March 29, 1853
The very sod is replete with mechanism far finer than a watch, and yet it is cast under our feet to be trampled on. The process that goes on in the sod and the dark, about the minutes fibres of the grass, -- the chemistry and the mechanics, -- before a single green blade can appear above the withered herbage, if it could be adequately described, would supplant all other revelations. We are acquainted with but one side of the sod.
It's hard enough to see the obvious. Eyewitness accounts are notoriously inaccurate. HDT was not only a patient and gifted observer, but he was aware of what wasn't there, as well.
I very much enjoyed reading this past spring The Forest Unseen, by David Haskell. Haskell, a biology professor at the University of the South, focuses on one square meter of forest floor through the course of the seasons. What he finds there, what goes on there, from the cellular level on up, is fascinating.
Of course, this quotation can be read in a more metaphorical way, as well.
It's hard enough to see the obvious. Eyewitness accounts are notoriously inaccurate. HDT was not only a patient and gifted observer, but he was aware of what wasn't there, as well.
I very much enjoyed reading this past spring The Forest Unseen, by David Haskell. Haskell, a biology professor at the University of the South, focuses on one square meter of forest floor through the course of the seasons. What he finds there, what goes on there, from the cellular level on up, is fascinating.
Of course, this quotation can be read in a more metaphorical way, as well.
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