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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: are not unkind in themselves; if it lived to a thousand, it
would not make excision of a single humorous passage; and
while the self-improver dwindles towards the prig, and, if he
be not of an excellent constitution may even grow deformed
into an Obermann, the very name and appearance of a happy man
breathe of good-nature, and help the rest of us to live.
In the case of Thoreau, so great a show of doctrine demands
some outcome in the field of action. If nothing were to be
done but build a shanty beside Walden Pond, we have heard
altogether too much of these declarations of independence.
That the man wrote some books is nothing to the purpose, for
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