The mildest and pleasantest days since November came in..

November 29, 30, and December 1. 

The snow which fell the 23d whitened the ground but a day or two. 

These have been the mildest and pleasantest days since November came in. November 29th, walked in p. m. to old stone bridge and down bank of river by Sam Barrett's house.

When I stood on the caving swallow banks by the bridge about 4 o'clock, the sun sank below some clouds, or they rose above it, and it shone out with that bright, calm, memorable light which I have else where described, lighting up the pitch pines and everything. 

The patches of winter rye, at this season so green by contrast, are an interesting feature in the landscape.

When I got out of the wood, going toward Barrett's, the softness of the sunlight on the russet landscape, the smooth russet grassy fields and meadows, was very soothing, the sun now getting low in a November day. 

The stems and twigs of the maples, etc., looking down the river, were beautifully distinct. You see distinctly the form of the various clumps of maples and birches. 

Geese in river swam as fast as I walked. 

Many broken but apparently rather recent turtles' eggs on the bank.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 29, 1852

November 29, 30, and December 1. have been the mildest and pleasantest days since November came in. See December 2, 1859 ("Nov. 30, Dec. 1 and 2 were remarkably warm and springlike days, — a moist warmth.”)

About 4 o'clock, the sun sank below some clouds, or they rose above it, and it shone out with that bright, calm, memorable light which I have else where described. See November 29, 1853 ("I begin to see, under the clouds in the west horizon, a clear crescent of yellowish sky, and suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape . . . I think that we have some such sunsets as this, and peculiar to the season, every year. I should call it the russet afterglow of the year.") See also November 9, 1858 (“ We had a true November sunset after a dark, cloudy afternoon. The sun reached a clear stratum just before setting, beneath the dark cloud, though ready to enter another on the horizon’s edge, and a cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. Such a phenomenon as, when it occurs later, I call the afterglow of the year."); November 10, 1858 (" dark-blue or slate-colored clouds in the west, and the sun going down in them. All the light of November may be called an afterglow."); November 22, 1851 ("The light of the setting sun, just emerged from a cloud and suddenly falling on and lighting up the needles of the white pine. . . .After a cold gray day this cheering light almost warms us by its resemblance to fire."); November 23, 1851 ("Another such a sunset to - night as the last."); November 25, 1851 ("That kind of sunset which I witnessed on Saturday and Sunday is perhaps peculiar to the late autumn. The sun is unseen behind a hill. Only this bright white light like a fire falls on the trembling needles of the pine.")
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