| Heck, J. G. (Johann Georg). 1852. Iconographic encyclopaedia of science, literature, and art. v. 1 (plates), New York : R. Garrigue. Smithisonian Institute |
From Upstream by Mary Oliver:
I quickly found for myself two such blessings -- the natural world, and the world of writing: literature. These were the gates through which I vanished from a difficult place.
In the first of these -- the natural world -- I felt at ease; nature was full of beauty and interest and mystery, also good and bad luck, but never misuse. The second world -- the world of literature -- offered me, besides the pleasures of form, the sustentation of empathy (the first step of what Keats called negative capability) and I ran for it. I relaxed in it. I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything -- other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned: that the world's otherness is antidote to confusion, that standing within this otherness -- the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books -- can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.
On the next page:
I read my books with diligence, and mounting skill, and gathering certainty. I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too.
This is how Claude explains "negative capability":
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