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 perceive the day
you must travel far outdoors
long early and late.
September 13, 1859
September 13, 2015
I must see without
looking – walk with free senses –
a sauntering eye.
September 13, 2018
Railroad causeway, before sunrise. Here is a morning after a warm, clear, moonlight night almost entirely without dew or fog. September 13, 1851
Now the sun is risen. The sky is almost perfectly clear this morning; not a cloud in the horizon. September 13, 1851
The morning is . . . joyous and youthful, and its blush is soon gone. September 13, 1851
The morning is . . . joyous and youthful, and its blush is soon gone. September 13, 1851
The Bedford sunrise bell rings sweetly and musically at this hour, when there is no bustle in the village to drown it. September 13, 1851
To the . . . idle man, the stillness of a placid September day sounds like the din and whirl of a factory. Only employment can still this din in the air.
There are various degrees of living out-of-doors. You must be outdoors long, early and late, and travel far and earnestly, in order to perceive the phenomena of the day. September 13, 1859
Even then much will escape you. Few live so far outdoors as to hear the first geese go over. September 13, 1859
I have the habit of attention to such excess that my senses get no rest, but suffer from a constant strain.
When I have found myself ever looking down and confining my gaze to the flowers, I have thought it might be well to get into the habit of observing the clouds as a corrective; but no! that study would be just as bad. It is as bad to study stars and clouds as flowers and stones.
I must walk more with free senses. I must let my senses wander as my thoughts, my eyes see without looking. Carlyle said that how to observe was to look, but I say that it is rather to see, and the more you look the less you will observe. Be not preoccupied with looking. Go not to the object; let it come to you. What I need is not to look at all, but a true sauntering of the eye. September 13, 1852
The pleasure of coming into a landscape where there was more distance and a bluish tinge in the horizon. The farther off the mountain which is the goal of our enterprise, the more of heaven's tint it wears. This is the chief value of a distance in landscapes.
Yesterday, it rained all day, with considerable wind, which has strewn the ground with apples and peaches, and, all the country over, people are busy picking up the windfalls.
Hear many warbling vireos these mornings. September 13, 1858
The cross-leaved polygala emits its fragrance as if at will. September 13, 1851
Both this and the caducous polygala are now somewhat faded. September 13, 1851
You are quite sure you smelled it and are ravished with its sweet fragrance, but now it has no smell . . . you can only remember that you once perceived it. September 13, 1851
The earth wears different colors or liveries at different seasons. At this season, a golden blaze salutes me here from a thousand suns. September 13, 1852
The great bidens in the sun in brooks affects me as the rose of the fall. They are low suns in the brook. The golden glow of autumn concentrated, more golden than the sun. How surely this yellow comes out along the brooks in autumn. It yellows along the brook. September 13, 1852
September 13, 2019
Surprised at the profusion of autumnal dandelions in their prime on the top of the hill, about the oaks. Never saw them thicker in a meadow. A cool, spring-suggesting yellow. They reserve their force till this season, though they begin so early. Cool to the eye, as the creak of the cricket to the ear. September 13, 1856.
Many yellow butterflies in road and fields all the country over. September 13, 1858
Here at this season
a golden blaze salutes me
from a thousand suns.
September 13, 1852
Yellow as cool to
the eye as the creak of the
cricket to the ear.
September 13, 1856.
Melons and squashes
turn yellow in the gardens
and ferns in the swamps.
I see some shrub oak acorns turned dark on the bushes and showing their meridian lines, but generally acorns of all kinds are green yet. The great red oak acorns have not fallen. September 13, 1859
Many butternuts have dropped, —more than walnuts. September 13, 1854
Some haws of the scarlet thorn are really a splendid fruit to look at now and far from inedible. September 13, 1859
The barberries, now reddening, begin to show. September 13, 1852
The barberries are abundant there, and already handsomely red, though not much more than half turned. September 13, 1856
A few raspberries still fresh. September 13, 1854.
I find the large thistle (Cirsium muticum) out of bloom amid a clump of raspberry vines. September 13, 1854.
The Viburnum Lentago, which I left not half turned red when I went up-country a week ago, are now quite black-purple and shrivelled like raisins on my table, and sweet to taste, though chiefly seed. September 13, 1856.
The Viburnum Lentago, which I left not half turned red when I went up-country a week ago, are now quite black-purple and shrivelled like raisins on my table, and sweet to taste, though chiefly seed. September 13, 1856.
Many hemlock leaves which had prematurely ripened and withered in the dry weather have fallen in the late winds and washed up along the side of the river, — already red there. September 13, 1859
Gather quite a parcel of grapes, quite ripe.. . . the best are more admirable for fragrance than for flavor. Depositing them in the bows of the boat, they fill all the air with their fragrance, as we row along against the wind, as if we were rowing through an endless vineyard in its maturity. September 13, 1856
I remember my earliest going a-graping. (It was a wonder that we ever hit upon the ripe season.) There was more fun in finding and eying the big purple clusters high on the trees and climbing to them than in eating them. September 13, 1859
Fringed gentian out well, on easternmost edge of the Painted-Cup Meadows. September 13, 1858
Asters, various shades of blue, and especially the smaller kinds of dense-flowering white ones, are more than ever by the roadsides. September 13, 1852
The Aster Tradescanti now sugars the banks densely, since I left, a week ago. Nature improves this her last opportunity to empty her lap of flowers. September 13, 1856
How earnestly and rapidly each creature, each flower, is fulfilling its part while its day lasts! Nature never lost a day, nor a moment. September 13, 1852
The plant waits a whole year, and then blossoms the instant it is ready and the earth is ready for it, without the conception of delay.
As the planet in its orbit and around its axis, so do the seasons, so does time, revolve, with a rapidity inconceivable. September 13, 1852
In the moment, in the eon, time ever advances with this rapidity. Clear the track! September 13, 1852
September 13, 2015
*****
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Yellow Butterflies
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Raspberry
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Polygala
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Thistles
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Aster Tradescanti
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Autumnal Dandelion
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Viburnum lentago (nannyberry)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Horizon
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September Moonlight
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September Moods
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bells and Whistles
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, As the Seasons Revolve
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, To effect the quality of the day
*****
September 13, 2019
Walden ("To effect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts . . . Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature . . . determined to make a day of it.")
Walking (“I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. … But sometimes it happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is. I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?” )
February 12, 1860 ("Surrounded by our thoughts or imaginary objects, living in our ideas, not one in a million ever sees the objects which are actually around him.")
February 15, 1858 ("Saw, at a menagerie, a Canada lynx, said to have been taken at the White Mountains.");
February 18, 1852 ("I am grateful to the man who introduces order among the clouds. Yet I look up into the heavens so fancy free, I am almost glad not to know any law for the winds.")
February 28, 1856 ("Though you roam the woods all your days, you never will see by chance what he sees who goes on purpose to see it.”);
March 23, 1853 ("Man cannot afford to be a naturalist, to look at Nature directly, but only with the side of his eye.")
April 8, 1856 ("Most countrymen might paddle five miles along the river now and not see one muskrat, while a sportsman a quarter of a mile before or behind would be shooting one or more every five minutes.")
February 15, 1858 ("Saw, at a menagerie, a Canada lynx, said to have been taken at the White Mountains.");
February 18, 1852 ("I am grateful to the man who introduces order among the clouds. Yet I look up into the heavens so fancy free, I am almost glad not to know any law for the winds.")
February 28, 1856 ("Though you roam the woods all your days, you never will see by chance what he sees who goes on purpose to see it.”);
March 23, 1853 ("Man cannot afford to be a naturalist, to look at Nature directly, but only with the side of his eye.")
April 8, 1856 ("Most countrymen might paddle five miles along the river now and not see one muskrat, while a sportsman a quarter of a mile before or behind would be shooting one or more every five minutes.")
April 18, 1852 ("Can I not by expectation affect the revolutions of nature, make a day to bring forth something new? ")
April 29, 1852 ("The art of life, of a poet's life, is, not having anything to do, to do something. ")
April 29, 1852 ("The art of life, of a poet's life, is, not having anything to do, to do something. ")
June 5, 1854 ("I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature.”)
June 13, 1852 ("All things in this world must be seen with the morning dew on them, must be seen with youthful, early-opened, hopeful eyes");
June 14, 1853 (". . . you are in that favorable frame of mind described by De Quincey, open to great impressions, and you see those rare sights with the unconscious side of the eye, which you could not see by a direct gaze before.”)
July 13, 1852 ("The Polygala sanguinea and P. cruciata in Blister's meadow, both numerous and well out. The last has a fugacious (?) spicy scent, in which, methinks, I detect the scent of nutmegs. Afterward I find that it is the lower part of the stem and root which is most highly scented, like checkerberry, and not fugacious");
July 28, 1856 ("Nabalus albus, a day or two.”); August 5, 1851 ("The question is not what you look at, but what you see.")
August 8, 1851 (“I hear the nine o'clock bell ringing in Bedford. Pleasantly sounds the voice of one village to another. ”)
August 9, 1856 (“The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late, and of the goldfinch twittering over.”)
August 9, 1856 (“The notes of the wood pewee and warbling vireo are more prominent of late, and of the goldfinch twittering over.”)
August 13, 1856 ("The root of the Polygala verticillata also has the checkerberry odor.")
August 21, 1851 ("A man may walk abroad and no more see the sky than if he walked under a shed.");
August 25, 1856 ("Some have seven or eight grasshoppers, clinging to their masts, one close and directly above an other, like shipwrecked sailors, now the third or fourth day exposed.”)
August 25, 1858 ("The note of a warbling vireo sounds very rare");
August 26, 1856 ("The flooded meadow, where the grasshoppers cling to the grass so thickly, is alive with swallows skimming just over the surface amid the grass-tops and apparently snapping up insects there.”)
August 25, 1856 ("Some have seven or eight grasshoppers, clinging to their masts, one close and directly above an other, like shipwrecked sailors, now the third or fourth day exposed.”)
August 25, 1858 ("The note of a warbling vireo sounds very rare");
August 26, 1856 ("The flooded meadow, where the grasshoppers cling to the grass so thickly, is alive with swallows skimming just over the surface amid the grass-tops and apparently snapping up insects there.”)
August 27, 1851 ("Polygala cruciata, cross-leaved polygala, has a very sweet but intermittent fragrance, as of checkerberry and mayflowers combined.")
August 27, 1854("Some Viburnum Lentago berries, turned blue before fairly reddening")August 27, 1856 ("The Viburnum Lentago begin to show their handsome red cheeks, rather elliptic-shaped and mucronated, one cheek clear red with a purplish bloom, the other pale green, now. Among the handsomest of berries, one half inch long by three eighths by two eighths, being somewhat flattish")
August 27, 1858 ("The Nabalus albus has been out some ten days, but N. Fraseri at Walden road will not open, apparently, for some days yet.")
August 30, 1853 ("Viburnum Lentago berries are now common and handsome. ")
August 30, 1853 ("Viburnum Lentago berries are now common and handsome. ")
August 30, 1856 ("Only absorbing employment prevails, succeeds, takes up pace, occupies territory, determines the future . . . [O]ur days should be spent . . . carrying out deliberately and faithfully the hundred little purposes which every man's genius must have suggested to him [and] the flavor of your life to that extent . . . will be such a sauce as no wealth can buy")
August 30, 1856 ("The more thrilling, wonderful, divine objects I behold in a day, the more expanded and immortal I become")
August 31, 1850 ("One of the viburnums, Lentago or pyrifolium or nudum, with its poisonous-looking fruit in cymes, first greenish-white, then red, then purple, or all at once.")
August 30, 1856 ("The more thrilling, wonderful, divine objects I behold in a day, the more expanded and immortal I become")
August 31, 1850 ("One of the viburnums, Lentago or pyrifolium or nudum, with its poisonous-looking fruit in cymes, first greenish-white, then red, then purple, or all at once.")
August 31, 1852 ("Morning is full of promise and vigor. Evening is pensive.")
September 1, 1854 ("The Viburnum Lentago are just fairly begun to have purple cheeks.")
September 1, 1854 ("The Viburnum Lentago are just fairly begun to have purple cheeks.")
September 3, 1854 (“I see some fleets of yellow butterflies in the damp road after the rain, as earlier.”)
September 4, 1853 ("Hear a warbling vireo, — something rare")
September 4, 1853 ("Hear a warbling vireo, — something rare")
September 4, 1859 ("The swamp thistle (Cirsium muticum) is apparently in its prime. One or two on each has faded, but many more are to come. Some are six feet high and have radical leaves nearly two feet long. Even these in the shade have humblebees on them")
September 4, 1856 ("Butterflies in road a day or two. ")September 4, 1857 ("I see prenanthes radical leaf turned pale-yellow.”)
September 6, 1859 ("A half-warbled strain from a warbling vireo in the elm-tops")
September 6, 1856 ("I see the flowering raspberry still in bloom") .
September 6, 1858 ("Hear a warbling vireo, sounding very rare and rather imperfect. ")
September 8, 1854 ("As I paddle home with my basket of grapes in the bow, every now and then their perfume was wafted to me in the stern, and I think that I am passing a richly laden vine on shore.")
September 8, 1856 ("Gathered flowering raspberries in all my walks and found them a pleasant berry, large, but never abundant")
September 8, 1856 ("Along this path observed the Nabalus altissimus, flowers in a long panicle of axillary and terminal branches, small-flowered, now in prime.")
September 8, 1856 ("Gathered flowering raspberries in all my walks and found them a pleasant berry, large, but never abundant")
September 8, 1856 ("Along this path observed the Nabalus altissimus, flowers in a long panicle of axillary and terminal branches, small-flowered, now in prime.")
September 8, 1858 ("It is good policy to be stirring about your affairs")
September 11, 1852 ("I see some yellow butterflies and others occasionally and singly only.")
September 11, 1859 ("The clusters of the Viburnum Lentago berries, now in their prime, are exceedingly and peculiarly handsome, and edible withal. These are drooping, like the Cornus sericea cymes. Each berry in the cyme is now a fine, clear red on the exposed side and a distinct and clear green on the opposite side. Many are already purple, and they turn in your hat, but they are handsomest when thus red and green")
September 11, 1852 ("I see some yellow butterflies and others occasionally and singly only.")
September 11, 1859 ("The clusters of the Viburnum Lentago berries, now in their prime, are exceedingly and peculiarly handsome, and edible withal. These are drooping, like the Cornus sericea cymes. Each berry in the cyme is now a fine, clear red on the exposed side and a distinct and clear green on the opposite side. Many are already purple, and they turn in your hat, but they are handsomest when thus red and green")
September 12, 1854 (“The red oak began to fall first.”)
September 14, 1851 ("The caducous polygala in cool places is faded almost white. ")
September 14, 1858 ("Bidens chrysanthemoides in river")
September 15, 1851 ("Prenanthes alba; this Gray calls Nabalus albus, white lettuce or rattlesnake-root. Also I seem (?) to have found Nabalus Fraseri, or lion's-foot.”)
September 16, 1852 (" I hear a warbling vireo in the village, which I have not heard for long.")
September 17, 1857 (“I go to Fair Haven Hill, looking at the varieties of nabalus, which have a singular prominence now in all woods and roadsides. ”)
September 17, 1852 ("Still the oxalis blows, and yellow butterflies are on the flowers")
September 17, 1857 (“How perfectly each plant has its turn! – as if the seasons revolved for it alone.!”),
September 18, 1856 ("I get a full peck from about three bushes.”
September 19, 1859 ("See many yellow butterflies in the road this very pleasant day after the rain of yesterday. One flutters across between the horse and the wagon safely enough, though it looks as if it would be run down.")
September 19, 1854 ("Viburnum Lentago berries now perhaps in prime, though there are but few blue ones.")
September 20, 1858 ("Hear warbling vireos still, in the elms")
September 21, 1859 ("Rice says that white oak acorns pounded up, shells and all, make the best bait for them.")
September 21, 1852 ("Viburnum Lentago berries now perhaps in prime, though there are but few blue ones.")
September 15, 1851 ("Prenanthes alba; this Gray calls Nabalus albus, white lettuce or rattlesnake-root. Also I seem (?) to have found Nabalus Fraseri, or lion's-foot.”)
September 16, 1852 (" I hear a warbling vireo in the village, which I have not heard for long.")
September 17, 1857 (“I go to Fair Haven Hill, looking at the varieties of nabalus, which have a singular prominence now in all woods and roadsides. ”)
September 17, 1852 ("Still the oxalis blows, and yellow butterflies are on the flowers")
September 17, 1857 (“How perfectly each plant has its turn! – as if the seasons revolved for it alone.!”),
September 18, 1856 ("I get a full peck from about three bushes.”
September 19, 1859 ("See many yellow butterflies in the road this very pleasant day after the rain of yesterday. One flutters across between the horse and the wagon safely enough, though it looks as if it would be run down.")
September 19, 1854 ("Viburnum Lentago berries now perhaps in prime, though there are but few blue ones.")
September 20, 1858 ("Hear warbling vireos still, in the elms")
September 21, 1859 ("Rice says that white oak acorns pounded up, shells and all, make the best bait for them.")
September 21, 1852 ("Viburnum Lentago berries now perhaps in prime, though there are but few blue ones.")
September 21, 1859 ("Acorns have been falling very sparingly ever since September 1, but are mostly wormy. They are as interesting now on the shrub oak (green) as ever.")
September 21, 1852 ("The Lentago berries appear to drop off before, or as soon as, they turn. There are few left on the bushes. Many that I bring home will turn in a single night.")
September 21, 1858 ("Swamp thistle, still abundant.")
September 21, 1852 ("The Lentago berries appear to drop off before, or as soon as, they turn. There are few left on the bushes. Many that I bring home will turn in a single night.")
September 21, 1858 ("Swamp thistle, still abundant.")
September 23, 1857 ("Varieties of nabalus grow along the Walden road in the woods; also, still more abundant, by the Flint's Pond road in the woods”)
September 23, 1858 ("When we had put out our bayberry fire, we heard a squawk, and, looking up, saw five geese fly low in the twilight over our heads. We then set out to find our way to Gloucester over the hills, and saw the comet very bright in the northwest.")
September 24, 1854 ("The Viburnum Lentago berries now turn blue-black in pocket, as the nudum did, which last are now all gone, while the Lentago is now just in season. ")
September 25, 1855 (We get about three pecks of barberries from four or five bushes”).
September 25, 1856 ("The haws of the common thorn are now very good eating and handsome.")
September 28, 1858 ("The small shrub oak . . . with its pretty acorns striped dark and light alternately."); September 29, 1853 ("Viburnum Lentago berries yet.").
September 30, 1854 ("The conventional acorn of art is of course of no particular species, but the artist might find it worth his while to study Nature’s varieties again.”)
September 30, 1859 ("Most shrub oak acorns browned.")
October 1, 1859 ("The shrub oaks on this hill are now at their height, both with respect to their tints and their fruit. The . . .pretty fruit, varying in size, pointedness, and downiness, being now generally turned brown, with light, converging meridional lines. . . .Now is the time for shrub oak acorns.");
October 1, 1853 (" Got three pecks of barberries.")
October 8, 1857 (“Hemlock leaves are copiously falling. They cover the hillside like some wild grain.”)
October 11, 1860 ("There is a remarkably abundant crop of white oak acorns this fall, also a fair crop of red oak acorns; but not of scarlet and black, very few of them. The acorns are now in the very midst of their fall.")
October 11, 1858 ("The Viburnum Lentago is generally a dull red on a green ground, but its leaves are yet quite fresh")
October 12, 1858 ("Acorns, red and white (especially the first), appear to be fallen or falling.").
October 12, 1857 ("To Annursnack. . . .The fringed gentian by the brook opposite is in its prime, and also along the north edge of the Painted-Cup Meadows")
October 13, 1859 ("The hemlock seed is now in the midst of its fall, some of it, with the leaves, floating on the river.")
September 23, 1858 ("When we had put out our bayberry fire, we heard a squawk, and, looking up, saw five geese fly low in the twilight over our heads. We then set out to find our way to Gloucester over the hills, and saw the comet very bright in the northwest.")
September 24, 1854 ("The Viburnum Lentago berries now turn blue-black in pocket, as the nudum did, which last are now all gone, while the Lentago is now just in season. ")
September 25, 1855 (We get about three pecks of barberries from four or five bushes”).
September 25, 1856 ("The haws of the common thorn are now very good eating and handsome.")
September 28, 1858 ("The small shrub oak . . . with its pretty acorns striped dark and light alternately."); September 29, 1853 ("Viburnum Lentago berries yet.").
September 30, 1854 ("The conventional acorn of art is of course of no particular species, but the artist might find it worth his while to study Nature’s varieties again.”)
September 30, 1859 ("Most shrub oak acorns browned.")
October 1, 1859 ("The shrub oaks on this hill are now at their height, both with respect to their tints and their fruit. The . . .pretty fruit, varying in size, pointedness, and downiness, being now generally turned brown, with light, converging meridional lines. . . .Now is the time for shrub oak acorns.");
October 1, 1853 (" Got three pecks of barberries.")
October 8, 1857 (“Hemlock leaves are copiously falling. They cover the hillside like some wild grain.”)
October 11, 1860 ("There is a remarkably abundant crop of white oak acorns this fall, also a fair crop of red oak acorns; but not of scarlet and black, very few of them. The acorns are now in the very midst of their fall.")
October 11, 1858 ("The Viburnum Lentago is generally a dull red on a green ground, but its leaves are yet quite fresh")
October 12, 1858 ("Acorns, red and white (especially the first), appear to be fallen or falling.").
October 12, 1857 ("To Annursnack. . . .The fringed gentian by the brook opposite is in its prime, and also along the north edge of the Painted-Cup Meadows")
October 13, 1859 ("The hemlock seed is now in the midst of its fall, some of it, with the leaves, floating on the river.")
October 14, 1859 ("The ground is strewn also with red oak acorns now, and, as far as I can discover, acorns of all kinds have fallen.")
October 14, 1859 ("The shrub oak acorns are now all fallen, — only one or two left on,")
October 16, 1857 (“Hemlock leaves are falling now faster than ever, and the trees are more parti-colored. The falling leaves look pale-yellow on the trees, but become reddish on the ground.”)
October 17, 1860 ("While the man that killed my lynx (and many others) thinks it came out of a menagerie, and the naturalists call it the Canada lynx, and at the White Mountains they call it the Siberian lynx, - in each case forgetting, or ignoring ,that it belongs here, - I call it the Concord lynx.")
October 23, 1853 ("Viburnum Lentago, with ripe berries and dull-glossy red leaves")
October 28, 1858 ("How handsome the great red oak acorns now! I stand under the tree on Emerson’s lot. They are still falling. ")
October 28, 1858 (The hemlock is in the midst of its fall, and the leaves strew the ground like grain. They are inconspicuous on the tree.")
November 2, 1853 ("The shrub oak cups which I notice to-day have lost their acorns.");
November 4, 1852 ("I keep out-of-doors for the sake of the mineral, vegetable, and animal in me.")
November 4, 1858 ("The true sportsman can shoot you almost any of his game from his windows. It comes and perches at last on the barrel of his gun; but the rest of the world never see it with the feathers on .")
November 11, 1855 (“At the Hemlocks I see a narrow reddish line of hemlock leaves . .. mathematically level. This chronicles the hemlock fall, which I had not noticed, we have so few trees, and also the river’s rise”)
November 18 1851 ("The chopper who works in the woods all day is more open in some respects to the impressions they are fitted to make than the naturalist who goes to see them. He really forgets himself, forgets to observe, and at night he dreams of the swamp, its phenomena and events. Not so the naturalist; enough of his unconscious life does not pass there. A man can hardly be said to be there if he knows that he is there, or to go there if he knows where he is going.")
October 14, 1859 ("The shrub oak acorns are now all fallen, — only one or two left on,")
October 16, 1857 (“Hemlock leaves are falling now faster than ever, and the trees are more parti-colored. The falling leaves look pale-yellow on the trees, but become reddish on the ground.”)
October 17, 1860 ("While the man that killed my lynx (and many others) thinks it came out of a menagerie, and the naturalists call it the Canada lynx, and at the White Mountains they call it the Siberian lynx, - in each case forgetting, or ignoring ,that it belongs here, - I call it the Concord lynx.")
October 23, 1853 ("Viburnum Lentago, with ripe berries and dull-glossy red leaves")
October 28, 1858 ("How handsome the great red oak acorns now! I stand under the tree on Emerson’s lot. They are still falling. ")
October 28, 1858 (The hemlock is in the midst of its fall, and the leaves strew the ground like grain. They are inconspicuous on the tree.")
November 2, 1853 ("The shrub oak cups which I notice to-day have lost their acorns.");
November 4, 1852 ("I keep out-of-doors for the sake of the mineral, vegetable, and animal in me.")
November 4, 1858 ("The true sportsman can shoot you almost any of his game from his windows. It comes and perches at last on the barrel of his gun; but the rest of the world never see it with the feathers on .")
November 11, 1855 (“At the Hemlocks I see a narrow reddish line of hemlock leaves . .. mathematically level. This chronicles the hemlock fall, which I had not noticed, we have so few trees, and also the river’s rise”)
November 18 1851 ("The chopper who works in the woods all day is more open in some respects to the impressions they are fitted to make than the naturalist who goes to see them. He really forgets himself, forgets to observe, and at night he dreams of the swamp, its phenomena and events. Not so the naturalist; enough of his unconscious life does not pass there. A man can hardly be said to be there if he knows that he is there, or to go there if he knows where he is going.")
November 22, 1860 ("Simply to see to a distant horizon through a clear air, -- the fine outline of a distant hill or a blue mountain- top through some new vista, -- this is wealth enough for one afternoon.")
December 20, 1851 ("Go out before sunrise or stay out till sunset ")
December 29, 1856 (“We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day. . . .. Staying in the house breeds a sort of insanity always.”)
December 29, 1856 (“We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day. . . .. Staying in the house breeds a sort of insanity always.”)
January 11, 1852 ("We cannot live too leisurely. Let me not live as if time was short.")
September 13, 2015
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.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 13
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/HDT13September
No comments:
Post a Comment