Here and elsewhere in Thoreau's writings, the individual is paramount.Thoreau spoke out publicly in defense of John Brown, leader of the 1859 raid on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. In his "A Plea for Captain John Brown," he again emphasized individual responsibility to higher law, asking "Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong?"
Thoreau wrote harshly of reform and reformers. However much he may have agreed with the principles behind particular movements, he believed that moral responsibility lay ultimately with the individual. Reform movements, like political affiliations, reduced the individual to membership in the group and restricted his freedom to make independent judgments. Thoreau felt that the reform of society would best be accomplished through the individual. He wrote in his journal on April 9, 1841, "I can do two thirds the reform of the world myself. . . . When an individual takes a sincere step, then all the gods attend. . . ." Thoreau was consummately Transcendental in his elevation of the individual.
Thoreau's writing presents a synthesis of optimistic idealism and earthy enjoyment of the here and now. He focused on ultimate meaning, but at the same time reveled in the sensuous details of nature and life as he lived it. Thoreau has sometimes been viewed as an ascetic who denied himself the pleasures of life, but his work does not bear out this judgment. Certainly, Thoreau was selective about the pleasures he chose to enjoy and to celebrate in words. But his writings reveal a healthy capacity to live joyfully in the moment. The endurance and increasing popularity of his work over time is due, in large part, to this ability to unify reality and idealism.
