Walden

with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an
excursion train and breathe a _malaria_ all the way.

The very simplicity and nakedness of man’s life in the primitive ages
imply this advantage at least, that they left him still but a sojourner
in nature. When he was refreshed with food and sleep he contemplated
his journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world, and
was either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing
the mountain tops. But lo! men have become the tools of their tools.
The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is
become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a
housekeeper. We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled
down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity merely
as an improved method of _agri_-culture. We have built for this world a
family mansion, and for the next a family tomb. The best works of art
are the expression of man’s struggle to free himself from this
condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state
comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten. There is actually no
place in this village for a work of _fine_ art, if any had come down to