When I was quite young, I became enthralled by poetry to the extent that I studied the laws of composing it and once succeeded in writing nearly eighty poems in a single month. To make those verses as beautiful as possible, I composed lists of beautiful words and put them in a small red notebook where I could constantly read and reread them, linger over their beauty, and eventually bring them into my compositions. There were such words as azalea, azure, nectarine, eventide, chimes, and so on. But alas! with the passing of youth the fascination of poetry faded away and the fascination of the scientific attitude took its place. There was nothing wrong in this, except that I failed to keep the two by maintaining a balance between them; instead, I foolishly adopted a one-or-the-other attitude. To the scientist, the Himalaya Mountains cover an enormous graveyard filled with fossilized animals; but to the poet, how grand and how unearthly a sight is the dawn sun rising over the Himalayan peaks!
-- Notebooks Category 12: Reflections > Chapter 6 : The Profane and The Profound > # 181
