![]() ![]() ![]() He knew the intimate workings of a tree like a mother senses the needs and desires of her baby who is too young to articulate himself. ![]() Of all plants and flowers he could give the names, he knew their life patterns and their medicinal value. Nature was his ‘heaven’ of which he knew every nook and corner, every seed and fruit, every leaf and root. He lived within nature not just philosophically, not merely as an idealist or a romantic or a writer, but existentially. By which means did he achieve this? By being intimately at home within nature, and by rigorously following his conscience. He in his prime ~ he only lived to be 44 years ~ achieved a maturity of thought and character, and especially a depth of feeling which is ageless and which has the colour of eternity. What a pure, crystal-clear spirit speaks to us through these pages! He reaches us directly, bridging the historical space. ![]() I read his diaries ~ to be exact, a selection from his diaries in the superb German translation by Susanne Schaup ~ and I was deeply affected. As I reflect on the life of Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) in the month of his 200th birth anniversary, I am overcome by the realization how distant his time is to ours, and yet how close, familiar and intimate his spirit is to us now, especially in India. ![]()
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