Monday, Feb. 09, 1987

American Notes MASSACHUSETTS

"To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone." So wrote Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond, the once bucolic site that provided his retreat from civilization. If Thoreau returned today, he would be appalled: last year some 350,000 visitors swarmed through the 400-acre state park near Concord, Mass., in an attempt to recapture the writer's sense of tranquillity.

The flood of tourists poses a dilemma. To keep the pond's sandy banks from crumbling under the heavy foot traffic, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management has begun reinforcing them with fieldstone and new plantings. But a group of local naturalists, called Walden Forever Wild, contends that to change the pond's setting is to destroy it. The naturalists want Governor Michael Dukakis to put a halt to the renovation and declare the park a sanctuary, with only guided tours permitted. That would restore the pristine conditions Thoreau loved -- but would reduce the number who could share his fascination with a spot that, in his words, radiated "liquid joy and happiness."