Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Selected pictures of Walden's Pond

Below are a few selected pictures of Walden's pond, courtesy of the Travel Section of The New York Times. I learned about Henry David Thoreau while taking a course on American Literary History and was fascinated with his poems (see his poem "Friendship", for example); his ideas on Civil Disobedience, which were later adopted and put to practical use by Rosa Parks, Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr; and his prescient writings on Ecology and the Environment (see his classic essay "Walking"). I also found his quotation on morality interesting; he said, "aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something." Until next time.



Eighteen miles west of Boston, the 462-acre state park surrounding Walden Pond is nearly deserted in September and October.

Photo: Jodi Hilton for The New York Times



In 1845 the iconoclastic Thoreau built his tiny cabin beside the pond, where he grew a garden, worked sporadically as a hired man and announced his intention to "live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life." There is a replica at the park, along with a statue of Thoreau.

Photo: Jodi Hilton for The New York Times



Red maple leaves at Thoreau's Cove, a shallow inlet close to where he lived for two years and two months.

Photo: Jodi Hilton for The New York Times

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

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