To Cambridge, where I read in Gerard's Herbal.

December 16.

His descriptions are greatly superior to the modern scientific ones. He describes according to his natural delight in the plants. It is a man's knowledge added to a child's keen joy who has just seen a flower for the first time and comes running in with it to its friends.

He brings them vividly before you. It is almost as good as to see the plants themselves. His leaves are leaves; his flowers, flowers; his fruit, fruit. They are green and colored and fragrant. He has really seen, and smelt, and tasted, and reports his sensations.

How much better to describe your object in fresh English words rather than in conventional Latinisms!

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, December 16, 1859


Dec. 16. A.M. — To Cambridge, where I read in Gerard's Herbal. His admirable though quaint de scriptions are, to my mind, greatly superior to the modern more scientific ones. He describes not accord ing to rule but to his natural delight in the plants. He brings them vividly before you, as one who has seen and delighted in them. It is almost as good as to see the plants themselves. It suggests that we can not too often get rid of the barren assumption that is in our science. His leaves are leaves; his flowers, flowers; his fruit, fruit. They are green and colored and fragrant. It is a man's knowledge added to a child's delight. Modern botanical descriptions approach ever nearer to the dryness of an algebraic formula, as if x + y were = to a love-letter. It is the keen joy and discrimination of the child who has just seen a flower for the first time and comes running in with it to its friends. How much better to describe your object in fresh English words rather than in these conventional Latinisms! He has really seen, and smelt, and tasted, and reports his sensations.

Bought a book at Little & Brown's, paying a nine- pence more on a volume than it was offered me for elsewhere. The customer thus pays for the more elegant style of the store.

His leaves are leaves; his flowers, flowers; his fruit, fruit. . . . He has really seen, and smelt, and tasted, and reports his sensations. See September 4-7, 1851 (I feel that the juices of the fruits which I have eaten, the melons and apples, have ascended to my brain and are stimulating it. They give me a heady force. Now I can write.”); September 2, 1851 ("A writer, a man writing, is the scribe of all nature; he is the corn and the grass and the atmosphere writing. It is always essential that we love to do what we are doing, do it with a heart.”); January 27, 1857 ("The most poetic and truest account of objects is generally by those who first observe them, or the discoverers of them, whether a sharper perception and curiosity in them led to the discovery or the greater novelty more inspired their report.")

It is the keen joy and discrimination of the child who has just seen a flower for the first time and comes running in with it to its friends.  See February 5, 1852 ("I suspect that the child plucks its first flower with an insight into its beauty and significance which the subsequent botanist never retains.")

December 16. See A Book of the Seasons, By Henry Thoreau, December 16 

Describe your object 

in fresh English words rather 

than Latinisms.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, I read in Gerard's Herbal

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2024