□ Li Musheng
On July 4, 1845, at the age of 28, Thoreau moved into a log cabin he had built on Walden Lake and began a two-year and two-month career of living alone on the lake. It took him 4 months to build this home, such as the two carts of stones used in the chimney connected to the fireplace, which he carried from the lake piece by piece.
From a small deserted lake, to today's 600,000 tourists in the world every year, and it is still growing every year. I was one of them, and I spent 5 times on walden Lake to spend my merry time. Next to the original site of the lakeside chalet, there is a growing pile of stones, which are stones put down by travelers from all over the world, and each stone is either carved or written with the intention of the stoneherd, of course, most of which is with Thoreau. All this is because Thoreau wrote the book "Walden" known as the "Green Bible", which was also named by American Heritage magazine as the first of the top ten masterpieces that "shaped the character of American culture", became the foundation of American ecological literature, and was called "a one-man revolution" by Lewis, the first Nobel Laureate in Literature in the United States.
What kind of secret history of the human mind does a man, a lake, a log cabin, a book contain?
Love and happiness are the fruits of Thoreau's and Walden's co-nurturing. Thoreau knew that human beings who have forgotten their origins can only find the love and happiness that has been lost for a long time if they return to nature and become an organic part of nature in harmony. Never quiet, never rich, never beautiful, all presented on Walden Lake and his heart. "I suddenly felt that it was so sweet and so beneficial to be with nature, and in the midst of this ticking rain, every sound and scene around my house had boundless fraternity," Thoreau's happiness overflowed into words. This love from nature, this love that awakens in the depths of the heart, allows Thoreau to enjoy the true happiness of "soundness, tranquility, and satisfaction", "my life itself is entertainment, and it is always novel". Thoreau turned his back on the society he hated and threw himself into walden's arms. His actions and the spirit, thoughts, and emotions that he brewed into Walden, of course, were the critique and denial of a society in which human nature was severely distorted and alienated due to the expansion of material desires.
Independence and simplicity are the ways of life that Thoreau and Walden have left to mankind. The hustle and bustle has deprived man of his self and the ease of being alone, and the endless luxury, the state of enslavement under endless materialism, has become a great whirlpool, enveloping mankind – Thoreau saw all this, and he not only did not want his one-time life to become a tragedy, but also to take a new path for mankind: "simple, simple, simple again". In his cabin, there were the simplest beds, tables, stools, mirrors, pots, pots, spoons, washbasins and a lamp; the food was "always rye and unfermented Indian cornmeal, potatoes, rice, a small amount of cured meat, syrup, and salt"; and the first 8 months of living in the cabin cost only $8.74 for food. He said, "I love solitude. I have not met a better companion than loneliness." Before coming to Walden, Thoreau had almost no fixed job and was always working short-term, of course, out of consideration for his protection of his independence and freedom. Now, finally immersed in nature, his heart is far away, "I live as far away as the space that astronomers observe every night", but he can hear the diving birds "laughing loudly" in the lake, can feel "every small pine needle is swollen with compassion", and can excitedly date "a beech or a boxwood", so that the quiet and clear Walden Lake can "measure the depth of human nature". Not only mirror-like reflection, but also self-improvement after deep thinking, introspection, and intoxication—a kind of healing and reconstruction of the soul and spirit. And his choice of The United States Independence Day on July 4 with the lake is not a declaration of defense of his independence? Think of Kafka, who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, never to enter the castle, the tragedy of being lost and turning into a beetle, and even more precious about the foresight of Thoreau and Walden.
Lin Yutang once said that Thoreau was "the richest Chinese color", which of course referred to his birth and seclusion, such as Lao Tzu's "exit" and Tao Yuanming's peach blossom source. Maybe Lin Yutang was only half right, or simply a misreading. Thoreau and his Walden lake are not only born to escape the world, but also actively enter the world and save, not only for himself, but also for the salvation of the world's hearts. Since Xu Chi's translation of Walden was published by the Shanghai Translation Publishing House in 1982, Thoreau and Walsee have had a continuous impact on China. I bought this book on March 22, 2000, and for more than 21 years, I have always read it regularly, always with new gains and deep resonance. I have always disagreed with the claim that Thoreau and Walden are just a fictional myth, and that he escaped into Walden under the pressure of his loss of love, the death of his brother, the discord of his neighbors, the discord of friends, and the forest fire caused by boiling fish, because I know very well that the sustained, profound and positive impact of Thoreau and Walden in the world is the best answer, "Only the truth, never broken.". Moreover, as early as 1841, the 24-year-old Thoreau had thought of living alone in the Lincoln family's wooden house on the shores of Lake Flint, but was refused to make the trip.
Walden lake is waiting for Thoreau. In fact, he went to Walden Lake as early as he was 5 years old. In February 1847, Thoreau, who had written a draft of Walden, left Walden. In 1854, Walden was published after 7 years of revision. On May 6, 1862, Thoreau died of terminal tuberculosis in Concord, Massachusetts, and the two words he clearly uttered before his death were "elk" and "Indian"—of course, the elk of Walden lake and the way of life of those two years and two months. Once, my daughter and I went to The Sleepy Valley Cemetery in Concord to look for Thoreau. It was a rainy day, and we forgot about the rain and just searched among the undulating and vast tombstones. Maybe it's too ordinary, we didn't find it in the end, but we came across Emerson's luxurious and tall tomb and stele. Thoreau had been the housekeeper of emerson's house twice, so intimate and then so distant, but I remember Emerson's sincere eulogy at Thoreau's funeral: "This country does not yet know, or only a very few people know, what a great son she has lost." "We might as well say that the human beings of the world have had a great son: Thoreau, who wrote Walden.