indiscriminant charm that inticed him. It was a place that he felt a part of, even more so than the town, the school, and his family. He would spend much of his childhood here, as described before, fishing, hunting, camping, building fires. The important part is that he was doing this alone, and nature became his one true companion. Thus, creating his fascination and love for it’s splendor. His views of nature would be of the deepest perception and knowing, as he would spend much of his life there. These views not in anyway disturbed or marking him to be a disturbed man as one may comprise from his beginnings, but not being the views a normal man would derive from his naturalistic walks. He soon found that society itself was inferior when compared to nature, and began to view its laws and customs with a rebellious eye. “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...still we live meanly like ants though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout...” (Thoreau, 66). Henry went off to Harvard and made his way along college nosing through books, and stayed much like a hermit. Though the experience was good for him, it gave him the chance to become acquainted with Harvard’s vast library, and introduced him to a few people he considered friends. There is even evidence of friendship in letters he wrote during college break, yet even they were considered distant friends. He wrote to one friend Charles Wyatt Rice, “It would afford me much pleasure if you would visit our good old town this vacation; in other words, myself.” By the end of college his mind was scholarly and the wide range books he was able to experience left him with great influence. The ...
