What can be uglier than a country occupied by grovelling, coarse, and low-lived men?

September 26.

Since I perambulated the bounds of the town, I find that I have in some degree confined myself, - - my vision and my walks.

On whatever side I look off I am reminded of the mean and narrow-minded men whom I have lately met there. What can be uglier than a country occupied by grovelling, coarse, and low-lived men? No scenery will redeem it.

What can be more beautiful than any scenery inhabited by heroes? Any landscape would be glorious to me, if I were assured that its sky was arched over a single hero.

Hornets, hyenas, and baboons are not so great a curse to a country as men of a similar character.

It is a charmed circle which I have drawn around my abode, having walked not with God but with the devil.

I am too well aware when I have crossed this line.

Most New England biographies and journals John Adams's not excepted affect me like opening of the tombs.

The prudent and seasonable farmers are already plowing against another year.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 26, 1851

The mean and narrow-minded men whom I have lately met  See September 12, 1851 (" On Monday, the 15th instant, I am going to perambulate the bounds of the town. ...It is a sort of reconnoissance of its frontiers authorized by the central government of the town, which will bring the surveyor in contact with whatever wild inhabitant or wilderness its territory embraces."); September 15, 1851 ("Commenced perambulating the town bounds."); September 16, 1851 ("The inhabitants of Lincoln yield sooner than usual to the influence of the rising generation, and are a mixture of rather simple but clever with a well-informed and trustworthy people."); September 17, 1851 ("Perambulated the Lincoln line."); September 18, 1851 ("Perambulated Bedford line."); September 19, 1851 (Perambulated the Carlisle line"); September 20, 1851 ("A fatal coarseness is the result of mixing in the trivial affairs of men.. . . I feel inexpressibly begrimed.")