nobody asked…

One of my most enjoyable occasional reads, from which I always bring home a nugget, is The Blog of Henry David Thoreau. No, HDT did not have internet access when he was at Walden, but blogger Greg Perry delivers each day an excerpt from Thoreau’s Journal for that date, years varying. I was particularly captured by the beginning of Greg’s excerpt on July 5, which reads as follows, emphasis added…

Thoreau’s Journal: 05-Jul-1845
Saturday. Walden.—Yesterday I came here to live. My house makes me think of some mountain houses I have seen, which seemed to have a fresher auroral atmosphere about them, as I fancy of the halls of Olympus. I lodged at the house of a saw-miller last summer, on the Caatskill Mountains, high up as Pine Orchard, in the blueberry and raspberry region, where the quiet and cleanliness and coolness seemed to be all one,—which had their ambrosial character…

the quiet and cleanliness and coolness seemed to be all one — Such simplicity of language, elegance of ideas, and power of imagery … these are the identifying marks of Thoreau that I first came to know in my wide-eyed teen years. These are the marks by which I still identify and think of HDT, most especially his Walden years. For such a simple fellow, living remotely and apart as he did, Thoreau had, and still has, a powerful message with a remarkable impact. If only we will sit still and listen…