Henry Thoreau, Bachelor of Nature by Léon Bazalgette

When the Thoreau school unexpectedly closed, Henry was only twenty-four years old. But he had moved forward since he had left Harvard. His convictions, already clear, the presentiments of the college boy, had acquired more force. He had ripened early in solitude and study, and his experience of the world had enlarged. He had had some taste of it, and the face he presented to it held little promise of friendship.

The aversion he had felt in college for an atmosphere dominated by the young gentleman was extended now to the village atmosphere, the realm of the young gentleman's self-satisfied country cousin. The dear little town, preserved in a syrup of sweet conventions, smiled with an air of inviting him to add to its sweetness. The church-tower there pointed toward heaven the sacred meaning of its anxious cares: observance, decency, mediocrity -- store-keepers, farmers, townspeople, honourable souls one and all, cast in the same mould, more or less orthodox, good folk, honest folk, so very honest, in almost perfect agreement, as if they were acting together some excellent amateur comedy of manners. Join in the dance, my boy. As he watched them performing their parts he had no inclination to figure in the play. These farces bored him and left him cold. Henry felt within him a disobedient soul.