P. M. — Paddle up Assabet.
The water is fast going down. See a small water bug. It is pretty still and warm.
As I round the Island rock, a striped squirrel that was out the steep polypody rock scampered up with a chuckle.
On looking close, I see the crimson white maple stigmas here and there, and some early alder catkins are relaxed and extended and almost shed pollen.
I see many of those narrow four-winged insects (perla?) of the ice now fluttering on the water like ephemerae. They have two pairs of wings indistinctly spotted dark and light.
Humphrey Buttrick says he saw two or three fish hawks down the river by Carlisle Bridge yesterday; also shot three black ducks and two green-winged teal, — though the latter had no green on their wings, it was rather the color of his boat, but Wesson assured him that so they looked in the spring.
Buttrick had a double barrelled gun with him, which he said he bought of a broker in Boston for five dollars! Thought it had cost eighteen dollars. He had read Frank Forester and believed him, and accordingly sent to New York and got one of Mullin’s guns for sixty dollars. It was the poorest gun he ever had. He sold it for forty.
As for cheap or old-fashioned guns bursting, there was Melvin; he had used his long enough, and it had not burst yet. He had given thirty-five dollars for it, say thirty years ago. Had had but one, or no other since. Melvin’s —and Minott’s still more — is such a gun as Frank Forester says he would not fire for a hundred dollars, and yet Melvin has grown gray with using it; i. e., he thinks that it would not be safe to fire a two barrelled gun offered new for less than fifty dollars.
If you are describing any occurrence, or a man, make two or more distinct reports at different times. Though you may think you have said all, you will to-morrow remember a whole new class of facts which perhaps interested most of all at the time, but did not present themselves to be reported. If we have recently met and talked with a man, and would report our experience, we commonly make a very partial report at first, failing to seize the most significant, picturesque, and dramatic points; we describe only what we have had time to digest and dispose of in our minds, without being conscious that there were other things really more novel and interesting to us, which will not fail to recur to us and impress us suitably at last.
How little that occurs to us in any way are we prepared at once to appreciate! We discriminate at first only a few features, and we need to reconsider our experience from many points of view and in various moods, to preserve the whole fruit of it.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 24, 1857
As I round the Island rock, a striped squirrel that was out the steep polypody rock scampered up with a chuckle. See. March 10,1852 (" I am pretty sure that I hear the chuckle of a ground squirrel among the warm and bare rocks of the Cliffs. "); . March 17, 1859 ("As I float by the Rock, I hear rustling amid the oak leaves above that new water-line, and, there being no wind, I know it to be a striped squirrel, and soon see its long-unseen striped sides . . . a type which I have not seen for a long time, or rather a punctuation-mark, the character to indicate where a new paragraph commences in the revolution of the seasons.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,Signs of the Spring, the striped squirrel comes out
On looking close, I see the crimson white maple stigmas here and there, and some early alder catkins are relaxed and extended and almost shed pollen.
I see many of those narrow four-winged insects (perla?) of the ice now fluttering on the water like ephemerae. They have two pairs of wings indistinctly spotted dark and light.
Humphrey Buttrick says he saw two or three fish hawks down the river by Carlisle Bridge yesterday; also shot three black ducks and two green-winged teal, — though the latter had no green on their wings, it was rather the color of his boat, but Wesson assured him that so they looked in the spring.
Buttrick had a double barrelled gun with him, which he said he bought of a broker in Boston for five dollars! Thought it had cost eighteen dollars. He had read Frank Forester and believed him, and accordingly sent to New York and got one of Mullin’s guns for sixty dollars. It was the poorest gun he ever had. He sold it for forty.
As for cheap or old-fashioned guns bursting, there was Melvin; he had used his long enough, and it had not burst yet. He had given thirty-five dollars for it, say thirty years ago. Had had but one, or no other since. Melvin’s —and Minott’s still more — is such a gun as Frank Forester says he would not fire for a hundred dollars, and yet Melvin has grown gray with using it; i. e., he thinks that it would not be safe to fire a two barrelled gun offered new for less than fifty dollars.
If you are describing any occurrence, or a man, make two or more distinct reports at different times. Though you may think you have said all, you will to-morrow remember a whole new class of facts which perhaps interested most of all at the time, but did not present themselves to be reported. If we have recently met and talked with a man, and would report our experience, we commonly make a very partial report at first, failing to seize the most significant, picturesque, and dramatic points; we describe only what we have had time to digest and dispose of in our minds, without being conscious that there were other things really more novel and interesting to us, which will not fail to recur to us and impress us suitably at last.
How little that occurs to us in any way are we prepared at once to appreciate! We discriminate at first only a few features, and we need to reconsider our experience from many points of view and in various moods, to preserve the whole fruit of it.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 24, 1857
As I round the Island rock, a striped squirrel that was out the steep polypody rock scampered up with a chuckle. See. March 10,1852 (" I am pretty sure that I hear the chuckle of a ground squirrel among the warm and bare rocks of the Cliffs. "); . March 17, 1859 ("As I float by the Rock, I hear rustling amid the oak leaves above that new water-line, and, there being no wind, I know it to be a striped squirrel, and soon see its long-unseen striped sides . . . a type which I have not seen for a long time, or rather a punctuation-mark, the character to indicate where a new paragraph commences in the revolution of the seasons.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,Signs of the Spring, the striped squirrel comes out
I see many of those narrow four-winged insects (perla?) of the ice now fluttering on the water .See
May 9, 1854("That early narrow curved-winged insect on ice and river which I thought an ephemera [Harris ]says is a Sialis, or maybe rather a Perla."); March 17, 1858 ("As usual, I have seen for some weeks on the ice these peculiar (perla?) insects with long wings and two tails."); March 22, 1856 (“On water standing above the ice under a white maple, are many of those Perla(?) insects, with four wings, drowned.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Insect Hatches in Spring;and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,Signs of the Spring: insects and worms come forth and are active
May 9, 1854("That early narrow curved-winged insect on ice and river which I thought an ephemera [Harris ]says is a Sialis, or maybe rather a Perla."); March 17, 1858 ("As usual, I have seen for some weeks on the ice these peculiar (perla?) insects with long wings and two tails."); March 22, 1856 (“On water standing above the ice under a white maple, are many of those Perla(?) insects, with four wings, drowned.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Insect Hatches in Spring;and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,Signs of the Spring: insects and worms come forth and are active
Frank Forester: Henry William Herbert (April 3, 1807 – May 17, 1858), pen name Frank Forester, was an English novelist, poet, historian, illustrator, journalist and writer on sport. See July 12, 1855 (quoting Forester’s “Manual for Young Sportsmen,”)
[Forester] thinks that it would not be safe to fire a two barrelled gun offered new for less than fifty dollars. See Forester’s Manual at 58 ("I do not, of course, mean to say that every cheap gun must necessarily burst ; but I do say that, against each one, severally, the odds are heavy that it will . . .By the word low-priccd guns, I mean, as a general rule, in reference to buying a safe and serviceable piece, any thing like new, with two barrels and the smallest show of exterior ornament, cheaper than fifty dollars.”)
If you are describing any occurrence, or a man, make two or more distinct reports at different times. . . . How little that occurs to us in any way are we prepared at once to appreciate. See March 27, 1857 ("I would fain make two reports in my Journal, first the incidents and observations of to-day; and by tomorrow I review the same and record what was omitted before, which will often be the most significant and poetic part. I do not know at first what it is that charms me. The men and things of to-day are wont to lie fairer and truer in to-morrow’s memory."); October 1, 1856 (“I do not perceive the poetic and dramatic capabilities of an anecdote or story which is told me, its significance, till some time afterwards. . ."); April 20, 1854 ("I find some advantage in describing the experience of a day on the day following. At this distance it is more ideal, like the landscape seen with the head inverted, or reflections in water”); January 10, 1854 ("What you can recall of a walk on the second day will differ from what you remember on the first day, ... as any view changes to one who is journeying amid mountains when he has increased the distance.”); May 5, 1852 ("I succeed best when I recur to my experience not too late, but within a day or two; when there is some distance, but enough of freshness.”); July 23, 1851 ("Do not tread on the heels of your experience. Be impressed without making a minute of it. Put an interval between the impression and the expression, - wait till the seed germinates naturally.”)
[Forester] thinks that it would not be safe to fire a two barrelled gun offered new for less than fifty dollars. See Forester’s Manual at 58 ("I do not, of course, mean to say that every cheap gun must necessarily burst ; but I do say that, against each one, severally, the odds are heavy that it will . . .By the word low-priccd guns, I mean, as a general rule, in reference to buying a safe and serviceable piece, any thing like new, with two barrels and the smallest show of exterior ornament, cheaper than fifty dollars.”)
If you are describing any occurrence, or a man, make two or more distinct reports at different times. . . . How little that occurs to us in any way are we prepared at once to appreciate. See March 27, 1857 ("I would fain make two reports in my Journal, first the incidents and observations of to-day; and by tomorrow I review the same and record what was omitted before, which will often be the most significant and poetic part. I do not know at first what it is that charms me. The men and things of to-day are wont to lie fairer and truer in to-morrow’s memory."); October 1, 1856 (“I do not perceive the poetic and dramatic capabilities of an anecdote or story which is told me, its significance, till some time afterwards. . ."); April 20, 1854 ("I find some advantage in describing the experience of a day on the day following. At this distance it is more ideal, like the landscape seen with the head inverted, or reflections in water”); January 10, 1854 ("What you can recall of a walk on the second day will differ from what you remember on the first day, ... as any view changes to one who is journeying amid mountains when he has increased the distance.”); May 5, 1852 ("I succeed best when I recur to my experience not too late, but within a day or two; when there is some distance, but enough of freshness.”); July 23, 1851 ("Do not tread on the heels of your experience. Be impressed without making a minute of it. Put an interval between the impression and the expression, - wait till the seed germinates naturally.”)
We are not at once
conscious of the whole fruit of
our experience.
How little occurs
that we are prepared at once
to appreciate.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,
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
https://tinyurl.com/hdt570324
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