The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor

One hundred and sixty years ago, on this day in 1854, Walden by Henry David Thoreau (books by this author) was published. Walden described two years in Thoreau's life, during which he lived in a cabin by Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, on land that belonged to his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson. In the spring of 1845, Thoreau borrowed an ax from Bronson Alcott and began clearing white pine for a space to build his home. The one-room cabin was 10 feet by 15 feet and cost $28 to build.

Thoreau never claimed that he would be a total recluse during those years; he wrote in Walden: "I am naturally no hermit." There were busy roads nearby, and he lived just a mile and a half outside of Concord. He went to town to see friends, do laundry at his parents' house, or purchase supplies, and his friends often stopped by to see him — Emerson of course, and Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Alcotts. Strangers would stop by to see him, too, people who had heard that he was living in the woods. Once he entertained 25 or 30 people in his one-room home. But by the standards of Concord society, Thoreau was an outsider, living in a rough, eccentric manner; even his radical Transcendentalist friends were members of polite society. Thoreau was proud of his carefully built home, and he often called it a "house," but Bronson Alcott called it a "hermitage" or even a "wigwam." Emerson wrote in his journal: "Cultivated people cannot live in a shanty, nor sleep at night as the poor do in a bag."

For his part, Thoreau might not have renounced all society, but he was happy to spend most of his time alone. He said, "I'd rather live in a private Hell than a public Heaven." He tended a garden, went for walks, sat still and observed the woods around him, and did a lot of writing. He worked on his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), and he kept a journal.

People regularly asked Thoreau questions about the day-to-day details of his life at Walden: what he ate, whether he got lonely, how he made a living, and how much money he spent. In February of 1845, Thoreau agreed to give two lectures in Concord about his life at Walden, focused on his personal economics. By the time Thoreau left Walden Pond in 1847, he had compiled his journal entries and lectures into a rough draft of the book that would eventually become Walden. He wrote: "I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one."

Thoreau turned his attention to publishing A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (originally titled A Chit-Chat with Nature). It wasthe narrative of a trip he took with his beloved brother, John, who had since died. Thoreau couldn't find a publisher, and ended up publishing it himself. It was a total flop. Out of an edition of 1,000 copies, he sold just 200 and gave away 75. In 1853, the printer decided the books were taking up too much space in the cellar and sent them back to Thoreau in a wagon. He recorded in his journal: "I have now a library of nearly 900 volumes, over 700 of which I wrote myself. Is it not well that the author should behold the fruits of his labor? My works are piled up on one side of my chamber half as high as my head [...] I believe that this result is more inspiring and better for me than if a thousand had bought my wares. It affects my privacy less and leaves me freer."

Thoreau worked on Walden for seven years after leaving the pond, and he wrote seven complete drafts. His journal entry for this day in 1854 read, in its entirety: "To Boston. 'Walden' published. Elder-berries. Waxwork yellowing." Walden was by no means a best-seller, but it got decent reviews and sold 1,744 copies in its first year — a huge improvement on A Week. Thoreau published only those two books during his lifetime.

In Walden, he wrote: "What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new."

On this day 40 years ago, Richard Nixon officially resigned from the presidency. At 11:35 a.m., his resignation letter was delivered to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Gerald Ford took the oath of office. Then, at 12:05 p.m., Gerald Ford gave his first speech as president of the United States. He was the only president in U.S. history who was never elected president or vice president.

In his inaugural address on this day 39 years ago, Gerald Ford said: "My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great republic is a government of laws and not of men."

It's the birthday of Izaak Walton (books by this author), born on this day in 1593. An English biographer, he is best known for The Compleat Angler: Or, The Contemplative Man's Recreation (1653), a guide to the joys of fishing — with more than 300 new printings. It combines practical information about fishing with philosophy, descriptions of nature, and quotations, and continues to be one of the most popular fishing books ever written.

Walton said, "... and so, if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling."

It's the birthday of the English writer John Dryden (books by this author), born in the village of Aldwincle All Saints in Northamptonshire (1631). He wrote plays, poems, essays, and satires, and he was the leading literary figure of the late 17th century.

He wrote the following poem, "Happy Man," in imitation of Horace, Book 3, Ode 29 (1685):

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

It's the birthday of the creator of Mary Poppins, P.L. (Pamela Lyndon) Travers (books by this author), born Helen Lyndon Goff, in Mayborough, Queensland, Australia (1899). Before the publication of Mary Poppins, she adopted P.L. Travers as her literary pseudonym.

In 1933, while recovering from an illness at her home in Sussex, Travers wrote the first stories in the Mary Poppins series and made them into a book about a prim British nanny who appears at a household in a high wind and floats away when the wind changes. Mary Poppins was published the following year. The book was an immediate success in Britain and the United States. Between 1935 and 1988, she published seven sequels, including Mary Poppins Comes Back and Mary Poppins in
Cherry Tree Lane. The 1964 Walt Disney movie starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke was based on Travers' stories.

She said in an interview: "Mary Poppins is both a joy and a curse to me as a writer. As a writer you can feel awfully imprisoned, because people, having had so much of one thing, want you always to go on doing more of the same."

It's the birthday of poet Philip Larkin (books by this author), born in Coventry, England (1922). He was a librarian for 30 years, and a lifelong stoic. He once said, "Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth."

Larkin was known sometimes as "the hermit of Hull" because of his solitary nature. Hull was the town in England where he spent much of his life, and some summers ago Hull unveiled sculptures of toads, a pet subject of Larkin's. The toads were all around the town as part of an event called Larkin 25, commemorating the 25th anniversary of the poet's death.

Philip Larkin, who said: "I think writing about unhappiness is probably the source of my popularity, if I have any. After all, most people are unhappy, don't you think?"