I will vouch for the accuracy of Thoreau’s words.  Life does in fact work just this way.  The reason is that the universe, far from coming towards us as an object, is actually extruded from us, as combinations and permutations of the five senses, as a non-dualistic subject. I am not exactly sure, but I think the fundamental morphology of the universe is something like two dynamic cones joined at their apexes, which is their common (non-dual) source, and pulsing as “being” and “non-being” very rapidly. The driver of the array is will and that is the element Thoreau here indicates. He was a very good man, very pure heart.

AMDG