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
Rejoice there are owls ––
the roominess of nature.
This world where owls live.
A man can hardly
be said to be there if he
knows that he is there.
November 18, 1851
November 18, 2014
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
These are cold, gray days. November 18, 1852
Am surprised to see Fair Haven Pond completely frozen over during the last four days . . . while all the channel elsewhere is open and a mere edging of ice amid the weeds is seen, this great expansion is completely bridged over, thus early. November 18, 1858
About an inch of snow fell last night, but the ground was not at all frozen or prepared for it. A little greener grass and stubble here and there seems to burn its way through it this forenoon. November 18, 1855
.Now first mark the stubble and numerous withered weeds rising above the snow. They have suddenly acquired a new character. November 18, 1855
As I sit in the house, I am struck with the brightness and heat of the sun reflected from this our first snow. There is an intenser light in the house, and I feel an uncommon heat from the sun’s rays on my back November 18, 1855
The sunlight is a peculiarly thin and clear yellow, falling on the pale-brown bleaching herbage of the fields at this season. There is no redness in it. This is November sunlight. November 18, 1857
Tansy still shows its yellow disks, but yarrow is particularly fresh and perfect, cold and chaste, with its pretty little dry-looking rounded white petals and green leaves. November 18, 1855
Early crowfoot is reddened at Lee’s. November 18, 1858
The snow is the great track-revealer . . . I have this silent but unerring evidence of any who have crossed the fields since last night. It is pleasant to see tracks leading towards the woods, - to be reminded that any have engagements there. Yet for the most part the snow is quite untrodden. Most fields have no track of man in them. I only see where a squirrel has leaped from the wall. November 18, 1855
Now, as in the spring, we rejoice in sheltered and sunny places. November 18, 1857
I am prepared to hear sharp, screaming notes rending the air, from the winter birds. I do, in fact, hear many jays, and the tinkling, like rattling glass, from chickadees and tree sparrows. November 18, 1855
I hear a low concert from the edge of Gowing's Swamp, amid the maples, etc., - suppressed warblings from many flitting birds. With my glass I see only tree sparrows, and suppose it is they. November 18, 1857
Crows will often come flying much out of their way to caw at me. November 18, 1857
Sixty geese go over the Great Fields, in one waving line, broken from time to time by their crowding on each other and vainly endeavoring to form into a harrow, honking all the while. November 18, 1854
Some mocker-nuts, and I think some hickories, on Conantum are not yet bare. Their withered leaves hold on almost like the oaks. Now is the time to gather the mocker-nuts. November 18, 1858
So many oak leaves have fallen that the white birch stems are more distinct amid the young oaks; I see to the bone. See those brave birches prepared to stand the Winter through on the hillsides. November 18, 1858
I do not detect any peculiar brightness whatever in the osiers on the Hubbard causeway. November 18, 1855
Notice the short bright-yellow willow twigs on Hubbard’s Causeway. They are prominent now, first, because they are bare; second, because high-colored always and this rarity of bright colors at present; third, because of the clear air and November light. November 18, 1858
Each man's necessary path, though as obscure and apparently uneventful as that of a beetle in the grass, is the way to the deepest joys he is susceptible of. November 18, 1857
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. November 18 1851
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 18 1851
The man who is bent upon his work is frequently in the best attitude to observe what is irrelevant to his work. November 18, 1851
Now at sundown I hear the hooting of an owl, — hoo hoo hoo, hoorer hoo. It sounds like the hooting of an idiot or a maniac broke loose. This is faintly answered in a different strain, apparently from a greater distance, almost as if it were the echo . . .. This is my music each evening. I heard it last evening. . . . It is a sound admirably suited to the swamp and to the twilight woods, suggesting a vast undeveloped nature which men have not recognized nor satisfied. I rejoice that there are owls. They represent the stark, twilight, unsatisfied thoughts I have. . . This sound faintly suggests the infinite roominess of nature, that there is a world in which owls live. Yet how few are seen, even by the hunters! November 18, 1851
I rejoice that there are owls . . . This sound suggests the infinite roominess of nature, that there is a world in which owls live. November 18, 1851
Sympathy with nature is an evidence of perfect health. You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind. November 18, 1857
Nature makes no noise. The howling storm, the rustling leaf, the pattering rain are no disturbance, there is an essential & unexplored harmony in them. Why is it that thought flows with so deep & sparkling a current when the sound of distant music strikes the ear? November 18, 1837
(Mem. Wordsworth's observations on relaxed attention) November 18, 1851
November 18, 2018
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, First Ice
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, First Snow
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A Sunny Nook in Spring
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Jay
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Birds
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Geese in Autumn
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Voice of the Barred Owl
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Hickory
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Aromatic Herbs
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Willows on the Causeway
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Crowfoot (Ranunculus fascicularis)
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A body awake in the world
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, to effect the quality of the day
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Gossamer Days
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November Moods
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Serene as the Sky.
Crows will often come
flying much out of their way
to caw at me.
November 18, 2013
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, November 18
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/HDT18NOV
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