Journals of Henry David Thoreau

AUTHOR: Thoreau, Henry David

In his Journals, Thoreau offers reflections on such issues related to ethical veganism as the moral poverty ("misery") of killing and eating kindred beings; farming, land use and envronmentalism; the adaptation of diet to the specifics of environment; and the imaginative and spiritual benefits of a plant-based diet, especially a diet based on fruit. The journals also provide insight into Thoreau's thoughts about contemporary reform and reformers, such as A. Bronson Alcott.

The summary below identifies those moments in his journals that are most relevant to Thoreau's ethical veganism.

KEYWORDS: food, animals, labor, slavery, reform, morality, imagination, nature, civilization, Transcendentalism

SUMMARY (Aïcha Bouchelaghem & Deborah Madsen):

Volume I

1840, March 21: “Thank Fortune, we are not rooted to the soil, and here is not all the world. . . . Shall we not compete with the buffalo, who keeps pace with the seasons, cropping the pastures of the Colorado till a greener and sweeter grass awaits him by the Yellowstone? The wild goose is more a cosmopolite than we; he breaks his fast in Canada, takes a luncheon in the Susquehanna, and plumes himself for the night in a Louisiana bayou” (130).

1841, January 28: “Let your mood determine the form of salutation, and approach the creature; with a natural nonchalance, as though he were anything but what he is, and you were anything but what you are, - as though he were he, and you were you; in short, as though he were so insignificant that it did not signify” (179).

1841, February 7: “My diet is so little stimulating, and my body in consequence so little heated, as to excite no antagonism in nature, but flourishes like a tree” (201).

1845, July 14: “I have felt, when partaking of this inspiring diet [of fruit and nuts], that my appetite was an indifferent consideration; that eating became a sacrament, a method of communion, an ecstatic exercise, a mingling of bloods, and [a] sitting at the communion table of the world; and so have not only quenched my thirst at the spring but the health of the universe” (372).

1845, August 15: “What if we were to obey these fine dictates, these divine suggestions, which are addressed to the mind and not to the body, which are certainly true, — not to eat meat, not to buy, or sell, or barter, etc., etc., etc.?” (382)

1845, December 23: “There is a civilization going on among brutes as well as men. Foxes are forest dogs. I hear one barking raggedly, wildly, demoniacally in the darkness to-night, seeking expression, laboring with some anxiety, striving to be a dog outright that he may carelessly run in the street, struggling for light” (396).

1845-1847 (entries undated): “[A. Bronson] Alcott is a geometer, a visionary, the Laplace of ethics, more intellect, less of the affections, sight beyond talents, a substratum of practical skill and knowledge unquestionable, but overlaid and concealed by a faith in the unseen and impracticable” (432). "When Alcott's day comes, laws unsuspected by most will take effect,' the system will crystallize; according to them, all seals and falsehood will slough off, everything will be in its place" (433).

1842, October 21: “All brutes seem to have a genius for mystery, an Oriental aptitude for symbols and the language of signs” (470). On slaughter-houses: “Our offense is rank, it smells to heaven. In the midst of our village, as in most villages, there is a slaughter-house, and throughout the summer months, day and night, ... the air [is] filled with such scents as we instinctively avoid in a woodland walk; and doubtless, if our senses were once purified and educated by a simpler and truer life, we should not consent to live in such a neighborhood” (480-481). The “souls of brutes ... they must have souls as well as teeth” (482).

Volume II

1850, November 21: “I get nothing to eat in my walks now but wild apples, sometimes some cranberries, and some walnuts” (108).

1850, November 28: “women, to whom we commonly concede a somewhat sibylline nature, yield a more implicit obedience even to their animal instincts than men. The nature in them is stronger, the reason weaker. There are ... many young and middle-aged men among my acquaintance – shoe-makers, carpenters, farmers, and others – who have scruples about using animal food, but comparatively few girls or women. The latter, even the most refined, are the most intolerant of such reforms” (116).

1851, May 1: “There is a certain class of unbelievers who sometimes ask me such questions as, if I think that I can live on vegetable food alone; and to strike at the root of the matter at once, I am accustomed to answer such, ‘Yes, I can live on board nails.’ If they cannot understand that, they cannot understand much that I have to say. That cuts the matter short with them” (188-189).

1851, August 16: “It is true man can and does live by preying on other animals, but this is a miserable way of sustaining himself, and he will be regarded as a benefactor of his race, along with Prometheus and Christ, who shall teach men to live on a more innocent and wholesome diet. Is it not already acknowledged to be a reproach that man is a carnivorous animal?” (390).

1851, August 31: “... long after feeding, the diviner faculties begin to be fed, to feel their oats, their nutriment, and are not oppressed by the belly's load. It is abstinence from loading the belly anew until the brain and divine faculties have felt their vigor. Not till some hours does my food invigorate my brain,– ascendeth into the brain. We practice at this hour an involuntary abstinence” (436).

1851, September 3: Thoreau creates a parallel between human chattel slavery and subjugated animals, proposing a common Abolitionist argument that by enslaving their fellow humans, enslavers themselves become enslaved: “What is a horse but an animal that has lost its liberty? What is it but a system of slavery? And do you not thus by insensible and unimportant degrees come to human slavery? Has lost its liberty! – and has man got any more liberty himself for having robbed the horse, or has he lost just as much of his own, and become more like the horse he has robbed?” (448).

1851, September 7: “I feel that the juices of the fruits which I have eaten, the melons and apples, have ascended to my brain and are stimulating it. They give me a heady force. Now I can write nervously” (468).

Volume III

1851, October 8: “No wonder the first men lived on acorns. Such as these are no mean food, such as they are represented to be. Their sweetness is like the sweetness of bread, and to have discovered this palatableness in this neglected nut ... . To find that acorns are edible, — it is a greater addition to one's stock of life than would be imagined. I should be at least equally pleased if I were to find that the grass tasted sweet and nutritious” (56). Thoreau proposes that these nuts are the natural diet of humans: “I cannot but believe that acorns were intended to be the food of man” (57).

Volume IV

1852, July 11: “After I had been eating these simple, wholesome, ambrosial fruits on this high hillside, I found my senses whetted, I was young again, and whether I stood or sat I was not the same creature” (219).

1852, November 27: “I had rarely for many years used animal food, or tea or coffee, etc., etc., not so much because of any ill effects which I had traced to them in my own case, though I could theorize extensively in that direction, as because it was not agreeable to my imagination. ... The repugnance to animal food and the rest is not the result of experience, but is an instinct” (417).

1852, December 28: “We live too fast and coarsely, just as we eat; too fast, and do not know the true savor of our food” (433).

Volume V

1853, May 9: Thoreau spent the day with A. Bronson Alcott: “He is broad and genial, but indefinite; some would say feeble; forever feeling about vainly in his speech and touching nothing. But this is a very negative account of him, for he thus suggests far more than the sharp and definite practical mind. The feelers of his thought diverge, -- such is the breadth of their grasp, -- not converge; and in his society almost alone I can express at my leisure, with more or less success, my vaguest but most cherished fancy or thought. There are never any obstacles in the way of our meeting. He has no creed. He is not pledged to any institution. The sanest man I ever knew; the fewest crotchets, after all, has he” (130).

1853, May 10: “(With Alcott almost alone is it possible to put all institutions behind us. Every other man owns some stock in this or that one, and will not forget it)” (141).

1853, June 13: “I would rather never taste chickens' meat nor hens' eggs than never to see a hawk sailing through the upper air again. This sight is worth incomparably more than a chicken soup or a boiled egg” (246).

1853, June 26: “Had for dinner a pudding made of service-berries” (303).

1853, July 24: “We pluck and eat [berries] in remembrance of Her [nature]. It is a sacrament, a communion. The not-forbidden fruits, which no serpent tempts us to taste” (331).

1853, August 9: “Alcott spent the day with me yesterday. He spent the day before with [Ralph Waldo] Emerson. He observed that he had got his wine and now he had come after his venison. Such was the compliment he paid me” (365)

1853, August 23: “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Let them be your only diet; drink and botanical medicines. In August live on berries, not dried meats and pemmican, as if you were on shipboard making your way through a waste ocean, or in a northern desert” (394).

1853, September 12: Although Thoreau often talks of feeling invigorated after eating fruit, over-indulgence or intemperance is criticized: “I awoke this morning, feeling regret for intemperance of the day before in eating fruit, which had dulled my sensibilities” (424).

1853, October 26: “When, after feeling dissatisfied with my life, I aspire to something better, am more scrupulous, more reserved and continent, as if expecting somewhat, suddenly I find myself full of life as a nut of meat,-- flowing with a quiet, genial mirthfulness. I think to myself, I must attend to my diet; I must get up earlier and take a morning walk; I must have done with luxuries and devote myself to my muse” (456).

1853, November 7: “It is a hard, tough [walnut] tree, whose fruit is stones, fit to have been the food of man in the iron age. I should like to see a man whose diet was berries and nuts alone. Yet I would not rob the squirrels, who, before any man, are the true owners” (487).

Volume VI

1853, December 18: “This coarse and hurried outdoor work compels me to live grossly or be inattentive to my diet; that is the worst of it. Like work, like diet; that, I find, is the rule. Left to my chosen pursuits, I should never drink tea nor coffee, nor eat meat. The diet of any class or generation is the natural result of its employment and locality. It is remarkable how unprofitable it is for the most part to talk with farmers” (20).

1854, February 4: “Ever what most attracts us in the farmer's life is not its profitableness. We love to go after the cow, not for the sake of her milk or her beef, or the money they yield, but perchance to hear the tinkling of the cow-bell; and we would fain keep a herd of pigs, not because of the profit there is in bacon, but because we have dreamed of hearing the swineherd's horn” (94).

1854, May 28: “It would be worth the while to ask ourselves weekly, Is our life innocent enough? Do we live inhumanely, toward man or beast, in thought or act?” (310).

Volume VII

1855, October 27: “ I frequently pluck wild apples of so rich and spicy a flavor that I wonder all orchardists do not get a scion from them, but when I have brought home my pockets full, and taste them in the house, they are unexpectedly harsh, crude things. ... The palate rejects a wild apple eaten in the house” (520). “They must be eaten in the fields, when your system is all aglow with exercise” (521).

1855, October 29: “This natural raciness, sours and bitters, etc., which the diseased palate refuses, are the true casters and condiments. What is sour in the house a bracing walk makes sweet. Let your condiments be in the condition of your senses. Apples which the farmer neglects and leaves out as unsalable, and unpalatable to those who frequent the markets, are the choicest fruit to the walker” (526-527).

Volume VIII

1855, November 5: Thoreau doubts the effectiveness of reform at the communal level: “But what is the use in trying to live simply, raising what you eat, making what you wear, building what you inhabit, burning what you cut or dig, when those to whom you are allied insanely want and will have a thousand other things which neither you nor they can raise and nobody else, perchance, will pay for?” (8).

1856, January 11: “Animals that live on such cheap food as buds and leaves and bark and wood, like partridges and rabbits and wild mice, never need apprehend a famine” (103).

1856, March 23: “But when I consider that the nobler animals have been exterminated here, — the cougar, panther, lynx, wolverene, wolf, bear, moose, deer, the beaver, the turkey, etc., etc., - I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed, and, as it were, emasculated country” (220).

1856, May 17: “Her [the cow's] food and drink are not scarce and precious, but the commonest elements of which nature is composed. The dry land in these latitudes, except in woods and deserts, is almost universally clothed with her food, and there are inland seas, ready mixed, of the wine that she loves. The Mississippi is her drink, the prairie grass her food” (341).

Volume IX

1856, December 12: “That there should be such a thing as a brute animal, not human! and that it should attain to a sort of society with our race! Think of cats, for instance. They are neither Chinese nor Tartars. They do not go to school, nor read the Testament; yet how near they come to doing so! how much they are like us who do so! What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing of the origin and destiny of cats? At length, without having solved any of these problems, we fatten and kill and eat some of our cousins!" (178-179).

1856, December 21: “Think what a pitiful kind of life ours is, eating our kindred animals” (192).

Volume X

1857, October 22: “I drive no cattle to Ipswich hills. I own no pasture for them there. My eyes it is alone that wander to those blue pastures, which no drought affects. They are my flocks and herds” (119).

1858, March 5: “No science does more than arrange what knowledge we have of any class of objects. But, generally speaking, how much more conversant was the Indian with any wild animal or plant than we are, and in his language is implied all that intimacy, as much as ours is expressed in our language. How many words in his language about a moose, or birch bark, and the like! ... We would fain know something more about these animals and stones and trees around us. We are ready to skin the animals alive to come at them. Our scientific names convey a very partial information only; they suggest certain thoughts only. It does not occur to me that there are other names for most of these objects, given by a people who stood between me and them, who had better senses than our race” (294).

Volume XI

1858, August 16: “Goodwin shot them [the summer ducks that Thoreau had been following], and Mrs.--, who never sailed on the river, ate them. Of course, she knows not what she did. What if I should eat her canary? Thus we share each other's sins as well as burdens. The lady who watches admiringly the matador shares his deed. They belonged to me, as much as to any one, when they were alive, but it was considered of more importance that Mrs.-- should taste the flavor of them dead than that I should enjoy the beauty of them alive” (107).

1858, November 30: “It is the poetry of fishes which is their chief use; their flesh is their lowest use. The beauty of the fish, that is what it is best worth the while to measure” (360).

Volume XII

1859, August 27: “poverty” as frugality: “What is often called poverty, but which is a simpler and truer relation to nature, gives a peculiar relish to life, just as to be kept short gives us an appetite for food” (297).

1859, August 28: “I hear that some of the villagers were aroused from their sleep before light by the groans or bellowings of a bullock which an unskillful butcher was slaughter-ing at the slaughter-house. What morning or Memnonian music was that to ring through the quiet village? What did that clarion sing of? What a comment on our village life!” (301).

Volume XIII

1860, January 17: "The northwest sky at first was what you may call a lattice sky, the fair weather establishing itself first on that side in the form of a long and narrow crescent, in which the clouds, which were uninterrupted overhead, were broken into long bars parallel to the horizon, thus: - Alcott; said well the other day that this was his definition of heaven, 'A place where you can have a little conversation'" (94)

Volume XIV

1860, November 29: “Then I reflected that the first money was of leather, or a whole creature (whence pecunia, from pecus, a herd), and, since leather was at first furry, I easily understood the connection between a lynx and ten dollars, and found that all money was traceable right back to the original wildcat bank” (283).

 

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