t, I could not help being
struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated
me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked
up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that
this was the best use it could put me to, and had never
thought to avail itself of my services in some way. I saw
that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my
townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or
break through before they could get to be as free as I was. I
did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a
great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all
my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to
treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In
every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for
they thought that my chief desire was to stand on the other
side of that stone wall. I could not but smile to see how
industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which
followed them out again without let or hindrance, and _they_
were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach
me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if
they cannot come at some person against whom they have a
spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State was
half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her
silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its
foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied
it."

Here is Thoreau's attitude toward the problems of the inner life. The
three quotations are from his _Walden_:--

"Probably I should not consciously and deliberately forsake
my particular calling to do the good which society demands of
me, to save the universe from annihilation."

"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. I did not wish to live what
was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice
resignation, unless it was quite necessary. 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 lowes