O, Thoreau, what do you mean?

Hello, everyone!
I am reading Thoreau's masterpiece, Civil Disobedience, and there are lots of problems in my working. I heartly wish somebody familiar with him and this work can give me help.
In the 13th paragraph of this paper there is a sentence as following:
"O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through!"what does this sentence mean, especially the words "bace which you cannot pass your hand through"?

plus:
I teach and study classical Chinese literature and ancient language, and I am willing to answer any question on this topic.

I'm sorry, I made a mistake in typing the key words. The question I asked is:
"O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through!" What does this sentence mean, especially the words "back which you cannot pass your hand through" ?

I think he is referring to a man that does not waver or back down from a challenge or a fight. Someone with a stiff backbone

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Originally Posted by ashulman

I think he is referring to a man that does not waver or back down from a challenge or a fight. Someone with a stiff backbone

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I think it is a flexible backbone. Not a stiff one. You might want to see the movie The Great Debaters, where the issues in Civil Disobedience are hilighted and most likely form the final basis for the Civil Rights Movement development from the African American point of view. The movie is fairly accurate and well documented for further research. Have fun.

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Originally Posted by ashulman

I think he is referring to a man that does not waver or back down from a challenge or a fight. Someone with a stiff backbone

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Then, can it be paraphrased as:
a man, if he is really a man, will face anything hard and not withdraw from such situation?
But how does it is interpreted literally ?
Is "pass hand through sth" a idiom ?

thanks for your reply!

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Originally Posted by cafolini

I think it is a flexible backbone. Not a stiff one. You might want to see the movie The Great Debaters, where the issues in Civil Disobedience are hilighted and most likely form the final basis for the Civil Rights Movement development from the African American point of view. The movie is fairly accurate and well documented for further research. Have fun.

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thanks for reply!
the same question as above.

If you can't pass your hand through a man's backbone, it means his will is "solid", he is brave and trustworthy. Having a backbone is an idiom which indicates the presence of these qualities. Does that make sense? Note, it is not meant to be taken literally; it is idiomatic.

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Originally Posted by Brahms

Hello, everyone!
I am reading Thoreau's masterpiece, Civil Disobedience, and there are lots of problems in my working. I heartly wish somebody familiar with him and this work can give me help.
In the 13th paragraph of this paper there is a sentence as following:
"O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through!"what does this sentence mean, especially the words "bace which you cannot pass your hand through"?

.

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A man who has a stiff, solid back, who stands by his beliefs and who is truly substantial, not a ghost through whom one can pass one's hands. At leeast that's how I take it, and this interpretation is consistent with the essay and with Thoreau's beliefs.

A stiff backbone is the one of an idiot. It cracks after two or three hits.

In the same paragraph,Thoreau pointed out that "our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too large." Then continued he,"How many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country?" The answer to this question is "Hardly one".
The author suggests that there was hardly one man (not one person) to a square thousand miles in America in the middle of 19 century. The question is, what does the expression "a square thousand miles" mean?

Probably a thousand square miles, e.g. a tract of land 40miles long by 25miles wide.

Compare with Britain's population density, in mid C10th, of about 287,000 per 1000 square miles - (total area of about 94,000 square miles, population in mid C19th about 27,000,000)

The "stiff backbone" thing is certainly idiomatic, but the phrase, "O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through!" is, well, idiosyncratic. I guess it could mean having what we mean by someone having a strong will (i.e. "backbone"). But the image of a "bone in his back" that "you cannot pass your hand through" is not idiomatic. It is a strikingly bizarre image... You find these rather bizarre images in the writings of Thoreau's fellow Transcendentalist, Emerson...just think of Emerson's famous transparent eyeball...

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Originally Posted by Whifflingpin

Probably a thousand square miles, e.g. a tract of land 40miles long by 25miles wide.

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The expression, "a square thousand miles," is ambiguous. It could mean: 1) any area of 1000 square miles, regardless of its shape;
or, 2) a square shaped area enclosing an area of 1000 square miles (which would be a square with approx. 31.62 miles per
side), or it could mean 3) A square shaped area 1000 miles per side (total enclosed area 1,000,000 square miles*...). He probably meant
#1. This linguistic ambiguity is often encountered in both Emerson and Thoreau. Some find it charming, others find it annoying.

*The curvature of the earth's surface is normally not accounted for in surveying calculations of area, but it would need to be considered
in measuring over long distances like 1000 miles.

Indeed Nick, hence my "probably."

The passage is not intended to be taken as precise, in any sense. A quick glance or two at Wikipedia shows that the population density of USA when "Civil Disobedience" was written was about 5000 persons to a thousand square miles. (That's not meant to be exact, because I have not checked exactly what was the area of the USA in 1850)

The inaccuracy does not undermine Thoreau's point that the USA was far from overpopulated, even if he was out by a factor of 5000.

Thanks for all replies!
I think at last that the man in the text has a special meaning, that is, it suggests the real being rather than a natural one, who has faith of his own, and frees himself from any opinion the mass has.

By the way, I have another problem to ask. In Autumnal Tints, an essay of Thoreau, the author writes down such a sentence:
"The geese fly exactly under his (the sportsman) zenith, and honk when they get there, and he will keep himself supplied by firing up his chimney; twenty musquash have the refusal of each one of his traps before it is empty."
I think the main idea of this sentence might be that it is easy for a skillful sportsman to get any game he wants, but this understanding seems disagree with the second clause. Or,is there a mistake I made in catching the meaning of the author? "before it is empty", what's the meaning of this expression?

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Originally Posted by Brahms

Hello, everyone!
I am reading Thoreau's masterpiece, Civil Disobedience, and there are lots of problems in my working. I heartly wish somebody familiar with him and this work can give me help.
In the 13th paragraph of this paper there is a sentence as following:
"O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through!"what does this sentence mean, especially the words "bace which you cannot pass your hand through"?

plus:
I teach and study classical Chinese literature and ancient language, and I am willing to answer any question on this topic.

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He is pointing masculinity as a sort of not being possessed of cowardliness, willing to not back down.

Where are you teaching Chinese Literature?

Hi, JBI, thanks for your reply! I am a Chinese and give classes on those subjects in China.

In A Winter Walk, Thoreau says that all wild beasts is joyful in winter, "even on the morning of the cold Friday". What is "the cold Friday" here? And in the fourth chapter of Walden, Sound, there is a sentence mentioned so called "the Great Snow", "which is still raging and chilling mens's blood". Is there a connection between the Friday and the Great Snow?