My favorite line of "Nature" may just be the following: "These enchantments are medicinal, they sober and heal us. These are plain pleasures, kindly and native to us." This line is immensely powerful because it iterates how the remedy for most modern ailments can be found by appreciating that which was here before us, and that which will be here long after we perish. The everlastingness of nature must enchant us at a deeply personal level because despite modern medicine, despite the revolution incited by the antibiotic, there is still a sacred, mystic healing power of a peaceful yoga retreat in the Himalayas. For me at least, even something as simple as a picnic in the grass leaves me nostalgic for some reason in a way that going to the movies or arcade will not, regardless of who I am with. This sentiment reminds me of another one of Emerson's quotes: "We never can part with it; the mind loves its old home: as water to our thirst, so is the rock, the ground, to our eyes, and hands, and feet." He is referring to Nature and how its presence is something that will always be imbibed within us no matter how distant we may physically be from it.
One line in particular made me think of something Thomas Jefferson said. When Emerson claims, "Cities give not the human senses room enough," it made me think of how Jefferson greatly valued an agrarian America. He saw those who worked the earth to be the "chosen men of God" and he hoped with all his heart that America wouldn't industrialize to the degree which European society had because he observed how Europeans seemed to "eat at" each other. This may very well be because industry, or other trends of modernization, suffocates us in ways that only Nature can liberate us from.
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