Today, standing at my favourite morning spot, the mountains behind me, the woods full of wildlife surrounding me and the cries of the seagulls almost the only clue to the presence of the great lake below me, a snatch of a quotation came to me out of the autumn mist, and sent me running home to Rachel Carson. Not for the more famous Silent Spring, but for her first book, Under the Sea Wind, and this passage:
"To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be. These things were before man ever stood on the shore of the ocean and looked out upon it with wonder; they continue year in, year out, throughout the centuries and ages, while man's kingdoms rise and fall."
I'd say that just about covers it.
Portrait: http://www.chatham.edu/host/library
