"In the streets and in society
I am almost invariablycheap and dissipated, my life is unspeakably mean.
No amount of gold or respectability would in the least redeem it
-- dining with the Governor or a member of Congress!!
But alone in the distant woods or fields,
in unpretending sprout-lands or pastures tracked by rabbits,
even in a bleak and, to most, cheerless day, like this, when a villager would be thinking of his inn, I come to myself, I once more feel myself grandly related,
and that cold and solitude are friends of mine.
I suppose that this value, in my case, is equivalent to what others get
by churchgoing and prayer.
I come home to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home.
I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are, grand and beautiful.
I have told many that I walk every day about half the daylight,
but I think they do not believe it.
I wish to get the Concord, the Massachusetts, the America,
out of my head and be sane a part of every day."
-- Thoreau
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