Chapter 56 Visitors - 4

He has only an almanac and a book of arithmetic, and he is very good at arithmetic.The former was to him an encyclopedia, which he believed to be the quintessence of human thought, and which, to a large extent, it did.I like to ask him some questions about modern innovation, and he never gives a simple and practical answer.He had never heard such a question.Can he do without a factory?I asked.He said he was wearing home-woven Vermont gray, which was fine.Can he skip tea or coffee?What drink is served in this land besides water?He said he once soaked hemlock leaves in water, which was better than water in hot weather.I asked him if he had no money?He proves that having money is such a convenience, as if it were a philosophical discussion about the origin of money, which just shows the etymology of the word pecunia.If a cow were his property, it would be inconvenient to ask him to mortgage his cow part by part, as he would now go to the shop to buy a little sewing.He can defend many institutions better than many philosophers, for the reasons he gives are directly relevant to him, and he gives the real reasons for their prevalence, and he does not fancy any other.Once, hearing the definition of man given by Plato,—a biped without feathers,—someone took a rooster with its feathers plucked out, and called it Plato's man, but he explained that the knee This is a very important difference.Sometimes, too, he exclaimed, "How I love to chat! Really, I could talk all day!" Once, after not seeing him for several months, I asked him if he had learned anything during the summer. "Jesus," he said, "a guy with a job like me, if he doesn't forget when he has an opinion, that's fine. Maybe the guy you're farming with is going to race you; well, the mind has to be It's spent on it: all you think about is weeds." On such occasions, he sometimes starts by asking me if I've improved.One winter day, I asked him if he was often complacent, hoping to find something within him to replace the priest outside, to have a higher purpose in life. "Complacency!" said he, "some people are satisfied with one thing, and others with another. Maybe someone, if he has everything, spends all day with his back to the fire and his belly to the table, really!" As much as he could, he was unable to find his spiritual view of things; the highest principle he conceived was "absolute convenience," as the animals love; and this, in fact, is true of most men.If I suggested to him some improvement in his way of life, he simply replied that it was too late, but he had no regrets.Yet he thoroughly practiced fidelity and other such virtues.

There is a detectable amount, however small, of positive originality in him; and sometimes I find him figuring out how to express his own opinions, which is a rare phenomenon, and I would like to be there anywhere. To run ten miles a day to observe this spectacle is to brush up on the origins of social institutions.Although he hesitates, and perhaps cannot express himself clearly, he often harbors some very good opinions.However, his thinking is so primitive, so in harmony with his physical life, compared with the thinking of mere learned people, although it is already brilliant, it is not mature enough to be reported.He said that among the lowest men, though all their lives in the lowest class, and illiterate, there may be some geniuses, who always have their own opinions, and never pretend that he knows everything; they are as deep as Walden Pond, Some say it is bottomless, though it may be dark and muddy.

Many travelers have left their course to see me and the interior of my house, often with the excuse of asking for a glass of water.I told them that I drank from the lake, pointed to the lake, and offered to lend them a spoon.Although I live in a remote place, every year, I think, around April 1st, everyone comes for an outing, and I will inevitably be interviewed; I will be lucky, although there are some specimens of strange characters.Fools from workhouses or elsewhere come to see me; I try to let them use all their wit, and let them talk to me; wit is often the subject of our conversation on such occasions; There is a harvest.Really, I think they are much wiser than the managers of the poor, or even the members of the city administrative committee, and think that the time for a big turnaround is almost here.Regarding wisdom, I don't think there is much difference between ignorance and great wisdom.One day in particular, a simple-minded poor man who was not annoying came to see me and expressed his willingness to live like me.In the past, I often saw him standing with others like a hedge in the field, or sitting on a basket to guard the cattle and himself so that they would not get separated.With great simplicity and sincerity, above or rather below the average so-called inferiority, he told me that he was "very low intellectually."These are his exact words.God made him this way, but, he thought, God cared for him as much as he cared for others. "Since my childhood," he said, "I have always been like this. I am not very clever; I am not like other children; I am weak in intelligence. I think it is the will of God. ’ And there he was, confirming his own words.He was a metaphysical riddle to me.Rarely have I met a man so hopeful—everything he said was so simple and sincere, so true.The more self-abased he is, the more noble he really is.I didn't know it at first, but it was a clever way to achieve the effect.On the truthful and candid foundations of this pauper of intellect, our conversations may reach deeper than those of a wise man.There are also guests who are not generally considered to be the urban poor, but in fact should be; at any rate the world's poor; these guests do not ask for your hospitality, but for your great hospitality.They are eager to get your help, but they say that they have made up their minds, that is, they don't want to help themselves.I ask visitors not to come to me hungry, though they may have the best appetites in the world, however they may have acquired them.The object of a charity shall not be called a guest.Some guests, not knowing that their visit should have ended long ago, and I was already taking care of my own affairs, answered them more and more slowly.People of almost every intelligence have visited me at the time of migration of migratory birds.Some people's intelligence is beyond their ability to use; some fugitive slaves, with the air of the plantation, now and then pricked up their ears to listen, like the fox in the fable. looking at me, as if to say,—