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| September 12, 2016 |
Not till after 8 a. m. does the fog clear off so much that I see the sun shining in patches on Nawshawtuct. This is the season of fogs.
Like knight, like esquire. When Benvenuto Cellini was attacked by the constables in Rome, his boy Cencio assisted him, or at least stood by, and afterward related his master's exploits; "and as they asked him several times whether he had been afraid, he answered that they should propose the question to me, for he had been affected upon the occasion just in the same manner that I was."
Benvenuto Cellini relates in his memoirs that, during his confinement in the castle of St. Angelo in Rome, he had a terrible dream or vision in which certain events were communicated to him which afterward came to pass, and he adds:
"From the very moment that I beheld the phenomenon, there appeared (strange to relate!) a resplendent light over my head, which has displayed itself conspicuously to all that I have thought proper to show it to, but those were very few. This shining light is to be seen in the morning over my shadow till two o'clock in the afternoon, and it appears to the greatest advantage when the grass is moist with dew : it is likewise visible in the evening at sunset. This phenomenon I took notice of when I was at Paris, be cause the air is exceedingly clear in that climate, so that I could distinguish it there much plainer than in Italy, where mists are much more frequent; but I can still see it even here, and show it to others, though not to the same advantage as in France."
This reminds me of the halo around my shadow which I notice from the causeway in the morning, — also by moonlight, — as if, in the case of a man of an excitable imagination, this were basis enough for his superstition.
After I have spent the greater part of a night abroad in the moonlight, I am obliged to sleep enough more the next night to make up for it, — Endymionis som- num dormire (to sleep an Endymion sleep), as the ancients expressed it. And there is something gained still by thus turning the day into night.
Endymion is said to have obtained of Jupiter the privilege of sleeping as much as he would. Let no man be afraid of sleep, if his weariness comes of obeying his Genius.
He who has spent the night with the gods sleeps more innocently by day than the sluggard who has spent the day with the satyrs sleeps by night. He who has travelled to fairyland in the night sleeps by day more innocently than he who is fatigued by the merely trivial labors of the day sleeps by night.
That kind of life which, sleeping, we dream that we live awake, in our walks by night, we, waking, live, while our daily life appears as a dream.
2 p. m. — To the Three Friends' Hill beyond Flint's Pond, via railroad, R. W. E.'s wood-path south side Walden, George Heywood's cleared lot, and Smith's orchard; return via east of Flint's Pond, via Goose Pond and my old home to railroad.
I go to Flint's Pond for the sake of the mountain view from the hill beyond, looking over Concord. I have thought it the best, especially in the winter, which I can get in this neighborhood.
It is worth the while to see the mountains in the horizon once a day.
I have thus seen some earth which corresponds to my least earthly and trivial, to my most heavenward-looking, thoughts. The earth seen through an azure, an ethereal, veil. They are the natural temples, elevated brows, of the earth, looking at which, the thoughts of the beholder are naturally elevated and sublimed, — etherealized. I wish to see the earth through the medium of much air or heaven, for there is no paint like the air.
2 p. m. — To the Three Friends' Hill beyond Flint's Pond, via railroad, R. W. E.'s wood-path south side Walden, George Heywood's cleared lot, and Smith's orchard; return via east of Flint's Pond, via Goose Pond and my old home to railroad.
I go to Flint's Pond for the sake of the mountain view from the hill beyond, looking over Concord. I have thought it the best, especially in the winter, which I can get in this neighborhood.
It is worth the while to see the mountains in the horizon once a day.
I have thus seen some earth which corresponds to my least earthly and trivial, to my most heavenward-looking, thoughts. The earth seen through an azure, an ethereal, veil. They are the natural temples, elevated brows, of the earth, looking at which, the thoughts of the beholder are naturally elevated and sublimed, — etherealized. I wish to see the earth through the medium of much air or heaven, for there is no paint like the air.
Mountains thus seen are worthy of worship.
I go to Flint's Pond also to see a rippling lake and a reedy island in its midst, — Reed Island. A man should feed his senses with the best that the land affords.
At the entrance to the Deep Cut, I heard the telegraph-wire vibrating like an aeolian harp. It reminded me suddenly, — reservedly, with a beautiful paucity of communication, even silently, such was its effect on my thoughts, — it reminded me, I say, with a certain pathetic moderation, of what finer and deeper stirrings I was susceptible, which grandly set all argument and dispute aside, a triumphant though transient exhibition of the truth. It told me by the faintest imaginable strain, it told me by the finest strain that a human ear can hear, yet conclusively and past all refutation, that there were higher, infinitely higher, planes of life which it behooved me never to forget.
As I was entering the Deep Cut, the wind, which was conveying a message to me from heaven, dropped it on the wire of the telegraph which it vibrated as it passed. I instantly sat down on a stone at the foot of the telegraph-pole, and attended to the communication. It merely said:
I can hardly believe that there is so great a difference between one year and another as my journal shows. The 11th of this month last year, the river was as high as it commonly is in the spring, over the causeway on the Corner road. It is now quite low. Last year, October 9th, the huckleberries were fresh and abundant on Conantum. They are now already dried up.
We yearn to see the mountains daily, as the Israelites yearned for the promised land, and we daily live the fate of Moses, who only looked into the promised land from Pisgah before he died.
On Monday, the 15th instant, I am going to perambulate the bounds of the town. As I am partial to across-lot routes, this appears to be a very proper duty for me to perform, for certainly no route can well be chosen which shall be more across-lot, since the roads in no case run round the town but ray out from its centre, and my course will lie across each one. It is almost as if I had undertaken to walk round the town at the greatest distance from its centre and at the same time from the surrounding villages. There is no public house near the line. It is a sort of reconnoissance of its frontiers authorized by the central government of the town, which will bring the surveyor in contact with whatever wild inhabitant or wilderness its territory embraces.
This appears to be a very ancient custom, and I find that this word "perambulation" has exactly the same meaning that it has at present in Johnson and Walker's dictionary. A hundred years ago they went round the towns of this State every three years. And the old selectmen tell me that, before the present split stones were set up in 1829, the bounds were marked by a heap of stones, and it was customary for each selectman to add a stone to the heap.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 12, 1851
I go to Flint's Pond also to see a rippling lake and a reedy island in its midst, — Reed Island. See April 1, 1852 ("I see that there is about an acre of open water, perhaps, over Bush Island in the middle of the pond, and there are some water-fowl there . . .This pond is worth coming to, if only be cause it is larger than Walden"); December 4, 1859 ("I measure the blueberry bushes on Flint's Pond Island. . . .This island appears to be a mere stony ridge three or four feet high, with a very low wet shore on each side, "); December 22, 1859 ("On what I will call Sassafras Island, in this pond, I notice the largest and handsomest high blueberry.")
It is worth the while to see the mountains in the horizon once a day. See August 14, 1854(“I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon.— to behold and commune with something grander than man. “); October 22, 1857 (" But what a perfect crescent of mountains we have in our northwest horizon! Do we ever give thanks for it?"); November 4, 1857 ("But those grand and glorious mountains, how impossible to remember daily that they are there, and to live accordingly! They are meant to be a perpetual reminder to us, pointing out the way.")
I love to gaze at the low island in the pond, — at any island or inaccessible land. The isle at which you look always seems fairer than the mainland on which you stand. See May 17, 1852 ("This pond is the more interesting for the islands in it. The water is seen running behind them. It is pleasant to know that it penetrates quite behind and isolates the land you see, and to see it flowing out from behind an island with shining ripples.")
At the entrance to the Deep Cut, I heard the telegraph-wire vibrating like an aeolian harp. It reminded me suddenly,. . . past all refutation, that there were higher, infinitely higher, planes of life which it behooved me never to forget. See "The Eolian Harp" by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE:
I go to Flint's Pond also to see a rippling lake and a reedy island in its midst, — Reed Island. A man should feed his senses with the best that the land affords.
At the entrance to the Deep Cut, I heard the telegraph-wire vibrating like an aeolian harp. It reminded me suddenly, — reservedly, with a beautiful paucity of communication, even silently, such was its effect on my thoughts, — it reminded me, I say, with a certain pathetic moderation, of what finer and deeper stirrings I was susceptible, which grandly set all argument and dispute aside, a triumphant though transient exhibition of the truth. It told me by the faintest imaginable strain, it told me by the finest strain that a human ear can hear, yet conclusively and past all refutation, that there were higher, infinitely higher, planes of life which it behooved me never to forget.
As I was entering the Deep Cut, the wind, which was conveying a message to me from heaven, dropped it on the wire of the telegraph which it vibrated as it passed. I instantly sat down on a stone at the foot of the telegraph-pole, and attended to the communication. It merely said:
"Bear in mind, Child, and never for an instant forget, that there are higher planes, infinitely higher planes, of life than this thou art now travelling on. Know that the goal is distant, and is upward, and is worthy all your life's efforts to attain to."And then it ceased, and though I sat some minutes longer I heard nothing more. There is every variety and degree of inspiration from mere fullness of life to the most rapt mood. A human soul is played on even as this wire, which now vibrates slowly and gently so that the passer can hardly hear it, and anon the sound swells and vibrates with such intensity as if it would rend the wire, as far as the elasticity and tension of the wire permits, and now it dies away and is silent, and though the breeze continues to sweep over it, no strain comes from it, and the traveller hearkens in vain. It is no small gain to have this wire stretched through Concord, though there may be no office here. Thus I make my own use of the telegraph, without consulting the directors, like the spar rows, which I perceive use it extensively for a perch. Shall I not go to this office to hear if there is any communication for me, as steadily as to the post-office in the village?
I can hardly believe that there is so great a difference between one year and another as my journal shows. The 11th of this month last year, the river was as high as it commonly is in the spring, over the causeway on the Corner road. It is now quite low. Last year, October 9th, the huckleberries were fresh and abundant on Conantum. They are now already dried up.
We yearn to see the mountains daily, as the Israelites yearned for the promised land, and we daily live the fate of Moses, who only looked into the promised land from Pisgah before he died.
On Monday, the 15th instant, I am going to perambulate the bounds of the town. As I am partial to across-lot routes, this appears to be a very proper duty for me to perform, for certainly no route can well be chosen which shall be more across-lot, since the roads in no case run round the town but ray out from its centre, and my course will lie across each one. It is almost as if I had undertaken to walk round the town at the greatest distance from its centre and at the same time from the surrounding villages. There is no public house near the line. It is a sort of reconnoissance of its frontiers authorized by the central government of the town, which will bring the surveyor in contact with whatever wild inhabitant or wilderness its territory embraces.
This appears to be a very ancient custom, and I find that this word "perambulation" has exactly the same meaning that it has at present in Johnson and Walker's dictionary. A hundred years ago they went round the towns of this State every three years. And the old selectmen tell me that, before the present split stones were set up in 1829, the bounds were marked by a heap of stones, and it was customary for each selectman to add a stone to the heap.
Saw a pigeon-place on George Heywood's cleared lot, — the six dead trees set up for the pigeons to alight on, and the brush house close by to conceal the man. I was rather startled to find such a thing going now in Concord. The pigeons on the trees looked like fabu lous birds with their long tails and their pointed breasts. I could hardly believe they were alive and not some wooden birds used for decoys, they sat so still; and, even when they moved their necks, I thought it was the effect of art. As they were not catching then, I approached and scared away a dozen birds who were perched on the trees, and found that they were freshly baited there, though the net was carried away, per chance to some other bed. The smooth sandy bed was covered with buckwheat, wheat or rye, and acorns. Sometimes they use corn, shaved off the ear in its pre sent state with a knife. There were left the sticks with which they fastened the nets.
As I stood there, I heard a rushing sound and, looking up, saw a flock of thirty or forty pigeons dashing toward the trees, who suddenly whirled on seeing me and circled round and made a new dash toward the bed, as if they would fain alight if I had not been there, then steered off. I crawled into the bough house and lay awhile looking through the leaves, hoping to see them come again and feed, but they did not while I stayed. This net and bed belong to one Harrington of Weston, as I hear. Several men still take pigeons in Concord every year; by a method, methinks, extremely old and which I seem to have seen pictured in some old book of fables or symbols, and yet few in Concord know exactly how it is done. And yet it is all done for money and because the birds fetch a good price, just as the farmers raise corn and potatoes. I am always expecting that those engaged in such a pursuit will be somewhat less grovelling and mercenary than the regular trader or farmer, but I fear that it is not so.
Found a violet, apparently Viola cucullata, or hood- leaved violet, in bloom in Baker's Meadow beyond Pine Hill; also the Bidens cernua, nodding burr-marigold, with five petals, in same place.
As I stood there, I heard a rushing sound and, looking up, saw a flock of thirty or forty pigeons dashing toward the trees, who suddenly whirled on seeing me and circled round and made a new dash toward the bed, as if they would fain alight if I had not been there, then steered off. I crawled into the bough house and lay awhile looking through the leaves, hoping to see them come again and feed, but they did not while I stayed. This net and bed belong to one Harrington of Weston, as I hear. Several men still take pigeons in Concord every year; by a method, methinks, extremely old and which I seem to have seen pictured in some old book of fables or symbols, and yet few in Concord know exactly how it is done. And yet it is all done for money and because the birds fetch a good price, just as the farmers raise corn and potatoes. I am always expecting that those engaged in such a pursuit will be somewhat less grovelling and mercenary than the regular trader or farmer, but I fear that it is not so.
Found a violet, apparently Viola cucullata, or hood- leaved violet, in bloom in Baker's Meadow beyond Pine Hill; also the Bidens cernua, nodding burr-marigold, with five petals, in same place.
Went through the old corn-field on the hillside beyond, now grown up to birches and hickories, — woods where you feel the old corn-hills under your feet; for these, not being disturbed or levelled in getting the crop, like potato-hills, last an indefinite while; and by some they are called Indian corn-fields, though I think erroneously, not only from their position in rocky soil frequently, but because the squaws probably, with their clamshells or thin stones or wooden hoes, did not hill their corn more than many now recommend.
What we call woodbine is the Vitis hederacea, or common creeper, or American ivy.
What we call woodbine is the Vitis hederacea, or common creeper, or American ivy.
When I got into the Lincoln road, I perceived a singular sweet scent in the air, which I suspected arose from some plant now in a peculiar state owing to the season, but though I smelled everything around, I could not detect it, but the more eagerly I smelled, the further I seemed to be from finding it; but when I gave up the search, again it would be wafted to me. It was one of the sweet scents which go to make the autumn air, which fed my sense of smell rarely and dilated my nostrils. I felt the better for it. Methinks that I possess the sense of smell in greater perfection than usual, and have the habit of smelling of every plant I pluck.
How autumnal is the scent of ripe grapes now by the roadside!
How autumnal is the scent of ripe grapes now by the roadside!
From the pond-side hill I perceive that the forest leaves begin to look rather rusty or brown. The pendulous, drooping barberries are pretty well reddened. I am glad when the berries look fair and plump.
I love to gaze at the low island in the pond, — at any island or inaccessible land. The isle at which you look always seems fairer than the mainland on which you stand.
I love to gaze at the low island in the pond, — at any island or inaccessible land. The isle at which you look always seems fairer than the mainland on which you stand.
I had already bathed in Walden as I passed, but now I forgot that I had been wetted, and wanted to embrace and mingle myself with the water of Flint's Pond this warm afternoon, to get wet inwardly and deeply.
Found on the shore of the pond that singular willow like herb in blossom, though its petals were gone. It grows up two feet from a large woody horizontal root, and droops over to the sand again, meeting which, it puts out a myriad rootlets from the side of its stem, fastens itself, and curves upward again to the air, thus spanning or looping itself along. The bark just above the ground thickens into a singular cellular or spongy substance, which at length appears to crack nearer the earth, giving that part of the plant a winged and somewhat four-sided appearance. It appears to be the cellular tissue, or what is commonly called the green bark, and likewise invests the root to a great thickness, somewhat like a fungus, and is of a fawn-color.
The Lythrum verticillatum, or swamp loosestrife, or grass poly, but I think better named, as in Dewey, swamp-willow-herb.
Found on the shore of the pond that singular willow like herb in blossom, though its petals were gone. It grows up two feet from a large woody horizontal root, and droops over to the sand again, meeting which, it puts out a myriad rootlets from the side of its stem, fastens itself, and curves upward again to the air, thus spanning or looping itself along. The bark just above the ground thickens into a singular cellular or spongy substance, which at length appears to crack nearer the earth, giving that part of the plant a winged and somewhat four-sided appearance. It appears to be the cellular tissue, or what is commonly called the green bark, and likewise invests the root to a great thickness, somewhat like a fungus, and is of a fawn-color.
The Lythrum verticillatum, or swamp loosestrife, or grass poly, but I think better named, as in Dewey, swamp-willow-herb.
The prinos berries are pretty red. Any redness like cardinal-flowers, or poke, or the evening sky, or cheronsea, excites us as a red flag does cows and turkeys.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 12, 1851
This reminds me of the halo around my shadow which I notice from the causeway in the morning, See May 24, 1854 ("As I go along the causeway the sun rises red, with a great red halo, through the fog"); ;October 18, 1857 ("The shadows of these bugs on the bottom, half a dozen times as big as themselves, are very distinct and interesting, with a narrow and well-defined halo about them"); November 17, 1858 ("As I saw it, there was a perfect halo of light resting on the knoll as I moved to right or left. "); November 20, 1858 ("I was surprised to see a broad halo travelling with me and always opposite the sun to me.")
I go to Flint's Pond also to see a rippling lake and a reedy island in its midst, — Reed Island. See April 1, 1852 ("I see that there is about an acre of open water, perhaps, over Bush Island in the middle of the pond, and there are some water-fowl there . . .This pond is worth coming to, if only be cause it is larger than Walden"); December 4, 1859 ("I measure the blueberry bushes on Flint's Pond Island. . . .This island appears to be a mere stony ridge three or four feet high, with a very low wet shore on each side, "); December 22, 1859 ("On what I will call Sassafras Island, in this pond, I notice the largest and handsomest high blueberry.")
It is worth the while to see the mountains in the horizon once a day. See August 14, 1854(“I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon.— to behold and commune with something grander than man. “); October 22, 1857 (" But what a perfect crescent of mountains we have in our northwest horizon! Do we ever give thanks for it?"); November 4, 1857 ("But those grand and glorious mountains, how impossible to remember daily that they are there, and to live accordingly! They are meant to be a perpetual reminder to us, pointing out the way.")
I love to gaze at the low island in the pond, — at any island or inaccessible land. The isle at which you look always seems fairer than the mainland on which you stand. See May 17, 1852 ("This pond is the more interesting for the islands in it. The water is seen running behind them. It is pleasant to know that it penetrates quite behind and isolates the land you see, and to see it flowing out from behind an island with shining ripples.")
And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all?
September 12
I go to Flint's Pond
for the sake of mountain views
from the hill beyond.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 12, 1851
tinyurl.com/HDTMTN
I go to Flint's Pond
for the sake of mountain views
from the hill beyond.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 12, 1851
tinyurl.com/HDTMTN
tinyurl.com/HDTMTN
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