"Commerce is unexpectedly confident and serene, alert, adventurous and unwearied." (84)
             Through the personification of commerce Thoreau is able to show that commerce
             fluctuates in the same manner as humanity. The adjectives he uses to describe commerce
             show that commerce has some of the same tendencies as humans, and Thoreau believes
             that it is these tendencies that make commerce so successful.
             "who keeps himself more secret than ever did Goffe or Whalley." (96)
             Thoreau is making a historical allusion to William Goffe and Edward Whalley who
             were English regicides during the English civil war. They were signers of the death
             warrant for Charles I then after his Restoration in 1660 they fled to America for a life of
             seclusion in Hadley, Massachusetts. The use of this allusion contributes to Thoreau's style
             because it expresses the remarkable secrecy and remoteness of the old settler's life. This
             also shows the contrasts in this man because Thoreau says he is "most wise and
             humorous" (96) but also discusses his almost anti-social tendencies.
             "speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing" (98)
             In this hyperbole Thoreau is exaggerating his proposition that silence and space are
             effective tools for communication. Thoreau believes that "big thoughts in big words" (98)
             have to "run a course or two"(98) before comprehension is truly possible. For Thoreau,
             the best conversations travel through space and silence. The exaggeration that speech is a
             convenience for the hard of hearing is a hyperbole because that would be an impossible
             situation. He uses this hyperbole to show that humanity places too much emphasis on
             speech. For Thoreau, speech is more important to those who are hard of hearing than
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