Have been told, that while at Walden, Thoreau would at times, head back to Boston, to enjoy his friends and other benefits of civilization. That part is not usually mentioned.
Crowley wrote something to the effect, that many people have arisen throughout history, and recognized the truth and laws of God. Most looked at the world, and kept such views to themselves, but lived accordingly to them. A rare few others, thinking something could be done to wake them up, tried, as if not having any and all participate in this wondrous sense of life and love, was doing them a disservice. Thoreau seems to be of the later sort, though not without his pleasures along the way.
Yes, his house on Walden pond was about a mile and a half from his family home. When he went to the woods to live deliberately, he didn't actually go that far --- but then I'm not sure he had to, to make the experiment he wanted to make, or to tune his naturalist's eye for things. (but yeah, it's easy to get the impression that he's miles from anywhere, all alone with nature, instead of going home to see his mother, and to work in his father's pencil factory, on the regular).
You think, too, about facts of Thoreau's life (more of which I should probably have worked into this essay, but I didn't want to go on too long): that his brother John, aged 27, died in his arms of tetanus after cutting himself shaving, while all the other Thoreau siblings (including Henry David) would die of tuberculosis. I can imagine how much somebody would want to be aware, at every moment, of his own aliveness, and despair that other people seemed not to be aware, because it was all so fragile.
To waste your life in unconscious acts of injustice and in spiritual deadness must have seemed monstrous to him. It's easy to want to make fun of him a little, especially about the whole Walden project, but the more I think about him, the less I want to do that, and the more sympathy I have for him. There's something endearing about all his exhortations, and much that's simply beautiful in his writing.
Tuberculosis was not an uncommon disease back then. Am old enough to have known someone who had it, we met in a convalescent hospital in my youth. Arizona, Texas, New Mexico were all still Spanish property or Mexican, they aided extending one's life, but not curing it.
Not valuing, or being grateful, just to be alive, to have this experience, is something not everyone has, as life has made me more than enough aware of. Still to paraphrase an old adage, one can bring a person to books, but one can't make them think.
I admit to being one who made fun of him, but it was more a reaction to the hero worship of my peers back in the late 60s and early 70s. Many acts of ungenerosity have such graceless motivations.
I've been meaning to say this for awhile, but always seem to forget. I truly enjoy the art that you add to the beginning of the post each day. It enriches my enjoyment of the poem and the commentary. Thank you for taking the extra time to seek out pieces that do that.
"Transcendentalism looks, sometimes, like not that much fun. "
Great line.
Have been told, that while at Walden, Thoreau would at times, head back to Boston, to enjoy his friends and other benefits of civilization. That part is not usually mentioned.
Crowley wrote something to the effect, that many people have arisen throughout history, and recognized the truth and laws of God. Most looked at the world, and kept such views to themselves, but lived accordingly to them. A rare few others, thinking something could be done to wake them up, tried, as if not having any and all participate in this wondrous sense of life and love, was doing them a disservice. Thoreau seems to be of the later sort, though not without his pleasures along the way.
Yes, his house on Walden pond was about a mile and a half from his family home. When he went to the woods to live deliberately, he didn't actually go that far --- but then I'm not sure he had to, to make the experiment he wanted to make, or to tune his naturalist's eye for things. (but yeah, it's easy to get the impression that he's miles from anywhere, all alone with nature, instead of going home to see his mother, and to work in his father's pencil factory, on the regular).
You think, too, about facts of Thoreau's life (more of which I should probably have worked into this essay, but I didn't want to go on too long): that his brother John, aged 27, died in his arms of tetanus after cutting himself shaving, while all the other Thoreau siblings (including Henry David) would die of tuberculosis. I can imagine how much somebody would want to be aware, at every moment, of his own aliveness, and despair that other people seemed not to be aware, because it was all so fragile.
To waste your life in unconscious acts of injustice and in spiritual deadness must have seemed monstrous to him. It's easy to want to make fun of him a little, especially about the whole Walden project, but the more I think about him, the less I want to do that, and the more sympathy I have for him. There's something endearing about all his exhortations, and much that's simply beautiful in his writing.
Tuberculosis was not an uncommon disease back then. Am old enough to have known someone who had it, we met in a convalescent hospital in my youth. Arizona, Texas, New Mexico were all still Spanish property or Mexican, they aided extending one's life, but not curing it.
Not valuing, or being grateful, just to be alive, to have this experience, is something not everyone has, as life has made me more than enough aware of. Still to paraphrase an old adage, one can bring a person to books, but one can't make them think.
I admit to being one who made fun of him, but it was more a reaction to the hero worship of my peers back in the late 60s and early 70s. Many acts of ungenerosity have such graceless motivations.
I've been meaning to say this for awhile, but always seem to forget. I truly enjoy the art that you add to the beginning of the post each day. It enriches my enjoyment of the poem and the commentary. Thank you for taking the extra time to seek out pieces that do that.
Thank you! It is fun to track things down.