Reading Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden: Or Life in the Woods” was a life-changing event for Seth Lesser. He thought that it spoke to him to change the path of his life, although he read the novel in 1904, fifty years after it was published.
His inspiration to isolate himself from society and live a simple life came from Thoreau. His idea to strive for self-sufficiency by living away from the madding crowd for a whole was likewise inspired by Thoreau.
Seth Lesser was born into an upper middle class family of Charleston, West Virginia lawyers on December 2, 1885. Since the beginning of the 19th century, his family had been part of West Virginia’s elite. That he would follow in his father’s footsteps was expected of him by his family. This meant going for pre-law studies in Princeton and law in Harvard. This also meant marrying someone from his own class. What changed his life and its course was his having joined a literary summer camp.
The ideas of the heavyweights in world literature became known to Seth Lesser. He thought that, of them all, Thoreau spoke to his most immediate need which was to figure out what he wanted to do for a living. After reading Thoreau’s Walden, he was inspired to retreat into a simple life. He wanted to understand the world and his place in it by doing so. Not far from the home of his family were a thicket of woods, in which he retreated.
Seth Lesser came home after a few months When he announced that he wanted to become a published writer, his family was shocked. He came out of his retreat an enriched and confident who knew he could survive on his own, though his name is not etched as deep as Thoreau’s in world literature.
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