Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau met in 1837. Lucy Brown, who boarded at David Thoreau’s home, was the sister-in-law of Ralph Waldo Emerson. On April 9th, she introduced the two men who were destined to form a lifelong friendship. Emerson was 34 and Thoreau was a 20-year old Harvard senior. Both men were to become leaders in the transcendental philosophical movement that sprang up in the 1830’s and 1840’s, which spoke to the connection between man and nature. Perhaps the genesis of frugality comes from differentiating between wants and needs, desires and requirements.
“We make ourselves rich by making our wants few.”
Henry David Thoreau
“Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one’s self?”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
