In Walden we can see Thoreau almost "test" Emerson's ideas about nature. Thoreau discovers that simplicity in our lives can bring a deepness in our minds and souls. They both believed that it is through nature that we can stop depending on the ideas of others and start seeing and forming our own ideas.
From Nature: "...why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship." (pg. 1282)
From Walden: "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 meannes of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experiece, and abe able to give a true account of it in my next excursion." (pg. 1458)
Emerson's passage tells us that we do not live for ourselves. We tend to live through stories and traditions of our past, instead of becoming an individual. Thoreau's passage after shows how he is testing Emerson's idea--he is going to live for himself and get the most out of life.
The quote from Thoreau also shows how he wanted to live life as simply as possible: "reduce it to its lowest terms". This is another idea that Emerson had about life as well.
"Standing on the bare ground,--my head bathed by a blithe air, and uplifeted to infinite space,--all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball. I am nothing. I see all." (pg. 1284)
Here I believe that Emerson is saying that by living more simply he is able to see things more clearly and has deeper thoughts. Both Emerson and Thoreau believed that in order to find a deeper meaning in life, you must live simply.
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