the dissatisfaction? the urge and spur of every life; The something never still’d—never entirely gone? the invisible need of every seed?
“It is the central urge in every atom, (Often unconscious, often evil, downfallen,) To return to its divine source and origin, however distant, Latent the same in subject and in object, without one exception.”
The Commonplace
The commonplace I sing; How cheap is health! how cheap nobility! Abstinence, no falsehood, no gluttony, lust; The open air I sing, freedom, toleration, (Take here the mainest lesson—less from books—less from the schools,) The common day and night—the common earth and waters, Your farm—your work, trade, occupation, The democratic wisdom underneath, like solid ground for all.
“The Rounded Catalogue Divine Complete”
(Sunday, ⸺—⸺.—Went this forenoon to church. A college professor, Rev. Dr. ⸻, gave us a fine sermon, during which I caught the above words; but the minister included in his “rounded catalogue” letter and spirit, only the esthetic things, and entirely ignored what I name in the following.)
The devilish and the dark, the dying and diseas’d, The countless (nineteen-twentieths) low and evil, crude and savage, The crazed, prisoners in jail, the horrible, rank, malignant, Venom and filth, serpents, the ravenous sharks, liars, the dissolute; (What is the part the wicked and the loathsome bear within earth’s orbic scheme?) Newts, crawling things in slime and mud, poisons, The barren soil, the evil men, the slag and hideous rot.