Many I cannot name; but I do not very particularly
seek information. (You must not know too much, or be too precise
or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and water-craft;
a certain free margin, and even vagueness--perhaps ignorance,
credulity--helps your enjoyment of these things, and of the sentiment
of feather'd, wooded, river, or marine Nature generally. I repeat it
--don't want to know too exactly, or the reasons why. My own notes have
been written off-hand in the latitude of middle New Jersey. Though
they describe what I saw--what appear'd to me--I dare say the expert
ornithologist, botanist or entomologist will detect more than one slip
in them.)
SAMPLES OF MY COMMON-PLACE BOOK
I ought not to offer a record of these days, interests, recuperations,
without including a certain old, well-thumb'd common-place book,[18]
filled with favorite excerpts, I carried in my pocket for three
summers, and absorb'd over and over again, when the mood invited.
I find so much in having a poem or fine suggestion sink into me (a
little then goes a great ways) prepar'd by these vacant-sane and
natural influences.
Note:
[18] _Samples of my common-place book down at the creek:_
I have--says old Pindar--many swift arrows in my quiver which speak to
the wise, though they need an interpreter to the thoughtless. Such a
man as it takes ages to make, and ages to understand. _H. D. Thoreau._
If you hate a man, don't kill him, but let him live.--_Buddhistic.
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