Henry David Thoreau at his cabin

Recently finished the outstanding book QUIET about how introverts are undervalued in our society and are not isolationists. Henry David Thoreau certainly was an introvert. He famously said “I have never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude,” yet it is not generally known that he was also a most companionable guy, in his fashion!

He scarcely spent a day alone at Walden and, at his parents home, where he lived nearly all of the rest of his life, the house was filled with boarders he took great pleasure in talking with. He had many friends in town and dined very frequently at the homes of Emerson – where the children dearly loved him – and farmer neighbors. He often walked, sailed, and went huckle-berrying with friends and the children of the town.

Our point is that he surely filled the classic description of the introvert but did not lead a life of surly and lonely separation from his fellows. Quite the opposite. As we try to show him in our books, he was most happy to be a part of his community and took delight in conversing, singing, dancing, and playing his flute in company. As he said, “I am naturally no hermit, but might possibly sit out the sturdiest frequenter of the bar room, if my business called me thither.”