they're mostly ignored now.
03:45But Thoreau understood that language matters.
03:58Henry David Thoreau wrote about the impact of industrialization on nature and society.
04:04The hypocrisy of slavery in a country that declared all men equal.
04:10And the mindless pursuit of wealth, which he said, led to lives of quiet desperation.
04:17So much of what we spend our lives and our days doing, we don't really care about.
04:22And yet somehow we've found ourselves in the middle of a life with obligations.
04:28People don't know where to find meaning, and they don't take the time to try to find it.
04:33Which Thoreau says is essential.
04:35You can't even ask the deep questions if you don't stop to figure out what the deep questions are.
04:40Our lives are overcomplicated.
04:43It's so easy to lose sight of what matters.
04:49His big project as a writer is to wake us up.
04:53He spent his time observing, contemplating, and experimenting.
04:58Including two years in a small house he built near a pond,
05:02where he tried to live a simple, spiritual, and intentional existence.
05:07He never stopped asking questions, and never settled for easy answers.
05:13Rather than love, than money, than fame, he wrote, give me truth.
05:19The program of his life is to seek other ways of being and of connecting.
05:27It involves distancing yourself from norms
05:30until you begin to see things that you could never have seen in any other way.
05:36Things that most people can't see.
05:40Thoreau was a lecturer, philosopher, pencil maker, and surveyor.
05:44A teacher, scientist, and an abolitionist.
05:49But above all, he was a prolific writer.
05:52His journal alone was more than two million words.
05:56He wrote two timeless manifestos.
05:59One, on discovering spiritual truths in nature.
06:03And the other, on a citizen's obligation to stand up against injustice.
06:09Two seemingly different doctrines that Thoreau would prove are profoundly interconnected.
06:16I think if 20 people read Thoreau, each one of us will get something different.
06:21And yet, what they're getting from Thoreau, I think, is very much the same.
06:26A sense of possibility, a new dawn, a reminder to think about the essential facts of life.
06:32There's so many ways in which his work and his life and his ideas and his creativity and his passion
06:38and his vulnerability
06:40shape our world today.
06:42His life was rife with contradictions.
06:46He yearned for solitude, but became a public figure.
06:50He believed in the preservation of wild nature, yet knowingly contributed to its destruction.
06:57He was committed to freedom and equality for one race of people.
07:01But often failed to take action against the inhumane treatment of another.
07:07Ultimately, his life would be reduced to legend and his complex prose to one-liners.
07:14And while he rarely traveled far from his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts, he became a man of the world.
07:24Life can always be endless adventure and discovery, even if you've only traveled widely in Concord.
07:32And Thoreau is a genius at packing a thousand miles into a single step in how he writes.
07:42Man thinks faster and freer than ever before.
07:48He, moreover, moves faster and freer.
07:54He is more restless because he's more independent than ever.
08:01The winds and the waves are not enough for him.
08:06He must ransack the bowels of the earth that he may make for himself a highway of iron over its
08:14surface.
08:20Think of our life in nature.
08:25Daily, to be shown matter.
08:28To come in contact with it.
08:31Rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks.
08:34Rocks, the solid earth, the actual world, the common sense.
08:40Rocks, contact, contact, who are we?
08:48Where are we?
08:54And he never let those questions settle.
08:57And I think that makes him relevant always, in every time.
09:02But particularly in a time like ours, where we are really thinking about what it means to be a human
09:07being on this planet.
09:09But you have to open the book.
09:11And Thoreau says, all right, I've got your attention now.
09:15Keep reading, and I'll help you sort this out.
09:29Henry David Thoreau was born July 12, 1817, on his grandmother's farm in Concord, Massachusetts.
09:38A town some 18 miles northwest of Boston.
09:44The United States of America had won its independence from England only 34 years earlier.
09:52The early 1800s were a very introspective and also a very outward time for America.
09:59It was growing.
10:01It was trying to figure out what it meant to be a democratic republic and how to improve this democratic
10:07republic.
10:09Henry was the third of four children of John Thoreau and Cynthia Dunbar.
10:15He had an older sister, Helen, and a younger one, Sophia.
10:20His older brother, John Jr., was his closest friend.
10:25After two years of dwindling harvests and the failure of a dry goods store,
10:31according to legend, Henry's father, John, was forced to sell his wedding ring to make ends meet.
10:38The family shared a love of the outdoors and took day-long walks in the Concord countryside.
10:45Cynthia encouraged the children to pay close attention to nature's sights and sounds.
10:52When Henry was five years old, she took him to nearby Walden Pond.
10:59He would later say,
11:00That woodland vision for a long time made the drapery of my dreams.
11:08Thoreau's interest in what was beyond what he could see started very early.
11:15His mother came up one night and said,
11:18Henry, why aren't you asleep?
11:21And he said he was looking at the stars trying to see God behind them.
11:29He once said,
11:31This is a world where there are flowers.
11:33And you can feel his wonder at that fact.
11:38Imagine how many different worlds there could be on how many different planets.
11:41And we are the lucky idiots who landed on the world with flowers.
11:47As a boy, Henry was aloof, introspective, and intensely curious.
11:53His brother, John, was athletic, charismatic, a jokester, and an instigator of rough and rambunctious games.
12:02Henry usually watched from the sidelines.
12:06But he and John were always together, swinging on the branches of a birch tree,
12:12climbing nearby Fairhaven Hill to see the sunrise,
12:16or down at the Concord River, fishing, swimming, and exploring.
12:21At times, they would also participate in what they called Indian play.
12:30John and I had been searching for Indian relics
12:34when, with our heads full of the past and its remains,
12:38I broke forth into an extravagant eulogy on those savage times.
12:45There on Nishadik, said I, was their lodge, the rendezvous of the tribe.
12:51Here, I exclaimed, stood to Hadouan.
12:57How often have they stood on this very spot, at this very hour?
13:03He's always keenly aware and curious about where he is.
13:09When he finds an arrowhead, he recognizes it has significance.
13:16Even when he's a young boy and doesn't yet know fully the history attached to such an item.
13:23He's so deeply fascinated by Native people,
13:26and yet really doesn't understand America's long colonial dispossession.
13:33The Muscatacood people have been living in the Concord area for thousands of years,
13:38but the Native people Thoreau knew in Concord were ones he knew really by their relics.
13:44Henry and John had begun their education by attending a one-room public schoolhouse on the Town Common.
13:53Then they enrolled in a new private school for promising children called the Concord Academy.
14:01As much as he was busy reading at school, he was in the woods and the local hills.
14:08He had spent so much time in the hills and on the river that he nearly squandered his chance to
14:16be a college student.
14:18On August 30th, 1833, Henry David Thoreau entered Harvard College in Cambridge.
14:25He was 16 years old.
14:28Thoreau was a voracious reader and spent hours in the library,
14:32where he began a lifelong habit of copying passages from books for later reference.
14:38But his mind was often elsewhere.
14:42Though bodily I have been a member of Harvard University,
14:46heart and soul I have been far away among the scenes of my boyhood,
14:52scouring the woods and exploring the lakes and streams of my native village.
14:59In his junior year, to defray the cost of his tuition,
15:04Henry left for a term to earn money as a visiting schoolmaster in the nearby town of Canton.
15:11He boarded with Unitarian minister Orestes Brownson,
15:16who believed that social justice was a critical component of America's democratic experiment.
15:24And so here he is, and he's still just a kid,
15:27walking into the household of this ferociously brilliant firebrand intellectual.
15:34And instantly this man starts to talk to him.
15:37And they're up until midnight.
15:40This fury that Bronson had, that ideas will make you free,
15:44was something that really struck deep for Thoreau.
15:49Thoreau speaks of it as the day when my mind was born.
15:54And he came back to Harvard a different person.
15:57Bold, sassy.
15:59He talked back to his professors.
16:01Can you imagine?
16:03After suffering what may have been a sign of tuberculosis,
16:08Henry had to take another five months off.
16:13Thoreau graduated from Harvard College on August 30, 1837.
16:18It was a time of significant change.
16:23Political issues, particularly slavery,
16:27were dividing states, communities, and even families.
16:31The Industrial Revolution and the westward expansion of the country
16:35were reshaping the lives of many Americans.
16:39Those in the younger generation often had to choose between settling further west,
16:44where farmland was more plentiful,
16:46or moving into the cities to work in factories.
16:49This is a generation for whom there's no single clear path to follow.
16:58There's not enough land in Concord anymore for most farmers to set up their kids.
17:03Mills going up everywhere, up and down Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
17:08People streaming off the farm to work in those factories,
17:13being forced into worlds that they did not understand and were not suited for them.
17:20Thoreau understood what it would mean to the human spirit.
17:27In his senior year, Henry had read a book called Nature,
17:31written by a 34-year-old philosopher and fellow citizen of Concord named Ralph Waldo Emerson.
17:39In it, he spelled out an entirely new and radical approach to life.
17:45The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face.
17:52Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?
17:59Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition,
18:07and a religion by revelation to us and not the history of theirs?
18:14There are new lands, new men, new thoughts.
18:19Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.
18:27Emerson had graduated from Harvard Divinity School
18:30and later served as a minister in Boston.
18:33He then left the church for a new kind of ministry,
18:37an electrifying, spiritual, philosophical, and social movement
18:41that was attracting reformers and intellectuals dissatisfied with society's values.
18:47It was called Transcendentalism.
18:52Transcendentalism is the first youth movement in American history.
18:57It was a reform movement to incinerate orthodoxies
19:02and rebuild from the idea that the individual genius trumped, received wisdom.
19:10That was music to Thoreau's ears.
19:14Transcendentalism boils down to one very simple but very powerful idea
19:18that there is a spark of divinity within absolutely every single human being.
19:26That means every person who is enslaved,
19:30you are enslaving part and particle of God.
19:35Every woman who doesn't have full human rights,
19:39every child that you're depriving of an education,
19:42you're depriving that spark from developing.
19:46They're questioning religion, education, politics.
19:52They're asking questions about labor and freedom and enslavement.
19:57They're questioning the entire grounds of society.
20:02That's pretty radical.
20:04Emerson's book, Nature, had established him as the leader of this new movement.
20:12Henry, now 20 years old, became his protégé.
20:16I delight much in my young friend, Emerson wrote,
20:20who seems to have as free and erect a mind as any I've ever met.
20:26Brave Henry is content to live now
20:29and feels no shame in not studying any profession,
20:33for he does not postpone his life, but lives already
20:38and pours contempt on these crybabies of routine and Boston.
20:46Emerson saw Thoreau's potential as a writer
20:49and encouraged him, asking,
20:52What are you doing now?
20:53Do you keep a journal?
20:56On October 22nd, 1837, Thoreau wrote,
21:01I make my first entry today.
21:04His journal was meant to catch the flow of thoughts,
21:08of observations,
21:10and take that little emergent flame
21:14of whatever little spark is there
21:17and just explore it.
21:24Henry was now living with his family in Concord
21:27in a rented house on Main Street,
21:29where his mother, Cynthia,
21:31rent a boarding house.
21:33There, she and her daughters,
21:35Helen and Sophia,
21:37began having informal meetings
21:39with a group of abolitionist neighbors,
21:4261 women in all,
21:45including Emerson's wife, Lydian,
21:47the new organization's leader,
21:49Mary Merrick Brooks,
21:50and the one Black founding member,
21:53Susan Garrison.
21:55They called themselves
21:56the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society.
22:00It is always astonishing to me
22:02to look at this point
22:04when the abolition of slavery in the United States
22:07is really being led by these little marginal groups.
22:11A lot of women, dissenters,
22:13Quakers, ex-slaves.
22:16They're not nearly recognized enough.
22:21Women get worked up.
22:23They move the nation forward.
22:26Henry David Thoreau is living in a household
22:28with women who are determined to do something.
22:32The women of Concord, to a person,
22:35will outdo the men of Concord
22:37when it comes to actually thinking about justice.
22:41And you can imagine that hive of activity,
22:45that defines the Thoreau home.
22:50October 1837.
22:52To be alone,
22:54I find it necessary to escape the present.
22:58I seek a garret.
23:02Thoreau retreated to a small east-facing room in the attic
23:06where he could write in his journal
23:08in relative peace and quiet
23:10while gazing out at the forest and hills in the distance.
23:15I yet lack discernment to distinguish the whole lesson of today.
23:20But it is not lost.
23:21It will come to me at last.
23:24My desire is to know what I have lived,
23:28that I may know how to live henceforth.
23:34He says,
23:36I feel ripe for something,
23:38yet do nothing.
23:39I feel fertile, nearly.
23:42He recognizes that
23:44you don't know where this is going,
23:46but you have to trust that
23:48because you love it,
23:50it will produce something.
23:53And pretty soon,
23:55the whole world is reflected in that journal.
23:58It literally becomes
23:59the anchor of his entire life.
24:02And it is epic.
24:04All the universe is in it.
24:11Henry's first job after college
24:13was teaching at his old grammar school.
24:16But after only two weeks,
24:18he abruptly quit
24:19when a supervisor told him
24:21he must strike his students
24:23to make them behave.
24:26I would make education a pleasant thing,
24:28Henry said,
24:29for both the teacher
24:30and the scholar.
24:33Then, with his brother John,
24:36he started his own school.
24:37Thank you so much.
24:38Now, no student was physically punished.
24:42They were encouraged to speak up.
24:45Instead of following
24:46a static writing curriculum,
24:48they kept journals.
24:52Henry and John took them outdoors
24:55to explore the local woods and fields.
24:59Henry also began working
25:01at his father's business,
25:02making pencils,
25:04which later focused on selling
25:06its refined graphite.
25:08He would continue working there
25:10on and off his whole life.
25:12the business would prosper.
25:17Back in 1828,
25:19the citizens of Concord
25:21had become one of the first towns
25:23in the country
25:24to establish a lyceum,
25:26a program of regular lectures
25:28and debates
25:29on a variety of topics
25:31and open to the general public.
25:33In Henry's time,
25:35there are two ways, really,
25:37to get one's thoughts
25:38and writings out to the world.
25:40One is publication
25:42and the other is lecturing.
25:45Lyceum is an agent of progress.
25:49It was common for lyceum lecturers
25:51to challenge the ways
25:53people have done things
25:55and to say,
25:56no, the new way to do it is this.
25:58And Thoreau is part of this.
26:03On April 11, 1838,
26:06Thoreau, now 20 years old,
26:08delivered his first lyceum lecture
26:10entitled Society.
26:14The mass never comes up
26:16to the standard
26:16of its best member,
26:18but on the contrary,
26:20degrades itself
26:21to a level with the lowest.
26:24Hence the mass.
26:26In the years to come,
26:27Thoreau would speak in towns
26:29all over New England.
26:31I take it for granted.
26:33Henry's lecture pleased me much
26:35and I have reason to believe
26:37others liked it.
26:39A few lyceum fees
26:40would satisfy his moderate wants.
26:44To say nothing of the improvement
26:46and happiness it would give
26:48both him and his fellow creatures
26:51if he could utter
26:52what is most within him
26:54and be heard.
26:57Lydian Emerson
27:06Saturday,
27:08the last day of August,
27:10we two,
27:11brothers and natives of Concord,
27:14weighed anchor
27:14and dropped silently
27:17down the stream.
27:22In the late summer of 1839,
27:25John and Henry
27:26set off on an adventure
27:28on the Concord
27:29and Merrimack rivers
27:30in a boat they'd built together
27:32and christened
27:33Mesquitequid
27:34in honor of the name
27:36given to the river lowlands
27:37by indigenous people.
27:44The brothers planned
27:45to row,
27:46pull,
27:47and pull their boat
27:48down the slow-moving
27:49Concord River
27:50and then head up
27:52the mighty Merrimack
27:53to Hooksit, New Hampshire
27:54where they would continue
27:56on land
27:57to visit the White Mountains.
27:59This was a camping
28:01and hiking adventure
28:03to take in the history
28:05and signs of community
28:08and society
28:09along the way.
28:10There's these kind of
28:12wonderful stories
28:13about them
28:13spending hours and hours
28:15together playing
28:16in the woods.
28:17You can kind of sense this
28:19on the Concord
28:19and Merrimack rivers.
28:21Their relationship
28:23revolved around
28:24being together
28:25in the natural world.
28:29At times,
28:30their adventure
28:31was hijacked
28:32by what they saw.
28:36Traveling up the river
28:37was really
28:38traveling up
28:39a kind of highway
28:40for the Industrial Revolution
28:42that was going
28:43to completely change
28:44the New England
28:45that Thoreau knew so well
28:47and loved so much
28:47and change the river forever.
28:52At Billerica, Massachusetts,
28:54they came upon
28:55a woolen mill
28:56powered by a dam
28:57that blocked
28:58the spawning of fish.
29:01Who hears the fishes
29:02when they cry?
29:05I, for one,
29:06am with thee
29:08and who knows
29:09what may avail
29:10a crowbar
29:11against that
29:12Billerica dam.
29:15When they built
29:16the Billerica dam,
29:17it stopped
29:18the migrations
29:19of fish
29:20and what he wanted
29:22to do was
29:22take a crowbar
29:23and take down
29:24the dam
29:25and let the fishes
29:26run free.
29:30As they made their way
29:31up the Merrimack River
29:33to Lowell
29:33and then to
29:34Manchester, New Hampshire,
29:36they witnessed
29:37a booming textile industry
29:38where young women
29:40and children
29:40earned only $3 a week
29:42for working
29:43six 12-hour days.
29:46I cannot believe
29:47that our factory system
29:48is the best mode
29:50by which men
29:51may get their clothing.
29:52As far as I've heard
29:54or observed,
29:55the principal object
29:57is not that mankind
29:58may be well
29:59and honestly clad,
30:01but unquestionably
30:03that corporations
30:05may be enriched.
30:08Our nice clothes
30:10all about
30:10enriching corporations.
30:12Is that why
30:13we have these dams?
30:15Is that why
30:15we have these factories?
30:17He names it
30:19the critique
30:20of consumption.
30:25Henry and John's
30:26journey
30:27lasted two weeks,
30:28ending with such
30:29a strong wind
30:30at their backs,
30:31they were able
30:32to travel
30:33the last 50 miles
30:34home
30:34in a single day.
30:37Thus we sailed,
30:39not being able
30:40to fly,
30:41making a long furrow
30:43in the fields
30:44of the Merrimack
30:45toward our home.
30:47with our winds
30:48spread,
30:49but never lifting
30:51our heel
30:51from the watery trench,
30:53gracefully plowing
30:55homeward
30:56with our brisk
30:57and willing team,
30:59wind and stream
31:01pulling together.
31:10We do not wish
31:12to say pretty
31:13or curious things,
31:15or to reiterate
31:16a few propositions
31:18in varied forms.
31:20The pages
31:21of this journal
31:22will be filled
31:23by contributors
31:24who possess
31:25little in common
31:26but the love
31:27of intellectual freedom
31:29and the hope
31:30of social progress.
31:32Margaret Fuller.
31:35In May of 1840,
31:37Ralph Waldo Emerson
31:39and a small group
31:40of transcendentalists
31:41started a new
31:42quarterly journal
31:43to help spread
31:44their radical ideas.
31:46It was called
31:47The Dial,
31:48a magazine
31:49for literature,
31:50philosophy,
31:51and religion.
31:53Sarah Margaret Fuller,
31:56a highly respected
31:57intellectual,
31:58became its editor.
32:00Thoreau was determined
32:01to write for The Dial.
32:03Which meant that
32:04if he was going
32:05to be published,
32:05he would have to go
32:06through the formidable
32:07Margaret Fuller.
32:09And she was hard on him.
32:11The thoughts
32:13seemed to me
32:14so out of their
32:15natural order
32:16that I cannot read it
32:17through without pain.
32:20It is true,
32:21as Mr. Emerson says,
32:23that essays
32:24not to be compared
32:25with this
32:26have found their way
32:27into The Dial.
32:28But yours
32:29is so rugged
32:31that it ought
32:32to be commanding.
32:34Yet I hope
32:36you will
32:36give it me again.
32:39When the first issue
32:41came out
32:41on July 1st,
32:431840,
32:44it included
32:45one of his poems
32:46and an essay.
32:48We don't see
32:50his early writings
32:51as fantastic art.
32:53He's writing
32:54like a young writer
32:56who's working
32:57his way
32:58to being
32:58a great writer.
33:02Fuller would become
33:03Thoreau's colleague
33:04and friend,
33:05but she would also
33:07remain one
33:07of the fiercest
33:08critics
33:09of his writing.
33:12Meanwhile,
33:13after a year
33:14of teaching
33:14at the new school,
33:16Henry's brother
33:17John became ill
33:18and no longer
33:19had the strength
33:20to continue.
33:21They closed
33:22the school
33:23on April 1st,
33:241841.
33:27That same month,
33:28Lydian
33:29and Ralph Waldo Emerson
33:31asked Henry
33:32to come live
33:32with their family
33:33in exchange
33:34for doing chores,
33:36tutoring their
33:37young son Waldo
33:38and serving
33:39as Emerson's
33:40assistant.
33:42Henry moved in,
33:43simply noting
33:44in his journal
33:45at RWE's.
33:49My good Henry
33:51Thoreau made
33:52this elf
33:53solitary afternoon
33:54sunny
33:55with his simplicity
33:57and clear perception.
33:59How comic
34:00is simplicity
34:01in this
34:02double-dealing,
34:04quacking world?
34:06Everything
34:07that boy says
34:08makes merry
34:09with society,
34:11though nothing
34:12can be graver
34:13than his meaning.
34:15Henry was funny
34:17and loved
34:18to pull
34:18people's legs.
34:20But underneath
34:20all that,
34:21Emerson also saw
34:22a kind of
34:24rebelliousness
34:24against convention
34:26and against
34:27the kind of
34:28immorality
34:29that he thought
34:29was all too
34:31common around him.
34:32And that was
34:33the kind of thing
34:34that Emerson
34:34looked for.
34:37Emerson
34:38was pleased
34:39with the arrangement,
34:40telling a friend
34:41that Thoreau
34:42was a writer
34:42you may one day
34:43be proud of,
34:44a noble youth
34:46full of melodies
34:47and inventions.
34:49My dear Henry,
34:51will you not
34:52come up to the cliff
34:53this p.m.
34:54at any hour
34:55convenient to you,
34:56where our ladies
34:58will be greatly
34:59gratified to see you.
35:01And the more,
35:02they say,
35:03if you will,
35:05bring your flute.
35:09I am living
35:10with Mr. Emerson
35:11in very dangerous
35:12prosperity.
35:15Very dangerous
35:16prosperity.
35:18Well,
35:19a big house
35:20with servants,
35:21good food,
35:23leisure.
35:24I think there was
35:25a little bit
35:25of resentment there.
35:27He knew very well
35:29that his family
35:29wasn't living
35:30in that kind of luxury.
35:31Creature comforts
35:32have a way
35:33of allowing us
35:35to forget
35:35the friction
35:37with reality
35:37that is at the heart.
35:40I see Thoreau
35:42as needing
35:43friction.
35:47I seem to see
35:48somewhat more
35:49of my own kith
35:50and kin
35:50in the lichens
35:52on the rocks
35:53than in any books.
35:57Meet me
35:57on that ground
35:58and you will
36:00find me strong.
36:04On Christmas Eve,
36:06Henry confided
36:08to his journal
36:09one of his
36:10innermost wishes.
36:14December 24th,
36:151841.
36:17I want to go soon
36:19and live away
36:21by the pond
36:23for I shall hear
36:24only the wind
36:25whispering
36:26among the reeds.
36:28It will be success
36:29if I shall have
36:30left myself behind.
36:35On New Year's Day,
36:37John Jr.
36:38cut his ring finger
36:39while shaving.
36:41They wrapped it up
36:43with a bandage
36:44thinking absolutely
36:45nothing of it
36:46and by the time
36:48it was looked at
36:49by a physician,
36:51he pronounced it
36:52technus,
36:53which they called
36:54lockjaw
36:54at the time
36:55and said there was
36:57absolutely nothing
36:58anyone could do.
37:01Henry rushed home.
37:05Henry stayed with John
37:07right through
37:08to the end.
37:10He was perfectly
37:11calm,
37:12ever pleasant
37:13while reason lasted
37:15and gleams
37:17of the same serenity
37:18and playfulness
37:19shone through
37:19his delirium
37:20to the last.
37:23On January 11th,
37:251842,
37:26John Thoreau
37:28died in his
37:29brother's arms.
37:30He was just
37:3127 years old.
37:35They were
37:36the closest
37:37of friends.
37:38the closest
37:39of brothers.
37:40For Henry,
37:42I think with
37:42John's death,
37:43half of him
37:44died too.
37:46Then Thoreau
37:48collapsed.
37:49He contracts
37:51what looks like
37:52also lockjaw
37:54and this turns out
37:56to be a kind
37:57of sympathetic
37:57response
37:58of his nervous
37:59system.
38:00He was
38:02so devastated
38:03that he in fact
38:03died a kind
38:05of death
38:05himself.
38:06another tragedy
38:08struck shortly
38:09thereafter.
38:11The Emerson's
38:12young son,
38:13Waldo,
38:14died suddenly
38:15of scarlet fever.
38:19A month later,
38:21Thoreau wrote
38:22a condolence
38:23note,
38:23hoping that
38:24the slow
38:24lifting of
38:25his own grief
38:26would give
38:27Emerson some
38:28solace.
38:29March 11th,
38:31dear friend,
38:34the sun.
38:35The sun has just
38:35burst through the fog
38:38and I hear
38:39bluebirds,
38:40song sparrows,
38:41larks,
38:42and robins
38:43down in the meadow.
38:46The wind still
38:47roars in the wood
38:48as if nothing
38:50had happened
38:50out of the course
38:51of nature.
38:54Every blade
38:55in the field,
38:56every leaf
38:56in the forest
38:57lays down
38:58its life
38:59and its season
38:59as beautifully
39:01as it was
39:02taken up.
39:04So is it
39:05with the human
39:06plant.
39:10Henry writes
39:11how he hears
39:12and feels
39:13John's presence
39:14everywhere
39:14in the woods
39:15and fields
39:16that he used
39:16to travel.
39:18Nature starts
39:19to speak to him
39:20in a way
39:21that it really
39:22hadn't,
39:22I think,
39:23quite before.
39:25And he starts
39:26to listen
39:26and he is
39:28reborn.
39:30After John's
39:31death,
39:31he writes
39:32his first
39:32great nature
39:33essay,
39:35The Natural
39:35History of
39:36Massachusetts.
39:40We must look
39:41a long time
39:42before we can
39:43see.
39:46I walk in
39:47nature with
39:48a sense
39:48of greater
39:49space.
39:50and freedom.
39:52Nature will
39:53bear the
39:54closest inspection.
39:57She invites
39:57us to
39:58lay our eye
39:59level with
40:00the smallest
40:01leaf and
40:02take an
40:03insect view
40:04of its
40:05plane.
40:07I explore,
40:08too,
40:08with pleasure,
40:09the sounds
40:10which crowd
40:12the summer
40:12noon
40:13and which
40:14seem
40:15the very grain
40:16and stuff
40:17of which
40:18eternity
40:19is made.
40:22To him
40:23who contemplates
40:24a trait
40:25of natural
40:26beauty,
40:27no harm
40:28or disappointment
40:29can come.
40:32Surely,
40:33joy
40:33is the condition
40:35of life.
40:36life.
40:39From then
40:39on,
40:40he has a
40:41mission
40:41to spend
40:42as much
40:43of his
40:43writing time
40:44as possible
40:45to express
40:46what he
40:46sees and
40:47hears and
40:47feels
40:48outdoors.
40:49And I think
40:50this is really
40:51the birth of
40:52the Henry
40:52that we
40:53know.
40:57after returning
40:58to live
40:58with the
40:59Emersons,
41:00Thoreau
41:00spent as
41:01much time
41:01as he
41:02could
41:02reading,
41:03writing,
41:04and going
41:05for long
41:05solitary
41:06walks
41:07around
41:07Concord.
41:09Emerson
41:10mentored
41:10him,
41:11gave him
41:12books to
41:12read.
41:13There was
41:14this whole
41:14other realm
41:15of great
41:16world
41:16literature
41:17that Emerson
41:18put Thoreau
41:19onto.
41:21Emerson
41:22was now
41:22the editor
41:23of the
41:23dial.
41:24He asked
41:25Thoreau
41:26to work
41:26on a
41:26new
41:26column
41:27called
41:28Ethnical
41:28Scriptures,
41:30introducing
41:30readers to
41:31Eastern
41:31religious
41:32traditions
41:32like
41:33Hinduism
41:33and
41:34Buddhism.
41:36Every
41:37society
41:38faces
41:38the
41:39fundamental
41:39questions
41:39of life.
41:40What are
41:41we called
41:42upon to do
41:42in our
41:43life?
41:43What happens
41:44when we
41:44die?
41:45And for
41:46most of
41:46the history
41:46of Western
41:47civilization,
41:47we have
41:48simply
41:49accepted
41:49the
41:50Bible.
41:51What about
41:52Islam?
41:53What about
41:54Judaism?
41:55What about
41:56Hinduism?
41:57What about
41:58Confucianism?
42:00I often
42:00think about
42:01where you
42:02could put
42:02a lens
42:03down on
42:04the map
42:04of the
42:04United States
42:05and take
42:07what you
42:08get in
42:08that lens
42:10to reflect
42:11the substance
42:12and the
42:13cast of
42:13characters
42:14and the
42:14importance
42:14and the
42:16nature
42:16of the
42:16history
42:17of our
42:17country.
42:18Concord,
42:19Massachusetts
42:19is to
42:20me
42:20a good
42:21choice.
42:22You not
42:23only have
42:24the start
42:24of the
42:24revolution
42:25with the
42:25battles
42:26of Concord
42:26and Lexington,
42:27but you
42:28have the
42:29creative
42:30residences
42:31and workplaces
42:32of people
42:33like Ralph Waldo
42:34Emerson
42:35and Hawthorne
42:37and Louisa May
42:39Alcock
42:39and Henry
42:41David Thoreau.
42:42How these
42:43clusters
42:44of brilliant
42:45people
42:46can emerge
42:48and flourish
42:49and change
42:51how we
42:51view the
42:52world
42:52is one
42:53of the
42:53mysteries
42:54of history.
43:01Years ago,
43:03the ladies
43:03used to be
43:04admonished
43:05to leave
43:06off meddling
43:06with what
43:07did not
43:07belong to
43:08them
43:08and stay
43:09at home
43:10and mend
43:11stockings.
43:13I always
43:14replied that
43:15I would be
43:15very happy
43:16to do so
43:17when the
43:18men would
43:19fulfill
43:20their
43:20obligations.
43:22Mary Merrick
43:23Brooks,
43:24President,
43:25Concord
43:25Female
43:26Anti-Slavery
43:27Society.
43:29Women
43:30weren't
43:30accepted
43:31as public
43:31speakers
43:32at this
43:32time,
43:33so they
43:34directed
43:34their efforts
43:35to bring
43:36in the
43:37most fervent
43:37speakers.
43:40Frederick
43:40Douglass
43:41became an
43:41important speaker
43:42in the area
43:43and Mary
43:44Merrick
43:45Brooks
43:45insisted
43:46that he
43:46visit
43:47Concord.
43:49Douglass'
43:50impassioned
43:50and inspiring
43:51speeches
43:52would make
43:53him one
43:53of the
43:53country's
43:54most
43:54renowned
43:54abolitionists.
43:56He
43:57and Helen
43:58Thoreau
43:58would become
43:59close friends
44:00and allies
44:00in the fight
44:01against slavery.
44:03Presumably,
44:04he boarded
44:05with the
44:06Thoreaus
44:07in their
44:07home.
44:09It must
44:09have been
44:09very fulfilling
44:10for Thoreau
44:11and inspiring.
44:15One of the
44:16things that
44:16can be
44:17taken from
44:18Thoreau's
44:18time is
44:20to look
44:20at ways
44:21in which
44:22you read
44:23and interact
44:23with writers
44:25and authors
44:25and thinkers
44:26that you
44:26might not
44:27traditionally
44:27engage with
44:28and then
44:29listen to
44:30them.
44:32And then
44:32when you
44:33think you've
44:33listened enough,
44:34keep your mouth
44:35closed and
44:35listen some more,
44:36right?
44:37Just opening
44:38and appreciating
44:39a different lens
44:39and appreciating
44:41how complex
44:42it is
44:42because it's
44:43better to struggle
44:44with that complexity
44:45than to imagine
44:46that it doesn't exist.
44:51On August 1st,
44:531844,
44:54the Concord
44:55Female Anti-Slavery
44:57Society held
44:58a rally to
44:58celebrate the
44:59anniversary
44:59of the
45:00emancipation
45:01of slaves
45:02in the
45:02British West
45:03Indies.
45:04The Society
45:05convinced
45:06Ralph Waldo
45:07Emerson
45:07to give
45:08the keynote
45:09address.
45:11The women
45:12had hoped
45:12to hold
45:13the event
45:13at the
45:14Unitarian
45:15Meeting House,
45:16but church
45:17officials
45:17refused.
45:20The abolitionists
45:21by this time,
45:22the mid-1840s
45:23in Concord,
45:24were anathema.
45:26The preachers
45:27didn't want
45:28them,
45:28the institutional
45:30buildings
45:32didn't want
45:32them.
45:33When the event
45:34was moved
45:35to the courthouse,
45:36no one dared
45:37ring the bell
45:38used for major
45:39announcements.
45:41Henry decides,
45:43well, that's
45:43ridiculous,
45:44and starts
45:45tolling the bell
45:46himself.
45:48He made it
45:49clear that
45:51the talk you're
45:51about to hear
45:52deserves the
45:53attention of
45:54ringing the bell
45:55the same way
45:55that we would
45:56for a fire
45:57or a community
45:58emergency.
46:00I like to
46:01think of it
46:02as symbolically
46:04beginning
46:04what will be
46:05a turn
46:06in his own
46:07anti-slavery
46:08thinking.
46:10Then,
46:11Emerson
46:12addressed the
46:13crowd.
46:14If we
46:15saw the
46:16whip
46:17applied to
46:18old men,
46:19to tender
46:20women,
46:20and undeniably,
46:22though I shrink
46:23to say so,
46:24pregnant women,
46:25if we saw
46:28men's backs
46:29flayed with
46:30cowhides,
46:32if we saw
46:33the runaways
46:34hunted with
46:35bloodhounds
46:36into swamps
46:37and hills,
46:38if we saw
46:39these things
46:40with eyes,
46:42we too
46:43should wince.
46:44They're not
46:45pleasant sights.
46:47The blood
46:48is moral.
46:49The blood
46:50is anti-slavery.
46:52It runs
46:54cold
46:55in the veins.
46:57The stomach
46:58rises
46:58with disgust
47:00and curses
47:02slavery.
47:04Ralph Waldo
47:06Emerson's
47:07grandfather
47:08enslaved
47:09folks.
47:11So,
47:12he's taking
47:13accountability
47:14for the
47:15damage it
47:15did and
47:16the profit
47:17it made.
47:19And he
47:20inspires
47:21others to
47:21do more.
47:26Afterwards,
47:27Henry arranged
47:28to have
47:28copies of
47:29Emerson's
47:29speech printed
47:30and distributed,
47:32now openly
47:33identifying himself
47:34as an agent
47:35for the
47:36conquered
47:36female
47:37anti-slavery
47:38society.
47:40He's trying
47:40to figure out,
47:41what am I
47:41called upon
47:42to do?
47:43Is a Lyceum
47:44lecture enough?
47:46And the answer
47:46is no,
47:47that this
47:49situation
47:50calls upon
47:51us to
47:52rise to
47:52an unprecedented
47:55level of
47:56personal
47:57moral courage
47:58and integrity.
48:01Henry was
48:0227 years old
48:03and caught up
48:04in a myriad of
48:05social,
48:06political,
48:06and personal
48:07crises.
48:08As the United
48:09States moved
48:10westward,
48:11the question
48:12of the
48:12expansion
48:13of slavery
48:13ripped at
48:14the union
48:15of the
48:15country,
48:16dividing
48:17states
48:17and
48:18communities.
48:19Industry
48:20and innovation
48:21were transforming
48:22the landscape.
48:23Train tracks
48:24had recently
48:25been laid
48:26across
48:26Concord.
48:27Telegraph lines
48:28would soon
48:29follow.
48:31Thoreau's
48:32riding career
48:32had stalled.
48:34He felt
48:34himself a
48:35failure,
48:36and the memory
48:37of his brother's
48:38death still
48:39weighed heavily
48:39on his heart.
48:42In our time,
48:43crisis is
48:45strenuously to
48:46be avoided
48:46at all costs,
48:48whereas in
48:50the older sense,
48:51it signified
48:53a juncture
48:53where a decision
48:54should be made.
48:56It's a defining
48:57moment.
48:58It's one where
48:58one's character,
49:00one's mettle,
49:00one's courage
49:01will be tested,
49:03and that is
49:04often when he
49:05felt himself
49:06most fully.
49:07He was at
49:08that point that
49:09I think
49:09many people
49:10have experienced
49:11and many people
49:12continue to experience,
49:13particularly in
49:14their 20s,
49:15deciding what to
49:17do and how to
49:18live.
49:19That was daunting
49:20for him as it is
49:21daunting for
49:22people today.
49:25It was very easy
49:27to just be dragged
49:28along by the
49:29currents of the
49:30world around you.
49:32And I think Thoreau
49:34was questioning
49:35all of that
49:36and saying,
49:38I want to figure out
49:39for myself
49:41what I actually
49:41want to do.
49:43I want to live
49:44deliberately.
49:47It was time
49:49for Henry
49:49to make real
49:50that woodland vision
49:52of his childhood,
49:53to find a place
49:54where he could
49:55quiet himself
49:56and write
49:57at the pond
49:59he had visited
49:59so many times
50:00since he was a boy.
50:02his friends
50:04encouraged him.
50:06My dear Thoreau,
50:08I see nothing
50:09for you on this
50:10earth but that
50:10field,
50:11which I once
50:12christened
50:13Briars.
50:14Go out upon that,
50:16build yourself
50:17a hut,
50:18and there
50:19begin the process
50:20of devouring
50:21yourself alive.
50:23Eat yourself up.
50:25Concord is
50:26just as good a place
50:27as any other.
50:28Ellery Channing
50:31Dearest Henry,
50:33do not say
50:34constantly
50:35of nature
50:36she is mine
50:37for she is not
50:39yours
50:39until you
50:40have been more
50:41hers.
50:43Seek the lotus
50:44and
50:45take a draft
50:47of rapture.
50:48Let me know
50:49whether you go
50:50to the lonely hut.
50:52Margaret Fuller
50:54what I began
50:56by reading
50:56I must finish
50:58by acting.
51:22What I began
51:23by reading
51:24is
51:49a
51:49boy
51:53to
51:53have
51:53a
51:53time
51:53to
51:53see
51:53as
51:53as
51:53as
51:53as
51:58Next time on Henry David Thoreau.
52:01I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.
52:05An experiment in living.
52:07I think he went to Walden not to escape human society, but to criticize it.
52:12A night in jail.
52:14I did not pay a tax to the state which buys and sells men, women, and children.
52:20And a daring expedition.
52:21Not till we have lost the world do we begin to find ourselves.
52:26When Henry David Thoreau continues.
52:30Scan this QR code with your smart device to watch the whole series.
52:35And learn more about Henry David Thoreau.
52:39The Henry David Thoreau DVD is available online and in stores.
52:44The series is also available with PBS Passport and on Amazon Prime Video.
52:50The digital companion soundtrack is also available online.
52:54I'm Michael H 아니.
52:55Music by John работы mixed withrice
52:55see you next time. ...
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