Worth the while

“The cost of a thing,” Thoreau wrote, “is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”

In the Journal as well as in Walden, Thoreau played the canny New Englander, weighing the value of things both material and spiritual. The phrase “worth the while” often marks the places where he does so. Below are some examples, from Damion Searls’ new edition of the Journal. 

It would be worth the while to tell why a swamp pleases us, what kinds please us, also what weather, etc., etc.—analyze our impressions. (March 30, 1852)

Would it not be worth the while to describe the different states of our meadows which cover so large a portion of the town? (April 16, 1852)

It is worth the while to walk in wet weather; the earth and leaves are strewn with pearls. (August 7, 1853)

It might be worth the while, where possible, to flood a cranberry meadow as soon as they are ripe and before the frosts, and so preserve them plump and sound till spring. (November 15, 1853)

There is, no doubt, a particular season of the year when each place may be visited with most profit and pleasure, and it may be worth the while to consider what that season is in each case. (August 22, 1854)

The conventional acorn of art is of course of no particular species, but the artist might find it worth his while to study Nature’s varieties again. (September 30, 1854)

It is a lichen day. How full of life and of eyes is the damp bark! It would not be worth the while to die and leave all this life behind one. (January 7, 1855)

It was worth the while to see what a burden of damp snow lay on the trees notwithstanding the wind. (January 19, 1855)

Skated up the river with Tappan in spite of the snow and wind.... It was worth the while for one to look back against the sun and wind and see the other sixty rods off coming, floating down like a graceful demon in the midst of the broad meadow all covered and lit with the curling snow-steam, between which you saw the ice in dark, waving streaks, like a mighty river Orellana braided of a myriad steaming currents,—like the demon of the storm driving his flocks and herds before him. (February 3, 1855)

Seeing me going to sharpen some plane-irons, and hearing me complain of the want of tools, he [Mr. Rice] said that I ought to have a chest of tools. But I said it was not worth the while. (November 16, 1855)

It is worth the while to know that there is all this sugar in our woods, much of which might be obtained by using the refuse wood lying about, without damage to the proprietors, who use neither the sugar nor the wood. (March 21, 1856)

It would be worth the while, methinks, to make a map of the town with all the good springs on it, indicating whether they were cool, perennial, copious, pleasantly located, etc. (July 12, 1857)

It is worth the while to walk in swamps now, to bathe your eyes in greenness. (November 5, 1857)

The beauty of the fish, that is what it is best worth the while to measure. (November 30, 1858)

I go to get one more sight of the old house which Hosmer is pulling down ... The latter [Nathan Hosmer] draws all the nails, however crooked, and puts them in his pockets, for, being wrought ones, he says it is worth the while. (March 11, 1859)

In keeping a journal of one’s walks and thoughts it seems to be worth the while to record those phenomena which are most interesting to us at the time. (January 25, 1860)

Another finger-cold evening, which I improve in pulling my turnips—the usual amusement of such weather—before they shall be frozen in. It is worth the while to see how green and lusty they are yet, still adding to their stock of nutriment for another year; and between the green and also withering leaves it does me good to see their great crimson round or scalloped tops, sometimes quite above ground, they are so bold. (November 21, 1860)