Tag Archives: Henry David Thoreau

shifting minds

The lingering effects of the LSD culture… Though our minds do shift, though our range of perception will at times change gear, we cannot make that shift deliberately, consciously. Nor when it occurs can we hold onto it. And when … Continue reading

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audubon: legacy

The fame of his paintings has tended to distract us from the volumes of text Audubon compiled to accompany Robert Havell Jr.’s engraved plates. Much of its ornithological data has been superceded by subsequent studies, but the accounts of his … Continue reading

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eureka process

How does a scientist make his discoveries? How does a poet find his metaphors? And for that matter, how does a chimpanzee get at a banana? Arthur Koestler said it is done through the Eureka process. The act of creation, … Continue reading

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thoreau: leave the pond

Still waters run deep…Then in the late summer of 1847 Emerson himself decided to go abroad for the winter for a lecture tour arranged by his English friends. Mrs. Emerson was in poor health, and the children were too young … Continue reading

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thoreau: getting restless at walden

…But despite the visitors, despite all the trips to Concord village and to his parents home, despite his surveying and fence building and carpentry, and despite the hours devoted to writing, it must not be forgotten that the experiment at … Continue reading

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thoreau: the little dipper

…Occasionally whole groups of Thoreau’s friends came out together to the pond and swarmed into his little cabin. It became quite the fashion to hold picnics on his doorstep, and when it rained, as many as twenty-five or thirty people … Continue reading

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thoreau: ways with the wild

…Thoreau’s way with wildlife continually astonished his visitors. Mrs. Edwin Bigelow once said of him: Henry would tell all to sit absolutely quiet and close together- then he would go forward cautiously, sprinkle crumbs before them and then retreating, seat … Continue reading

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thoreau: around the berry bush

His cabin was more like a camper in the backyard, only a mile and a half from home, and his sister brought him freshly baked cookies., but Henry David Thoreau did find a wilderness by Walden and time to develop … Continue reading

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thoreau: passing time at the pond

…One of his most frequent visitors was Alek Therien, the French-Canadian wood chopper later immortalized in Walden. Therien, almost exactly Thoreau’s age, had come down from Canada when he was in his teens. Although their backgrounds were very different, they … Continue reading

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thoreau: inspired by weights and dates

…Inspired by their activities, he began a study of the temperature of Walden and the various nearby ponds, rivers, and springs. It was the first of the many statistical studies that were to become so much a part of his … Continue reading

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