Reading
Thoreau is joking when he tells us that the classics of Homer or Aeschylus are the "noblest recorded thoughts of man," and also when he informs us that one must be born again into the culture in which earlier works were written to understand them truly. He is beseeching us only to try to be the best readers we can, peeking as far back through time as possible. We will internalize anything that comes to us from a great distance with a certain "maturer golden and autumnal tint," as though it has biodegraded as it tumbled through the ages into something that has a new meaning significant to us.
Of course the majority of readers will be unable to interpret the ancient classics in the language in which they were written, but he insinuates that "our civilization may be regarded as such a transcript"-that we might trace the world around us to its early agricultural origins, and be more critical of it as a result.
Recalling attention to his thoughts on wisdom as failure ("Wiser by experience, that is, by failure.") he is ironically praising the "recorded wisdom of mankind, the ancient classics and Bibles." He is telling us, in short, that the noble exercise of reading transcends language, and we must look to clues in our modern fabric to reach unencumbered intellectual flights. When he states "It is time that villages were universities" he means it literally. We are to take instruction from all the wise men New England can hire, that is to say, everyone around us.
Of course the majority of readers will be unable to interpret the ancient classics in the language in which they were written, but he insinuates that "our civilization may be regarded as such a transcript"-that we might trace the world around us to its early agricultural origins, and be more critical of it as a result.
Recalling attention to his thoughts on wisdom as failure ("Wiser by experience, that is, by failure.") he is ironically praising the "recorded wisdom of mankind, the ancient classics and Bibles." He is telling us, in short, that the noble exercise of reading transcends language, and we must look to clues in our modern fabric to reach unencumbered intellectual flights. When he states "It is time that villages were universities" he means it literally. We are to take instruction from all the wise men New England can hire, that is to say, everyone around us.