From walden by henry david thor
at a certain season of our life we are co m e every spot as the possible site of a house. i have thus surveyed
the country on every side within a
where it is imagination i have bought at the farms in succession, for all
were to be bought and i know the price. i
w o w each farmer's premises, tasted his wild apples, discoursed on husbandry
with him, took his farm at his price at any price, mortgaging it to him in my mind, even put a higher price on it-took everything
but a deed of it took his worked for his deed for idearly love to tak cultivated it, and him too to some extent, i trust, and
withdrew when i had enjoyed it long enough, leaving him to carry it on
this experience entitled me to be regarded as a sort of real estate broker by my friends. wherever i sat, there i might live, and
the landscape radiated from me accordingly. what is a house but a sedes, a seat? -better if a country seat. i discovered many a
site for a house not likely to be soon improved, which some might have thought too far from the village, but to my eyes the
village was too far from it. well, there i might live, i said, and there i did live, for an hour, a summer and a winter life, saw how i
could let the years run off, buffet the winter through, and see the spring come in
3 the future inhabitants of this region, wherever they may place their houses, may be sure that they have been anticipated. an
aftemoon sufficed to lay out the land into orchard woodlot, and pasture, and to decide what fine oaks or pines should be left to
stand before the door, and whence each blasted tree could be seen to the best advantage, and then i let it lie, fallow perchance,
for a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.
4 my imagination carried me so far that i even had the refusal of several refusal was all i wanted --but i never got my
gingers burned by actual possession. the nearest that i came to actual possession was when i bought the hollowell place, and
had begun to sort my seeds, and collected materials with which to make a wheelbarrow to carry it on or off with; but before the
owner gave me a deed of it, his wife-every man has such a wife-changed her mind and wished to keep it, and he offered me
ten dollars to release him.
5 now, to speak the truth, i had but ten cents in the world, and it surpassed my arithmetic to tell, if i was than man who had ten
cents, or who had a farm, or ten dollars, or all together. however, i let him keep the ten dollars and the farm too, for i had carried
it far enough; or rather, to be generous, i sold him the farm for just what i gave for it an, as he was not a rich man, made him a
present of ten dollars, and still had my ten cents, and seeds, and materials for a wheelbarrow left. i found thus that i had been a
rich man without any damage to my poverty.
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the speaker's attitude in this passage makes it clear that
a)
he thinks that farming is a fool's job and calling
his greatest desire in life is to stop the ownership of private property
he values freedom more than being tied down by owning a farm.
d)
he is only interested in farms as long as they make lots of money,