I've been reading some Emerson and Thoreau lately, specifically Thoreau's essay, "Walking" and Emerson's famous "Nature," both bound together in a handsome paperback edition (Beacon Press, 1991) with charming wood engravings by Thomas W. Nason.
In "Nature," Emerson writes "The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right."
