"Life Without Principle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thoreau Henry David)

there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to
philosophy, ay, to life itself, than this incessant business.

There is a coarse and boisterous money-making fellow in the
outskirts of our town, who is going to build a bank-wall under the
hill along the edge of his meadow. The powers have put this into his
head to keep him out of mischief, and he wishes me to spend three
weeks digging there with him. The result will be that he will
perhaps get some more money to board, and leave for his heirs to spend
foolishly. If I do this, most will commend me as an industrious and
hard-working man; but if I choose to devote myself to certain labors
which yield more real profit, though but little money, they may be
inclined to look on me as an idler. Nevertheless, as I do not need the
police of meaningless labor to regulate me, and do not see anything
absolutely praiseworthy in this fellow's undertaking any more than in
many an enterprise of our own or foreign governments, however amusing
it may be to him or them, I prefer to finish my education at a
different school.

If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he
is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole
day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald
before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising
citizen. As if a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them
down!

Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in
throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely
that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily
employed now. For instance: just after sunrise, one summer morning,
I noticed one of my neighbors walking beside his team, which was
slowly drawing a heavy hewn stone swung under the axle, surrounded by
an atmosphere of industry- his day's work begun- his brow commenced to
sweat- a reproach to all sluggards and idlers- pausing abreast the
shoulders of his oxen, and half turning round with a flourish of his
merciful whip, while they gained their length on him. And I thought,
Such is the labor which the American Congress exists to protect-
honest, manly toil- honest as the day is long- that makes his bread
taste sweet, and keeps society sweet- which all men respect and have
consecrated; one of the sacred band, doing the needful but irksome
drudgery. Indeed, I felt a slight reproach, because I observed this
from a window, and was not abroad and stirring about a similar
business. The day went by, and at evening I passed the yard of another
neighbor, who keeps many servants, and spends much money foolishly,
while he adds nothing to the common stock, and there I saw the stone
of the morning lying beside a whimsical structure intended to adorn
this Lord Timothy Dexter's premises, and the dignity forthwith
departed from the teamster's labor, in my eyes. In my opinion, the sun
was made to light worthier toil than this. I may add that his employer
has since run off, in debt to a good part of the town, and, after