Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/232

204 of simplicity to the satisfaction of Thoreau,—and his later life, though it brought somewhat broader opportunities and enticements to complex life, did not swerve him from his fixed aim. What began as a philosophic ideal, became an art of living. "My greatest skill has been to want but little." Like Euskin, he waged continual warfare upon the common desire "to get on in the world," substituting the mere "trappings of life" for the true joy of living.

Two thoughts are significant in connection with Thoreau's doctrine of simplification of life. One has already been emphasized,—his careful distinction between savagery and civilization. The superfluities of modern habits, never the real necessities of pure, uplifting life, represented his fractions to be eliminated. He always admired such accessories of modern life and invention as contributed to the aid and development of man. His thoughts often contemplated with pleasure the great medium of commerce by ships or railways. He would have welcomed the modern devices for agriculture, unknown in his day, which minimize the farmer's drudgery and lessen his hours of labor. Merely acquired tastes, from continued indulgence, seem to us necessities; such he would reduce, that living might become more easeful and restful. From the