He Leaves for the Reason He Came

In September of eighteen forty-seven, Thoreau walks out of the woods, and the reason he gives is the most honest sentence in Walden: he leaves for the reason he came. Kaag takes it as a warning: even the most deliberate life can harden into a rut. For everyone else Thoreau leaves counsel that sounds bleak until you hear the word mean the way he means it. And behind both the leaving and the counsel is a voice, older than Concord, that Socrates knew by name. It talks people into building castles in the air; Thoreau ends the chapter telling you what those castles are missing.