There are very few phenomena
which can be described indifferently
as occurring at different seasons of the year.
Henry Thoreau November 3, 1853
Looking westward now
I see against the sunlight –
gossamer waving!
All this is distinct
to an observant eye yet
unnoticed by most.
October. 14. There is a very little gossamer, mostly blowing off in large loops from the south side the bridge, the loose end having caught. I also see it here and there stretched across lanes from side to side, as high as my face. October 14, 1857
October 16. The lespedezas stand like frost-covered wands, and now hoary goldenrods and some bright-red blackberry vines amid the tawny grass are in harmony with the rest; and if you sharpen and rightly intend your eye you see the gleaming lines of gossamer (stretching from stubble to stubble over the whole surface) which you are breaking. How cheerful these cold but bright white waving tufts! October 16, 1859
October 17. A fine Indian-summer afternoon. There is much gossamer on the button-bushes, now bare of leaves, and on the sere meadow-grass, looking toward the sun, in countless parallel lines, like the ropes which connect the masts of a vessel. October 17, 1855
October 18. To-day my shoes are whitened with the gossamer which I noticed yesterday on the meadow-grass. October 18, 1855
October 19. Indian-summer-like and gossamer. October 19, 1860
October 20. Looking up the side of the hill toward the sun, I see a little gossamer on the sweet-fern, etc.; and, from my boat, little flocks of white gossamer occasionally, three quarters of an inch long, in the air or caught on twigs, as if where a spider had hauled in his line. October 20, 1856
October 20. Flocks of this gossamer, like tangled skeins, float gently through the quiet air as high as my head, like white parachutes to unseen balloons. October 20, 1858
October 26. I see considerable gossamer on the causeway and elsewhere. October 26, 1854
October 31. It is a fine day, Indian-summer-like, and there is considerable gossamer on the causeway and blowing from all trees . . . the same sort of weather with the most pleasant in November (which last alone some allow to be Indian summer), only more to be expected. October 31, 1858
November 1. It is a remarkable day for fine gossamer cobwebs. Here in the causeway, as I walk toward the sun, I perceive that the air is full of them streaming from off the willows and spanning the road, all stretching across the road, and yet I cannot see them in any other direction, and feel not one. It looks as if the birds would be incommoded. They have the effect of a shimmer in the air. This shimmer, moving along them as they are waved by the wind, gives the effect of a drifting storm of light. It is more like a fine snow-storm which drifts athwart your path than anything else. What is the peculiar condition of the atmosphere, to call forth this activity? If there were no sunshine, I should never find out that they existed, I should not know that I was bursting a myriad barriers. Though you break them with your person, you feel not one. Why should this day be so distinguished? November 1, 1851
November 1. A perfect Indian-summer day, and wonderfully warm. 72+ at 1 P. M . . . Gossamer on the withered grass is shimmering in the fields, and flocks of it are sailing in the air. November 1, 1860
November 2. The last two, this and yesterday, fine days, but not gossamer ones. November 2, 1853
November 3. Looking westward now, at 4 P.M., I see against the sunlight, where the twigs of a maple and black birch intermingle, a little gossamer or fine cobwebs, but much more the twigs, especially of the birch, waving slightly, reflect the light like cobwebs. It is a phenomenon peculiar to this season, when the twigs are bare and the air is clear. I cannot easily tell what is cobweb and what twig, but the latter often curve upward more than the other. November 3, 1857 [see November lights, below]
November 7. Looking west over Wheeler’s meadow, I see that there has been much gossamer on the grass, and it is now revealed by the dewy mist which has collected on it. November 7, 1855
November 11. Gossamer reflecting the light is another November phenomenon (as well as October). November 11, 1858
November 13. Even after all this rain I see the streaming lines of gossamer from trees and fences. November 13,1855
November 15. Gossamer, methinks, belongs to the latter part of October and first part of November; also the frost-weed and evergreen ferns. Buds and twigs (like gossamer), and the mazes made by twigs, and the silvery light on this down and the silver-haired andropogon grass to the first half of November. November 15, 1858 (see November lights, below)
November 15. A fine gossamer is streaming from every fence and tree and stubble, though a careless observer would not notice it. As I look along over the grass toward the sun at Hosmer's field, beyond Lupine Hill, I notice the shimmering effect of the gossamer, — which seems to cover it almost like a web, — occasioned by its motion, though the air is so still. This is noticed at least forty rods off. November 15, 1859
November 19. This is a very pleasant and warm Indian-summer afternoon. Methinks we have not had one like it since October. This, too, is a gossamer day, though it is not particularly calm. My boat I find to be covered with spiders, whose fine lines soon stretch from side to side. November 19, 1853
December 20. I see some gossamer on the weeds above the ice. December 20, 1855
Gossamer-like snow flakes
November 20, 1857 ("I see a few flakes of snow, two or three only, like flocks of gossamer, straggling in a slanting direction to the ground, unnoticed by most, in a rather raw air.") April 4, 1859 ("There are dark and windy clouds on that side, of that peculiar brushy or wispy character — or rather like sheafs — which denotes wind. They only spit a little snow at last, thin and scarcely perceived, like falling gossamer.")
***
November lights
As I stand looking down the hill over Emerson's young wood-lot there, perhaps at 3.30 p. m., the sunlight reflected from the many ascending twigs of bare young chestnuts and birches, very dense and ascendant with a marked parallelism, they remind me of the lines of gossamer at this season, being almost exactly similar to the eye. It is a true November phenomenon. November 28, 1856
October 16. This clear, cold, Novemberish light is inspiriting. Some twigs which are bare and weeds begin to glitter with hoary light. The very edge or outline of a tawny or russet hill has this hoary fight on it. Your thoughts sparkle like the water surface and the downy twigs. October 16, 1859
October 25. In the cool Novemberish air and light we observe and enjoy the trembling shimmer and gleam of the pine-needles. I do not know why we perceive this more at this season, unless because the air is so clear and all surfaces reflect more light; and, besides, all the needles now left are fresh ones, or the growth of this year. Also I notice, when the sun is low, the light reflected from the parallel twigs of birches recently bare, etc., like the gleam from gossamer lines. This is another Novemberish phenomenon. Call these November Lights. Hers is a cool, silvery light. October 25, 1858
November 3. Looking westward now, at 4 P.M., I see against the sunlight, where the twigs of a maple and black birch intermingle, a little gossamer or fine cobwebs, but much more the twigs, especially of the birch, waving slightly, reflect the light like cobwebs. It is a phenomenon peculiar to this season, when the twigs are bare and the air is clear. I cannot easily tell what is cobweb and what twig. November 3, 1857
November 18. Much cold, slate-colored cloud, bare twigs seen gleaming toward the light like gossamer, pure green of pines whose old leaves have fallen, reddish or yellowish brown oak leaves rustling on the hillsides, very pale brown, bleaching, almost hoary fine grass or hay in the fields, akin to the frost which has killed it, and flakes of clear yellow sunlight falling on it here and there, — such is November. November 18, 1857
See also
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Indian Summer
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days
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
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