“To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson , book Nature

Source: 1830s, Nature http://www.emersoncentral.com/nature.htm (1836), Ch. 1, Nature
Context: The charming landscape which I saw this morning, is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title. To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson 727

American philosopher, essayist, and poet 1803–1882

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