在我写下后面这几页文字，或是说它们之中大部的时候，我独自一人置身于森林，方圆一里渺无人烟，住着自己亲手盖成的房子，就在马萨诸塞州康科德镇的瓦尔登湖畔，仅靠双手劳作为生。我在那儿住了两年零两个月。当下我又是文明生活里的一个旅人了。
WHEN I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.