Beschreibung:

THOREAU, HENRY DAVID Autograph manuscript leaf, probably from his Journals, comprising 46-line (220-word) passage entitled "Love." N.p., n.d. 2 full pages, 4to, 242 x 192mm (9½ x 7½ in.) on pale blue bond paper, a small clean tear . "...ALL TRANSCENDENT GOODNESS IS ONE..." A striking, poetic, mini-essay on the nature of love in man and woman: "What the essential difference between man and woman is that they should be thus attracted to one another, no one has satisfactorily answered. Perhaps we must acknowledge the justness of the distinction which assigns to man the spark of wisdom, and to woman that of love, though neither belongs exclusively to either. Man is continually saying to woman - Why will you not be more wise? Woman is continually saying to man - Why will you not be more loving? It is not in their wit to be wise or to be loving, but unless each is both wise and loving, there can neither be wisdom nor love. All transcendent goodness is one, though appreciated in different ways or by different senses. In beauty we see it, in music we hear it, in fragrance we scent it, in the palateable the pure palate tastes it and in rare health the whole body feels it. The variety is in surface or manifestation, but the radical identity we fail to express. The lover sees in the glance of his beloved the same beauty that in the sunset paints the western skies. It is the same daimon, here lurking under a human eye-lid and there under the closing eye-lids of the day. Here in small compass is the ancient and natural beauty of evening and morning. What loving astronomer has ever fathomed the etherial [ sic ] depths of the eye?"