Took my last bath the 24th. Probably shall not bathe again this year. It was chilling cold.
It is a warm and very pleasant afternoon, and I walk along the riverside in Merrick’s pasture. I hear a faint jingle from some sparrows on the willows.
Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines; now, when very few trees are changed, a most remarkable object in the landscape; seen a mile off. It is too fair to be believed, especially seen against the light. Some are a reddish or else greenish yellow, others with red or yellow cheeks. I suspect that the yellow maples had not scarlet blossoms.
The bunches of panicled cornel are purple, though you see much of the gray under sides of the leaves. Viburnum dentatum berries still hold on.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 26, 1854
Some single red maples are very splendid now, the whole tree bright-scarlet against the cold green pines. . . See September 27, 1855 ("Some single red maples now fairly make a show along the meadow. I see a blaze of red reflected from the troubled water."); September 25, 1857 ("The whole tree, thus ripening in advance of its fellows, attains a singular preéminence"); September 27, 1857 ("At last, its labors for the year being consummated and every leaf ripened to its full, it flashes out conspicuous to the eye of the most casual observer, with all the virtue and beauty of a maple, – Acer rubrum.")
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