excerpt from the “Where I Lived and What I Lived For” section of Walden by Henry David Thoreau

To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering? They are not such poor calculators. If they had not been overcome with drowsiness, they would have performed something. The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?

How does Thoreau’s style contribute to the meaning of the text?

Select the two correct answers.


Thoreau compares the desire to stay awake to the pursuit of spiritual growth by stating, "Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep."

The question "How could I have looked him in the face?" shows that Thoreau is skeptical of people who claim to have found spiritual enlightenment.

The question "Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering?" conveys the idea that people are dissatisfied with life because they waste their time working at jobs rather than working on their minds.

Thoreau explains that, for him, the beginning of the day is when he is most productive by sharing, "Morning is when I am awake and there is dawn in me."