P. M. — Sail up river.
There is less wind these days than a week or fortnight ago; calmer and more Indian-summer-like days.
I now fairly begin to see the brown balls of the button-bush (which is about bare) reflected in smooth water, looking black against the sky, also the now withered straw-colored coarse grass (Phalaris); and the musquash-houses rapidly rising of late are revealed by the fall of the button-bush, willows, pontederia, etc.
In the reflection the button-bushes and their balls appear against the sky, though the substance is seen against the meadow or distant woods and hills; i. e., they appear in the reflection as they would if viewed from that point on the surface from which they are reflected to my eye, so that it is as if I had another eye placed there to see for me.
Hence, too, we are struck by the prevalence of sky or light in the reflection, and at twilight dream that the light has gone down into the bosom of the waters; for in the reflection the sky comes up to the very shore or edge and appears to extend under it, while, the substance being seen from a more elevated point, the actual horizon is perhaps many miles distant over the fields and hills. In the reflection you have an infinite number of eyes to see for you and report the aspect of things each from its point of view. The statue in the meadow which actually is seen obscurely against the meadow, in the reflection appears dark and distinct against the sky.
The mikania, goldenrods, and Andropogon scoparius have now their November aspect, the former showing their dirty-white pappus, the last its white plumose hairs. The year is thus acquiring a grizzly look before the snows of winter. I see some Polygonum amphibium, front-rank, and hydropiperoides still.
At Clamshell the large black oaks are brownish and greenish yellow; the swamp white, at a distance, a yellowish green; though many of the last (which are small) are already withered pale-brown with light under sides.
Willows generally turn yellow, even to the little sage willow, the smallest of all our species, but a foot or two high, though the Salix alba hardly attains to more than a sheeny polish.
But one willow, at least, the S. cordata, varies from yellow to a light scarlet in wet places, which would be deeper yet were it not for its lighter under sides. This is seen afar in considerable low patches in the meadow. It is remarkable among our willows for turning scarlet, and I can distinguish this species now by this, i. e. part of it, in perhaps the wettest places; the rest is yellow. It is as distinctly scarlet as the gooseberry, though it may be lighter.
The oak sprout-land on the hillside north of Puffer’s is now quite brilliant red.
There is a pretty dense row of white birches along the base of the hill near the meadow, and their light-yellow spires are seen against the red and set it off remarkably, the red being also seen a little below them, between their bare stems.
The green white pines seen here and there amid the red are equally important.
The tupelo by Staples’s meadow is completely bare.
Some high blueberry is a deep dark crimson.
In sprout lands you see great mellow yellowish leaves of aspen sprouts here and there.
See a large flock of grackles steering for a bare elm top near the meadows. As they fly athwart my View, they appear successively rising half a foot or a foot above one another, though the flock is moving straight forward. I have not seen red-wings [for] a long while, but these birds, which went so much further north to breed, are still arriving from those distant regions, fetching the year about.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 16, 1858
They appear in the reflection as they would if viewed from that point on the surface from which they are reflected. See December 8, 1853 (“I saw from the peak the entire reflection of large white pines very distinctly against a clear white sky, though the actual tree was completely lost in night against the dark distant hillside.”); October 14, 1857 (“ The reflection exhibits such an aspect of the hill, apparently, as you would get if your eye were placed at that part of the surface of the pond where the reflection seems to be . . .[T]he reflection is never a true copy or repetition of its substance, but a new composition”); November 2, 1857 ("The water tells me how it looks to it seen from below.”); November 27, 1857 ("Ruskin is wrong about reflections.");
The mikania, goldenrods, and Andropogon scoparius have now their November aspect. See October 17, 1856 ("Frost has now within three or four days turned almost all flowers to woolly heads, — their November aspect"); October 17, 1857 ("The cinnamon ferns . . .have acquired their November aspect")
The tupelo by Staples’s meadow is completely bare. See October 6, 1858 (“The tupelo at Wharf Rock is completely scarlet, with blue berries amid its leaves”); October 14, 1857 ("Near by [Hubbard;'s Grove] is a tupelo which is all a distinct yellow with a little green.")
A large flock of grackles, fetching the year about. See October 16, 1857 ("I saw some blackbirds, apparently grackles, singing, after their fashion, on a tree by the river.")
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