Today for English we were assigned to write how a portion of the Conclusion of Thoreau’s Walden applies to us today. The following is what I came up with. The portion of Walden is displayed first.
Everyone has heard the story, which has gone the rounds of New England, of a strong and beautiful bug which came out of the dry leaf of an old table of apple-tree wood, which had stood in a farmer’s kitchen for sixty years, first in Connecticut, and afterwards in Massachusetts, –from an egg deposited in the living tree many years earlier still, as appeared by counting the annual layers beyond it; which was heard gnawing out for several weeks, hatched perchance by the heat of an urn. Who does not feel his faith in a resurrection and immortality strengthened by hearing of this? Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many concentric layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society, deposited at the first in the alburnum of the green and living tree, which has been gradually converted into the semblance of its well-seasoned tomb,–heard perchance gnawing out now for many years by the astonished family of man, as they sit round the festive board,– may unexpectedly come forth from amidst society’s most trivial and handselled furniture, to enjoy its perfect summer life at last!
The best modern-day application of this portion of Walden can be seen all over the world. When a child is born, there is much rejoicing among the family members of the newborn child. The child is thought to be perfect, blameless, sweet, an angel, etc, and is very precious in the eyes of its parents. As the child grows and matures, he is exposed to all sorts of things, including drugs, alcohol, violence, abuse, etc. Many times, these things can be a bad influence on the child and he, in many cases, becomes an addict of one or more substances. This is the point where they “die,” just as we see the egg bured in a “well-seasoned tomb.” The addict may remain that way for the rest of his life. For the sake of comparison with the portion of Thoreau’s Walden, though, there are many instances in which the addict changes his ways. Often, addicts hear the greatest story ever told – the one about Jesus and His death on the cross for mankind’s sin. God has the power to change people from what they were to something much greater. God can be seen as the “heat of an urn” that causes the egg to hatch, or, in my example, the reason an addict changes.
