Independence Day, 1845

On July 4^th, 1845, Henry David Thoreau began living in the one-room
cabin he had built near Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, on land owned by his mentor and friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote an essay (titled “The
American Scholar”) which has been called “America’s intellectual declaration of
independence.”

Thoreau’s choice of days to begin his “experiment” was no coincidence, despite his claim that the date was “by accident;” it was symbolic of the independence with which he lived his whole life. During the following two years, two months, and two days, one of America’s most original thinkers and writers kept a journal in which he recorded his experiences and thoughts. The result, Walden, or A Life in the Woods, is one of the most important books ever written because of its simple yet profound philosophy of life. Thoreau was not only telling his future readers how he lived but also giving us sound advice on how to live. “I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.”

“Our life is frittered away by detail,” he wrote, which is sadly true, more today
than ever. “Simplicity” is the key to spending one’s time in worthwhile ways,
he repeated.

Thoreau lamented the shallowness of those who only saw the surface of things, unable or unwilling to look deeply. He also lamented the materialism of his own age (“What a lot of things there are a man can do without”), which increased in the decades after his death.

Thoreau called reading “a noble exercise.” He praised the value of truth (“rather than fame, or money’) and the value of solitude and a slower pace of living (“Why
should we be in such desperate haste to succeed?”) He was not a hermit, despite
the popular misconception; he often had visitors and walked into town to see
people.

Thoreau is known as a champion of individualism – “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he marches to the beat of a different
drummer. Let him march to the beat that he hears.”

Thoreau’s influence on 20^th century heroes like Ghandi and King is obvious if
you read his essay on “Civil Disobedience.” Like them, Thoreau wrote and spoke
out against injustice and violence.

It is impossible to do justice to the greatness of Henry David Thoreau in one
essay or even one book about him, but on this Independence Day, or any day,
pick up a copy of Walden, and read the words of one of America’s greatest thinkers and citizens.

Emerson’s eulogy for Thoreau, who died at the age of 44, concludes with the words: “The country knows not yet, nor in the least part, how great a son it has lost. . . His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world. Wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home.”