Took this photo on this beautiful morning, walking near the barley fields at the foot of the Jura. It does scant justice to the sweep of the mountains and the wideness of nature. We draw such scenes into our heart and take a sense of openness from them. In their space we find space.
By association with nature’s enormities, a man’s heart may truly grow big also. There is a way of looking upon a landscape as a moving picture and being satisfied with nothing less big as a moving picture, a way of looking upon tropic clouds over the horizon as the backdrop of a stage and being satisfied with nothing less big as a backdrop, a way of looking upon the mountain forests as a private garden and being satisfied with nothing less as a private garden, a way of listening to the roaring waves as a concert and being satisfied with nothing less as a concert, and a way of looking upon the mountain breeze as an air-cooling system and being satisfied with nothing less as an air-cooling system. So do we become big, even as the earth and firmaments are big. Like the “Big Man” described by Yuan Tsi, one of China’s first romanticists, we “live in heaven and earth as our house.”
Lin Yutang
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