"There is nothing so sanative, so poetic, as a walk in the woods and fields . . . Nothing so inspires me and excites such serene and profitable thought. The objects are elevating. In the street and in society I am almost invariably cheap and dissipated, my life unspeakably mean [mundane]. No amount of gold or respectability would in the least redeem it . . . But alone in distant woods or fields, . . . I come to myself. I once more feel myself grandly related, and that cold and solitude are friends of mine. I suppose that this value, in my case, is equivalent to what others get by churchgoing and prayer. I come to my solitary walk as the homesick go home. I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are, grand and beautiful . . . I come out to these solitudes, where the problem of existence is simplified. I get away a mile or two from the town into the stillness and solitude of nature, with rocks, trees, plants, snow, . . . and it is as if I had come to an open window . . . I am not satisfied with ordinary windows. I must have a true skylight. My true skylight is on the outside of the village . . . This stillness, solitude, wildness of nature . . . This is what I go out to seek. It is as if I always met in those places some grand, serene, immortal, infinitely encouraging, though invisible, companion, and walked with him."
Henry David Thoreau
Photo: Marsh-marigold meadow, Flat Tops Wilderness, CO; June 9, 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment