Thoreau and the senses

I'm a very sense-oriented person. This is especially apparent on walks like the one I took this week in the late afternoon a few days ago. I like to focus on the sights, the sounds, the smells. I like to revel in them, focus on them, and let them take over. It helps to calm, center, and focus, like a peculiar kind of meditation. Fresh air in and out of my lungs, sweeping everything away, perhaps leaving a cool burn in the back of my throat. The slanting sunlight. The crunch of gravel underfoot. The crisp, tangy smell of pine needles, the loamy, earthy smell of wet soil. The sound of a songbird, of my own heartbeat.

Since all of these sensory perceptions are so integral with the way I interact with nature, it surprised me that Thoreau was apparently very suspicious of them, of people who choose to focus so intently on the senses as opposed to the mind. This reaction of his makes sense in the context of the French Canadian logger he talks about in "Visitors". This man, though living out in nature as Thoreau so expounds upon doing, content with his lot in life, happy and jovial, is constantly described throughout by Thoreau as "simple" and "animal": "In him the animal man was chiefly developed. In physical endurance and contentment he was cousin to the pine and the rock... But the intellectual and what is called spiritual man in him were slumbering as in an infant" (138-9).

For some reason, this man of nature and contentedness was still not good enough for Thoreau to be up to his standards, considered a whole or proper man. After class discussion today, I got to thinking about why that was the case. Surely this Canadian man had found the secret to being happy and living in nature? Just because he wasn't as intelligent or focused on the realm of thought as Thoreau, who spends so much of his time earlier in the book chastising and challenging students to experience life and not be wholly consumed with thoughts or theories?

And then it occurred to me that relating his experience and interactions with the French Canadian acted as a sort of counterbalance to his critiques and judgments on contemporary village existence. This man in the woods would then serve as a limiting factor, the example on the opposite end of the spectrum to shy away from. Thus, with the narrative's inclusion, Thoreau could further prove his point that he was indeed the correct and perfect balance between the supposed simpletons and the more "civilized" man chained down by his belongings.