The meadows by the railroad appear fresh and tender green..

August  19. 

The near meadow is very beautiful now, seen from the railroad through this dog-day haze, which softens its fresh green of so many various shades, blending them harmoniously, — darker and lighter patches of grass and the very light yellowish-green of the sensitive fern which the mowers have left. It has an indescribable beauty to my eye now, which it could not have in a clear day. 

The haze has the effect both of a wash or varnish and of a harmonizing tint. It destroys the idea of definite distance which distinctness suggests. It is as if you had painted a meadow of fresh grass springing up after the mower, — here a dark green, there lighter, and there again the yellowish onoclea, — then washed it over with some gum like a map and tinted the paper of a fine misty blue. This is an effect of the dog-days.

There is such a haze we see not further than our Annursnack, which is blue as a mountain.

There is now a remarkable drought, some of whose phenomena I have referred to during several weeks past.  Many white birches long since lost the greater part of their leaves, which cover the ground, sere and brown as in autumn. So like tinder is everything now that we passed three places within a mile where the old sleepers heaped up by the track had just been set on fire by the engine, — in one place a large pile.  

Flint's Pond has fallen very much since I was here. The shore is so exposed that you can walk round, which I have not known possible for several years, and the outlet is dry. But Walden is not affected by the drought.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 19, 1854

Fresh green of so many various shades blending ..harmoniously... See August 19, 1853 ("The different shades of green of different and the same trees... melting into one another... make a most glorious soft and harmonious picture, only to be seen at this season of the day and perhaps of the year”)

There is such a haze we see not further than our Annursnack, which is blue as a mountain. See August 13, 1854 ("Now the mountains are concealed by the dog-day haze . . .”)

There is now a remarkable drought. . . .See July 13, 1854 (“In the midst of July heat and drought.”);  July 14, 1854 (“Awake to day of gentle rain, — very much needed; none to speak of for nearly a month, methinks”); September 10, 1854 ("September 1st and 2d, the thunder-shower of evening of September 6th, and this regular storm are the first fall rains after the long drought.”)

August 19. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, August 19

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