interested all bystanders to know what part Henry would take, and what he
would say; and he did not disappoint expectation, but used an original
judgment on each emergency. In 1845 he built himself a small framed house
on the shores of Walden Pond, and lived there two years alone, a life of
labor and study. This action was quite native and fit for him. No one who
knew him would tax him with affectation. He was more unlike his neighbors
in his thought than in his action. As soon as he had exhausted the
advantages of that solitude, he abandoned it. In 1847, not approving some
uses to which the public expenditure was applied, he refused to pay his
town tax, and was put in jail. A friend paid the tax for him, and he was
released. The like annoyance was threatened the next year. But, as his
friends paid the tax, notwithstanding his protest, I believe he ceased to
resist. No opposition or ridicule had any weight with him. He coldly and
fully stated his opinion without affecting to believe that it was the
opinion of the company. It was of no consequence, if every one present
held the opposite opinion. On one occasion he went to the University
Library to procure some books. The librarian refused to lend them. Mr.
Thoreau repaired to the President, who stated to him the rules and usages,
which permitted the loan of books to resident graduates, to clergymen who
were alumni, and to some others resident within a circle of ten miles'
radius from the College. Mr. Thoreau explained to the President that the
railroad had destroyed the old scale of distances,--that the library was
useless, yes, and President and College useless, on the terms of his
rules,--that the one benefit he owed to the College was its library,--
that, at this moment, not only his want of books was imperative, but he
wanted a large number of books, and assured him that he, Thoreau, and not
the librarian, was the proper custodian of these. In short, the President
found the petitioner so formidable, and the rules getting to look so
ridiculous, that he ended by giving him a privilege which in his hands
proved unlimited thereafter.