Reflections in a bubble.

June 3, 2016
(avesong)

June 3.

To Fair Haven with Blake and Brown. 

A very warm day, without a breeze. 



A kingbird's nest in a fork of a black willow. 

Going up Fair Haven Hill, the blossoms of the huckleberries and blueberries impart a sweet scent to the whole hillside.

On the pond we make bubbles  with our paddles on the smooth surface, in which little hemispherical cases we see ourselves and boat, small, black and distinct, with a fainter reflection on the opposite side of the bubble (head to head). These last sometimes a minute before they burst.  

Cross to Baker Farm and Mt. Misery. 

To-day, having to seek a shady and the most airy place, at length we are glad when the east wind rises, ruffles the water and cools the air, and wafts us homeward. 

How many times have  other similar bubbles, now burst, reflected here the Indian, his canoe and paddle with the same faithfulness that they now image me and my boat?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 3, 1854

Image in bubbles. See March 19, 1852 ("Standing with Channing on the brink of the rill . . .I observe our images three quarters of an inch long and black as imps appearing to lean toward each other on account of the convexity of the bubbles."); January 6, 1853 ("When I lie down on it [the ice] and examine it closely, I find that the greater part of the bubbles which I had thought were within its own substance are against its under surface..., — perfect spheres, apparently, and very beautiful and clear, in which I see my face through this thin ice. . .")

How can that depth be 

fathomed where a man may see 

himself reflected?

August 17, 1851