Observations placeholder

Henry D. Thoreau - Walden

We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers. It is reptile and sensual, and perhaps cannot be wholly expelled; like the worms which, even in life and health occupy our bodies. Possibly we may withdraw from it, but never change its nature. I fear that it may enjoy a certain health of its own....... The other day I picked up the lower jaw of a hog, with white and sound teeth and tusks, which suggested that there was an animal health and vigour distinct from the spiritual. This creature succeeded by other means than temperance and purity...

I fear that we are such gods or demigods only as fauns and satyrs, the divine allied to beasts, the creatures of appetite.

'How happy he who hath due place assigned
To his beasts and disaforested his mind'

Arnold Bocklin – the Isle of the dead