“Economy”: Other Early Major Essays and Civil Disobedience – 3rd edition

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars.Henry David ThoreauThis edition covers fifteen sections of Henry David Thoreau’s well-known Walden and includes several of his early essays from his journals, as well as A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, “Economy”, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”, “Solitude”, “Higher Laws”, “Reading”, “Life Without Principle”, “Friendship”, “Love”, “Early Essays”, “Sadi”, “Autumnal Tints”, “Style in Writing”, and “Walking”. The second part of the text is “Civil Disobedience”. Thoreau requires no introduction. His writings have been prized for more than a hundred fifty years. He lived life simple and fully. In this simplicity, he describes the true meaning of contentment, and to the reader, his prescription of “simplify, simplify” is echoed throughout his writings.I must add the cardinal fact, that there was an excellent wisdom in him (Thoreau), proper to a rare class of men, which showed the material world as a means and symbol.- Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1862Thoreau speaks to us in strikingly modern voice and on topics that are even more timely today than they were a century ago.- Charles AndersonAuthor of Thoreau’s Vision