no more fatal blunderer," says Thoreau, "than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living." He calculated for himself that six weeks' work would bring him in all the money he required to live. So that the whole of his winter and most of his summer would be free for study and enjoyment of country life. But it must not be thought that Thoreau was lazy or had never worked himself. In early days he had perfected himself in the craft of pencil-making and surveying. He had also worked very hard at his writing. He had learned industry, and in everything that he did he showed a peculiar thoroughness and skill.
If we want to find fault with Thoreau, it must be that he was perhaps too bent on improving himself. Thoreau and Emerson both believed very strongly in the importance of making oneself more interesting. Thoreau had a corresponding horror of consciously doing good to people, and of philanthropy generally. "Philanthropy," he says, "is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind"; and again, "If you give money spend yourself with it. Do not merely abandon it to them" (the poor).
There are those who accuse Thoreau of being odd on purpose, and speak of his writing as paradoxical. It is much more likely that we who are doing and thinking exactly like our neighbors, without thinking if it is a good thing in itself, are the odd ones, or rather the lazy ones, because we cannot be bothered
