Up Tight

Up TightHenry David Thoreau, a man of notable calm and one I have for years been trying to emulate, never with much success, once observed in his journal that his neighbors in Concord "sometimes appear to work themselves into a state of excitement over remarkably little."As nearly as I can make out, in 1845, when Thoreau had his pad at Walden Pond, the people of Concord lost their cool only over an outbreak of scarlatina or canker rash--and then never for long. What's more, the excitem...