In a short poem called "Beginning My Studies," Walt Whitman spoke of the temptation to never go beyond the first object of his study — "the least insect or animal" ‐ and submerge himself in its intricacies, to "stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs." Whitman knew that there is a sense in which the least thing contains the all.
— Chet Raymo, Walt Whitman, The Path by Chet Raymo