Walden: Where I Lived, and What I Lived For Summary & Analysis

Where should his house be located? Thoreau considers. He has talked to all the nearby farmers and imagined buying their houses and living there. He believes a place in the country to be best, far from the village. In his imagination, he lays out the plans to many houses and then decides against building them, because he says true richness is leaving things alone.

The nearest Thoreau came to possessing a house was when he intended to buy the Hollowell farm, but then the farmer's wife changed her mind and didn't want to sell. He discusses the virtues of the farm, but in the end is content not to have compromised his poverty by acquiring it, and he says he took with him the beauty of the landscape, which is the best part of the farm.

On Independence Day, 1845, Thoreau begins living in the woods full-time, during nights as well as days. The house, not yet finished, is glorious because it is a part of nature, with the wind blowing through it and the company of birds.

Thoreau's first impression of the pond, which is sometimes misty in the early morning, sometimes still and clear as when there is a gentle rain, is that it is like a "lower heaven," with the vista and mountains spreading out behind it.

Though men are in the habit of imagining faraway lands, Thoreau finds that his new living place, so close by, has all the glories of nature and made him feel just as far away from his previous life as if he had traveled far.

Morning is Thoreau's invitation to make his life simple and commune with nature. Every morning he bathes in the pond, calling it a "religious exercise." He calls morning the time that all important events, including poetry and art, occur. It is the time that "intelligences wake," as say the Vedas.

Thoreau urges each man to awaken fully and "elevate his life by conscious endeavor." It is a man's duty to make every moment of his life meaningful. Thoreau went to the woods to "live deliberately." He has faith in simplicity as the path to spiritual wakefulness.

Thoreau laughs about the absurdity of a man who wakes from a nap and asks for the news when he is not really awake to life. He rails against the post-office, saying he has never read something truly important in a letter or even in a newspaper, which contains only gossip.

Men often confuse the appearance of things with reality, Thoreau believes, but with true wisdom and unhurriedness it is possible to get past "petty pleasures" and perceive matters of true worth. God is in the present moment. In order to experience spiritual truth, one must spend one's days as deliberately as nature.