Henry David Thoreau on the use of wilderness

    Wilderness was Thoreau’s essential nourishment:

I derive more of my subsistence from the swamps which surround my native town than from the cultivated gardens in the village. . . . Yes, though you may think me perverse, if it were proposed to me to dwell in the neighborhood of the most beautiful garden that ever human art contrived, or else of a Dismal Swamp, I should certainly decide for the swamp. How vain, then, have been all your labors, citizens, for me! (Quoted from Henry David Thoreau’s essay, “Walking.”)
     To read “Walking,” click here. For a brief biography of Henry David Thoreau, click here.