![](\"http:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/wp\/images\/THOREAU_EMERSON.jpg\")
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Longtime readers know I’m quite the devotee of those dear local philosophs \/ civic superheroes \/ transcendentalist romantics, Emerson and Thoreau. I’ve quoted them at length<\/a> and composed songs inspired by their fiery oratory<\/a>. <\/p>\n So I was excited to stumble upon (hat tip forgotten) a blog dedicated to posting Thoreau’s journal entries, pegged to the corresponding day of the year (“THIS DATE<\/a>“). Living quite near where Thoreau would have wandered, I enjoy the shared sense of place that emerges, as when he observes a balmy day in February and we experience the same. <\/p>\n In this bit from yesterday<\/a>, one of the more striking I’ve read, Thoreau really hits a writerly stride, so disarmingly plainspoken, so alarmingly insightful. Indeed, this short reflection seems to encapsulate his very approach to writing —<\/p>\n I have a commonplace-book for facts and another for poetry, but I find it difficult always to preserve the vague distinction which I had in my mind, for the most interesting and beautiful facts are so much the more poetry and that is their success. They are translated from earth to heaven. I see that if my facts were sufficiently vital and significant, – perhaps transmuted more into the substance of the human mind, – I should need but one book of poetry to contain them all.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Passages like that set a high bar, and we’ve been finding — myself and Rebecca<\/a>, my better half, who’s begun a similar blog from Emerson’s diaries<\/a> — that Thoreau is, to this date, the more engaging of the two. Pearls of wisdom aplenty, though. Or should I say barberries?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Longtime readers know I’m quite the devotee of those dear local philosophs \/ civic superheroes \/ transcendentalist romantics, Emerson and Thoreau. I’ve quoted them at length and composed songs inspired by their fiery oratory. So I was excited to stumble upon (hat tip forgotten) a blog dedicated to posting Thoreau’s journal entries, pegged to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[401,133,403,275,35],"class_list":["post-1548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blogging","tag-boston","tag-lifey","tag-philosophy","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1548"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8386,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions\/8386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wayneandwax.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}