she knew henry david thoreau's character several times. r his death she brings him up as the favorite writer of a young man and boosts him because henry david thoreau had been forgotten. emerson and louisa may alcott tried to keep him in public view throughout their lifetime and eventually he was appreciated but he died with 700 copies of merrimack river in his room because he hadn't sold them. he was quite neglected for years. there's an essay called henry david thoreau called walking which is one of the more famous ones. the companion he is describing has to be louisa. read it and see if you agree. from everything the companion says and what he describes as their conversation it feels like it must be louisa to me. another question? >> what would you say were her biggest regrets? >> she purposely didn't have regrets. she didn't go back that way. there was always a duty to be followed and that was her motive to go on. can't think of any regrets whether she -- the civil war cost her her health. she made that sacrifice. she regretted she coul

for all his intellectual independence henry david thoreau never cut the lifeline. walden was within easy walking distance of the world he had always known. even as he was rhapsodizing of life in the woods henry david thoreau was carrying laundry home to his mother. not so chapman. from his 20s on he had no tether left. in article for the december 1979 american heritage magazine edward hoagland suggested chapman left the diary behind him might be compared to john james audubon or george catlin, the indian portraitist. i like that. certainly a diary would not have been wet henry david thoreau's writings were. a critique of the industrial revolution. chapman lived his critique. the nature he left gave himself over to and vibrated through his entire being like walt whitman. years ago i spent a long night with the washington d.c. emergency psychiatric response team. heroic men and women tending to the certifiably insane who had been institutionalized for a very hospitals. most of those they treated that might reliving in the city's parks short walk from the capital. thes

for all his intellectual independence henry david thoreau never cut the lifeline. alden was within easy walking distance of the world he had always known. even as he was rhapsodizing of life in the woods henry david thoreau was carrying laundry home to his mother. not so chapman. from his 20s on he had no tether left. in article for the december 1979 american heritage magazine edward hoagland suggested chapman left the diary behind him might be compared to john james audubon or george catlin, the indian portraitist. i like that. certainly a diary would not have been wet henry david thoreau's writings were. a critique of the industrial revolution. chapman lived his critique. the nature he left gave himself over to and vibrated through his entire being like walt whitman. years ago i spent a long night with the washington d.c. emergency psychiatric response team. heroic men and women tending to the certifiably insane who had been institutionalized for a very hospitals. most of those they treated that might reliving in the city's parks short walk from the capital. these

for all his intellectual independence henry david thoreau never cut the lifeline. walden was within easy walking distance of the world he had always known. even as he was rhapsodizing of life in the woods henry david thoreau was carrying laundry home to his mother. not so chapman. from his 20s on he had no tether left. in article for the december 1979 american heritage magazine edward hoagland suggested chapman left the diary behind him might be compared to john james audubon or george catlin, the indian portraitist. i like that. certainly a diary would not have been wet henry david thoreau's writings were. a critique of the industrial revolution. chapman lived his critique. the nature he left gave himself over to and vibrated through his entire being like walt whitman. years ago i spent a long night with the washington d.c. emergency psychiatric response team. heroic men and women tending to the certifiably insane who had been institutionalized for a very hospitals. most of those they treated that might reliving in the city's parks short walk from the capital. thes

book is as relevant today as when we did these interviews, but we also have to celebrate -- henry david thoreau, the great author of the 19th century, said it, "to affirm the quality of the day is the highest of the arts." and you have to include that kind of affirmation in your journalism or you wind of edging toward cynicism, moving towards -- skepticism is healthy, cynicism is poisonous. it is the artists and musicians, but painters, the writers, poets who provide the joy and insight in life, and you have to talk to them. even if you are doing a book about politics. tavis: i want to go back and pick up one thing that is really an arc that covers everything in the book, and that is this notion that you raised about truth and power. yesterday i talked about the fact that we find ourselves up against every day, we find ourselves in is a battle of truth compared with power. are you going to be a truth how teller or power grabber? you expressed the same sentiment and a powerful way, but as i read these essays, that is what it comes down to. truth versus power, unpack that. >> my own conviction on

her father's best friends were ralph waldo emerson and henry david thoreau so emerson totter about literaturerow talker about nature and she went on a walk with thoreau. those famous nature walks, and she could drop into emerson's library any time. and just ask them what she thought he should read. she had a front row seat to what was happening, to the most important movements all through her life. she knew all of the abolitionist. she knew frederick douglass and harriet tubman and john brown, so her story is really fascinating and i tried to put in the context of her time. their early years, she was really living in that transcendental world, and she kind of came out of it fiercely practical because she saw just how much they suffered from her father's idealism. and then came the civil war, and they had been abolitionist and childhood. they were on the freedome -- what is it called? the underground railway. she has several anecdotes about teaching one man to write his name and various other parts of the abolition movement. so, when civil war broke out, the abolitionists were very glad. they