Summary
Thoreau states that he likes companionship as much as
anyone else, and keeps three chairs ready for visitors. But he is
aware of the limitations of his small house, aware that “individuals,
like nations, must have suitable broad and natural boundaries.”
Thus he often moves the conversation to the pine forest outside
his door. As a host he is not conventional. He is not concerned
with offering savory delicacies to his guests, and if there is not
enough food to go around, he and his guests go without. Caring more
about providing his visitors spiritual, rather than material, sustenance,
Thoreau proudly comments that he could nourish a thousand as easily
as twenty. If they go away hungry afterward, he says, at least they
have his sympathy.
Yet despite such discomforts, Thoreau’s guests keep coming. Indeed
he says he has more visitors than he used to have when living in
town. And the overall quality of his socializing has improved as well.
Because of his relative isolation, those visitors whom Thoreau does
receive are rarely on trivial errands, so that the less interesting ones
are “winnowed,” as he puts it, from the better ones. They make the
considerable journey from town only if they are deeply committed
to seeing him. He also meets an interesting collection of vagabonds
and wayfarers. Thoreau often finds admirable qualities in these
rude characters, and sees them as agreeable, deferential visitors.
In contrast, Thoreau disdains beggars, remarking that “objects of
charity are not guests.” He entertains children on berry-picking expeditions.
As an ardent abolitionist, he is also inclined to help runaway slaves
on the Underground Railway, though he does not boast about it.
Thoreau also receives visits from those living or working
nearby. Among them he gives special attention to a French Canadian-born woodsman
of happy and unpretentious ways, identified by scholars as a certain
Alex Therien. Unlike Thoreau, Therien cannot read or write. Thoreau
describes him as living an “animal life,” and admires his physical
endurance and his ability to amuse himself. Thoreau notes that Therien
was never educated to the level of “consciousness,” but that on
occasion he reveals a wisdom all his own. Reluctant to expound his
ideas and unable to write them down, Therien is humble and modest.
Still, Therien reveals at times “a certain positive originality,
however slight,” suggesting to Thoreau that perhaps “there might
be men of genius in the lowest grades of life.” He compares Therien
to Walden Pond itself, saying that Therien’s mind is as deep as
Walden is “bottomless,” though it may appear “dark and muddy.”
Thoreau notes that women and children appear to enjoy
the woods more than men. He says men of business, and even farmers, tend
to focus not on the pleasures of rural life, but on its limitations, such
as the distance from town. Even when they claim to like walks in
the forest, Thoreau can see that they do not. Their lives are all taken
up, he says, with “getting a living,” and they do not have the time
to live.
Analysis
The visitors mentioned in this chapter’s title do not
interfere with the preceding “Solitude,” because Thoreau’s ideal
guests do not interrupt one’s self-communion but merely broaden
it. Concerned that socializing not limit one’s personal space or
elbowroom, he describes how his guests push their chairs as far
away from each as possible, as far as the walls of his house allow.
When this area is not sufficient, they take the chat outdoors. Thoreau
refers to a conversation as if it were a physical thing, like a
football game, requiring a large playing field; he describes “the
difficulty of getting to a sufficient distance from my guest” when
conversation turns philosophical. But, of course, Thoreau is speaking
metaphorically here, and the space required for a good talk is mental
rather than physical. More than a practical issue of space management,
it is a philosophical statement about every human’s need for freedom
to stretch his or her soul. It is even a political statement as
well, since Thoreau says that nations are the same way, perhaps
alluding to the American pioneers’ westward expansion. When he recommends
an outdoor conversation in the pine trees, Thoreau argues that a
good conversation could expand to fill the whole forest or perhaps
the whole universe.
Thoreau’s characterization of his various guests shows
us a lot about his social and moral views as well. We find out his
opposition to slavery when he mentions, almost in passing, that
he occasionally aids fugitive slaves. That he does not boast about
this shows his humility. We see that Thoreau has a well-developed
sense of hospitality toward strangers, irrespective of class or
occupation; he welcomes wayfarers of all sorts. He is no snob in
his admission of visitors, at a time when the game of calling cards
and the ranking of guests was a standard part of civilized life.
But his treatment of beggars is a bit surprising. When he declares
that “objects of charity are not our guests,” he obviously means
that no equality is possible between a beggar and a homeowner, but
he also seems uncomfortably close to saying that the desperately
poor do not deserve the same respect as better-off travelers. Thoreau
does have some prejudices. His attitude toward the Canadian-born
woodcutter Alex Therien also reveals a somewhat unjust discrimination
against the uneducated, even as he appears to appreciate the man.
At first Thoreau praises Therien as a Homeric figure, larger than
life, possessing noble instincts and a generous heart. He appreciates
that Therien loves his work and displays good humor at every turn.
He even says that Therien displays a kind of unformed natural genius.
But then Thoreau suddenly demotes Therien from epic hero to animal.
Of course, Thoreau loves animals, and his remark is not meant as
an insult. But his assessment that Therien is “too immersed in his
animal life” indicates that Thoreau is unable or unwilling to treat
him as an equal. We imagine Thoreau saying to himself that, being
educated, he deserves to have poets and philosophers as his guests,
and the bestiality of Therien—no matter how much of a genius he
is in his animal state—somehow makes him an inappropriate companion.
Thoreau may go off to live in nature, but he cannot bring himself
to call a natural man his equal.
