I observe that it is when I  have been intently, and it may be laboriously, at work, and am somewhat listless or abandoned after it, reposing, that the muse visits me, and I see or hear beauty.  It is from the shadow of my toil that I look into light. Thoreau.

The conditions are hard, but equal.  Thou shalt leave the world, and know the muse only.  Thou shalt not know any longer the times, customs, graces, politics, or opinions of men, but shalt take all from the muse.  God wills also that thou abdicate a manifold and duplex life, and that thou be content that others speak for thee.  Thou must pass for a fool and a churl for a long season.  This is the screen and sheath in which Pan has protected his well-beloved flower, and thou shalt be known only to thine own, and they shall console thee with tenderest love.  And this is the reward: that the ideal shall be real to thee, and the impressions of the actual world shall fall like summer rain, copious, but not troublesome, to thy invulnerable essence.  Thou shalt have the whole land for thy park and manor, the sea for thy bath and navigation, without tax and without envy; the woods and the rivers thou shalt own; and thou shalt possess that wherein others are only tenants and boarders.  Thou true land-lord! sea-lord! air-lord!  Wherever snow falls, or water flows, or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in twilight, wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds, or sown with stars, wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets into celestial space, wherever is danger, and awe, and love, there is Beauty, plenteous as  rain, shed for thee, and though thou shouldest walk the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune or ignoble.
 
 

    g.wainz@yahoo.com

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