Walden
Thoreau was known to me by one of his most famous works, Solitude, about five or
six years ago. Though I have to confess that time I couldn’t take in what all
his intended to tell, still, I was deep touched by his poetic, pastoral writing
style, and the hush countenance that I often imagined he had had all the time.
From then on, several years had run off without my noticing of it. Somewhat I even fail to remember what exactly Solitude talked about, but, Thoreau, the writer
of it, still vividly stands on my mind, which thus easily picked Walden out from throngs of books the other day when I strolled in the bookstore.
Some critic thinks this book is one of the best books among its times. The writer wrote down what he himself experienced by the Walden by acute observation and
contemplation. His distinct writing aims to tell readers that how simple life itself indeed could be. Simplify, simplify, he always said.
In his Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, which here I took an instance for Walden, many of his sparkling, wonderful thoughts could be seen by virtue of plain
narration. So here instead of commenting on it boldly, I would just quote some
so that you may see yourself what it was about, without any bias for or against
it.
“Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. I have been as sincere a worshipper
of Aurora as the Greeks…. The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an
hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night.”
“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away,
but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet…
.”
Xu Chi, a famous Chinese writer, once said: Walden is a book about solitude, tranquility, and wisdom. Only one who carries a heart of hush can take in the holy
wisdom sparkling between the words, and can experience, with the writer of it, the spiritual happiness which divine Nature brings us.
For me, I still can’t say that up so far I have been able to appreciate all of
the writer’s wisdom embodied in the book. But one thing that I do can say is that no matter how much we could take in, and appreciate what his two-year-and-above reclusive life by the lake, Walden, brings us, it is in any way a one hundred
percent worth-reading book.
Thoreau once said that a man was rich in proportion to the number of things which he could afford to let alone. And he also said that as long as possible live free and uncommitted, it makes but little difference whether you are committed to
a farm or the county jail.
That is, when we people hustling and bustling about all the time in this material-rampant society, is it possible that we may let everything alone for a while,
turn on the lamp, shut out all the daily chaos, and just let a good book, like Walden, relieve our restless and blundering heart with its refreshing, and unaffected words?
Caroline.
