A Walk in the Rain

I find it good to be out this still, dark, mizzling afternoon; my walk or voyage is more suggestive and profitable than in bright weather.  The view is contracted by the misty rain, the water is perfectly smooth, and the stillness is favorable to reflection.  I am more open to impressions, more sensitive (not calloused or indurated by sun and wind), as if in a chamber still.  My thoughts are concentrated; I am all compact.  The solitude is real, too, for the weather keeps other men at home.  This mist is like a roof and walls over and around, and I walk with a domestic feeling.  The sound of a wagon going over an unseen bridge is louder than ever, and so of other sounds.  I am compelled to look at near objects.  All things have a soothing effect; the very clouds and mists brood over me.  My power of observation and contemplation is much increased.  My attention does not wander.  The world and my life are simplified.  What now of Europe and Asia?

- Henry David Thoreau, Journals, November 7, 1855