The Iron Horse

Today's publishing process (excluding self-publish options) is long and intense process that usually guarantees final products are free of continuity errors, in addition to spelling and grammar. Thoreau was not, however, writing a traditional novel nor a collection of essays and the process he underwent to publish was not as rigorous as today's. It is only reasonable to expect, then, that the cotinuity editor was left out of the process. Is this why Thoreau seems to contradict himself all the time in Walden, this lack of an good editing process? Some may argue that any contradictions in Thoreau are intentional or that when closely examined may be found not to be as opposite as at first glance. It seems to me that Thoreau is only human and from day to day we may change our opinions on anything. Depending on the moment, we may like a certain food or not or we may enjoy the music of a pop icon and yet disagree entirely with her image. That some of Thoreau's points are contradictory in some cases may be significant, but they do not fundamentally change his overall views of the fault of society and the message of simple, deliberate living that he is trying to send.

One of his most beautiful contradictions, in my opinion, is that of the railroad. It is not so much a contradiction as two very different views on the same subject. When he first talks about the railroad in 'Economy', Thoreau is advocating walking instead of riding the train. He points out that in the time it takes for a man to earn the wages to pay for a train ticket to a town thirty miles away, he could have walked there. Instead of getting there and enjoying the countryside, Thoreau says, the man taking the train will have instead worked all day and, if he is lucky, will arrive at about the same time as Thoreau, who was walking. The railroad, Thoreau seems to be saying, is building up false expectations of travel. He finds 'this 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 [life]' to be foolish. The 'liberty' of travel is 'questionable' to him because it does not fit with his idea of living deliberately. One cannot get to know ones' own home and the routines of the natural world there if one is galavanting across the globe. It is better, as he so often says, to live deeply than broadly. The railroad and other modern inventions whose purpose is to speed up the pace of life are all distractions, he says, from 'serious things'. 'Serious things', being the study of the natural world. He says: '"Is not this railroad which we have built a good thing?" Yes, I answer, comparatively good, that is, you might have done worse; but I wish, as you are brothers of mine, that you could have spent your time digging in this dirt.' One would guess that Thoreau would much rather the railroad was never actually built.

Although I would disagree with Thoreau's opinion of travel, I do understand what he means by emphasizing the point of staying in one small region and coming to know it deeply. I know from the windows of my childhood home and this campus in Chestertown where the sun will rise every day and the way it moves lower across the southern horizon in winter. I know the trees and the patterns of the geese flying south and coming home. I know the high tide and the low tide. All of this knowing makes me feel connected, like I belong here. It is home. When I visited Europe, I loved it, but I wasn't there long enough to learn these sorts of 'serious things'. There is undeniable value in travelling to far-off (or not so far-off) places as anyone who has gone away for a while and then returned to home can tell you, even if it is only to make you appreciate your home more. But the travel of the every-day tourist will not bring you the connection to the land and the deep life that Thoreau advocates here.

In his other passage about the railroad in 'Sounds', Thoreau is still talking about living deliberately. But here the passage of the railroad not far from Walden is a source of inspiration and contemplation rather than a source of disgruntlement. He uses the metaphor of the train as an iron horse, which is how the Native Americans at first thought of trains. Often this has had negative connotations, but Thoreau writes a beautifully poetic passage comparing the train to a mighty and heroic horse. He compares it to a comet, to a 'travelling demigod'. He praises the railroad for its punctuality; that it allows for the correct setting of clocks and thus 'regulates a whole country' is presented in a positive light. 'We live the steadier for it', he says. This quite in contrast to his earlier view that the railroad makes people more hurried and he even contrasts his earlier view of travel somewhat. He says that the railroad refreshes and expands him when it passes and he can smell the merchandise on the trains, reminding him of foreign parts. He says, 'I feel more like a citizen of the world' rather than a citizen of the small patch of woods and fields around Concord which he was advocating earlier.

He also sees the constant coming and going of the train at all hours as a sign of commerce, which he says is 'unexpectedly confident and serene, alert, adventurous, and unwearied'. He praises commerce and business and this might contrast other places where he argues for independent, self-sustained living. But what he is praising is that these jobs make men 'every day go about their business with more or less courage and content, doing more than they ever suspect'. The railroad and the commerce that it supports Thoreau sees as making men stronger, more courageous, and more content. He recognizes that not everyone can live the way he does, for there isn't anyone 'so independent on his farm that he can say [the merchants] nay'.

Even with all the positive train imagery here and the fact that he uses the track itself as a walkway into the village, the heart of the matter remains the Thoreau himself does not actually care for the railroad much. It is a convenient path and way to keep time, a reminder of society, but as he says, 'What's the railroad to me?/ I never go to see/Where it ends... but I cross it like a cart-path in the woods. I will not have my eyes put out and my ears spoiled by its smoke and steam and hissing.'