quote · Legacy record
At any time, and under any circumstances of human interest, is it not strange to see how little real hold the objects of the natural world amid which we live can gain on our hearts and minds? We go to Nature for comfort in trouble, and sympathy in joy, only in books. Admiration of those beauties of the inanimate world, which modern poetry so largely and so eloquently describes, is not, even in the best of us, one of the original instincts of our nature.
At any time, and under any circumstances of human interest, is it not strange to see how little real hold the objects of the natural world amid which we live can gain on our hearts and minds? We go to Nature for comfort in trouble, and sympathy in joy, only in books. Admiration of those beauties of the inanimate world, which modern poetry so largely and so eloquently describes, is not, even in the best of us, one of the original instincts of our nature.
Approximate author period: c. 1856 AD · industrial
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- Author or tradition
- Wilkie Collins
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1856 AD · industrial
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1824 to 1889; Wikidata Q210740, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q210740 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 129961; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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