2017 0813 33 Nature: Ralph Waldo Emerson
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit.
The flowers,
the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted
the simplicity of his childhood. When we speak of nature in this manner, we have a distinct but
most poetical sense in the mind. We mean the integrity of impression made by manifold natural
objects. It is this which distinguishes the stick of timber of the wood-cutter, from the tree of the
poet. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose
eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet.
In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of
real sorrows. Nature says, — he is my creature, he shall be
glad with me. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and
sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in
a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall
me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair.
The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and
yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me,
when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right.
Yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight, does not reside in nature, but in man, or in
a harmony of both. It is necessary to use these pleasures with great temperance.
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| NATURE |
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit.
To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most
persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only
the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he
whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the
spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes
part of his daily food.
Standing
on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all
mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of
the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest
friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, — master or
servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance.
In the tranquil
landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as
his own nature.
The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation
between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to
them.
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