My garden, with its silence and pulses of fragrance that come and go on the airy undulations, affects me like sweet music. Care stops at the gates, and gazes at me wistfully through the bars.
Interpretation
The quote expresses how nature can evoke deep feelings and provide a refuge from life's concerns.
In this quote, Alexander Smith compares his experience in his garden to the soothing effects of music. The garden, filled with silence and fragrance, creates an emotional sanctuary where the stresses of life are kept at bay, allowing for peaceful reflection and appreciation of beauty.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the therapeutic benefits of nature.
Looking forward into an empty year strikes one with a certain awe, because one finds therein no recognition. The years behind have a friendly aspect, and they are warmed by the fires we have kindled, and all their echoes are the echoes of our own voices.
Fame is but an inscription on a grave, and glory the melancholy blazon on a coffin lid.
Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.
The world is not so much in need of new thoughts as that when thought grows old and worn with usage it should, like current coin, be called in, and, from the mint of genius, reissued fresh and new.
Books are a finer world within the world. (1863)
A man does not plant a tree for himself; he plants it for posterity.
Bring awareness to the many subtle sounds of nature - The rustling of leaves in the wind, Raindrops falling, The humming of an insect, The first birdsong at dawn.
That is all the National Parks are about. Use, but do no harm.
The air and the earth interpenetrated in the warm gusts of spring; the soil was full of sunlight, and the sunlight full of red dust. The air one breathed was saturated with earthy smells, and the grass under foot had a reflection of the blue sky in it.
The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.
I love to smell flowers in the dark," she said. "You get hold of their soul then.
Look at the stars! Look, look up at the skies! Oh look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air! The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
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