A walk through the mist

December 16.

Steady, gentle, warm rain all the forenoon, and mist and mizzling in the afternoon, when I go round by Abel Hosmer’s and back by the railroad. 

The mist makes the near trees dark and noticeable, like pictures, and makes the houses more interesting, revealing but one at a time. 

The old apple trees are very important to this landscape, they have so much body and are so dark. 

It is very pleasing to distinguish the dim outline of the woods, more or less distant, through the mist, sometimes the merest film and suspicion of a wood. On one side it is the plump and rounded but soft masses of pitch pines, on another the brushy tops of maples, birches, etc. 

Going by Hosmer’s, the very heaps of stones in the pasture are obvious as cairns in one of Ossian’s landscapes. 

See two red squirrels on the fence, one on each side of his house, particularly red along their backs and top of head and tail. They are remarkably tame. One sits twirling apparently a dried apple in his paws, with his tail curled close over his back as if to keep it warm, fitting its curve. How much smothered sunlight in their wholesome brown red this misty day! It is clear New England, Nov-anglia, like the red subsoil. It is springlike. 

As we go over the bridge, admire the reflection of the trees and houses from the smooth open water over the channel, where the ice has been dissolved by the rain.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 16, 1855


The mist ...makes the houses more interesting, revealing but one at a time. See November 29, 1850 ("As you advance, the trees gradually come out of the mist and take form before your eyes.”); April 22, 1852 ("The mist to-day makes those near distances which Gilpin tells of."); August 4, 1854 ("Rain and mist contract our horizon and we notice near and small objects.");September 20, 1857 ("The outlines of trees are more conspicuous and interesting such a day  as this, being seen distinctly against the near misty background, – distinct and dark."); See also note to February 6, 1852 ("mistiness makes the woods look denser, darker, and more imposing." )

The reflection of the trees and houses from the smooth open water over the channel, where the ice has been dissolved by the rain. See December 15, 1856 "The smooth serenity and the reflections of the pond, still alone free from ice.”); December 16, 1852 ("Observe the reflection of the snow on Pine Hill from Walden”); January 7, 1855 (“The channel of the river is quite open in many places, and I hear the pleasant sound of running water. A certain dormant life awakes in me, and I begin to love nature again.")

December 16. See A Book of the Seasons, By Henry Thoreau, December 16