Sunday, January 16, 2011

the nearness of now

January.

It is something to know when you are addressed by Divinity and not by a common traveller. I went down cellar just now to get an armful of wood and, passing the brick piers with my wood and candle, I heard, methought, a commonplace suggestion, but when, as it were by accident, I reverently attended to the hint, I found that it was the voice of a god who had followed me down cellar to speak to me. How many communications may we not lose through inattention! 

I would fain keep a journal of those thoughts and impressions I am most liable to forget; that have in one sense the greatest remoteness, in another, the greatest nearness to me.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January, 1851


See January 1, 1852 ("I wish to be translated to the future to observe what portions of my work have crumbled."); July 13, 1852 (A journal, a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy.); October 26, 1853 ("You only need to make a faithful record of an average summer day's experience and summer mood, and read it in the winter, and it will carry you back to more than that summer day alone could show.”) See also Do not tread on the heels your experience.

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