unfortunately, another man saw fit to pay it. I did not see why the
schoolmaster should be taxed to support the priest, and not the priest
the schoolmaster; for I was not the State's schoolmaster, but I
supported myself by voluntary subscription. I did not see why the
lyceum should not present its tax-bill, and have the State to back its
demand, as well as the Church. However, at the request of the
selectmen, I condescended to make some such statement as this in
writing:- "Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do
not wish to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society
which I have not joined." This I gave to the town clerk; and he has
it. The State, having thus learned that I did not wish to be
regarded as a member of that church, has never made a like demand on
me since; though it said that it must adhere to its original
presumption that time. If I had known how to name them, I should
then have signed off in detail from all the societies which I never
signed on to; but I did not know where to find a complete list.

  I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on
this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls
of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron,
a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could
not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which
treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked
up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was
the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself
of my services in some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone
between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to
climb or break through before they could get to be as free as I was. I
did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste
of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had
paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved
like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in every
compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief
desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall. I could not but
smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations,
which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they
were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, they
had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at
some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I
saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone
woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends
from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and
pitied it.

  Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man's sense,
intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not
armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical
strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own
fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a
multitude? They only can force me who obey a higher law than I. They
force me to become like themselves. I do not hear of men being
forced to have this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life
were that to live? When I meet a government which says to me, "Your
money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money?
It may be in a great strait, and not know what to do: I cannot help
that. It must help itself; do as I do. It is not worth the while to
snivel about it. I am not responsible for the successful working of
the machinery of society. I am not the son of the engineer. I perceive
that, when an acorn and a chestnut fall side by side, the one does not
remain inert to make way for the other, but both obey their own
laws, and spring and grow and flourish as best they can, till one,
perchance, overshadows and destroys the other. If a plant cannot
live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.

  The night in prison was novel and interesting enough. The
prisoners in their shirt-sleeves were enjoying a chat and the
evening air in the doorway, when I entered. But the jailer said,
"Come, boys, it is time to lock up"; and so they dispersed, and I
heard the sound of their steps returning into the hollow apartments.
My room-mate was introduced to me by the jailer as "a first-rate
fellow and a clever man." When the door was locked, he showed me where
to hang my hat, and how he managed matters there. The rooms were
whitewashed once a month; and this one, at least, was the whitest,
most simply furnished, and probably the neatest apartment in the town.
He naturally wanted to know where I came from, and what brought me
there; and, when I had told him, I asked him in my turn how he came
there, presuming him to be an honest man, of course; and, as the world
goes, I believe he was. "Why," said he, "they accuse me of burning a
barn; but I never did it." As near as I could discover, he had
probably gone to bed in a barn when drunk, and smoked his pipe
there; and so a barn was burnt. He had the reputation of being a
clever man, had been there some three months waiting for his trial
to come on, and would have to wait as much longer; but he was quite
domesticated and contented, since he got his board for nothing, and
thought that he was well treated.

  He occupied one window, and I the other; and I saw that if one
stayed there long, his principal business would be to look out the
window. I had soon read all the tracts that were left there, and
examined where former prisoners had broken out, and where a grate
had been sawed off, and heard the history of the various occupants
of that room; for I found that even here there was a history and a
gossip which never circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably
this is the only house in the town where verses are composed, which
are afterward printed in a circular form, but not published. I was
shown quite a long list of verses which were composed by some young
men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who avenged
themselves by singing them.

  I pumped my fellow-prisoner as dry as I could, for fear I should