The Outermost House. Henry Beston.

The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod
Henry Beston
New York: The Viking Press, 1928 (1958)

Why read it? Like Thoreau at Walden, Beston took up a solitary residence in a cottage on the beach where he could observe the life of the sand and the dunes and the moods of the ocean. “Living in outer nature keeps the senses keen, and living alone stirs in them a certain watchfulness.” “Bird migrations, the rising of the winter stars out of the breakers and the east, night and storm, the solitude of a January day, the glisten of dune grass in midsummer….” The book consists of the author's reflections on his experiences living on the beach alone in all seasons of the year.

Some sample ideas from the book: “Animals are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations….” “…the solemn unrest of the ocean….” “The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.” The sea has many voices….” “The ocean…constantly changing its tempo, its pitch, its accent, and its rhythm….” “Every mood of the wind, every change in the day’s weather, every phase of the tide—all these have subtle sea musics all their own.” “…the surf…mingled and continuous, waves hurrying after waves, interrupting waves, washing back on waves, overwhelming waves.” “Away from the beach, the various sounds of the surf melt into one great thundering symphonic roar…an endless, distant elemental cannonade.”

“The multiplicity of insect tracks….” “Those trillions of unaccountable lives….” “As I muse here, it occurs to me that we are not sufficiently grateful for the great symphony of natural sound which insects add to the natural scene…all those little fiddles in the grass, all those cricket pipes, those delicate flutes….”

“Our fantastic civilization has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with none more completely than with night.” “The beach at night has a voice all its own….” “Learn to reverence night and to put away the vulgar fear of it….” “Now came flash after stabbing flash amid a roaring of rain, and heavy thunder that rolled on till its last echoes are swallowed up in vast detonations which jarred the walls.”

Quote: “…the creation is still going on….”