Chapter 35 Where I Live; Why I Live - 3

The only house I ever had, save for a boat, was a tent, which I took occasional excursions with me in the summer, and which is now rolled up in my garret. It's just that small boat, which has passed through the hands of several people, and has disappeared in the stream of time.Now that I have this more practical shelter from the wind and rain, it seems that I have made great progress in living in this world.The thinness of the house was a crystallized thing about me, and this immediately acted on the mind of the builder.It is suggestive, like a sketch in a painting.I don't have to go out to get some fresh air, because the atmosphere inside the house hasn't lost one bit of freshness.Sitting behind a door is almost the same as not sitting inside it, even in rainy weather.The Harivansa said: "A house without a bird's nest is like unseasoned roast meat." Not so the humble house, for I found myself suddenly neighbors with the birds; but it was not I who caught a bird. The birds shut it up, but I shut myself in a cage next to them.I was nearer not only to the birds Yagata who so often came to the garden and orchard, but to those wilder, more startling birds of the woods, which never had, were, and seldom came, Singing songs of good night to the people of the villages and towns--they are the thrush, the eastern thrush, the red moraine, the wild sparrow, the jay-bird, and many other song-birds.

I am sitting on the shore of a little lake, about a mile and a half south of the village of Concord, a little higher than Concord, in the middle of the great forest between the town and Lincoln, and our only The well-known district, two miles south of Concord's field; but as I was low under the forest, and all the rest of the country was covered by it, the other side of the lake, half a mile away, was my The furthest horizon.During the first week, whenever I gazed at the lake, the lake gave me the impression that it was a pool of dragons in the mountains, high on the side of the mountain, and its bottom was much higher than the water level of other lakes and marshes. Even at sunrise, I saw it take off its night fog cloak, and its gentle ripples, or its mirror-like lake surface, gradually appeared here and there. At this time, the fog, like a ghost secretly From every direction, retreating into the woods, it was again like a nocturnal secret congregation breaking up.The dew will hang on the forest tops and on the side of the mountain later, and it will not disappear until the next day.

In August, the little lake was most precious as my neighbor during the intervals of the gentle drizzle, when the water and the air were perfectly calm, but the sky was clouded, and it was only half past the afternoon. But it already has all the solemnity of the evening, and the thrush is singing around, and it is heard from across the shore.Such a lake is never calmer than at this time; the clear air over the lake is naturally thin and darkened by dark clouds, but the water is full of light and reflections, and it becomes a lower sky, which is more to be cherished.Looking south from a nearby peak that has been recently logged, there is a pleasant view across the lake through the great depression in the hills, which forms the shore, where two hills slope towards each other. It makes people feel that there seems to be a stream flowing down from the mountain valley, but there is no stream.This is how I look between and over the near green peaks to some distant or higher peaks on the blue horizon.Truly, standing on tiptoe, I could see farther and bluer the mountains on the north-west corner, a blue that is the truest product of the dye-works of the sky, and I could see a little bit of the village.But if you want to look in another direction, although I am standing so high, I am surrounded by lush trees, and I can't see through anything, I can't see anything.It is good to have some running water nearby, for the water is buoyant, and the earth floats on it.Even the smallest well is commendable. When you look down into the well, you find that the earth is not one continuous continent;This is important, as well water keeps butter cold.When I looked from this hilltop across the lake to the Sudbury prairie, I felt that the prairie rose up during the flood season, and it seemed that the mirage effect appeared in the transpiring valley. A natural cast copper city sunk under the water basin, the land outside the lake is like a thin skin, becoming an isolated island, floating by a small piece of water waves across, I was reminded that the place where I live Nothing but dry land.

Although the view from my door is narrower, I don't feel it is crowded at all, and I don't feel imprisoned.Enough with my imagination being nomadic there.The scrub-oak plateau rose on the opposite bank, and the great plains and Tartar steppes stretched to the west, giving all wandering families a wide range.When Damodara's flocks needed new and larger pastures, he said, "There is no happier man than he who is free to admire the wide horizon."