Walden by Henry David Thoreau (slightly edited, he needs an editor)
In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained. I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme of self by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I require of every writer a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.
Is that last clause a slap at all his neighbors? Or something deeper, a statement that all people who live sincere lives must remain distant from one another, because the language of social lubrication occludes our essential differences?
Is that last clause a slap at all his neighbors? Or something deeper, a statement that all people who live sincere lives must remain distant from one another, because the language of social lubrication occludes our essential differences?