"What is there in music that it should so stir our deeps? We are all ordinarily in a state of desperation; such is our life; ofttimes it drives us to suicide. To how many, perhaps to most, life is barely tolerable, and if it were not for the fear of death or of dying, what a multitude would immediately commit suicide! But let us hear a strain of music; we are at once advised of a life which no person had told us of, which no preacher preaches. Suppose I try to describe faithfully the prospect which a strain of music exhibits to me. THE FIELD OF MY LIFE BECOMES A BOUNDLESS PLAIN, glorious to tread, with no death nor disappointment at the end of it. All meanness and trivialness disappear. I become adequate to any deed. No particulars survive this expansion; persons do not survive it. In the light of this strain there is no thou nor I. We are actually lifted above ourselves."
Henry David Thoreau
Photo: A blustery day on Bierstadt Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; February 22, 2013
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