A vein of coolness in the wind

August 6. 

To Tarbell Hills by boat. 

August 6, 2017

Rather cool with a strong wind, before which we glide. The rippled surface of the water and the light under sides of the white maples in rounded masses bordering the stream, and also the silvery tops of the swamp white oaks, give a pleasing breezy aspect to the shores. The sun is quite hot to-day, but the wind is cool and I question if my thin coat will be sufficient. Methinks that after this date there is commonly a vein of coolness in the wind. 

The Great Meadows are for the most part shorn. 

Small light-green sensitive ferns are springing up full of light on the bank. 

I see some smaller white maples turned a dull red, — crimsonish, — a slight blush on them. 

Grape-vines, are methinks more conspicuous now at a distance along the edge of the meadow, where they round and mass the trees and bushes, here and there marked with the white, downy under sides of the leaves. 

The wind is very unsteady and flirts our sail about to this side and that. We prefer to sail to-day (Sunday) because there are no haymakers in the meadow.

Land at Tarbell's Hills.  

It is at length cloudy, and still behind the hills, and very grateful is this anticipation of the fall, — coolness and cloud, and the crickets steadily chirping in mid-afternoon. 

As I look westward up the stream, the oak, etc., on Ponkawtasset are of a very dark green, almost black, which, methinks, they have worn only since midsummer. 

We row back with two big stones in the stern. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 6, 1854

Methinks that after this date there is commonly a vein of coolness in the wind. See August 7, 1854 ("It is the glistening autumnal side of summer. I feel a cool vein in the breeze, which braces my thought.")

The Great Meadows are for the most part shorn. See August 5, 1854 ("A platoon of haymakers has just attacked the meadow-grass . . . We are now in the midst of the meadow-haying season.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Haymaking

Small light-green sensitive ferns are springing up full of light on the bank. See August 19, 1854 ("The very light yellowish-green of the sensitive fern which the mowers have left."); September 6, 1856 ("The sensitiveness of the sensitive fern. If you take a tender plant by the stem, the warmth of your hand will cause the leaves to curl.")

This anticipation of the fall, — coolness and cloud, and the crickets steadily chirping in mid-afternoon. See July 28, 1854 ("Last evening it was much cooler, and I heard a decided fall sound of crickets."); July 30 1852 (After midsummer we . . . are forward to see in each sight and hear in each sound some presage of the fall,"; August 4, 1851 ("I hear the note of a cricket, and am penetrated with the sense of autumn."); August 6, 1852 ("Has not the year grown old ? . . . It is the signs of the fall that affect us most. "); August 6, 1855 ("Hear the autumnal crickets. "); August 7, 1854 ("The cool nocturnal creak of the crickets is heard in the mid-afternoon.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Midsummer midlife blues.

The oak, etc . . . are of a very dark green, almost black, which, methinks, they have worn only since midsummer.  See August 8, 1854 ("The foliage of most trees is now not only most dense, but a very dark green.")

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

Coolness and cloud and  

crickets steadily chirping 

in mid-afternoon –

. 

we row back with two

big stones in the stern.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A vein of coolness in the wind.

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 © 2009-2024

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