THE NATURAL IN SIGHT OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU:


Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?

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Great God, I ask thee for no meaner pelf
Than that I may not disappoint myself,
That in my action I may soar as high
As I can now discern with this clear eye.

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We are as much as we see. Faith is sight and knowledge. The hands only serve the eyes.

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The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

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Objects are concealed from our view, not so much because they are out of the course of our visual ray as because we do not bring our minds and eyes to bear on them; for there is no power to see in the eye itself, any more than in any other jelly.

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We cannot see anything until we are possessed with the idea of it, take it into our heads, -- and then we can hardly see anything else.

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How much more, then, it requires different intentions of the eye and of the mind to attend to different departments of knowledge! How differently the poet and the naturalist look at objects!

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Direct your eye inward and you'll find a thousand regions in your mind yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be expert in home-cosmography.