2001 Message to Garcia
When a man looks at Katahdin, he is more lone than you can imagine.
Vast, titanic, inhuman nature has got him at disadvantage. She does not
smile on him as in the plains. She seems to say sternly: “Why came ye
here before your time? This ground is not prepared for you. Is it not enough
that I smile in the valleys? I have never made this soil for thy feet, this air
for they breathing, these rocks for they neighbors. I cannot pity nor fondle
thee here, but forever relentlessly drive thee hence to where I am kind.
Henry David Thoreau
Vast, titanic, inhuman nature has got him at disadvantage. She does not
smile on him as in the plains. She seems to say sternly: “Why came ye
here before your time? This ground is not prepared for you. Is it not enough
that I smile in the valleys? I have never made this soil for thy feet, this air
for they breathing, these rocks for they neighbors. I cannot pity nor fondle
thee here, but forever relentlessly drive thee hence to where I am kind.
Henry David Thoreau
