- 9 hours ago
Henry David Thoreau - Season 1 - Episode 03: Several More Lives to Live
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00:00Major funding for Henry David Thoreau was provided by the Better Angels Society, Jeff Skoll, the Mansueto Foundation, Tyson Foods,
00:00:12and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.
00:00:15Funding was also provided by the Tyson Family Foundation, the Neil and Anna Rasmussen Foundation, and by the Better Angels
00:00:23Society members, the Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment and Mark A. Tracy.
00:00:30Additional funding was provided by Roxanne Quimby Foundation, Jim and Mona Milan through the HeartSpace Fund, and Elizabeth Kenney.
00:00:49It seemed to me that I had several more lives to live and could not spare any more time for
00:00:57that one.
00:01:00Henry David Thoreau.
00:01:04If one says that he went to Walden to find the secret of life, and if one says he did,
00:01:12the point was to take it back out into the world.
00:01:15To move to town and see, well, can I bring this with me?
00:01:20Can I meet new challenges and a new environment?
00:01:25So the experiments continue.
00:01:34When Henry David Thoreau left Walden Pond, he was 30 years old.
00:01:40For two years, he had lived simply and deliberately, broadening his own transcendent view of life based on the revelation
00:01:49that all things, rocks, plants, animals, and people, are interconnected.
00:01:56His writing there provided the foundations for his two most famous works, Walden, about what he had learned from his
00:02:04two years at the pond, and Civil Disobedience, about why he spent a night in jail to protest a government
00:02:12that still allowed slavery to exist.
00:02:16It's so unlikely that Henry David Thoreau would suddenly be making his own Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights
00:02:24in this little town next to a pond.
00:02:28There was no search engines there.
00:02:30There was no easy way for accessing the wisdom of the world, but such was his curiosity that he found
00:02:36it.
00:02:37Now, Henry would live other lives as a surveyor, scientist, explorer, and abolitionist, all of which gave him new insights
00:02:48into nature, society, and himself.
00:02:52He would make a discovery about the evolution of species that had eluded even Charles Darwin.
00:02:59He would write an essay that explored the connections between the wildness of nature and a human's desire to be
00:03:07free.
00:03:08He would take a second and third expedition to Maine, where he experienced the Penobscot tribe's intimate relationship with the
00:03:16land,
00:03:17which was even deeper than he imagined possible, and he would support new strategies to try to abolish slavery, even
00:03:27at the risk of compromising his own convictions.
00:03:31The thing he models for us the best is a life committed to ongoing investigation.
00:03:38He talks about always wanting to get two views of the same truth, because the truth will change when you
00:03:42get another view of it.
00:03:44I fear, chiefly, lest my expression may not be extravagant enough, may not wander far enough beyond the narrow limits
00:03:53of my daily experience,
00:03:56so as to be adequate to the truth of which I have been convinced, as if nature can support but
00:04:04one order of understandings.
00:04:23After he left Walden Pond, Henry spent ten months living at the home of his friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo
00:04:31Emerson,
00:04:32while the famous Transcendentalist was traveling abroad.
00:04:37He soon became part of the family.
00:04:40He referred to Emerson's wife, Lydian, as a dear sister.
00:04:44Their three-year-old son, Edward, asked Henry to be his father.
00:04:49The children talk about the things he made for them.
00:04:53A dollhouse, toys, and in one case, he made little mittens for the cats,
00:05:00because Lydian Emerson complained that their feet were cold.
00:05:04Thoreau had quite a social, sociable side in the right company.
00:05:12Every year he threw a melon party, which the neighbors all looked forward to.
00:05:17So there's a liveliness and a cheerfulness and a connectedness to people.
00:05:26By February of 1849, Thoreau completed his final draft of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers,
00:05:35about the trip he took with his late brother John.
00:05:38In it, Thoreau transformed their adventure into a mythic voyage,
00:05:43by interweaving their experiences with deep references to history, classical Eastern literature, and religion.
00:05:51It was a travelogue of the experience and the landscape at that time,
00:05:57but it was a new thing, filled with philosophy, with Thoreau's poetry,
00:06:04with his thinking and speculating about history and meaning.
00:06:09A Boston publisher agreed to print 1,000 copies of the book,
00:06:15but only if Henry agreed to buy back any that didn't sell.
00:06:21On May 30th, his book was released.
00:06:25The Boston Evening Transcript praised its finely descriptive prose,
00:06:30but some critics were disturbed by Thoreau's suggestion
00:06:33that there was as much wisdom in Eastern religions as in Christianity.
00:06:39His treatment of this subject, the New York Tribune declared,
00:06:43seems revolting to good sense and good taste.
00:06:49Thoreau is saying,
00:06:50yeah, I'm willing to maybe offend you a little here,
00:06:53because I want you to see what I'm saying.
00:06:56That there are other paths,
00:06:57and maybe some of them are equally interesting,
00:06:59or superior to our own.
00:07:04There were parts of it that sounded to me very much like blasphemy.
00:07:12Sophia told me Helen made the same remark,
00:07:15and coming from her, Henry was much surprised.
00:07:20Mariah Thoreau.
00:07:21Some people saw it as the first work of great American literature,
00:07:27reflecting American landscapes and American experience,
00:07:30but it wasn't received that way.
00:07:33Henry would eventually have to buy back 706 of the 1,000 books printed,
00:07:39which cost him $300,
00:07:42an entire year's income for the average American.
00:07:46He carried all of them up to his attic room in the Thoreau family home,
00:07:51later joking that he now had a library of nearly 900 volumes,
00:07:55over 700 of which he wrote himself.
00:08:00It would take him four years to repay his debt.
00:08:05On June 14th, 1849,
00:08:09Henry's older sister Helen died of tuberculosis,
00:08:13the same sickness that had plagued one of Henry's uncles,
00:08:16his late brother John,
00:08:18and his father John Sr.
00:08:21Henry himself had experienced symptoms
00:08:24as far back as his college years at Harvard.
00:08:28Thoreau was always aware
00:08:31of the brevity of human life,
00:08:34partly because of the disease
00:08:36that he likely knew he bore.
00:08:39So Thoreau's deep commitment
00:08:42to getting out and exploring
00:08:45must have been tied to his understanding
00:08:47that those lungs were only going to hold out for so long.
00:08:53Wishing to get a better view
00:08:55than I had yet of the ocean,
00:08:57which we are told
00:08:58covers more than two-thirds of the globe,
00:09:01but of which a man
00:09:03who lives a few miles inland
00:09:04may never see any trace.
00:09:07I made a visit to Cape Cod
00:09:09in October 1849.
00:09:13After traveling to Orleans
00:09:14on the elbow of the Cape,
00:09:17Henry and his frequent traveling companion
00:09:19Ellery Channing
00:09:20walked 25 miles along the Atlantic coast
00:09:23to Provincetown.
00:09:29All the morning,
00:09:30we had heard the sea roar
00:09:32on the eastern shore.
00:09:34It was a very inspiriting sound
00:09:37to walk by.
00:09:40Instead of having a dog
00:09:42to growl before your door,
00:09:44to have an Atlantic ocean
00:09:46to growl for a whole cape.
00:09:56They observed an ecological system
00:09:59entirely different
00:10:00from the landscape of Concord.
00:10:03Henry took copious notes
00:10:04of what he saw,
00:10:06reveling in the endless cycles
00:10:08of life and death.
00:10:11The seashore
00:10:12is a most advantageous point
00:10:14from which to contemplate this world.
00:10:18It is a wild, rank place,
00:10:21and there is no flattery in it,
00:10:24strewn with whatever the sea casts up,
00:10:27a vast morgue,
00:10:29rotting and bleaching
00:10:30in the sun and waves,
00:10:32and each tide turns them in their beds
00:10:36and tucks fresh sand under them.
00:10:40There is naked nature,
00:10:42inhumanly sincere,
00:10:44wasting no thought on man,
00:10:47nibbling at the cliffy shore
00:10:48where gulls wheel amid the spray.
00:10:56He heard stories of storms
00:10:59and shipwrecks from locals,
00:11:01spent time with an oysterman,
00:11:03and a night in a lighthouse
00:11:05where its bright lamp
00:11:07kept Henry awake.
00:11:09How many sleepless eyes
00:11:11from far out on the ocean,
00:11:13he wondered,
00:11:14were directed toward my couch.
00:11:17He would travel to the Cape
00:11:19four times in all.
00:11:22Thoreau wrote two lectures
00:11:23about his excursions,
00:11:25which were published
00:11:26in Putnam's magazine.
00:11:29Toward the end of his life,
00:11:30he would work closely
00:11:31with his sister Sophia
00:11:33to expand them into a book
00:11:35that she arranged
00:11:36to have published
00:11:37after his death.
00:11:41The time must come
00:11:43when this coast
00:11:44will be a place of resort
00:11:45for those New Englanders
00:11:47who really wish
00:11:48to visit the seaside.
00:11:50If the visitor
00:11:51thinks more of the wine
00:11:53than the brine,
00:11:54as I suspect some do
00:11:56at Newport,
00:11:58I trust that for a long time
00:11:59he will be disappointed here.
00:12:02A storm in the fall or winter
00:12:05is the time to visit it.
00:12:07A lighthouse
00:12:08or a fisherman's hut,
00:12:10the true hotel.
00:12:13A man may stand there
00:12:14and put all America
00:12:16behind him.
00:12:23He lost his older sister,
00:12:25Helen.
00:12:26His father was periodically ill,
00:12:29so Henry's responsibilities
00:12:30for the family economy
00:12:32increased.
00:12:34At the time,
00:12:36there was a growing need
00:12:37for surveyors.
00:12:39Henry had been practicing
00:12:40the craft for years.
00:12:42After assembling a set
00:12:44of surveying tools
00:12:45and passing out flyers,
00:12:47he got to work.
00:12:49He loved measurement.
00:12:52Surveying allowed him
00:12:53to make measurements
00:12:54and earn money
00:12:55with the most important piece,
00:12:57he could do this outdoors.
00:12:59As knowledgeable as he was
00:13:01about the natural world,
00:13:03there are some contradictions
00:13:05in his ideas.
00:13:06The forest land he surveyed
00:13:09was often clear-cut
00:13:10for raw materials,
00:13:11to set boundaries
00:13:12for new farmland,
00:13:14or to build mills
00:13:15and factories,
00:13:16which also required
00:13:18the damning of rivers
00:13:19to run them.
00:13:21He's working for hire,
00:13:23mostly for people
00:13:25who are trying
00:13:26to maximize their profits.
00:13:28He knows what he's doing.
00:13:31At the same time,
00:13:32he's proud of his track record.
00:13:35He becomes famous
00:13:36for precision.
00:13:37He scorned society's
00:13:40dependence on new technologies,
00:13:42like the telegraph
00:13:43and the mass printing
00:13:45of newspapers,
00:13:46yet he enjoyed them himself.
00:13:48He complained
00:13:50that the train
00:13:51sped up daily life,
00:13:52but it made his lecturing career
00:13:54possible.
00:13:55He traveled by rail
00:13:57more than 70 times.
00:13:59I'm not sure
00:14:01how contradictory
00:14:02Henry was,
00:14:03so much as
00:14:05willing to see things
00:14:07in multiple ways,
00:14:09which, sure,
00:14:10may seem contradictory.
00:14:12If there was some tension
00:14:14between the two
00:14:15when there was,
00:14:16then I think
00:14:18that's human.
00:14:19All of us
00:14:20are bundles
00:14:21of contradictions.
00:14:26On September 18, 1850,
00:14:29the U.S. Congress
00:14:30passed the Fugitive Slave Act,
00:14:33the new law
00:14:34made it legal
00:14:35for slave owners
00:14:36to reclaim any runaway,
00:14:38man, woman, or child,
00:14:40even those
00:14:41who had managed
00:14:42to escape
00:14:43to the free states
00:14:44in the North.
00:14:46In April 1851,
00:14:49Thomas Sims,
00:14:50who had escaped
00:14:51from a Georgia rice plantation,
00:14:53was arrested in Boston
00:14:55and sent south
00:14:56to be re-enslaved.
00:14:59The authorities
00:15:00of Boston
00:15:02sent back
00:15:03a perfectly
00:15:04innocent man
00:15:05into slavery.
00:15:07I wish my townsmen
00:15:10to consider
00:15:10that
00:15:11whatever the human law
00:15:13may be,
00:15:14a government
00:15:16which deliberately
00:15:17enacts
00:15:18injustice
00:15:19and persists in it
00:15:21will become
00:15:22the laughingstock
00:15:23of the world.
00:15:26The average white
00:15:28American
00:15:28North and South
00:15:29knew slavery
00:15:30was wrong.
00:15:31But it was really
00:15:33inconvenient
00:15:33to have to get rid of it.
00:15:35Where does the sugar
00:15:36to sweeten your coffee
00:15:38come from?
00:15:39Where does the rice
00:15:40that you eat
00:15:40come from?
00:15:43The new law
00:15:44also mandated
00:15:45that helping
00:15:46an escaped slave
00:15:47was now a crime.
00:15:49At the time
00:15:51of the 1850s,
00:15:52the fine
00:15:53was up to
00:15:54$1,000
00:15:54which in our
00:15:56day and time
00:15:57is about
00:15:58$40,000.
00:16:00$40,000.
00:16:02And then up
00:16:03to six months
00:16:03in jail.
00:16:05So you begin
00:16:06to understand
00:16:06the incredible
00:16:08high stakes
00:16:09of continuing
00:16:11to assist.
00:16:13I say
00:16:14break the law.
00:16:16Let your life
00:16:17be a counterfriction
00:16:19to stop
00:16:20the machine.
00:16:23The women
00:16:24of the Thoreau
00:16:25household
00:16:25had already
00:16:26been active
00:16:27in the Underground Railroad,
00:16:29a secret network
00:16:30of safe houses
00:16:31which abolitionists
00:16:33used to help
00:16:34slaves escape
00:16:35to freedom.
00:16:36Henry
00:16:37began to work
00:16:38alongside them.
00:16:40He escorted
00:16:41a fugitive
00:16:42named Henry
00:16:43Williams
00:16:43from the Thoreau
00:16:44home
00:16:45to the train
00:16:45station
00:16:46in Concord.
00:16:47But after
00:16:48seeing a policeman,
00:16:50he put Williams
00:16:51on a later train
00:16:52to Burlington,
00:16:53Vermont.
00:16:55Williams
00:16:55went on
00:16:56to freedom
00:16:56in Canada,
00:16:58one of several
00:16:59human beings
00:16:59that Henry
00:17:00helped escape.
00:17:03On April
00:17:0423rd,
00:17:05Henry arrived
00:17:06at the Concord
00:17:07Lyceum
00:17:08to give a lecture
00:17:09called
00:17:09Walking
00:17:10or the Wild.
00:17:14I wish
00:17:15to speak
00:17:15a word
00:17:15for nature,
00:17:17for absolute
00:17:18freedom
00:17:19and wildness
00:17:21as contrasted
00:17:22with a freedom
00:17:23and culture
00:17:24merely civil,
00:17:26to regard man
00:17:28as an inhabitant
00:17:29or a part
00:17:30and parcel
00:17:30of nature
00:17:31rather than
00:17:33a member
00:17:33of society.
00:17:35I wish
00:17:36to make
00:17:36an extreme statement,
00:17:38and if so,
00:17:39I may make
00:17:39an emphatic one.
00:17:42In wildness
00:17:44is the preservation
00:17:45of the world.
00:17:48It's not really
00:17:50about walking.
00:17:51I think that he's
00:17:52talking about
00:17:53what it is
00:17:54to be completely free.
00:17:57He's a white,
00:17:58privileged writer
00:17:59who can walk
00:18:00anywhere he wants.
00:18:02A fugitive slave
00:18:03doesn't have time
00:18:04to think about nature.
00:18:06So,
00:18:07when Thoreau
00:18:08writes in Walking
00:18:09that the freedom
00:18:10to walk
00:18:11is essential,
00:18:13he's certainly
00:18:15pointing to
00:18:16to the freedom
00:18:18that all human beings
00:18:20deserved.
00:18:21In a natural world
00:18:23that is flourishing,
00:18:25regenerative,
00:18:27inexhaustible,
00:18:28the freedom
00:18:29that the natural world
00:18:31allows
00:18:32can teach us
00:18:33ideas,
00:18:35hopes,
00:18:35thoughts
00:18:36we didn't know
00:18:37we had.
00:18:40Wildness,
00:18:41it's freedom.
00:18:43Sometimes,
00:18:43it's the breeze
00:18:44blowing through
00:18:45the trees
00:18:45or the call
00:18:47of a bird.
00:18:48And so,
00:18:50wildness is,
00:18:51I mean,
00:18:51it's over my shoulder,
00:18:52it's underfoot,
00:18:53it's always in my heart
00:18:55in a way
00:18:55that allows me
00:18:57to access it,
00:18:58even when I can't
00:18:59get to it.
00:19:00Thoreau called
00:19:01his lecture
00:19:02Walking
00:19:02an introduction
00:19:03to all I may
00:19:05write hereafter.
00:19:07Walking,
00:19:07I think,
00:19:08is the birth
00:19:09of the modern
00:19:10environmental thinking.
00:19:13It's one of those
00:19:14things that
00:19:14has grown
00:19:15over time.
00:19:17It's the idea
00:19:18of wild
00:19:19and wilderness
00:19:19can be loved
00:19:20and protected
00:19:22and cared about.
00:19:23It becomes
00:19:24a part of us.
00:19:32In Walden,
00:19:33Thoreau writes,
00:19:34why do precisely
00:19:36these objects
00:19:37which we behold
00:19:39make a world?
00:19:40And in the time
00:19:42after Walden,
00:19:44he turns to science
00:19:45to find
00:19:46the answer
00:19:47to that question.
00:19:49What are these objects?
00:19:52How do they interact
00:19:53with one another?
00:19:55How do they make
00:19:56seasonal change?
00:19:58How do they shape
00:19:59the soul?
00:20:01Endlessly curious,
00:20:03Thoreau began
00:20:04reading zoological
00:20:05and botanical texts,
00:20:07looked at Saturn's rings
00:20:08through his neighbor's
00:20:09telescope,
00:20:10and studied the findings
00:20:12of scientists
00:20:13who had traveled
00:20:13the world.
00:20:15After reading
00:20:16Charles Darwin's
00:20:18Voyages of the Beagle,
00:20:20Henry began
00:20:20seeing his own walks
00:20:22as miniature expeditions
00:20:23in their own right.
00:20:26June 7th.
00:20:28I wonder
00:20:29that I even get
00:20:30five miles
00:20:31on my way.
00:20:32The walk is so crowded
00:20:34with events
00:20:35and phenomena.
00:20:38How many questions
00:20:39there are
00:20:40which I have not
00:20:41put to the inhabitants.
00:20:44He could sit
00:20:45watching a vernal pool
00:20:47for frogs
00:20:49and tadpoles
00:20:50for hours on end.
00:20:52He was willing
00:20:53to invest his time
00:20:54and attention
00:20:55and the dividends
00:20:56paid out
00:20:57in his prose.
00:20:58And then the next
00:20:59thing you know
00:21:00he's drawing inductions
00:21:01and generalizations.
00:21:02He might do
00:21:0320 of these a day.
00:21:06Maybe it's one
00:21:06of these things
00:21:07that's feeding on itself
00:21:09in that
00:21:10the more you know
00:21:11and the more detail,
00:21:13the closer you look,
00:21:14the more worlds you see.
00:21:16Just as an observer
00:21:17of nature,
00:21:19he's incredibly acute.
00:21:21And when he's doing that,
00:21:22he's not being romantic,
00:21:23he's being precise
00:21:24and empirical.
00:21:26But he'll veer
00:21:28from talking about
00:21:30some really technical aspect
00:21:32of a flower
00:21:34that he's noticing
00:21:35to something
00:21:36huge,
00:21:38you know,
00:21:38like his relationship
00:21:40to the stars
00:21:41from the minute
00:21:42to the majestic.
00:21:45Look at anything
00:21:47around you
00:21:47and you can probably
00:21:48find
00:21:50the universe.
00:21:52Time is but the stream
00:21:54I go a-fishing in.
00:21:57I drink at it.
00:21:59But while I drink,
00:22:00I see the sandy bottom
00:22:03and detect
00:22:04how shallow it is.
00:22:06Its thin current
00:22:08slides away.
00:22:10But
00:22:11eternity remains.
00:22:16Like Darwin,
00:22:17Thoreau began
00:22:18discovering
00:22:18and identifying
00:22:20species of trees,
00:22:21plants,
00:22:22and flowers
00:22:23in the greater
00:22:23Concord area,
00:22:25more than 800
00:22:26in all.
00:22:28His attic room
00:22:29became filled
00:22:30with notebooks,
00:22:31journals,
00:22:32books,
00:22:33maps,
00:22:34charts,
00:22:35tables,
00:22:35as well as
00:22:36collections of rocks,
00:22:38press plants,
00:22:39and birds' nests.
00:22:42He wasn't
00:22:43comfortable
00:22:43calling himself
00:22:44a scientist
00:22:44because the scientist
00:22:46is someone
00:22:47who looks at
00:22:47the world
00:22:48objectively.
00:22:50For Thoreau,
00:22:51when you're
00:22:51looking at something,
00:22:52the thing you're
00:22:53seeing is being
00:22:54filtered through
00:22:55your own experience.
00:22:58Henry called
00:22:591852
00:23:00a year
00:23:01of observation.
00:23:03He was
00:23:04extremely patient
00:23:06as an observer
00:23:07of nature,
00:23:09but
00:23:09much less
00:23:10patient
00:23:11in tolerating
00:23:13what he thought
00:23:14were the
00:23:15shortcomings
00:23:16of his
00:23:17neighbors.
00:23:18And there was
00:23:19a bit of a
00:23:20lordliness
00:23:20to Emerson
00:23:22that Henry
00:23:23started to resent.
00:23:25He was always
00:23:26the teacher
00:23:26and Henry
00:23:27would always
00:23:28be the student.
00:23:29And as Henry
00:23:30started to feel
00:23:30that he wasn't
00:23:31just Emerson's
00:23:32student,
00:23:33but his equal,
00:23:34tension started
00:23:35to grow.
00:23:37My friend
00:23:38invites me
00:23:39to read
00:23:40my papers
00:23:40to him,
00:23:41Thoreau wrote
00:23:42in his journal.
00:23:43Gladly I would
00:23:44read
00:23:45if he would
00:23:46hear.
00:23:47There is no
00:23:48intellectual
00:23:49communion.
00:23:50Emerson
00:23:51confided
00:23:52in his journal
00:23:53that Henry
00:23:53was always
00:23:54stubborn
00:23:54and contradictory,
00:23:56writing dismissively,
00:23:57If I knew
00:23:59only Thoreau,
00:23:59I should think
00:24:00cooperation
00:24:01of good men
00:24:02impossible.
00:24:04Thoreau imagined
00:24:05telling Emerson
00:24:06what he really
00:24:07thought.
00:24:08I am offended
00:24:09by your pride,
00:24:10your sometime
00:24:11assumption
00:24:11of dignity,
00:24:13and your manners,
00:24:14which come over
00:24:15me like waves,
00:24:17adding,
00:24:18I am wiser
00:24:19than you think.
00:24:21Thoreau was
00:24:22the prodigal
00:24:22son to
00:24:23Emerson,
00:24:25and Emerson
00:24:26had ideas
00:24:27about,
00:24:28you know,
00:24:29what kind
00:24:29of career
00:24:29Thoreau
00:24:30should have.
00:24:31He never
00:24:32became the
00:24:32writer Emerson
00:24:33hoped he
00:24:34would become,
00:24:36because Thoreau
00:24:37was pursuing
00:24:38something else.
00:24:40Thoreau and
00:24:41Emerson were
00:24:42something like
00:24:43father and
00:24:44son,
00:24:45but we see
00:24:46in Thoreau's
00:24:47writings his
00:24:48doubts about
00:24:49whether his
00:24:50relationship with
00:24:51Emerson is
00:24:52good for him.
00:24:53And at a
00:24:54certain point,
00:24:55you have to
00:24:55carve out your
00:24:56own space,
00:24:57and that is
00:24:58going to involve
00:24:59pushing against
00:25:00this formative
00:25:02influence.
00:25:03When he fell
00:25:04out with
00:25:05Emerson,
00:25:05he turned
00:25:07to the natural
00:25:08world to
00:25:09reconnect him.
00:25:13At 5 p.m.,
00:25:15September 13,
00:25:171853,
00:25:18I left
00:25:19Boston in
00:25:21the steamer
00:25:21for Bangor.
00:25:24When I
00:25:25arrived,
00:25:25my companion
00:25:26that was to
00:25:27be had
00:25:28gone upriver
00:25:29and engaged
00:25:30an Indian.
00:25:33In September
00:25:34of 1853,
00:25:36Henry's cousin,
00:25:37George Thatcher,
00:25:38invited him on a
00:25:39moose-hunting
00:25:40expedition to
00:25:41Chisuncook Lake,
00:25:43deep in the
00:25:44Penobscot
00:25:44ancestral lands
00:25:45of Maine.
00:25:48Ever since he
00:25:49was a boy,
00:25:50Henry had been
00:25:51fascinated by
00:25:52indigenous cultures.
00:25:53For years,
00:25:55he had been
00:25:55reading about
00:25:56the history and
00:25:56customs of
00:25:57native peoples,
00:25:58and had compiled
00:25:59what he called
00:26:00his Indian books.
00:26:02They eventually
00:26:03grew to
00:26:04thousands of pages.
00:26:06He was trying
00:26:07to find
00:26:07someone who
00:26:08can bring
00:26:09to life
00:26:10and test
00:26:10what he's
00:26:11been reading
00:26:11about all
00:26:12these years.
00:26:13They hired
00:26:14a Penobscot
00:26:15tribal leader
00:26:16named Joseph
00:26:17Attian.
00:26:19Joseph Attian
00:26:21was the son
00:26:22of the chief
00:26:22of the tribe,
00:26:24and Attian
00:26:25was considered
00:26:25the best boatman
00:26:26on the river.
00:26:28At first glance,
00:26:29Henry was
00:26:30disappointed.
00:26:31Thoreau was
00:26:32surprised by how
00:26:33acculturated Attian
00:26:34is to White
00:26:35Norms.
00:26:36He wears
00:26:37white clothing,
00:26:38he speaks English,
00:26:39he travels in
00:26:40the woods with
00:26:41Western gear,
00:26:42a rifle,
00:26:43and salt pork.
00:26:44He wanted
00:26:45somebody who
00:26:45more matched
00:26:46his idea of
00:26:47what an Indian
00:26:47should be.
00:26:48But as they
00:26:49canoed up the
00:26:50Penobscot River,
00:26:52Henry began
00:26:53to change his
00:26:53mind.
00:26:54He was impressed
00:26:55by Attian's
00:26:56knowledge of the
00:26:57wilderness and
00:26:58his skills at
00:26:59tracking moose.
00:27:01Thatcher eventually
00:27:02shot one, but it
00:27:03disappeared into
00:27:04the woods.
00:27:06Attian found
00:27:07the moose, skinned
00:27:08it, and carved
00:27:09off a portion
00:27:10of the meat,
00:27:11taking as much
00:27:12of it as he
00:27:12could carry.
00:27:14Thatcher was
00:27:14only interested
00:27:15in the antlers
00:27:16and the bullet.
00:27:19It's a sport,
00:27:21and they're
00:27:22slaying these
00:27:22animals, and
00:27:23you can't
00:27:24possibly eat
00:27:25that much
00:27:26meat, so
00:27:27they're leaving
00:27:28the carcasses
00:27:29to rot,
00:27:29which is totally
00:27:31outside our
00:27:33cultural beliefs.
00:27:35Thoreau was
00:27:36appalled.
00:27:37This hunting of
00:27:38the moose
00:27:38merely for the
00:27:39satisfaction of
00:27:40killing him,
00:27:41he wrote,
00:27:42is too much
00:27:43like going out
00:27:43to some woodside
00:27:45pasture and
00:27:46shooting your
00:27:47neighbor's horses.
00:27:50Toward the end
00:27:51of the trip,
00:27:52Attian invited
00:27:53him and Thatcher
00:27:54to camp with
00:27:55some local
00:27:56Indians.
00:27:58We lay on our
00:28:00backs, talking
00:28:01with them
00:28:01till midnight.
00:28:04There can be
00:28:05no more
00:28:05startling evidence
00:28:07of there being
00:28:08a distinct
00:28:09and comparatively
00:28:10aboriginal race
00:28:12than to hear
00:28:13this unaltered
00:28:14Indian language.
00:28:17It took me
00:28:18by surprise.
00:28:19These were
00:28:20the sounds
00:28:21that issued
00:28:21from the
00:28:22wigwams of
00:28:23this country
00:28:23before Columbus
00:28:25was born.
00:28:27They have not
00:28:28yet died away.
00:28:31He realizes
00:28:32that there
00:28:33are parts
00:28:34of this culture
00:28:34that are still
00:28:35vibrant and
00:28:37are going to
00:28:37live on
00:28:38despite colonization.
00:28:43We've survived
00:28:45by remaining
00:28:46invisible.
00:28:48It's still
00:28:49with us,
00:28:50that feeling.
00:28:52People don't
00:28:54understand.
00:28:54There's things
00:28:55about our
00:28:55culture.
00:28:56There's no
00:28:57words for.
00:28:59On their
00:28:59way home,
00:29:01Henry and
00:29:01George Thatcher
00:29:02stopped at
00:29:03Indian Island,
00:29:04the same
00:29:05Penobscot
00:29:05settlement Henry
00:29:06had considered
00:29:07forlorn and
00:29:08dreary on his
00:29:09first trip to
00:29:10Maine seven
00:29:11years before.
00:29:13It's the same
00:29:14village, but
00:29:16he's able to
00:29:16see it differently.
00:29:17He can see the
00:29:18village for what
00:29:19it is, which
00:29:20is a community
00:29:21of people who
00:29:22are making
00:29:22do in the
00:29:23present.
00:29:29The Boston
00:29:30courthouse is
00:29:32full of armed
00:29:32men holding
00:29:34prisoner and
00:29:35trying a man
00:29:36to find out if
00:29:38he is not
00:29:39really a slave.
00:29:41It was really
00:29:43the trial of
00:29:44Massachusetts.
00:29:46Every moment
00:29:47that she now
00:29:48hesitates to
00:29:49atone for her
00:29:50crime, she
00:29:52is convicted.
00:29:55In late
00:29:56May 1854, an
00:29:58escaped slave
00:29:59named Anthony
00:30:00Burns was
00:30:00arrested in
00:30:01Boston by
00:30:02federal marshals.
00:30:04His southern
00:30:05enslaver came
00:30:06up from
00:30:06Virginia and
00:30:07took his
00:30:08property back.
00:30:10A week
00:30:11later, Congress
00:30:12passed the
00:30:13Kansas-Nebraska
00:30:14Act, which
00:30:15empowered newly
00:30:16formed states
00:30:17in America's
00:30:18western territories
00:30:19to decide for
00:30:20themselves whether
00:30:21to permit
00:30:22slavery.
00:30:24Thoreau was
00:30:25enraged.
00:30:27On July 4th, a
00:30:29protest rally was
00:30:30held in South
00:30:31Framingham,
00:30:32Massachusetts, with
00:30:34speeches by
00:30:34abolitionists William
00:30:36Lloyd Garrison,
00:30:37Wendell Phillips,
00:30:39Sojourner Truth,
00:30:40and Henry David
00:30:41Thoreau.
00:30:44Thoreau spoke in
00:30:45the afternoon.
00:30:46The lecture
00:30:47podium itself had
00:30:49the American flag
00:30:50turned upside down
00:30:51to indicate the
00:30:52danger to the
00:30:53country.
00:30:54It was a very,
00:30:55very hot July 4th,
00:30:57and the day's
00:30:58incendiary nature
00:31:00matched the heat.
00:31:02I feel that my
00:31:03investment in life
00:31:05here is worth many
00:31:07percent less since
00:31:09Massachusetts last
00:31:11deliberately sent back
00:31:14an innocent man,
00:31:15Anthony Burns,
00:31:17to slavery.
00:31:20Man's influence and
00:31:22authority were on the
00:31:24side of the slave
00:31:25holder and not of the
00:31:27slave, of the guilty
00:31:30and not of the
00:31:32innocent, of injustice
00:31:34and not of justice.
00:31:38Nowadays, men wear a
00:31:41fool's cap and call it
00:31:43a liberty cap.
00:31:46I love the way that
00:31:48Thoreau called out
00:31:50everybody.
00:31:52He didn't just call out
00:31:53the Southerners.
00:31:56He was calling out
00:31:58people in Massachusetts,
00:32:00and he wasn't shy about
00:32:02there.
00:32:04Show me a free state
00:32:06and a court truly of
00:32:09justice, and I will
00:32:11fight for them if need
00:32:12be.
00:32:13But show me Massachusetts,
00:32:16and I refuse her my
00:32:19allegiance, and express
00:32:21contempt for her
00:32:23courts.
00:32:26He says, laws will not
00:32:28make men free.
00:32:29Men must make the
00:32:30laws free.
00:32:32So, to be a good
00:32:33citizen of the
00:32:34government, you have
00:32:35to be willing to
00:32:36argue with it.
00:32:37You have to be willing
00:32:39to disobey it.
00:32:40This is the way to
00:32:41express your love and
00:32:42patriotism.
00:32:44I walk toward one of
00:32:46our ponds, but what
00:32:48signifies the beauty
00:32:50of nature when men
00:32:52are base?
00:32:55Who can be serene in
00:32:57a country where both
00:32:59both the rulers and
00:33:00the ruled are without
00:33:02principle?
00:33:04The remembrance of my
00:33:06country spoils my walk.
00:33:12Alone in the distant
00:33:14woods or fields, even in
00:33:16a bleak and, to most,
00:33:18cheerless day like this,
00:33:20cold and solitude are
00:33:22friends of mine.
00:33:25I wish to get the
00:33:26conquered, the
00:33:28Massachusetts, the
00:33:29America, out of my
00:33:31head and be sane a
00:33:33part of every day.
00:33:35I wish to be made
00:33:36better.
00:33:38I wish to forget.
00:33:42Thoreau now began to
00:33:43feel a weakness in his
00:33:45legs, another symptom of
00:33:47tuberculosis that left
00:33:49him, he wrote, sick and
00:33:51good for nothing but to
00:33:52lie on my back.
00:33:54Thoreau had tuberculosis
00:33:56most of his adult life,
00:33:57and it's a wasting
00:33:59disease that makes you
00:34:00weak and exhausted.
00:34:02He had a terminal
00:34:03disease and he knew it.
00:34:06When he's talking about
00:34:08driving life into a
00:34:10corner, not getting to
00:34:12the end of his life and
00:34:13saying he has not lived,
00:34:14he means that.
00:34:17He's saying, I don't know
00:34:18when my time's going to be
00:34:19up, I'm not going to
00:34:20waste a minute.
00:34:21He kept active,
00:34:23traveling to visit
00:34:24friends, making trips to
00:34:26do research at the
00:34:27Harvard Library, and
00:34:29continuing to work as a
00:34:31surveyor.
00:34:32He even took two lengthy
00:34:34walking excursions to
00:34:35Cape Cod.
00:34:37In July of 1857, he left
00:34:40on his third and most
00:34:42ambitious trip to Maine,
00:34:43this time with his
00:34:45friend, Edward Hoare.
00:34:49The first stop, once
00:34:50again, was on Indian
00:34:52Island to find a guide.
00:34:55So in his third journey,
00:34:57the Indian guide becomes
00:34:58the whole point.
00:34:59I think there's a very
00:35:00clear sense that he wants
00:35:01to find someone who can
00:35:03bring to life and test what
00:35:04he's been reading about all
00:35:06these years in Indian
00:35:06notebooks.
00:35:07And I think he really wanted
00:35:10to have a more immersive
00:35:12experience and really get to
00:35:16know what it means to be in
00:35:19this nature.
00:35:20They hired Joe Polis, a
00:35:24Penobscot spiritual and
00:35:25political leader.
00:35:27Polis is in his yard.
00:35:30He's skinning a deer hide
00:35:31against a slanted log, but
00:35:34he's amongst these manicured
00:35:36gardens.
00:35:38There's some sophistication to
00:35:39Polis.
00:35:41He's articulate.
00:35:42He's very knowledgeable.
00:35:44But he also is very
00:35:46indigenous.
00:35:47And Thoreau's trying to
00:35:49grapple with those two
00:35:51pieces of Polis.
00:35:56Together, they would travel
00:35:58more than 300 miles up the
00:36:00Aliash Lakes and then down
00:36:02the east branch of the
00:36:03Penobscot River by canoe
00:36:05and on foot, including
00:36:07portages around waterfalls
00:36:09and river rapids.
00:36:10They carried the canoe and
00:36:13their supplies, hundreds of
00:36:15pounds in all, through
00:36:16mosquito-infested, muddy
00:36:18swamps and dense forests.
00:36:21The trip gave Henry another
00:36:24opportunity to learn about how
00:36:26natives negotiated the main
00:36:28wilderness.
00:36:31Thoreau is watching Penobscot
00:36:33person living with incredibly
00:36:35intricate knowledge of the
00:36:36land as part of who they are.
00:36:40When we say , all our
00:36:44relations, we mean
00:36:46everything.
00:36:48Minerals, trees, rocks.
00:36:51Those are our relations.
00:36:53Because without them, we know
00:36:55it would be nothing, right?
00:36:58Thoreau thinks, I can never
00:37:00have that other half of what
00:37:02Polis has, that indigenous
00:37:04half.
00:37:06Polis taught Henry the words his
00:37:09people used for plants and
00:37:11herbs, leaves and roots.
00:37:14It's a dynamic, verb-oriented
00:37:18language.
00:37:20A jesatigwe is one who's painted
00:37:23many colors.
00:37:24That's a dragonfly.
00:37:25The word for a birch bark canoe is
00:37:28a-guidin.
00:37:29And it means that which floats
00:37:32lightly.
00:37:33You get this characteristic that
00:37:35is embedded within the meaning of
00:37:39that word.
00:37:41The more he asks Polis about what each
00:37:43word is, the closer he is getting to
00:37:46understand that indigenous worldview of the
00:37:49nature around him.
00:37:50And what a gift.
00:37:53Thoreau instantly grasps that means the
00:37:56American white culture has a lot to
00:37:58learn from native people.
00:38:00Very different way of being in the
00:38:01world.
00:38:02And language is one of the key entry
00:38:03points into it.
00:38:06For Thoreau, going from calling the
00:38:09tribe on its way to extinction to a
00:38:12point where Polis is a person who he
00:38:15admires the most.
00:38:17He sees these men beyond the color of
00:38:20their skin.
00:38:22And he grows as a human being in
00:38:26relationship to this indigenous
00:38:28culture.
00:38:29But his goal was never really to use
00:38:31that to politically help native
00:38:33communities.
00:38:35His goal was really to reform white
00:38:37society, to make it more responsive to
00:38:40the environment, to make it less
00:38:42immersed in this really rapacious
00:38:44capitalist world he can see coming.
00:38:48And he comes back from Maine with a
00:38:50deeper appreciation for what it means
00:38:52to live in your native ground.
00:38:55And eventually he starts to go over his
00:38:57journals and gather the notes of his
00:38:59own place and to track much more
00:39:02carefully the phenomenon of Conqueror
00:39:04that will become the calendar project.
00:39:06His great final project, which is this
00:39:08grand account of the Conqueror ecosystem.
00:39:13Why should just these sights and sounds
00:39:16accompany our life?
00:39:18I would fain explore the mysterious
00:39:21relation between myself and these
00:39:24things.
00:39:25Make a chart of our life.
00:39:28Know how its shores trend, that
00:39:30butterflies reappear and when.
00:39:34know why just this circle of creatures
00:39:37completes the world.
00:39:40The depth of what he included in his
00:39:43records is pretty unique.
00:39:46He cared enough about it to want to be
00:39:50present at the opening of every wildflower
00:39:53in the spring.
00:39:56The calendar charts are the study of the
00:40:00climate as it changes through the seasons.
00:40:04And he always was moving toward this kind of
00:40:06greater and greater fullness of vision to
00:40:09bring many perspectives, many temporal
00:40:12points together into a kind of symphony.
00:40:17Thoreau poured through decades of his seasonal
00:40:20observations and combined them with new ones,
00:40:23creating records so precise they have proven to
00:40:26be invaluable for scientists measuring the effects of
00:40:30climate change almost 200 years later.
00:40:34You can't see climate, but you can see the
00:40:37manifestation of a climate change in the
00:40:39phenomenon around you.
00:40:41So if you can have measurements from the 1850s,
00:40:46people can really understand things have changed.
00:40:50He wrote, don't underrate the value of a fact.
00:40:54One day a fact will flower into a truth.
00:40:59In the summer of 1859, Henry also began collecting
00:41:03data about the ever-changing Concord River.
00:41:07Henry began to see the river as a whole entity with
00:41:11its own unique history, culture, and laws.
00:41:15The data he collected was for him further proof of
00:41:19what he had seen in Maine, Cape Cod, and elsewhere.
00:41:23The signs of inevitable decline caused by human
00:41:27efforts to tame nature's wildness.
00:41:32He began to imagine natural places that humankind might
00:41:36one day simply leave alone, where a stick should never be
00:41:41cut for fuel, a common possession forever.
00:41:46He spent 18 months with the River Project, and he was still
00:41:50on it, hardcore, until the John Brown affair kicked in.
00:41:53And when that kicked in, he dropped it because that's the higher
00:41:57calling.
00:41:58In his essay, Civil Disobedience, Thoreau had asserted
00:42:03that each citizen should resist a government that supported
00:42:06slavery.
00:42:08A militant abolitionist named John Brown had a more aggressive
00:42:12strategy, armed resistance.
00:42:17Back in 1856, after a series of clashes between pro and
00:42:22anti-slavery militia, Brown had killed five unarmed, pro-slavery,
00:42:27settlers in Kansas.
00:42:30Brown traveled to Concord in 1857, looking for support for his
00:42:34cause, and went there again in May of 1859.
00:42:39During that visit, Henry met with Brown, and would later describe
00:42:43him as a meteor, flashing through the darkness in which we live.
00:42:49That fall, John Brown and his men raided the Federal Armory at
00:42:54Harpers Ferry, Virginia, hoping to arm a slave uprising with the
00:42:59weapons there.
00:43:01They failed, and Brown was captured.
00:43:06John Brown is a conundrum.
00:43:08You can look at him very clearly and make an argument that he is a terrorist, and you
00:43:14can also call him a liberator.
00:43:15But it became a tipping point, John Brown.
00:43:18He became a symbol for anti-slavery.
00:43:22It galls me to listen to the remarks of craven-hearted neighbors who speak
00:43:28disparagingly of Brown because he resorted to violence, resisted the
00:43:33government, threw his life away.
00:43:36What way have they thrown their lives, pray?
00:43:42Such minds are not equal to the occasion.
00:43:46He sits down and he writes, and he writes, and he writes, assuming that Brown will be executed.
00:43:54He wants to get the word out before a judgment is made.
00:44:01On October 30th, Thoreau gave a fiery speech in Concord, the first person to
00:44:07publicly defend Brown's actions.
00:44:10I do not wish to kill or be killed, he asserted.
00:44:14But I can foresee circumstances in which both these things would be by me unavoidable.
00:44:22He's saying, forget the law, forget what the federal government says, you know what's
00:44:27right and wrong.
00:44:28And if people have to die to do away with slavery, we have an obligation to do it.
00:44:35John Brown was hanged on December 2nd.
00:44:40Thoreau wrote a news speech called The Last Days of John Brown.
00:44:44It was read aloud six months later at Brown's gravesite.
00:44:50He is the clearest light that shines on this land, he wrote.
00:44:54He is an angel of light.
00:44:58What is it about John Brown that so shifts, like it's a seismic shift in Henry David's life?
00:45:07He realized what it takes to achieve change.
00:45:12The issue of slavery would be decided on the battlefield.
00:45:24January 1st, 1860, a friend of Thoreau's invited him to a dinner party, because they just got a copy of
00:45:32a new book by Charles Darwin, Origin of Species.
00:45:36Thorough quickly got a hold of that book and read it voraciously.
00:45:42Darwin's Origin of Species introduced natural selection, the idea that the most adaptable members of a species pass on their
00:45:52traits to the next generation,
00:45:54instead of the long-established belief that all species had been created by God.
00:46:01Thoreau was so excited by what he read in Darwin, because Thoreau too saw a world that was dynamic, constantly
00:46:11undergoing transformation.
00:46:14He was puzzled by why you'd cut down pines and oaks would spring up, and why you would cut down
00:46:19oaks and pines would spring up.
00:46:20So he pursues his own idiosyncratic form of science.
00:46:25One day in June of 1860, he threw a stick of wood against a pine tree in bloom.
00:46:32As the pollen floated away in a cloud, he realized just how far it could travel.
00:46:41Charles Darwin said, there's something that we don't understand,
00:46:45which is how it is that the succession of forest trees works in North America.
00:46:51And it must have astonished Thoreau, because he had been working on precisely that scientific question,
00:46:58intensively for three or four years.
00:47:03In September, Thoreau delivered a lecture called Succession of Forest Trees,
00:47:09in which he answered the question that had puzzled Darwin.
00:47:13The key to the mystery of how different species of trees grew where they hadn't before, Thoreau argued, was seeds.
00:47:23A beautiful thin sack is woven around the seed with a handle to it, such as the wind can take
00:47:32hold of,
00:47:33and it is then committed to the wind expressly that it may transport the seed and extend the range of
00:47:40the species.
00:47:42This is new knowledge.
00:47:45Because seeds travel, he could prove that species were moving often great distances across landscapes.
00:47:54I have great faith in a seed.
00:47:58Convince me you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.
00:48:06Thoreau's literary agent in New York, Horace Greeley, published the essay, and it was picked up by newspapers nationwide.
00:48:15He'd worked out the complete theory.
00:48:18It turned him into our first pioneering plant ecologist.
00:48:23He literally invented an entire science.
00:48:34August 15th, 1861.
00:48:38My cold turned to bronchitis, which made me a close prisoner.
00:48:45My ordinary pursuits, both indoor and out, have been for the most part omitted.
00:48:53Indeed, I have been sick so long that I've almost forgotten what it is to be well.
00:49:00In early spring, Henry had begun having more serious symptoms of the illness that had plagued him off and on
00:49:07for most of his life.
00:49:10Henry contracted what he hoped was a cold, and then perhaps hoped was bronchitis, but indeed was tuberculosis in 1860.
00:49:20He would have known the signs.
00:49:23In September, he managed to visit Walden Pond.
00:49:28Sophia was with him.
00:49:30It would be his last trip there.
00:49:35His illness steadily worsened and eventually confined him to his bed in the family home.
00:49:42He could write only intermittently.
00:49:44When Henry could no longer hold a pen, Sophia served as his scribe.
00:49:51Together, they collected, edited, and revised essays that would become the Maine Woods and Cape Cod.
00:49:58And he always was moving toward this kind of greater and greater fullness of vision.
00:50:04But he knows he doesn't have long.
00:50:08He couldn't walk outside anymore.
00:50:11So his own journal becomes his representation of nature that he could then walk into.
00:50:20It is pleasant to walk over the beds of these fresh, crisp, and rustling leaves.
00:50:27They that soared so loftily and are laid low, resigned to lie and decay at the foot of the tree,
00:50:36and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind, as well as to flutter on high.
00:50:45They teach us how to die.
00:50:50Surrounded by his family, Henry David Thoreau died at 9 o'clock in the morning on May 6, 1862.
00:50:59He was just 44 years old.
00:51:03His passing was so peaceful that Sophia wrote,
00:51:07I feel as if something very beautiful has happened.
00:51:11Some say the last words of the naturalist, who had so many transcendent experiences, were simply moose, Indian.
00:51:22Sophia, who was reading to him about his river trip with John, said that his last words were,
00:51:29Now comes good sailing.
00:51:37We found our boat in the dawn, just as we had left it.
00:51:42As if waiting for us, there on the shore, all cool and dripping with dew.
00:51:51We too, brothers and natives of Concord, with a vigorous shove,
00:51:57we launched our boat from the bank and dropped silently down the stream.
00:52:04We bade adieu to familiar outlines and addressed ourselves to new scenes and adventures.
00:52:13Nought was familiar, but the heavens.
00:52:23Three days later, after the church bell tolled 44 times, Concord gathered for his funeral.
00:52:32School had been dismissed early so that the students, more than 300 in all, could attend.
00:52:40Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered the eulogy.
00:52:46He was bred to no profession.
00:52:49He never married.
00:52:51He lived alone.
00:52:53He chose wisely, no doubt for himself, to be the bachelor of thought and nature.
00:53:01Mr. Thoreau dedicated his genius with such entire love to the fields, hills and waters of his native town.
00:53:12He knew the country like a fox or a bird and passed through it as freely by paths of his
00:53:20own.
00:53:21I cannot help counting it.
00:53:24I cannot help counting it a fault in him that he had no ambition.
00:53:28Wanting this, instead of engineering for all America, he was the captain of a Huckleberry party.
00:53:38But these foibles, real or apparent, were fast vanishing in the incessant growth of a spirit so robust and wise.
00:53:49So noble a soul that he should depart out of nature before yet he has been really shown to his
00:53:56peers for what he is.
00:54:00But he, at least, is content.
00:54:05The last sentence in Walden is, the sun is but a morning star.
00:54:10What does he mean?
00:54:11It means you've just begun to think through the meaning and the significance of what I've produced here.
00:54:35As Thoreau said,
00:54:38Don't, when you come to die, discover that you have not lived.
00:54:44He died young, but he didn't end his life realizing he had not lived.
00:54:52It happens to millions of people today and then to realize,
00:54:57I just existed. I just lived. I don't know what it meant. I never really figured it out.
00:55:03He was arguing for being aware at all times, to waking up to the facts of your life,
00:55:11to being conscious, being aware, being present.
00:55:18The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
00:55:24They honestly think there is no choice left.
00:55:29Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable,
00:55:37but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
00:55:44We built the world that Thoreau feared.
00:55:47A world that's so noisy and crowded that we don't have any time to think for ourselves anymore.
00:55:53Most people are hostage to their upbringing, their economic status,
00:55:59and they don't get excited about the adventure of being alive.
00:56:04And it's like watching an incredible birthright being extinguished
00:56:09because we're muddling through life.
00:56:12And that's the death of freedom.
00:56:16Many of the decisions that pertain to our lives have been made by others,
00:56:21been made by circumstances that have been beyond our control.
00:56:24A very human-centered view of the world has now raised the temperature to the point where
00:56:31our great forests catch on fire, where already hundreds of millions of people
00:56:38can no longer live in the places where they were born.
00:56:43Thoreau intuits that if we're going to make it,
00:56:46we're going to have to turn to the natural world for help.
00:56:51Ian Wildness is the preservation of the world.
00:56:54It feels as if the whole living world is calling out to us to pay attention.
00:57:02But he says, you know, even in the muck of all this,
00:57:06I encountered a white water lily.
00:57:09And lilies like that grow in slime and grow in spite of it.
00:57:16He was open always to accepting signs from nature that all was not lost.
00:57:24Thoreau was saying, if you're beginning to die within, take measures right now.
00:57:29There must be some cabin in the woods within you.
00:57:32There must be some space where you can regenerate yourself
00:57:35and remember what is most essential to you.
00:57:39I think Thoreau gives us the bridge to do that.
00:57:42If we would just open up our heads and hearts to those lessons,
00:57:49I think it could take us a long way on that path.
00:57:52And here he is, still offering these messages.
00:57:58It's up to us to open the book and read.
00:58:02There is a season for everything.
00:58:07You must live in the present.
00:58:09Launch yourself on every wave.
00:58:13Find your eternity in each moment.
00:58:17Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land.
00:58:25There is no other land.
00:58:28There is no other life but this.
00:58:31Henry David Thoreau.
00:58:59Henry David Thoreau.
00:59:11There is no other land we will glide in.
00:59:11You are lucky enough tiger to hear andيل.
00:59:15When he has a horse on it, you think,
00:59:17heites over 콩omb materiaque into the country that he built.
00:59:17You will be able to receive an example.
00:59:17By the way.
00:59:26He Food The Parkes Aristarch
00:59:26It is time for the sky…
00:59:31There is no other life there.
00:59:31The Buddha used to the sea всем who slot your address with you
00:59:32Scan this QR code with your smart device to watch the whole series and learn more about Henry David Thoreau.
00:59:41The Henry David Thoreau DVD is available online and in stores.
00:59:46The series is also available with PBS Passport and on Amazon Prime Video.
00:59:52The digital companion soundtrack is also available online.
01:00:16The Henry David Thoreau DVD is available on Amazon Prime Video.
01:01:00The Henry David Thoreau DVD is available on Amazon Prime Video.
01:01:21The Henry David Thoreau DVD is available on Amazon Prime Video.
01:01:31The Neil and Anna Rasmussen Foundation and by the Better Angel Society members, the Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment
01:01:38and Mark A. Tracy.
01:01:41Additional funding was provided by Roxanne Quimby Foundation, Jim and Mona Milan through the HeartSpace Fund, and Elizabeth Kenny.
Comments