Coming to the window, August 23, 1852

August 23.

The perception of surfaces will always have the effect of miracle.

Now I sit on the Cliffs and look abroad over the river and Conantum hills.

I live so much in my habitual routine of thoughts, that I forget there is any outside to the globe and am surprised when I behold it as now, - yonder hills and river in the moonlight, the monsters. 

What are these rivers and hills, these hieroglyphics which my eyes behold?

There is something invigorating in this air, which I am peculiarly sensible is a real wind blowing from over the surface of a planet. 

I look out at my eyes, I come to my window, and I feel and breathe the fresh air. It is a fact equally glorious with the most inward experience.

I can see Nobscot faintly.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 23, 1852

What are these rivers and hills, these hieroglyphics which my eyes behold? See November 21, 1850 ("What are these things?")


How adapted these forms and colors to my eye! A meadow and an island! I am made to love the pond and the meadow, as the wind is made to ripple the water.")

I am peculiarly sensible is a real wind blowing from over the surface of a planet. I look out at my eyes, I come to my window, and I feel and breathe the fresh air. See The Maine Woods ("daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it-rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?”)


About 8 p.m.- To Cliffs, moon half full. 

As I go up the back road, I hear the loud ringing creak of crickets, louder singers on each apple tree by the roadside, with an intermittent pulsing creak. Not the sound of a bird all the way to the woods.

How dark the shadows of the pines and oaks fall across the woodland path! There is a new tree, another forest in the shadow. It is pleasant walking in these forest paths, with heavy darkness on one side and a silvery moonlight on the oak leaves on the other, and again, when the trees meet overhead, to tread the checkered floor of finely divided light and shade. 

I hear a faint metallic titter from a bird, so faint that if uttered at noonday it would not be heard, — not so loud as a cricket. I cannot remember the last moon. Now that birds and flowers fall off, fruits take their places, and young birds in flocks. 

What a list of bright-colored, sometimes venomous-looking berries spot the swamps and copses amid changing leaves! For colors they will surpass the flowers, methinks. There is some thing rare, precious, and gem-like about them. Now is their time, and I must attend to them. Some, like grapes, we gather and eat, but the fairest are not edible. 

Now I sit on the Cliffs and look abroad over the river and Conantum hills. I live so much in my habitual thoughts, a routine of thought, that I forget there is any outside to the globe, and am surprised when I behold it as now, — yonder hills and river in the moon light, the monsters. Yet it is salutary to deal with the surface of things. What are these rivers and hills, these hieroglyphics which my eyes behold ? There is some thing invigorating in this air, which I am peculiarly sensible is a real wind, blowing from over the surface of a planet. I look out at my eyes, I come to my window, and I feel and breathe the fresh air. It is a fact equally glorious with the most inward experience. Why have we ever slandered the outward? The perception of surfaces will always have the effect of miracle to a sane sense. I can see Nobscot faintly. 

Descend the rocks and return through woods to railroad. How picturesque the moonlight on rocks in the woods! To-night there are no fireflies, no nighthawks nor whip-poor-wills.