The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune.
Henry David Thoreau probably knew and approved of the above sonnet that William Wordsworth wrote in 1802 about the first Industrial Revolution. Great poets see with a very clear eye. I believe that Thoreau’s and Wordsworth’s warnings apply to our time when we humans are despoiling nature and threatening the environment.
Last week I contrasted Thoreau’s meager list of what he owned with our abundance of possessions. Oh good grief! I just remembered that we also have an electric hedge trimmer, a weed whacker, a vacuum cleaner, a steam cleaner for our tile floors, an electronic toothbrush and an electric iron that rarely is taken from its shelf. Bill and I live in a house of eighteen hundred square foot on a 3/4 acre lot with a storage barn for surplus items and the mower, whereas Thoreau’s self-built abode was 10 by 15 feet with a garret, one closet and a small root cellar.
Our home is pleasant, utilitarian and comfortable, but homes of four, five, or even six thousand square feet exist in some of the wealthy neighborhoods. Gourmet kitchens used to be a big deal, now it’s gourmet outdoor kitchens next to the swimming pools. One of our acquaintances has a business that takes her into a wealthy area. She said, “You wouldn’t believe what they set out as trash. There was a wonderful butcher-block table that I stuck in my van and have in my kitchen.” To each his own. I do not envy the affluence that provides jobs. However, I sometimes wonder if such over-the-top luxury comes from competitiveness and greed, rather than need.
I must admit that I have absolutely no desire to live without plumbing and the electricity that drives our appliances, including my beloved dishwasher. When I was a girl we lived in a house with an outdoor spigot for water, an outhouse and a coal burning cooking range and heating stove. No thank you very much!
However, as nutty as Thoreau’s vision of the simple life may seem, there are people who have followed his example. Several years ago, Irvington acquaintances Royal and Adrienne Eckstein sold or gave away their possessions and set off to live in a camper. The big, wonderful motor homes of today didn’t exist then. “Oh” I said to Adrienne. “I don’t know if I could leave behind our family, silver, books, and treasures. How can you do it?” “Easy!” she replied. One of the letters they sent told about how they were staying for a while at Lake Erie in order to take sailing lessons. How cool was that?
Sometimes people become stuck on one plateau of living. It’s easier to stay in our familiar rut. The thought of changing my predictable, peaceful, comfortable existence and striking out into unknown territory is frightening. Oh, we think about setting off on adventures, but we are timid and put it off until it’s too late. Perhaps we should have more uncommon than common sense?
The closest exemplar of Thoreau’s back-to-nature experiment was Anne la Bastille. She abandoned her New York city upbringing, met and married the owner of a lodge in the Adirondacks and became a professional ecologist. Alas, her life was turned topsy-turvy when he asked for a divorce and demanded that she leave within a short time. What to do? Having no choice in the matter, she used her freedom to set another course. More to come. wclarke@comcast.net