Romantism
...383). In the later years, life was not as complex and rushed as it is today. He has nostalgia for the past because life was so much simpler then. The news today is sometimes of no use because he tells us, If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, - we never need read another (385). Life is very precious and at this time it is “[…] frittered away by detail” (383). Everyone needs to live each day separately and take it slow and unrushed. Life should be as Thoreau says, simple. Thoreau lives out in the woods because he loves nature. He is concerned with the individual freedom and in his opinion; nature is a better way of living than in towns or cities. Society is terrible and instead of taking life day by day, it is getting hurried. “God will see that you do not want society” (390). He does not worry about the time because there is so much of it. He says, “Time is but a stream I go fishing in” (385). Nature is Thoreau’s way of individual freedom and he explains his by saying, “[…] all the elements are unusually congenial to me” (386). All of the surrounding in nature suits his needs and wants; therefore, this is freedom to him. In Thoreau’s excerpt, he shows an interest in the supernatural. He believes that “this whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space” (387). When Thoreau is walking alongside the pond, “I look down into the quiet parlor of fishes. […] Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads” (387). He is saying that we look up to the sky when thinking about heaven, but to the fish, when they look up towards the surface of the water, that is when they think of heaven. This is why he says that heaven is both under our feet and over our heads. Thoreau has a great desire for nature and thinks that it is beautiful. He walks everyday around the pond just to get a glimpse of the beauty. The trees, the sky, and the animals all help to build up the love he has for nature. He calls the animals “Nature’s watchmen […]” ...