Edward Bartlett shows me this morning a nest which he found yesterday. It is saddled on the lowest horizontal branch of an apple tree in Abel Heywood’s orchard, against a small twig, and answers to Nuttall’s description of the goldfinch’s nest, which it probably is. The eggs were five, pure white or with a faint bluish-green tinge, just begun to be developed.
I did not see the bird.
It is but little you learn of a bird in this irregular way, — having its nest and eggs shown you. How much more suggestive the sight of the goldfinch going of on a jaunt over the hills, twittering to its plainer consort by its side!
It is surprising to what extent the world is ruled by cliques. They who constitute, or at least lead, New England or New York society, in the eyes of the world, are but a clique, a few “men of the age” and of the town, who work best in the harness provided for them. The institutions of almost all kinds are thus of a sectarian or party character. Newspapers, magazines, colleges, and all forms of government and religion express the superficial activity of a few, the mass either conforming or not attending. The newspapers have just got over that eating-fullness or dropsy which takes place with the annual commencements and addresses before the Philomathean or Alpha Beta Gamma societies. Neither they who make these addresses nor they who attend to them are representative of the latest age. The boys think that these annual recurrences are part and parcel of the annual revolution of the system. There are also regattas and fireworks and “surprise parties” and horse-shows. So that I am glad when I see or hear of a man anywhere who does not know of these things nor recognizes these particular fuglers.
I was pleased to hear the other day that there were two men in Tamworth, N. H., who had been fishing for trout there ever since May; but it was a serious drawback to be told that they sent their fish to Boston and so catered for the few. The editors of newspapers, the popular clergy, politicians and orators of the day and office-holders, though they may be thought to be of very different politics and religion, are essentially one and homogeneous, inasmuch as they are only the various ingredients of the froth which ever floats on the surface of society.
I see a pout this afternoon in the Assabet, lying on the bottom near the shore, evidently diseased. He permits the boat [to] come within two feet of him. Nearly half the head, from the snout backward diagonally, is covered with an inky-black kind of leprosy, like a crustaceous lichen. The long feeler on that side appears to be wasting, and there stands up straight in it, about an inch high, a little black tree-like thorn or feeler, branched at top. It moves with difficulty.
Edith Emerson gives me an Asclepias tuberosa from Naushon, which she thinks is now in its prime there.
It is surprising what a tissue of trifles and crudities make the daily news. For one event of interest there are nine hundred and ninety-nine insignificant, but about the same stress is laid on the last as on the first. The newspapers have just told me that the transatlantic telegraph-cable is laid. That is important, but they instantly proceed to inform me how the news was received in every larger town in the United States, — how many guns they fired, or how high they jumped, —in New York, and Milwaukee, and Sheboygan; and the boys and girls, old and young, at the corners of the streets are reading it all with glistening eyes, down to the very last scrap, not omitting what they did at New Rochelle and Evansville. And all the speeches are reported, and some think of collecting them into a volume ! ! ! You say that you have travelled far and wide. How many men have you seen that did not belong to any sect, or party, or clique? Did you go further than letters of introduction would avail?
The goldfinch nest of this forenoon is saddled on a horizontal twig of an apple, some seven feet from ground and one third of an inch in diameter, supported on one side by a yet smaller branch, also slightly attached to another small branch. It measures three and one half inches from outside to outside, one and three quarters inside, two and one half from top to bottom, or to a little below the twig, and one and one half inside. It is a very compact, thick, and warmly lined nest, slightly incurving on the edge within. It is composed of fine shreds of bark — grape-vine and other— and one piece of twine, with, more externally, an abundance of pale-brown slender catkins of oak (?) or hickory (?), mixed with effete apple blossoms and their peduncles, showing little apples, and the petioles of apple leaves, some times with half-decayed leaves of this year attached, last year’s heads of lespedeza, and some other heads of weeds, with a little grass stem or weed stem, all more or less disguised by a web of white spider or caterpillar silk, spread over the outside. It is thickly and very warmly lined with (apparently) short thistle-down, mixed with which you see some grape-vine bark, and the rim is composed of the same shreds of bark, catkins, and some fine fibrous stems, and two or three hairs (of horse) mixed with wool (?); for only the hollow is lined with the looser or less tenacious thistle-down. This nest shows a good deal of art.
The mind tastes but few flavors in the course of a year. We are visited by but few thoughts which are worth entertaining, and we chew the end of these unceasingly. What ruminant spirits we are! I remember well the flavor of that rusk which I bought in New York two or three months ago and ate in the cars for my supper. A fellow-passenger, too, pretended to praise it, and yet, O man of little faith! he took a regular supper at Springfield. They cannot make such in Boston. The mere fragrance, rumor, and reminiscence of life is all that we get, for the most part. If I am visited by a thought, I chew that cud each successive morning, as long as there is any flavor in it. Until my keepers shake down some fresh fodder. Our genius is like a brush which only once in many months is freshly dipped into the paint-pot. It becomes so dry that though we apply it incessantly, it fails to tinge our earth and sky. Applied to the same spot incessantly, it at length imparts no color to it.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 9, 1858
The sight of the goldfinch going of on a jaunt over the hills, twittering to its plainer consort by its side. See note to August 9, 1856 (". . .the goldfinch twittering over. Does the last always utter his twitter when ascending? These are already feeding on the thistle seeds. ")
Edith Emerson gives me an Asclepias tuberosa from Naushon. See August 29, 1857 ("R. W. E. says that he saw Asclepias tuberosa abundant and in bloom on Naushon last week.")
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
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