Things I forget

 I forget details that you might not — that Thoreau was an experienced builder when he started his cabin at Walden Pond in 1845, for example.

Thoreau had been helping to build the family’s new house across the railroad in Concord. It was called the Texas house because of its distance from the Mill-Dam, which was reckoned as the center of civilization. Even then, “Texas” was another word for “backwater” or “wilderness.”

Henry Seibel Canby says the cabin was so well made that it survived two moves after Thoreau died and ended up as part of a garage.

Because he taught us to simplify our lives, I remember that Thoreau didn’t have to move much in the way of clothes, furniture and household goods. I forget that he had to haul his boat from the river to the pond.

• Sources: Henry Seidel Canby, Thoreau; Boston: Beacon Press, 1958, pp. 209, 217.