P. M. — To chestnut wood by Turnpike, to see if I could find my comb, probably lost out of my pocket when I climbed and shook a chestnut tree more than a month ago.
Unexpectedly find many chestnuts in the burs which have fallen some time ago. Many are spoiled, but the rest, being thus moistened, are softer and sweeter than a month ago, very agreeable to my palate. The burs from some cause having fallen without dropping their nuts.
As I stand looking down the hill over Emerson's young wood-lot there, perhaps at 3.30 p. m., the sunlight reflected from the many ascending twigs of bare young chestnuts and birches, very dense and ascendant with a marked parallelism, they remind me of the lines of gossamer at this season, being almost exactly similar to the eye.
It is a true November phenomenon.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 28, 1856
I climbed and shook a chestnut tree more than a month ago .See October 18, 1856 ("A-chestnutting down Turnpike and across to Britton's, thinking that the rain now added to the frosts would relax the burs which were open and let the nuts drop . . .")
They remind me of the lines of gossamer at this season. See October 25, 1858 (“The light reflected from the parallel twigs of birches recently bare, etc., like the gleam from gossamer lines. This is another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights”); November 3, 1857("Looking westward now, at 4 P.M., I see against the sunlight, where the twigs of a maple and black birch intermingle, a little gossamer or fine cobwebs, but much more the twigs, especially of the birch, waving slightly, reflect the light like cobwebs. It is a phenomenon peculiar to this season, when the twigs are bare and the air is clear. I cannot easily tell what is cobweb and what twig,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 28, 1856
I climbed and shook a chestnut tree more than a month ago .See October 18, 1856 ("A-chestnutting down Turnpike and across to Britton's, thinking that the rain now added to the frosts would relax the burs which were open and let the nuts drop . . .")
They remind me of the lines of gossamer at this season. See October 25, 1858 (“The light reflected from the parallel twigs of birches recently bare, etc., like the gleam from gossamer lines. This is another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights”); November 3, 1857("Looking westward now, at 4 P.M., I see against the sunlight, where the twigs of a maple and black birch intermingle, a little gossamer or fine cobwebs, but much more the twigs, especially of the birch, waving slightly, reflect the light like cobwebs. It is a phenomenon peculiar to this season, when the twigs are bare and the air is clear. I cannot easily tell what is cobweb and what twig,") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days
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