Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 5, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume II

HENRY DAVID THOREAU
as to be a bad subject ; but no more poll-tax to the
State of Massachusetts. Thoreau had now seceded,
and was a polity unto himself; or, as he explains
it with admirable sense, 'In fact, I quietly declare
war with the State after my fashion, though I will
still make what use and get what advantage of her
I can, as is usual in such cases.' He was put in
prison ; but that was a part of his design. ' Under
a government which imprisons any unjustly, the
true place for a just man is also a prison. I know
this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if
ten men whom I could name — ay, if one honest
man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold
slaves, were actually to withdraw from this copartner-
ship, and be locked up in the county gaol therefor,
it would be the abolition of slavery in America. For
it matters not how small the beginning may seem
to be ; what is once well done is done for ever.'
Such was his theory of civil disobedience.
And the upshot ? A friend paid the tax for him ;
continued year by year to pay it in the sequel ; and
Thoreau was free to walk the woods unmolested.
It was a fiasco, but to me it does not seem laugh-
able ; even those who joined in the laughter at the
moment would be insensibly affected by this quaint
instance of a good man's horror for injustice. We
may compute the worth of that one night's imprison-
ment as outweighing half a hundred voters at some
subsequent election ; and if Thoreau had possessed
as great a power of persuasion as (let us say) Fal-
staff, if he had counted a party however small, if
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