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

HENRY DAVID THOREAU
little reflection, may decide to spend a trifle less
for money, and indulge ourselves a trifle more in
the article of freedom.
Ill
*To have done anything by which you earned
money merely,' says Thoreau, * is to be ' (have been,
he means) 'idle and worse.' There are two passages
in his letters, both, oddly enough, relating to fire-
wood, which must be brought together to be rightly
understood. So taken, they contain between them
the marrow of all good sense on the subject of work
in its relation to something broader than mere liveli-
hood. Here is the first : ' I suppose I have burned
up a good-sized tree to-night — and for what? I
settled with Mr. Tarbell for it the other day ; but
that wasn't the final settlement. I got off" cheaply
from him. At last one will say : " Let us see, how
much wood did you burn, sir?" And I shall shudder
to think that the next question will be, ' What did
you do while you were warm ? " ' Even after we
have settled with Admetus in the person of Mr.
Tarbell, there comes, you see, a further question.
It is not enough to have earned our hvelihood.
Either the earning itself should have been service-
able to mankind, or something else must follow.
To Uve is sometimes very difficult, but it is never
meritorious in itself ; and we must have a reason to
allege to our own conscience why we should con-
tinue to exist upon this crowded earth. If Thoreau
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