4.05.2014

gradually and moderately
...Thoreau's Journal: 5-Apr-1860

When I stand out of the wind, under the shelter of the hill beyond Clamshell, where there is not wind enough to make a noise on my person, I hear, or think that I hear, a very faint distant ring of toads, which, though I walk and walk all the afternoon, I never come nearer to. It is hard to tell if it is not a ringing in my ears; yet I think it is a solitary and distant toad called to life by some warm and sheltered pool or hill, its note having, as it were, a chemical affinity with the air of the spring. It merely gives a slightly more ringing or sonorous sound to the general rustling of inanimate nature. A sound more ringing and articulate my ear detects, under and below the noise of the rippling wind. Thus gradually and moderately the year begins. It creeps into the ears so gradually that most do not observe it, and so our ears are gradually accustomed to the sound, and perchance we do not perceive it when at length it has become very much louder and more general.

1 comment:

michael jameson said...

after hearing a sound near or far if the tone does not change we disregard it unless reminded and then it's as clear as the first time, thus is the passage of time a continuation of routine,i lived in area and time where the date and day made no difference,now i know it as if it were food even the hour has to be known,not to be funny but it is where time takes you. michael jameson oldantiqueguy@hotmail.com