It isn’t Thoreau that guides M., it’s Ralph Waldo Emerson.

By God, does this mean the foundation of our relationship is based on a complete misapprehension by me? Have I been deluding myself into what a man he is and how he perceives the world? Should I question it all, because HDT and RWE are simply two different men?

NAHHH, he’s still a sweetie, and he knows a transcendentalist when he sees one. So, no biggie.

As an interesting side note, while I was a kid here in the USA, I read a lot about Buddhism and Hinduism and your basic Eastern philosopy and differences in Eastern spirituality compared to the Western Judeo-Christing thang. Meanwhile, somewhere on the other side of the planet deep in the mystic East, M. was reading the Western canon and studying RWE and American individualism and essentially American philosophies.

Very yin yang, I think.