Thoreau got sick and didn't have much energy for traipsing about New York with the long commute to Manhattan. He placed 2 pieces of journalism, and didn't like New York. He developed narcolepsy of all things. It might have been a symptom of the tuberculosis. He wrote a good piece that could have given him national attention but he sent it to The Dial. His essay "A Winter's Walk".
On of the pieces of journalism was a takedown on the fantasy of technology and government interventions helping progress humanity. Thoreau seemed to think the change came from within. I think you can do both. Thoreau probably skews conservative. With the family pencil factory, he's going to be against taxes and government interference.
Reading online I see that many conservatives don't see themselves in the present day Republican party. Thoreau might be persuaded by the kindness of Democrats. He was anti-slavery. All the women in his family were anti-slavery but they didn't have a vote. They couldn't speak in public.
There were interesting experiences for the naturalist: He encountered the 17 year locusts, whose appearance and sounds he vividly described in a letter home to his mother. Being by the ocean was an important experience for him.
He got to meet Henry James and William James as children, before they went off to Europe.
Links:
The Marginalia's post on A Winter's Walk
William T Davis is seen as a Staten Island Thoreau naturalist, born the year Thoreau died. (NY Times review of a biography about him)
Thoreau's letter to Emerson
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