The Blog of Henry David Thoreau Yesterday afternoon I was running a line through the woods. How many days have I spent thus, sighting my way in direct lines through dense woods, through cat-briar and viburnum in New Jersey, through shrub oak in New England, ... looking at these barked stakes from far and near as if I loved them; not knowing where I s...hall come out; my duty then and there perhaps merely to locate a straight line between two points.
The Blog of Henry David Thoreau
Excuse the interruption but I'm excited by this: 'The Blog of Henry David Thoreau,' is now an e-book for iPhone (to be read with the Stanza app). http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/ithor
www.lulu.com
iThoreau by Greg Perry: 366 selected days from the span of 25 years in the life of a 19th century American Transcendental “Blogger†[from The Journals of Henry David Thoreau]
The Blog of Henry David Thoreau I love best to have each thing in its season only, and enjoy doing without it at all other times. It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all. I find it invariably true, the poorer I am, the richer I am. What you consider my disadvantage, I consider my advantage. While you are pleased to get knowl...edge and culture in many ways, I am delighted to think that I am getting rid of them. (05-Dec-1856)
Mike Helsher
I visited Walden Pond a couple of weeks ago. Nice to get a feel for where he was:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/album
The Blog of Henry David Thoreau Standing before Stacy’s large glass windows this morning, I saw that they were gloriously ground by the frost. I never saw such beautiful feather and fir-like frosting. His windows are filled with fancy articles and toys for Christmas and New Year’s presents, but this delicate and graceful outside frosting surpassed them all infinitely. (27-Nov-1857)
The Blog of Henry David Thoreau In one light, these are old and worn-out fields that I ramble over, and men have gone to law about them long before I was born, but I trust that I ramble over them in a new fashion and redeem them. (18-Nov-1857)
The Blog of Henry David Thoreau 04-Nov-1852 - Must be out-of-doors enough to get experience of wholesome reality, as a ballast to thought and sentiment. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life. This life in the present. Let a man have thought what he will of Nature in the house, she will still be novel outdoors. I keep out of doors for th...e sake of the mineral, vegetable, and animal in me.
The Blog of Henry David Thoreau With man all is uncertainty. He does not look forwardly to another spring. But examine the root of the savory-leaved aster, and you will find the new shoots, fair purple shoots, which are to curve upward and bear the next year’s flowers, already grown half an inch or more in earth. Nature is confident.
Christopher Lancette
I suspect everyone here has had some profound moments with Thoreau so I hope you don't mind me sharing mine here. I was deeply moved by my first visit to Walden Pond and Sleepy Hollow after dreaming about such a trip for 25 years. I'd be honored if you gave this a read: http://dcreflections.typepad.com/dc_refl
The Blog of Henry David Thoreau The cat sleeps on her head! What does this portend? It is more alarming than a dozen comets. How long prejudice survives! The big-bodied fisherman asks me doubtingly about the comet seen these nights in the northwest,—if there is any danger to be apprehended from that side! I would fain suggest that only he is dangerous to himself.
The Blog of Henry David Thoreau Nature never makes haste; her systems revolve at an even pace. The bud swells imperceptibly, without hurry or confusion, as though the short spring days were an eternity. All her operations seem separately for the time, the single object for which all things tarry. Why, then, should man hasten as if anything less than eternity were allotted for the least deed?
The Blog of Henry David Thoreau I went to the store the other day to buy a bolt for our front door, for, as I told the storekeeper, the Governor was coming here. “Aye,” said he, “and the Legislature too.” “Then I will take two bolts,” said I. He said that there had been a steady demand for bolts and locks of late, for our protectors were coming.
The Blog of Henry David Thoreau Think of a man.. confined to a highway & a park for his world to range in! I should die from.. nervousness at the thought of such confinement. I should hesitate before I were born, if those terms could be made known to me beforehand. Fenced in forever by those green barriers of fields, where gentlemen are seated! Can t...hey be said to be inhabitants of this globe? Will they be content to inhabit heaven thus partially?
The Blog of Henry David Thoreau Like cuttlefish we conceal ourselves, we darken the atmosphere in which we move; we are not transparent. I pine for one to whom I can speak my first thoughts; thoughts which represent me truly, which are no better and no worse than I; thoughts which have the bloom on them, which alone can be sacred and divine. Our sin ...and shame prevent our expressing even the innocent thoughts we have.
