He also said that it was really about his friend Edward Thomas, who when they walked together always castigated himself for not having taken another path than the one they took. When Frost sent “The Road Not Taken” to Thomas he was disappointed that Thomas failed to understand it as a poem about himself, but Thomas in return insisted to Frost that “I doubt if you can get anybody to see the fun of the thing without showing them and advising them which kind of laugh they are to turn on.” And though this sort of advice went exactly contrary to Frost’s notion of how poetry should work, he did on occasion warn his audiences and other readers that it was a tricky poem. Yet it became a popular poem for very different reasons than what Thomas referred to as “the fun of the thing.” It was taken to be an inspiring poem rather, a courageous credo stated by the farmer-poet of New Hampshire. In fact, it is an especially notable instance in Frost’s work of a poem which sounds noble and is really mischievous.