STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep with a happy birthday to Henry David Thoreau, the Massachusetts writer who was born 200 years ago today in 1817. He wrote, the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Thoreau lived quietly by a pond, except when in jail. He was arrested for refusing to pay taxes due to his opposition to a war. It's sometimes claimed that Ralph Waldo Emerson asked him, what are you doing in there? And Thoreau allegedly replied, what are you doing out there? It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.