The Outermost House

Henry Beston (June 1, 1888 – April 15, 1968) was an American writer and naturalist, best known as the author of The Outermost House, written in 1928. He is considered one of the fathers of the modern environmental movement.

Henry Beston was spiritually shaken by his experiences in World War I and retreated to the Outermost House on Cape Cod searching for peace and solitude. There, he reflected about life, man, and the animals.

His observations about the disconnect between humans and nature is reflected in his classic poem by same name, The Outermost House

The cabin on Cape Cod where Henry Beston wrote The Outermost House

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

― Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A Year of Life On The Great Beach of Cape Cod

Henry Beston Observations and Quotes after his stay at the Outermost House:

"The animal should not be measured by man. In a world older than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the sense we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear." 

"We patronize the animals for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they are more finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other Nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time."

“They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.” ― an eloquent way to remind us of our proper place in the world, and of the responsibility imposed by our unique combination of power, weakness and vulnerability.

Henry Beston‘s observations about the disconnection between humans and the nature, and his other observations about nature, still give pause, proving readers with a poetic reason to appreciate the beauty of nature.

The Outermost House pdf

Henry Beston’s resting place photo by GraveBard