January 10.
Who can foretell the sunset,- what it will be?
The near and bare hills covered with snow look like mountains, but the mountains in the horizon do not look higher than hills. I frequently see a hole in the snow where a partridge has squatted, the mark or form of her tail very distinct.
I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of taking walks daily, — not exercise the legs or body merely, nor barely to recruit the spirits, but positively to exercise both body and spirit, and to succeed to the highest and worthiest ends by the abandonment of all specific ends, — who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering.
And this word " saunter," by the way, is happily derived " from idle people who roved about the country [in the Middle Ages] and asked charity under pretence of going a la Sainte Terre," to the Holy Land, till, perchance, the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer," a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds.
Who can foretell the sunset,- what it will be?
The near and bare hills covered with snow look like mountains, but the mountains in the horizon do not look higher than hills. I frequently see a hole in the snow where a partridge has squatted, the mark or form of her tail very distinct.
I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of taking walks daily, — not exercise the legs or body merely, nor barely to recruit the spirits, but positively to exercise both body and spirit, and to succeed to the highest and worthiest ends by the abandonment of all specific ends, — who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering.
And this word " saunter," by the way, is happily derived " from idle people who roved about the country [in the Middle Ages] and asked charity under pretence of going a la Sainte Terre," to the Holy Land, till, perchance, the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer," a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds.
The art of taking walks daily. Compare Walking ("I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, — who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, . . .Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywheré For this is the secret of successful sauntering."); see also November 12, 1858 ("It is much the coldest day yet, and the ground is a little frozen and resounds under my tread. All people move the brisker for the cold, yet are braced and a little elated by it. . . . Now for a brisk and energetic walk, with a will and a purpose. Have done with sauntering, in the idle sense. You must rush to the assault of winter."); June 14, 1853 ("This seems the true hour to be abroad sauntering far from home. Your thoughts being already turned toward home, your walk in one sense ended, you are in that favorable frame of mind . . . open to great impressions, and you see those rare sights with the unconscious side of the eye, which you could not see by a direct gaze before. Then . . . home is farther away than ever. Here is home"); See note to June 13, 1854 ("When I have stayed out thus late many miles from home . . . I have felt that I was not far from home after all.")
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 © 2009-2022
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