hill, he found the perfect spot on which to build his house. At once he began to cut down the tall, straight pines with which the hill was covered to make a clearing, and with the purpose of using the pines as timber for his hut. He chose the spot specially for the view it had of the pond or lake beneath. Thoreau says a lake is a most beautiful and expressive feature in a landscape, and he likens it to the earth's eye. It was called Walden, and from all the descriptions we read of it, it was a particularly beautiful pond, remarkable for its depth and its clearness, like a deep green well. Many people thought it was bottomless, and it was more than a mile long, the hills encircling it and rising steeply out of it on all sides. These days in which Thoreau worked, cutting and hewing wood, were pleasant spring days, and we can imagine how happy he was at his labors in the open air. He felt, he said, like a bird building its nest, and wondered if men, were they always to build their own homes, would become more poetical and sing as they worked.
By July his house was ready to live in, though he had not yet built his chimney—he liked in summertime to do his cooking out of doors. He left till later also the plastering of his hut, so that the cool air blew through the chinks between the logs, which was very delicious in summer-time. From the door of his hut a little pathway ran straight down to the pond, and behind it he had made a clearing of some acres
