Passage (Henry David Thoreau, *Walden*, 1854, Ch. II "Where I Lived, and What I Lived For"): "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion." In the phrase "to live deep and suck out all the **marrow** of life," the word *marrow* most nearly means:
Athe bony framework
Bthe surface or outer texture
Cthe bitter residue left after enjoyment
Dthe rich, essential substance at the core
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: D. the rich, essential substance at the core
Literal *marrow* is the soft, fatty, nourishing tissue inside bones — the part you have to *suck out* to extract. The figurative sense Thoreau uses keeps the *inner, rich, essential* quality: the *marrow of life* is its **dense, essential, most nourishing core**.
This matches Thoreau's surrounding language: *live deep*, *the essential facts*, *reduce it to its lowest terms* (its core).
- **A** (bony framework) names the *outer* of the bone, not the inner substance.
- **C** reverses the figure — Thoreau is digging *into* the core, not skimming the surface.
- **D** introduces a bitterness Thoreau does not invoke — the marrow is what one *seeks out*, not what is left over.
The English phrase *the marrow of the matter* preserves the same figurative sense — the essential, internal substance of something.
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