>>23539824
He doesn't actually believe this, just like him calling Indians savages in another section. He is just quoting commonly held beliefs of the average men of his day.

>>23539824
You need better reading comprehension. I'm not saying this to be mean, just think about the words he is using.
>When I think of the benefactors of the race, whom we have apotheosized as messengers from heaven, bearers of divine gifts to man,
>WE
He's telling you that this idea didn't originate from himself, and he doesn't present it as fact.
>I do not see in my mind any retinue at their heels, any car-load of fashionable furniture. Or what if I were to allow—would it not be a singular allowance?—that our furniture should be more complex than the Arab’s, in proportion as we are morally and intellectually his superiors!
He's explaining one motivation to the materialistic hoarding of fashionable objects. He's basically calling materialism a dick measuring contest against other races, classes, social groups and so on.
>At present our houses are cluttered and defiled with it,
He is presenting his own belief here. He believes homes are cluttered and defiled by having too many possessions.
>and a good housewife would sweep out the greater part into the dust hole, and not leave her morning’s work undone.
A good housewife would throw a lot of that stuff away.

You have to remember the context that he built his house for $28. Which is under 1/24th of what a house costed during his time. He is by no means a material man. He was living with a lot less than what most people would consider the bare minimum.

>>23539848
>He doesn't actually believe this
So couldn't he have used a word like "supposedly", for example, at least when referring to the Indians as savages, to clear out that that wasn't his opinion?
>>23539887
I think I get it now, but what about passages about the Indians like this?
"(...) Darwin, the naturalist, says of the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, that while his own party, who were well clothed and sitting close to a fire, were far from too warm, these naked savages, who were farther off, were observed, to his great surprise, “to be streaming with perspiration at undergoing such a roasting.” So, we are told, the New Hollander goes naked with impunity, while the European shivers in his clothes. Is it impossible to combine the hardiness of these savages with the intellectualness of the civilized man? (...)"?
Maybe he's talking about Darwin's vision that they were savages, but what about that last sentence? Couldn't he have put quotation marks on the "savages"?

>>23539988
>So couldn't he have used a word like "supposedly"
1. He lived in a time where people were probably less butthurt about race relations than they are now, and he didn't feel the need to be overly cautious about his word choice as to not offend anyone.
2. He is writing to the very people who hold the beliefs he described. It is more pretentious to address people that hold these beliefs with "you illogical people, these beliefs you hold are wrong," and less pretentious to give this idea some thought, entertain it a bit and gently pull it apart.
>Maybe he's talking about Darwin's vision that they were savages, but what about that last sentence? Couldn't he have put quotation marks on the "savages"?
He could have but that probably wasn't a thought that crossed the minds of 19th century men. Even if Thoreau were calling men savages independently of citing Darwin or the general beliefs of a greater community, I don't think he'd ever mean ill of it.
Emerson was more anti-slavery than Lincoln. I doubt Thoreau was much different in his beliefs than Emerson in this regard.

>>23540032
Interesting. What about this passage?
"(...) When Winslow, afterward governor of the Plymouth Colony, went with a companion on a visit of ceremony to Massasoit on foot through the woods, and arrived tired and hungry at his lodge, they were well received by the king, but nothing was said about eating that day. When the night arrived, to quote their own words,—“He laid us on the bed with himself and his wife, they at the one end and we at the other, it being only planks laid a foot from the ground, and a thin mat upon them. Two more of his chief men, for want of room, pressed by and upon us; so that we were worse weary of our lodging than of our journey.” At one o’clock the next day Massasoit “brought two fishes that he had shot,” about thrice as big as a bream; “these being boiled, there were at least forty looked for a share in them. The most ate of them. This meal only we had in two nights and a day; and had not one of us bought a partridge, we had taken our journey fasting.” Fearing that they would be light-headed for want of food and also sleep, owing to “the savages’ barbarous singing, (for they used to sing themselves asleep,)” and that they might get home while they had strength to travel, they departed. (...)"

What is the sense of fearing to be light-headed AND to "get home while they still had strenght to travel"? Isn't getting home a good thing? Why would they fear that?

>>23541216
'That' used to also be used in the sense 'so that', or 'in order that'. What he's saying here is:
>Fearing that they would be light-headed for want of food and also sleep ... and so that they might get home while they had strength to travel, they departed.

>>23541243
Hmm, nice. Thanks. I guess that's it for now.