Old periodicals: Walking, nature, and us in the words of Thoreau

Trying to propose a balance between humans and nature, Thoreau wrote the essay "Walking" in the 1850s - it was a lecture. Some excerpts from this work of the American philosopher and naturalist.

I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute Freedom and Wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil, —to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society.

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, 

Our expeditions are but tours; 

Half the walk is but retracing our steps.

Living much out of doors, in the sun and wind, will no doubt produce a certain roughness of character, 

So staying in the house, on the other hand, may produce a softness and smoothness, not to say thinness of skin, accompanied by an increased sensibility to certain impressions. 

Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of houses, and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap.

A town is saved, not more by the righteous men in it than by the woods and swamps that surround it. 

...Wildness is the preservation of the world.

What do you think? Let's go out for a walk. 

You can read the essay here or the original published after Thoreau's death in the Atlantic Monthly (1862).