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Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862

"Walden"

It costs more than it comes to. The mainspring
is vanity, assisted by the love of garlic and bread and butter. Mr.
Balcom, a promising young architect, designs it on the back of his
Vitruvius, with hard pencil and ruler, and the job is let out to
Dobson & Sons, stonecutters. When the thirty centuries begin to
look down on it, mankind begin to look up at it. As for your high
towers and monuments, there was a crazy fellow once in this town who
undertook to dig through to China, and he got so far that, as he
said, he heard the Chinese pots and kettles rattle; but I think that
I shall not go out of my way to admire the hole which he made. Many
are concerned about the monuments of the West and the East -- to
know who built them. For my part, I should like to know who in
those days did not build them -- who were above such trifling. But
to proceed with my statistics.
By surveying, carpentry, and day-labor of various other kinds in
the village in the meanwhile, for I have as many trades as fingers,
I had earned $13.


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