We want no completeness but intensity of life.

May 24. 

A. M. — To Hill.

White ash, apparently yesterday, at Grape Shore but not at Conantum. What a singular appearance for some weeks its great masses of dark-purple anthers have made, fruit-like on the trees! 

A very warm morning. Now the birds sing more than ever, methinks, now, when the leaves are fairly expanding, the first really warm summer days. 

The water on the meadows is perfectly smooth nearly all the day. 

At 3 p. m. the thermometer is at 88°. 

It soon gets to be quite hazy. 

Apple out. 

Heard one speak to-day of his sense of awe at the thought of God, and suggested to him that awe was the cause of the potato-rot. 

The same speaker dwelt on the sufferings of life, but my advice was to go about one's business, suggesting that no ecstasy was ever interrupted, nor its fruit blasted. As for completeness and roundness, to be sure, we are each like one of the laciniae of a lichen, a torn fragment, but not the less cheerfully we expand in a moist day and assume unexpected colors. We want no completeness but intensity of life. 

Hear the first cricket as I go through a warm hollow, bringing round the summer with his everlasting strain.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 24, 1857

At 3 p. m. the thermometer is at 88°. See May 24, 1856 ("To-day is suddenly overpowering warm. Thermometer at 1 P. M., 94° in the shade!")

It soon gets to be quite hazy. See May 24, 1860 ("Looking into the northwest horizon, I see that Wachusett is partially concealed by a haze.")

We each ... assume unexpected colors. We want no completeness but intensity of life. See October 18, 1856 ("[L]ife is everything. All that interests the reader is the depth and intensity of the life excited.")

Hear the first cricket as I go through a warm hollow, bringing round the summer . . . . See May 22, 1854 ("Only in their saner moments do men hear the crickets."); May 26, 1852 ("To-night I hear many crickets. They have commenced their song. They bring in the summer.")

May 24. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 24 

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 © 2009-2021

Seasons of the mind. The off side of summer glistens.

August 7.

It is inspiriting at last to hear the wind whistle and moan about my attic, after so much trivial summer weather, and to feel cool in my thin pants. 

August 7, 1854

Do you not feel the fruit of your spring and summer beginning to ripen, to harden its seed within you? Do not your thoughts begin to acquire consistency as well as flavor and ripeness? How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seed-time of character? 

Already some of my small thoughts — fruit of my spring life — are ripe, like the berries which feed the first broods of birds; and other some are prematurely ripe and bright, like the lower leaves of the herbs which have felt the summer's drought. 

Seasons when our mind is like the strings of a harp which is swept, and we stand and listen. A man may hear strains in his thought far surpassing any oratorio.

I walk over the pinweed-field. It is just cool enough in my thin clothes. 

There is a light on the earth and leaves, as if they were burnished. It is the glistening autumnal side of summer. 

I feel a cool vein in the breeze, which braces my thought, and I pass with pleasure over sheltered and sunny portions of the sand where the summer's heat is undiminished, and I realize what a friend I am losing.

In mid-summer we are of the earth, — confounded with it, — and covered with its dust. Now we begin to erect our selves somewhat and walk upon its surface. I am not so much reminded of former years, as of existence prior to years.

August 7, 2014

This off side of summer glistens like a burnished shield.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 7, 1854

Do you not feel the fruit of your spring and summer beginning to ripen, to harden its seed within you? See August 9, 1854 ("'Walden' published.") See also January 30, 1854 ("The winter was made to concentrate and harden and mature the kernel of [man’s] brain.” ); August 29, 1859 ("But in this cooler weather I feel as if the fruit of my summer were hardening and maturing a little, acquiring color and flavor like the corn and other fruits in the field. ")

Seasons when our mind is like the strings of a harp which is swept, and we stand and listen. See August 3, 1852 (" By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe, I am fitted to hear, my being moves in a sphere of melody.”); May 23, 1854 ("There was a time when . . .I sat and listened to my thoughts, and there was a song in them. I sat for hours on rocks and wrestled with the melody which possessed me. . . Think . . . of so living as to be the lyre which the breath of the morning causes to vibrate with that melody which creates worlds.")

Strains . . . surpassing any oratorio. See September 7, 1851 ("My profession is to be always on the alert to find God in nature, to know his lurking-places, to attend all the oratorios, the operas, in nature.”)

This off side of summer glistens like a burnished shield. Compare July 28, 1854 (“We postponed the fulfillment of many of our hopes for this year, and, having as it were attained the ridge of the summer, commenced to descend the long slope toward winter, the afternoon and down-hill of the year”); August 5, 1854 ("It is one long acclivity from winter to midsummer and another long declivity from midsummer to winter.")

August 7. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 7

The fruit of my spring

and summer ripens – its seed

hardens within me.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Seasons of the mind

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."  

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2024

 

tinyurl.com/hdt-540807 

***

Do you not feel the fruit of your spring and summer beginning to ripen, to harden its seed within you? Do not your thoughts begin to acquire consistency as well as flavor and ripeness? How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seed-time of character? Already some of my small thoughts -- fruit of my  spring life -- are ripe, like the berries which feed the first broods of birds; and other some are prematurely ripe and bright, like the lower leaves of the herbs which knave felt the summer's drought. Seasons when our mind is like the strings of a harp which is swept, and we stand and listen. A man may hear strains in his thought far surpassing any oratorio. 

P. M. – To Peter’s, Beck Stow’s, and Walden.

Liatris.

Still autumnal, breezy with a cool vein in the wind; so that, passing from the cool and breezy into the sunny and warm places, you begin to love the heat of summer. It is the contrast of the cool wind with the warm sun.

I walk over the pinweed-field.

It is just cool enough in my thin clothes.

There is a light on the earth and leaves, as if they were burnished.

It is the glistening autumnal side of summer.

I feel a cool vein in the breeze, which braces my thought, and I pass with pleasure over sheltered and sunny portions of the sand where the summer’s heat is undiminished, and I realize what a friend I am losing.

The pinweed does not show its stamens - I mean the L.thymifolia.

It was open probably about July 25.

 This off side of summer glistens like a burnished shield.

The waters now are some degrees cooler. Winds show the under sides of the leaves.

The cool nocturnal creak of the crickets is heard in the mid-afternoon. Tansy is apparently now in its prime, and the early goldenrods have acquired a brighter yellow. 

From this off side of the year, this imbricated slop, with alternating burnished surfaces and shady ledges, much more light and heat are reflected (less absorbed), me thinks than from the springward side. In mid-summer we are of the earth, -confounded with it, - and covered with its dust.

Now we begin to erect ourselves somewhat and walk upon its surface I am not so much reminded of former years, as of existence prior to years.

From Peter’s I look over the Great Meadows.

There are sixty or more men in sight on them, in squads of half a dozen far and near, revealed by their white shirts.

They are alternately lost and reappear from behind a distant clump of trees.

A great part of the farmers of Concord are now in the meadows, and toward night great loads of hay are seen rolling slowly along the river’s bank, — on the firmer ground there, - and perhaps fording the stream itself, toward the distant barn, followed by a troop of tired haymakers.

The very shrub oaks and hazels now look curled and dry in many places.

The bear oak acorns on the former begin to be handsome.

Tansy is in full blaze in some warm, dry places.

 It must be time, methinks, to collect the hazelnuts and dry them; many of their leaves are turned.

 The Jersey tea fruit is blackened.

 The bushy gerardia is apparently out in some places.

 Blueberries pretty thick in Gowing’s Swamp.

 Some have a slightly bitterish taste.

 A wasp stung me at one high blueberry bush on the forefinger of my left hand, just above the second joint.

 It was very venomous; a white spot with the red mark of the sting in the centre, while all the rest of the finger was red, soon showed where I was stung, and the finger soon swelled much below the joint, so that I could not completely close the finger, and the next finger sympathized so much with it that at first there was a little doubt which was stung.

 These insects are effectively weaponed.

 But there was not enough venom to prevail further than the finger.

 Trillium berry.

 

 

Innocence, serenity -- lightning.

June 27

See a very large white ash tree, three and a half feet in diameter, in front of the house which White formerly owned, under this hill, which was struck by lightning the 22d, about 4 P.M. . The lightning apparently struck the top of the tree and scorched the bark and leaves for ten or fifteen feet downward, then began to strip off the bark and enter the wood, making a ragged narrow furrow or crack, till, reaching one of the upper limbs, it apparently divided, descending on both sides and entering deeper and deeper into the wood. 

At the first general branching, it had got full possession of the tree in its centre and tossed off the main limbs butt foremost, making holes in the ground where they struck; and so it went down in the midst of the trunk to the earth, where it apparently exploded, rending tire trunk into six segments, whose tops, ten or twenty feet long, were rayed out on every side at an angle of about 30° from a perpendicular, leaving the ground bare directly under where the tree had stood, though they were still fastened to the earth by their roots.

The lightning appeared to have gone off through the roots, furrowing them as the branches, and through the earth, making a furrow like a plow, four or five rods in one direction, and in another passing through the cellar of the neighboring house, about thirty feet distant, scorching the tin milk-pans and throwing dirt into the milk, and coming out the back side of the house in a furrow, splitting some planks there. The main body of the tree was completely stripped of bark, which was cast in every direction two hundred feet; and large pieces of the inside of the tree, fifteen feet long, were hurled with tremendous force in various directions, one into the side of a shed, smashing it, another burying itself in a wood-pile. The heart of the tree lay by itself. 

Probably, a piece as large as a man's leg could not have been sawn out of the trunk which would not have had a crack in it, and much of it was very finely splintered. 

The windows in the house were broken and the inhabitants knocked down by the concussion. 

All this was accomplished in an instant by a kind of fire out of the heavens called lightning, or a thunderbolt, accompanied by a crashing sound. For what purpose? The ancients called it Jove's bolt, with which he punished the guilty, and we moderns understand it no better. If we trust our natural impressions, it is a manifestation of brutish force or vengeance, more or less tempered with justice . 

Why should trees be struck? Science assumes to show why the lightning strikes a tree, but it does not show us the moral why any better than our instincts do. Science answers, Non scio, I am ignorant. Science affirms too much. It is full of presumption. It is not enough to say because they are in the way. Men are probably nearer to the essential truth in their superstitions than in their science. 

All the phenomena of nature need be seen from the point of view of wonder and awe, like lightning; and, on the other hand, the lightning itself needs to be regarded with serenity, as the most familiar and innocent phenomena are.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 27, 1852

All the phenomena of nature need be seen from the point of view of wonder and awe, like lightning. See August 21, 1852  ("A man killed by lightning would have a good answer ready in the next world to the question "How came you here?" which he need not hesitate to give."); December 26, 1853 (“I passed by the pitch pine that was struck by lightning. I was impressed with awe on looking up and seeing that broad, distinct spiral mark, more distinct even than when made eight years ago, as one might groove a walking-stick, — mark of an invisible and in tangible power, a thunderbolt, mark where a terrific and resistless bolt came down from heaven, out of the harmless sky, eight years ago. It seemed a sacred spot.”)

To see all nature

with wonder and awe – lightning

with serenity.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Innocence, serenity - lightning

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-520627