Litchfield enquirer., 1874-08-06
SuperTuous Expense.

AOuA ucCCccdIACSs 4uo udDle0 OA oOCIctJ often establish the scale of individual ex- penditure much too high for the average income, and the lives of thousands are made unhappy in the vain endeavor to keep up to style of living beyond their means. No sooner does the ingenuity of the laborer devise machinery for the all deviation of his toll, than society devises new wants that task the full power of the laborer, even with his improved machin- cry, to supply. Woman is the greatest sinner and sufferer in this regard. Awell known instance shows the evil activity tEat, restrained from its proper field of enterprise, expends itself in what the the ologian might term works of supereroga- tion. The invention of the sewing ma chine seemed the greatest possible boon to woman; it bid fair to shorten her most continuous and wearying labor by half, yet we are told that it has increased it. The amount of superfuous sewing now done takes as much time as the old neces- sary work of the needle. One social class easily recognizes this species of extrava- gance in another. The expenditure of the city person for dress, upholstery, and the like, seem perfectly monstrous to the country person. The, parishioner who lives on five hundred dollars year al- ways laments the habits that keep his minister from laying up anything on a salary of fifteen hundred-with parsonage and without taxes. Yet, no doubt, the farmer of to-day would have seemed a miracle of extravaganza to the ancestor who first cleared the land he now occu- pies, or even to the father or grandfather who wrung all his food and most of his clothing out of a tough New England farm.
 We know of no work that more forcibly teaches us how fictitious are most of our wants than Thoreau's characteristic record of his two years residence, in 1846-7, near Walden pond in at Concord, Mass. He tells us how he built his own house at an outlay, beside his own labor, of twen- | ty-eight dollars and 124 cents GA house, ' as he says, (which you have got into when you have opened tho outside door, and the ceremony is over." He furnished it, comfortably as he thought, with the following household stuff:
 l My furniture, part of which I made my self, and the rest cost me nothing of which have not rendered an account, consisted of bed, table, dook, three chairs Gone for solitude, two for friend. ship, three for society,", looking-gla | three inches in diameter, pair of tongs and andirons, a kettle, skillet and fry | ing pan, dipper, a wash bow, two knives and forks, three plates, one cup, one spoon, a Jug for oil, a jug for molasses and a ja- banned lamp. None is so poor that he need sit on pumpkin. That is shiftless ness. There is plenty of such chairs as I like best in the village garrets, to be had for taking them away.
 | Thoreau's idea of dress conformed strictly to what he considered economy: While one thick garment is, for mos purposes as good as three thin ones, ant cheap clothing can be obtained at prices
 made to suit customers; while 8 thicl
 coat can be bought for five dollars whicl
 will last as many years. thick pantaloon
 and half pair, summer hat for quar
 ter of dollar, and 8 winter cap for 621
 cents. or better be made at home at . nominal cost, where is he so poor that clad in such suit, Of his OaO1s eay7aiaq there will not be found wise men to dC him reverence.
 | His expense for food reached about twenty-seven cents ruool.. It consisted 1uu1nIy of frye and Indian meal without yeast, potatoes, rice, very little salt pork, and salt. That he occasionally enjoyed the '1uxuries of the season without expense would appear from his tribute to the huckleberry:
 It is vulgar error to suppose that you have tasted huckleberries who never plucked them. A huckleberry never reaches Boston; they have not been known there since they grew on her three hills. The ambrosial and essential part of the fruit is lost with the bloom which 1 is rubbed off in the market cart and the, become mere provender.
 At this place Thoreau lived for two years, supporting himself by the proceeds of manual labor, estimating that it cost him only about six weeks work to supply his wants for the year. The satisfaction he took in this retirement and the air of healthy, quiet enjoyment in the study of nature and his own thoughts that breathes in every line of his work makes 1t one of the most restful books our hur- ried America has produced. Few 'sgen- tlemen and scholars" indeed, could en- rich such an existence of poverty and re- tiroment with the philosophic thoughts and the poetic fancies that lend such an enchantment to Thoreau's account of his hermit life. Still less could any lady en- dure the stern unconventionality of such life as that which Thoreau found so fer tile of new thoughts and pleasant expert ences.
 had not lived there week before my feet wore path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since trod it, it is still quite dis tinct. The surface of the earth is soft and impossible by the feet of men; and so with the paths the m1nd treads. How worn and dusty, must be the high ways of the world, how deep the ruts of l tradition and conformity! did not wish to take cabin passage, but rather to go be- fore the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight and the mountains.
 Curiously enough, the only disturbing element in "Walden" is an uneasy con- sciousness of his utter unconformity with the ways of the old world that now and then disturbs the dreamy quiet of Thor eau's new one, Still his account of his experiment is really instructive one, and teaches contentnaesat with force no one could teach who had not been so thor oughly contented with so little. Indeed, though inhabiting hut in the woods, ,and,