Completely in love with the imagery and language in "Spring" (sigh)... and Thoreau's clever bridging of art & science

One thing that I found really interesting about Spring was how Thoreau connected all different kinds of living things together by using them to describe each other.  His use of language is exquisite and the images he creates are beautifully vivid, so much so that I sometimes got lost in his descriptions because they included so many different element. But then I would read each passage over and think wow, this is really brilliant.  I think part of this brilliance is because he is introducing a new way of seeing natural phenomena, and although we may not have thought to connect leaves and bird feathers, or humans and clay, for example, we suddenly see how they are similar:  

“I feel as if I were nearer to the vitals of the globe, for this sandy overflow is something such a foliaceous mass as the vitals of the animal body.  You find thus in the very sands an anticipation of the vegetable leaf.  No wonder that the earth expresses itself outwardly in leaves, it so labors with the idea inwardly.  The atoms have already learned this law, and are pregnant by it… The feathers and wings of birds are still drier and thinner leaves… Even ice begins with delicate and crystal leaves… The whole tree itself is but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening earth, and towns and cities are the ova of insects in their axils… You see here perchance how blood vessels are formed… What is man but a mass of thawing clay? The ball of the human finger is but a drop congealed.  The fingers and toes flow to their extent from the thawing mass of the body… Is not the hand a spreading palm leaf with its lobes and veins?”

Thoreau continues on to compare human body parts to elements of nature, creating a very striking and almost beautiful image—we (humans) are part of nature--not simply an extension of it, but part of it.

I think this is his way of showing that all things in nature overlap to an immense degree and are in many aspects related to one another (he even goes into the linguistics of it, to show how the words and sounds are related), almost as if it such resemblance was intentional by whomever created the natural world.  On page 919 he says, “When I see on the one side the inert bank,--for the sun acts on one side first,--and on the other this luxuriant foliage, the creation of an hour, I am affected as if in a peculiar sense I stood in the laboratory of the Artist who made the world and me,--had come to where he was still at work, sporting on this bank, and with excess of energy strewing his fresh designs about.”  It is interesting that he uses the word “artist” to describe the creator; does he mean God, or someone else?  The capitalization of “Artist” suggests that it is a title of a higher being, God or not.  The comparison of nature to an art someone contrast with all of the scientific fact and language that he includes in this chapter, but I think that it works well to pair the two, showing that they don’t have to be independent of each other.  

What it means to be "awake" and Thoreau's (maybe) reason behind his entire "experiment"!

“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.  I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I want to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary.  I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”

-Page 906

I’ve always loved this quote, even before I read this chapter of Walden and learned the context surrounding it.  The idea of being alive but not really living is one that interests me; in this passage, Throreau is separating “life” and “living” so that they become two entirely different concepts.  In Thoreau’s mind, a person can be alive but that doesn’t mean they are necessarily living.  What I find most interesting, however, is that Thoreau himself doesn’t even know what it truly means to “live,” and he has this fear that he won’t know what it means until he is dying--how depressing! He references “what was not life” because he doesn’t know what life actually is.  It’s almost like he’s trying to use what isn’t life to define what life is and vice versa because he can’t put the definition into words himself; it's beyond him.  This is similar to what he does with the concept of being awake versus slumbering on page 905, right before he shifts to talking about life.  He seems to have a better grasp on this one, though; he believes that while we are considered “awake” when our eyes are open and we are moving about, we aren’t truly awake:

“The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only on in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic and divine life.  To be awake is to be alive.  I have never yet met a man who was quite awake.  How could I have looked him in the face?”

While discussing this concept, Thoreau seems to voice an idea of what living is—being alive is “being awake.” But again, his definition of awake isn’t a simple one.  The final sentence of the passage makes it even more complex.  What does he mean when he says that he couldn’t look an awake, or alive, man in the face?  I’m wondering if it means that a man who is awake is so far removed (mentally more than physically, but perhaps both since Thoreau is looking for "life" in the woods) from the rest of society that they wouldn’t cross paths.  Or, maybe he is referencing the divine.  But how would Thoreau be able to distinguish a man who is awake from a man who isn’t awake if he doesn’t know what it means and hasn’t experienced it himself?  Perhaps the problem is that he wouldn’t be able to distinguish for himself.

Anyway, I feel as though the paragraph on life is the thesis of the whole chapter and possibly the book itself because Thoreau is directly telling us WHY he chose the means of living that he has introduce to his readers while posing a question that he is hoping to be able to answer after his time at Walden—what is it like to truly live, and what is life?

Thoreau's thoughts on his house, and his tone

“I intend to build me a house which will surpass any on the main street in Concord in grandeur and luxury, as soon as it pleases me as much and will cost me no more than my present one.”

-Page 884

I really liked this passage—which happens to be its own paragraph—because it really showcases Thoreau’s rather snarky tone.  So far he has introduced a lot of new and unconventional (maybe even radical?) ideas and insights, but he doesn’t seem in the least bit worried about how others will react to them.  While his central argument that society adorns itself in unnecessary ways while neglecting the aspects of life that are truly important is admirable, his confidence and originality is all the more admirable.  The fact that he makes himself (or the “I”) so present and prominent in his writing contributes to his confidence—he’s not afraid of how people react to his ideas and he isn’t afraid to own them; he isn’t afraid to be a little snarky. The fact this his voice is so prominent and confident could tell us a lot about his character. Maybe he was a stuck up, or maybe he knows that he needs to be confident because his ideas are so unconventional and demonstrating confidence is the only way he can get people to take him seriously.

Thoreau's use of lists

As a reader of “Economy,” I find Throreau’s lists to be a reflection of his meticulous, thrifty, and proud character.  On page 858, in the very beginning of the chapter (which is also the beginning of the Walden itself), Thoreau addresses his readers, saying that some people have asked him questions about his rather unconventional lifestyle:

“I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries have been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent.  Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like.  Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained.  I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no particular interest in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of these questions in this book.”

Throughout the chapter, Thoreau is working to answer the questions of his followers and critics that he mentions in the above quote.  In order to do so effectively, he maintains a confident and sometimes sarcastic tone.  Another tactic he uses to answer these questions and to prove that he has enough to live off of is his inclusion of lists that document his income and expenses.  At first, I found it odd that he felt it necessary to include such specific accounts, but then I began to see the lists as evidence to support his claim that his method of living is very efficient.  He even addresses his readers directly in regards to some of his lists, as if he can teach them a thing or two: “I address myself now to those of my readers who have a living to get.  And to meet this I have for farm produce sold…” (890).  He is basically using such meticulous and concrete evidence to brag about how efficient he is, so his lists bolster his ego while making the reader more apt to “buy into” his means of living.