a subtle magnetism

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I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.  It is not indifferent to us which way we walk.  There is a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one.  We would fain take that walk, never yet taken by us through this actual world, which is perfectly symbolical of the path which we love to travel in the interior and ideal world; and sometimes, no doubt, we find it difficult to choose our direction, because it does not yet exist distinctly in our idea.

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~ Henry David Thoreau

from Walking, 1863

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life in us is like the water in the river

The life in us is like the water in the river.  It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats.  It was not always dry land where we dwell.  I see far inland the banks which the stream anciently washed,  before science began to record its freshets.

... Who does not feel his faith in a resurrection and immortality strengthened by hearing of this?  Who knows what beautiful and winged life, whose egg had been buried for ages under many concentric layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society, deposited at first in the alburnum of the green and living tree, which has been gradually converted into the semblance of its well seasoned tomb - may unexpectedly come forth from amidst society's most trivial and handseled furniture, to enjoy its perfect summer life at last!

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~ Henry David Thoreau

from Walden, "Conclusion," 1854

art by Roderick Maclver

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the divine faculty of the seer

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We begin to die, not in our senses or extremities, but in our divine faculties.  

Our members may be sound, our sight and hearing perfect, 

but our genius and imagination betray signs of decay.  

You tell me that you are growing old and are troubled to see without glasses, 

but this is unimportant if the divine faculty of the seer shows no signs of decay.

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~  Henry David Thoreau

from his journal, 1854

art by Roderick Maclver

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where the walls and fences are not cared for

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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 to the outside of Earth, over its uppermost crust; where you may forget in what country you are traveling; where no farmer can complain that you are treading down his grass, no gentleman who has recently constructed a seat in the country that you are trespassing; on which you can go off at half cock and wave adieu to the village; along which you may travel like a pilgrim, going nowhither; where travelers are not too often to be met; where my spirit is free; where the walls and fences are not cared for; where your head is more in heaven than your feet are on earth; which have long reaches where you can see the approaching traveler half a mile off and be prepared for him; not so luxuriant a soil as to attract men; some root and stump fences which do not need attention; where travelers have no occasion to stop, but pass along and leave you to your thoughts; where it makes no odds which way you face, whether you are going or coming, whether it is morning or evening, mid-noon or midnight; where earth is cheap enough by being public; where you can walk and think with least obstruction, where you can pace when your breast is full, and cherish your moodiness; where you are not in false relations with men, are not dining nor conversing with them; by which you may go to the uttermost parts of the earth.

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~ Henry David Thoreau

from his journal, July 21 1851

art by Roderick Maclver

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annulment of all laws

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The infinite bustle of Nature on a summer's noon,  

or her infinite silence of a summer's night, 

gives utterance to no dogma.  

They do not say to us even with a seer's assurance, 

that this or that law is immutable and so ever and only can the universe exist.  

But they are the indifferent occasion for all things and the annulment of all laws.

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~ Henry David Thoreau

from his journal, 1840

art by roderick maclver

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the nick of time

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In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, 

I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, 

and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities,

 the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. 

You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, 

and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature.

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~ Henry David Thoreau

from Economy, 1854

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the most pertinent question

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The longest silence is the most pertinent question

most pertinently put.

Emphatically silent.

The most important question,

whose answers concern us more than any, 

are never put in any other way.

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~ Henry David Thoreau

from his journal, 1851

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a man receives only what he is ready to receive

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A man receives only what he is ready to receive,

whether physically or intellectually or morally,

as animals conceive at certain seasons their kind only.

We hear and apprehend only what we already half know.

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~ Henry David Thoreau

from a journal entry, 1860

art by Roderick Maclver

from Thoreau and the Art of Life

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man is but the place where I stand

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I do not value any view of the universe

 into which man and the institutions of man 

enter very largely and absorb much of the attention.  

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Man is but the place where I stand; 

and the prospect hence is infinite.

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~ Henry David Thoreau

from his journal, 1852

art by roderick maclver

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By closing the eyes and slumbering and consenting to be deceived

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By closing the eyes and slumbering and consenting to be deceived by shows, men establish and confirm their daily life of routine and habit everywhere, which still is built on purely illusory foundations ...

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I have read in a Hindu book, that "there was a king's son, who, bing expelled in infancy from his native city, was brought up by a forester, and, growing to maturity in that state, imagined himself to belong to the barbarous race with which he lived.  One of his father's ministers having discovered him, revealed to him what he was, and the misconception of his character was removed, and he know himself to be a prince.  So soul," continues the Hindu philosopher, "from the circumstances in which it is placed, mistakes its own character, until the truth is revealed to it by some holy teacher, and then it knows itself to be Brahme."

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I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface of things.

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~ Henry David Thoreau

from Walden, "Where I lived, and what I lived for," 1854

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something true and sublime

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In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime.

 But all these times and places and occasions are now and here.  

God himself culminates in the present moment 

and will never be more divine in the lapse of the ages.  

Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in.  

I drink at it, but when I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is.  

Its thin current slides away but eternity remains.

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~ Henry David Thoreau 

from: Walden, "Where I lived and what I lived for," 1854

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our own limits transgressed

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We need the tonic of wildness, 

to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, 

and hear the booming of the snipe; 

to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, 

and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.  

At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, 

we require that all things by mysterious and unexplorable, 

that land and sea be infinitely wild, 

unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable,

we can never have enough of nature.  

We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, 

vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, 

the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, 

the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. 
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We need to witness our own limits transgressed, 

and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.

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~ Henry David Thoreau

from Walden, 'Spring,' 1854

photo by Eliot Porter from:

Wilderness Is the Preservation of the World 

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a pastime

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For more than five years, I maintained myself this solely by the labor of my hands, and I found, that by working about six weeks a year, I could meet all the expenses of living.

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In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely...It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do.

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Some are "industrious," and appear to love labor for its own sake, or perhaps because it keeps them out of worse mischief; to such I have at present nothing to say.  Those who would not know what to do with more leisure than they now enjoy, I might advise to work twice as hard as they do - work till they pay for themselves, and get their free papers.  For myself I have found that the occupation of a day laborer was the most independent of any, especially as it required only thirty or forty days in a year to support one. The laborer's day ends with the going down of the sun, and he is then free to devote himself to his chosen pursuit, independent of his labor; but his employer, who speculates from month to month, has no respite from one end of the year to another.

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~ Henry David Thoreau

from Walden, 'Economy,' 1854

art by Roderick Maclver

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a turtle's pace

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Consider the turtle.  A whole summer - June, July, and August - is not too good nor too much to hatch a turtle in.  Perchance you have worried yourself, despaired of the world, meditated the end of life, and all things seemed rushing to destruction; but nature has steadily and serenely advanced with a turtle's pace.

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~ Henry David Thoreau

from a journal entry, 1856

art by Roderick Maclver

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when I detect a beauty

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When I detect a beauty in any of the recesses of nature, 

I am reminded by the serene and retired spirit in which it requires to be contemplated, 

of the inexpressible privacy of life - how silent and unambitious it is.  

The beauty there in mosses will have to be considered from the holiest, quietest nook.

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My truest, serenest moments are too still for emotion; they have woolen feet.  

In all our lives we live under the hill, and if we are not gone we live there still. 

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To be calm, to be serene!  

There is the calmness of the lake when there is not a breath of wind;

there is the calmness of a stagnant ditch.  So is it with us.  

Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never were before in our lives, 

not by an opiate, but by some unconscious obedience to the all-just laws, 

so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal 

and without an effort our depths are revealed to ourselves.  

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I awoke into a music which no one by me heard.

Whom shall I thank for it?  I feel my Maker blessing me.

To the sane man the world is a musical instrument.

The very touch affords an exquisite pleasure.

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~ Henry David Thoreau

taken from a journal entry, June 22,1851

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It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know. 

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~  Henry David Thoreau

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the world is a musical instrument

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To be calm, to be serene! There is the calmness of the lake when there is not a breath of wind; there is the calmness of a stagnant ditch.  So is it with us.  Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never were before in our lives, not by an opiate, but by some unconscious obedience to the all-just laws, so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal and without an effort our depths are revealed to ourselves.  All the world goes by us and is reflected in our deeps.  Such clarity! obtained by such pure means!  by simple living, by honesty of purpose.  We live and rejoice.  I awoke into a music which no one by me heard.  Whom shall I thank for it?  The luxury of wisdom! the luxury of virtue!  Are there any intemperate in these things?  I feel my Maker blessing me.  To the sane man the world is a musical instrument.  The very touch affords an exquisite pleasure.

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~ Thoreau

journal entry, June 22, 1851

photo by Kathleen Connally

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our own limits transgressed

We need the tonic of wildness, 

to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow hen lurk, 

and hear the booming of the snipe; 

to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder 

and more solitary fowl builds her nest, 

and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.  

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At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, 

we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, 

that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed 

by us because it is unfathomable. 

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We can never have enough of nature.  

We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, 

vast and titanic features, the seacoast with its wrecks, 

the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, 

the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets.

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We need to witness our own limits transgressed, 

and some life pasturing freely where we never wander.

  

~ Thoreau

from Walden, "Spring," 1854

photo above by Kathleen Connally

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