"I learned," he says, "from my two years'
experience that it would cost incredibly little trouble to obtain one's
necessary food, even in this latitude; that a man may use as simple a diet
as the animals, and yet retain health and strength.... I am convinced both
by faith and experience that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a
hardship, but a pastime." This book has, directly or indirectly, caused
more to desire the simple life and a return to nature than any other work
in American literature.
In _Walden_ he speaks of himself as a "self-appointed inspector of
snowstorms and rainstorms." His companionship with nature became so
intimate as to cause him to say, "Every little pine needle expanded and
swelled with sympathy and befriended me." When a sparrow alighted upon his
shoulder, he exclaimed, "I felt that I was more distinguished by that
circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn."
When nature had some special celebration with the trees, such as decking
them with snow or ice or the first buds of spring, he frequently tramped
eight or ten miles "to keep an appointment with a beech-tree or a
yellow-birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.
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