Water

   











The water understands

   Civilization well;

   It wets my foot, but prettily,

   It chills my life, but wittily,

   It is not disconcerted,

   It is not broken-hearted:

   Well used, it decketh joy,

   Adorneth, doubleth joy:

   Ill used, it will destroy,

   In perfect time and measure

   With a face of golden pleasure

   Elegantly destroy.

   Ralph Waldo Emerson

   (Picture: Between the waves, Ivan Aivazovsky) 

What a perpetual disappointment is actual society

We seek our friend not sacredly, but with an adulterate passion which would appropriate him to ourselves...All association must be a compromise, and, what is worst, the very flower and aroma of the flower of each of the beautiful natures disappears as they approach each other. What a perpetual disappointment is actual society, even of the virtuous and gifted! After interviews have been compassed with long foresight, we must be tormented presently by baffled blows, by sudden, unseasonable apathies, by epilepsies of wit and of animal spirits, in te heyday of friendship and thought. Our faculties do not play us true, and both parties are relieved by solitude.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friendship