The seasons and all their changes are in me.

 

The seasons

and all their changes

are in me.

Now leaves are off we

notice the buds prepared for

another season.

As woods grow silent

we attend to the cheerful

notes of chickadees.

Oaks and hickories

have lost their brilliancy –

begun to be browned.

This is the season

mere mossy banks attract us –

when greenness is rare.

This is the season

when the leaves are whirled through the

air like flocks of birds –

when you see afar

a few clear-yellow leaves on

the tops of birches.

At this season we

seek to warm ourselves in the

sun as by a fire.

My moods periodical

not two days 

in my year alike.

Henry Thoreau, October 26

See also 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, As the Seasons Revolve
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Moods and Seasons of the Mind.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October Moods

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,

The seasons and all their changes are in me.

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

Infinite regret

October 26

I awoke this morning to infinite regret.

In my dream . . .  I was in my own small pleasure-boat, learning to sail on the sea , and I raised my sail before my anchor, which I dragged far into the sea. I saw the buttons which had come off the coats of drowned men, and suddenly I saw my dog –when I knew not that I had one – standing in the sea up to his chin, to warm his legs . . .

And then I was walking in a meadow . . .  and there I met Mr. Alcott, and we fell to quoting and referring to grand and pleasing couplets and single lines which we had read in times past; and I quoted one which in my waking hours I have no knowledge of, but in my dream it was familiar enough. I only know that those which I quoted expressed regret, and were like the following, though they were not these:

 "The short parenthesis of life was sweet,"

"The remembrance of youth is a sigh," etc.

The instant that I awoke, methought I was a musical instrument from which I heard a strain die out, a bugle, or a clarionet, or a flute.  My body was the organ and channel of melody, as a flute is of the music that is breathed through it. My flesh sounded and vibrated still to the strain, and my nerves were the chords of the lyre . . .

I heard the last strain or flourish, as I woke, played on my body as the instrument. Such I knew I had been and might be again, and my regret arose from the consciousness how little like a musical instrument my body was now . . . 

I awoke, therefore, to an infinite regret, — to find myself, not the thoroughfare of glorious and world-stirring inspirations, but a scuttle full of dirt . . .

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 26, 1851

I awoke this morning. See May 24, 1851 ("Our most glorious experiences are a kind of regret . . . the painful, plaintively sad surprise of our Genius remembering our past lives and contemplating what is possible. . . My most sacred and memorable life is commonly on awaking in the morning. I frequently awake with an atmosphere about me as if my unremembered dreams had been divine, as if my spirit had journeyed to its native place, and, in the act of reentering its native body, had diffused an elysian fragrance around . . .It is glorious for us to be able to regret even such an existence."); June 12, 1851 ("Listen to music religiously, as if it were the last strain you might hear."); June 22, 1851 ("The world is a musical instrument. The very touch affords an exquisite pleasure. I awake to its music with the calmness of a lake when there is not a breath of wind.”);; July 16, 1851 ("This earth was the most glorious musical instrument, and I was audience to its strains. To have such sweet impressions made on us"); March 17, 1852 ("I am conscious of having, in my sleep, transcended the limits of the individual"); September 12, 1853 ("It occurred to me when I awoke this morning . . . that man was to be treated as a musical instrument, and if any viol was to be made of sound timber and kept well tuned always, it was he, so that when the bow of events is drawn across him he may vibrate and resound in perfect harmony. A sensitive soul will be continually trying its strings to see if they are in tune."); December 19, 1856 ("For all Nature is a musical instrument on which her creatures play, celebrating their joy or grief unconsciously "); October 29, 1857 ("Such early morning thoughts as I speak of occupy a debatable ground between dreams and waking thoughts. They are a sort of permanent dream in my mind . . . we cannot tell what we have dreamed from what we have actually experienced. "); January 15, 1857 ("What is there in music that it should so stir our deeps?"); November 30, 1858 ("I can only think of precious jewels, of music, poetry, beauty, and the mystery of life. "); August 27, 1859 ("All our life, i.e. the living part of it, is a persistent dreaming awake.");  November 12, 1859 ("I do not know how to distinguish between our waking life and a dream."); April 1, 1860 ("I occasionally awake in the night simply to let fall ripe a statement which I had never consciously considered before, and as surprising and novel and agreeable to me as anything can be. As if we only thought by sympathy with the universal mind, which thought while we were asleep.") and Walden (“Only that day dawns to which we are awake.”)

October 26. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 26 and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The seasons and all their changes are in me.

I knew I had been 

and might be again and 

my regret arose.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  Infinite regret

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

A Book of the Seasons: October 26 (The seasons and all their changes are in me)

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 

October 26

The seasons 

and all their changes 

are in me. 

October 26, 1857

At this season we

seek to warm ourselves in the

sun as by a fire.

October 26, 1852

Now leaves are off we

notice the buds prepared for

another season.

October 26, 1853

As woods grow silent

we attend to the cheerful

notes of chickadees.

October 26, 1854

Oaks and hickories

have lost their brilliancy –

begun to be browned.

October 26, 1855

This is the season

 mere mossy banks attract us –

when greenness is rare.

October 26, 1857

This is the season

 when the leaves are whirled through the

 air like flocks of birds . . .

when you see afar

a few clear-yellow leaves on

the tops of birches.

October 26, 1860

The seasons 

and all their changes 

are in me –

 my moods periodical 

not two days alike.

 October 26, 1857

October 26, 2019

Spring is brown; summer, green; autumn, yellow; winter, white; November, gray. October 26, 1857 

Hard rain in the night and almost steady rain through the day, the second day. Wind still easterly or northeasterly. October 26, 1857

A driving east or northeast storm. I can see through the drisk only a mile. October 26, 1857

A storm is a new, and in some respects more active, life in nature. October 26, 1857 

Another clear cold day, though not so cold as yesterday. October 26, 1855

It is cool today and windier. October 26, 1852

The water is rippled considerably. October 26, 1852

As warm as summer. Cannot wear a thick coat. Sit with windows open. October 26, 1854

I am overtaken by a sudden thunder-shower. October 26, 1860

Larger migrating birds make their appearance. October 26, 1857

The blue-stemmed and white goldenrod apparently survive till winter, -- push up and blossom anew. October 26, 1852

As I go up the back road, see fresh sprouts in bloom on a tall rough goldenrod. October 26, 1853

The dense maple swamp against Potter's pasture is completely bare, and the ground is very thickly strewn with leaves, which conceal the wet places. October 26, 1853

Now leaves are off, or chiefly off, I begin to notice the buds of various form and color and more or less conspicuous, prepared for another season, — partly, too, perhaps, for food for birds. October 26, 1853

I see considerable gossamer on the causeway and elsewhere. October 26, 1854

Many sparrows are flitting past amid the birches and sallows. They are chiefly Fringilla hyemalis. October 26, 1857

The song sparrow still sings on a button-bush. October 26, 1855

Is it the tree sparrows whose jingles I hear? October 26, 1854

[Minott] says that some call the stake-driver “'belcher squelcher,” and some, “wollerkertoot. ” I used to call them “pump-er-gor’. ” Some say “slug-toot. October 26, 1858 

As the weather grows cooler and the woods more silent, I attend to the cheerful notes of chickadees on their sunny sides. October 26, 1854

The light and sun come to us directly and freely, as if some obstruction had been removed,—the windows of heaven had been washed. October 26, 1855

I see some farmers now cutting up their corn. October 26, 1855

What apples are left out now, I presume that the farmers do not mean to gather. October 26, 1855

Apple trees are generally bare, as well as bass, ash, elm, maple. October 26, 1854 

The sugar maples are about bare, except a few small ones. October 26, 1858

The witch-hazel is still freshly in flower October 26, 1855

The sweet Viburnum leaves hang thinly on the bushes and are a dull crimsonish red. October 26, 1855

I see a houstonia in bloom. October 26, 1855

The hillside is slippery with new-fallen white pine leaves. October 26, 1855

The pitch pine leaves not yet quite fallen. October 26, 1857

The leaves of the oaks and hickories have begun to be browned, — lost their brilliancy. October 26, 1855

And a few oak leaves in sheltered nooks do not wither. October 26, 1852

The scarlet oak generally is not in prime till now, or even later. October 26, 1858

The largest scarlet oak that I remember hereabouts stands in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery, and is now in its prime. October 26, 1858

Probably you could tell a seedling chestnut from a vigorous sprout, however old or large. . . by the much more rapid growth of the last the first half-dozen years of its existence. October 26, 1860

There are scarcely any chestnuts this year near Britton’s, but I find as many as usual east of Flint’s Pond. October 26, 1860

I return by way of the mocker-nut trees. The squirrels have already begun on them, though the trees are still covered with yellow and brown leaves, and the nuts do not fall. October 26, 1855

A little this side I see a red squirrel dash out from the wall, snatch an apple from amid many on the ground, and, running swiftly up the tree with it, proceed to eat it, sitting on a smooth dead limb, with its back to the wind and its tail curled close over its back. October 26, 1855

Yellowish leaves still adhere to the very tops of the birches. October 26, 1857 

This is the season of the fall when the leaves are whirled through the air like flocks of birds, the season of birch spangles, when you see afar a few clear-yellow leaves left on the tops of the birches. October 26, 1860

At this season we seek warm sunny lees and hillsides, as that under the pitch pines by Walden shore, where we cuddle and warm ourselves in the sun as by a fire, where we may get some of its reflected as well as direct heat. October 26, 1852

These regular phenomena of the seasons get at last to be — they were at first, of course — simply and plainly phenomena or phases of my life. October 26, 1857

The seasons and all their changes are in me. October 26, 1857

Almost I believe the Concord would not rise and overflow its banks again, were I not here. October 26, 1857

After a while I learn what my moods and seasons are. I would have nothing subtracted. I can imagine nothing added. October 26, 1857 

My moods are thus periodical, not two days in my year alike. October 26, 1857

The perfect correspondence of Nature to man, so that he is at home in her! October 26, 1857

It is surprising how any reminiscence of a different season of the year affects us. October 26, 1853

You only need to make a faithful record of an average summer day's experience and summer mood, and read it in the winter, and it will carry you back to more than that summer day alone could show. October 26, 1853

When I meet with any such in my Journal, it affects me as poetry. I appreciate that other season and that particular phenomenon more than at the time. Only the rarest flower, the purest melody, of the season thus comes down to us. October 26, 1853

The world so seen is all one spring, and full of beauty. October 26, 1853

My loftiest thought is somewhat like an eagle that suddenly comes into the field of view, suggesting great things and thrilling the beholder, as if it were bound hitherward with a message for me; but it comes no nearer, but circles and soars away, growing dimmer, disappointing me, till it is lost behind a cliff or a cloud. October 26, 1857

October 26, 2019

*****

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, As the Seasons Revolve

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Moods and Seasons of the Mind.

*****

October 26, 2023

*****

April 24, 1854 ( "I hear the loud and distinct pump-a-gor of a stake-driver. Thus he announces himself.")
April, 25 1858 ("Goodwin says he heard a stake-driver several days ago.")May 9, 1853 ("The pump-like note of a stake-driver from the fenny place across the Lee meadow. ");
May 10, 1852 ("We remember autumn to best advantage in the spring; the finest aroma of it reaches us then.")
May 17, 1852 ("The birch leaves are so small that you see the landscape through the tree, and they are like silvery and green spangles in the sun, fluttering about the tree.")
May 20, 1856 ("See and hear a stake-driver in the swamp. It took one short pull at its pump and stopped.")June 6, 1857 (“A year is made up of a certain series and number of sensations and thoughts which have their language in nature. . . . Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind. ”)
June 11, 1851 (“Hardly two nights are alike. . . .No one, to my knowledge, has observed the minute differences in the seasons.”)
June 11, 1860 ("Just as we are shoving away from this isle, I hear a sound just like a small dog barking hoarsely, and, looking up, see it was made by a bittern (Ardea minor), a pair of which flap over the meadows and probably nest in some tussock thereabouts.");
June 15, 1857 ("as I passed a swamp, a bittern boomed.")
June 15, 1851 ("The sound of the stake-driver at a distance, — like that made by a man pumping in a neighboring farmyard,. . ., and I can imagine like driving a stake in a meadow. The pumper. . . .before I was further off than I thought, so now I was nearer than I thought")
July 22, 1859 ("Heard from a bittern, a peculiar hoarse, grating note, lazily uttered as it flew over the meadows. A bittern's croak: a sound perfectly becoming the bird, as far as possible from music.")
August 7, 1853("The objects I behold correspond to my mood")
August 14, 1856 ("All the Flint's Pond wood-paths are strewn with these gay-spotted chestnut leaves")

October 6, 1858 ("Only one of the large maples on the Common is yet on fire. ");
October 10, 1856 ("This afternoon it is 80°, . . . I lie with window wide open under a single sheet most of the night").
October 10, 1851 ("The chickadee, sounding all alone, now that birds are getting scarce, reminds me of the winter, in which it almost alone is heard.")
October 12, 1858 ("The leaves of the azaleas are falling, mostly fallen, and revealing the large blossom-buds, so prepared are they for another year. ")
October 13, 1857 ("I am obliged to sit with my window wide open all the evening as well as all day. It is the earlier Indian summer.")
October 13, 1859 ("The chickadee seems to lisp a sweeter note")
October 13, 1860 ("Now, as soon as the frost strips the maples, and their leaves strew the swamp floor and conceal the pools, the note of the chickadee sounds cheerfully winteryish.")

October 15, 1857 ("The ten days — at least — before this were plainly Indian summer. They were remarkably pleasant and warm. The latter half I sat and slept with an open window,")

October 18, 1856 ("The sugar maples are now in their glory, all aglow with yellow, red, and green.”);
October 18, 1858 ("The large sugar maples on the Common are now at the height of their beauty. “);
October 18, 1856 ("A-chestnutting down Turnpike and across to Britton's, thinking that the rain now added to the frosts would relax the burs which were open and let the nuts drop.")
October 20, 1856 ("Thus, of late, when the season is declining, many birds have departed, and our thoughts are turned towards winter . . . we hear the jay again more frequently, and the chickadees are more numerous and lively and familiar and utter their phebe note,")

October 21, 1855 ("The scarlet oak is very bright and conspicuous. How finely its leaves are out against the sky with sharp points, especially near the top of the tree! ")
October 21, 1855 ("I sit with an open window, it is so warm.")

October 21, 1858 ("The large sugar maples on the Common are in the midst of their fall to-day. ")
October 22, 1855 ("I see at a distance the scattered birch-tops, like yellow flames amid the pines,")
October 22, 1857("Chestnut trees are almost bare. Now is just the time for chestnuts.")
October 22, 1855 ("I see at a distance the scattered birch-tops, like yellow flames amid the pines,")
October 23, 1855 ("Now is the time for chestnuts. A stone cast against the trees shakes them down in showers upon one’s head and shoulders."
October 24, 1853 ("Red maples and elms alone very conspicuously bare in our landscape")

October 24, 1857 ("The sugar maple leaves are now falling fast.")
October 24, 1855 ("The rich yellow and scarlet leaves of the sugar maple on the Common now thickly cover the grass in great circles about the trees, and, half having fallen, look like the reflection of the trees in water lighting up the Common, reflecting light even to the surrounding houses.")
October 24, 1858 ("The Populus grandidentata and sugar maple . . .have lost the greater part of their leaves.")
October 24, 1858 ("The scarlet oak. . . is now completely scarlet and apparently has been so a few days. This alone of our indigenous deciduous trees . . .is now in its glory. ")

October 24, 1853 ("Red maples and elms alone very conspicuously bare in our landscape"); 

October 25, 1853 ("The white maples are completely bare. ")

October 25, 1855 ("The willows along the river now begin to look faded and somewhat bare and wintry.")

 October 25, 1858 ("I see some alders about bare. Aspens (tremuliformis) generally bare. . . .At the pond the black birches are bare");
October 25, 1853 ("The white maples are completely bare. ")
October 25, 1855 ("The willows along the river now begin to look faded and somewhat bare and wintry.")
October 25, 1858 ("I see some alders about bare. Aspens (tremuliformis) generally bare. . . .At the pond the black birches are bare")
October 25, 1858 ("Now that the leaves are fallen (for a few days), the long yellow buds (often red-pointed) which sleep along the twigs of the S. discolor are very conspicuous and quite interesting, already even carrying our thoughts for ward to spring. I noticed them first on the 22d. They may be put with the azalea buds already noticed. Even bleak and barren November wears these gems on her breast in sign of the coming year.")

October 27, 1853 ("Song sparrows flitting about, with the three spots on breast")

October 28, 1857 ("All at once a low-slanted glade of sunlight from one of heaven’s west windows")
October 28, 1852 (“Suddenly the light of the setting sun yellows and warms all the landscape.”)

October 30, 1853 ("Now, now is the time to look at the buds.”)

October 30, 1855 ("Going to the new cemetery, I see that the scarlet oak leaves have still some brightness; perhaps the latest of the oaks.")
October 30, 1853 ("Now, now is the time to look at the buds.”)
October 31, 1854 ("Sat with open window for a week.”)
October 31, 1854 ("[W]e have had remarkably warm and pleasant Indian summer, with frequent frosts")
November 1, 1858 ("If you wish to count the scarlet oaks. do it now. Stand on a hilltop in the woods, when the sun is an hour high and the sky is clear, and every one within range of your vision will be revealed. ")
November 6, 1857 ("seventy years ago . . .there was a large old chestnut by the roadside there, which being cut, two sprouts came up which have become the largest chestnut trees by the wall now.")
November 8, 1855 ("I can sit with my window open and no fire. Much warmer than this time last year.")
November 11, 1859 ("October 24th, riding home from Acton, I saw the withered leaves blown from an oak by the roadside dashing off, gyrating, and surging upward into the air, so exactly like a flock of birds sporting with one another that, for a minute at least, I could not be sure they were not birds.")
December 1, 1852 ("At this season I observe the form of the buds which are prepared for spring.");
December 11, 1858 ("The large scarlet oak in the cemetery has leaves on the lower limbs near the trunk just like the large white oaks now.")
December 22, 1859 ("I see in the chestnut woods near Flint's Pond where squirrels have collected the small chestnut burs left the trunks on the snow.")

January 10, 1856 ("The great yellow and red forward-looking buds of the azalea")
January 19, 1859 {"Our largest scarlet oak (by the Hollow), some three feet diameter at three feet from ground, has more leaves than the large white oak close by.")
January 25, 1858 ("What a rich book might be made about buds")

March 22, 1859 ("The great scarlet oak has now lost almost every leaf, while the white oak near it still retains them.")

*****

October 26, 2022

 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 

October 25 <<<<<<<<<  October 26. >>>>>>>>  October 27

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, October 26

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/hdt26OCT

To Baker’s old chestnut lot near Flint’s Pond

October 26. 

P. M. – To Baker’s old chestnut lot near Flint’s Pond.

As I go through what was formerly the dense pitch pine lot on Thrush Alley (G. Hubbard’s), I observe that the present growth is scrub oak, birch, oaks of various kinds, white pines, pitch pines, willows, and poplars. Apparently, the birch, oaks, and pitch pines are the oldest of the trees.

From the number of small white pines in the neighboring pitch pine wood, I should have expected to find larger and also more white pines here. It will finally become a mixed wood of oak and white and pitch pine.

There is much cladonia in the lot. 

Observed yesterday that the row of white pines set along the fence on the west side of Sleepy Hollow had grown very fast, apparently from about the time they were set out, or the last three years. Several had made grow the fastest at just this age, or after they get to be about five feet high? 

I see to-day sprouts from chestnut stumps which are two and a half feet in diameter (i. e. the stumps). One of these large stumps is cut quite low and hollowing, so as to hold water as well as leaves, and the leaves prevent the water from drying up. It is evident that in such a case the stump rots sooner than if high and roof like. 

I remember that there were a great many hickories with R. W. E.’s pitch pines when I lived there, but now there are but few comparatively, and they appear to have died down several times and come up again from the root. I suppose it is mainly on account of frosts, though perhaps the fires have done part of it.

Are not hickories most commonly found on hills? There are a few hickories in the open land which I once cultivated there, and these may have been planted there by birds or squirrels. It must be more than thirty-five years since there was wood there. 

I find little white pines under the pitch pines (of E.), near the pond end, and few or no little pitch pines, but between here and the road about as many of one as of the other, but the old pines are much less dense that way, or not dense at all. 

This is the season of the fall when the leaves are whirled through the air like flocks of birds, the season of birch spangles, when you see afar a few clear-yellow leaves left on the tops of the birches. 

It was a mistake for Britton to treat that Fox Hollow lot as he did. I remember a large old pine and chestnut wood there some twenty years ago . He came and cut it off and burned it over, and ever since it has been good for nothing. I mean that acre at the bottom of the hollow.

It is now one of those frosty hollows so common in Walden Woods, where little grows, sheep’s fescue grass, sweet-fern, hazelnut bushes, and oak scrubs whose dead tops are two or three feet high, while the still living shoots are not more than half as high at their base. They have lingered so long and died down annually.

At length I see a few birches and pines creeping into it, which at this rate in the course of a dozen years more will suggest a forest there.

Was this wise? 

Examined the stumps in the Baker chestnut lot which was cut when I surveyed it in the spring of’52.  They were when cut commonly from fifty to sixty years old (some older, some younger).

The sprouts from them are from three to six inches thick, and may average-the largest — four inches, and eighteen feet high. The wood is perhaps near half oak sprouts, and these are one and a half to four inches thick, or average two and a half, and not so high as the chestnut.

Some of the largest chestnut stumps have sent up no sprout, yet others equally large and very much more decayed have sent up sprouts. Can this be owing to the different time when they were cut? The cutting was after April.

The largest sprouts I chanced to notice were from a small stump in low ground. Some hemlock stumps there had a hundred rings.

Was overtaken by a sudden thunder-shower.

Cut a chestnut sprout two years old. It grew about five and a half feet the first year and three and a half the next, and was an inch in diameter. The tops of these sprouts, the last few inches, had died in the winter, so that a side bud continued them, and this made a slight curve in the sprout, thus: There was on a cross-section, of course, but one ring of pores within the wood, just outside the large pith, the diameter of the first year’s growth being just half an inch, radius a fourth of an inch.

The thickness of the second year’s growth was the same, or one fourth, but it was distinctly marked to the naked eye with about seven concentric lighter lines, which, I suppose, marked so many successive growths or waves of growth, or seasons in its year.

These were not visible through a microscope of considerable power, but best to the naked eye.

Probably you could tell a seedling chestnut from a vigorous sprout, however old or large, provided the heart were perfectly sound to the pith, by the much more rapid growth of the last the first half-dozen years of its existence. 

There are scarcely any chestnuts this year near Britton’s, but I find as many as usual east of Flint’s Pond. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 26, 1860

It was a mistake for Britton to treat that Fox Hollow lot as he did. He came and cut it off and burned it over, and ever since it has been good for nothing. See  October 16, 1860 (" I have come up here this afternoon to see the dense white pine lot beyond the pond, . . .To my surprise and chagrin, I find that the fellow who calls himself its owner has burned it all over and sowed winter-rye here.. . .He needs to have a guardian placed over him. A forest-warden should be appointed by the town. Overseers of poor husbandmen.")

Probably you could tell a seedling chestnut from a vigorous sprout, however old or large, by the much more rapid growth of the last the first half-dozen years of its existence. See November 6, 1857 ("seventy years ago . . .there was a large old chestnut by the roadside there, which being cut, two sprouts came up which have become the largest chestnut trees by the wall now.")

There are scarcely any chestnuts this year near Britton’s, but I find as many as usual east of Flint’s Pond. See August 14, 1856 ("All the Flint's Pond wood-paths are strewn with these gay-spotted chestnut leaves") October 18, 1856 ("A-chestnutting down Turnpike and across to Britton's, thinking that the rain now added to the frosts would relax the burs which were open and let the nuts drop . . ."); October 22, 1857("Chestnut trees are almost bare. Now is just the time for chestnuts."); October 23, 1855 ("Now is the time for chestnuts. A stone cast against the trees shakes them down in showers upon one’s head and shoulders."); December 22, 1859 ("I see in the chestnut woods near Flint's Pond where squirrels have collected the small chestnut burs left         the trunks on the snow.")

October 26. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 26 and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The seasons and all their changes are in me.

The scarlet oak generally is not in prime till now, or even later.

October 26. 

The sugar maples are about bare, except a few small ones. 

October 26, 2018

Minott remembers how he used to chop beech wood. He says that when frozen it is hard and brittle just like glass, and you must look out for the chips, for, if they strike you in the face, they will cut like a knife.

He says that some call the stake-driver “'belcher squelcher,” and some, “wollerkertoot. ” I used to call them “pump-er-gor’. ” Some say “slug-toot. ” 

The largest scarlet oak that I remember hereabouts stands by the penthorum pool in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery, and is now in its prime. I found the sap was flowing fast in it. White birches, elms, chestnuts, Salix alba (small willows), and white maple are a long time falling. The scarlet oak generally is not in prime till now, or even later. 

I wear a thicker coat, my single thick fall coat, at last, and begin to feel my fingers cool early and late. One shopkeeper has hung out woollen gloves and even thick buckskin mittens by his door, foreseeing what his customers will want as soon as it is finger-cold, and determined to get the start of his fellows.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 26, 1858

The sugar maples are about bare, except a few small ones. See October 24, 1853 ("Red maples and elms alone very conspicuously bare in our landscape"); October 25, 1853 ("The white maples are completely bare. ");October 25, 1855 ("The willows along the river now begin to look faded and somewhat bare and wintry.") October 25, 1858 ("I see some alders about bare. Aspens (tremuliformis) generally bare. . . .At the pond the black birches are bare"); October 26, 1854 ("Apple trees are generally bare, as well as bass, ash, elm, maple.")

I used to call them “pump-er-gor’.See April 24, 1854 (" I hear the loud and distinct pump-a-gor of a stake-driver. Thus he announces himself."); and note to April, 25 1858 ("Goodwin says he heard a stake-driver several days ago.")

The scarlet oak generally is not in prime till now, or even later."); October 21, 1855 ("Up Assabet. . . . [T]he scarlet oak is very bright and conspicuous. How finely its leaves are out against the sky with sharp points, especially near the top of the tree! "); October 24, 1858 ("The scarlet oak. . . is now completely scarlet and apparently has been so a few days. This alone of our indigenous deciduous trees . . .is now in its glory. "); October 30, 1855 ("Going to the new cemetery, I see that the scarlet oak leaves have still some brightness; perhaps the latest of the oaks."); November 1, 1858 ("If you wish to count the scarlet oaks. do it now. Stand on a hilltop in the woods, when the sun is an hour high and the sky is clear, and every one within range of your vision will be revealed. ")

The largest scarlet oak that I remember hereabouts stands in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery, and is now in its prime. See December 11, 1858 ("The large scarlet oak in the cemetery has leaves on the lower limbs near the trunk just like the large white oaks now."); January 19, 1859 {"Our largest scarlet oak (by the Hollow), some three feet diameter at three feet from ground, has more leaves than the large white oak close by."); March 22, 1859 ("The great scarlet oak has now lost almost every leaf, while the white oak near it still retains them.")

I wear a thicker coat, my single thick fall coat, at last, and begin to feel my fingers cool early and late. See October 25, 1858 ("This is the coolest day thus far, reminding me that I have only a half-thick coat on. ")

One shopkeeper has hung out woollen gloves and even thick buckskin mittens See October 14, 1856 (“[F]inger-cold to-day. Your hands instinctively find their way to your pockets”); October 20, 1859 (“It is finger-cold as I come home, and my hands find their way to my pocket.”); November 11, 1851 (”A bright, but cold day, finger-cold. One must next wear gloves, put his hands in winter quarters.”); November 11, 1853 ("I wear mittens now.")

October 26. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 26 and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The seasons and all their changes are in me.

The seasons and all their changes are in me.

October 26

October 26, 2018

Hard rain in the night and almost steady rain through the day, the second day. Wind still easterly or northeasterly. 

P. M. – Round by Puffer's via Clamshell. 

A driving east or northeast storm. I can see through the drisk only a mile. The river is getting partly over the meadows at last, and my spirits rise with it. Me thinks this rise of the waters must affect every thought and deed in the town. It qualifies my sentence and life. I trust there will appear in this Journal some flow, some gradual filling of the springs and raising of the streams, that the accumulating grists may be ground. 

A storm is a new, and in some respects more active, life in nature. Larger migrating birds make their appearance. They, at least, sympathize with the movements of the watery element and the winds. 

I see two great fish hawks (possibly blue herons) slowly beating northeast against the storm, by what a curious tie circling ever near each other and in the same direction, as if you might expect to find the very motes in the air to be paired; two long undulating wings conveying a feathered body through the misty atmosphere, and this inseparably associated with another planet of the same species. I can just glimpse their undulating lines. Damon and Pythias they must be. The waves beneath, which are of kindred form, are still more social, multitudinous, dvip6aov. 

Where is my mate, beating against the storm with me? They fly according to the valley of the river, northeast or southwest. 

I start up snipes also at Clamshell Meadow. This weather sets the migratory birds in motion and also makes them bolder. 

These regular phenomena of the seasons get at last to be — they were at first, of course — simply and plainly phenomena or phases of my life. The seasons and all their changes are in me.  I see not a dead eel or floating snake, or a gull, but it rounds my life and is like a line or accent in its poem. Almost I believe the Concord would not rise and overflow its banks again, were I not here. After a while I learn what my moods and seasons are. I would have nothing subtracted. I can imagine nothing added. My moods are thus periodical, not two days in my year alike. The perfect correspondence of Nature to man, so that he is at home in her! 

Going along the road toward the baeomyces, I see, as I think, a space a yard or two square where the bank has been [burnt] over by accident, by some traveller or sportsman. Even as I stand within four or five feet I take it to be so. It was the fallen leaves of the Salix tristis, thickly covering the ground, so black, with an ashy reflection, that they look exactly like cinders of leaves. And the small twigs were also blackened and inconspicuous; I could hardly detect them. Just the right mingling of black and ash-color. It was a wet day, which made them look blacker.

Mere evergreen mossy banks, as that by this road in the woods, now more attract us when greenness is so rare. 

At the hewing-place on the flat above, many sparrows are flitting past amid the birches and sallows. They are chiefly Fringilla hyemalis. How often they may be  thus flitting along in a straggling manner from bush to bush, so that the hedgerow will be all alive with them, each uttering a faint chip from time to time, as if to keep together, bewildering you so that you know not if the greater part are gone by or still to come. One rests but a moment on the tree before you and is gone again. You wonder if they know whither they are bound, and how their leader is appointed. 

The pitch pine leaves not yet quite fallen. 

Yellowish leaves still adhere to the very tops of the birches. 

Those sparrows, too, are thoughts I have. They come and go; they flit by quickly on their migrations, uttering only a faint chip, I know not whither or why exactly. One will not rest upon its twig for me to scrutinize it. The whole copse will be alive with my rambling thoughts, bewildering me by their very multitude, but they will be all gone directly without leaving me a feather. 

My loftiest thought is somewhat like an eagle that suddenly comes into the field of view, suggesting great things and thrilling the beholder, as if it were bound hitherward with a message for me; but it comes no nearer, but circles and soars away, growing dimmer, disappointing me, till it is lost behind a cliff or a cloud. 

Spring is brown; summer, green; autumn, yellow; winter, white; November, gray.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 26, 1857

Yellowish leaves still adhere to the very tops of the birches. See note to October 26, 1860 ("This is the season of the fall when the leaves are whirled through the air like flocks of birds, the season of birch spangles, when you see afar a few clear-yellow leaves left on the tops of the birches.”)

The seasons and all their changes are in me . . . My moods are thus periodical, not two days in my year alike. See June 11, 1851 (“Hardly two nights are alike. . . .No one, to my knowledge, has observed the minute differences in the seasons.”); June 6, 1857 (“A year is made up of a certain series and number of sensations and thoughts which have their language in nature. . . . Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind. ”); August 7, 1853 ("The objects I behold correspond to my mood") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Moods and Seasons of the Mind.

October 26. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, October 26 and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The seasons and all their changes are in me.

The seasons 

and all their changes 

are in me –

 my moods periodical 

not two days alike.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The seasons and all their changes are in me.

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