The Art of the Essayist

THE ART OF THE ESSAYIST Chapter 4: Sounds Personification “Commerce is unexpectedly confident and serene, alert, adventurous and unwearied.” (84) Through the personification of commerce Thoreau is able to show that commerce fluctuates in the same manner as humanity. The adjectives he uses to describe commerce show that commerce has some of the same tendencies as humans, and Thoreau believes that it is these tendencies that make commerce so successful. Chapter 5: Solitude Allusion “who keeps himself more …

…is like the water in the river.” (221) For Thoreau, life may be similar to the water in the river, because it flows over anything in its path, it babbles or communicates with everything it meets, follows many different directions, continually has something to keep it connected, or on a transcendental level, it would have no clear beginning or end. Thoreau uses this simile to achieve a philosophic effect and as the beginning of a metaphor.