noble ambitions I had embraced in my adolescence, why finally nursing? And nursing homes, for God's sake! Yes, the world was going to listen to me, wasn't it? A child of the sixties with but one simple request of the world, right all the wrongs. And if you don't, we will have sit-ins and love-ins and marathon protests. I'll play eerie, pastorallike lute tunes on my recorder instead of going to your silly proms. I'll spend a night in jail, I'll mouth sassy accusations to a policeman, I'll take a punch alongside the head and you, you deaf world, will listen to me! But you didn't. You turned apathetic, taking with you my friends, men and women of the seventies. Yes, Joey, that was a naughty thing to do, to take your shirt off and throw it on the floor and try to escape down the hall. You funny old alcholic! You should be glad to have a place to sleep nights and food to eat and a television to talk to. Patient No. 1. 1100-1200: Taken to beauty shop, returned to division, sitting in hall, resting. Poor old Flora wants to be so much help. She wheeled Margaret back from the beauty shop, barely making progress at all. She stops at every door, one hand rubbing the cool enamel painted doorway, the other fist pulsing in her duster pocket. She talks (is it talking?) but who can understand her? Who tries? Joey? Certainly not Annie. Even Margaret in the chair ahead engages her mind in other matters. I asked Margaret today how she was feeling. She answered promptly, "Oh yes! I'd love to ride over to Albert's." And her halting voice kept time with the gentle side to side swinging of her head. Margaret says "Oh yes!" like a naive little farm girl swinging on a wooden gate, her lunch in a lard bucket. "Oh, yes! I love my freckles. Uncle Charlie says they're angel kisses!" Oh yes, Margaret, my buggy will be around shortly to fetch you and we'll ride together to Albert's. Look away, look away, Dixieland. She yawned and reached for her glass. She must try to sleep. Patient No. 4. 1230-1345: Ate all of lunch, given extra fluids, wheeled back to room, sitting inside doorway, resting. Ira, you and that soft, nebulous aura about you remind me of a very old Gerber baby. White gasses mingle close to your head and seem to await fulfillment of a promise from your limpid blue eyes. Those eyes that yet trust the world. Those eyes that accuse while imploring. Do you know that the attention you receive from me is penitential? Do you know that I cradle the guilt that your left hand extends while your right hand lays heavy-burdened in your lap? Even your voice seems unreal a voiceless voice that whispers not smoothly, not coarsley. I see that spark in your face as I approach to offer a token of attention and a wash of pain emerges and recedes within an instant. As I sit feeding you my mind caresses your aura and aloud I agree with you that yogurt is awful. Patient No. 5. 1230-1300: Given lunch tray in room, ate all of lunch, taken to bathroom, returned to chair and restrained, given cigarette, resting. Max didn't try to stab the orderly today with his spoon. One cigarette for Max. He didn't soil his clothes; another cigarette for Max. Max wears shirt sleeves rolled half-way up his arm to expose a sailor's tatoos. He mutters half-obscene propositions to the aides. One of his eyes lolls half-way up his head and the other is half-closed. I wonder what that doctor is doing now or thinking this minute that man who performed the lobotomy on half-Max. I think I'm finally learning the rules of the game. I'm able now to confine most of my reactions to physical responses. I allow myself to become tired, to sigh at the doldrums of dispensing medications, to hold my breath upon entering the laundry room and to wish I'd bought that more expensive pair of shoes after all. Somebody left a hanger dangling from a thermostat. It was in the tub room, an aide was in there giving Liz a bath. Elizabeth hated baths. She complained that it was like soaking in your own dirt. But being a quadraplegic (a victim of a fall a couple of years ago) she was denied the luxury of standing in the shower. Liz's young immobile body lay prey to wracking spasms and she endured therapy daily, except on weekends. She was desperately lonely and was good company for lonely nurses, directing her energies into being hopeful more for her visitors and caretakers than for herself. The aide reached and with one sure motion, swept the curtain out of her way. The curtain flew into the hanger and the thermostat sputtered and flames climbed the wall. The aide jumped away from the danger, jerking her hand from underneath Liz's fragile neck. She screamed, Annie screamed and patient No. 5 expired. Piccolos and Dixie had at some indistinguishable moment transformed into horns and star spangled banners and homes of the free. Her potato chips were stale, her soda had lost its fizz. She sat. Resting. The Broom Hotel 14 The Aardvark Review Volume 2, Number 1 AN INTERPRETATION OF THOREAU'S "HIGHER LAWS" IN WALDEN by Maryonne Wilson Thoreau's insight of man's path to spirituality and communion with the God transcend organized religion in the "Higher Laws" 1 of Wolden. The work is not a sketch of fish and the hunt, but a universal description of "fishers of men" and the progress of civilization. The endeavor toward the higher laws manifests itself through the moral mind of Henry David Thoreau in beautiful metaphor, instructing, not preaching. The chapter, "Higher Laws," opens with an element of shock; the promoter of a "vegetable wilderness" is "strongly tempted to seize and devour" animal existence. Upon further scrutiny the act of consumption is nothing more than a metaphoric example of experiencing life. The illustration of the hunting and the eating points toward an actual function necessary to social progress: Civilization historically excelled only by its movement through the hunt to plant nurturing, or in Walden, the cultivating of the soul. Sensitive observation is found within the line: "the wildest scenes had become unaccountably familiar." So it is with life, man comes into any situation backed by ignorance and without experience. Through repetition that life becomes a path of natural habit, known, familiar. The base man frequents the path while the greater mind searches on to a higher spiritual life: I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true I fear that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels.2 Every human being has the option of choosing a path he must follow after the first initial blazing. Thoreau states: "I have found repeatedly, of late years, that I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect." As man progresses, he moves away from the basic habits of sustenance and into a higher existence to join the God. He transcends the world and his being is combined with a far greater realm. To move back out of the superior area into animal paths presents only sorrow. The soul of every man has "instinct" for the "fishing," but he also feels "that it would have been better if I had not fished." Thoreau writes these words for all mankind to take heart, "with every year I am less a fisherman." The human that leaves the pole and gun behind for a higher law transcends into another domain: "in civilized communities, the embryo man passes through the hunter stage of development." Man has beginnings but goes on to a rebirth by first, activity; second, indulgences; and third, involvement. The process parallels metamorphosis. Thoreau parallels the changes in man to the metamorphosis of a crawling creature. The first birth of egg conception is an activity, but, without much accomplishment. The larva stage is similar to man's learning and indulgence period where both are gluttonous. There is a short rest and the beautiful butterfly emerges, a specimen of the God. A fact which must not be dismissed is the recognition of a remaining part still carried beneath the wing. This similar restriction holds the otherwise pure-soul of the adult man, he still retains a gluttonous part of his past. There is an explanation about purifying the imperfections in man and turning toward nurturing the soul in the chapter of "Higher Laws." Simplicity, the counsel of Thoreau, defines exact procedures for the eating of food; in actuality, it is illustration on how to feed the soul: It is hard to provide and cook so simple and clean a diet as will not offend the imagination; but this, I think, is to be fed when we feed the body; they should both sit down at the same table. Yet perhaps this may be done. The fruits eaten temperately need not make us ashamed of our appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest pursuits. But put an extra condiment into your dish, and it will poison you. It is not worth the while to live by rich cookery I have found it to be the most serious objection to coarse labours long continued, that they compelled me to eat and drink coarsely also. But to tell the truth, I find myself at present somewhat less particular in these respects. I carry less religion to the table.3 For man to take in life presents no shame, it is only the additions of impure and unchaste elements which poison the soul. We should live by simple and higher laws to excell in this existence. When man stays with the flesh of this earth far too long, he also consumes that flesh. Thoreau would advocate a higher, more spiritual, while at the same time, less orthodox eating at the table. He would stress not eating for the appetite, but partaking for the communion of uniting soul and oversoul. Thoreau firmly believes in the harmony of a moral Universe: The rhythm which comes from man's investment into the world is harmonious; it cannot be dissonant. There is an animal sound emanating from man but it is in the down beat, and then is quickly followed by a surging of divine soul. Not only the voice, but also "the spirit can for a time pervade and control every member and function of the body, and transmute what in form is the grossest sensuality into purity and devotion." This energy, through activity and indulgence, will lead to the superior level where man dwells in chastity and adult controlled sensuality. The soul moves to a beat and stress of the Universe; the animal does not. That is not to say this conception transcends body; the house of this existence is of the greatest importance. Thoreau calls it a temple, and where man goes to worship the God. It should therefore be a holy place. There are a number of conclusions to draw from "Higher Laws": one, if the universe is moral, so must men be or there would be disharmony; two, each man has some of the animal as well as the divine, but maturity and knowledge of the right kind nurtures divinity; three, chastity and purity are possible through control; four, sensuality can be for the downfall or the glorification of man; and five, the body is capable of housing a perfect soul. The chapter ends detailing a "John Farmer"; this John of course has trod the path of the hunter and is in the process of excesses and nurturing. "John Farmer," who is Thoreau, and man, and the soul of this existence sits in his doorway: "Wherever I sat, there I might live."4 The entrance way alludes to the gates of Biblical times and it is also the entrance into a higher level. For centuries, all business of the earth was concluded at the gates. The man that sat there in behalf of the family was a man of great importance. "John Farmer," the man of the family of man, and man, is of the utmost importance. His soul that moved from the field and stream, and up to the entrance way leading to another realm, is a beautiful form. Its spirit is complementary to that of the God. This man has bathed, or has been baptized in a pond. Music complements his soul while he reminisces about past tasks. He remembers the everyday labor, but he hears a greater, more spiritual tone in sound. He passed through the hunt and controlled a strip of land. He had been in the village, in the state, for there civilization is also; but he passed those institutions of man and walked the "impressible" path. 1Henry David Thoreau, "Higher Laws," Walden (New York: Peebles Press International), p. 185. Volume 2, Number 1 The Aardvark Review 15