He was met upon the threshold by a common
difficulty. In this world, in spite of its many agreeable
features, even the most sensitive must undergo some drudgery
to live. It is not possible to devote your time to study and
meditation without what are quaintly but happily denominated
private means; these absent, a man must contrive to earn his
bread by some service to the public such as the public cares
to pay him for; or, as Thoreau loved to put it, Apollo must
serve Admetus. This was to Thoreau even a sourer necessity
than it is to most; there was a love of freedom, a strain of
the wild man, in his nature, that rebelled with violence
against the yoke of custom; and he was so eager to cultivate
himself and to be happy in his own society, that he could
consent with difficulty even to the interruptions of
friendship. "SUCH ARE MY ENGAGEMENTS TO MYSELF that I dare
not promise," he once wrote in answer to an invitation; and
the italics are his own. Marcus Aurelius found time to study
virtue, and between whiles to conduct the imperial affairs of
Rome; but Thoreau is so busy improving himself, that he must
think twice about a morning call. And now imagine him
condemned for eight hours a day to some uncongenial and
unmeaning business! He shrank from the very look of the
mechanical in life; all should, if possible, be sweetly
spontaneous and swimmingly progressive.
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