The great person never wants an opportunity to be great, but makes occasion for all about him.

I don’t know if Thoreau had Emerson in mind–but he could have.

At length, in the beginning of May, with the help of some of my acquaintances, rather to improve so good an occasion for neighborliness than from any necessity, I setup the frame of my house. No man was evermore honored in the character of his raisers than I. They are destined, I trust, to assist at the raising of loftier structures one day. (Walden, 49)

Thoreau’s acquaintances were Ralph Waldo Emerson, A. Bronson Alcott, William Ellery Channing, George William Curtis, Burrill Curtis, Edmund Hosmer, John Hosmer, Edmund Hosmer Jr., and Andrew Hosmer.
(The Days of Henry Thoreau, 181).

Walden Woods Project

1845

May 13
Where are the men who dwell in thought? Talk,—that is palaver! at which men hurrah and clap! The manners of the bear are so far good that he does not pay you any compliments.

May 14
Most men are easily transplanted from here there, for they have so little root—no tap root,—or their roots penetrate so little way, that you can thrust a shovel quite under them and take them up, roots and all.

Each one’s world is but a clearing in the forest, so much open and inclused ground. When the mail coach rumbles into one of these, the villagers gaze after you with a compassionate look, as much as to say: “Where have you been all this time, that you make your debut in the world at this late hour? Nevertheless, here we are; come and study us, that you may learn men and manners.

There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon at any other season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season. There is a time to watch the ripples on Ripple Lake, to look for arrowheads, to study the rocks and lichens, a time to walk on sandy deserts; and the observer of nature must improve these seasons as much as the farmer his. So boys fly kites and play ball or hawkie at particular times all over the State. A wise man will know what game to play to-day, and play it.