Henry Beston
Henry Beston
Henry Bestonwas an American writer and naturalist, best known as the author of The Outermost House, written in 1928...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth1 June 1888
CountryUnited States of America
summer country fall
The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter woods.
animal below caught civilization complete concept creature extensions far fate feather fellow finished form gifted glass greatly image knowledge life living lost man measured move mystical nations net older ours ourselves patronize perhaps prisoners remote sees senses shall splendour taken thereby tragic universal voices wiser
We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.
becomes personal quality social spring
The quality of life, which in the ardor of spring was personal and sexual, becomes social in midsummer
animal complete extensions finished gifted living lost measured move older ours shall voices
The animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the sense we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.
dishonour earth spirit
Do no dishonour to the earth least you dishonour the spirit of man.
answer checks competing economy ethic expect great house human marvel nature sit values
As well expect Nature to answer to your human values as to come into your house and sit in a chair. The economy of nature, its checks and balances, its measurements of competing life-all this is its great marvel and has an ethic of its own.
animal vegetarianism needs
We need another and a wiser and a perhaps more mystical concept of animals.
stars night our-world
For a moment of night we have a glimpse of ourselves and of our world islanded in a stream of stars - pilgrims of mortality, voyaging between horizons across the eternal seas of space and time
joy impossible reverence
Poetry is as necessary to comprehension as science. It is as impossible to live without reverence as it is without joy.
garden thinking water
If gardeners will forget a little the phrase, "watering the plants" and think of watering as a matter of "watering the earth" under the plants, keeping up its moisture content and gauging its need, the garden will get on very well.
moving garden years
A garden is the mirror of a mind. It is a place of life, a mystery of green moving to the pulse of the year, and pressing on and pausing the whole to its own inherent rhythms.
nature house answers
As well expect Nature to answer your human values as to come into your house and sit in a chair.
nature joy machines
If there is one thing clear about the centuries dominated by the factory and the wheel, it is that although the machine can make everything from a spoon to a landing-craft, a natural joy in earthly living is something it never has and never will be able to manufacture.
animal vegetarian-diet vegetarianism
Animals are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time.