Henry David Thoreau on domestic animals

    Henry David Thoreau rejoiced in knowing that just the surface of an animal can be tamed:

    I love even to see the domestic animals reassert their native rights--any evidence that they have not wholly lost their original wild habits and vigor; as when my neighbor’s cow breaks out of her pasture early in the spring and boldly swims the river, a cold, gray tide, twenty-five or thirty rods wide, swollen by the melted snow. It is the buffalo crossing the Mississippi. This exploit confers some dignity on the herd in my eyes-–already dignified. The seeds of instinct are preserved under the thick hides of cattle and horses, like seeds in the bowels of the earth, an indefinite period.

    On a past post on the Saunterer, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry put Thoreau’s idea differently; see it by clicking here.
    (Henry David Thoreau is quoted from his essay, “Walking.” To read “Walking,” click here.)
    For a brief biography of Henry David Thoreau, click here. For images of or relating to Henry David Thoreau, click here.