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THE WALDEN EXPERIMENT

dollars to release him. Now, to speak the truth, I had but ten cents in the world, and it surpassed my arithmetic to tell, if I was that man that had ten cents, or who had a farm, or ten dollars, or all together. However, I let him keep the ten dollars and the farm too, I had carried it far enough; or rather, to be generous, I sold him the farm for just what I gave for it, and, as he was not a rich man, made him a present of ten dollars, and still had my ten cents, and seeds, and materials for a wheel-barrow left. I found thus that I had been a rich man without any danger to my poverty. But I retained the landscape, and I have since annually carried off what it yielded without any wheel-barrow."

The choice of Walden as final site for his lodge was probably decided by two dissimilar agencies. As he tells his readers one of his earliest memories was a ride to Walden woods and a fleeting, childish wish that he might live by the pond there. Later he found boyish pleasure in idling along its banks or building fires to attract the pouts close to its edge. Thus, the locality was associated not alone with his youth but also with the memories of his brother. The second decisive circumstance was the purchase by Emerson of some woodland along both shores of Walden, to supply him with fire-wood and