North Topics

Keats is minute in observation, with an eye to every particular of every object; Shelley, usually working on a panoramic scale, generalizes and reduces, in order that the details of his scenes may fit within a unity of the whole. Keats is naturalistic and representative, whereas Shelley more noticeably imposes his subjective conceptions upon what he sees. Shelley’s vision is usually directed either up or down, while Keats looks out before him, horizontally; he glances at the sky casually, albeit observantly, while Shelley’s gaze is earnest and painful, as if he strove to pierce the atmosphere and arrive at some ultimate vision above the air itself.
—Richard Harter Fogle, U.S. critic, educator. The Imagery of Keats and Shelley, ch. 2, University of North Carolina Press (1949)

The clouds breaking away a little, we had a glorious wild view, as we ascended, of the broad lake with its fluctuating surface and numerous forest-clad islands, extending beyond our sight both north and south, and the boundless forest undulating away from its shores on every side, as densely packed as a rye-field, and enveloping nameless mountains in succession; but above all, looking westward over a large island, was visible a very distant part of the lake, though we did not then suspect it to be Moosehead,—at first a mere broken white line seen through the tops of the island trees, like hay-caps, but spreading to a lake when we got higher. Beyond this we saw what appears to be called Bald Mountain on the map, some twenty-five miles distant, near the sources of the Penobscot. It was a perfect lake of the woods. But this was only a transient gleam, for the rain was not quite over.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

We work harder than ever, and I cannot see the advantages in cooperative living.
—Lydia Arnold, U.S. commune supervisor (of the North American Phalanx, Red Bank, New Jersey, 1843- 1855)