December 2011
38 posts
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“What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what...”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Pages Two Hundred and Forty Through Sixty
When my brother left for college that last time, we had a celebration to say goodbye. Of course we didn’t know that we were saying goodbye for real, it was only temporary. We may cry now, we told ourselves, but spring will come and we will be united yet again. Oh how naive we were. How naive each of us are: every person on this deeply swollen Earth. All of us will try to convince ourselves...
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“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears...”
– HDT, Walden
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“Thank Heaven, here is not all the world.”
– HDT, Walden
Pages two hundred and twenty through forty
These pages focus mainly on the change of season. Thoreau begins with the freezing cold winter, and quickly proceeds to the birth of spring and melting of snow. To demonstrate the change of season, he describes the transformation that the Pond goes through. He explains that the pond does not merely change season to season, but also goes through many changes in a single day. The shallow water, he...
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“The day is an epitome of the year.”
– HDT, Walden
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pages one hundred and forty through eighty
(I know, out of order)
In pages one hundred and forty through one hundred and eighty, Thoreau finds himself face to face with a woodchuck, when walking to his cabin one day. He is overpowered with the desire to eat it, and does despite his vegetarianism. Thoreau is a vegetarian because he believes it is immoral to eat animals. I think that Thoreau was ahead of his time for this reason, as most...
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“A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted;...”
– HDT, Walden
Pages one hundred and eighty through two hundred
In these pages, Thoreau explains about the value of wood. That wood holds more value than gold because it is in such high demand, and can be used for almost anything. I found this interesting, because Thoreau once again brought up the topic of value. What is value? Is wood, of all things, worth making sacrifices for? In my mind, it’s not how high the demand is for something that defines how...
“The only people who ever get anyplace interesting are the people who get lost.”...”
– (via uncharted11)
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“Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and...”
– HDT, Walden
pages one hundred to one hundred and twenty
This chapter is titled “Solitude” and yet not once does Thoreau admit to feeling lonely. Solitude, Thoreau seems to feel, is not something that should cause loneliness, but rather something that should guide our minds and carry our deepest thoughts. Thoreau says ” I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude”. He believes that the greatest friend a...
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“Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh...”
– HDT, Walden
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pages sixty through eighty
Past you I can clearly see
the trees as
they tower over us,
protecting us from
the unseen terrors and
guiding us to beauty.
In pages sixty through eighty, Thoreau focuses on beauty, specifically the beauty of nature. Beauty is something that exists so that we can search for it, and when we find it we are attracted it to it like magnets and never want to let go. To let go would be to...
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pages forty through sixty
What defines evil?
According to Thoreau, evil is in part defined by the man-made necessities of civilization. Things such as dishwashers, laundry machines, vacuums, cars—these are the evils that man has created. They are the things that hold a person back from learning responsibility; they hold a person back from experiencing first hand what it means to do, what it means to be. If a person...
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“None is so poor that he need sit on a pumpkin.”
– HDT, Walden
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“It is the luxurious and dissipated who set the fashions which the herd so...”
– HDT, Walden
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pages twenty through forty
What is this that I value?
The golden watch
that once belonged to
my grandfather.
The silk ribbons that
my mother used to tie in
my hair
when I was
a little girl.
The lucky penny that
was given to me
by the boy next door
only a few weeks after he
moved in.
These are the objects
that shape my mind, that
hold me tight and
listen to me
when I am alone.
Yet these are not my values,
...
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pages one through twenty
“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity” (4). After reading these words I began to question the value of time. For how can one, if given the opportunity to skip chapters of their lives, to delete certain memories, or to fast forward any amount of time, actually follow through? Life is so precious that if a person were to miss a single second, they would be missing out on...
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“As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.”
– HDT, Walden