ABSTRACT
Henry David Thoreau had encountered the idea that man is a microcosm, carrying within him the wonders he seeks without, in Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici, which he read attentively as early as 1837. Thoreau's reference to the South Sea Exploring Expedition here is followed, in a passage not quoted, by an allusion to the 'Symme's Hole' that we have already met in Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. The remarks on home-cosmography of Walden remind us that, in his opening statements in economy, Thoreau took the tone and the stance of a lecturer reporting on his travels. The New Englander, Thoreau believes, could 'raise other crops' than grain, potatoes and grass. The ecstatic experience that forms a climax to Walden in the 'spring' chapter is the recognition that Walden was dead and is alive again. Cape Cod is full of references to the Pilgrims who landed there in the seventeenth century.
