Henry David Thoreau’s Walden

In “Higher Laws” Thoreau constantly deals with powerful emotions pulling him in two completely opposite directions. At one pole lies his desire to return to the savage beast he once was, and at the other pole lies his yearning desire to remain true and spiritual in his spiritual adult life. Thoreau is constantly experiencing both sides of his personality as he struggles to suppress the animal within him. Thoreau expresses his hope that the reader will not just experience the “young”, physical life but, embrace the “higher” one as well.

obvious employment, except wood-chopping, ice-cutting, or

the like business, which ever to my knowledge detained at

poet or naturalist it may be, and leaves the gun and fish pole

Thoreau believes that hunting is an essential part of man’s savage nature and boys’ education. Thoreau also hopes that hunting at an early age will lead to a higher level of spiritual being once the person “leaves the gun and fish-pole behind.”

whether fathers or children of the town, with just one exception,

as a hunter and fisher, until at last, if he has the seeds of

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