26 January 1858

by layman k

Nature loves gradation. Trees do not spring abruptly from the earth. Mosses creep up over the insteps of the trees and endeavor to reclaim them. Hence the propriety of lacing over the instep.

Is not the moccasin a more picturesque and fitter sort of shoe than ours in which to move amid the herbage ?

 from the journals of Henry David Thoreau