Iperceive that we inhabitants of new england live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface of things. we think that that is which appears to be. if a man should walk through this town and see only the reality, where, think you, would the "mill-dam" go to? if he should give us an account of the realities he beheld there, we should not recognize the place in his description. look at a meeting-house, or a court-house, or a jail, or a shop, or a dwelling-house, and say what that thing really is before a true gaze, and they would all go to pieces in your account of them.
what device does thoreau use in this passage?
historical allusion
rhetorical question
figurative language
extended analogy