Ralph Waldo Emerson's journal entry of 12 Nov 1836 is a reminder of the sudden joy that can come by chance during a subway ride or in a crowded airport waiting room:

How many attractions for us have our passing fellows in the streets, both male and female, which our ethics forbid us to express, which yet infuse so much pleasure into life. A lovely child, a handsome youth, a beautiful girl, a heroic man, a maternal woman, a venerable old man, charm us, though strangers, and we cannot say so, or look at them but for a moment.

_{(cf. RalphWaldoEmerson (2 Aug 2003), ...)}

TopicLiterature - TopicLife - TopicPoetry - 2007-03-10

(correlates: BaseballLibraryFan, John Muir, SuspectTerrain, ...)