t forth to discover the secrets of the Universe. Surrounded by great minds like Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne, Thoreau traded philosophies and refined his own continuing to write, all the while being pushed by his contemporaries to lecture and write until finally he traveled to New York. His stay would not last long. The hustle and bustle of the big city exemplified the country’s materialism and disgusted Thoreau. He promptly returned to Concord where he built a small cabin on Emerson's land alongside Walden Pond. For two years he experimented with farming and writing, and studied nature. Meanwhile, the country was at war with Mexico over the rights to Texas. One night in July1846 Thoreau spent a night in the Concord jail for refusing to pay the poll tax, which helped to finance the war with Mexico. It’s safe to say that Henry did a great deal of thinking that night. In the future this night would be celebrated as the most important night of his entire life. Thoreau’s beliefs as a transcendentalist are well known; a striving to attain spiritual connections between God, Nature and the human Mind, but it is his personal philosophy of “an interconnectedness” of all things in nature including human beings that awakens him to the idea of independence. In Walking he describes how “in wildness is the preservation of the world…the most alive is the wildest.” Meaning that humans all have a “wild savage in us” that pulls us back to nature (Richardson, 1986). Further even from that was his belief that, “The highest we can attain is not Knowledge, but sympathy with Intelligence,” and only after we accept that can we “Live free.” His night in jail affords him the opportunity to see not only how precious freedom is, but also to see the injustice of his government. As a philosopher Thoreau saw the path to enlightenment, as a naturalist he uncovered th...
