The year is but a succession of days,
and I see that I could assign some office to each day
which, summed up, would be the history of the year.
Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852
To lie on your back
with nothing but space between
your eye and the stars.
I may be either
the driftwood in the steam or
Indra in the sky.
Every discovery
is advertised by a sense
of joy and surprise.
Along the river
a day of sunny water –
I see the fishes.
Perfect cardinals,
fluviatile like myself
standing on the shore.
A soft rippling call –
peetweets in flight together
with their young now grown.
August 8, 2019
No man ever makes a discovery, even an observation of the least importance, but he is advertised of the fact by a joy that surprises him. August 8, 1852
I find at Ledum [Miles] Swamp, near the pool, the white fringed orchis, quite abundant but past prime, only a few, yet quite fresh. It seems to belong to this sphagnous swamp and is some fifteen to twenty inches high, quite conspicuous, its white spike, amid the prevailing green. The leaves are narrow, half folded, and almost insignificant. It loves, then, these cold bogs. August 8, 1858.
The rusty wool-grass is in bloom there with very short wool. Is it ever long? August 8, 1858
I see there, especially near the pool, tall and slender huckleberry bushes of a peculiar kind. Some are seven feet high. They are, for the most part, three or four feet high, very slender and drooping, bent like grass to one side. The berries are round and glossy-black, with resinous dots, as usual, and in flattish-topped racemes, sometimes ten or twelve in a raceme, but generally more scattered. Call it, perhaps, the tall swamp huckleberry. August 8, 1858
The Gaylussacia dumosa var. hiriella is the prevailing low shrub, perhaps. I See one ripe berry. This is the only inedible species of Vaccinieaz that I know in this town. August 8, 1858
The peculiar plants of this swamp are, then, as I remember, these nine: spruce, Andromeda Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, Ledum latifolium, Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, Platanthera blephari glottis, Scheuchzeria palustris, Eriophorum ‘vaginatum. August 8, 1858
The Gaylussacia dumosa var. hiriella is the prevailing low shrub, perhaps. I See one ripe berry. This is the only inedible species of Vaccinieaz that I know in this town. August 8, 1858
The peculiar plants of this swamp are, then, as I remember, these nine: spruce, Andromeda Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, Ledum latifolium, Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, Platanthera blephari glottis, Scheuchzeria palustris, Eriophorum ‘vaginatum. August 8, 1858
Blue-curls, how long? Not long. August. 8, 1855
The cardinals are in perfection, standing in dark recesses of the green shore, or in the open meadow. They are fluviatile, and stand along some river or brook, like myself. August 8, 1854
This is a day of sunny water . . . I look down a rod and see distinctly the fishes and the bottom. August 8, 1854
The river, now that it is so clear and sunny, is better than any aquarium. August 8, 1859
Peetweets take their flight over the water, several together, apparently the old with their young now grown, the former uttering a peculiarly soft rippling call. August 8, 1859
Saw yesterday a this year’s marsh hawk, female, flying low across the road near Hildreth’s. I took it to be a young bird, it came so near and looked so fresh. It is a fine rich-brown, full-breasted bird, with a long tail. August 8, 1858
This is a day of sunny water . . . I look down a rod and see distinctly the fishes and the bottom. August 8, 1854
The river, now that it is so clear and sunny, is better than any aquarium. August 8, 1859
Peetweets take their flight over the water, several together, apparently the old with their young now grown, the former uttering a peculiarly soft rippling call. August 8, 1859
Saw yesterday a this year’s marsh hawk, female, flying low across the road near Hildreth’s. I took it to be a young bird, it came so near and looked so fresh. It is a fine rich-brown, full-breasted bird, with a long tail. August 8, 1858
The moon has not yet quite filled her horns . . . The light from the western sky is stronger still than that of the moon, and when I hold up my hand, the west side is lighted while the side toward the moon is comparatively dark. August 8, 1851
But now that I have put this dark wood (Hubbard's) between me and the west, I see the moonlight plainly on my paper; I am even startled by it. August 8, 1851
I . . . am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me which, as it were, is not a part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play – it may be the tragedy of life – is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned. August 8, 1852
One star, too, — is it Venus ? — I see in the west. Starlight! that would be a good way to mark the hour, if we were precise. August 8, 1851
How much the beauty of the moon is enhanced by being seen shining between two trees, or even by the neighborhood of clouds! August 8, 1851
The woods and the separate trees cast longer shadows than by day, for the moon goes lower in her course at this season. August 8, 1851
The fireflies are not so numerous as they have been. August 8, 1851.
One star, too, — is it Venus ? — I see in the west. Starlight! that would be a good way to mark the hour, if we were precise. August 8, 1851
How much the beauty of the moon is enhanced by being seen shining between two trees, or even by the neighborhood of clouds! August 8, 1851
The woods and the separate trees cast longer shadows than by day, for the moon goes lower in her course at this season. August 8, 1851
The fireflies are not so numerous as they have been. August 8, 1851.
I see the water-bugs swimming briskly in the moonlight and scent the Roman wormwood in the potato fields. August 8, 1851
I hear the clock striking eight faintly. August 8, 1851
To lie here on your back with nothing between your eye and the stars, – nothing but space, – they your nearest neighbors on that side, who could ever go to sleep under these circumstances? August 8, 1851
August 8, 2019
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau:
August 8, 2014
January 5, 1860 ("A man receives only what he is ready to receive. His observations make a chain. He does not observe the phenomenon that cannot be linked with the rest which he has observed, however novel and remarkable it may be. A man tracks himself through life, apprehending only what he already half knows.”)
January 27, 1857 ("The most poetic and truest account of objects is generally by those who first observe them")
February 4, 1858 ("To C. Miles Swamp. Discover the Ledum latifolium, quite abundant over a space about six rods in diameter just east of the small pond-hole.")
February 27,1851 ("a novel and grand surprise, or a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we had called knowledge before; an indefinite sense of the grandeur and glory of the universe.”);
April 19, 1852 ("How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact! ... I think that no man ever takes an original or detects a principle, without experiencing an inexpressible, as quite infinite and sane, pleasure, which advertises him of the dignity of that truth he has perceived. ")
July 7, 1851 (“Knowledge does not come to us by details but by lieferungs from the gods.”)
July14, 1853 (“Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow's Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom.")
July 15, 1859 ("The white orchis not yet, apparently, for a week or more. Hairy huckleberry still in bloom, but chiefly done.")
July 23, 1854 ("The white orchis at same place, four or five days at least; spike one and three quarters by three inches.")
July 27, 1860 ("The water has begun to be clear and sunny, revealing the fishes and countless minnows of all sizes and colors”).
August 5, 1851 (As the twilight deepens and the moonlight is more and more bright, I begin to distinguish myself, who I am and where. I become more collected and composed, and sensible of my own existence, as when a lamp is brought into a dark apartment. ... I am sobered by the moonlight. I bethink myself.)
August 5, 1852 ("That is a glorious swamp of Miles's. . . the wildest and richest gardens that we have.")
August 16, 1856 ("By the discovery of one new plant all bounds seem to be infinitely removed“)
August 22, 1860 ("I never find a remarkable Indian relic but I have first divined its existence, and planned the discovery of it. Frequently I have told myself distinctly what it was to be before I found it.“)
August 22, 1853 ("A peetweet flew along the shore and uttered its peculiar note")
August 30, 1856 ("“I noticed also a few small peculiar-looking huckleberries hanging on bushes amid the sphagnum, and, tasting, perceived that they were hispid, a new kind to me. Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella . . .. Has a small black hairy or hispid berry, shining but insipid and inedible, with a tough, hairy skin left in the mouth.. . ..I seemed to have reached a new world, so wild a place that the very huckleberries grew hairy and were inedible. I feel as if I were in Rupert's Land, and a slight cool but agreeable shudder comes over me, as if equally far away from human society.")
September 2, 1856 ("It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood, . . . My expectation ripens to discovery. I am prepared for strange things.")
September 5, 1851 ("There are innumerable avenues to a perception of the truth. All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy.")
July 23, 1854 ("The white orchis at same place, four or five days at least; spike one and three quarters by three inches.")
July 27, 1860 ("The water has begun to be clear and sunny, revealing the fishes and countless minnows of all sizes and colors”).
August 5, 1851 (As the twilight deepens and the moonlight is more and more bright, I begin to distinguish myself, who I am and where. I become more collected and composed, and sensible of my own existence, as when a lamp is brought into a dark apartment. ... I am sobered by the moonlight. I bethink myself.)
August 5, 1852 ("That is a glorious swamp of Miles's. . . the wildest and richest gardens that we have.")
August 16, 1856 ("By the discovery of one new plant all bounds seem to be infinitely removed“)
August 22, 1860 ("I never find a remarkable Indian relic but I have first divined its existence, and planned the discovery of it. Frequently I have told myself distinctly what it was to be before I found it.“)
August 22, 1853 ("A peetweet flew along the shore and uttered its peculiar note")
August 30, 1856 ("“I noticed also a few small peculiar-looking huckleberries hanging on bushes amid the sphagnum, and, tasting, perceived that they were hispid, a new kind to me. Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella . . .. Has a small black hairy or hispid berry, shining but insipid and inedible, with a tough, hairy skin left in the mouth.. . ..I seemed to have reached a new world, so wild a place that the very huckleberries grew hairy and were inedible. I feel as if I were in Rupert's Land, and a slight cool but agreeable shudder comes over me, as if equally far away from human society.")
September 2, 1856 ("It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood, . . . My expectation ripens to discovery. I am prepared for strange things.")
September 5, 1851 ("There are innumerable avenues to a perception of the truth. All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy.")
September 24 1854("The perception of truth, as of the duration of time, etc., produces a pleasurable sensation”)
November 1, 1857 ("A higher truth, though only dimly hinted at, thrills us")
November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it, and then we can hardly see anything else.")
November 25, 1860 ("How is any scientific discovery made ? Why, the discoverer takes it into his head first. He must all but see it.")
November 1, 1857 ("A higher truth, though only dimly hinted at, thrills us")
November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it, and then we can hardly see anything else.")
November 25, 1860 ("How is any scientific discovery made ? Why, the discoverer takes it into his head first. He must all but see it.")
August 8, 2016
If you make the least correct
observation of nature this year,
you will have occasion to repeat it
with illustrations the next,
and the season and life itself is prolonged.
August 7. August 9
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 © 2009-2022
https://tinyurl.com/HDT08August
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