Nehaveigur

John Burroughs published Time and Change in 1912. Hewas a well known naturalist, corresponding with Teddy Roosevelt, John Muir and others. He has been largely forgotten since, even though much his nature writing is still relevant and insightful today. The following is from The Gospel of Nature, a chapter of Time and Change.

On finding meaning in nature:

We say the order of nature is rational; but is it not because our reason is the outcome of that order? […] We think it reasonable that a stone should fall and that smoke should rise because we have never known either of them to do the contrary.

I do not go to Nature to be taught. I go for enjoyment and companionship. I go to bathe in her as in a sea; I go to give my eyes and ears and all my senses a free, clean field

Not till the bird becomes a part of your life can its coming and its going mean much to you

On faith:

The forms and creeds of religion change, but the sentiment of religion – the wonder and reverence and love we feel in the presence of the inscrutable universe – persists.

On how we are apart from nature:

Man introduces benevolence, mercy, altruism, into the world, and he pays the price in his added burdens; and he reaps his reward in the vast social and civic organizations that were impossible without these things.