Thoreau
Bitter cold remains the order of the day in the North Country. Temperatures and wind-chill factors in the negative numbers confine us indoors, so we read and dream of warmer days and outside ways.
I continue reading Thoreau. Alternating between re-reading Walden and working through his Journals. He remains a constant revelation… a voice as uniquely “American” as any.
Today a few quotes from his journal on Native Americans, destiny, and interconnectedness.
Enjoy!
March 19. Saturday. When I walk in the fields of Concord and meditate on the destiny of this prosperous slip of the Saxon family, the unexhausted energies of this new country, I forget that this which is now Concord was once Musketaquid, and that the American race has had its destiny also. I find it good to remember the eternity behind me as well as the eternity before. Wherever I go, I tread in the tracks of the Indian. I pick up the bolt which he has but just dropped at my feet. And if I consider destiny I am on his trail.
Nature has her russet hues as well as green. Indeed, our eye splits on every object, and we can as well take one path as the other. If I consider its history, it is old; if its destiny, it is new. I may see a part of an object, or the whole. I will not be imposed on and think Nature is old because the season is advanced. I will study the botany of the mosses and fungi on the decayed wood, and remember that decayed wood is not old, but has just begun to be what it is.
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March 20. How simple is the natural connection of events. We complain greatly of the want of flow and sequence in books, but if the journalist only move himself from Boston to New York, and speak as before, there is link enough. Is not my life riveted together? Has not it sequence? Do not my breathings follow each other naturally?
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