Let’s never be “out of the woods”
"I feel a little alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. I would fain forget all my morning’s occupation—my obligations to society. But sometimes it happens that I cannot easily shake off the village—the thought of some work—some surveying will run in my head and I am not where my body is — I am out of my senses. In my walks I would return to my senses like a bird or a beast. What business have I in the woods if I am thinking of something out of the woods."
- From Thoreau's Journal; November 25, 1850.
Thoreau would use this passage almost entirely verbatim in his lecture, "Walking; or, The Wild."
Photo by Richard Smith.
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