A Book of the Seasons: November 29 (first snow, Withered oak leaves, yellow light, november sunsets)

 

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

November 29. 

Yellow sunlight falls

 on all the eastern landscape –

light all from one side.

November 29, 1853

November 29, 2021  

suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on leafless trees

It has been a remarkably pleasant November, warmer and pleasanter than last year. November 29, 1856

These have been the mildest and pleasantest days since November came in. November 29, 1853

It is a clear and pleasant winter day. November 29, 1858

It would be worth the while to watch some water while freezing. November 29, 1853

The snow which fell the 23d whitened the ground but a day or two. November 29, 1853

Begins to snow this morning and snows slowly and interruptedly with a little fine hail all day till it is several inches deep. November 29, 1856

This the first snow I have seen, but they say the ground was whitened for a short time some weeks ago. November 29, 1856

About three inches of snow fell last evening November 29, 1858

How bright and light the day now! Methinks it is as good as half an hour added to the day. November 29, 1858

White houses no longer stand out and stare in the landscape. November 29, 1858

The pine woods snowed up look more like the bare oak woods with their gray boughs. November 29, 1858

The river meadows show now far off a dull straw-color or pale brown amid the general white, where the coarse sedge rises above the snow; and distant oak woods are now more distinctly reddish. November 29, 1858

The snow has taken all the November out of the sky. November 29, 1858

Now blue shadows, green rivers, — both which I see, — and still winter life. November 29, 1858

I see partridge and mice tracks and fox tracks, and crows sit silent on a bare oak-top. November 29, 1858

I see a living shrike caught to-day in the barn of the Middlesex House. November 29, 1858

Again I am struck by the singularly wholesome colors of the withered oak leaves, especially the shrub oak, so thick and firm and unworn, without speck or fret, clear reddish-brown (sometimes paler or yellowish brown), its whitish under sides contrasting with it in a very cheerful manner. November 29, 1857

So strong and cheerful, as if it rejoiced at the advent of winter, and exclaimed, “Winter, come on!” 

It exhibits the fashionable colors of the winter on the two sides of its leaves. November 29, 1857

It sets the fashions, colors good for bare ground or for snow, grateful to the eyes of rabbits and partridges. November 29, 1857

This is the extent of its gaudiness, red brown and misty white, and yet it is gay. November 29, 1857

Again I am struck

by the wholesome colors of

the withered oak leaves.

Contrasting red-brown

misty-white on the two sides

of the shrub oak leaves.

So strong and cheerful

as if it rejoiced at the

advent of winter.

November 29, 1857

The colors of the brightest flowers are not more agreeable to my eye. November 29, 1857

Then there is the now rich, dark brown of the black oak’s large and somewhat curled leaf on sprouts, with its lighter, almost yellowish, brown under side. November 29, 1857

Then the salmonish hue of white oak leaves, with the under sides less distinctly lighter. November 29, 1857

The trees and shrubs look larger than usual when seen through the mist, perhaps because, though near, yet being in the visible horizon and there being nothing beyond to compare them with, we naturally magnify them, supposing them further off. November 29, 1850

The pines standing in the ocean of mist, seen from the Cliffs, are trees in every stage of transition from the actual to the imaginary. November 29, 1850

The near are more distinct, the distant more faint, till at last they are a mere shadowy cone in the distance. November 29, 1850

As you advance, the trees gradually come out of the mist and take form before your eyes. November 29, 1850

You are reminded of your dreams. Life looks like a dream. You are prepared to see visions. November 29, 1850

Saw quite a flock of snow buntings not yet very white. November 29, 1859

They rose from the midst of a stubble-field unexpectedly. November 29, 1859

The moment they settled after wheeling around, they were perfectly concealed, though quite near, and I could only hear their rippling note from the earth from time to time. November 29, 1859 

Snow buntings rise from

the midst of a stubble-field

unexpectedly.

November 29, 1859 

And now, just before sundown, the night wind blows up more mist through the valley, thickening the veil which already hangs over the trees, and the gloom of night gathers early and rapidly around. November 29, 1850

Birds lose their way. November 29, 1850

About 4 o'clock, the sun sank below some clouds, or they rose above it, and it shone out with that bright, calm, memorable light which I have elsewhere described. November 29, 1852

It has been cloudy and milder this afternoon, but now I begin to see, under the clouds in the west horizon, a clear crescent of yellowish sky, and suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape - - russet fields and hillsides, evergreens and rustling oaks and single leafless trees. November 29, 1853

The softness of the sunlight on the russet landscape, the smooth russet grassy fields and meadows, was very soothing, the sun now getting low in a November day. November 29, 1852

In addition to the clearness of the air at this season, the light is all from one side, and, none being absorbed or dissipated in the heavens, but it being reflected both from the russet earth and the clouds, it is intensely bright. November 29, 1853

And all the limbs of a maple seen far eastward rising over a hill are wonderfully distinct and lit. November 29, 1853

The stems and twigs of the maples, etc., looking down the river, were beautifully distinct November 29, 1852

I think that we have some such sunsets as this, and peculiar to the season, every year. November 29, 1853

I should call it the russet afterglow of the year. November 29, 1853

*****

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Fox

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the American Crow

 A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow Bunting

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, November Sunsets

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Shrub Oak

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The White Pines 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November days 

*****

April 22, 1852 ("The mist to-day makes those near distances which Gilpin tells of.")

June 12, 1852 ("Nature has put no large object on the face of New England so glaringly white as a white house.") 

June 24, 1852 ("I have not heard that white clouds, like white houses, made any one's eyes ache.")

August 4, 1854 ("Rain and mist contract our horizon and we notice near and small objects."

September 20, 1857 ("The outlines of trees are more conspicuous and interesting such a day as this, being seen distinctly against the near misty background, – distinct and dark.")

October 25, 1858  ("How should we do without this variety of oak leaves, — the forms and colors?")
November 7, 1858 ("Their soft rippling notes as they went off reminded me [of] the northeast snow-storms to which ere long they are to be an accompaniment.")

November 7, 1855 ("The view is contracted by the misty rain . . . I am compelled to look at near objects.")

November 8, 1853 (“Our first snow,. . . The children greet it with a shout when they come out at recess”)

November 9, 1858 (“ We had a true November sunset after a dark, cloudy afternoon. The sun reached a clear stratum just before setting, beneath the dark cloud, though ready to enter another on the horizon’s edge, and a cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. Such a phenomenon as, when it occurs later, I call the afterglow of the year.")

November 10, 1858 ("Dark-blue or slate-colored clouds in the west, and the sun going down in them. All the light of November may be called an afterglow.")

November 11, 1858 (“Here, in the sun in the shelter of the wood, the smooth shallow water, with the stubble standing in it, is waiting for ice. . . . The sight of such water now reminds me of ice as much as water.”)

November 12, 1859 ("The first sprinkling of snow, which for a short time whitens the ground in spots.”)
November 13, 1851 ("The cattle-train came down last night from Vermont with snow nearly a foot thick upon it. . . .So it snows. Such, some years, may be our first snow.”)
November 13, 1858 (“We looked out the window at 9 P. M. and saw the ground for the most part white with the first sugaring, which at first we could hardly tell from a mild moonlight, — only there was no moon. ")

November 13, 1858 (“Thus it comes stealthily in the night and changes the whole aspect of the earth.”)

November 14, 1853 ("The clear, white, leafless twilight of November, and whatever more glowing sunset or Indian summer we have then is the afterglow of the year.”);

November 15, 1854 ("The first snow, a mere sugaring which went off the next morning.")
November 17, 1855 ("Just after dark the first snow is falling, after a chilly afternoon with cold gray clouds, when my hands were uncomfortably cold.”)
November 18, 1855 ("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 22, 1851 ("The light of the setting sun, just emerged from a cloud and suddenly falling on and lighting up the needles of the white pine. . . .After a cold gray day this cheering light almost warms us by its resemblance to fire."); 

November 23, 1851 ("Another such a sunset to-night as the last.")

November 23, 1852 ("There is something genial even in the first snow, and Nature seems to relent a little of her November harshness.”)
November 24, 1860 ("Though a slight touch, this was the first wintry scene of the season. The rabbits in the swamps enjoy it, as well as you.”)

November 25, 1853 ("The white houses of the village, also, are remarkably distinct and bare and brought very near.")

November 25, 1851 ("That kind of sunset which I witnessed on Saturday and Sunday is perhaps peculiar to the late autumn. The sun is unseen behind a hill. Only this bright white light like a fire falls on the trembling needles of the pine.")

November 26, 1850 ("An inch of snow on ground this morning, our first.")

November 28, 1858 ("In half an hour the russet earth is painted white even to the horizon. Do we know of any other so silent and sudden a change?")

November 28, 1859 ("We make a good deal of the early twilights of these November days, they make so large a part of the afternoon.”)

November 30, 1852 ("I think that this peculiar sparkle without redness, a cold glitter, is peculiar to this season.")

November 30, 1853 ("Though there were some clouds in the west, there was a bright silver twilight before we reached our boat. . . The river was perfectly smooth . . . and as we paddled home westward, the dusky yellowing sky was all reflected in it, together with the dun-colored clouds and the trees, and there was more light in the water than in the sky")

November 30, 1856 ("Sophia, describing the first slight whitening of snow a few weeks ago, said that when she awoke she noticed a certain bluish-white reflection on the wall and, looking out, saw the ground whitened with snow.")

December 1. 1856 ("The shrub oak, lowly, loving the earth and spreading over it, tough, thick-leaved; leaves firm and sound in winter and rustling like leather shields; leaves fair and wholesome to the eye, clean and smooth to the touch. Tough to support the snow, not broken down by it.")

December 3, 1854 ("The first snow of consequence fell in the evening, very damp (wind northeast); five or six inches deep in morning, after very high wind in the night.”)
December 4, 1859 ("Awake to winter, and snow two or three inches deep, the first of any consequence.")
December 4, 1860 ("The first snow, four or five inches, this evening."); This evening and night,

December 8, 1850 (“The ground is now covered, - our first snow, two inches deep. . . . I am struck by this sudden solitude and remoteness that these places have acquired. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible! This evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.”)

December 16, 1855 ("The mist makes the near trees dark and noticeable")

December 22, 1860 ("the second important snow, there having been sleighing since the 4th, and now ")

December 23, 1851 (“Now the sun has quite disappeared, but the afterglow, as I may call it, apparently the reflection from the cloud beyond which the sun went down on the thick atmosphere of the horizon, is unusually bright and lasting. Long, broken clouds in the horizon, in the dun atmosphere, — as if the fires of day were still smoking there, — hang with red and golden edging like the saddle cloths of the steeds of the sun. ”)
December 26,1853 (“This forenoon it snows pretty hard for some hours, the first snow of any consequence thus far. It is about three inches deep.”)
December 26, 1857 ("Snows all day, — first snow of any consequence, three or four inches in all.”)

January 2, 1854 ("A flock of snow buntings flew over the fields with a rippling whistle, accompanied sometimes by a tender peep and a ricochet motion.")

January 6, 1856 ("While I am making a path to the pump, I hear hurried rippling notes of birds, look up, and see quite a flock of snow buntings coming to alight amid the currant-tops in the yard. It is a sound almost as if made with their wings.”);
January 6, 1859 (“They made notes when they went,—sharp, rippling, like a vibrating spring.”)

January 11, 1855 ("the air so thick with snowflakes . . .Single pines stand out distinctly against it in the near horizon")

January 13, 1853 ("A drifting snow-storm last night and to day, the first of consequence; and the first sleighing this winter.")
January 21, 1857 (“Beside their rippling note, they have a vibratory twitter”). 

January 26, 1855 ("What changes in the aspect of the earth!")
February 6, 1852 ("Mistiness makes the woods look denser, darker, and more imposing." )

February 7, 1856 ("During the rain the air is thick, the distant woods bluish, and the single trees on the hill, under the dull mist-covered sky, remarkably distinct and black.")

March 3, 1859 ("I heard a faint rippling note and, looking up, saw about fifteen snow buntings sitting in the top of the oak.”)

November 29, 2021

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.

  April 7, 1853 

 November 28 <<<<<<<<  November 29 >>>>>>>> November 30

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, November 29

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

 

Suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape

November 29

I dug for frogs at Heart-leaf Pond, but found none.

The ice is two inches thick there, and already, the day being warm, is creased irregularly but agreeably on the upper surface.

What is the law of these figures as on watered silks? Has it anything to do with the waves of the wind, or are they the outlines of the crystals as they originally shot, the bones of the ice?

It would be worth the while to watch some water while freezing.

***

It has been cloudy and milder this afternoon, but now I begin to see, under the clouds in the west horizon, a clear crescent of yellowish sky, and suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape - - russet fields and hillsides, evergreens and rustling oaks and single leafless trees. In addition to the clearness of the air at this season, the light is all from one side, and, none being absorbed or dissipated in the heavens, but it being reflected both from the russet earth and the clouds, it is intensely bright, and all the limbs of a maple seen far eastward rising over a hill are wonderfully distinct and lit.

November 29, 2021

I think that we have some such sunsets as this, and peculiar to the season, every year.  I should call it the russet afterglow of the year.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 29, 1853

It would be worth the while to watch some water while freezing. See November 11, 1858 (“Here, in the sun in the shelter of the wood, the smooth shallow water, with the stubble standing in it, is waiting for ice.  . . . The sight of such water now reminds me of ice as much as water.”)

Suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape . . . The afterglow of the year. See November 29, 1852 ("About 4 o'clock, the sun sank below some clouds, or they rose above it, and it shone out with that bright, calm, memorable light which I have elsewhere described.") . See also November 9, 1858 (“ We had a true November sunset after a dark, cloudy afternoon. The sun reached a clear stratum just before setting, beneath the dark cloud, though ready to enter another on the horizon’s edge, and a cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. Such a phenomenon as, when it occurs later, I call the afterglow of the year."); November 10, 1858 ("Dark-blue or slate-colored clouds in the west, and the sun going down in them. All the light of November may be called an afterglow."); November 22, 1851 ("The light of the setting sun, just emerged from a cloud and suddenly falling on and lighting up the needles of the white pine. . . .After a cold gray day this cheering light almost warms us by its resemblance to fire."); November 14, 1853 ("The clear, white, leafless twilight of November, and whatever more glowing sunset or Indian summer we have then is the afterglow of the year.”); November 23, 1851 ("Another such a sunset to-night as the last."); November 25, 1851 ("That kind of sunset which I witnessed on Saturday and Sunday is perhaps peculiar to the late autumn. The sun is unseen behind a hill. Only this bright white light like a fire falls on the trembling needles of the pine."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,   November Sunsets

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

Yellow sunlight falls

 on all the eastern landscape –

light all from one side.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape 

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-531129

The mildest and pleasantest days since November came in..

November 29, 30, and December 1. 

The snow which fell the 23d whitened the ground but a day or two. 

These have been the mildest and pleasantest days since November came in. November 29th, walked in p. m. to old stone bridge and down bank of river by Sam Barrett's house.

When I stood on the caving swallow banks by the bridge about 4 o'clock, the sun sank below some clouds, or they rose above it, and it shone out with that bright, calm, memorable light which I have else where described, lighting up the pitch pines and everything. 

The patches of winter rye, at this season so green by contrast, are an interesting feature in the landscape.

When I got out of the wood, going toward Barrett's, the softness of the sunlight on the russet landscape, the smooth russet grassy fields and meadows, was very soothing, the sun now getting low in a November day. 

The stems and twigs of the maples, etc., looking down the river, were beautifully distinct. You see distinctly the form of the various clumps of maples and birches. 

Geese in river swam as fast as I walked. 

Many broken but apparently rather recent turtles' eggs on the bank.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 29, 1852

November 29, 30, and December 1. have been the mildest and pleasantest days since November came in. See December 2, 1859 ("Nov. 30, Dec. 1 and 2 were remarkably warm and springlike days, — a moist warmth.”)

About 4 o'clock, the sun sank below some clouds, or they rose above it, and it shone out with that bright, calm, memorable light which I have else where described. See November 29, 1853 ("I begin to see, under the clouds in the west horizon, a clear crescent of yellowish sky, and suddenly a glorious yellow sunlight falls on all the eastern landscape . . . I think that we have some such sunsets as this, and peculiar to the season, every year. I should call it the russet afterglow of the year.") See also November 9, 1858 (“ We had a true November sunset after a dark, cloudy afternoon. The sun reached a clear stratum just before setting, beneath the dark cloud, though ready to enter another on the horizon’s edge, and a cold, yellow sunlight suddenly illumined the withered grass of the fields around, near and far, eastward. Such a phenomenon as, when it occurs later, I call the afterglow of the year."); November 10, 1858 (" dark-blue or slate-colored clouds in the west, and the sun going down in them. All the light of November may be called an afterglow."); November 22, 1851 ("The light of the setting sun, just emerged from a cloud and suddenly falling on and lighting up the needles of the white pine. . . .After a cold gray day this cheering light almost warms us by its resemblance to fire."); November 23, 1851 ("Another such a sunset to - night as the last."); November 25, 1851 ("That kind of sunset which I witnessed on Saturday and Sunday is perhaps peculiar to the late autumn. The sun is unseen behind a hill. Only this bright white light like a fire falls on the trembling needles of the pine.")
");

The snow has taken all the November out of the sky.

November 29. 

P. M. — To Hill.

About three inches of snow fell last evening, and a few cows on the hillside have wandered about in vain to come at the grass. They have at length found that place high on the south side where the snow is thinnest. 

How bright and light the day now! Methinks it is as good as half an hour added to the day. 

White houses no longer stand out and stare in the landscape. The pine woods snowed up look more like the bare oak woods with their gray boughs. The river meadows show now far off a dull straw-color or pale brown amid the general white, where the coarse sedge rises above the snow; and distant oak woods are now more distinctly reddish. 

It is a clear and pleasant winter day. The snow has taken all the November out of the sky. Now blue shadows, green rivers, — both which I see, — and still winter life. I see partridge and mice tracks and fox tracks, and crows sit silent on a bare oak-top. 

I see a living shrike caught to-day in the barn of the Middlesex House.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 29, 1858 

White houses no longer stand out and stare in the landscape. Compare November 25, 1853 ("The white houses of the village, also, are remarkably distinct and bare and brought very near."); June 12, 1852 ("Nature has put no large object on the face of New England so glaringly white as a white house."); June 24, 1852 ("I have not heard that white clouds, like white houses, made any one's eyes ache.")

The snow has taken all the November out of the sky. See November 13, 1858 (“Thus it comes stealthily in the night and changes the whole aspect of the earth.”); November 28, 1858 (“ Do we know of any other so silent and sudden a change? ”)

I see partridge and mice tracks and fox tracks. See January 7, 1858 ("I notice only one squirrel, and a fox, and perhaps partridge track, into which the snow has blown . . .The mice have not been forth since the snow, or perhaps in some places where they have, their tracks are obliterated.")

The snow has taken 

November out of the sky -- 

I see winter life. 

One of those fuzzy caterpillars, black at each end and rust-colored in middle.

November 29. 

Sophia called on old lady Hayden yesterday, and she told her of somebody's twin infants of whom one died for want of air. The father, therefore, was advised to take the survivor with him each morning to the barn, and hold it up to the muzzle of each of the cattle in succession as they got up, that it might catch their first morning breath, and then lay it on the hay while he foddered them. He did so, and there never was a healthier child than this, three months afterward. 

P. M. — To Assabet Bath and down bank. 

This and yesterday remarkably warm days. In John Hosmer's low birch sprout-land, a few rods beyond Tortoise Hollow, or Valley, I find, on raking aside the withered leaves on the ground, one of those fuzzy caterpillars, black at each end and rust-colored in middle, curled up in a ring, — the same kind that I find on the ice and snow, frozen, in winter. 

I think that the river might rise so high as to wash this out of the withered grass and leaves here. 

Soon after I find another in a catbird’s nest, nearly three feet from the ground, in a thorn, together [with] half a nestful of freshly nibbled acorn shells and a few hazelnut shells, the work, probably, of a mouse or a squirrel; but this caterpillar was dead and apparently partly eaten. So I am still inclined to think that most of them are washed out of the meadows by the freshets. 

Several times before I have seen nests half filled with nutshells, and as the Mus leucopus adds to and after occupies old nests, am inclined to think that he does it. It may be a convenient deposit for him (or for a striped squirrel??), or else he likes it for concealment and protection against hawks, —in the midst of a thorn bush, before the leaves fall. I do not know, however, that the mouse has this habit of perching while it nibbles, as the squirrel has. 

Again I am struck by the singularly wholesome colors of the withered oak leaves, especially the shrub oak, so thick and firm and unworn, without speck or fret, clear reddish-brown (sometimes paler or yellowish brown), its whitish under sides contrasting with it in a very cheerful manner. So strong and cheerful, as if it rejoiced at the advent of winter, and exclaimed, “Winter, come on!” It exhibits the fashionable colors of the winter on the two sides of its leaves. It sets the fashions, colors good for bare ground or for snow, grateful to the eyes of rabbits and partridges. This is the extent of its gaudiness, red brown and misty white, and yet it is gay. The colors of the brightest flowers are not more agreeable to my eye. Then there is the now rich, dark brown of the black oak’s large and somewhat curled leaf on sprouts, with its lighter, almost yellowish, brown under side. Then the salmonish hue of white oak leaves, with the under sides less distinctly lighter. Many, however, have quite faded already. 

Going through a partly frozen meadow near the meadow [sic], scraping through the sweet-gale, I am pleasantly scented with its odoriferous fruit. 

A week or so ago, as I learn, Miss Emeline Barnett told a little boy who boards with her, and who was playing with an open knife in his hand, that he must be careful not to fall down and cut himself with it, for once Mr. David Loring, when he was a little boy, fell down with a knife in his hand and cut his throat badly. It was soon reported, among the children at least, that little David Loring, the grandson of the former, had fallen down with a knife in his hand as he was going to school, and nearly cut his throat; next, that Mr. David Loring the grandfather (who lives in Framingham) had committed suicide, had cut his throat, was not dead, indeed, but was not expected to live; and in this form the story spread like wildfire over the town and county. Nobody expressed surprise. His oldest acquaintances and best friends, his legal adviser, all said, “Well, I can believe it.” He was known by many to have been speculating in Western lands, which, owing to the hard times, was a failure, and he was depressed in consequence. Sally Cummings helped spread the news. Said there was no doubt of it, but there was Fay’s wife (L.’s daughter) knew nothing of it yet, they were as merry as crickets over there. Others stated that Wetherbee, the expressman, had been over to Northboro, and learned that Mr. Loring had taken poison in Northboro. Mr. Rhodes was stated to have received a letter from Mr. Robbins of Framingham giving all the particulars. Mr. Wild, it was said, had also got a letter from his son Silas in Framingham, to whom he had written, which confirmed the report. As Wild went down-town, he met Meeks the carpenter and inquired in a significant way if he got anything new. Meeks simply answered, “Well, David Loring won’t eat another Thanksgiving dinner.” A child at school wrote to her parents at Northboro, telling the news. Mrs. Loring's sister lives there, and it chances that her husband committed suicide. They were, therefore, slow to communicate the news to her, but at length could not contain themselves longer and told it. The sister was terribly affected; wrote to her son (L.’s nephew) in Worcester, who immediately took the cars and went to Framingham and when he arrived there met his uncle just putting his family into the cars. He shook his hand very heartily indeed, looking, however, hard at his throat, but said not a word about his errand. Already doubts had arisen, people were careful how they spoke of it, the ex pressmen were mum, Adams and Wetherbee never said Loring. The Framingham expressman used the same room with Adams in Boston. A. simply asked, “Any news from Framingham this morning? Seen Loring lately?” and learned that all was well.

H. D. Thoreau , Journal, November 29, 1857


One of those fuzzy caterpillars, black at each end and rust-colored in middle, curled up in a ring, — the same kind that I find on the ice and snow, frozen, in winter. See January 5, 1858 ("I see one of those fuzzy winter caterpillars, black at the two ends and brown-red in middle, crawling on a rock by the Hunt's Bridge causeway. "); January 8, 1857 ("I picked up on the bare ice of the river, opposite the oak in Shattuck's land, on a small space blown bare of snow, a fuzzy caterpillar, black at the two ends and red-brown in the middle, rolled into a ball . . .”); January 24, 1858 ("I see two of those black and red-brown fuzzy caterpillars in a mullein leaf on this bare edge-hill, which could not have blown from any tree, I think. They apparently take refuge in such places.");  March 8, 1855 ("I see of late more than before of the fuzzy caterpillars, both black and reddish-brown.”); March 5, 1854 ("See a small blackish caterpillar on the snow. Where do they come from? ")

The withered oak leaves, especially the shrub oak, so thick and firm and unworn, without speck or fret, clear reddish-brown (sometimes paler or yellowish brown), its whitish under sides contrasting with it in a very cheerful manner. See October 25, 1858 ("How should we do without this variety of oak leaves, — the forms and colors?")  November 20, 1858 ("The rare wholesome and permanent beauty of withered oak leaves of various hues of brown mottling a hillside, especially seen when the sun is low, — Quaker colors, sober ornaments, beauty that quite satisfies the eye.");  December 1. 1856 ("The shrub oak, lowly, loving the earth and spreading over it, tough, thick-leaved; leaves firm and sound in winter and rustling like leather shields; leaves fair and wholesome to the eye, clean and smooth to the touch. Tough to support the snow, not broken down by it.")  

First snow after a remarkably pleasant November.

First Snow

November 29. 

Begins to snow this morning and snows slowly and interruptedly with a little fine hail all day till it is several inches deep. This the first snow I have seen, but they say the ground was whitened for a short time some weeks ago. 

It has been a remarkably pleasant November, warmer and pleasanter than last year.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 29, 1856

This the first snow. See

•  November  8, 1853 (“Our first snow,. . . The children greet it with a shout when they come out at recess. ”)
•  November 12, 1859 ("The first sprinkling of snow, which for a short time whitens the ground in spots.”)
•  November 13, 1851 ("The cattle-train came down last night from Vermont with snow nearly a foot thick upon it. . . .So it snows. Such, some years, may be our first snow.”)
•  November 13, 1858 (“We looked out the window at 9 P. M. and saw the ground for the most part white with the first sugaring, which at first we could hardly tell from a mild moonlight, — only there was no moon. Thus it comes stealthily in the night and changes the whole aspect of the earth.”)
• November 15, 1854 ("The first snow, a mere sugaring which went off the next morning.")
• November 17, 1855 ("Just after dark the first snow is falling, after a chilly afternoon with cold gray clouds, when my hands were uncomfortably cold.”)
• November 18, 1855 ("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 23, 1852 ("There is something genial even in the first snow, and Nature seems to relent a little of her November harshness.”)
• November 24, 1860 ("Though a slight touch, this was the first wintry scene of the season. The rabbits in the swamps enjoy it, as well as you.”)
• November 26, 1850 ("An inch of snow on ground this morning, our first.") 
• November 29, 1856  ("Begins to snow this morning and snows slowly and interruptedly with a little fine hail all day till it is several inches deep. This the first snow I have seen...")
• December 3, 1854 ("The first snow of consequence fell in the evening, very damp (wind northeast); five or six inches deep in morning, after very high wind in the night.”)
• December 4, 1859 ("Awake to winter, and snow two or three inches deep, the first of any consequence.")
• December 4, 1860 ("The first snow, four or five inches, this evening."); This evening and night, December 22, 1860 ("the second important snow, there having been sleighing since the 4th, and now ")
•  December 8, 1850 (“The ground is now covered, - our first snow, two inches deep. . . . I am struck by this sudden solitude and remoteness that these places have acquired. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible! This evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.”)
•  December 26,1853  (“This forenoon it snows pretty hard for some hours, the first snow of any consequence thus far. It is about three inches deep.”)
•  December 26, 1857 ("Snows all day, — first snow of any consequence, three or four inches in all.”).
• January 13, 1853 ("A drifting snow-storm last night and to day, the first of consequence; and the first sleighing this winter.")
  
  

See also November 30, 1856 ("Sophia, describing the first slight whitening of snow a few weeks ago, said that when she awoke she noticed a certain bluish-white reflection on the wall and, looking out, saw the ground whitened with snow."); November 28, 1858 ("In half an hour the russet earth is painted white even to the horizon. Do we know of any other so silent and sudden a change? "); January 26, 1855 ("What changes in the aspect of the earth!")

A Book of the Seasons: November 29.

November 29. 

As you advance, trees

come out of the mist and take

form before your eyes.

November 29, 1850

Soft russet landscape –

the sun now getting low in

a November day.

November 29, 1852

The soothing softness, 

sunlight on russet landscape, 

sun now getting low.

November 29, 1852

Again I am struck

by the wholesome colors of

the withered oak leaves.

Contrasting red-brown

misty-white on the two sides

of the shrub oak leaves.

So strong and cheerful

as if it rejoiced at the

advent of winter.

November 29, 1857

Three inches of snow.

Blue shadows, green rivers and

still winter life now.

November 29, 1858

Snow buntings rise from

the midst of a stubble-field

uinexpectedly.

November 29, 1859

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 © 2009-2018

The value of the Concord Lynx

November 29. 

I told a man the other day that I had got a Canada lynx here in Concord, and his instant question was, "Have you got the reward for him?"

What reward?

Why, the ten dollars which the State offers.

As long as I saw him he neither said nor thought anything about the lynx, but only about this reward.

“Yes," said he, "this State offers ten dollars reward."

You might have inferred that ten dollars was something rarer in this neighborhood than a lynx even, and he was anxious to see it on that account. I have thought that a lynx was a bright-eyed, four-legged, furry beast of the cat kind. But he knew it to be a draught drawn by the cashier of the wildcat bank on the State treasury, payable at sight.

The fact was that, instead of receiving ten dollars for the lynx, I had paid away some dollars in order to get him.

Though we are never made truly rich by the possession of money, the value of things generally is commonly estimated by the amount of money they will fetch. A thing is not valuable - e.g. a fine situation for a house – until it is convertible into so much money, that is, can cease to be what it is and become something else which you prefer. The mean and low values of anything depend on its convertibility into something else and have nothing to do with its intrinsic value.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 29, 1860

See September 11, 1860 ("George Melvin came to tell me this forenoon that a strange animal was killed on Sunday. . . From his description I judged it to be a Canada lynx."); September 13, 1860 ("They who have seen this generally suppose that it got out of a menagerie; others that it strayed down from far north. They call it Canada lynx . . . I do not think it necessary even to suppose it a straggler, but only very rare hereabouts. I have seen two lynxes that were killed between here and Salem since '27. Have heard of another killed in or near Andover. There may have been many more killed as near within thirty years and I not have heard of it, for they who kill one commonly do not know what it is "); October 17, 1860 ("While the man that killed my lynx (and many others) thinks it came out of a menagerie, and the naturalists call it the Canada lynx, and at the White Mountains they call it the Siberian lynx, - in each case forgetting, or ignoring ,that it belongs here, - I call it the Concord lynx."); November 10, 1860 ("Richardson in his "Fauna Boreali-Americana," which I consulted at Cambridge on the 7th , says that the French-Canadians call the Canada lynx indifferently Le Chat or Le Peeshoo"); See also September 29, 1856 ("Dr. Reynolds told me the other day of a Canada lynx (?) killed in Andover, in a swamp, some years ago"); October 20, 1857 ("Melvin tells me that Skinner says he thinks he heard a wildcat scream in E. Hubbard's Wood, by the Close. It is worth the while to have a Skinner in the town; else we should not know that we had wildcats."); November 28, 1857 ("Spoke to Skinner about that wildcat which he says he heard a month ago in Ebby Hubbard’s woods . . a low sort of growling and then a sudden quick-repeated caterwaul, or yow yow you, or yang yang yang. He says they utter this from time to time when on the track of some prey."); February 15, 1858 ("Saw, at a menagerie, a Canada lynx. ") Compare Natural History of Massachusetts (1842) ("The bear, wolf, lynx, wildcat, deer, beaver, and marten have disappeared "); March 23, 1856 ("I consider that the nobler animals have been exterminated here, — the cougar, panther, lynx, wolverene, wolf, bear, moose, deer, the beaver, the turkey, etc., etc., — I cannot but feel as if I lived in a tamed, and, as it were, emasculated country.”)

Seen through the mist

November 29

The trees and shrubs look larger than usual when seen through the mist, perhaps because, though near, yet being in the visible horizon and there being nothing beyond to compare them with, we naturally magnify them, supposing them further off. 

The pines standing in the ocean of mist, seen from the Cliffs, are trees in every stage of transition from the actual to the imaginary. The near are more distinct, the distant more faint, till at last they are a mere shadowy cone in the distance.  As you advance, the trees gradually come out of the mist and take form before your eyes. 

You are reminded of your dreams. Life looks like a dream. You are prepared to see visions. 

And now, just before sundown, the night wind blows up more mist through the valley, thickening the veil which already hangs over the trees, and the gloom of night gathers early and rapidly around. 

Birds lose their way.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 29, 1850

The trees and shrubs look larger than usual when seen through the mist. See February 6, 1852 ("mistiness makes the woods look denser, darker, and more imposing."); April 22, 1852 ("The mist to-day makes those near distances which Gilpin tells of."); August 4, 1854 ("Rain and mist contract our horizon and we notice near and small objects."); January 11, 1855 ("the air so thick with snowflakes . . .Single pines stand out distinctly against it in the near horizon"); November 7, 1855 ("The view is contracted by the misty rain . . . I am compelled to look at near objects.");  December 16, 1855 ("The mist makes the near trees dark and noticeable"); February 7, 1856  ("During the rain the air is thick, the distant woods bluish, and the single trees on the hill, under the dull mist-covered sky, remarkably distinct and black."); September 20, 1857 ("The outlines of trees are more conspicuous and interesting such a day as this, being seen distinctly against the near misty background, – distinct and dark.")

A flock of snow buntings not yet very white.

November 29. 

P. M. — To Copan.

There is a white birch on Copan which has many of the common birch fungus of a very peculiar and remarkable form, not flat  but shaped like a bell or short horn,  as if composed of a more flowing material which  had settled downward like a drop. As C. said, they were shaped like icicles, especially those short and spreading ones about bridges.

Saw quite a flock of snow buntings not yet very white. They rose from the midst of a stubble-field unexpectedly. The moment they settled after wheeling around, they were perfectly concealed, though quite near, and I could only hear their rippling note from the earth from time to time.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 29, 1859

The common birch fungus of a very peculiar and remarkable form. See January 17, 1858 ("The common birch fungus, which is horizontal and turned downward, splits the bark as it pushes out very simply, thus”)

I could only hear their rippling note from the earth from time to time.  See November 7, 1858 ("Their soft rippling notes as they went off reminded me [of] the northeast snow-storms to which ere long they are to be an accompaniment."); January 2, 1854 ("A flock of snow buntings flew over the fields with a rippling whistle, accompanied sometimes by a tender peep and a ricochet motion."); January 6, 1856 ("While I am making a path to the pump, I hear hurried rippling notes of birds, look up, and see quite a flock of snow buntings coming to alight amid the currant-tops in the yard. It is a sound almost as if made with their wings.”);  January 6, 1859 (“They made notes when they went,—sharp, rippling, like a vibrating spring.”); January 21, 1857 (“Beside their rippling note, they have a vibratory twitter”). March 3, 1859 ("I heard a faint rippling note and, looking up, saw about fifteen snow buntings sitting in the top of the oak.”) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow Bunting