May 31.
Some incidents in my life have seemed far more allegorical than actual; they were so significant that they plainly served no other use. That is, they have been like myths or passages in a myth, rather than mere incidents or history, which have to wait to become significant.
Some incidents in my life have seemed far more allegorical than actual; they were so significant that they plainly served no other use. That is, they have been like myths or passages in a myth, rather than mere incidents or history, which have to wait to become significant.
Ever and anon something will occur which my philosophy has not dreamed of. Yet they are all just such events as my imagination prepares me for, no matter how incredible. Quite in harmony with my subjective philosophy. Perfectly in keeping with my life and characteristic.
This, for instance: that, when I thought I knew the flowers so well, the beautiful purple azalea should be shown me by the hunter who found it. The fact that a rare and beautiful flower which we never saw, perhaps never heard of, for which therefore there was no place in our thoughts may be found in our immediate neighborhood, is very suggestive.
Such facts are lifted quite above the level of the actual. That which had seemed a rigid wall of vast thickness unexpectedly proves a thin and undulating drapery. The limits of the actual are set some thoughts further off. The boundaries of the actual are no more fixed and rigid than the elasticity of our imaginations.
Such facts are lifted quite above the level of the actual. That which had seemed a rigid wall of vast thickness unexpectedly proves a thin and undulating drapery. The limits of the actual are set some thoughts further off. The boundaries of the actual are no more fixed and rigid than the elasticity of our imaginations.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 31, 1853
See November 30, 1858: ("How wild it makes the pond and the township to find a new fish in it!") and November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it, and then we can hardly see anything else. In my botanical rambles I find that first the idea, or image, of a plant occupies my thoughts, though it may at first seem very foreign to this locality, and for some weeks or months I go thinking of it and expecting it unconsciously, and at length I surely see it, and it is henceforth an actual neighbor of mine. This is the history of my finding a score or more of rare plants which I could name.")
May 31. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 31
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 © 2009-2021
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