Mr. Thoreau’s Timebomb

OUR MOST CONTEMPORARY writer, if we are to judge by certain news headlines of the past year, is Henry David Thoreau, a New England naturalist born two years after Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. To those who knew Thoreau, the conduct of his life was unique for its eccentricities; to those in our own time who know Thoreau’s writings, the conduct of his life is unique for its salutary moral stance. A century after his death Thoreau exerts an influence that he never had during his life.

Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, a town which had been the scene of one of the earliest battles of the American Revolution. He graduated from Harvard at the age of twenty, having attained an education that was apparently more his own than Harvard’s. In 1845 he went to Walden Pond near Concord and there built a hut for himself in which he lived for much of the next two years. During his stay at Walden he spent a night in jail for refusing to pay the poll tax; he later drew on this experience when he wrote his provocative essay “Civil Disobedience,” which was published in 1849. He published Walden in 1854.

FS

About the Author

Frederick K. Sanders

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OUR MOST CONTEMPORARY writer, if we are to judge by certain news headlines of the past year, is Henry David Thoreau, a New England naturalist born two years after Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. To those who knew Thoreau, the conduct of his life was unique for its eccentricities; to those in our own time who know Thoreau’s writings, the conduct of his life is unique for its salutary moral stance. A century after his death Thoreau exerts an influence that he never had during his life.

Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, a town which had been the scene of one of the earliest battles of the American Revolution. He graduated from Harvard at the age of twenty, having attained an education that was apparently more his own than Harvard’s. In 1845 he went to Walden Pond near Concord and there built a hut for himself in which he lived for much of the next two years. During his stay at Walden he spent a night in jail for refusing to pay the poll tax; he later drew on this experience when he wrote his provocative essay “Civil Disobedience,” which was published in 1849. He published Walden in 1854.