Here’s my comment in “Reading” paragraph 10.
When I first came across, “We should be as good as the worthies of antiquity, but partly by first knowing how good they were” I was honestly blown away. To me, Thoreau is saying that our writing, our poetry, our art, can just be as beautiful and magnificent as the relics that came before us. However, many people no longer appreciate the classics. He worries that not a lot of people are reading them still. He wishes (as he states earlier in the paragraph) that someone else in Concord could understand what he’s saying, but alas no one yet has.
I love this concept because I feel like sometimes when I personally mention certain artists or authors or plays to my friends, they have no idea who I’m talking about! And yet, at one point in history everyone knew them. It fascinates me and also gets me a tiny bit nostalgic.
