The dog lies with his paws hanging over the door-sill this agreeably cool morning.

May 30.

May 30, 2014

The morning wind forever blows; the poem of the world is uninterrupted, but few are the ears that hear it.

Forever that strain of the harp which soothed the Cerberus and called me back to life is sounding.

Olympus is the outside of the earth everywhere.

5 A. M. To Cliffs.

High blackberry out.

As I go by Hayden's in the still cool morning, the farmer's door is open — probably his cattle have been attended to — and the odor of the bacon which is being fried for his breakfast fills the air.

The dog lies with his paws hanging over the door-sill this agreeably cool morning.

The cistus out, probably yesterday, a simple and delicate flower, its stamens all swept to one side. It upholds a delicate saffron-golden (?) basin about nine inches from the ground.

As I look off from Fair Haven I perceive that that downy, silvery hoariness has mostly left the leaves (it now comes off on to the clothes), and they are of a uniform smooth light green, while the pines are a dirty dark brown, almost purple, and are mostly merged and lost in the deciduous trees.

The Erigeron bellidifolius is a tender-looking, pale-purple, aster-like flower a foot high in little squads, nodding in the wind on the bare slopes of hill pastures.

Young bush like black cherries a day or two, on Cliffs and in such favorable places.

The hylodes were about done peeping before those last few warm days, — when the toads began in earnest in the river, — but last night being somewhat cooler they were not so loud.

P. M. - To Carlisle Bridge by boat.

A strong but somewhat gusty southerly wind, before which C. and I sailed all the way from home to Carlisle Bridge in not far from an hour; the river unusually high for the season.

Very pleasant to feel the strong, fresh southerly wind from over the water.

There are no clouds in the sky, but a high haziness, as if the moisture drawn up by yesterday's heat was condensed by to-day's comparative coolness.

The water a dull slate-color and waves running high, — a dirty yellow where they break, — and long streaks of white foam, six or eight feet apart, stretching north and south between Concord and Bedford, — without end.

The common blue flag just out at Ball's Hill.

The white maples, especially those shaped like large bushes, on the banks are now full of foliage, showing the white under sides of the leaves in the wind, and the swamp white oak, having similar silvery under sides to its leaves, and both growing abundantly and prevailing here along the river, make or impart a peculiar flashing light to the scenery in windy weather, all bright, flashing, and cheerful.

On the meadows are large yellow-green patches of ferns beginning to prevail.

Passed a large boat anchored off in the meadows not far from the boundary of Concord. It was quite a piece of ocean scenery, we saw it so long before reaching it and so long after; and it looked larger than reality, what with the roaring of the wind in our shrouds and the dashing of the waves. The incessant drifting about of a boat so anchored by a long cable, playing with its halter, now showing more, now less, of its side, is a pleasing sight.

Landed at a high lupine bank by Carlisle Bridge. How many such lupine banks there are! — whose blue you detect many rods off.

There I found, methinks, minute Specularia perfoliata, with small crenate clasping leaves alternate at some distance apart, on upright stems about three inches high, but apparently fruiting in the bud.

Also the Silene antirrhina very abundant there.

The Viola palmata, which is later, and therefore, methinks, fresher than most, is now quite prevalent, one of the most common, in fact, in low ground and a very handsome purple, with more red than usual in its violet.

The pines now dotted with white shoots, the pitch pines a little red dish, are an interesting sight now.

Whence came all those dead suckers, a dozen at least, which we saw floating to-day, some on their sides, transversely barred, some on their backs with their white bellies up and dark fins on each side? Why are they suckers only that we see Can it be because the spearers have thrown them away? Or has some bird of prey dropped them? I rarely see other fish floating.

Melvin gave George Brooks some pink azaleas yesterday, said to have grown in the north part of the town.

The white maple keys falling and covering the river.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 30, 1853

The Erigeron bellidifolius is a tender-looking, pale-purple, aster-like flower a foot high in little squads, nodding in the wind on the bare slopes of hill pastures. See May 29, 1856 ("What a flowery place, a vale of Enna, is that meadow! Painted Cup, Erigeron bellidifolius, Thalictrum dioicum, Viola Muhlenbergii, fringed polygala, buck-bean, pedicularis, orobanche, etc., etc. Where you find a rare flower, expect to find more rare ones”); May 8, 1853 ("It is wonderful what a variety of flowers may grow within the range of a walk, and how long some very conspicuous ones may escape the most diligent walker, if you do not chance to visit their localities the right week or fortnight, when their signs are out.")

The common blue flag just out at Ball's Hill. See June 10, 1858 ("Common blue flag, how long?"); June 14, 1853  ("The blue flag (Iris versicolor) grows in this pure water, rising from the stony bottom all around the shores, and is very beautiful, . . . especially its reflections in the water.; June 15, 1859 ("Blue flag abundant."); June 30,1851 ("The blue flag (Iris versicolor) enlivens the meadow.”)

The Viola palmata, which is later, and therefore, methinks, fresher than most, is now quite prevalent. See May 30, 1852 ("Violets everywhere spot the meadows, some more purple, some more lilac. . . . Distinguished the Viola palmata in Hubbard's meadow") See also May 14, 1858 ("Saw the Viola palmata, early form, yesterday; how long?”); May 17, 1853 ("The Viola palmata is out there, in the meadow. ");  May 21, 1855 ("Viola palmata  pretty common, apparently two or three days.") and A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Violets

Whence came all those dead suckers? See April 18, 1852 ("The sight of the sucker floating on the meadow at this season affects me singularly"); May 23, 1854 ("How many springs shall I continue to see the common sucker (Catostomus Bostoniensis) floating dead on our river!"); ("When I realize that the mortality of suckers in the spring is as old a phenomenon, perchance, as the race of suckers itself, I contemplate it with serenity and joy even, as one of the signs of spring")

Melvin gave George Brooks some pink azaleas yesterday, See May 31, 1853 (' I am going in search of the Azalea nudiflora. Sophia brought home a single flower without twig or leaf from Mrs. Brooks's last evening. Mrs. Brooks. I find, has a large twig in a vase of water, still pretty fresh, which she says George Melvin gave to her son George. . . . Melvin and I and his dog, - and crossed the river in his boat, and he conducted me to where the Azalea nudiflora grew.")

The white maple keys falling and covering the river. See May 21, 1853 ("The white maple keys are nearly two inches long by a half-inch wide, in pairs, with waved inner edges like green moths ready to bear off their seeds"); May 28, 1858 ("See already one or two (?) white maple keys on the water"); May 29, 1854 ("The white maple keys have begun to fall and float down the stream like the wings of great insects.”); June 9, 1858 ("White maple keys are abundantly floating.")

May 30 See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 30

The dog lies with his 

paws hanging over the door–

–sill this cool morning.

 uninterrupted –

morning wind forever blows

poem of the world 

    

 

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 © 2009-2026

The civility of one's ancestors II.

May 8


P. M. – To Annursnack.

A long row of elms just set out by Wheeler from his  gate to the old Lee place.

The planting of so long a row of trees which are so stately and may endure so long deserves to be recorded. In many localities a much shorter row, or even a few scattered trees, set out sixty or a hundred years since, is the most conspicuous as well as interesting relic of the past in sight.

Nothing more proves the civility of one's ancestors.

The Ribes floridum, wild black currant, just begun by the wooden bridge just this side of the Assabet stone bridge, with dotted leaves.

The thimble-berry and high blackberry leaves are among the most forward.

That large reddish-stemmed cornel shows now narrow green buds tipped with reddish, three quarters of an inch long by one quarter wide.

Some thrashers are plainly better singers than others.

How surprising and interesting this cluster of leek buds on the rock in the Jesse Hosmer farm, composed of thick, succulent green leaves, cactus-like, tipped with dull purple, in buds from a half-inch to three inches in diameter! What tenacity of life! Its leaves so disposed (from circumference to centre) as to break joints.

Some place it on a gate-post to grow high and dry above the earth for a curiosity. It may be a convenient symbol.

At the foot of Annursnack, rising from the Jesse Hosmer meadow, was surprised by the brilliant pale scarlet flowers of the painted-cup (Castilleja coccinea) just coming into bloom. Some may have been out a day or two.

Methinks this the most high-colored and brilliant flower yet, not excepting the columbine. In color it matches Sophia's cactus blossoms exactly. It is all the more interesting for being a painted leaf and not petal, and its spidery leaves, pinnatifid with linear divisions, increase its strangeness.

It is now from three to six inches high, rising from the moist base of the hill.

It is wonderful what a variety of flowers may grow within the range of a walk, and how long some very conspicuous ones may escape the most diligent walker, if you do not chance to visit their localities the right week or fortnight, when their signs are out.

It is a flaming leaf. The very leaf has flowered; not the ripe tints of autumn, but the rose in the cheek of infancy; a more positive flowering.

Still more abundant on the same ground was the Erigeron bellidifolius, robin's-plantain,  with a pale-purple ray still erect, like a small thimble, not yet horizontal. This, then, its very earliest date.

Neither of these did I see last year, and I was affected as if I had got into a new botanical district.

A kind of mint, shoots now six or eight inches high, with a velvety purple or lake under surface to leaves.

They have cut off the woods, and with them the shad-bush, on the top of Annursnack, but laid open new and wider prospects.

The landscape is in some respects more interesting because of the overcast sky, threatening rain; a cold southwest wind.

I am struck and charmed by the quantity of forest, especially in the southwest, after having witnessed the bareness of the Haverhill country. It is as if every farmer had a beautiful garden and boundless plantations of trees and shrubs, such as no imperial wealth can surpass. 

The pyramidal pine-tops are now seen rising out of a reddish mistiness of the deciduous trees just bursting into leaf. A week ago the deciduous woods had not this misty look, and the evergreens were more sharply divided from them, but now they have the appearance of being merged in or buoyed up in a mist.

I am not  sure what is the cause of the reddish line around the lower edges of the wood. It is plainly the red maple, and in many places, no doubt, the shrub oak. The oaks are plainly more gray already and some trees greenish. Vide again after a week.

The catkins of the black birch appear more advanced than those of the white birch. They are very large, four inches long, half a dozen gracefully drooping at the ends of the twigs bent down by their weight, conspicuous at a distance in wisps, as if dry leaves left on, very rich golden.

black birch catkins

May 9, 2015

The yellow birch is the first I have noticed fully in bloom, — considerably in advance of the others. Its flowers smell like its bark.

Methinks the black and the paper birch next, and then the white, or all nearly together.

The leaves of the papyracea unfold like a fan and are sticky. How fresh and glossy !And the catkins I gather shed pollen the next morning.

Some hickory buds are nearly two inches long.

The handsome finely divided leaves of the pedicularis are conspicuous. It is now budded amid the painted-cups.

The fruit of the Populus grandidentata appears puffed up and blasted into a large bright yellow ( sic ), like some plums some seasons.

The thorn bushes have so far leaved out on the north side of Annursnack as to reveal their forms, as I look up the hill and see them against the light. They are remarkably uniform, somewhat like this, the leading shoot finally rising above the rest, somewhat like a broad poplar.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 8, 1853

 See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 8

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 ©  2009-2021

Surprised by the brilliant pale scarlet flowers of the painted-cup (Castilleja coccinea) just coming into bloom. See note to June 3, 1853 ("The painted-cup is in its prime. It is a splendid show of brilliant scarlet, It might be called flame-flower, or scarlet-tip. Here is a large meadow full of it, and yet very few in the town have ever seen it.")

The catkins of the black birch gracefully drooping at the ends of the twigs bent down by their weight, conspicuous at a distance in wisps, very rich golden. See May 12, 1853 ("The black birch is now a beautiful sight, its long, slender, bushy branches waving in the wind ( the leaf-buds but just beginning to unfold ), with countless little tassel like bunches of five or six golden catkins, spotted with brown and three inches long, one bunch at the end of each drooping twig, hanging straight down, or dangling like heads of rye, or blown off at various angles with the horizon."); May 17, 1856 ("The bunches of numerous rich golden catkins, hanging straight down on all sides and trembling in the breeze, contrast agreeably with the graceful attitude of the tree, commonly more or less inclined.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Birches in Season

Some thrashers are plainly better singers than others. See May 3, 1852 ("Hear the first brown thrasher, — two of them. They drown all the rest. He says cherruwit, cherruwit ; go ahead, go ahead; give it to him, give it to him");  May 4, 1859 ("We hear a thrasher sing for half an hour steadily, — a very rich singer and heard a quarter of a mile off very distinctly"); May 12, 1855 (The brown thrasher is a powerful singer; he is a quarter of a mile off across the river, when he sounded within fifteen rods"")

The fruit of the Populus grandidentata appears puffed up. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,the Big-toothed Aspen 

In Beck Stow’s Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia

July 14.

Heavy fog. 

I see a rose, now in its prime, by the river, in the water amid the willows and button-bushes, while others, lower on shore, are nearly out of bloom.

Is it not the R. Carolina?

Saw something blue, or glaucous, in Beck Stow’s Swamp to-day; approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia, in the midst of the swamp at the north end, not long since out of bloom. 

This is another instance of a common experience. When I am shown from abroad, or hear of, or in any [way] become interested in, some plant or other thing, I am pretty sure to find it soon. 

Within a week R. W. E. showed me a slip of this in a botany, as a great rarity which George Bradford brought from Watertown. I had long been interested in it by Linnæus’s account. I now find it in abundance. 

Andromeda Polifolia

It is a neat and tender-looking plant, with the pearly new shoots now half a dozen inches long and the singular narrow revolute leaves. I suspect the flower does not add much to it.

There is an abundance of the buck-bean there also. 

Holly berries are beginning to be ripe. 

The Polygonum Hydropiper, by to-morrow. 

Spergula arvensis gone to seed and in flower. 

A very tall ragged orchis by the Heywood Brook, two feet high, almost like a white fringed one. Lower ones I have seen some time. 

The clematis there (near the water-plantain) will open in a day or two.  

Mallows gone to seed and in bloom.

Erigeron Canadensis, butter-weed. 

 H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 14, 1853

In Beck Stow’s Swamp to-day approached and discovered the Andromeda Polifolia. See February 17, 1854 ("In the open part of Gowing's Swamp I find the Andromeda Polifolia. Neither here nor in Beck Stow's does it grow very near the shore. . . . in the middle or deepest part will be an open space not yet quite given up to water, where the Andromeda calyculata and a few A. Polifolia reign almost alone. These are pleasing gardens.”); May 24, 1854 ("Surprised to find the Andromeda Polifolia in bloom and apparently past its prime. . .A timid botanist would never pluck it."); November 15,1857 ("At C. Miles Swamp [Ledum Swamp] [f]ind plenty of Andromeda Polifolia ... where you can walk dry-shod in the spruce wood”); See also February 12, 1858 ("There is, apparently, more of the Andromeda Polifolia in [C.Miles] swamp than anywhere else in Concord."); November 23, 1857 ("This [Gowing's] swamp appears not to have had any natural outlet, though an artificial one has been dug. The same is perhaps the case with the C. Miles Swamp. And is it so with Beck Stow's These three are the only places where I have found the Andromeda Polifolia."). See also  Vascular Flora of Concord, Massachusetts

This is another instance of a common experience. When I become interested in some plant or other thing, I am pretty sure to find it soon. See  May 31, 1853 ("The fact that a rare and beautiful flower which we never saw. . . may be found in our immediate neighborhood, is very suggestive."); August 23, 1854 (“I find a new cranberry on the sphagnum amid the A. calyculata, — V. Oxycoccus . . .It has small, now purplish-dotted fruit, flat on the sphagnum, some turned scarlet partly, on terminal peduncles, with slender, thread-like stems and small leaves strongly revolute on the edges.”); January 9, 1855 (“Make a splendid discovery this afternoon. Walking through Holden’s white spruce swamp, I see peeping above the snow-crust some slender delicate evergreen shoots very much like the Andromeda Polifolia, amid sphagnum, lambkill, Andromeda calyculata, blueberry bushes, etc., though there is very little to be seen above the snow. It is, I have little doubt, the Kalmia glauca var. rosmarinifolia.”); August 30, 1856 ("I have come out this afternoon a-cranberrying, chiefly to gather some of the small cranberry, Vaccinium Oxycoccus . . . “I noticed also a few small peculiar-looking huckleberries hanging on bushes amid the sphagnum, and, tasting, perceived that they were hispid, a new kind to me. Gaylussacia dumosa var. hirtella . . .. Has a small black hairy or hispid berry, shining but insipid and inedible, with a tough, hairy skin left in the mouth.”);  September 2, 1856 ("It commonly chances that I make my most interesting botanical discoveries when I am in a thrilled and expectant mood, perhaps wading in some remote swamp where I have just found something novel and feel more than usually remote from the town. Or some rare plant which for some reason has occupied a strangely prominent place in my thoughts for some time will present itself. My expectation ripens to discovery. I am prepared for strange things."); February 4, 1858 ("It is a remarkable fact that, in the case of the most interesting plants which I have discovered in this vicinity, I have anticipated finding them perhaps a year before the discovery.") November 4, 1858 ("We cannot see any thing until we are possessed with the idea of it, and then we can hardly see anything else. In my botanical rambles I find that first the idea, or image, of a plant occupies my thoughts, though it may at first seem very foreign to this locality, and for some weeks or months I go thinking of it and expecting it unconsciously, and at length I surely see it, and it is henceforth an actual neighbor of mine. This is the history of my finding a score or more of rare plants which I could name.”); August 22, 1860 ("I never find a remarkable Indian relic but I have first divined its existence, and planned the discovery of it. Frequently I have told myself distinctly what it was to be before I found it.") See also  January 27, 1857 ("The most poetic and truest account of objects is generally by those who first observe them, or the discoverers of them, whether a sharper perception and curiosity in them led to the discovery or the greater novelty more inspired their report.")

Beck Stow's Swamp. See July 17, 1852 ("Beck Stow's Swamp! What an incredible spot to think of in town or city! When life looks sandy and barren, is reduced to its lowest terms, we have no appetite, and it has no flavor, then let me visit such a swamp as this, deep and impenetrable, where the earth quakes for a rod around you at every step, with its open water where the swallows skim and twitter, its meadow and cotton-grass, its dense patches of dwarf andromeda, now brownish-green, with clumps of blue berry bushes, its spruces and its verdurous border of woods imbowering it on every side. ") A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  at Beck Stow's Swamp. 

There is an abundance of the buck-bean there also See August 30, 1856 ("Consider how remote and novel that [Gowings] swamp. Beneath it is a quaking bed of sphagnum, and in it grow Andromeda Polifolia, Kalmia glauca, menyanthes (or buck -bean), Gaylussacia dumosa, Vaccinium Oxycoccus, — plants which scarcely a citizen of Concord ever sees.”) See also  May 29, 1856 (" Where you find a rare flower, expect to find more rare ones”)

A very tall ragged orchis by the Heywood Brook, two feet high, almost like a white fringed one. See July 21, 1851 ("The ragged orchis on Conantum."); July 13, 1856 ("Orchis lacera, apparently several days, lower part of spike, willow-row, Hubbard side, opposite Wheildon's land.")

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 January 26, 1853 ("Now I go a-fishing and a-hunting every day, but omit the fish and the game  which are the least important part. ");  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. ")

At length the fisher

leaves rod behind and angles

for the pond itself.

Was that country really designed by its Maker to produce slaves and tobacco?

June 8  Thursday.

A. M. — Gentle, steady rain storm.

The Rosa nitida bud which I plucked yesterday has blossomed to-day, so that, notwithstanding the rain, I will put it down to to-day.

P. M. – On river.

Sidesaddle, apparently to-morrow (?).

Earliest and common potamogeton.

Erigeron strigosus slowly opening, perhaps to-morrow.

Meadow-rue, with its rank dog-like scent.

Ribwort plantain is abundantly in bloom, fifteen or sixteen inches high; how long?

Utricularia vulgaris.

Young robins in nest.

June 8, 2024

Herndon, in his ”Exploration of the Amazon,” says that ”there is wanting an industrious and active population, who know what the comforts of life are, and who have artificial wants to draw out the great resources of the country.”

But what are the ”artificial wants” to be encouraged, and the ”great resources” of a country?

Surely not the love of luxuries like the tobacco and slaves of his native (?) Virginia, or that fertility of soil which produces these. The chief want is ever a life of deep experiences, – that is, character, — which alone draws out ”the great resources” of Nature.

When our wants cease to be chiefly superficial and trivial, which is commonly meant by artificial, and begin to be wants of character, then the great resources of a country are taxed and drawn out, and the result, the staple production, is poetry.

Have the ”great resources” of Virginia been drawn out by such ”artificial wants” as there exist? Was that country really designed by its Maker to produce slaves and tobacco, or something more even than freemen and food for freemen? 

Wants of character, aspirations, — this is what is wanted; but what is called civilization does not always substitute this for the barren simplicity of the savage.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 8, 1854


The Rosa nitida bud which I plucked yesterday has blossomed to-day See June 15, 1853 (“ I bring home the buds ready to expand, put them in a pitcher of water, and the next morning they open and fill my chamber with fragrance.”) [Rosa nitida (Shining rose) is a wild rose found in bogs, swamps, and wet thickets, which reaches the southern edge of its range in southern New England. It produces bright pink flowers in June and July that are 2 inches across,The stems are covered in many slender, straight prickles (unlike a similar wetland rose, R. palustris). The leaves are lustrous on both sides. ~GoBotany]. See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Rose

Sidesaddle, apparently to-morrow. See June 8, 1858 ("The sidesaddle-flower is out, — how long?") and note to June 12, 1856  (''Sidesaddle flower numerously out now.")  [Sarracenia purpurea, also known as the purple pitcher plant or northern pitcher plant, the only pitcher plant native to New England. ]  See also A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, The Purple Pitcher Plant

The chief want is ever a life of deep experiences, which alone draws out ”the great resources” of Nature. See May 23, 1841 ("All nature is a new impression every instant"); May 10, 1853 ("He is the richest who has most use for nature as raw material of tropes and symbols with which to describe his life. ... If I am overflowing with life, am rich in experience for which I lack expression, then nature will be my language full of poetry,. . .I pray for such inward experience as will make nature significant”); May 23, 1853 ("The poet must bring to Nature the smooth mirror in which she is to be reflected.");  August 30, 1856 ("I get my new experiences . . . at Beck Stow's Swamp listening to the native wood thrush.”); October 18, 1856  ("T]he theme is nothing, the life is everything. All that interests the reader is the depth and intensity of the life excited. . . . That is, man is all in all, Nature nothing, but as she draws him out and reflects him.”); October 26, 1857 ("The perfect correspondence of Nature to man, so that he is at home in her!")

June 8, See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 8

Rosa nitida 

the bud I plucked yesterday 

has blossomed to-day 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Rosa nitida bud 

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-540608

A fine view of the Connecticut valley from the hilltop

September 11

P. M. — Walked over what Alcott calls Farm Hill, east of his house. 

Erigeron annuus, four feet high, by roadside; also Ranunculus Pennsylvanicus, or bristly crowfoot, still in bloom. Vide press. 

A fine view of the Connecticut valley from the hilltop, and of Ascutney Mountain, but not of Monadnock. Descended a steep side of the hill by a cow-path, made with great judgment regularly zigzag, well worn and deep. 

Visited the graveyard and Colonel Benjamin Bellows, the founder's, gravestone and more recent monument. 

In the evening read an interesting pamphlet account of the Bellows family of Walpole, prepared by Dr. Bellows of New York, on occasion of the family gathering and erection of the monument. A large part of the inhabitants of Walpole are descendants of Colonel B. Bellows. The writer quotes from a paper in "the Cheshire Gazette of April 28, 1826," "understood to be prepared by our respected townsman, Dr. Morse," Dr. B. saying first, "A Mrs. Watson of Germantown, Pennsylvania, was alive in 1826, who resided in Walpole in 1762, then only 8 years old," but she had a remarkable memory. 

He then quotes Morse, who states that her father came and built a house in Walpole in 1762. "The roof of the house was covered with bark, and the gable ends remained open some time, which enabled them to hear the barking of foxes, the howling of wolves, and the cries of the panther, while sitting before the fire. The latter resembled the voice of a woman in distress, and [seemed] intended to decoy people into the woods, where the salutations of these roving gentry were apt to prove troublesome, unless prevented by the presence of fire-arms." According to this woman (and Morse), "a shad was taken near the falls which had a rattlesnake's head in its stomach." Dr. B. states that there is a tradition that the founder, Colonel B., once killed, on Fall Mountain, two bears and a very large panther, which last alarmed him considerably. According to Morse and the woman, "a large portion of pin money was derived from the sale of golden thread, ginseng, and snakeroot, which were procured from their [the ladies'] own hands." This should probably be "lands," or the preposition, "by.”

In Alcott's yard, sprung up from his bird's seed, hemp, like common except fragrant. These are the plants I obtained on this excursion . . .

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 11, 1856

A fine view of the Connecticut valley from the hilltop, and of Ascutney Mountain. See September 13, 1856 ("No view I have had of the Connecticut Valley, at Brattleboro or Walpole, is equal to that of the Concord from Nawshawtuct.")

The barking of foxes, the howling of wolves, and the cries of the panther. See note to September 9, 1856 ("The most interesting sight I saw in Brattleboro was the skin and skull of a panther.")

From Alcott’s Journal:

Thoreau is persistency manly and independent as of old. His criticisms on men and the times as characteristic, individual, and urged with all the honest pertinacity befitting a descent of the Scandinavian Thor. A man of a genealogy like his — Franko-Norman-Scottish-American — may well be forgiven for a little foolhardiness, if not pugnacity, amidst his great common sense and faithfulness to the core of natural things.  ... 

In the evening Thoreau reads Dr. Bellow’s Historical Sketch of the Founder’s Family, and takes all there is known of Walpole to bed with him, to be used for such ornaments of his jaunt this day as our traveller’s humour shall dictate.

Bronson Alcott's Journals
Selected Thoreau entries, from 1848 to 1862

September 11. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  September 11 

A fine view of the 

Connecticut valley and

Ascutney Mountain.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Connecticut Valley 

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560911