I'm verklempt at the joy of having discovered Thoreau in mid-life. Like many American students, I read Civil Disobedience and Walden in high school and then for

I'm verklempt at the joy of having discovered Thoreau in mid-life. Like many American students, I read Civil Disobedience and Walden in high school and then forgot all about either. Maybe I even absorbed some of the atmospheric disregard for these works. In the past few years, I read all of Dickinson (what a genius), and then all of Emerson's published writing. And, then picked up Thoreau last year. And I haven't been able to put him aside. Walden, all his essays, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, his Cape Cod and Maine travelogues, now deep into his journals and letters. Thoreau -- Henry! -- is like this amazing friend. I can hardly imagine anyone who has dismissed him has spent any serious time with him. I have marked thousands of thoughts in his writings as beautiful, profound, puzzling, delightful, or surprising. He's much funnier than most people realize. He had a genius for "the examined life". I really cannot conceive who would be so arrogant as to judge such a person negatively. His prose _is_ American English at its best. I can't really care too much about the posted article but can't resist evangelizing my beautiful friend. If you love to read, read Thoreau.