The Blog of Henry David Thoreau: half-believing it...Thoreau's Journal: 8-Apr-1858

4.08.2014

half-believing it
...Thoreau's Journal: 8-Apr-1858

Polly Houghton comes along and says, half-believing it, of my compass, "This is what regulates the moon and stars."

2 comments:

michael jameson said...: the absurdities that come from peoples mouths! and believed is incredulous,the reasons are plain to see in most cases,one's need to impress another with knowledge to be accepted or one has been fed wrong information and truly believes it, one should not try to impress by creating tales, it causes bad feelings to both parties, and one should always check information they are going to pass on unless one experienced it. michael jameson oldantiqueguy@hotmail.com; Apr 8, 2010, 4:16:00 PM
michael jameson said...: assumptions and guessing can lead you down a path for life that all but you will recognize,it is a lonely path filled with mistakes. michael jameson oldantiqueguy@hotmail.com; Apr 8, 2010, 6:42:00 PM

one of the native forces

“Thoreau was a surprising fellow—he is not easily grasped—is elusive: yet he is one of the native forces—stands for a fact, a movement, an upheaval: Thoreau belongs to America, to the transcendental, to the protesters: then he is an outdoor man: all outdoor men everything else being equal appeal to me. Thoreau was not so precious, tender, a personality as Emerson: but he was a force—he looms up bigger and bigger: his dying does not seem to have hurt him a bit: every year has added to his fame.”

~Walt Whitman as recorded by Horace Traubel

the simple print

The text is from The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, ed. Bradford Torrey and Francis Allen, 14 vols. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906).

Each blog post is an excerpt from that day's entry in the Journal, and although not necessarily the complete entry, it is an integral and intact section thereof.

"It was a pleasure and a privilege to walk with him. He knew the country like a fox or a bird, and passed through it as freely by paths of his own.... One must submit abjectly to such a guide, and the reward was great." -Emerson