In "Walking," Thoreau uses wild and religious references to illustrate his thoughts about true nature. Thoreau compares the toxic city culture to pure nature through these citations. The writing clarifies nature as a place of study, where people's true feelings emerge. Lastly, Thoreau elucidates the Sacred located in nature through solid religious allusions. First, Thoreau uses wild and religious imagery to juxtapose the city, human culture, and the nature he claims to be pure. In the introduction to the text, Thoreau describes nature as having "absolute freedom, and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil" (71). Right away, Thoreau makes it clear that man's society differs from the society in nature. The nature described lies untouched and uncorrupted by man, unlike the nature created by humans, which remains "tame and cheap" (80). According to Thoreau, every time man upsets nature, its value depreciates. The idea of man-made nature disgusts Thoreau so greatly that he would instead reside in the "Dismal Swamp," then "dwell in the neighborhood of the most beautiful garden that ever human art contrived" (99). For a man to prefer the doldrums of the swamp to the beauty of a spring garden truly exemplifies the contempt Thoreau has for unnatural nature. Thoreau "saunters" through nature; he gathers his thoughts and becomes immersed in the scenery. In the city, where the forces of greed and ambition drive people, nothing is accurate, and one can not indeed be himself. The wildness that Thoreau refers to "is the preservation of the world" (95) and "Cities import it at any price" (95). This personification of a "wild" force exemplifies how a man can lose himself in nature. Thoreau believed that the city lacks "wildness," making it inferior to nature. People who let the "wild" control them are true to their aspirations in life because they let nature take them on their proper path. Thoreau states how "the...