Abstract
February is the death-month in nature. I cannot find a single living thing in the cabin now: not a spider, not a beetle, not a wriggling bug. February reminds me that death is always part of the natural bargain. In a world where humans do not really know very much, they do know that they are going to die; that much is certain. Death is part of the deal. Life is much more valuable because each person is going to die. The bard knew this well: “This thou perceiv’st which makes thy love more strong,/To love that well which thou must leave ere long” (Sonnet 73). Love it well because you have to leave it before too many years have passed, Shakespeare says. No love without death. No life without life that is lost. “Not life, but a good life is to be chiefly valued,” said Plato’s master in the Crito. So once the good is gone, it is time to let go of the life. This is a lesson that the Romantics knew well in the nineteenth century and that the coming generations of twenty-first century human beings are going to have to learn as well.
There is in reality neither truth nor error, neither yes nor no, nor any distinction whatsoever, since all—including the contraries—is One.—
—Chuang-tse
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Copyright information
© 2011 Ashton Nichols
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Nichols, A. (2011). February. In: Beyond Romantic Ecocriticism. Nineteenth-Century Major Lives and Letters. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117990_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117990_12
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-28709-3
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-11799-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)