The Absolute Necessity of Seeking Inspiration in Nature

We may learn a great deal from books, but we learn much
more from the contemplation of nature—the reason and
occasion for all books. The direct examination of phenomena
has an indescribably disturbing and leavening effect on our
mental inertia—a certain exciting and revitalizing quality
altogether absent, or barely perceptible, in even the most
faithful copies and descriptions of reality.