Monday, March 6, 2017

WALL

"There is a coarse and boisterous money-making fellow in the outskirts of our town who is going to build a blank-wall under the hill along the edge of his meadow. . .  he wishes me to spend three weeks digging there with him. The result will be that he will perhaps get some more money to hoard, and leave for his heirs to spend foolishly. If I do this, most will commend me as an industrious and hard-working man; but if I choose to devote myself to certain labors which yield more real profit, though but little money they may be inclined to look on me as an idler. Nevertheless, as I do not need the police of meaningless labor to regulate me, and do not see anything absolutely praiseworthy in this fellow’s undertaking any more than in many an enterprise of our own or foreign governments, however amusing it may be to him or them, I prefer to finish my education at a different school."
                                                                        Thoreau  —"Life Without Principle"

AN OAKEN STRENGTH

“In reading Henry Thoreau’s journal, I am very sensible of the vigour of his constitution. That oaken strength which I noted whenever he walked, or worked, or surveyed wood-lots, the same unhesitating hand with which a field-labourer accosts a piece of work, which I should shun as a waste of strength, Henry shows in his literary task. He has muscle, and ventures on and performs feats which I am forced to decline. In reading him, I find the same thought, the same spirit that is in me, but he takes a step beyond, and illustrates by excellent images that which I should have conveyed in a sleepy generality. ” 

                                                                                         Ralph Waldo Emerson, June 24, 1863                                                                           Digital Emerson   Work Cited: The Heart of Emerson's Journals. Ed. Bliss Perry.                                                                 Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1926. Print.

Sunday, March 5, 2017

"YOUNG MEN OF SENSIBILITY..."

 “If we should ever print Henry’s journals, you may look for a plentiful crop of naturalists. Young men of sensibility must fall an easy prey to the charming of Pan’s pipe.”
                                                                                                                   Ralph Waldo Emerson,  June 1862

The Heart of Emerson's Journals. Ed. Bliss Perry. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1926. Print./ 

Digital Emerson: http://digitalemerson.wsulibs.wsu.edu/exhibits/show/context/parlor/henry-david-thoreau