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Welcome back to our series on the libraries of great men<\/a>. The eminent men of history were often voracious readers and their own philosophy represents a distillation of all the great works they fed into their minds. This series seeks to trace the stream of their thinking back to the source. For, as David Leach, a now retired business executive put it: \u201cDon\u2019t follow your mentors; follow your mentors\u2019 mentors.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n When one pictures Henry David Thoreau, one is apt to think of the famous philosopher tending his bean plants at Walden, or taking one of his daily 4-hour walks in the woods<\/a> — ever and always out and about in nature.<\/p>\n But Thoreau was equally likely to be found indoors, engaged in intellectual pursuits. Indeed, these two practices constituted the two main chunks of his daily routine: in the mornings he read and wrote at his desk; in the afternoons he sauntered over hill and dale and got his fill of plants, soil, and fresh air.<\/p>\n The two parts of his day were not distinct and cordoned off from each other, either, but together created a vital synergy. Thoreau\u2019s morning reading prepared his mind to observe nature more keenly and draw deeper lessons from the landscape. In turn, the observations he made in the woods allowed him to understand the books he was reading more fully, as well as furnished him with new questions to investigate and study further.<\/p>\n Thoreau found that books would only resonate with him when they connected to experiences and trains of thought he had already formed himself. That is, only after Thoreau had begun making discoveries on his own, would he notice and grasp things in books that expanded or confirmed his observations and theories:<\/p>\n \u201ca man receives only what he is ready to receive, whether physically or intellectually or morally\u2026We hear and apprehend only what we already half know. If there is something which does not concern me, which is out of my line, which by experience or genius my attention is not drawn to, however novel and remarkable it may be, if it is spoken, we hear it not, if it is written we read it not, or if we read it, it does not detain us. Every man thus tracks himself <\/em>through life, in all his hearing and reading and observation and travelling.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Or as E. M. Forster put it so well, \u201cthe only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Fortunately for Thoreau, so diverse were his intellectual interests, so varied were the paths he was going down at any given time, that a broad spectrum of books were able to influence him. Robert D. Richardson, a biographer of Thoreau<\/a>, describes his subject as \u201ca chain reader\u2026He took copious notes in a variety of subjects all going in different directions.\u201d The author of one book would mention several other authors and works that would pique Thoreau\u2019s curiosity, and which he then felt compelled to read next. \u201cEvery time he came upon a book that stirred him,\u201d Richardson notes, \u201cthis process was repeated.\u201d<\/p>\n These various reading chains became more like webs, as Thoreau found fascinating connections between the subjects he studied. And the more he learned, the more he was able to find unifying principles that linked man and nature, and the more he was able to understand himself. \u201cFor Thoreau,\u201d Richardson observes, \u201cevery bit of knowledge and every perception of identity shared across the ages served to strengthen his own identity.\u201d<\/p>\n Thoreau\u2019s efforts in mining bits of knowledge particularly centered on the following subjects and genres. At the end of each section, we highlight a sampling of books from that genre which Thoreau found particularly enjoyable, influential, and\/or edifying:<\/p>\n The foundation of Thoreau\u2019s intellectual interests were formed from the Greek and Roman classics he studied as a student at Harvard. The pedagogical method of the college at the time revolved around the kind of rote memorization and recitation that might have led Thoreau to dismiss the material as dry and uninteresting. But while his professors didn\u2019t bring much excitement and interest to the ancient texts they assigned, Thoreau himself nonetheless managed to discover an energy and vitality within them (as every man should!<\/a>) — one which seemed undiminished by time and led to the formation of two of his core beliefs.<\/p>\n First, in reading the observations of ancient Greek and Roman citizens on nature and human nature, Thoreau came to feel that the essential laws which governed one, governed the other, and that these laws remained constant throughout all times and places. From this he concluded that the more one understood the laws of nature, the more one could understand the best way to live. This was a belief he shared with the Stoics, whose works remained a central part of Thoreau\u2019s reading diet throughout his life.<\/p>\n The permanence of natural laws also led Thoreau to believe that no period of history was any better or worse than any other. The dynamics that made up the inner and outer landscape experienced by ancient citizens was precisely the same as that which made up the inner and outer landscape of modernity. Thus, rather than making Thoreau nostalgic for the heroic days of yore, reading works like The Iliad<\/em> inspired him to believe that such heroism was just as possible in the 19th<\/sup> century as it had been 3,000 years ago. Since Thoreau walked \u201cout into a Nature such as the old prophets and poets, Menu, Moses, Homer, Chaucer, walked in\u201d then what had been possible for them to do and create, was possible for him.<\/p>\nThoreau’s Favorite Genres and Recommended Reading List<\/h3>\n
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<\/a><\/p>\nAncient Classics<\/h3>\n