"I OMIT THE UNUSUAL ~ the hurricanes and earthquakes ~ and describe the common. This has the greatest charm and is the true theme of poetry. You may have the extraordinary for your province, if you will let me have the ordinary. Give me the obscure life, the cottage of the poor and humble, the workdays of the world, the barren fields, the smallest share of all things but poetic perception. Give me but the eyes to see the things which you possess."
~ Henry David Thoreau/ An American Landscape/ Selected Writings from His Journals, edited and illustrated by Robert L. Rothwell, Paragon House, 1991.
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"THERE IS SOME ADVANTAGE, intellectually and spiritually, in taking wide views with the bodily eye and not pursuing an occupation which holds the body prone. There is some advantage, perhaps, in attending to the general features of the landscape over studying the particular plants and animals which inhabit it. A man may walk abroad and no more see the sky than if he walked under a shed. The poet is more in the air than the naturalist, though they may walk side by side. Granted that you are out-of-doors; but what if the outer door is open, if the inner door is shut! You must walk sometimes perfectly free, not prying nor inquisitive, not bent upon seeing things. Throw away a whole day of a single expansion, a single inspiration of air."
~ Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau An American Landscape, Selected Writings from His Journals, Edited and Illustrated by Robert L. Rothwell, Paragon House, 1991.
(Photo: Family, Haldimand County. Pls. click on photo. lbw)
