The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume 03 (of 20)
The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume 03 (of 20)
Thoreau's account of three wilderness expeditions into Maine's unmapped interior, undertaken in 1846, 1853, and 1857. These were not vacations but pilgrimages into what he called "the primitive nature of New England" - a world being rapidly consumed by timber industry and settlement. He paddles virgin rivers, climbs Mount Ktaadn, hunts moose with a Penobscot guide named Louis Neptune, and documents customs of woodsmen already vanishing from the landscape. The prose operates on two frequencies simultaneously: meticulous naturalist observation and philosophical meditation on what wildness reveals about human beings. Thoreau writes as if the forests still hold secrets that civilization has forgotten. This is one of the earliest and most passionate American arguments for conservation - not as sentiment but as necessity. For readers who found Walden too didactic, The Maine Woods offers something rarer: Thoreau in motion, surprised by terrain, dependent on guides, humbled by scale.
Editions
X-Ray
“The true and not despairing Friend will address his Friend in some such terms as these."I never asked thy leave to let me love thee,--I have a right. I love thee not as something private and personal, which is your own, but as something universal and worthy of love, which I have found. O, how I think of you! You are purely good, --you are infinitely good. I can trust you forever. I did not think that humanity was so rich. Give me an opportunity to live.””
— Henry David Thoreau
“You shall see rude and sturdy, experienced and wise men, keeping their castles, or teaming up their summer’s wood, or chopping alone in the woods, men fuller of talk and rare adventure in the sun and wind and rain, than a chestnut is of meat; who were out not only in ‘75 and 1812, but have been out every day of their lives; greater men than Homer, or Chaucer, or Shakespeare, only they never got time to say so; they never took to the way of writing. Look at their fields, and imagine what they might write, if ever they should put pen to paper. Or what have they not written on the face of the earth already, clearing, and burning, and scratching, and harrowing, and plowing, and subsoiling, in and in, and out and out, and over and over, again and again, erasing what they had already written for want of parchment.””
— Henry David Thoreau
“As surely as the sunset in my latest Novembershall translate me to the ethereal world,and remind me of the ruddy morning of youth;as surely as the last strain of music which falls on my decaying earshall make age to be forgotten,or, in short, the manifold influences of naturesurvive during the term of our natural life,so surely my Friend shall forever be my Friend,and reflect a ray of God to me,and time shall foster and adorn and consecrate our Friendship,no less than the ruins of temples.””
— Henry David Thoreau
“As with our colleges, so with a hundred ‘modern improvements;’ there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at...””
— Henry David Thoreau
“Friendship is first, Friendship last. But it is equally impossible to forget our Friends, and to make them answer to our ideal. When they say farewell, then indeed we begin to keep them company. How often we find ourselves turning our backs on our actual Friends, that we may go and meet their ideal cousins. I would that I were worthy to be any man's Friend.””
— Henry David Thoreau
“It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the universal favor with which the New Testament is outwardly received, and even the bigotry with which it is defended, there is no hospitality shown to, there is no appreciation of, the order of truth with which it deals.””
— Henry David Thoreau
“There are other, savager, and more primeval aspects of Nature than our poets have sung. It is only white man's poetry. Homer and Ossian even can never revive in London or Boston. And yet behold how these cities are refreshed by the mere tradition, or the imperfectly transmitted fragance and flavor of these wild fruits. If we could listen but for an instant to the chaunt of the Indian muse, we should understand why he will not exchange his savageness for civilization. Nations are not whimsical. Steel and blankets are strong temptations; but the Indian does well to continue Indian.””
— Henry David Thoreau
“The respectable folks-- Where dwell they? They whisper in the oaks, And they sigh in the hay; Summer and winter, night and day, Out on the meadow, there dwell they. They never die, Nor snivel nor cry, Nor ask our pity With a wet eye. A sound estate they ever mend, To every asker readily lend To the ocean wealth, To the meadow health, To Time his length, To the rocks strength, To the stars light, To the weary night, To the busy day, To the idle play; And so their good cheer never ends, For all are their debtors, and all their friends.””
— Henry David Thoreau
“spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it””
— Henry David Thoreau
Link to this book
Add a free, dofollow link to Lex on your blog, forum, syllabus, or reading list.
<a href="https://lex-books.com/book/the-maine-woods-the-writings-of-henry-david-thoreau-volume-03-of-20-b6e8b10d-8b2e-4f62-b99a-e28677e0558d"><img src="https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg" alt="Read The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume 03 (of 20) by Henry David Thoreau free on Lex" width="160" height="40"></a>[](https://lex-books.com/book/the-maine-woods-the-writings-of-henry-david-thoreau-volume-03-of-20-b6e8b10d-8b2e-4f62-b99a-e28677e0558d)[url=https://lex-books.com/book/the-maine-woods-the-writings-of-henry-david-thoreau-volume-03-of-20-b6e8b10d-8b2e-4f62-b99a-e28677e0558d][img]https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg[/img][/url]Read The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume 03 (of 20) by Henry David Thoreau free on Lex: https://lex-books.com/book/the-maine-woods-the-writings-of-henry-david-thoreau-volume-03-of-20-b6e8b10d-8b2e-4f62-b99a-e28677e0558dCite this book
Reading this edition for a paper or guide? Copy a citation.
Thoreau, Henry David. The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume 03 (of 20). Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-maine-woods-the-writings-of-henry-david-thoreau-volume-03-of-20-b6e8b10d-8b2e-4f62-b99a-e28677e0558d.Thoreau, H. D. (n.d.). The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume 03 (of 20). Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-maine-woods-the-writings-of-henry-david-thoreau-volume-03-of-20-b6e8b10d-8b2e-4f62-b99a-e28677e0558dThoreau, Henry David. The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume 03 (of 20). Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-maine-woods-the-writings-of-henry-david-thoreau-volume-03-of-20-b6e8b10d-8b2e-4f62-b99a-e28677e0558d.
