Walden

[There is a narrow sand-bar running into it, with very deep water on one side, on which I helped boil a kettle of chowder, some six rods from the main shore, about the year 1824, which it has not been possible to do for twenty-five years; and, on the other hand, my friends used to listen with incredulity when I told them, that a few years later I was accustomed to fish from a boat in a secluded cove in the woods,]

Thoreau references periods of time within this section, “for twenty-five years” and “a few years later.” I’m wondering how these dates or time references change over the course of different versions of Walden. Is there a reference point in time that Thoreau is most ‘committed’ to here–was it “twenty-five years” prior to his first time at Walden, or is it the time from his final draft? Would we see that number of years increase (as time passes) and as he revises different drafts?

[A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees next the shore are the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows.]

This description caught my eye because it is so beautiful. I have never thought of lakes as the “earth’s eye,” but it makes total sense. Afterall, eyes are wet, and they reflect images just like rivers! I also love the way Thoreau builds upon the eye image to create eyelashes and eyebrows. Everything fits so perfectly together here. This is why it makes me wonder how many changes Thoreau made to this passage. For me, images sometimes come really quickly without any thought. Other times, I have to coax and pry and think before anything will come to my mind. I’m curious as so which experience Thoreau had. Did this image come easily to him, or did he have to work at it? If he had to work at it, what other images or comparisons did he try first?

Thoreau uses fishing to connect himself with nature both physically and mentally. He physically tethers himself to the pond and its inhabitants with his fishing rod, waiting “to feel this faint jerk, which came to interrupt your dreams and link you to Nature again”. Thoreau describes his mind as wandering “cosmogonal themes” while fishing, his time spent in nature lends his mind to pondering its origin. I wonder how Thoreau edited his connection to nature through fishing throughout his manuscripts.

I love this quotation, too, @aethernet. “Outside” is clearly where Thoreau prefers to be much of the time, and his description of his as-yet unfinished house in Where I Lived paragraph 8 is interesting in this respect, since it depicts the house as a kind of indoor space still permeated by the outdoors. Another thing I like about this quotation is its applicability to a wide range of other circumstances where we benefit from the disorientation of finding ourselves in unfamiliar surroundings. I include, in this category, the experience of learning to interact with one’s computer through the command line.

So much to think about in your comment here, @akw11! Although it’s impossible to know the exact nature of Thoreau’s religious beliefs, it’s clear that he puts a high value on what we might call the “spiritual” aspect of existence. If he worships a God, it’s not the God of conventional religion. He finds divinity in both Nature and human nature. Like you, he’s troubled by what he sees as a lack of genuine communication between people, a lack that’s all the more unfortunate given the uniqueness of each individual and how much we have to offer one another. As he writes in Economy paragraph 13, “Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another? Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages. History, Poetry, Mythology!–I know of no reading of another’s experience so startling and informing as this would be.”

You’re not the first reader to make that assumption, @hjh8. But as you rightly notice here, Thoreau makes it clear to his readers that he was very far from isolated, walking into the village of Concord, as he writes here, “every few days,” and entertaining visitors of all kinds at his house in the woods, as he explains at length in the chapter “Visitors.”

Yes, great observation, @aubreysp. “Originality” is one of the qualities of character that Thoreau most values.

Great point, @acdahl. Thoreau was a keen observer of nature, and over the years that he was composing Walden, describing phenomena like this became increasingly important to him.

Nice summary, @aidenmcconnell — and as I mentioned in my reply to @ama99 in this paragraph, he seems to be making a case not only for the value of simple living but for the harmfulness of inequality. “These [thieving and robbery] take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough.”

I agree that he’d likely agree with you, @ama99, judging by the sentence following the one you highlighted: “These [i.e., thieving and robbery] take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough.” Thoreau doesn’t offer a plan for eliminating what we would call “wealth inequality” — his focus lies elsewhere — but he’s certainly attuned to the problem, and he’s also attuned to how industrialization and concentration of wealth contribute to the problem. As he writes in Economy paragraph 41, “I cannot believe that our factory system is the best mode by which men may get clothing. The condition of the operatives is becoming every day more like that of the English; and it cannot be wondered at, since, as far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not that mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that corporations may be enriched.”