Thoreau...

[Mugwump]

By Gavin Aung Than / zenpencils.com

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American writer, poet, philosopher and one of the leading figures of the transcendentalism movement. Besides writing Civil Disobedience, which inspired such revolutionaries as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jnr, Thoreau is most well-known for his book Walden, in which he recounts the two years he lived in a small cabin in the woods near Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau used the time to immerse himself in his writing and to live a more simple and self-sufficient life. As he put it:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."

[LizStreithorst]

I haven't read Thoreau since college.  I loved Walden.  His sentiments were good but when he refused to pay his taxes and got tossed in jail he let his friend save him he lost my respect.  If he wanted to make a statement he should have stayed in jail.  He didn't have the guts to stand behind his conviction.

[Mugwump]

I haven't read Thoreau since college.  I loved Walden.  His sentiments were good but when he refused to pay his taxes and got tossed in jail he let his friend save him he lost my respect.  If he wanted to make a statement he should have stayed in jail.  He didn't have the guts to stand behind his conviction.

...yeah, that'll teach em !....I disagree.....besides, his friend bailed him, while he would have likely stayed...

[LizStreithorst]

He didn't have strength of conviction when he was at Walden pond either.  He went to friend's homes to eat and bathe sometimes.  I say that he was not what he cracked himself up to be.

Excellent writer, though.  He never could manage a novel but he was good nonetheless.

[Mugwump]

He didn't have strength of conviction when he was at Walden pond either.  He went to friend's homes to eat and bathe sometimes.  I say that he was not what he cracked himself up to be.

Excellent writer, though.  He never could manage a novel but he was good nonetheless.

There was no strength of conviction....he was there to lead a 'simplified life'......no necessarily a hermits lone existence...

Economy In this first and longest chapter, Thoreau outlines his project: a two-year, two-month, and two-day stay at a cozy, "tightly shingled and plastered", English-style 10' ? 15' cottage in the woods near Walden Pond.[4] He does this, he says, to illustrate the spiritual benefits of a simplified lifestyle. He easily supplies the four necessities of life (food, shelter, clothing, and fuel) with the help of family and friends, particularly his mother, his best friend, and Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Waldo Emerson. The latter provided Thoreau with a work exchange ? he could build a small house and plant a garden if he cleared some land on the woodlot and did other chores while there.[4] Thoreau meticulously records his expenditures and earnings, demonstrating his understanding of "economy", as he builds his house and buys and grows food. For a home and freedom, he spent a mere $28.12?, in 1845 (about $863 in today's money). At the end of this chapter, Thoreau inserts a poem, "The Pretensions of Poverty", by seventeenth-century English poet Thomas Carew. The poem criticizes those who think that their poverty gives them unearned moral and intellectual superiority. The chapter is filled with figures of practical advice, facts, big ideas about individualism versus social existence...manifesto of social thought and meditations on domestic management. Much attention is devoted to the skepticism and wonderment with which townspeople greeted both him and his project as he tries to protect his views from those of the townspeople who seem to view society as the only place to live. He recounts the reasons for his move to Walden Pond along with detailed steps back to the construction of his new home (methods, support, etc.).

Visitors: Thoreau talks about how he enjoys companionship (despite his love for solitude) and always leaves three chairs ready for visitors. The entire chapter focuses on the coming and going of visitors, and how he has more comers in Walden than he did in the city. He receives visits from those living or working nearby and gives special attention to a French Canadian born woodsman named Alec Th?rien. Unlike Thoreau, Th?rien cannot read or write and is described as leading an "animal life".[citation needed] He compares Th?rien to Walden Pond itself. Thoreau then reflects on the women and children who seem to enjoy the pond more than men...and how men are limited because their lives are taken up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden