to the world to make pencils and to write and to lecture till the end of his life.
When Thoreau emerged from his seclusion, you can imagine the questions he was asked by curious people who wanted to know all about it. Why did he do it; wasn't he lonely; what did he do with himself; what did he eat? So he decided to publish an account of his experiment, filling out the diary he had written daily at Walden, and giving his reasons for his retirement and the conclusions he had formed about life and the world through his experiment. He learned, he tells us, that if you have a dream or some sort of idea of what a perfect life should be, or anyhow the life that appears to you to be the most lovely, the most useful, or the most satisfactory, you should advance quite confidently in that direction—that is to say, in the direction of your dreams; and that if you do this you will meet with a great deal of success. Also, that in proportion as you simplify your life the world will appear less complicated, you will be less poor and less lonely; the simple natural things will never fail to interest you, your requirements will be few, and your life full of enjoyment. Instead of three meals a day, eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce everything in proportion. Life, says Thoreau, is simply frittered away by detail. And about clothes—Thoreau describes how he asked his acquaintances if they would appear with a neat patch on their trousers, and most of them thought they would be dis-
