Editing Henry David Thoreau (section)

===Sexuality===
Thoreau [[bachelor|never married]] and was childless. In 1840, when he was 23, he proposed to eighteen-year old [[Ellen Sewall Osgood|Ellen Sewall]], but she refused him, on the advice of her father.<ref name="Sewall">{{Cite web
|url=https://www.americanantiquarian.org/sewall-intro
|title=Introduction
|last=Knoles
|first=Thomas
|work=American Antiquarian Society
|quote=She was in Watertown when Henry wrote to her with his own proposal, probably in early November [1840]...'I wrote to H. T. that evening. I never felt so badly at sending a letter in my life.'
|date=2016
|access-date=December 17, 2021
|archive-date=June 5, 2023
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230605162219/https://www.americanantiquarian.org/sewall-intro
|url-status=dead
}}</ref> [[Sophia Foord]] proposed to him, but he rejected her.<ref name=sophia>{{cite web | title = "Sophia Ford: The Great Love Henry David Thoreau Didn't Want" | date = November 16, 2014 | url = https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/sophia-ford-great-love-henry-david-thoreau-never-wanted/ | publisher = [[New England Historical Society]] | access-date = June 4, 2020 }}</ref>

Thoreau's sexuality has long been the subject of speculation, including by his contemporaries. Critics have called him [[Heterosexuality|heterosexual]], [[Homosexuality|homosexual]], or [[Asexuality|asexual]].<ref name=harding/><ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/millennialseduct00quin | url-access=registration | title=Millennial Seduction | publisher=Cornell University Press | author=Quinby, Lee | page=[https://archive.org/details/millennialseduct00quin/page/68 68]| isbn=978-0801486012 | year=1999 }}</ref> There is no evidence to suggest he had physical relations with anyone, man or woman. Bronson Alcott wrote that Thoreau "seemed to have no temptations. All those strong wants that do battle with other men's nature, he knew not."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Harding |first1=Walter |title=Thoreau's Sexuality |journal=Journal of Homosexuality |date=1991 |volume=21 |issue=3 |pages=23–45 |url=https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Harding_Thoreau_Sexuality.pdf |publisher=State University College, Genseco, New York|doi=10.1300/J082v21n03_02 |pmid=1880400 }}</ref> Some scholars have suggested that homoerotic sentiments run through his writings and concluded that he was homosexual.<ref name=harding>Harding, Walter (1991). "Thoreau's Sexuality". ''Journal of Homosexuality'' 21.3. pp. 23–45.</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Bronski |first=Michael |title=A Queer History of the United States |publisher=Beacon Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0807044650 |page=50|title-link=A Queer History of the United States }}</ref><ref>Michael, Warner (1991). "Walden's Erotic Economy" in ''Comparative American Identities: Race, Sex and Nationality in the Modern Text''. Hortense Spillers, ed. New York: Routledge. pp. 157–173.</ref> The elegy "Sympathy" was inspired by the eleven-year-old Edmund Sewall, who had just spent five days in the Thoreau household in 1839.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Robbins|first= Paula Ivaska|title=The Natural Thoreau|journal= The Gay and Lesbian Review |date=September–October 2011|id= {{ProQuest|890209875}}}}</ref> One scholar has suggested that he wrote the poem to Edmund because he could not bring himself to write it to Edmund's sister Anna,<ref>Richardson, Robert; Moser, Barry (1986). ''Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind''. University of California Press. pp. 58–63.</ref> and another that Thoreau's "emotional experiences with women are memorialized under a camouflage of masculine pronouns",<ref>Canby, Henry Seidel (1939). ''Thoreau''. Houghton Mifflin. p. 117.</ref> but other scholars dismiss this.<ref name=harding /><ref>Katz, Jonathan Ned (1992). ''Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the USA''. New York: Meridian. pp. 481–492.</ref> It has been argued that the long [[paean]] in ''Walden'' to the French-Canadian woodchopper Alek Therien, which includes allusions to [[Achilles and Patroclus]], is an expression of conflicted desire.<ref>López, Robert Oscar (2007). "Thoreau, Homer and Community", in ''Henry David Thoreau''. Harold Bloom, ed. New York: Infobase Publishing. pp. 153–174.</ref> In some of Thoreau's writing there is the sense of a secret self.<ref>Summers, Claude J ''The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage'', Routledge, New York, 2002, p. 202</ref> In 1840 he writes in his journal: "My friend is the apology for my life. In him are the spaces which my orbit traverses".<ref>Bergman, David, ed. (2009). ''Gay American Autobiography: Writings From Whitman to Sedaris''. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 10</ref> Thoreau was strongly influenced by the moral reformers of his time, and this may have instilled anxiety and guilt over sexual desire.<ref>Lebeaux, Richard (1984). ''Thoreau's Seasons''. University of Massachusetts Press. p. 386, n. 31.</ref>