The past has been a remarkably wet week, and now the earth is strewn with fungi. The earth itself is mouldy. I see a white mould in the path. Great toadstools stand in the woods. I see in the pasture grass in many places small white roundish fungi, like eggs.
It is worth the while to walk in wet weather; the earth and leaves are strewn with pearls. When I came forth it was cloudy and from time to time drizzling weather, but remarkably still (and warm enough), soothing and inducing reflection. The river is dark and smooth these days, reflecting no brightness but dark clouds, and the goldfinch is heard twittering over; though presently a thicker mist or mizzle falls, and you are prepared for rain. The river and brooks look late and cool. The stillness and the shade enable you to collect and concentrate your thoughts.
Is it not as language that all natural objects affect the poet? He sees a flower or other object, and it is beautiful or affecting to him because it is a symbol of his thought, and what he indistinctly feels or perceives is matured in some other organization. The objects I behold correspond to my mood.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 7, 1853
It is worth the while to walk in wet weather . . . See November 7, 1855 ("The view is contracted by the misty rain, the water is perfectly smooth, and the stillness is favorable to reflaction.”)
The objects I behold correspond to my mood. See August 30, 1851 ("Your observation, to be interesting, i. e. to be significant, must be subjective. ... Every important worker will report what life there is in him.”) May 10, 1853 ("I pray for such inward experience as will make nature significant."); May 23, 1853 ("The poet must bring to Nature the smooth mirror in which she is to be reflected. Every new flower that opens, no doubt, expresses a new mood of the human mind.”) May 6, 1854 ("I can be said to note the flower's fall only when I see in it the symbol of my own change. When I experience this, then the flower appears to me.”)
Some wasps (I am not sure there's more than one) are building a nest in my room, of mud. See January 27, 1859 ("I see some of those little cells, perhaps, of a wasp or bee, made of clay or clayey mud. It suggests that these insects were the first potters. They look somewhat like small stone jugs."). See also Mass Audubon ("Solitary wasps -- Mud Daubers (Sphecidae or Crabronidae family) Three species of these long, slender wasps can be found in Massachusetts. Black and yellow mud daubers (Sceliphron caementarium) and organ-pipe mud daubers (Trypoxylon politum)—which are black-colored—build mud nests for their young, often on sheltered parts of buildings. Blue mud daubers (Chalybion californicum) are parasitic, and they’re often found drinking water from puddles; they use the water to soften the nests of other mud daubers and break in. Then, they remove the eggs, insert their own, and reseal the opening.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. Wasps and Hornets
***
Aug. 7. Sunday. I' . At - To Fair Haven Hill via
IIubbard's Grove.
The krigia has bloomed again . The purple gerardia now fairly out, which I found almost out last Sunday in another place. Elder-berries begin to be ripe,
bending their steins . I also see Viburnum dentatum,
berries just beginning to turn on one side. Their turning or ripening looks lilac decay, -- a dark spot, - and
so does the rarely ripe state of the naked viburnum
and the sweet, hat we truly regard it as a ripening
still, and not falsely a decaying as when we descrivb the tints of the autumnal foliage.
I think that within a week I have heard the alder
cricket, -- a clearer and shriller sound from the leaves
in low grounds, a clear shrilling out of a cool moist shade, an autumnal sound. The year is in the grasp of
the crickets, and they are hurling it round swiftly on its
axle.
Some wasps (I am not sure there's more than one)
are building a nest in my room, of mud, these days, buzzing loudly while at work, but at no other time.
Often
and often I hear the cool twitter of the goldfinch passing
over, - a sound one with that of the alder cricket,- and
the bobolink's link link. How much of spring there is
brought back in a young bluebird's plaintive peep!
The tall buttercup lingers still and the houstonia,
not to mention the marsh speedwell and the slender
bellflower.
Now for the herbs, -- the various mints. The pennyroyal is out abundantly on the hills . I do not scent
these things enough. Would it not be worth the while
to devote a day to collecting the mountain mint, and
another to the peppermint?
It is worth the while to walk in wet weather; the
earth and leaves are strewn with pearls . When I came
forth it was cloudy and from time to time drizzling
weather, but remarkably still (and warm enough),
soothing and inducing reflection . The river is dark and
smooth these days, reflecting no brightness but dark
clouds, and the goldfinch is heard twittering over;
though presently a, thicker mist or mizzle falls, and
you are prepared for rain . The river and brooks have
somewhat overflown their banks, and water inundates
the grass and weeds, making it look late and cool. The
stillness mid the shade enable you to collect and concentrate your thoughts.
Is it not as language that all natural objects affect
the poet? He sees a flower or other object, and it is
beautiful or affecting to him because it is a symbol of
his thought, and what he indistinctly feels or perceives
is matured in some other organization . The objects I
behold correspond to my mood .
The past has been a remarkably wet week, and now
the earth is strewn with fungi. The earth itself is mouldy.
I see a white mould in the path. Great toadstools
stand in the woods, but the mushroom growth of a
night is already attacked by many worms and insects .
I see in the pasture grass in many places small white
roundish fungi, like eggs .
the mosquitoes are
not a very serious evil till the somewhat cool muggy
dog-day nights, such as we have had of late .
I was struck by the perfect neatness, as well as
elaborateness and delicacy, of a lady's dress the other
day. She wore some worked lace or gauze over her
bosom, and I thought it was beautiful, if it indicated
an equal inward purity and delicacy, – if it was the
soul she dressed and treated thus delicately.
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