What lesson does Thoreau use in describing the bug in the wood?

Thoreau's
example of the bug appears near the very end of . The Transcendentalist
presents the story as a familiar anecdote, saying that "every one has heard the story which
has gone the rounds of New England" as he introduces it. In this way he again establishes
familiarity with the reader, particularly Concord locals, as he specifically focuses on New
England lore. The table, from which the bug emerges, "had stood in a farmer's kitchen for
sixty years, first in Connecticut, and afterward in Massachusetts" and was "from an
egg deposited in the living tree many years earlier still." The bug was hatched by the heat
emanating from an urn and gnawed "for several weeks" in order to free itself. The
anecdote allows Thoreau to speculate on how one responds...