Journal 01, 1837-1846: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume 07 (of 20)Thoreau, Henry David
Philosophy
Journal 01, 1837-1846: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume 07 (of 20)
Thoreau, Henry David
Authors, American -- 19th century -- Diaries; Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862 -- Diaries
Trifles of this kind encourage a pleasant feeling of brotherly
relationship. He is one of us, after all, with like passions. But
of course we really like him best when he is at his best,—as in some
outpouring of his love for things natural and wild. Let us have one
more such quotation: "Now I yearn for one of those old, meandering, dry,
uninhabited roads, which lead away from towns, which lead us away from
temptation, which conduct us to the outside of earth, over its uppermost
crust; where you may forget in what country you are travelling; where
your head is more in heaven than your feet are on earth; where you can
pace when your breast is full, and cherish your moodiness.... There I
can walk and recover the lost child that I am without any ringing of a
bell."
For real warmth, when once the fire burns, who can exceed our stoic?
We like, also, his bits of prettiness, things in which he is second to
nobody, though prettiness, again, is not supposed to be the stoic's
"note;" and they are all the prettier, as well as ten times more
welcome, because he has the grace—and the sound literary sense—to drop
them here and there, as it were casually, upon a ground of simple,
unaffected prose. Here, now, is a sentence that by itself is worth a
deal of ornithology: "The song sparrow is heard in fields and pastures,
setting the midsummer day to music,—as if it were the music of a mossy
rail or fence-post." Of dragon-flies he says: "How lavishly they are
painted! How cheap was the paint! How free was the fancy of their
Creator!" In early June, when woods are putting forth leaves, "the
summer is pitching its tent." He finds the dainty fringed polygala
(whose ordinary color is a lovely rose-purple) sporting white blossoms,
and remarks: "Thus many flowers have their nun sisters, dressed in
white." Soaring hawks are "kites without strings;" and when he and his
companion are travelling across country, keeping out of the sight of
houses, yet compelled to traverse here and there a farmer's field, they
"shut every window with an apple tree."
Gems like these one need not be a connoisseur to appreciate, and they
are common upon his counter. It was a good name that Channing gave him:
"The Poet-Naturalist."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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