This Date, from Henry David Thoreau's Journal

This Date, from Henry David Thoreau's Journal:

"How simple is the natural connection of events. We complain greatly of the want of flow and sequence in books, but if the journalist only move himself from Boston to New York and speak as before, there is link enough. And so there would be, if he were as careless of connection and order when he stayed at home, and let the incessant progress which his life makes be the apology for abruptness. Do I not travel as far away from my old resorts, though I stay here at home, as though I were on board the steamboat? Is not my life riveted together? Has not it sequence? Do not my breathings follow each other naturally?"

Thoreau talks about a question that I think a lot of visual artists ask themselves as well - "is my work cohesive?" or "is this new work too much of a diversion from the previous work?" or to put it plainly, "does this all go together?" I often tell my friends (and reassure myself) that the artist is what ties the work together and not the visual sameness or similarity...as Thoreau so well put on this date 167 years ago.