I Go To Commune With The Rocks

From the journals of Henry David Thoreau:

November 15, 1853/

After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined, and feel as if I had done something wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prozaic, hard and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft.


Seventyfive Mile Canyon (top)

Papago Canyon (below)