Overview

Wishing to get a better view than I had yet had of the ocean, which, we are told, covers more than two thirds of the globe, but of which a man who lives a few miles inland may never see any trace, more than of another world, I made a visit to Cape Cod in October, 1849, another the succeeding June, and another to Truro in July, 1855; the first and last time with a single companion, the second time alone. I have spent, in all, about three weeks on the Cape; walked from Eastham to Provincetown twice on the Atlantic side, and once on the Bay side also, excepting four or five miles, and crossed the Cape half a dozen times on my way; but having come so fresh to the sea, I have got but little salted. My readers must expect only so much saltness as the land breeze acquires from blowing over an arm of the sea, or is tasted on the windows and the bark of trees twenty miles inland, after September gales. I have been accustomed to make excursions to the ponds within ten miles of Concord, but latterly I have extended my excursions to the sea-shore. I did not see why I might not make a book on Cape Cod, as well as my neighbor on Human Culture. It is but another name for the same thing, and hardly a sandier phase of it. As for my title, I suppose that the word Cape is from the French cap; which is from the Latin caput, a head; which is, perhaps, from the verb capere, to take, --that being the part by which we take hold of a thing: --Take Time by the forelock. It is also the safest part to take a serpent by. And as for Cod, that was derived directly from that great store of cod-fish which Captain Bartholomew Gosnold caught there in 1602; which fish appears to have been so called from the Saxon word codde, a case in which seeds are lodged, either from the form of the fish, or the quantity of spawn it contains; whence also, perhaps, codling ( pomum coctile ?) and coddle, --to cook green like peas. (V. Dic.) Cape Cod is the bared and bended arm of Massachusetts: the shoulder is at Buzzard's Bay; the elbow, or crazy-bone, at Cape Mallebarre; the wrist at Truro; and the sandy fist at Provincetown, --behind which the State stands on her guard, with her back to the Green Mountains, and her feet planted on the floor of the ocean, like an athlete protecting her Bay, --boxing with north-east storms, and, ever and anon, heaving up her Atlantic adversary from the lap of earth, --ready to thrust forward her other fist, which keeps guard the while upon her breast at Cape Ann.

Full Product Details

9781989743522

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862) was an American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, yogi, [3] and historian. A leading transcendentalist, [4] Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Civil Disobedience (originally published as Resistance to Civil Government), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state. Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy, in which he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close observation of nature, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and Yankee attention to practical detail.[5] He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life's true essential needs. He was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending the abolitionist John Brown. Thoreau's philosophy of civil disobedience later influenced the political thoughts and actions of such notable figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. Thoreau is sometimes referred to as an anarchist.[7][8] Though Civil Disobedience seems to call for improving rather than abolishing government-I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government[9]-the direction of this improvement contrarily points toward anarchism: 'That government is best which governs not at all;' and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Thoreau had a distinctive appearance, with a nose that he called his most prominent feature.[15] Of his appearance and disposition, Ellery Channing wrote: [16] His face, once seen, could not be forgotten. The features were quite marked: the nose aquiline or very Roman, like one of the portraits of Caesar (more like a beak, as was said); large overhanging brows above the deepest set blue eyes that could be seen, in certain lights, and in others gray, -eyes expressive of all shades of feeling, but never weak or near-sighted; the forehead not unusually broad or high, full of concentrated energy and purpose; the mouth with prominent lips, pursed up with meaning and thought when silent, and giving out when open with the most varied and unusual instructive sayings.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available