Thoreau’s reasons for moving to the woods are; to live in front of essential facts of life, to live sturdily and spartan like, to drive life to a corner, the purpose of thoreaus writing is to inform his journey of living in a cabin that he built in the woods. The lines 26-40 are talking about what thoreau why he is doing this, living by himself and what he hopes to gain from it.
The sentence that suggest that doctors, like lawyers are part of superficial middle-class world of nineteenth century Rusia is:
The doctor put on just the same air towards him as he himself put on towards an accused person.
