they would
soon outgrow it. No humane being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood,
will wantonly murder any creature which holds its life by the same
tenure that he does. The hare in its extremity cries like a child.
I warn you, mothers, that my sympathies do not always make the usual
philanthropic distinctions.

Such is oftenest the young man's introduction to the forest, and the
most original part of himself. He goes thither at first as a hunter and
fisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of a better life in him, he
distinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist it may be,
and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind. The mass of men are still and
always young in this respect. In some countries a hunting parson is no
uncommon sight. Such a one might make a good shepherd's dog, but is far
from being the Good Shepherd. I have been surprised to consider that the
only obvious employment, except wood-chopping, ice-cutting, or the like
business, which ever to my knowledge detained at Walden Pond for a whole
half-day any of my fellow-citizens, whether fathers or children of the
town, with just one exception, was fishing. Commonly they did not think
that they were lucky, or well paid for their time, unless they got a
long string of fish, though they had the opportunity of seeing the pond
all the while. They might go there a thousand times before the sediment
of fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their purpose pure; but
no doubt such a clarifying process would be going on all the while.
The Governor and his Council faintly remember the pond, for they went
a-fishing there when they were boys; but now they are too old and
dignified to go a-fishing, and so they know it no more forever. Yet even
they expect to go to heaven at last. If the legislature regards it, it
is chiefly to regulate the number of hooks to be used there; but they
know nothing about the hook of hooks with which to angle for the pond
itself, impaling the legislature for a bait. Thus, even in civilized
communities, the embryo man passes through the hunter stage of
development.

I have found repeatedly, of late years, that I cannot fish without
falling a little in self-respect. I have tried it again and again. I
have skill at it, and, like many of my fellows, a certain instinct for
it, which revives from time to time, but always when I have done I feel
that it would have been better if I had not fished. I think that I do
not mistake. It is a fai