| Horace, Satire 2.6.1-4 | Translated by John Conington |
Hoc erat in votis: modus agri non ita magnus, hortus ubi et tecto vicinus iugis aquae fons et paulum silvae super his foret. auctius atque di melius fecere. bene est. nil amplius oro. |
This used to be my wish: a bit of land, A house and garden with a spring at hand, And just a little wood. The gods have crowned My humble vows; I prosper and abound: Nor ask I more. |
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Part of our wish has come true. We now have a bit of land (80+ acres) near Farmington, Maine, with a brook and trees. God willing, the house and garden will come in time. Here are a few photos.
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One of my wishes is that those dark trees, So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom, But stretched away unto the edge of doom. I should not be withheld but that some day Into their vastness I should steal away, Fearless of ever finding open land, Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand. Robert Frost, "Into My Own" |
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Nature we have always with us, an inexhaustible
storehouse of that which moves the heart, appeals
to the mind, and fires the imagination, -- health
to the body, a stimulus to the intellect, and a
joy to the soul. John Burroughs, "The Art of Seeing Things" |
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And so I go to the woods. As I go in under the trees, dependably,
almost at once, and by nothing I do, things fall into place.
I enter an order that does not exist outside, in the human spaces.
I feel my life take its place among the lives -- the trees,
the annual plants, the animals and the birds, the living of all
these and the dead -- that go and have gone to make the life of the
earth. I am less important than I thought. I rejoice in that. My mind
loses its urgings, senses its nature, and is free.
Wendell Berry, "A Native Hill" |
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I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits,
unless I spend four hours a day at least -- and it is
commonly more than that -- sauntering through the
woods. Henry David Thoreau, "Walking" I wish he could find something better to do than walking off every now and then. Jane Thoreau (his aunt), letter 7 September 1848 |
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Some minds by nature are averse to noise, And hate the tumult half the world enjoys. The lure of avarice, or the pompous prize, That courts display before ambitious eyes; The fruits that hang on pleasure's flowery stem, Whate'er enchants them, are no snares to them. To them the deep recesses of dusky groves, Or forest where the deer securely roves, The fall of waters and the song of birds, And hills that echo to the distant herds, Are luxuries excelling all the glare The world can boast, and her chief favourites share. William Cowper, "Retirement" |