in Thoreau’s Journal:

If there were no other vicissitudes but the seasons, with their attendant and consequent changes, our interest would never flag. Much more is a-doing than Congress wots of in the winter season. What journal do the persimmon and buckeye keep, or the sharp-shinned hawk? What is transpiring from summer to winter in the Carolinas, and the Great Pine Forest, and the Valley of the Mohawk?  The merely political aspect of the land is never very cheering— Men are degraded when considered as members of a political organisation….

In society you will not find health, but in nature— You must converse much with the field and woods if you would imbibe such health into your mind and spirit as you covet for your body.