There are in our existence spots of time,

That with distinct pre-eminence retain

A renovating virtue…

That penetrates, enables us to mount,

When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.

-William Wordsworth

Wordsworth was a man who appreciated the beauty of nature. He sought it out as a way of restoring peace to his soul, believing that nature was a “necessary antidote to the evils of the city” (Botton, 196). During his time things were changing rapidly. With the Industrial Revolution in full swing, cities and their populations were expanding. As a result, many people, such as the Transcendentalists (Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson…), sought solace from the increasingly fast-paced lifestyle of the city by returning to nature.

Botton wrote at length about human admiration for nature. On page 144 he described his experience under oaks in the Lake District while it rained: “From under their canopy, rain could be heard falling on forty thousand leaves, creating a harmonious pitter-patter that varied in pitch according to whether the water dripped onto a large or small leaf, a high or low one, one loaded with accumulated water or not. The trees themselves were an image of ordered complexity…” Such scenes as these are what Wordsworth meant when he wrote about “spots of time.” They speak of forces which are beyond our comprehension and leave us in awe.

It’s not surprising then that those who sought nature often found an “emotional connection to a greater power” (Botton, 169). In the first chapter of his book, Nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote:

“I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, — master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.”

What Emerson describes resembles a spiritual sense of the sublime, something which Botton elaborates on greatly in his sixth chapter. I bought a used copy of The Art of Travel. On page 163, the first page of the aforementioned chapter, the previous owner highlighted “I set out to the desert so as to be made to feel small,” and aside it wrote, “Trees!” I was reminded of the Evergreen woods. Having been raised on the east coast, the trees there seem alien and beautiful. Their trunks stretch high, and their limbs seem languidly twisted, coated in vibrantly green moss. As a part of my study, I plan to visit the Olympic National Park where the trees grow much bigger, and I don’t doubt that I will feel humbled by their size and age. While I’m not sure I’ll find the same spirituality that Emerson describes, I do think we are drawn to nature’s majestic indifference as it reminds us of our own temporariness.

However, while it is important for us to appreciate the beauty of nature, we must also not forget about the beauty of our own creations. Botton seems aware of this when, on page 181, he wrote about an oil refinery “whose tangle of pipes and cooling towers spoke of the complexity involved in the manufacture of a liquid that [he] was used to putting into [his] car with scant thought for its origins.” In chapter four of his book, Walden, Thoreau marvels at a train, writing “…when I hear the iron horse make the hills echo with his snort like thunder, shaking the earth with his feet, and breathing fire and smoke from his nostrils (what kind of winged horse or fiery dragon they will put into the new Mythology I don’t know), it seems as if the earth had got a race now worthy to inhabit it.” It is perhaps easier for us to take our own achievements for granted because they represent those elements of nature which we have already mastered. Our technologies are the aspects of nature which we have molded to our will.

We are at once a part of and separate from nature. While we are but small parts of it, our will is distinct. The “will” of nature, something which we tend to embody in the image of the divine, is “a defiance to man’s will” (Botton, 164). Nature may be seen in this way as a challenge which is not so different from a blank canvas. As I move forward in my study, I’ll be interested to carry Botton’s thoughts on nature and art with me, testing them against the theories other philosophers have generated over the centuries.

Work Cited:

Botton, Alain De. The Art of Travel. New York: Pantheon, 2002. Print.

Emerson, Ralph W. “Chapter I: Nature.” Nature. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2015.

Thoreau, Henry D. “Chapter 4: Sounds.” Walden. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2015.