We need the tonic of wildness,—to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.
Henry David Thoreau · Walden
Nature & seasons
“We need the tonic of wildness,—to wade sometimes in marshes…”
- Author
- Henry David Thoreau
- Work
- Walden
- Year
- 1854
- Chapter / part
- Spring
- Length
- 51 words
- Source
- Project Gutenberg eBook #205
Public domain. This passage is in the public domain. Henry David Thoreau died in 1862, more than 70 years ago, and the work was first published in 1854. You can copy, print, read aloud or sell it without asking permission; a credit is kind but not required. The text is copied word for word from the Project Gutenberg edition linked here.
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