The Saunterer

Henry David Thoreau on our species’ folly

It’s greed, the constant desire of people to seek more and more of material things
for the money, he laments in this entry in his journal of January 21, 1852, made at age 34:     

    This winter they are cutting down our woods more seriously than ever,—Fair Haven Hill, Walden, Linnaea Borealis Wood, etc. etc. Thank God they cannot cut down the clouds!

    (Quoted from page 106 of The Journal: 1837-1861, by Henry David Thoreau, Damion Searls editor, New York Review Books, 2009.)
    For a brief biography of Henry David Thoreau, click here. For images of or relating to Henry David Thoreau, click here.

 

 

Is it important for a writer to publish?

    From the following suppose you decide:

    Can you imagine being a writer and saying: “These things of mine, they seem quite mysterious, almost to have been given to me. Perhaps then I owe it to them and to other people to do what I can to get them published.”?
    Or else of saying this: “I am a professional writer, I live by my work and that is my dignity. The proof of my work’s value is that it makes me a living and so enables me to work some more. If my work isn’t published it has failed.”?
    Or else this: “A human-being is a social animal. For him the act of making something is unfinished until the fact and the need of its existence have been confirmed by another human’s response. Until my work is published as far as I am concerned it does not exist."?
    Or this: “If I don’t get myself published then neighbours think I’m just a layabout. But if I do get it published then they sort of respect me—and they’re keen to have me at their parties. Not that they read my books.”?
    Or even this: “My writing is a private celebration of my being alive. I write, and as well as I can, because that’s what being alive means to me. Publication? It’s neither here nor there.”?

    (Quoted from page 79 of The Way to Write, by John Fairfax and John Moat. St. Martin’s Press, 1981.)

Albert Schweitzer on how to escape from the miseries of life

 

He tells of two ways:

    There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

    (Quoted from page 102 of Making Rounds with Oscar, by David Dosa. Hyperion, 2010.)
    For a brief biography of Albert Schweitzer, click here. For images of or relating to Albert Schweitzer, click here.