Walden ( 湖濱散記 ) | The Art of English (2026/05)

Walden 湖濱散記 In 1845, writer Henry David Thoreau built a small cabin near Walden Pond in Massachusetts, USA. For two years he lived with great simplicity, writing down his observations of the natural world and critiques of human society. His collection of essays, published in 1854 as Walden, became one of the most influential books in American literature. It has been called a personal “declaration of independence.” Here, Thoreau considers people’s overdependence on getting constant news updates ... For my part, I could easily do without the post office. I think that there are very few important communications made through it. To speak critically, I never received more than one or two letters in my life—I wrote this some years ago—that were worth the postage. The penny-post is, commonly, an institution through which you seriously offer a man that penny for his thoughts, which is so often safely offered in jest. And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter—we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip. There was such a rush, as I hear, the other day at one of the offices to learn the foreign news by the last arrival, that several large squares of plate glass belonging to the establishment were broken by the pressure—news which I seriously think a ready wit might write a twelvemonth, or twelve years, beforehand with sufficient accuracy. "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau, chapter 2, “Where I Lived and What I Lived For” 【Questions】 1. Why is the post office useless to Thoreau? 2. What events does Thoreau mention that commonly appeared in newspapers in 1845? 3. Do you agree with Thoreau, that people are “greedy for gossip”? Why or why not? 成為我們頻道會員，支持我們並獲得獎勵：    / @adstudioclassroomcom