Walden (Part 1) - Before the Pond

Walden Pond - just 22 miles away from Boston Common - has become synonymous with solitude, retreat and thoughtful reflection. 

Henry David Thoreau  famously builds a log cabin along its shore and describes the assertive tranquility of the water and surrounding area as “Lower Heaven.” 

It’s here where the Thoreau pens the now classic work, Walden

 It’s here where, Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects on the national world. 

It’s here - where people continue to make the pilgrimage to it’s calm shores in the hopes of finding similar solitude …

But the real story of Walden Pond is surprising as well as thought provoking; it provokes our settled assumption of Thoreau as a hermit poet and of the lake as his impenetrable retreat. 

Works Cited:

https://www.amazon.com/Walden-Henry-David-Thoreau/dp/1619493918

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thoreau/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/461300?read-now=1&seq=4#page_scan_tab_contents

https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvrs90hh.12?searchText=henry+david&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dhenry%2Bdavid%26so%3Drel&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Ad123667cd32b752e3fcd984b64929d40

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/j.ctvrs90hh.12.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3A90df29e6fe53afc4ccdf61e002a28f6c&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&origin=&initiator=&acceptTC=1

https://www.walden.org/education/for-students/myths-and-misconceptions/


https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/henry-david-thoreau

https://www.nps.gov/places/walden-pond-in-the-walden-pond-state-reservation.htm

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-David-Thoreau/Legacy

https://www.boston.com/travel/travel/2017/08/09/heres-why-you-should-wander-walden-pond/

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Transcript

Walden  - Before the Pond ( Part 1)

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

 — Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

Walden Pond - just 22 miles away from Boston Common - has become synonymous with solitude, retreat and thoughtful reflection. 

Henry David Thoreau  famously builds a log cabin along its shore and describes the assertive tranquility of the water and surrounding area as “Lower Heaven.” 

It’s here where the Thoreau pens the now classic work, Walden

 It’s here where, Ralph Waldo Emerson reflects on the national world. 

It’s here - where people continue to make the pilgrimage to it’s calm shores in the hopes of finding similar solitude … 

But the real story of Walden Pond is surprising as well as thought provoking; it provokes our settled assumption of Thoreau as a hermit poet and of the lake as his impenetrable retreat.

In part one of our series on Walden Pond - in addition to exploring the live of Henry David Thoreau - we’ll attempt to answer one question - a question that’s more complicated - like much of this story - than it first appears -  …. 

What makes Thoreau retreat to the pond?

Audio #1 

I’m here at Walden Pond, beginning my slow hike towards the former site of Thoreau’s self-built, small log cabin where he spent over two years writing, reflecting and generally hanging out. 

It’s a beautiful, sunny day, a slight breeze creates some movement over the water …. Which is what’s called a “kettle hole”. It was left behind as glaciers retreated the area. The lake (or pond) I’ll use them interchangeably throughout the series - is over 60 acres and it’s deepest point is below something like 100 feet 

So it’s a sizable lake - for whatever reason, I always assumed it was a calm, small lake - but no it would take a but to walk around 

… 

Anyway, when I started research for this series  - questions, upon questions kept surfacing … 

What’s the point at which someone decides to withdraw from society? Right, what’s the breaking point? And why? 

And after that decision is made, what are you hoping to achieve after withdrawing? 

Is it a means to an end or just a general desire to escape the stresses of society? 

Is Walden as a book more attractive because Thoreau is writing from a lived experience? Was this one of his goals in withdrawing? So many creators and authors today will do slightly wild things not because they in their hearts want to but because they know it will make a good story? 

Am I being too cynical? I guess we’ll find out … 

I have so many more questions, but today, let’s not overload ourselves - What makes Thoreau - but really any of us - retreat into nature and our own thoughts?

Without an answer to this question, there is no story, there is no pond …. 

“ I turned more exclusively than ever to the woods, where I was better known” 

               - Walden 

Thoreau is born on July 12th, 1817 in the coridal town where he would spend much of his life - Concord, Massachusetts. 

He is close with his three siblings Helen, John and Sophia… 

He seems to have respected his father - who was a pencil maker - but it’s his mother who instilled in Henry, a love of nature - which he would later often try to recapture  … 

After an education at Concord Academy, Henry attends Harvard in 1833 and graduates four years later … 

Here’s a question that’s never asked:

Who was Henry David Thoreau at and leading up to his graduation at Harvard? 

The answer is, he’s not yet the Thoreau we know - he continuously changes, embraces new ideas, and develops his worldview. 

As for his time at and before Harvard, It’s relatively hard to say, his outlook, beliefs and personality are clouded at this time 

But we can say, he was deeply receptive to new ideas and introspective… 

In 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson - who would go on to play a pivotal if convoluted role in Thoreau’s life asks the young Henry “Do you keep a journal?” 

Emerson had no way of nothing - but this question plants a seed … 

Thoreau would - from then on - keep a journal that would become essential in informing many of his future writings…. 

the child plucks its first flower with an insight into its beauty and significance which the subsequent botanist never retains

• Thoreau 

Why go to the pond? Let’s start with this: 

This idea of “wanting to recapture the wonders of childhood” pops up over and over again in subsequent writings and reflections of Thoreau … 

It’s a very specific feeling of appreciation and connection that - apart from his later experiences in nature - never really seem to fully experience … 

Especially in his relationships with others … and this isn’t because he was weird or antisocial or anything like that - it comes down to one thing : expectation. 

His ideas on love and friendship - basically connection with others … often border on etherial or religious …. 

For example, 

He believes - throughout his life - that friendship and love is most pure most honest when he or she enhances our life by inspiring us to reach our own highest aspirations … 

Which sounds great but, It was - to Thoreau - much less of a collective aspiration. More of two separate singular aspirations. He found it deplorable that: 

“we may love and not elevate one another”

“love that takes us as it finds us, degrades us”

I wouldn’t call it selfish so much as unobtainable … 

We know that he never married, although he had been in love twice - one of which rejected a marriage proposal … 

We also know that eventual his longtime friendship with fellow poet, philosopher, writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson was tumultuous throughout the years…

He had to have become frustrated - because he himself wasn’t a bad friend - we’ve many accounts from the town and Emerson and beyond that provide evidence of his effort to connect - and the desire itself isn’t bad - he was just waiting for something that likely wouldn’t come …

And so was it this frustration with expected connections that led Thoreau to look elsewhere?  Look inwards? Look to the pond? 

Moreover what was it exactly about his childhood, about the days he would roam the woods with his mothers encouragement that he was trying to recapture? 

Dum dum dum 

Audio #2 

The forest is a lot more rough and hilly than I expected … 

Not that it’s a bad thing it’s beautiful - to be able to climb up and see the lake from different vantage points … it must have been fantastic - taking walks in the spring, hearing the birds - all you have on your agenda is to gather food, not die and write … 

I want to share something I’ve been thinking about,  the more I research I do the more I pause and think - yeah, I get it… I’m researching a man who voluntarily chooses to withdraw - slightly, as we’ll find out - from society. 

And think about what I’m doing -  living in a van with just my dog - and it stikes me as a bit similar? 

Is it? I don’t know? Haha 

Did we both withdraw for similar reasons - can I even relate to the extremes Thoreau went to? Building his own house, not quite I don’t think

But at the core, it’s a slight reluctance to walk a path that in so many ways would be easier … 

For me at least, but I’m not so sure about Thoreau … 

Would it have been easier for him to refrain from going to the pond? To stay within society? 

He refers to the masses as living something like “lives of quit desperation”, so I don’t know.

I don’t know… 

Dum dum dum d

“See how he cowers and sneaks, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself. Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion.” 

         -  Thoreau (Walden) 

Dum dum dum 

Thoreau’s working life begins with a teaching job, back in Concord, but this only lasts a few weeks. 

Because he refuses to punish his students physically …. Which actually is the first very small glimpse of a shift between a theoretic minded Thoreau and one of action. One that believes in experience over concepts.  

This trend towards actually doing things rather than simply thinking about them that would grow throughout the remainder of his life. 

…

But for now, recently graduated as well as recently unemployed, Thoreau and his brother John, who he was extremely close to, decide to start up their own school - which lasts from 1838 to 1841…

For years after he dabbles in Land Speculation and works at his father’s pencil factory to supplement his income…. 

But in 1845 an opportunity presents itself …

Ralph Waldo Emerson - who is at this point a friend to Thoreau, a former mentor, and someone who maintains a similar - if not entirely identical - romantically inclined worldview. 

Decides to buy acres of forested land around Walden Pond to preserve its beauty… and possibly place future studies in which to write… 

Incidentally, at this time - for reasons we’ll discuss -  Thoreau is considering what he refers to as an “experiment.” An intentional withdrawal from society into nature… 

Intrigued, Emerson agrees to agrees to let Thoreau - live out this experiments - and reside on his recently acquired land (presumably) in exchange for building the cabin he knew Thoreau would build … 

Whatever the case, it was mutually advantageous - Emerson would have his future study and Thoreau has a place from which to conduct his 

“experiment” in living simply. 

dum dum dum 

Direct your eye right inward, and you’ll find

A thousand regions in your mind 

Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be

Expert in home-cosmography 

           - Thoreau (Walden) 

Dum dum dum 

Audio #3 

There’s a rock at the edge of the lake that was calling my name - so I’m hanging out there now - 

I’m in no rush - the previous cabin sight is still a mile further or so … 

It is beautiful …. 

On the surface you can absolutely see why someone would be drawn to this place … 

Look, the desire for seclusion makes sense - the reasons - especially for Thoreau are many and varied BUT make sense …. 

Thoreau is not the hermit poet he’s so often characterized as …  but I’ll say this,  the reasons for his volunteered seclusion aren’t just for his “so called experiment” - they are as varied and as human as ever… 

The more you look at his story, the longer you’re along Walden Lake - the more human and frankly reactive rather than assertive this story seems to be… 

Dum dum dum 

Why did Thoreau go to Walden Pond? 

To start, these  memories - the ones he seems to have always tried to recapture  have something to do with his decision to go to the pond. 

Back at Harvard, Henry spent a summer at a pond with his friend Charles Wheeler - there they lived in a small cabin, slept on bunks of straw, passed the time by reading, sleeping and relaxing … 

If it sounds familiar, Thoreau would later site this experience as an inspiration for his retreat to the pond. 

Memories over him and his mother’s shared fascination with nature also seems to have played a rather nostalgic role in pushing him towards the pond … 

the child plucks its first flower with an insight into its beauty and significance which the subsequent botanist never retains

• Thoreau 

His descent to the pond is - in part - an attempt to recapture these lost feelings…. 

There’s also - as we discussed - his high expectations for love and friendship…. 

Expectations that would likely never be met - he would go on to proclaim that a friend should be approached with “Sacred Love and Awe” 

Friends are great, but damn… 

It’s my interpretation that when these expectations failed to be met, Thoreau seeks this connection elsewhere. In nature. 

His dear brother John, also died, prior to his trip to the pond. 

It’s no easy thing, to loose such a close - charished friend - especially when you consider so few to be true friends. 

Finally, there is more meta, intellectual, moral reasons for his choice… All of which we’ll get into in the future but the core is this: 

Whatever he did, he wished to do intentionally. 

Few things frightened Thoreoua more than a zombie walk to his own grave. 

He would not blindly follow the crowd’s whims and wishes; he would look inward and determine for himself the way of things… 

Dum dum dum 

Direct your eye right inward, and you’ll find

A thousand regions in your mind 

Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be

Expert in home-cosmography 

           - Thoreau (Walden) 

Dum dum dum 

In 1845, Thoreau set’s off to his pond.

The experience he has, philosophy he hones, political thought he solidifies, ethics he proclaims, writings he produces … that’s a story for another day… 

The reasons for Henry David Thoreau’s great experiment are now behind him, the experience itself, lies ahead… 

A spot at the shore of Walden Pond waits for its writer …. 

Dum dum dum 

Thank you for listening to part 1 of probably 3 on Walden and Thoreau - the more you look into these things the more excited you get and more information you want to share. 

If you find value in the show - taking a quick minute to give it a written rating helps Noodles and I continue to do the amount of research we’d like to do… 

A bit of practical advice if you’re looking to walk the shores of the pond - which I would recommend - even for a brief hike it’s beautiful. 

Parking is $15 if you don’t want to walk a bit $8 for in state visitors - dogs aren’t allowed which was a bit of a bummer, you can ride the MBTA commuter trail (Fitchburg line) to the concord stop from Boston then take an uber 

It’s 22 miles - which is so surprising - I always thought it was incredibly secluded - just how close Thoraou was to - let’s say a town center - might surprise you even more! 

But you’ll have to wait until next week my friends - Noodles and I are off

Be good to each other - where to next…