Return to myself.

December 12

December 12, 2015

Ah, dear nature, the mere remembrance, after a short forgetfulness, of the pine woods! I come to it as a hungry man to a crust of bread.

I have been surveying for twenty or thirty days, living coarsely, - indeed, leading a quite trivial life; and to-night, for the first time, had made a fire in my chamber and endeavored to return to myself. 

I wish to ally myself to the powers that rule the universe. 

I wish to dive into some deep stream of thoughtful and devoted life, which meanders through retired and fertile meadows far from towns. 

I wish to do again, or for once, things quite congenial to my highest inmost and most sacred nature, to lurk in crystalline thought like the trout under verdurous banks, where stray mankind should only see my bubble come to the surface. 

I wish to live, ah! as far away as a man can think. 

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, might establish daily prayer and thanksgiving in my family; might do my own work and not the work of Concord and Carlisle, -which would yield me better than money.   

***  


I am thinking by what long discipline and at what cost a man learns to speak simply at last.

***

Nothing is so sure to make itself known as the truth, for what else waits to be known?


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 12, 1851


December 12. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 12

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 © 2009-2023

tinyurl.com/HDT511212