The water on the meadows

March 29.

The water on the meadows looks very dark from the street. Their color depends on the position of the beholder in relation to the direction of the wind. There is more water and it is more ruffled at this season than at any other, and the waves look quite angry and black.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 29, 1852

The water on the meadows looks very dark from the street. Their color depends on the position of the beholder in relation to the direction of the wind. See February 25, 1851 ("The waves on the meadows make a fine show.");   March 5, 1854 ("And for the first time I see the water looking blue on the meadows.");  March 18, 1854 ("The white caps of the waves on the flooded meadow, seen from the window, are a rare and exciting spectacle, — such an angry face as our Concord meadows rarely exhibit."); March 16, 1859 ("Look toward the sun, the water is yellow,. . .; look from the sun and it is a beautiful dark blue; but in each direction the crests of the waves are white, and you cannot sail or row over this watery wilderness without sharing the excitement of this element");   April 9, 1856  ("The water on the meadows now, looking with the sun, is a far deeper and more exciting blue than the heavens."); April 9, 1859 ("For three weeks past, when I have looked northward toward the flooded meadows they have looked dark-blue or blackish, in proportion as the day was clear and the wind high from the northwest, making high waves and much shadow"); February 12, 1860 ("That dark-eyed water, especially when I see it at right angles with the direction of the sun, is it not the first sign of spring?"); February 25, 1860 ("The fields of open water amid the thin ice of the meadows are . . .  especially dark blue when I look southwest. Has it anything to do with the direction of the wind"); February 27, 1860 ("The sudden apparition of this dark-blue water on the surface of the earth is exciting. I must now walk where I can see the most water, as to the most living part of nature.”)

There is more water and it is more ruffled at this season than at any other, and the waves look quite angry and black. See  February 10, 1860 (“Theophrastus notices that the roughened water is black, and says that it is because fewer rays fall on it and the light is dissipated. ”)