Unfenced Nature

"No yard! but unfenced Nature reaching up to your very sills. A young forest growing up under your windows, and wild sumachs and blackberry vines breaking through into your cellar; sturdy pitch pines rubbing and creaking against the shingles for want of room, their roots reaching quite under the house. Instead of a scuttle or a blind blown off in the gale,—a pine tree snapped off or torn up by the roots behind your house for fuel. Instead of no path to the front-yard gate in the Great Snow,—no gate—no front-yard,—and no path to the civilized world."

by Henry David Thoreau 

(1817–1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. Walden (1854),

in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 2, p. 142, Houghton Mifflin (1906).

SOURCES:No_yard_but_unfenced_Nature_reaching_up_to. Dictionary.com. Columbia World of Quotations. Columbia University Press, 1996.http://quotes.dictionary.com/No_yard_but_unfenced_Nature_reaching_up_to (accessed: November 08, 2014).

PHOTOGRAPHS:All photographs taken by and belonging to Judith Richards Shubert 6 November 2014; digital format used.
Copyright 2014: Judith Richards Shubert