Emerson characterizes “the readers and thinkers of 1854 as the men on the morning train into the city.” (38) With steamboat and omnibus and railroad, the passenger is still a rider. He can ignore his transition from “life” to “labor”, both physically and psychically. However, when he must drive himself, though this offers him self-determination, it creates for him an active role in the transition. He has equated work with hell in his mind, and must now drive himself into it. Surely this leads to some recognition of the split that has occurred.

(Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Print.)