Page:Anti-slavery and reform papers by Thoreau, Henry David.djvu/131

 120 Anti- Slavery and Reforin Papers.

present pursuit. I see advertisements for active young men, as if activity were the whole of a young man's capital. Yet 1 have been surprised when one has with confidence proposed to me, a grown man, to embark in some enterprise of his, as if I had absolutely nothing to do, my life having been a complete failure hitherto.

What a doubtful compliment this is to pay me ! As if he had met me half-way across the ocean beating up against the wind, but bound nowhere, and proposed to me to go along with him ! If I did, what do you think the underwriters would say ? No, no ! I am not with- out employment at this stage of the voyage. To tell the truth, I saw an advertisement for able-bodied seamen, when I was a boy, sauntering in my native port, and as soon as I came of age I embarked.

The community has no bribe that will tempt a wise man. You may raise money enough to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to hire a man who is minding his own business. An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they were rarely disappointed.

Perhaps I am more than usually jealous with respect to my freedom. I feel that my connection with and obligation to society are still very slight and transient.

Those slight labors which aiford me a livelihood, and by which it is allowed that I am to some extent serviceable to my contemporaries, are as yet commonly a pleasure to me, and I am not often reminded that they are a neces- sity. So far I am successful. But I foresee, that, if my