This guy really grinds my gears. I don’t know if it is how conceded he is, or if it is the fact that he is a decent writer at times in spite of his head being stuck firmly betwixt his own cheeks. The section that particularly yanks my chain comes from the beginning of Visitors.
“I think that I love society as much as the most, and am ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my way. I am naturally no hermit, but might possibly sit out the sturdiest frequenter of the bar-room, if my business called me hither.”
On one hand I hate every second of this reading, not only for the hypocrisy that is present in this book about being isolated but on the other hand I extremely hate this passage because he knows how hypocritical it is of him to say this. And lastly I hate it because It is such a good image of what social situations frequently feel like to me.
Damn you Thoreau