The wise man is not anxious that time wait for him.

September 17

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?

Let him consume never so many æons, so that he go about the meanest task well, though it be but the paring of his nails.

September 17, 2019

If the setting sun seems to hurry him to improve the day while it lasts, the chant of the crickets fails not to reassure him, even-measured as of old, teaching him to take his own time henceforth forever.

The wise man is restful, never restless or impatient. 

He each moment abides there where he is, as some walkers actually rest the whole body at each step.

As the wise is not anxious that time wait for him, neither does he wait for it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 17, 1839

Nature never makes haste; her systems revolve at an even pace. See September 17, 1857 ("How perfectly each plant has its turn! – as if the seasons revolved for it alone."); See also July 19, 1851 ("This rapid revolution of nature, even of nature in me, why should it hurry me?"); August 19, 1851 ("The seasons do not cease a moment to revolve, and therefore Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other.");   September 13, 1852 ("The plant waits a whole year, and then blossoms the instant it is ready and the earth is ready for it, without the conception of delay."); May 19, 1854 ("With what unobserved secure dispatch nature advances! . . . There is not an instant's pause!");  April 24, 1859("Man's moods and thoughts revolve just as steadily and incessantly as nature’s.");  September 24, 1859 ("Great works of art have endless leisure for a background, as the universe has space. Time stands still while they are created. The artist cannot be in [a] hurry. "); September 10, 1860 ("Almost every plant, however humble, has thus its day."); and also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, As the Seasons Revolve;  and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Nature

As the wise is not anxious that time wait for him, neither does he wait for it.  See Walden, An artist in the city of Kouroo ("As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way,")

The wise man abides

each moment there where he is –

restful at each step.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  What me hurry?

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-390917

The glory of these afternoons. What need to travel?

January 11

What need to travel? 

There are no sierras equal to the clouds in the sunset sky. And are not these substantial enough? In a low or level country, perchance, the forms of the clouds supply the place of mountains and precipices to the eye, the grosser atmosphere makes a mountainous country in the sky. 

The glory of these afternoons, though the sky may be mostly overcast, is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow, patches of sky in the west just before sunset. The whole cope of heaven seen at once is never so elysian. Windows to heaven, the heavenward windows of the earth. 

The end of the day is truly Hesperian. . . .

We sometimes find ourselves living fast, — unprofitably and coarsely even, — as we catch ourselves eating our meals in unaccountable haste. But in one sense we cannot live too leisurely. 

Let me not live as if time was short. Catch the pace of the seasons; have leisure to attend to every phenomenon of nature, and to entertain every thought that comes to you. Let your life be a leisurely progress through the realms of nature, even in guest-quarters. . . .

The question is not where did the traveller go? what places did he see? — it would be difficult to choose between places — but who was the traveller? how did he travel? how genuine an experience did he get?  

For travelling is, in the main, like as if you stayed at home, and then the question is how do you live and conduct yourself at home? 

What I mean is that it might be hard to decide whether I would travel to Lake Superior, or Labrador, or Florida. Perhaps none would be worth the while, if I went by the usual mode. 

But if I travel in a simple, primitive, original manner, standing in a truer relation to men and nature, travel away from the old and commonplace, get some honest experience of life, if only out of my feet and homesickness, then it becomes less important whither I go or how far. I so see the world from a new and more commanding point of view.

Perhaps it is easier to live a true and natural life while travelling, — as one can move about less awkwardly than he can stand still.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 11, 1852

What need to travel? . . .The question is not where did the traveller go? . . . but who was the traveller?See  August 6, 1851 ("It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village; to make any progress between his door and his gate."); September 7, 1851 ("The discoveries which we make abroad are special and particular; those which we make at home are general and significant. The further off, the nearer the surface. The nearer home, the deeper."); May 6, 1854 ("It matters not where or how far you travel, — the farther commonly the worse, — but how much alive you are."); March 11, 1856 ("Only that travelling is good which reveals to me the value of home and enables me to enjoy it better"); November 20, 1857 ("We only need travel enough to give our intellects an airing."); 

The glory of these afternoons, though the sky may be mostly overcast, is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow, patches of sky in the  west just before sunset. Compare January 11, 1856 (The sunsets, I think, are now particularly interesting. The colors of the west seem more than usually warm, perhaps by contrast with this simple snow-clad earth over which we look and the clear cold sky.") See December 11, 1854 ("It is but mid-afternoon when I see the sun setting far through the woods, and there is that peculiar clear vitreous greenish sky in the west, as it were a molten gem."); December 14, 1851("There is a beautifully pure greenish-blue sky under the clouds now in the southwest just before sunset."); December 25, 1851 (“I go forth to see the sun set. Who knows how it will set, even half an hour beforehand ?”); ; December 27, 1853 ("It is a true winter sunset, almost cloudless, clear, cold indigo-y along the horizon.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Sunsets and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky

The whole cope of heaven seen at once is never so elysian. Windows to heaven, the heavenward windows of the earth. See January 17, 1852 (“”Those western vistas through clouds to the sky show the clearest heavens, clearer and more elysian than if the whole sky is comparatively free from clouds."); October 28, 1857 ("All at once a low-slanted glade of sunlight from one of heaven’s west windows behind me fell on the bare gray maples, lighting them up with an incredibly intense and pure white light;. . .It was but a transient ray, and there was no sunshine afterward, but the intensity of the light was surprising and impressive, like a halo, a glory in which only the just deserved to live. . . .It was a serene, elysian light, in which the deeds I have dreamed of but not realized might have been performed. At the eleventh hour, late in the year, we have visions of the life we might have lived. ")

We sometimes find ourselves living fast, — as we catch ourselves eating our meals in unaccountable haste. See December 12, 1851 ("I wish for leisure and quiet to let my life flow in its proper channels, with its proper currents; when I might not waste the days."); December 28, 1852 ("We live too fast and coarsely, just as we eat too fast, and do not know the true savor of our food.") 

January 11. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 11

Pale greenish-yellow

patches of sky in the west 

just before sunset. 

What need to travel?

The question is not wither

 but how do you live.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The glory of these afternoons.

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 ©  2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-520111