Do not tread on the heels your experience.

July 23.

I would fain keep a journal of those thoughts and impressions i am most liable to forget; that have in one sense the greatest remoteness, in another, the greatest nearness to me. Journal, January, 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. Journal, July 23, 1851

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. August 19, 1851

Things must lie a little remote to be described. November 11, 1851

Hard and steady and engrossing labor with the hands, especially out of doors, is invaluable to the literary man and serves him directly. Here I have been for six days surveying in the woods, and yet when I get home at evening, somewhat weary at last, and beginning to feel that I have nerves, I find myself more susceptible than usual to the finest influences, as music and poetry. The very air can intoxicate me, or the least sight or sound, as if my finer senses had acquired an appetite by their fast. November 20, 1851

I wish to be translated to the future to observe what portions of my work have crumbled. January 1, 1852

Perhaps this is the main value of a habit of writing, of keeping a journal, - that so we remember our best hours and stimulate ourselves. To set down such choice experiences that my own writings inspire me and at last may make wholes of parts. Journal, January 22, 1852

I do not know but thoughts written down in a journal might be printed in the same form with greater advantage than if the related ones were brought together into separate essays. Journal, January 27, 1852

The forcible writer does not go far for his themes. His ideas are not far-fetched. January 29, 1852

The forcible writer stands bodily behind his words with his experience. He does not make books out of books, but he has been there in person.  February 3, 1852

Time never passes so rapidly and unaccountably as when I am engaged in recording my thoughts. Journal, February, 5, 1852

Write while the heat is in you. . . . The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts . . .cannot inflame the minds of his audience. Journal, February 10, 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. Journal, May 5, 1852

You only need to make a faithful record of an average summer day's experience and summer mood, and read it in the winter, and it will carry you back to more than that summer day alone could show. Journal, October 26, 1853

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.  January 10, 1854

In correcting my manuscripts . . . having purified the main body and thus created a distinct standard for comparison, I can review the rejected sentences and easily detect those which deserve to be readmitted. March 1, 1854

I find that I can criticise my composition best when I stand at a little distance from it. April 8, 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. Journal April 20, 1854

In a journal it is important in a few words to describe the weather, or character of the day, as it affects our feelings. That which was so important at the time cannot be unimportant to remember. Journal, February 5, 1855

I find in my Journal that the most important events in my life, if recorded at all, are not dated. Journal, December 26, 1855

A journal is a record of experiences and growth, not a preserve of things well done or said. The charm of the journal must consist in a certain greenness, though freshness, and not in maturity. Here I cannot afford to be remembering what I said or did, but what I am and aspire to become. Journal, January 24, 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. One of the qualities of a pregnant fact is that it does not surprise us, and we only perceive afterward how interesting it is, and then must know all the particulars. We do not enjoy poetry fully unless we know it to be poetry. Journal, October 1, 1856

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. Journal, March 24, 1857

Often I can give the truest and most interesting account of any adventure I have had after years have elapsed, for then I am not confused, only the most significant facts surviving in my memory. Indeed, all that continues to interest me after such a lapse of time is sure to be pertinent, and I may safely record all that I remember.  March 28, 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.  March 27, 1857

Is not the poet bound to write his own biography? Is there any other work for him but a good journal? We do not wish to know how his imaginary hero, but how he, the actual hero, lived from day to day.  October 21, 1857

It is in vain to write on the seasons unless you have the seasons in you.  January 23, 1858

Most that is first written on any subject is a mere groping after it, mere rubble-stone and foundation. It is only when many observations of different periods have been brought together that [the writer] begins to grasp his subject and can make one pertinent and just observation. February 3, 1859

 

A transient acquaintance with any phenomenon is not sufficient to make it completely the subject of your muse. You must be so conversant with it as to remember it and be reminded of it long afterward, while it lies remotely fair and elysian in the horizon, approachable only by the imagination.  February 13, 1859 

In the composition it is the greatest art to find out as quickly as possible which are the best passages you have written, and tear the rest away. February 20, 1859 

Find out as soon as possible what are the best things in your composition, and then shape the rest to fit them. The former will be the midrib and veins of the leaf. March 11, 1859

The more you have thought and written on a given theme, the more you can still write. Thought breeds thought. It grows under your hands. February 13, 1860

In keeping a journal of one's walks and thoughts it seems to be worth the while to record those phenomena which are most interesting to us at the time. Such is the weather. Journal, January 25, 1860

With each fresh varnish of the air we frequent our oldest haunts with new love and reverence.

July 21. 

P. M. — To A. Wheeler's grape meadow. 

Mimulus, not long. Hypericum corymbosum, a day or two. Rusty cotton-grass, how long ? The small hypericums are open only in the forenoon. Pursley, also, in our garden opens now not till 8 a. m., and shuts up before 12 m. 

The flat euphorbia is now in prime on the sandy path beyond Potter's Desert, five-finger fungus path.

Plucked a handful of huckleberries from one bush! The Vaccinium vacillans thick enough to go picking, and probably for a day or two in some places. 

Low blackberries thick enough to pick in some places, three or four days. 

Thimble-berries about the 12th, and V. Pennsylvanicum much longer. 

These hot afternoons I go panting through the close sprout-lands and copses, as now from Cliff Brook to Wheeler meadow, and occasionally come to sandy places a few feet in diameter where the partridges have dusted themselves. 

[Gerard, the lion-killer of Algiers, speaks of seeing similar spots when tracking or patiently waiting the lion there, and his truth in this particular is a confirmation of the rest of his story. But his pursuit dwarfs this fact and makes it seem trivial.] 

Shall not my pursuit also contrast with the trivialness of the partridges' dusting? It is interesting to find that the same phenomena, however simple, occur in different parts of the globe. 

I have found an arrowhead or two in such places even. 

Far in warm, sandy woods in hot weather, when not a breath of air is stirring, I come upon these still sandier and warmer spots where the partridges have dusted themselves, now all still and deserted, and am not relieved, yet pleased to find that I have been preceded, by any creature. 

Grapes ready to stew. 

Mr. Russell writes me to-day that he visited the locality of the Magnolia glauca the 18th, on Cape Ann, and saw lingering still a few flowers and flower-buds. It is quite open and rising above the bushes. 

The brook cress might be called river cress, for it is very abundant rising above the surface in all the shallower parts of the river. 

Verbena hastata, apparently several days. 

Sonchus, some time. 

This has been a peculiarly fine afternoon. When I look about casually, am surprised at the fairness of the landscape. Though warm, it is clear and fresh, and the air imparts to all surfaces a peculiar fine glaucous color, full of light, without mistiness, like the under side of the Salix lucida (?) leaves at present.  Not only the under sides of the leaves, but the very afternoon landscape, has become glaucous. 

Now, when the fashionable world goes to Saratoga, Nahant, and Newport, we frequent our oldest haunts with new love and reverence and sail into new ports with each fresh varnish of the air.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 21, 1856

We frequent our oldest haunts with new love and reverence. See August 30, 1856 (“[T]here are square rods in Middlesex County as purely primitive and wild as they were a thousand years ago, which have escaped the plow and the axe and the scythe and the cranberry-rake, little oases of wildness in the desert of our civilization, wild as a square rod on the moon, supposing it to be uninhabited. I believe almost in the personality of such planetary matter, feel something akin to reverence for it, can even worship it as terrene, titanic matter extant in my day. We are so different we admire each other, we healthily attract one another. I love it as a maiden”)

A middle-sized copper-colored devil's-needle.

July 20

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

Button-bush, apparently two or three days. 

I suspect that those very variously formed leaves in and about woods which come to naught — like the sium in deep water — are of the nabalus. 

Caught a middle-sized copper-colored devil's-needle (with darker spots on wings), sluggish, on a grass stem, with many dark-colored elliptical eggs packed closely to outside, under its breast.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 20, 1856


A middle-sized copper-colored devil's-needle. See June 13, 1854 ("I float homeward over water almost perfectly smooth, my sail so idle that I count ten devil's-needles resting along it at once."); July 17, 1854 ("I am surprised to see crossing my course in middle of Fair Haven Pond great yellowish devil's-needles, flying from shore to shore."); July 27, 1856 ("A great devil's-needle alights on my paddle...");A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Devil's-needle

June 13. 

Floating homeward, I 

count devil's-needles at rest 

on my idle sail.

July 17.

Flying shore to shore, 

yellowish devil's-needles 

cross their Atlantic. 

July 27

A devil's-needle 

keeps its place on my paddle

against a strong wind.

July 27, 1856

Revisiting nests.

July 19.

P. M. — Marlborough Road via railroad and Dugan wood-lot. 

A box tortoise, killed a good while, on the railroad, at Dogwood Swamp; quite dry now. This the fourth I have ever found: first one, alive, in Truro; second one, dead, on shore of Long Pond, Lakeville; third one, alive, under Fair Haven Hill; and fourth, this. 

This appeared to have been run over, but both upper and under shells were broken into several pieces each, in no case on the line of the serrations or of the edges of the scales (proving that they are as strong one way as the other), but at various angles across them, which, I think, proves it to have been broken while the animal was alive or fresh and the shell not dry. I picked up only the after half or two thirds and one foot. The upper shell was at the widest place four and three eighths inches. It was broken irregularly across the back, from about the middle of the second lateral scale from the front on the left to the middle of the third lateral on the right, and was, at the angle of the marginal scales, about sixteen fortieths to seventeen fortieths of an inch thick, measured horizontally. The sides under the lateral scales and half the dorsal were from four to five fortieths of an inch thick. The thinnest part was about three eighths of an inch from middle of back on each side, directly between the spring of the sides [?], where it was but little more than two fortieths thick. So nature makes an arch. 

I have about half the sternum, the rear of it at one point reaching to the hinge. It is thickest vertically just at the side hinges, where it is one fourth thick; thinnest three eighths from this each side, where it is one eighth thick; and thence thickens to the middle of the sternum, where it [is] seven and a half fortieths thick. 

The upper shell in this case (vide May 17, 1856) is neither pointed nor notched behind, but quite straight. The sternum and the lower parts of the marginal scales are chiefly dark-brown. The marking above is sufficiently like that of the Cape Cod specimen, with a still greater proportion of yellow, now faded to a yellowish brown. 

On Linnaea Hills, sarsaparilla berries. 

Lobelia inflata, perhaps several days; little white glands (?) on the edges of the leaves. On the under side of a Lobelia spicata leaf, a sort of loose-spun cocoon, about five eighths of an inch long, of golden-brown silk, beneath which silky mist a hundred young spiders swarm. 

Examined painted tortoise eggs of June 10th. One of those great spider(?)-holes made there since then, close to the eggs. The eggs are large and rather pointed, methinks at the larger end. The young are half developed. 

Fleets of yellow butterflies on road. 

Small white rough-coated puffballs (?) in pastures. Appear not to have two coats like that of Potter's Path, q. v. 

As I come by the apple tree on J. P. B.'s land, where I heard the young woodpeckers hiss a month or so ago, I now see that they have flown, for there is a cobweb over the hole. 

Plucked a handful of gooseberries at J. P. B.'s bush, probably ripe some time. It is of fair size, red-purple and greenish, and apparently like the first in garden, except it is not slightly bristly like that, nor has so much flavor and agreeable tartness. Also the stalk is not so prickly, but for the most part has one small prickle where ours has three stout ones. Our second gooseberry is more purple (or dark-purple with bloom) and the twig less prickly than the wild. Its flavor is insipid and in taste like the wild. 

It is the Hypericum ellipticum and Canadense (linear- leaved) whose red pods are noticed now. 

On the sand thrown out by the money-diggers, I found the first ripe blackberries thereabouts. The heat reflected from the sand had ripened them earlier than elsewhere. It did not at first occur to me what sand it was, nor that I was indebted to the money-diggers, or their Moll Pitcher who sent them hither, for these blackberries. I am probably the only one who has got any fruit out of that hole. It 's an ill wind that blows nobody any good. 

Looking up, I observed that they had dug another hole a rod higher up the hill last spring (for the blackberries had not yet spread over it), and had partly filled it up again. So the result of some idler's folly and some spiritualist's nonsense is that I get my blackberries a few days the earlier. 

The downy woodpecker's nest which I got July 8th was in a dead and partly rotten upright apple bough four and three quarters inches [in] diameter. Hole perfectly elliptical (or oval) one and two sixteenths by one and five sixteenths inches ; whole depth below it eight inches. It is excavated directly inward about three and a half inches, with a conical roof, also arching at back, with a recess in one side on level with the hole, where the bird turns. Judging from an old hole in the same bough, directly above, it enlarges directly to a diameter of two and one fourth to two and one half inches, not in this case descending exactly in the middle of the bough, but leaving one side not a quarter of an inch thick. At the hole it is left one inch thick. At the nest it is about two and three eighths inches [in] diameter. 

I find nothing in the first but bits of rotten wood, remains of insects, etc., when I tip it up, — for I cannot see the bottom, — yet in the old one there is also quite a nest of fine stubble (?), bark shred (?), etc., mixed with the bits of rotten wood.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 19, 1856

Where I heard the young woodpeckers hiss a month or so ago . . . See June 10, 1856 ("In a hollow apple tree, hole eighteen inches deep, young pigeon woodpeckers, large and well feathered. They utter their squeaking hiss whenever I cover the hole with my hand, apparently taking it for the approach of the mother. A strong, rank fetid smell issues from the hole.")

Examined painted tortoise eggs of June 10th. See June 10, 1856 ("A painted tortoise laying her eggs ten feet from the wheel-track on the Marlborough road.")

The downy woodpecker's nest which I got July 8th was in a dead and partly rotten upright apple . . .  See July 8, 1856 ("Got the downy woodpecker’s nest, some days empty.”)

Lobelia inflata, perhaps several days; little white glands (?) on the edges of the leaves. See July 17, 1852 ("Lobelia inflata, Indian-tobacco""); ; August 20, 1851 ("The Lobelia inflata, Indian-tobacco, meets me at every turn. At first I suspect some new bluish flower in the grass, but stooping see the inflated pods. Tasting one such herb convinces me that there are such things as drugs which may either kill or cure")

Fleets of yellow butterflies on road. See July 26, 1854 ("Today I see in various parts of the town the yellow butterflies in fleets in the road, on bare damp sand, twenty or more collected within a diameter of five or six inches in many places.") and July 14, 1852 ("See to-day for the first time this season fleets of yellow butterflies in compact assembly in the road...")

It is the Hypericum ellipticum and Canadense (linear- leaved) whose red pods are noticed now. See July 24, 1853 ("The small linear leaved hypericum (H. Canadense) shows red capsules.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, St. Johns-wort (Hypericum)

Sheltered in shadow of ferns in the meadow on the cool mud in the hot afternoon.

July 18. 

July 18

P. M. — To Wheeler meadow to look at willows. 

Again scare up a woodcock, apparently seated or sheltered in shadow of ferns in the meadow on the cool mud in the hot afternoon. 

Rosa Carolina, some time, at edge of Wheeler meadow near Island Neck. 

You see almost everywhere on the muddy river bottom, rising toward the surface, first, the coarse multifid leaves of the Ranunculus Purshii, now much the worse for the wear; second, perhaps, in coarseness, the ceratophyllum, standing upright; third, perhaps, the Bidens Beckii, with its leafets at top; then the Utricularia vulgaris, with its black or green bladders, and the two lesser utricularias in many places.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 18, 1856

Again scare up a woodcock. See July 3, 1856 ("I scare up one or two woodcocks in different places by the shore, where they are feeding, and in a meadow. They go off with a whistling flight. Can see where their bills have probed the mud. ");  July 16, 1854 ("Woodcock by side of Walden in woods."); July 18, 1856  ("Again scare up a woodcock, apparently seated or sheltered in shadow of ferns in the meadow on the cool mud in the hot afternoon.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The American Woodcock

July 18. See A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 18

A Book of 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

Hear at distance the hum of bees like the rumbling of a distant train of cars.

July 17. 

July 17, 2016

Found a great many insects in white lilies which opened in pan this forenoon, which had never opened before. What regular and handsome petals! regularly concave toward the inside, and calyx hooked at tip. 

P. M. — To Water Dock Meadow and Linnaea Hill side. 

Hear a new note from bank swallows when going over the Hosmer pastures, a sort of screep screep, shrill and like what I have referred to the barn swallow. They are probably out with young. 

Ludwigia palustris and ilysanthes have been out apparently some time on the flat Hosmer shore or meadow, where the surface has been laid bare by the ice. There, too, the Hypericum Sarothra has pushed up abundantly. 

I see many young toads hopping about on that bared ground amid the thin weeds, not more than five eighths to three quarters of an inch long; also young frogs a little larger. 

Horse-mint out at Clamshell, apparently two or three days.

Bathed at Clamshell. See great schools of minnows, apparently shiners, hovering in the clear shallow next the shore. They seem to choose such places for security. They take pretty good care of themselves and are harder to catch with the hands than you expect, darting out of the way at last quite swiftly. Caught three, however, between my hands.

They have brighter golden irides, all the abdomen conspicuously pale-golden, the back and half down the sides pale-brown, a broad, distinct black band along sides (which methinks marks the shiner), and comparatively transparent beneath behind vent. 

When the water is gone I am surprised to see how they can skip or spring from side to side in my cup-shaped two hands for a long time. This to enable them to get off floating planks or pads on the shore when in fright they may have leaped on to them. But they are very tender, and the sun and air soon kill them. If there is any water in your hand they will pass out through the smallest crack between your fingers. They are about three quarters of an inch long generally, though of various sizes. 

Half a dozen big bream come quite up to me, as I stand in the water. They are not easily scared in such a case. 

The large skunk-cabbage fruit looks quite black now where the haymakers have passed. 

Stooping to drink at the Hosmer Spring, I saw a hundred caddis-cases, of light-colored pebbles, at the bottom, and a dozen or twenty crawled half-way up the side of the tub, apparently on their way out to become perfect insects. 

Cows in their pasture, going to water or elsewhere, make a track four or five inches deep and frequently not more than ten inches wide. 

The great water dock has been out some days at least. Its valves are quite small at first, but lower leaves pointed. 

I hear in the meadow there a faint incessant z-ing sound, as of small locusts in the meadow-grass. 

Under the oak in Brown's moraine pasture, by Water Dock Meadow, a great arum more than three feet high, like a tropical plant, in open land, with leafets more than a foot long. There is rich-weed there, apparently not quite out. 

Going up the hillside, between J. P. Brown's and rough-cast house, am surprised to see great plump ripe low blackberries. How important their acid (as well as currants) this warm weather! 

It is 5 p. m. The wood thrush begins to sing. A very warm afternoon. Thermometer at 97° at the Hosmer Desert. I hear the early locust. 

I have come to collect birds' nests. The thrasher's is apparently made partly beneath the surface, some dirt making its sides. I find the nests by withered twigs and leaves broken off in the spring, but commonly nearly concealed by the recent growth. 

The jay's nest had been filled with white oak leaves. Not one could have been blown into it. 

On Linnaea Hill many thimble-berries and some raspberries.

Evening by river to Ed. Homer’s. 

Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass with its drooping flowers at the Island, a few minutes only before sunset. It sounds like the rumbling of a distant train of cars. 

Returning after ten, by moonlight, see the bullfrogs lying at full length on the pads where they trump.

July 17, 2016

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 17, 1856

Hear at distance the hum of bees from the bass . . .like the rumbling of a distant train of cars. See July 14, 1856 ("Bass out about two days at Island.");  July 18, 1854 ("At a little distance it is like the sound of a waterfall or of the cars; close at hand like a factory full of looms.”); July 16, 1852 ("The tree resounds with the hum of bees,. . . a sound unlike any other in nature . .  .”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Basswood

They have . . . a broad, distinct black band along sides (which methinks marks the shiner), and comparatively transparent beneath behind vent. . . . See March 29, 1854 ("poised over the sand on invisible fins, the outlines of a shiner". . . "distinct longitudinal light-colored line midway along their sides and a darker line below it”)

Surprised to see great plump ripe low blackberries. See  July 17, 1852 ("Notwithstanding the rain, some children still pursue their blackberrying on the Great Fields.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Blackberries

It is 5 p. m. The wood thrush begins to sing. See July 19, 1854 ("A wood thrush to-night."); July 20, 1852 ("It is starlight. . . .And now, when we had thought the day birds gone to roost, the wood thrush takes up the strain.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wood Thrush

See the bullfrogs lying at full length on the pads where they trump... See July 17, 1860 ("Clean and handsome bullfrogs. . .sit imperturbable out on the stones all around the pond.”)

A copious rain, raising the river a little

July 16

Sium out not long. 

I see many young shiners (?) (they have the longitudinal bar), one to two and a half inches long, and young breams two or three inches long and quite broad.

Geum Virginianum, apparently two or three days.

July 16.

See several bullfrogs lying fully out on pads at 5 p. m. They trump well these nights. 

It is remarkable how a copious rain, raising the river a little, flattens down the heart-leaf and other weeds at bathing-places.

H. D.  Thoreau, Journal, July 16, 1856

Shiners (they have the longitudinal bar), See March 29, 1854 ("poised over the sand on invisible fins, the outlines of a shiner". . . "distinct longitudinal light-colored line midway along their sides and a darker line below it”); July 17, 1856 ("They have brighter golden irides, all the abdomen conspicuously pale-golden, the back and half down the sides pale-brown, a broad, distinct black band along sides (which methinks marks the shiner), and comparatively transparent beneath behind vent."); December 18, 1858 (“They are little shiners with the dark longitudinal stripe”)

Bullfrogs. See July 17, 1860 ("Clean and handsome bullfrogs . . . sit imperturbable out on the stones all around the pond.”)

Several bullfrogs 

lying fully out on pads.

They trump well these nights.