Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Counter culture icon moves to Waldon Pond--Henry David Thoreau


The Writer's Almanac...

Today is the day, in 1845, that Henry David Thoreau moved to a cabin on Walden Pond. Ralph Waldo Emerson owned some land near Concord, Massachusetts, and let Thoreau build a cabin there. He stayed for two years, two months, and two days, all the while keeping a journal. He published it as a book, which he called Walden; or Life in the Woods, in 1854. In it, he wrote, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." But he wasn't exactly living apart from civilization, nor practicing pure self-reliance. Concord was only a mile and a half away, and he often walked into town. He worked part time as a surveyor, and his mother usually sent him back to the cabin with some home cooking.

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