Intellectuels pour l\'évolution de la Société

Nature / Ralph Waldo EMERSON

"….To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from Society.

I am not solitary whilst[1] I read and write, though nobody is with me.

But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars.

The rays that come from the heavenly worlds will separate between him and what he touches.

One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime.

Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are!

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown!

But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing[2] smile.

….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[3] of the wood-cutter, from the tree of the poet….

…I speak truly; few adult persons can see nature.

Most persons do not see the sun.

At least they have a superficial seeing.

The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child…"

I wanted to begin this page by proposing this part of Emerson's Essay "Nature" to read; I really like it, and it is really true.