" It is amusing to
read how on such a walk he disturbed the daytime slumbers of a large owl,
how the bird opened its eyes wide, "but their lids soon fell again, and he
began to nod," and how a sympathetic hypnotization began to take effect on
Thoreau. "I too," he says, "felt a slumberous influence after watching him
half an hour, as he sat thus with his eyes half open, like a cat, winged
brother of the cat."
In spite of some Utopian philosophy and too much insistence on the
self-sufficiency of the individual, _Walden_ has proved a regenerative
force in the lives of many readers who have not passed the plastic stage.
The book develops a love for even commonplace natural objects, and, like
poetry, discloses a new world of enjoyment. _Walden_ is Thoreau's most
vital combination of his poetic apprehension of wild nature with his
philosophy and aggressive individualism.
Almost all of his work is autobiographical, a record of actual experience.
_The Maine Woods_ (1864), _Cape Cod_ (1865), and _A Yankee in Canada_
(1866) are records of his tramps in the places named in the titles-, but
these works do not possess the interest of _Walden_.
His voluminous manuscript _Journal_ is an almost daily record of his
observations of nature, mingled with his thoughts, from the time when he
left college until his last sickness.
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