초록
영어
When Henry Thoreau moved to Walden Pond, what he had in mind was to contrive an economy of living for his own use. In carving a niche in the woods he had the advantage of distance enough to take a more critical look at his own self as well as others. He initiated his beanfield as part of his inward-looking effort at self-cultivation. This bean-raising project afforded him the opportunity to get more acquainted with the soil. His farm work helped him to feed his hunger for wildness and practice the transcendental ideal of self-reliance.
His beanfield set Thoreau up as a husbandman, whose concern was more with the process than with the result. He appeared more interested in coming by 'intangible' profits: what figured highest in his harvest were seeds of a different kind than beans.
Thus he identified himself as a tiller of the mind, rather than as a cultivator of the soil. This difference seems sufficient to characterize his idea of husbandry: it is based on Jeffersonian agrarianism, but more pastoral than practical in that his vision tends toward spirituality. This is how Thoreau stood in his beanfield with the purpose of achieving inner wealth.