Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Thoreau went off to live in the woods alone, to find out what the world was like. Now a man may learn a deal of the general from studying the specific, whereas it is impossible to know the specific by studying the general. For that reason, our philosophers are usually the most unpractical of men, while very simple folk may have a great deal of wisdom. A friend of mine once entertained Einstein on her fishing yacht off Miami. She had ordered the most elegant of lunches put up by the most elegant of hotels. Einstein ate busily on his cold roast squab. He explored the interior and pulled out its stuffing with a finger that had measured the universe. The stuffing was a large French prune, soaked in sherry and stuffed in turn with an almond. The great man eyed it in horror and threw it overboard. He thought plainly that the gizzard had not been removed. All his knowledge of light and space had not fitted him to know that he would not, under any circumstances, find an appended gizzard in a roast squab served him on a yacht off Miami.

We at the Creek draw our conclusions about the world from our intimate knowledge of one small portion of it.