Chapter 18 Conclusion

Chapter 18 Conclusion

1. Thoreau notes that doctors often recommend a change of scenery for the sick, but he slyly mocks this view, saying that the “universe is wider than our views of it.”

2. He argues that it is perhaps a change of soul, rather than a change of landscape, that is needed.

   • Thoreau remarks that his reasons for leaving Walden Pond are as good as his reasons for going: he has other lives to live, and has changes to experience.

3. He says that anyone confidently attempting to live “in the direction of his dreams” will meet with uncommon success, and calls this dream life the real destination that matters, not going off “to count the cats in Zanzibar.”

4. He laments the downgraded sensibility and cheapened lives of contemporary Americans, wondering why his countrymen are in such a desperate hurry to succeed

5. He urges us to sell our fancy clothes and keep our thoughts, get rid of our civilized shells and find our true selves. Life near the bone, says Thoreau, “is sweetest.”

6. Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only, and “[m]oney is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.”

7. He reflects on the dinner parties taking place in the city, the amusing anecdotes about California and Texas, and compares it all to a swamp where one must seek the rock bottom by oneself.

8. Thoreau reflects that we humans do not know where we are and that we are asleep half the time.

9. This puny existence leads him to describe himself as “me the human insect,” and to meditate on the “greater Benefactor and Intelligence” that stands over him

10. Thoreau concludes by acknowledging that the average “John or Jonathan” reading his words will not understand them, but that this does not matter.

11. A new day is dawning, and the sun “is a morning star” heralding a new life to come.