10.27.2006

Thoreau's Journal: 27-Oct-1851

The obstacles which the heart meets with are like granite blocks which one alone cannot move. She who was as the morning light to me is now neither the morning star nor the evening star. We meet but to find each other further asunder, and the oftener we meet the more rapid our divergence. So a star of the first magnitude pales in the heavens, not from any fault in the observer’s eye nor from any fault in itself, perchance, but because its progress in its own system has put a greater distance between.

2 comments:

pilgrimchick said...

This is very much like the idea of gaining perspective and putting something in its correct place in the "larger picture" that is life.

donw said...

Yes,when I wake up to winter (as you did in Oct. 27, 1851), life can seem like a dark granite challenge. And like the stars' magnitude of light,given time, personal relationships, bright ideas and people's plans can dim and not be as important or compelling as they once were. Such is my perception on this gray, snow spitting day.