It is a beautifully clear and bracing air, with just enough coolness, full of the memory of frosty mornings.

September 22. 

To the Three Friends' Hill over Bear Hill. 

Yesterday and to-day the stronger winds of autumn have begun to blow, and the telegraph harp has sounded loudly.

I heard it especially in the Deep Cut this afternoon, the tone varying with the tension of different parts of the wire. The sound proceeds from near the posts, where the vibration is apparently more rapid.

I put my ear to one of the posts, and it seemed to me as if every pore of the wood was filled with music, labored with the strain, as if every fibre was affected and being seasoned or timed, rearranged according to a new and more harmonious law. Every swell and change or inflection of tone pervaded and seemed to proceed from the wood, the divine tree or wood, as if its very substance was transmuted.

What a recipe for preserving wood, perchance, — to keep it from rotting, — to fill its pores with music ! How this wild tree from the forest, stripped of its bark and set up here, rejoices to transmit this music! When no music proceeds from the wire, on applying my ear I hear the hum within the entrails of the wood, — the oracular tree acquiring, accumulating, the prophetic fury.

The resounding wood! how much the ancients would have made of it! To have a harp on so great a scale, girdling the very earth, and played on by the winds of every latitude and longitude, and that harp were, as it were, the manifest blessing of heaven on a work of man'! Shall we not add a tenth Muse to the immortal Nine?

And that the invention thus divinely honored and distinguished — on which the Muse has condescended to smile is this magic medium of communication for mankind!

To read that the ancients stretched a wire round the earth, attaching it to the trees of the forest, by which they sent messages by one named Electricity, father of Lightning and Magnetism, swifter far than Mercury, the stern commands of war and news of peace, and that the winds caused this wire to vibrate so that it emitted a harp-like and æolian music in all the lands through which it passed, as if to express the satisfaction of the gods in this invention. Yet this is fact, and we have yet attributed the invention to no god.

I am astonished to see how brown and sere the groundsel or "fire-weed” on hillside by Heywood's Meadow, which has been touched by frost, already is, — as if it had died long months ago, or a fire had run through it. It is a very tender plant. 

Standing on Bear Hill in Lincoln.

                                                September 22, 2017

The black birches ( I think they are ), now yellow, on the south side of Flint's Pond, on the hillside, look like flames. The chestnut trees are brownish-yellow as well as green. 

It is a beautifully clear and bracing air, with just enough coolness, full of the memory of frosty mornings, through which all things are distinctly seen and the fields look as smooth as velvet.

The fragrance of grapes is on the breeze and the red drooping barberries sparkle amid the leaves.

From the hill on the south side of the pond, the forests have a singularly rounded and bowery look, clothing the hills quite down to the water's edge and leaving no shore; the ponds are like drops of dew amid and partly covering the leaves. So the great globe is luxuriously crowded without margin.

The Utricularia cornuta, or horned utricularia, on the sandy pond-shore, not affected by the frost.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 22, 1851

Three Friends Hill. See September 12, 1851 ("To the Three Friends' Hill beyond Flint's Pond. . . I go to Flint's Pond for the sake of the mountain view from the hill beyond, looking over Concord.")

How brown and sere the groundsel or "fire-weed” on hillside by Heywood's Meadow, which has been touched by frost, See August 23, 1856 ("On R. W. E.'s hillside by railroad, burnt over by the engine in the spring, the erechthites has shot up abundantly, very tall and straight, some six or seven feet high."); August 26, 1856 ("Also erechthites as abundant and rank in many places there as if it had been burnt over! So it does not necessarily imply fire."); August 27, 1851 ("Hawkweed groundsel (Senecio hieracifolius) (fireweed)"); August 30, 1859 ("The erechthites down has begun to fly."); September 9, 1852 ("The groundsel down is in the air."); September 20, 1851 ("On Monday of the present week water was frozen in a pail under the pump. . . .All tender herbs are flat in gardens and meadow"); September 20, 1852 ("The groundsel and hieracium down is in the air"); September 21, 1856 ("Was not the fireweed seed sown by the wind last fall, blown into the woods, where there was a lull which caused it to settle? Perhaps it is fitted to escape or resist fire. The wind which the fire creates may, perchance, lift it again out of harm's way."); October 2, 1857 ("The erechthites down (fire-weed) is conspicuous in sprout-lands of late, since its leaves were killed."); October 16, 1859 ("The flowers are at the mercy of the frosts. Places where erechthites grows, more or less bare, in sprout- lands, look quite black and white (black withered leaves and white down) and wintry")

It is a beautifully clear and bracing air, with just enough coolness, full of the memory of frosty mornings.. See

 

These bracing fine days

when frosts come to ripen the

year, the days, like fruit.

September 22, 1854

See also September 20, 1851 ("This week we have had most glorious autumnal weather, - cool and cloudless, bright days, . . . preceded by frosty mornings." ); October 10, 1857 ("The most brilliant days in the year, ushered in, perhaps, by a frosty morning, as this.") November 11, 1853 ("Bracing cold, and exhilarating sunlight on russet and frosty fields “) December 10, 1853 ("These are among the finest days in the year, on account of the wholesome bracing coolness and clearness.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

The fragrance of grapes is on the breeze. See September 20, 1851 ("This week we have had most glorious autumnal weather, - - cool and cloudless, bright days, filled with the fragrance of ripe grapes, preceded by frosty mornings.")

Fishing for the Pond.

June 26.

Very cool day.

Had for dinner a pudding made of service-berries.

It was very much like a rather dry cherry pudding without the stones.

A slight hail-storm in the afternoon. [see after the rain]

Euphorbia maculata.

Our warmest night thus far this year was June 21st.

It began to be cooler the 24th.

  

5.30 P. M. – To Cliffs.

Carrot by railroad.

Mine apparently the Erigeron strigosus, yet sometimes tinged with purple.

The tephrosia is an agreeable mixture of white, straw color, and rose pink; unpretending.

What is the result of that one leaf (or more), much and irregularly, or variously, divided and cut, with milk in it, in woods, either a lactuca or prenanthes, probably, one foot or more high? 

Such is oftenest the young man’s introduction to the forest and wild.

He goes thither at first as a hunter and fisher, until at last the naturalist or poet distinguishes that which attracted him and leaves the gun and fishing-rod behind.

The mass of men are still and always young in this respect.

I have been surprised to observe that the only obvious employment which ever to my knowledge detained at Walden Pond for a whole half-day, unless it was in the way of business, any of my “fellow-citizens,” whether fathers or children of the town, with just one exception, was fishing.

They might go there a thousand times, perchance, before the sediment of fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their purpose pure, — before they began to angle for the pond itself.

Thus, even in civilized society, the embryo man (speaking intellectually) passes through the hunter stage of development.

They did not think they were lucky or well paid for their time unless they got a long string of fish, though they had the opportunity of seeing the pond all the while.

They measured their success by the length of a string of fish.

The Governor faintly remembers the pond, for he went a-fishing there when he was a boy, but now he is too old and dignified to go a-fishing, and so he knows it no longer.

If the Legislature regards it, it is chiefly to regulate the number of hooks to be used in fishing there, but they know nothing about the hook of hooks.

   

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 26, 1853

They might go there a thousand times, perchance, before the sediment of fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their purpose pure, — before they began to angle for the pond itself. See  December 2, 1856 ("There they sit, ever and anon scanning their reels to see if any have fallen, and, if not catching many fish, still getting what they went for, though they may not be aware of it, i. e. a wilder experience than the town affords.") ; October 4, 1858 ("There he stands at length, per chance better employed than ever, holding communion with nature and himself and coming to understand his real position and relation to men in this world. ")

I see sun-sparkles on the river, such as I have not seen for a long time

August 26. 

The dust is laid, the streets washed, the leaves — the first ripe crop — fallen, owing to yesterday's copious rain. It is clearer weather, and the creak of the crickets is more distinct, just as the air is clearer. 

The trees look greener and fresher, not only because their leaves are washed and erected, but because they have for the most part shed their yellow and sere leaves. 

The front-rank polygonum is now perhaps in its prime. Where it forms an island in the river it is surmounted in the middle or highest part by the P. hydropiperoides. 

P. M. — To Fair Haven Hill. 

Elder-berries have fairly begun to be ripe, as also the Cornus sericea berries, and the dull-reddish leaves of the last begin to be conspicuous. 

The creak of the mole cricket has a very afternoon sound.

 Potato vines are generally browning and rank. Roman wormwood prevails over them; also erechthites, in new and boggy ground, and butterweed. These lusty natives prevail in spite of the weeding hoe, and take possession of the field at last. Potato vines have taken a veil of wormwood. 

The barn-yard grass and various panics (sanguinale, capillare, and bottle-grass) now come forward with a rush and take possession of the cultivated fields, partly abandoned for the present by the farmer and gardener. 

How singular that the Polygonum aviculare should grow so commonly and densely about back doors where the earth is trodden, bordering on paths ! Hence properly called door-grass. I am not aware that it prevails in any other places. 

The pontederia leaves are already slightly imbrowned, though the flowers are still abundant. 

The river is a little cooled by yesterday's rain, and considerable heart-leaf (the leaves mainly) is washed up. 

I begin to think of a thicker coat and appreciate the warmth of the sun. I see sun-sparkles on the river, such as I have not seen for a long time. At any rate, they surprise me. There may be cool veins in the air now, any day. 

Now for dangle-berries. 

Also Viburnum nudum fruit has begun. 

I saw a cherry-bird peck from the middle of its upright (vertical) web on a bush one of those large (I think yellow-marked) spiders within a rod of me. It dropped to the ground, and then the bird picked it up. It left a hole or rent in the middle of the web. The spider cunningly spreads his net for feebler insects, and then takes up his post in the centre, but perchance a passing bird picks him from his conspicuous station. 

I perceived for the first time, this afternoon, in one place, a slight mouldy scent. There are very few fungi in a dry summer like this.

The Uvularia sessilifolia is for the most part turned yellow, with large green fruit, or even withered and brown. 

Some medeola is quite withered. Perhaps they are somewhat frost-bitten. 

I see a goldfinch eating the seeds of the coarse barn yard grass, perched on it. It then goes off with a cool twitter. 

Notice arrowhead leaves very curiously eaten by some insect. They are dotted all over in lines with small roundish white scales, — which your nail will remove, and then a scar is seen beneath, — as if some juice had exuded from each puncture and then hardened. 

The first fall rain is a memorable occasion, when the river is raised and cooled, and the first crop of sere and yellow leaves falls. The air is cleared; the dog- days are over; sun-sparkles are seen on water; crickets sound more distinct; saw-grass reveals its spikes in the shorn fields; sparrows and bobolinks fly in flocks more and more. Farmers feel encouraged about their late potatoes and corn. Mill-wheels that have rested for want of water begin to revolve again. Meadow-haying is over. 

The first significant event (for a long time) was the frost of the 17th. That was the beginning of winter, the first summons to summer. Some of her forces succumbed to it. The second event was the rain of yesterday. 

My neighbor told me yesterday that about four inches of rain had fallen, for he sent his man for a pail that was left in the garden during the rain, and there was about four inches depth of water in it. I inquired if the pail had upright sides. "No," he said, "it was flaring ! ! " However, according to another, there was full four inches in a tub. 

Leersia or cut-grass in prime at Potter's holes. 

That first frost on the 17th was the first stroke of winter aiming at the scalp of summer. Like a stealthy and insidious aboriginal enemy, it made its assault just before daylight in some deep and far-away hollow and then silently withdrew. Few have seen the drooping plants, but the news of this stroke circulates rapidly through the village. Men communicate it with a tone of warning. The foe is gone by sunrise, but some fearful neighbors who have visited their potato and cranberry patches report this stroke. The implacable and irresistible foe to all this tender greenness is not far off, nor can we be sure, any month in the year, that some scout from his low camp may not strike down the tenderest of the children of summer. 

The earliest and latest frosts are not distinguishable. This foe will go on steadily increasing in strength and boldness, till his white camps will be pitched over all the fields, and we shall be compelled to take refuge in our strongholds, with some of summer's withered spoils stored up in barns, maintaining ourselves and our herds on the seeds and roots and withered grass which we have embarned. Men in anticipation of this time have been busily collecting and curing the green blades all the country over, while they have still some nutriment in them. Cattle and horses have been dragging homeward their winter's food.

A new plant, apparently Lycopodium inundatum, Hubbard's meadow-side, Drosera Flat, not out.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 26, 1859


Elder-berries have fairly begun to be ripe. See note to August 23, 1856 (Elder-berries, now looking purple, are weighing down the bushes along fences by their abundance. ")
  
Cornus sericea berries See August 28, 1856 ("The bright china-colored blue berries of the Cornus sericea begin to show themselves along the river. .”)

The creak of the mole cricket has a very afternoon sound. See August 23, 1857 ("The mole cricket nowadays"); August 22, 1856 ("The creak of the mole cricket is heard along the shore."); September 11, 1855 ("Loudly the mole cricket creaks by mid-afternoon.")

Viburnum nudum fruit has begun. See August 25, 1854 ("The Viburnum nudum berries, in various stages, — green, deep-pink, and also deep-blue, not purple or ripe, — are very abundant at Shadbush Meadow. They appear to be now in their prime and are quite sweet, but have a large seed. Interesting for the various colors on the same bush and in the same cluster.")

One of those large (I think yellow-marked) spiders. See September 12, 1858 ("They are the yellow-backed spider, commonly large and stout but of various sizes. I count sixty-four such webs there, and in each case the spider occupies the centre, head downward.")

A new plant, apparently Lycopodium inundatum. See August 28, 1860 ("The Lycopodium inundatum common by Harrington's mud-hole, Ministerial Swamp.") 

[Northern bog-clubmoss is by far the most common species of bog-clubmoss in New England.  The tops of the erect shoots are distinctively widened. Its diminutive size, thin horizontal shoots, and entire trophophylls (sterile leaves) quickly distinguish most populations; it frequently occurs in the absence of other species or hybrids. ~ GoBotany]

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Lycopodiums

A fine, springlike morning.

December 17.

9.30 A. M. — To Hill. 

A remarkably fine, springlike morning. 

The earth all bare; the sun so bright and warm; the steam curling up from every fence and roof, and carried off at an angle by the slight northwesterly air.

After those rainy days the air is apparently uncommonly clear, and hence (?) the sound of cock-crowing is so sweet, and I hear the sound of the sawmill even at the door, also the cawing of crows.

There is a little ice, which makes it as yet good walking, in the roads. 

The peculiar brightness and sunniness may be partly owing to the sun being reflected through the cleansed air from the more than russet, the bleached, surface of the earth. 

Methinks every squirrel will be out now. 

This is the morning. Ere long the wind will rise and this season will be over. There will probably be some wrack in the afternoon sky. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 17, 1855

After those rainy days the air is apparently uncommonly clear, and I hear the sound of the sawmill even at the door, also the cawing of crows. See March 15, 1854 ("The sound of Barrett's sawmill in the still morning comes over the water very loud.");April 15, 1856 ("I hear very distinctly Barrett’s sawmill at my landing."); May 8, 1857 ("I hear the sound of Barrett's sawmill with singular distinctness."); February 16, 1855 (" Sounds sweet and musical through this air, as crows, cocks, and striking on the rails at a distance.”) January 12, 1855 ("Perhaps what most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. . . .It is in the cawing of the crow, the crowing of the cock, the warmth of the sun on our backs. I hear faintly the cawing of a crow far, far away, echoing from some unseen wood-side. What a delicious sound! It is not merely crow calling to crow, for it speaks to me too. I am part of one great creature with him; if he has voice, I have ears. I can hear when he calls.”); See also December 31, 1853 (“I hear very distinctly from the railroad causeway the whistle of the locomotive on the Lowell road. . . . He that hath ears, let him hear. Sugar is not so sweet to the palate, as sound to the healthy ear.”);

Are there any finer days in the year than these?

September 22.

The river is peculiarly smooth and the water clear and sunny as I look from the stone bridge. A painted tortoise with his head out, outside of the weeds, looks as if resting in the air with head and flippers outstretched.

As I look off from the hilltop, wonder if there are any finer days in the year than these. The air is so fine and more bracing, and the landscape has acquired some fresh verdure withal. The frosts come to ripen the year, the days, like fruits. 

September 22, 2020

Crossing the hill behind Minott’s just as the sun is preparing to dip below the horizon, the thin haze in the atmosphere north and south along the west horizon reflects a purple tinge and bathes the mountains with the same, like a bloom on fruits. Is it not another evidence of the ripe days?

What if we were to walk by sunlight with equal abstraction and aloofness, yet with equally impartial observation and criticism. As if it shone not for you, nor you for it, but you had come forth into it for the nonce to admire it. 

By moonlight we are not of the earth earthy, but we are of the earth spiritual. So might we walk by sunlight, seeing the sun but as a moon, a comparatively faint and reflected light, and the day as a brooding night, in which we glimpse some stars still.

By moonlight all is simple. We are enabled to erect ourselves, our minds, on account of the fewness of objects. We are no longer distracted. It is simple as bread and water. It is simple as the rudiments of an art, — a lesson to be taken before sunlight, perchance, to prepare us for that.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 22, 1854

Any finer days in the year than these. The air is so fine and more bracing. See September 22, 1851 ("It is a beautifully clear and bracing air, with just enough coolness, full of the memory of frosty mornings."); See also September 18, 1858 ("It is a wonderful day."); September 18, 1860 ("If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow.");  September 20, 1851 ("This week we have had most glorious autumnal weather, - cool and cloudless, bright days . . . preceded by frosty mornings."); September 21, 1859 ("A peculiarly fine September day, looking toward the fall, warm and bright.") Also see A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

By moonlight all is simple. We are no longer distracted. See September 21, 1851 ("Moonlight is peculiarly favorable to reflection. It is a cold and dewy light in which the vapors of the day are condensed, and though the air is obscured by darkness, it is more clear.") See also A Book of the Seasons,by Henry Thoreau, September Moonlight

September 22. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 22

Now for bracing days

when frosts come to ripen the

year – the days – like fruit.

Are there any finer days

in the year than these?

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Are there any finer 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 © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-540922

The first frost last night

September 21. 

September 21, 2014

The first frost in our yard last night, the grass white and stiff in the morning. The muskmelon vines are now blackened in the sun. The forenoon is cold, and I have a fire, but it is a fine clear day, as I find when I come forth to walk in the afternoon. 

A fine-grained air, seething or shimmering as I look over the fields, reminds me of the Indian summer that is to come. Do not these days always succeed the first frosty mornings?

The red maples, especially at a distance, begin to light their fires, some turning yellow, and within the woods many oak, e.g. scarlet and black and chestnut, and other leaves begin to show their colors. 

With this bright, clear, but rather cool air the bright yellow of the autumnal dandelion is in harmony and the heads of the dilapidated goldenrods. 

The gentian is already frost-bitten almost as soon as it is open. 

Those pretty little white oak acorn stars of three rays are now quite common on the ground. 

Lobelia Dortmanna still out at Flint’s Pond. 

The pond is low near the bathing-rock. 

I hear many jays since the frosts began. The nuthatch is common in woods and on street. Hear the chewink and the cluck of the thrasher.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 21, 1854

The first frost in our 

yard last night the grass white and 

stiff in the morning.

See September 7, 1857 ("Our first slight frost in some places this morning. Northwest wind to-day and cool weather; such weather as we have not had for a long time, a new experience, which arouses a corresponding breeze in us."); September 11, 1854 ("This is a cold evening with a white twilight, and threatens frost, the first - in these respects- decidedly autumnal evening") ;  September 14, 1852 ("This morning the first frost"); September 15, 1851 ("Ice in the pail under the pump, and quite a frost . . .  the potato vines and the beans which were still green are now blackened and flattened by the frost."); September 15, 1859 ("This morning the first frost in the garden, killing some of our vines."); September 16, 1854 ("There have been a few slight frosts in some places. "); September 18, 1854 ("I see the potatoes all black with frosts that have occurred within a night or two in Moore’s Swamp."); September 20, 1851 ("On Monday of the present week water was frozen in a pail under the pump. . . .All tender herbs are flat in gardens and meadows. The cranberries, too, are touched.") ;September 20, 1855 ("First decisive frost, killing melons and beans, browning button-bushes and grape leaves.."); 

 September 22.

These bracing fine days

when frosts come to ripen the

year, the days, like fruit.

September 22, 1854

September 23.

The summer concludes

with the crisis of first frosts.

The end of berries.

September 23, 1854

September 26, 1858 ("Another smart frost, making dry walking amid the stiffened grass in the morning. "); September 28, 1860 ("This morning we had a very severe frost, the first to kill our vines, etc., in garden; what you may call a black frost, - making things look black. Also ice under pump."); September 29, 1860 ("Another hard frost and a very cold day."): September 30, 1860 ("Frost and ice."); October 1, 1852 ("A severer frost last night");. October 1, 1860 (“Remarkable frost and ice this morning; quite a wintry prospect. The leaves of trees stiff and white.”); October 2, 1853 ("The gentian in Hubbard's Close is frost-bitten extensively"); October 6, 1858 ("Most S. nemoralis, and most other goldenrods, now look hoary, killed by frost. The corn stands bleached and faded — quite white in the twilight"); .October 10, 1857 ("Certainly these are .the most brilliant days in the year, ushered in, perhaps, by a frosty morning, as this."); October 11, 1857 ("Another frost last night, although with fog, and this afternoon the maple and other leaves strew the water, and it is almost a leaf harvest."); October 11, 1859 ("There was a very severe frost this morning (ground stiffened)"); October 12, 1859 ("There are now apparently very few ferns left . . . This morning's frost will nearly finish them . . . We have now fairly begun to be surrounded with the brown of withered foliage.  . . This phenomenon begins with the very earliest frost (as this year August 17th), which kills some ferns and other most sensitive plants; and so gradually the plants, or their leaves, are killed and withered that we scarcely notice it till we are surrounded with the scenery of November."); October 13, 1860 ("Now, as soon as the frost strips the maples, and their leaves strew the swamp floor and conceal the pools,; October 15, 1853 ("Last night the first smart frost that I have witnessed. Ice formed under the pump, and the ground was white long after sunrise."); ; October 15, 1856 (“A smart frost . . . Ground stiffened in morning; ice seen.”); October 16, 1856 (“Ground all white with frost. ”); October 17, 1856 ("Frost has now within three or four days turned almost all flowers to woolly heads, — their November aspect"); October 19, 1856 ("The hypericums — the whole plant — have now generally been killed by the frost"); October 21, 1857 (“First ice that I’ve seen or heard of, a tenth of an inch thick in yard, and the ground is slightly frozen.”); October 21, 1852 ("Apparently some flowers yield to the frosts, others linger here and there till the snow buries them."); October 30, 1853(" A white frost this morning, lasting late into the day. This has settled the accounts of many plants which lingered still . . . What with the rains and frosts and winds, the leaves have fairly fallen now. You may say the fall has ended.")

The forenoon is cold, and I have a fire, but it is a fine clear day, as I find when I come forth to walk in the afternoon. See September 21, 1857 ("The warmth of the sun is just beginning to be appreciated again on the advent of cooler days.") See also August 29, 1854 ("I enjoy the warmth of the sun now that the air is cool, and Nature seems really more genial. ")

The autumnal dandelion. See September 13, 1856 ("Surprised at the profusion of autumnal dandelions in their prime on the top of the hill") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Autumnal Dandelion

The gentian is already frost-bitten almost as soon as it is open. See September 14, 1856 ("To Hubbard's Close. Fringed gentian well out (and some withered or frost-bitten ?), say a week, though there was none to be seen here August 27th. "); October 2, 1853 ("The gentian in Hubbard's Close is frost-bitten extensively."); October 2, 1857 ("The fringed gentian at Hubbard's Close has been out some time, and most of it already withered"); October 17, 1856 ("Many fringed gentians quite fresh yet, though most are faded and withered. I suspect that their very early and sudden fading and withering has nothing, or little, to do with frost after all, for why should so many fresh ones succeed still? My pressed ones have all faded in like manner! !"); October 19, 1852 ("I found the fringed gentian now some what stale and touched by frost,"); October 27, 1855 ("There are many fringed gentians, now considerably frost-bitten, in what was E. Hosmer’s meadow between his dam and the road.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: The Fringed Gentian

September 19. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, September 21

The first frost last night –

cold but a fine clear day for

an afternoon walk.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The first frost last night

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 © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-540921

To gaze in any direction and see with new pleasure to distant hillsides and farmhouses and to the mountains in the horizon.

August 30

Another great fog this morning, which lasts till 8.30. After so much dry and warm weather, cool weather has suddenly come, and this has produced these two larger fogs than for a long time.

August 30, 2013

The clearness of the air makes it delicious to gaze in any direction. Though there has been no rain, the valleys are emptied of haze, and I see with new pleasure to distant hillsides and farmhouses and a river-reach shining in the sun, and to the mountains in the horizon. Coolness and clarity go together.

I go along through J. Hosmer's meadow near the river, it is so dry. I walk dry-shod quite to the phalanxes of bulrushes of a handsome blue-green glaucous color. The colors of the rainbow rush are now pretty bright. 

Blue-eyed grass still. Dogwood leaves have fairly begun to turn. A few small maples are scarlet along the meadow. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 30, 1854

The valleys are emptied of haze, and I see with new pleasure to distant hillsides and farmhouses and a river-reach shining in the sun, and to the mountains in the horizon. See August 25, 1854 (“I think I never saw the haze so thick as now . . . The sun is shorn of his beams by the haze before 5 o'clock P.M., round and red, and is soon completely concealed, apparently by the haze alone.”); August 22, 1854 (“The haze, accompanied by much wind, is so thick this forenoon that the sun is obscured as by a cloud. I see no rays of sunlight.. . . The haze is so thick that we can hardly see more than a mile.”); August 19, 1854 (“There is such a haze we see not further than our Annursnack, which is blue as a mountain.”); August 13, 1854 ("Now the mountains are concealed by the dog-day haze.”)

Blue-eyed grass still. See See A Book of the Seasons, blue-eyed grass

August 30. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 30

Coolness 

and clarity 

go together

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Coolness and clarity go together.

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-540830

I enjoy the warmth of the sun now that the air is cool

August 29.

It is a great pleasure to walk in this clearer atmosphere, though cooler. 

August 29, 2016

How great a change, and how sudden, from that sultry and remarkably hazy atmosphere to this clear, cool autumnal one, in which all things shine, and distance is restored to us! It is so cool that we are inclined to stand round the kitchen fire a little while these mornings, though we sit and sleep with open windows still.

The cymes of elder-berries, black with fruit, are now conspicuous. I see a boy already raking cranberries. The moss rose hips will be quite ripe in a day or two. Many birds nowadays resort to the wild black cherry tree, as here front of Tarbell's. I see them continually coming and going directly from and to a great distance, — cherry birds, robins, and kingbirds.

At Clamshell Bank the barn swallows are very lively, filling the air with their twittering now, at 6 p.m. They rest on the dry mullein-tops, then suddenly all start off together as with one impulse and skim about over the river, hill, and meadow. Some sit on the bare twigs of a dead apple tree. Are they not gathering for their migration?

I enjoy the warmth of the sun now that the air is cool, and Nature seems really more genial. I love to sit on the withered grass on the sunny side of the wall. My mistress is at a more respectful distance, for, by the coolness of the air, I am more continent in my thought and held aloof from her, while by the genial warmth of the sun I am more than ever attracted to her. 

Early for several mornings I have heard the sound of a flail.  It leads me to ask if I have spent as industrious a spring and summer as the farmer, and gathered as rich a crop of experience.

If so, the sound of my flail will be heard by those who have ears to hear, separating the kernel from the chaff all the fall and winter, and a sound no less cheering it will be . . .  

Have you commenced to thresh your grain? 

The lecturer must commence his threshing as early as August, that his fine flour may be ready for his winter customers. The fall rains will make full springs and raise his streams sufficiently to grind his grist. We shall hear the sound of his flail all the fall, early and late.

For him there is no husking-bee, but he does it all alone and by hand, at evening by lamplight, with the barn door shut and only the pile of husks behind him for warmth. For him, too, I fear there is no patent corn-sheller, but he does his work by hand, ear by ear, on the edge of a shovel over a bushel, on his hearth, and after he takes up a handful of the yellow grain and lets it fall again, while he blows out the chaff; and he goes to bed happy when his measure is full. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 29, 1854

It is so cool that we are inclined to stand round the kitchen fire . See  August 29, 1859 ("It is so cool a morning that for the first time I move into the entry to sit in the sun.") .See also  September 11, 1853 "Cool weather. Sit with windows shut, and many by fires. . . .The air has got an autumnal coolness which it will not get rid of again.")

The sound of a flail . . . leads me to ask if I have spent as industrious a spring and summer as the farmer, and gathered as rich a crop of experience. See August 9, 1853 ("This is the season of small fruits. I trust, too, that I am maturing some small fruit as palatable in these months, which will communicate my flavor to my kind."); August 18, 1853 (“The season of flowers or of promise may be said to be over, and now is the season of fruits; but where is our fruit?") July 31, 1856 ("I hear the distant sound of a flail, and thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years."); August 18, 1856 ("It reminds me of past autumns and the lapse of time, suggests a pleasing, thoughtful melancholy, like the sound of the flail"); September 13,1858 ("From many a barn these days I hear the sound of the flail.") September 14, 1859 ("Now all things suggest fruit and the harvest, and flowers look late, and for some time the sound of the flail has been heard in the barns."); October 31, 1860 ("I hear the sound of the flailing . . . and gradually draw near to it from the woods, thinking many things")

August 29. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 29

How sudden a change

this clear cool autumnal air

in which all things shine.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, I enjoy the warmth of the sun now that the air is cool

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 ©  2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-540829

By Great Meadows and Bedford meadows to Carlisle Bridge; back by Carlisle and Concord side across lots to schoolhouse.

August 28, 2014

August 28. 









Much cooler this morning, making us think of fire. This is gradually clearing the atmosphere, and, as it is about as dry as ever, I think that haze was not smoke; quite as dry as yesterday.  

P. M. By Great Meadows and Bedford meadows to Carlisle Bridge; back by Carlisle and Concord side across lots to schoolhouse.  Improve the continued drought to go through the meadows . 

August 28, 2014

There is a cool east wind (it has been east a good deal lately in this drought), which has cleared the air wonderfully, revealing the long-concealed woods and hills in the horizon and making me think of November even. 

And now that I am going along the path to the meadow in the woods beyond Peter's, I perceive the fall shine on the leaves and earth.  A great deal of light is reflected through the clearer air, which has also a vein of coolness in it. 

The farmers improve this dry spell to cut ditches and dig mud in the meadows and pond-holes. I see their black heaps in many places. 

The meadow is drier than ever, and new pools are dried up. The breams, from one to two and a half inches long, lying on the sides and quirking from time to time, a dozen together where there is but a pint of water on the mud, are a handsome but sad sight, — pretty green jewels, dying in the sun. 

I saved a dozen or more by putting them in deeper pools. 

The muddy bottom of these pools dried up is cracked into a sort of regular crystals. In the soft mud, the tracks of the great bittern and the blue heron. Scared up one of the former and saw a small dipper on the river. 

We did not come to a fence or wall for about four miles this afternoon. Heard some large hawks whistling much like a boy high over the meadow. 

In my experience, at least of late years, all that depresses a man's spirits is the sense of remissness, — duties neglected, unfaithfulness, — or shamming, impurity, falsehood, selfishness, inhumanity, and the like. 

August 28, 2014

From the experience of late years I should say that a man's seed was the direct tax of his race. It stands for my sympathy with my race. When the brain chiefly is nourished, and not the affections, the seed becomes merely excremental. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 28, 1854

I saved a dozen or more by putting them in deeper pools. See April 22, 1857 (“Near Tall's Island, rescue a little pale or yellowish brown snake that was coiled round a willow half a dozen rods from the shore . . . ”); June 6, 1856 (“In the large circular hole or cellar at the turntable on the railroad, which they are repairing, I see a star-nosed mole endeavoring in vain to bury himself in the sandy and gravelly bottom. Some inhuman fellow has cut off his tail. I carry him along to plowed ground, where he buries himself in a minute or two.”); July 23, 1856 ("Saw . . . a small bullfrog in the act of swallowing a young but pretty sizable apparently Rana palustris, . . . I sprang to make him disgorge, but it was too late to save him. "); May 19, 1856 ("saw a small striped snake in the act of swallowing a Rana palustris, within three feet of the water. The snake, being frightened, released his hold, and the frog hopped off to the water. "); August 23, 1851("I saw a snake by the roadside and touched him with my foot to see if he were alive.He had a toad in his jaws, which he was preparing to swallow with his jaws distended to three times his width, but he relinquished his prey in haste and fled; and I thought, as the toad jumped leisurely away with his slime-covered hind-quarters glistening in the sun, as if I, his deliverer, wished to interrupt his meditations, — without a shriek or fainting, — I thought what a healthy indifference he manifested. Is not this the broad earth still? he said.")

I see from this hill

July 1.

From the hill I perceive that the air is beautifully clear after the rain of yesterday, and not hot; fine grained. The landscape is fine as behind a glass, the horizon-edge distinct. The distant vales toward the northwest mountains lie up open and clear.  The shadows of trees are dark and distinct.

On the river I see the two broad borders of pads reflecting the light, the dividing line between them and the water, their irregular edge, perfectly distinct. 

The clouds are separate glowing masses or blocks floating in the sky, not threatening rain. I see from this hill their great shadows pass slowly here and there over the top of the green forest. 

Later a breeze rises and there is a sparkle on the river. The wood thrush and tanager sing at 4 P.M. at Cliffs.

July 1, 2014

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 1, 1854


The landscape is fine as behind a glass. See February 9, 1852 ("It is a new glass placed over the picture every hour.")

The distant vales toward the northwest mountains lie up open and clear. See June 25, 1852 ("The mountain outline is remarkably distinct, and the intermediate earth appears more than usually scooped out, like a vast saucer sloping up ward to its sharp mountain rim.") Compare July 11, 1857 (“Looking off into the vales from Fair Haven Hill, where a thin blue haze now rests almost universally, I see that the earth itself is invested with a glaucous bloom at this season.”); May 24, 1860 (“Looking into the northwest horizon, I see that Wachusett is partially concealed by a haze. This is one of the values of mountains in the horizon, that they indicate the state of the atmosphere.”); see also August 2, 1852 (“To look across hence to that blue rim of the earth, and be reminded of the invisible towns and communities, . . . which lie in the further and deeper hollows between me and those hills. . . ., and be reminded how many brave and contented lives are lived between me and the horizon.); March 28, 1858 (. On ascending the hill next his home, every man finds that he dwells in a shallow concavity whose sheltering walls are the convex surface of the earth, beyond which he cannot see. .”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Mountains in the Horizon; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Seen from a Hillside

The shadows of trees are dark and distinct.  See  June 11, 1856 ("I think that this peculiar darkness of the shade, or of the foliage as seen between you and the sky, is not accounted for merely by saying that we have not yet got accustomed to clothed trees, but the leaves are rapidly acquiring a darker green, are more and more opaque, and, besides, the sky is lit with the intensest light.”); Compare June 30, 1860 ("The shadows under the edge of woods are less noticed now because the woods themselves are darker.”)

The clouds are separate glowing masses or blocks floating in the sky. See July 23, 1851 ("The mind is subject to moods, as the shadows of clouds pass over the earth. "); March 22, 1858("No doubt the season is to be detected by the aspect of the clouds no less than by that of the earth."); June 24, 1852 ("The drifting w;ite downy clouds are objects of a large, diffusive interest . . . Far away they float in the serene sky, the most inoffensive of objects. What could a man learn by watching the clouds? ")

I see from this hill their great shadows pass slowly here and there over the top of the green forest. See July 1, 1852 ("It is pleasant to behold so much of the landscape in the shadow of the clouds ") See also June 3, 1858 ("It was interesting to watch from that height the shadows of fair-weather clouds passing over the landscape."); July 27, 1852 ("It is pleasing to behold at this season contrasted shade and sunshine on the side of neighboring hills.")

The wood thrush and tanager sing. See July 10, 1854 ("The singing birds at present are . . . Red-eye, tanager, wood thrush, chewink, veery, oven-bird, — all even at midday.");  July 13, 1854(" hear the hot-weather and noonday birds, -- red eye, tanager, wood pewee, etc. ").

I see from this hill 

the horizon-edge distinct 

clear air after rain. 

Shadows pass slowly 

over the green forest top 

clouds floating in sky. 

A late breeze rises 

wood thrush and tanager sing 

sparkling the river.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, I see from this hill 

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 ©  2009-2024

tinyurl.com/hdt-540701