Have I ever returned to Walden without a sense of anticipation and delight? Thoreau’s iconoclastic humor is delightful and his aphorisms always memorable; I learn new truths and old truths afresh with each reacquaintance. I find myself pausing frequently to underline passages or simply to muse on them. It is not worthwhile to quote all or even some of them here, they are so familiar; but it is refreshing to be reminded of them again and to measure them against my own experience, affirming what I have found true and dropping what does not seem relevant, for, to be sure, it is a young man’s perspective written to young people. Nonetheless there is much wisdom here, profound insights applicable to those both young and old, to those of the mid-19th century as well as to us in the early 21st.

Thoreau’s habitual use of the first person in his writings lends a conversational air and fosters a sense of intimacy with the reader. He seems as alive today as he was more than 150 years ago. One of the very first of the great American nature writers, his literary descendents seem most successful when they adopt a similar style.

But even more than his nature writing, his philosophical insights move and attract me, functioning as a needed corrective and perpetual challenge, a repeated and ever fresh reminder of what is valuable, solid, and true.