I come back to Walden every year or so, sometimes more often. I think I read it for the first time in high school, having heard (or read) of course, that it was one of the pinnacles of American literatures. At the time, I'm pretty sure I didn't get much of it-- the jokes, the ecstatics, the economics.
Each time I read it, I seem to find something new of interest. I once read, somewhere, that analysis had yielded at least 7 different "layers" to Walden. At the time I thought it seemed rather high-brow, but now I suspect it may be understated.
I have come to love his opening line, about not talking "so much about myself if there were anybody else I knew so well." There are so many layers just in that statement alone.
The days are gone, for me, for now, in which I could dedicate any real effort to the study of Walden. And, in many ways, I fear that while I am almost bound to return to it indefinitely, and most certainly in my declining years, it won't be the case, as Thoreau describes, that I seek to instill more education in my children than that from which I benefitted.
But still, there seems some purpose in noting the phrases or lines that strike me, though I read Walden more haphazardly each time, a chapter here, a page almost at random there.
Today: "To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts." (Where I lived, and what I lived for)
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