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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 15, 1884)
THE HESPERIAN STUDENT. K he ghtdmts' gcrap ooh, YE EDITOR. HyG. V. Onorrs, Who tolls cnch day from ropy morn Till sunset hues the hills adorn, And seeks his couch weary and worn? Yo editor. Who fishes Items ono by one From every babbling mother's eon, And maketh now and then n pun? Yo editor. Who wakes tbo world up with a whnck And puts a backbone In its back And sends it rolling on ite track! Ye editor. Who is It that must ovor mix In science, creeds, and politics, And bring to light all ports ol tricks ? Yo editor. Who Is it that must ovor please? When others snuff who thon must sneeze, And trim his pail to every breeze? Yo editor Who is it somotlmcB is abused And sees that naughty word "refused," And o'en of lying is accused? Yo editor. Who could wo never do without Along this dreary earthly route Where wo all need a guide and scout? Yo editor. Who ought wo thon to patronlzo And whoso bravo work most highly prize And firmly eland by till bodies? Yo editor. HENRY DAVID THOREAU. A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince. Genius is not tetnincr to any em peror, and thoughts form a mind, than which in its inde pendence and simplicity, the age has scarce produced a greater. To ho rightly appreciated, Thoroau requires more than a casual reading his character must bo studied in his works. In such marked contrasts arc his ideas of life to those of most men, Hint ho cannot fail to interest. "I am wont to think," he says, "that men are not so much the keepers of herds jib herds are ihe keepers of men, tho former are so much freer. The sight of tho farmer toil ing early and late, day afler day, prompls tho question, does tho man own tho farm or the farm own tho man. Tho advance of civilization, ho contends, has not severed its true purpose. It has mado the formula of living more complicated than tho restilt. Men have become tho tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked tho fruits when ho was hungry is become a farmer, and he who Btood under a treo for shelter, a house-keeper. Tho native independence nnd untrammelled simplicity, which lie admires in tho savage is lost in tho man on whom civ ilization hag placed its shackles, and "tho fall" as he styles it, "from Ihe faimer to the operative is as great and memorable as Ihe fall from the man to tho farmer." Our appetite for news is but an unworthy taste for gossip If you havo read of ono railroad disaster, one steamboat ex plosion, one man robbed and murdered, you need novor read of another. If you are acquainted with tho principle what do you care for a thousand instances and applica tion ? As for England, almost tlto last significant scrap of news from that quarter was the revolution of 1040. Of America's thinkers and writers Henry David Tlio cau is perhaps (lie most intensely original. Born in Concord, Massachusetts, July 1817, he was tho last male descendant of a Froncli ancestor who came from the Isle of Guernsey. Ilia character also bore the stamp of a strong Saxon element. Graduating from Harvard at the age of twenty he disappointed the expectations of iiis friend in that while his classmates were turning their en. orgies to law. medicine aud theology, ho alouo remained unsettled. Look in what direction he would, the profess ions seemed narrow. Their limitations were as fetters to his restless ambition for knowledge. For a time ho aided his father in the manufacture of poncils, determined to make a better than was thon in uso in this couutry. At length, having produced ono which was pronounced equal to the London made, he was besot with tho congrat ulations of friends, assuring him that an easy road to fortune thus lay open. He merely unswored, "Why should I do over again wmt I have done once?" His rare skill in mathematics and his love for the fields next led him into the occupation ol surveyor, though no labor was ever pursued except as a means. To him tho highest art of living, and the great problem towards whose solu tion he bent every energy, was to settle all his practice on an ideal foundation. To this end the study of nature became his chief and especial delight; tor Nature is idoal in all her operations. Never has alio of her own accord formed an imperfect leaf. Has the rosoa blighted lioart? There was a "worm in the bud." Wo talk of tho "freaks" of nature only because tho deforming causes arc hidden from our eyes. Art has copied but never equalled her ideality. Inquisitive scienco, not content with min ing for her secrets, has attempted to ttlflo with hor purity. It has poured dyesupon theroolsofher peonies and chang ed their colors. It has gone to tho wild luxuriance of hor fields, plucked her modest daisies and placing tholr storas in aniline ink, brought Ihe blush of shame to thoir cheeks. Loving nature so well, Thoreau ontertaiiioii a sincore jealousy of cities and tho sad havoc their artifices made with her children. Tho nxe was always being laid at tho root of tho forest,' "Thank God" ho cried, "They cannot cut down the clouds." That his communings wllh nature might have tho charm ol solitude, he would fain dwell wllh her apart Accordingly in tho spring of 1845, ho became a hermit Ho erected a hut with his own bauds on tho shores of Waldon pond near Concord, a placo henceforth over in-' foresting to Amorican readers. In speaking of this stop ho says, "I went to the woods because 1 wanted to live deliberately to front only tho essential facts of life, and seo if I could not learn what it hnd to teach, and not when I came to nio discovor that I had not lived. I wautcd to live so sturdily aud Spartan-llko us to put to rout all that was not life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and if it proved to be moan, why thon to get tho whole nnd ponuino meanness of it, and to publish its meanness to tho world or if it wore sublime, to know it by oxperlenco." Hero wo may follow him in his soli-
