The evening of the year

August 31.

I land at Lee's Cliff, in Fair Haven Pond, and sit on the Cliff. Late in the afternoon. The wind is gone down; the water is smooth; a serene evening is approaching; the clouds are dispersing.

The pond, so smooth and full of reflections after a dark and breezy day, is unexpectedly beautiful. There is a little boat on it, schooner-rigged, with three sails, a perfect little vessel and perfectly reflected now in the water. There is hardly a puff of air, and the boatman is airing his sails after the storm. Being in the reflection of the opposite woods, the water on which the little boat rests is absolutely invisible, and it makes an impression of buoyancy and lightness.

I float slowly down from Fair Haven till I have passed the bridge. The sun, half an hour high, has come out again just before setting, with a brilliant, warm light, and there is the slightest undulation discernible on the water, from the boat or other cause, as it were its imitation in glass. The reflections are perfect. A bright, fresh green on fields and trees now after the rain, spring-like with the sense of summer past. The reflections are the more perfect for the blackness of the water. 

This is the most glorious part of this day, the serenest, warmest, brightest part, and the most suggestive. Evening is fairer than morning.  Morning is full of promise and vigor. Evening is pensive. The serenity is far more remarkable to those who are on the water.

That part of the sky just above the horizon seen reflected, apparently, some rods off from the boat is as light a blue as the actual, but it goes on deepening as your eye draws nearer to the boat, until, when you look directly down at the reflection of the zenith, it is lost in the blackness of the water. 

I observe, on the willows on the east shore, the shadow of my boat and self and oars, upside down.

The evening of the year is colored like the sunset.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 31, 1852

I land at Lee's Cliff, in Fair Haven Pond, and sit on the Cliff. Late in the afternoon . . . See  February 14, 1851 ("One afternoon in the fall, November 21st, I saw Fair Haven Pond with its island and meadow; between the island and the shore, a strip of perfectly smooth water in the lee of the island; and two hawks sailing over it; and something more I saw which cannot easily be described . . ."); April 14, 1852 ("Fair Haven Pond -- the pond, the meadow beyond the button-bush and willow curve, the island, and the meadow between the island and mainland with its own defining lines -- are all parted off like the parts of a mirror. A fish hawk is calmly sailing over all . . . "); November 1, 1852 ("As I approached their edge, I saw the woods beneath, Fair Haven Pond, and the hills across the river, — which, owing to the mist, was as far as I could see, and seemed much further in consequence. I saw these between the converging boughs of two white pines a rod or two from me on the edge of the rock; and I thought that there was no frame to a landscape equal to this, — to see, between two near pine boughs, whose lichens are distinct, a distant forest and lake, the one frame, the other picture. "); 

Upside down shadow: see also October 18, 1853("Returning late, we see a double shadow of ourselves and boat, one, the true, quite black, the other directly above it and very faint, on the willows and high bank."); August 16, 1854 ("At the steam mill sand-bank is the distinct shadow of our shadows, — first on the water, then the double one on the bank bottom to bottom, one being upside down, — three in all, — one on water, two on land or bushes.");  November 2, 1854 ("Sailing past the bank above the railroad, just before a clear sundown, close to the shore on the east side I see a second fainter shadow of the boat, sail, myself, and paddle, etc., directly above and upon the first on the bank. What makes the second? At length I discovered that it was the reflected sun which cast a higher shadow like the true one. As I moved to the west side, the upper shadow rose, grew larger and less perceptible; and at last when I was so near the west shore that I could not see the reflected sun, it disappeared; but then there appeared one upside down in its place!") and Walden, The Pond in Winter ("Sometimes, also, when the ice was covered with shallow puddles, I saw a double shadow of myself, one standing on the head of the other, one on the ice, the other on the trees or hillside.”)


The evening of the year is colored like the sunset. See August, 19, 1853 (" The day is an epitome of the year.”); November 14, 1853 (“October [w]ith respect to its colors and its season, it is the sunset month of the year, when the earth is painted like the sunset sky.”)

Imperfect fruits now fall.

August 29.

A warm rain-storm in the night, with wind, and to-day it continues. The first leaves begin to fall; a few yellow ones lie in the road this morning, loosened by the rain and blown off by the wind. The ground in orchards is covered with windfalls; imperfect fruits now fall. 

We boast that we belong to the Nineteenth Century, and are making the most rapid strides of any nation. But consider how little this village does for its own culture. We have a comparatively decent system of common schools, schools for infants only, as it were, but, excepting the half-starved Lyceum in the winter, no school for ourselves. 

It is time that we had uncommon schools, that we did not leave off our education when we begin to be men. Comparatively few of my townsmen evince any interest in their own culture, how ever much they may boast of the school tax they pay. It is time that villages were universities, and their elder inhabitants the fellows, with leisure — if they are indeed so well off — to pursue liberal studies as long as they live. 

In this country the village should in many respects take the place of the nobleman who has gone by the board. It should be the patron of the fine arts. It is rich enough; it only wants the refinement. It can spend money enough on such things as farmers value, but it is thought utopian to propose spending money for things which more intelligent men know to be of far more worth. 

If we live in the Nineteenth Century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the Nineteenth Century has to offer? Why should our life be in any respect provincial? As the nobleman of cultivated taste surrounds himself with whatever conduces to his culture, — books, paintings, statuary, etc., — so let the village do. 

This town, — how much has it ever spent directly on its own culture? To act collectively is according to the spirit of our institutions, and I am confident that, as our circumstances are more flourishing, our means are greater. 

New England can hire all the wise men in the world to come and teach her, and board them round the while, and not be provincial at all. That is the uncommon school we want. 

The one hundred and twenty-five dollars which is subscribed in this town every winter for a Lyceum is better spent than any other equal sum. Instead of noblemen, let us have noble towns or villages of men. This town has just spent sixteen thousand dollars for a town-house. Suppose it had been proposed to spend an equal sum for something which will tend far more to refine and cultivate its inhabitants, a library, for instance. We have sadly neglected our education. We leave it to Harper & Brothers and Redding & Co.

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

The first leaves begin to fall loosened by the rain and blown off by the wind. See August 28, 1858 ("When the wind stirs after the rain, leaves that were prematurely ripe or withered begin to strew the ground on the leeward side.. . .These are among the first-fruits of the leafy harvest.")

.

Hemp still in blossom.

August 28. 

August 28, 2012

Now the red osier berries are very handsome along the river, overhanging the water, for the most part pale blue mixed with whitish, -- part of the pendant jewelry of the season. The berries of the alternate leaved cornel have dropped off mostly. The white-berried and red osier are in their prime. The other three kinds I have not seen. 

The viburnums, dentatum and nudum, are in their prime. The sweet viburnum not yet purple, and the maple-leaved still yellowish.

Hemp still in blossom.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 28, 1852

Now the red osier berries are very handsome along the river. . . See August 28, 1856 ("The bright china-colored blue berries of the Cornus sericea begin to show themselves along the river. .”)

The viburnums, dentatum and nudum, are in their prime. See August 28, 1856 (" Viburnum nudum berries are beginning; I already see a few shrivelled purple ones amid the light green. "); see also August 31, 1856 ("The Viburnum nudum berries are now in prime, a handsome rose-purple."); September 3, 1856 ("Gather four or five quarts of Viburnum nudum berries, now in their prime, attracted more by the beauty of the cymes than the flavor of the fruit. The berries, which are of various sizes and forms, — elliptical, oblong, or globular, — are in different stages of maturity on the same cyme, and so of different colors, — green or white, rose-colored, and dark purple or black, — i. e. three or four very distinct and marked colors, side by side. . . . Remarkable for passing through so many stages of color before they arrive at maturity.")

To Walden

August 27.

Crickets sound much louder after the rain in this cloudy weather.  Hips of the early roses are reddening.  Lower leaves of the smooth sumach are red. Hear chic-a-day-day-day and crow; but, for music, reduced almost to the winter quire. Young partridges two-thirds grown burst away. The leaves of some young maples in the water about the pond are now quite scarlet, running into dark purple-red.

Paddle round the pond.  Viewed from a hilltop, it is blue in the depths and green in the shallows, but from a boat it is seen to be a uniform dark green.  The shore is so steep that much of the way a single leap will carry you into water over your head. It is nowhere muddy, and the bottom is not to be touched, scarcely even seen again, except for the transparency of the water, till it rises on the other side. Both fishes and plants are clean and bright, like the element they live in.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 27, 1852

Viewed from a hilltop, it is blue in the depths and green in the shallows, but from a boat it is seen to be a uniform dark green. . . .See September 1, 1852 ("Viewed from the hilltop, it reflects the color of the sky. Beyond the deep reflecting surface, near the shore, it is a vivid green. "): See also Walden ("Walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view. Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of the color of both. Viewed from a hill top it reflects the color of the sky, but near at hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where you can see the sand, then a; light green, which gradually deepens to a uniform dark green in the body of the pond. In some lights, viewed even from a hill top, it is of a vivid green next the shore.”)

A brisk walk with the little brown dog in the damp woods this morning,  wood asters shining in the dim light  along the trail swept clean from yesterdays thunder shower – taking the turn home surprised to see how bright green the trees against the sky. August 27, 2022. 

A different mood or season of the mind

August 25.

P. M. — To Conantum. 

The dandelion blooms again. 

One of the most noticeable wild fruits at present is the Viburnum nudum berries, their variegated cymes amid the green leaves in the swamps or low grounds, some whitish, some greenish, some red, some pink, some rose-purple and very beautiful, — not so beautiful, however, off the bush, — some dark purple or blue, and some black whose bloom is rubbed off, — a very rich sight. 

The silky cornel is the most common every where, bordering the river and swamps, its drooping cymes of amethystine (?) china or glass beads mingled with whitish. 

The fruit of the Viburnum Lentago is now very handsome, with its sessile cymes of large elliptical berries, green on one side and red with a purple bloom on the other or exposed side, not yet purple, blushing on one cheek. 

Many pyrus leaves are now red in the swamps, and some Viburnum nudum.

Yesterday was a hot day, but oh, this dull, cloudy, breezy, thoughtful weather in which the creak of the cricket sounds louder, preparatory to a cheerful storm!  How grateful to our feelings is the approach of autumn!  We have had no serious storm since spring.  What a salad to my spirits is this cooler, darker day!

I hear no birds sing these days, only the plaintive note of young bluebirds, or the peep of a robin, or the scream of a jay, to whom all seasons are indifferent, the mew of a catbird, the link link of a bobolink, or the twitter of a goldfinch, all faint and rare. The great bittern is still about, but silent and shy.

At length, before sundown, it begins to rain. You can hardly say when it began, and now, after dark, the sound of it dripping and pattering without is quite cheering. It is long since I heard it. One of those serious and normal storms ~ not a shower which you can see through, not a transient cloud that drops rain ~ something regular, a fall rain, coincident with a different mood or season of the mind.  

Methinks the truly weather-wise will know themselves and find the signs of rain in their own moods, the aspect of their own skies or thoughts, and not consult swallows and spiders. Does a mind in sympathy with nature need a hygrometer ?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 25, 1852

See  September 18, 1860: "If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow."); A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Moods and Seasons of the Mind.


Methinks the truly weather-wise will know themselves and find the signs of rain in their own moods. See January 26, 1852 (" Would you see your mind, look at the sky. Would you know your own moods, be weather-wise.")

The year is a circle of days

August 24.

The year is but a succession of days, and I see that I could assign some office to each day which, summed up, would be the history of the year. Everything is done in season, and there is no time to spare. The bird gets its brood hatched in season and is off. I look into the nest where I saw a vireo feeding its young a few days ago, but it is empty; it is fledged and flown.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 24, 1852

The year is but a succession of days . . . See Walden (Spring) ("The phenomena of the year take place every day in a pond on a small scale. Every morning, generally speaking, the shallow water is being warmed more rapidly than the deep, though it may not be made so warm after all, and every evening it is being cooled more rapidly until the morning. The day is an epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer."): August 19, 1853 ("As toward the evening of the day the lakes and streams are smooth, so in the fall, the evening of the year, the waters are smoothed more perfectly than at any other season. The day is an epitome of the year"); June 6, 1857("Each season is but an infinitesimal point. It no sooner comes than it is gone. It has no duration. It simply gives a tone and hue to my thought. Each annual phenomenon is a reminiscence and prompting. Our thoughts and sentiments answer to the revolutions of the seasons, as two cog-wheels fit into each other. We are conversant with only one point of contact at a time, from which we receive a prompting and impulse and instantly pass to a new season or point of contact. A year is made up of a certain series and number of sensations and thoughts which have their language in nature. Now I am ice, now I am sorrel. Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind.")


See also The hour before sunset.; March 18, 1853 (This is the foreglow of the year); July 27, 1853 (The afternoon of the year); August 31, 1852 (The evening of the year)

The color of fruits and berries

August 22.
The elder bushes are weighed down with fruit partially turned, and are still in bloom at the extremities of their twigs. I am struck by the handsome and abundant clusters of yet green shrub oak acorns. Some are whitish. How much food for some creatures! Is not the high blackberry our finest berry?  I gather very sweet ones which weigh down the vines in sprout-lands.  The arum berries are mostly devoured, apparently by birds. The two-leaved Solomon's-seal berries begin to be red. The panicled cornel berries now white.  

Perhaps fruits are colored like the trillium berry and the scarlet thorn to attract birds to them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 22, 1852

Perhaps fruits are colored like the trillium berry and the scarlet thorn to attract birds to them. See June 15, 1852 ("Flowers were made to be seen, not overlooked. Their bright colors imply eyes, spectators")

I hear the year falling asleep

August 21.

The air within a day or two is quite cool, almost too cool for a thin coat, yet the alternate days are by some reckoned among the warmest in the year. Young turkeys are straying in the grass which is alive with grasshoppers. The bees, wasps, etc. are on the goldenrods, improving their time before the sun of the year sets. 

The leaves of the dogsbane are turning yellow. 

There are as few or fewer birds heard than flowers seen. 

The sound of the crickets gradually prevails more and more. I hear the year falling asleep.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 21, 1852

The leaves of the dogsbane are turning yellow. See September 26, 1852 ("Dogsbane leaves a clear yellow.")

The bees, wasps, etc. are on the goldenrods, improving their time before the sun of the year sets. See August 30, 1859 ("Now that flowers are rarer, almost every one of whatever species has bees or butterflies upon it. "); September 14, 1856 ("Now for the Aster Tradescanti along low roads, like the Turnpike, swarming with butterflies and bees."); September 21, 1856 ("[On top of Cliff, behind the big stump] is a great place for white goldenrod, now in its prime and swarming with honey-bees."); October 11, 1856 ("The white goldenrod is still common here, and covered with bees."); October 12, 1856 ("It is interesting to see how some of the few flowers which still linger are frequented by bees and other insects. ")

Corner Spring

August  19. 

The small fruits of most plants are now generally ripe or ripening, and this is coincident with the flying in flocks of such young birds now grown as feed on them. 

The Viburnum dentatum  berries are now blue.  Many leaves of the mountain sumach are red. The trillium berries, six-sided, one inch in diameter, like varnished and stained cherry wood, glossy red, crystalline and ingrained, concealed under its green leaves in shady swamps. 

It is already fall in some of these shady, springy swamps, as at the Corner Spring. 

Here is a little brook of very cold spring-water, rising a few rods distant, sometimes running underground, meandering exceedingly, with a gray sandy and pebbly bottom, flowing through this dense swampy thicket. The sun falls in here and there between the leaves and shines on its bottom. The water has the coldness it acquired in the bowels of the earth. 

The clear dark-green leaves of the fever-bush overhang the stream. The trilliums on its brink have fallen into it and bathe their red berries in the water, waving in the stream. 

I love the rank smells of the swamp, its decaying leaves. This few rods of primitive wood has a singular charm for me. Here is a recess apparently never frequented. Thus this rill flowed here a thousand years ago, and with exactly these environments.    

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 19, 1852


The small fruits of most plants are now generally ripe or ripening, and this is coincident with the flying in flocks of such young birds now grown as feed on them. See August 22, 1852 ("Perhaps fruits are colored like the trillium berry and the scarlet thorn to attract birds to them.”); July 26, 1854 ("Almost every bush now offers a wholesome and palatable diet to the wayfarer, — . . . The broods of birds just matured find thus plenty to eat.”); September 1, 1860 ("See how artfully the seed of a cherry is placed in order that a bird may be compelled to transport it.”); see also August 21, 1851 ("It is remarkable that animals are often obviously, manifestly, related to the plants which they feed upon or live among.”); July 29, 1853 (“The insect that comes after the honey or pollen of a plant is necessary to it and in one sense makes a part of it”);  September 29, 1856 ("How surely . . .the bidens, on the edge of a pool, prophesy the coming of the traveller. . . that will transport their seeds on his coat."); May 16, 1860 (“Think how thoroughly the trees are thus explored by various birds.. . .The whole North American forest is being thus explored for insect food. Each is visited by many kinds and thus the equilibrium of the insect and vegetable kingdom is preserved.”)

August 19. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, August 19

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021

The royal month of August

August 18.

Rudbeckia laciniata, sunflower-like tall cone-flower, behind Joe Clark's. 

As I go over the hill behind Hunt's, the North River has a glassy stillness and smoothness, seen through the smoky haze that fills the air and has the effect of a film on the water, so that it looks stagnant. No mountains can be seen.

The locust is heard.  Fruits are ripening. Ripe apples here and there scent the air.  I see those minute yellow cocoons on the grass.

There is indeed something royal about the month of August. Its is a perhaps more tropical heat than that of July. Though hot it is not so suffocating a blaze, and the evenings generally are cooler..

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 18, 1852


There is indeed something royal about the month of August. See August 10, 1853("August, royal and rich"); August 4, 1851("It is now the royal month of August.").

Locust days.

August 16.

Down river in boat with George Bradford. These are locust days.  I hear them on the elms in the street, but cannot tell where they are.  Loud is their song, drowning many others, but men appear not to distinguish it, though it pervades their ears as the dust their eyes.

Galeopsis tetrahit, common hemp-nettle, in roadside by Keyes's. How long? Flower like hedge-nettle.

Apios tuberosa, ground-nut, a day or two.  

 

The river is exceedingly fair this afternoon, and there are few handsomer reaches than that by the leaning oak, the deep place, where the willows make a perfect shore. 

At sunset, the glow being confined to the north, it tinges the rails on the causeway lake-color, but behind they are a dead dark blue.

I must look for the rudbeckia which Bradford says he found yesterday behind Joe Clark's.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 16, 1852

I must look for the rudbeckia which Bradford says he found . . . See August 18, 1852 ("Rudbeckia laciniata, sunflower-like tall cone-flower, behind Joe Clark's.") See also August 11, 1856 ("Mr. Bradford . . .gives me a sprig of Cassia Marilandica,wild senna, found by Minot Pratt just below Leighton's by the road side.") and August 12, 1856 ("Bradford speaks of the dog's-tooth violet as a plant which disappears early.”).



August 16. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  August 16

 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021

Signs of the season

August 15.

That clear ring like an alder locust (is it a cricket ?) for some time past is a sound which belongs to the season. Birds fly in flocks.

I see a dense, compact flock of bobolinks going off in the air over a field. They cover the rails and alders, and go rustling off with a brassy, tinkling note as I approach, revealing their yellow breasts and bellies. This is an autumnal sight, that small flock of grown birds in the afternoon sky.

Now a sudden gust of wind blows from the northwest, cooled by a storm there, blowing the dust from roads far over the fields.

Elder-berry ripe. 

Some naked viburnum berries are quite dark purple amid the red, while other bunches are wholly green yet. 

The red choke-berry is small and green still. I plainly distinguish it, also, by its woolly under side. 

Some cranberries turned red on one cheek along the edges of the meadows. 

The swamp blackberry begins.

See a blue heron on the meadow.

In E. Hubbard's swamp I gather some large and juicy and agreeable rum cherries. They are much finer than the small ones on large trees; quite a good fruit. The birds make much account of them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 15, 1852

That clear ring like an alder locust (is it a cricket ?) See August 4, 1856 ( "Have heard the alder cricket some days. The turning-point is reached."); August 9, 1857 ("Hear the shrilling of my alder locust."); August 11, 1852 ("The autumnal ring of the alder locust."); August 13, 1860 ("Hear the steady shrill of the alder locust"); August 18, 1856 ("I hear the steady shrilling of . . .the alder cricket, clear, loud, and autumnal, a season sound. . . . It reminds me of past autumns and the lapse of time, suggests a pleasing, thoughtful melancholy,")

Birds fly in flocks. See August 19, 1852 ("The small fruits of most plants are now generally ripe or ripening, and this is coincident with the flying in flocks of such young birds now grown as feed on them"); August 15, 1854 ("This is an autumnal sight, that small flock of grown birds in the afternoon sky.") August 9, 1857 ("I see the blackbirds flying in flocks.")

Some naked viburnum berries are quite dark purple amid the red, while other bunches are wholly green yet. See August 25, 1854 ("The Viburnum nudum berries, in various stages, — green, deep-pink, and also deep-blue, not purple or ripe, — are very abundant at Shadbush Meadow. They appear to be now in their prime and are quite sweet, but have a large seed. Interesting for the various colors on the same bush and in the same cluster.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Viburnum lentago  (nannyberry)

See a blue heron on the meadow.  See  August 15, 1860 ("See a blue heron.") See also   August 12, 1853 ("See the blue herons opposite Fair Haven Hill, as if they had bred here."); August 14, 1859 ("You have not seen our weedy river, you do not know the significance of its weedy bars, until you have seen the blue heron wading and pluming itself on it");  August 19, 1858  ("The blue heron has within a week reappeared in our meadows")  and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Blue Heron

Blue haze

August 14, 2015

August 14.

Viburnum dentatum berries blue. 

Saw a rose still. 

There is such a haze that I cannot see the mountains.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 14, 1852

Viburnum dentatum berries blue. See August 11, 1853 ("The small, dull, lead-colored berries of the Viburnum dentatum now hang over the water."); August 13, 1858 ("The dullish-blue or lead-colored Viburnum dentatum berries are now seen, not long, overhanging the side of the river.");August 17, 1851 ("The lead-colored berries of the Viburnum dentatum now.")

Saw a rose still. See July 14, 1853 ("I see a rose, now in its prime, by the river, in the water amid the willows and button-bushes, while others, lower on shore, are nearly out of bloom."); July 23, 1860 ("The late rose is now in prime along the river, a pale rose-color but very delicate, keeping up the memory of roses"); August 4, 1854 ("See a late rose still in flower."); August 5, 1858 ("The late rose is still conspicuous, in clumps advanced into the meadow here and there.")

There is such a haze that I cannot see the mountains. See August 18. 1852 ("No mountains can be seen.") See also  August 13, 1854 ("Now the mountains are concealed by the dog-day haze. ");  August 19, 1854 ("There is such a haze we see not further than our Annursnack, which is blue as a mountain.”); August 22, 1854 (“The haze is so thick that we can hardly see more than a mile.”); August 30, 1854 ("The valleys are emptied of haze, and I see with new pleasure to distant hillsides and farmhouses and a river-reach shining in the sun, and to the mountains in the horizon.")

Cannabis sativa, apparently out.

August 11.

To Contantum.

The mountain-ash berries are turning. We had a ripe watermelon on the 7th. I see the great yellow flowers of the squash amid the potatoes in the garden, one of the largest yellow flowers we have. How fat and rich! Of course it is long since they blossomed. Green corn begins.

The autumnal ring of the alder locust. White lilies are not very numerous now.

The skunk-cabbage leaves are fallen and decaying, and their fruit is black. Their fall is earlier than that of other plants.

I am attracted by the clear dark-green leaves of the fever-bush. The rum cherry is ripe.

The Collinsonia Canadensis just begun. The great trumpet-weeds now fairly out. Sumach berries now generally red. Some naked viburnum berries are red. The sweet viburnum turning.

The larger skull-cap is quite an important and interesting flower.

Platanthera blephariglottis, white fringed orchis.

This side of Hubbard's Meadow Bridge, Lespedeza hirta (hairy), Cannabis sativa, apparently out.

Aster corymbosus, path beyond Corner Spring and in Miles Swamp.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 11, 1852

Cannabis sativa, apparently out. See August 4, 1854 ("Cannabis sativa")

Platanthera blephariglottis, white fringed orchis. See August 8, 1858 ("I find at Ledum Swamp, near the pool, the white fringed orchis, quite abundant but past prime, only a few, yet quite fresh. It seems to belong to this sphagnous swamp and is some fifteen to twenty inches high, quite conspicuous, its white spike, amid the prevailing green. The leaves are narrow, half folded, and almost insignificant. It loves, then, these cold bogs.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The White Fringed Orchis

Aster corymbosus, path beyond Corner Spring and in Miles Swamp. See August 9, 1856 ("What I have called Aster corymbosus out a day, above Hemlocks. . . .")

August 11.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 11

 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021

A human entity

August 8.

August 8, 2014

5 A.M. –– Awoke into a rosy fog.  I was enveloped by the skirts of Aurora.

The small dewdrops rest on the Asclepias pulchra by the roadside like gems and the flower has lost half its beauty when they are shaken off,  

I only know myself as a human entity, the scene, so to speak, of thoughts and affections, and am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me which, as it were, is not a part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play - it may be the tragedy of life - is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.

No man ever makes a discovery, even an observation of the least importance, but he is advertised of the fact by a joy that surprises him.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 8, 1852 

I am conscious of

my double to whom I am

a kind of fiction.

Doubleness... See  A Week  on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers:
:

My life has been the poem I would have writ,
But I could not both live and utter it.

Walden (Solitude):With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent. We are not wholly involved in Nature. I may be either the driftwood in the steam, or Indra in the sky looking down on it. I may be affected by a theatrical exhibition; on the other hand, I may not be affected by an actual event which appears to concern me much more. I only know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak, of thoughts and affections; and am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned. This doubleness may easily make us poor neighbors and friends sometimes.

See also August 5, 1851 ("As the twilight deepens and the moonlight is more and more bright, I begin to distinguish myself, who I am and where. I become more collected and composed, and sensible of my own existence, as when a lamp is brought into a dark apartment. ...  I am sobered by the moonlight. I bethink myself.”); August 17, 1851  ("How can that depth be fathomed where a man may see himself reflected?"); November 18, 1851 ("A man can hardly be said to be there if he knows that he is there, or to go there if he knows where he is going. The man who is bent upon his work is frequently in the best attitude to observe what is irrelevant to his work.);  April 28, 1860 (" now that the hum of insects begins to be heard []You seem to have a great companion with you, are reassured by the scarcely audible hum , as if it were the noise of your own thinking.")

I see my shadow 

 as a second person who 

sits down on this rock. 

June 11, 1851

The tragedy of life -  a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, See  December 15, 1852 ("But is this fact of "our life " commonly but a puff of air, a flash in the pan, a smoke, a nothing? It does not afford arena for a tragedy.")

Discovery/ perception of truth.... See 2/27/1851 ("a novel and grand surprise, or a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we had called knowledge before; an indefinite sense of the grandeur and glory of the universe.”); April 19 1852 ("How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact! suggesting what worlds remain to be unveiled. That phenomenon of the andromeda seen against the sun cheers me exceedingly. When the phenomenon was not observed, it was not at all. I think that no man ever takes an original or detects a principle, without experiencing an inexpressible, as quite infinite and sane, pleasure, which advertises him of the dignity of that truth he has perceived.”). See also September 4-7, 1851(" All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy.”); September 24 1854("The perception of truth, as of the duration of time, etc., produces a pleasurable sensation”) November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it.”); January 5, 1860 ("A man receives only what he is ready to receive. His observations make a chain. He does not observe the phenomenon that cannot be linked with the rest which he has observed, however novel and remarkable it may be. A man tracks himself through life, apprehending only what he already half knows.”); August 22, 1860 ("I never find a remarkable Indian relic but I have first divined its existence, and planned the discovery of it. Frequently I have told myself distinctly what it was to be before I found it.")

"I can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me…." Charles Darwin, Autobiography 99 (Norton paperback edition reissued 2005)

"It is impossible to solve a difficulty except by discovering a truth." Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

August 8. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 8

 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021

The thistle and the Kosmos.

August 6.

Methinks there are few new flowers of late. An abundance of small fruits takes their place. Summer gets to be an old story. Birds leave off singing, as flowers blossoming. With the goldenrod comes the goldfinch. About the time his cool twitter is heard, does not the bobolink, thrasher, catbird, oven-bird, veery, etc ., cease?

All men beholding a rainbow begin to understand the significance of the Greek name for the world, - Kosmos, or beauty. It was designed to impress man. We live, as it were, within the calyx of a flower.

I find a bumblebee asleep in a thistle blossom, having crowded himself in deep amid the dense florets, out of the reach of birds, while the sky was overcast. What a sweet couch!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 6, 1852

We live, as it were, within the calyx of a flower. See  August 3, 1852 ("A splendid entire rainbow after a slight shower, with two reflections of it, outermost broad red, passing through yellow to green, then narrow red, then blue or indigo (not plain what), then faint red again. It is too remarkable to be remarked on.");  June 5, 1853 (“The heavens and the earth are one flower. The earth is the calyx, the heavens the corolla.”); May 16, 1854 ("The earth is all fragrant as one flower.”); May 16, 1852 ("The whole earth is fragrant as a bouquet held to your nose.”)

I find a bumblebee asleep in a thistle blossom, having crowded himself in deep amid the dense florets, out of the reach of birds, while the sky was overcast. See August 4, 1852 (“The little bees have gone to sleep amid the clethra blossoms in the rain and are not yet aroused.”)


August  6.

5 a. m. — I do not hear this morning the breathing of chip-birds nor the song of robins. Are the mornings now thus ushered in? Are they as spring like? Has not the year grown old? Methinks we do ourselves, at any rate, somewhat tire of the season and observe less attentively and with less interest the opening of new flowers and the song of the birds. It is the signs of the fall that affect us most. It is hard to live in the summer content with it. To Cliffs. How different the feeble twittering of the birds here at sunrise from the full quire of the spring! Only the wood thrush, a huckleberry-bird or two, or chickadee, the scream of a flicker or a jay, or the caw of a crow, and commonly only an alarmed note of a robin. A solitary peawai may be heard, perchance, or a red-eye, but no thrashers, or catbirds, or oven-birds, or the jingle of the chewink. I hear the ominous twittering of the goldfinch over all.

The village is seen through a thin veil of fog. I just distinguish the tree-tops beneath me in the southwest, and the light-colored river through the mist, which is gathering and preparing to retreat before the sun. From a tree-top I see the surface of Walden, whose shores are laid bare, the sun being directly opposite, and there fore the surface of the lake is a bright sheen seen through some stately pines near the railroad. This bright, silvery sheen comes through the dispersing mists to me, its shores being still concealed by fog, and a low white scudding mist is seen against the more distant dark clouds, drifting westward over all the forests before the sun. Gathered some of those large, sometimes pear-shaped, sweet blue huckleberries which grow amid the rubbish where woods have just been cut. A farmer told me that he lost a good many doves by their being trodden upon by oxen.

P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook and hill beyond.

 I still remember how much bluer those early blueberries were that grew in the shade.

Have just finished Gilpin's "Lakes of Cumberland." An elegant writer of English prose. I wish he would look at scenery sometimes not with the eye of an artist. It is all side screens and fore screens and near distances and broken grounds with him. I remark that in his tour through Wales, and afterward through Cumberland and Westmoreland, he never ascends to the top of a mountain, and if he gets up higher than usual, he merely says that the view is grand and amusing, as if because it was not easy to paint, or picturesque, it was not worth beholding, or deserving of serious attention. However, his elegant moderation, his discrimination, and real interest in nature excuse many things.

Milkweeds and trumpet-flowers are important now, to contrast with the cool, dark, shaded sides and recesses of moist copses. I see their red under the willows and alders everywhere against a dark ground. Methinks that blue, next to red, attracts us in a flower.

Blue vervain is now very attractive to me, and then there is that interesting progressive history in its rising ring of blossoms. It has a story.

Next to our blood is our prospect of heaven. Does not the blood in fact show blue in the covered veins and arteries, when distance lends enchantment to the view? The sight of it is more affecting than I can describe or account for.

The rainbow, after all, does not attract an attention proportionate to its singularity and beauty. Moses (?) was the last to comment on it. It is a phenomenon more aside from the common course of nature. Too distinctly a sign or symbol of something to be disregarded. What form of beauty could be imagined more striking and conspicuous? An arch of the most brilliant and glorious colors completely spanning [the] heavens before the eyes of men! Children look at it. It is wonderful that all men do not take pains to behold it. At some waterfalls it is permanent, as long as the sun shines. Plainly thus the Maker of the universe sets the seal to his covenant with men. Many articles are thus clinched. Designed to impress man. All men beholding it begin to understand the significance of the Greek epithet applied to the world, — name for the world, — - Kosmos, or beauty. It was designed to impress man. We live, as it were, within the calyx of a flower.

Methinks there are few new flowers of late. An abundance of small fruits takes their place. Summer gets to be an old story. Birds leave off singing, as flowers blossoming, i. e. perhaps in the same propor tion. With the goldenrod comes the goldfinch. About the time his cool twitter was heard, did not the bobo link, thrasher, catbird, oven-bird, veery, etc., cease? I see some delicate ferns, in the low damp woods by the brook, which have turned whitish at the extremity. Cohush berries have just begun to be white, as if they contained a pearly venom, — wax white with a black spot (or very dark brown), imp-eyed. The leaves of one of the cornels (alternate-leaved or else round-leaved) are, some of them, turned lake-color. The weeds are now very high and rank in moist wood-paths and along such streams as this. I love to follow up the course of the brook and see the cardinal- flowers which stand in its midst above the rocks, their brilliant scarlet the more interesting in this open, but dark, cellar-like wood; the small purple fringed orchises with long dense spikes, all flower, — for that is often all that is seen above the leaves of other plants (is not this the last flower of this peculiar flower kind, — i. e. all flower and color, the leaves subordinated ?) ; and the Mimulus ringens, abundant and handsome in these low and rather shady places. Many flowers, of course, like the last, are prominent, if you visit such scenes as this, though one who confines himself to the road may never see them. From Smith's Hill beyond, there is as good a view of the mountains as from any place in our neighbor hood, because you look across the broad valley in which Concord lies first of all. The foreground is on a larger scale and more proportionate. The Peterboro Hills are to us as good as mountains. Hence, too, I see that fair river-reach, in the north. I find a bumblebee asleep in a thistle blossom (a pasture thistle), the loiterer; having crowded himself in deep amid the dense florets, out of the reach of birds, while the sky was overcast. What a sweet couch! As I always notice the tone of the bell when I go into a new town, so surely, methinks, I notice some pe culiarity in the accent and manners of the inhabitants. The bristly aralia berries are ripe; like the sarsapa- rilla, a blue black. The shorn fields are acquiring a late green or refresh [sic]. They are greener, much, than a month ago, before the grass was cut. For ten days the weather has been cool and the air full of moisture. Is it not because of the increase of vegeta tion, the leaves being multiplied, the weeds more rank, the shadows heavier ? This is what is called dog-day weather. The water in the river and pond is quite cool, and it is more bracing and invigorating to bathe, though less luxurious. Methinks the water cannot again be as warm as it has been. Erechthites hieracifolia, apparently a day or two. Lespedeza capitata. Aralia racemosa, how long ? — petty morel, spikenard, like a large sarsaparilla. Hieracium paniculatum. Lycopus Virginicus (with five calyx -teeth). Solidagos, lanceolata ( ?) and puberula ( ?). Stellaria media at R. W. E.'s. Is it the same, then, which I saw in Cheney's garden so early ? That clammy, hairy-leaved cerastium (?) I still see, with a starry white flower. Was it the Urtica gracilis I examined, or the common nettle ? What is that plant at the brook with hairy under sides now budded ?

Blue vervain is now very attractive to me, and then there is that interesting progressive history in its rising ring of blossoms. It has a story. See August 20, 1851 ("The flowers of the blue vervain have now nearly reached the summit of their spikes."); August 22, 1859 ("The circles of the blue vervain flowers, now risen near to the top, show how far advanced the season is.")

August 6. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 6

 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.” 

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021