I'm just browsing

 You can see the way I think. I read something in Michael Leddy’s Orange Crate Art that reminded me of something I’d read by William Allen White, the old newspaperman from Kansas.

I found White’s essay in a collection of essays. But since then, these notes have mentioned several more essays, by other writers, included in that collection.

I write because writing is a species of thinking — that is, writing is a way of thinking. I like to think, and I think by writing and by browsing.

Browsing is important. It’s one the reasons that I have to go to the library. Unlike many people, I have to wander the stacks. One chance encounter leads to something else. I’ve learned to just follow my interests.

I could wish my mind were more orderly and worked more efficiently. But those regrets would be wasted. My mind works by browsing.

Incidentally, I’m fairly certain I bought this old collection of essays because I recognized the name of the editor. He’d written a biography of Thoreau I admired. Another example of how one small thing leads to something else, and sometimes to a long chain of thought.

• Source: The essay collection is Harper Essays, edited by Henry Seidel Canby; New York: Harper & Brother Publishers, 1927. And this whole chain of thought started with “The choices that news organizations make,” Sept. 13.