The pensive shores of evening skirt the great western continent of the night.

January 8

Gilpin, in his essay on the "Art of Sketching Landscape," says: "When you have finished your sketch therefore with Indian ink, as far as you propose, tinge the whole over with some light horizon hue. It may be the rosy tint of morning; or the more ruddy one of evening; or it may incline more to a yellowish, or a greyish cast . . . By washing this tint over your whole drawing, you lay a foundation for harmony." 

I have often been attracted by this harmonious tint in his and other drawings, and sometimes, especially, have observed it in nature when at sunset I inverted my head. 

We love not so well the landscape represented as in broad noon, but in a morning or evening twilight, those seasons when the imagination is most active, the more hopeful or pensive seasons of the day. Our mood may then possess the whole landscape, or be in harmony with it, as the hue of twilight prevails over the whole scene. 

Are we more than crepuscular in our intellectual and spiritual life? Have we awakened to broad noon? The morning hope is soon lost in what becomes the routine of the day, and we do not recover ourselves again until we land on the pensive shores of evening, shores which skirt the great western continent of the night. 

P. M. — To the Spruce Swamp in front of J. Farmer's. 

Can go across both rivers now. New routes are more practicable. 

Stood within a rod of a downy woodpecker on an apple tree. How curious and exciting the blood-red spot on its hindhead! I ask why it is there, but no answer is rendered by these snow-clad fields. 

It is so close to the bark I do not see its feet. It looks behind as if it had on a black cassock open behind and showing a white undergarment between the shoulders and down the back. 

It is briskly and incessantly tapping all round the dead limbs, but rarely twice in a place, as if to sound the tree and so see if it has any worm in it, or perchance to start them. 

How much he deals with the bark of trees, all his life long tapping and inspecting it! He it is that scatters those fragments of bark and lichens about on the snow at the base of trees. What a lichenist he must be! Or rather, perhaps it is fungi makes his favorite study, for he deals most with dead limbs. 

How briskly he glides up or drops himself down a limb, creeping round and round, and hopping from limb to limb, and now flitting with a rippling sound of his wings to another tree! 

The lower two-thirds of the white spruce has its branches retraced or turned downward, and then curving upward at the extremities, as much as the white pine commonly slants upwards. Above it is so thick that you cannot see through it. All the black spruce that I know hereabouts stand on higher land than this. 

Saw two squirrel-nests in the thick top of a spruce. It was a foot in diameter, of coarse grass and bark fibres, with very thick bottom and sides and a scarcely distinguishable entrance, lined with fine fibres of bark, probably inner bark of maple, very warm. Probably a red squirrel's, for I heard one winding up his clock. Many white pine cones had been eaten in the neighborhood.

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

Gilpin. William Gilpin, English writer, printmaker, clergyman and schoolmaster, best known as one of the originators of the idea of the picturesque.

I have often been attracted by this harmonious tint in his and other drawings, and sometimes, especially, have observed it in nature when at sunset I inverted my head. See January 6, 1854 ("There was a low, narrow, clear segment of sky in the west at sunset, or just after (all the rest overcast), of the coppery yellow, perhaps, of some of Gilpin's pictures, all spotted coarsely with clouds like a leopard's skin."); September 18, 1858 ("Some long amber clouds in the horizon, all on fire with gold, were more glittering than any jewelry. . . .And when you looked with head inverted the effect was increased tenfold, till it seemed a world of enchantment.")

The morning hope is soon lost in what becomes the routine of the day, and we do not recover ourselves again until we land on the pensive shores of evening, shores which skirt the great western continent of the night. See July 3, 1840 ("We will have a dawn, and noon, and serene sunset in ourselves"), and Zphx, Against the night.; See also The hour before sunset, and Seasons of the day  and

This Morning

Oh, this life,

the now,

this morning,

which I

can turn

into forever

by simply

loving

what is here,

is gone

by noon.

~ David Budbill (Happy Life)

Probably a red squirrel's [nest] , for I heard one winding up his clock. See March 18, 1857 ("A red squirrel runs nimbly before me along the wall, his tail in the air at a right angle with his body; leaps into a walnut and winds up his clock.");  March 30, 1859 ("He makes so many queer sounds, and so different from one another, that you would think they came from half a dozen creatures."); September 24, 1857 ("A red squirrel chiding you from his concealment in some pine-top. . . . is the sound most native to the locality.");  November 7, 1855 ("A red one runs along the trees to scold at me, boldly or carelessly, with a chuckling, bird like note and that other peculiar sound at intervals, between a purr and a grunt."); January 17, 1860 ("In the fall they construct a nest of grass and bark-fibres, moss, etc., in one of the [white pine] trees for winter use, and so apparently have two resources") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Red Squirrel

Now begins the year's dark green early afternoon (The seasons of the day, the year . . . a life.)

August 23

August 23, 2013

Observing the blackness of the foliage, especially between me and the light, I am reminded that it begins in the spring, the dewy dawn of the year, with a silvery hoary downiness, changing to a yellowish or light green, — the saffron-robed morn, — then to a pure, spotless, glossy green with light under sides reflecting the light, — the forenoon, — and now the dark green, or early afternoon, when shadows begin to increase, and next it will turn yellow or red, — the sunset sky, — and finally sere brown and black, when the night of the year sets in.

I am again struck by the perfect correspondence of a day — say an August day — and the year. I think that a perfect parallel may be drawn between the seasons of the day and of the year. Perhaps after middle age man ceases to be interested in the morning and in the spring.

Poke stems are now ripe. I walked through a beautiful grove of them, six or seven feet high, on the side of Lee's Cliff, where they have ripened early. Their stems are a deep, rich purple with a bloom, contrasting with the clear green leaves. Its stalks, thus full of purple wine, are one of the fruits of autumn. It excites me to behold it. What a success is its! What maturity it arrives at, ripening from leaf to root! 

May I mature as perfectly, root and branch, as the poke! It is a royal plant. I could spend the evening of the year musing amid the poke stems.

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Let them be your only diet drink and botanical medicines. In August live on berries. Be blown on by all the winds. 

Open all your pores and bathe in all the tides of Nature, in all her streams and oceans, at all seasons. Grow green with spring, yellow and ripe with autumn. Drink of each season's influence as a vial, a true panacea of all remedies mixed for your especial use. 

For all Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. She exists for no other end. Do not resist her. "Nature" is but another name for health, and the seasons are but different states of health. 

Some men think that they are not well in spring, or summer, or autumn, or winter; it is only because they are not well in them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 23, 1853

The perfect correspondence of a day and the year. See August 19, 1853 (“The day is an epitome of the year.”)

Live in each season as it passes. See April 24 1859 (Find your eternity in each moment)

Seasons of life. See July 3, 1840 (We will have a dawn, and noon, and serene sunset in ourselves.); October 7, 1851 (There is a great difference between this season and a month ago, -- as between one period of your life and another); November 14, 1853. (October answers to that period in the life of man when he is no longer dependent on his transient moods, when all his experience ripens into wisdom, but every root, branch, leaf of him glows with maturity. What he has been and done in his spring and summer appears. He bears his fruit.); January 30, 1854 (We are not to suppose that there is no fruit left for winter to ripen. It is for man the seasons and all their fruits exist. The winter was made to concentrate and harden and mature the kernel of his brain, to give tone and firmness and consistency to his thought. Then is the great harvest of the year, the harvest of thought. Now we burn with a purer flame like the stars…)

Nature is doing her best each moment to make us well. See December 16, 1853 (Would you be well, see that you are attuned to each mood of nature); July 14, 1854 (Health is a sound relation to nature). See also Walden (" Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength.").



The blackness of the
foliage between me and
the light reminds me

it begins in spring,
the dewy dawn of the year,
silver downiness,

the saffron-robed morn,
a yellowish or light green,--
then pure glossy green

undersides reflect
the light, — the forenoon -- and now
early afternoon,

the dark green shadows
begin to increase, and next
it will turn yellow

or red, — the sunset --
finally black when the night
of the year sets in.

Now begins the year's

dark green early afternoon

when shadows increase.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The year's

dark green early afternoon

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-530823

The day is an epitome of the year.

August  19. 

As the rays of the sun fall horizontally across the placid pond, they light up the side of Baker's Pleasant Meadow Wood, which covers a hill. The different shades of green of different and the same trees, — alders, pines, birch, maple, oak, etc., — melting into one another on their rounded bosky edges, make a most glorious soft and harmonious picture, only to be seen at this season of the day and perhaps of the year. 

It is a beautiful green rug with lighter shadings and rounded figures like the outlines of trees and shrubs of different shades of green. In the case of a single tree there is the dark glossy green of the lower, older leaves, — the spring growth, — which hang down, fading on every side into the silvery hoariness of the younger and more downy leaves on the edges, — the fall growth, — whose under sides are seen, which stand up, and more perhaps at this hour. This is also the case with every bush along the river, — the larger glossy dark -green watery leaves beneath and in the recesses, the upright hoary leaves whose under sides are seen on the shoots which rise above. These lighter shades in the rug had the effect of watered silks, — the edges lit, the breasts dark-green, almost the cast on green crops seen by moon-light. I never saw a forest-side look more luxuriantly and at the same time freshly beautiful.

As toward the evening of the day the lakes and streams are smooth, so in the fall, the evening of the year, the waters are smoothed more perfectly than at any other season. The day is an epitome of the year.

The smaller, or green, bittern goes over. Now, while off Conantum, we have a cool, white, autumnal twilight, and as we pass the Hubbard Bridge, see the first stars.

H. D. Thoreau, August 19, 1853

 . . . only to be seen at this season of the day and perhaps of the year. See August 19, 1851 ("The seasons do not cease a moment to revolve, and therefore Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other.”); June 6, 1857 ("Each season is but an infinitesimal point.”); November 3, 1853 (“There are very few phenomena which can be described indifferently as occurring at different seasons of the year, for they will occur with some essential difference. ”);April 24, 1859("There is a season for everything, and we do not notice a given phenomenon except at that season, if, indeed, it can be called the same phenomenon at any other season.")

As toward the evening of the day the lakes and streams are smooth, so in the fall, the evening of the year, the waters are smoothed more perfectly than at any other season. See October 17, 1858 ("One reason why I associate perfect reflections from still water with this and a later season may be that now, by the fall of the leaves, so much more light is let in to the water. The river reflects more light, therefore, in this twilight of the year, as it were an afterglow.")

The day is an epitome of the year. See August 23, 1853 ("I am again struck by the perfect correspondence of a day — say an August day — and the year. I think that a perfect parallel may be drawn between the seasons of the day and of the year.”); Walden, "Spring" ("The day is an epitome of the year. The night is the winter, the morning and evening are the spring and fall, and the noon is the summer."); August 31, 1852 ("The evening of the year is colored like the sunset.");August 15, 1853 ("an inky darkness as of night under the edge of the woods, now at noonday heralding the evening of the year.”); March 18, 1853 ("This the foreglow of the year, when the walker goes home at eve to dream of summer”); July 27, 1853 ("This the afternoon of the year. How apt we are to be reminded of lateness, even before the year is half spent!");  August 18, 1853 ("The night of the year is approaching.");

See also August 24, 1852 (“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.”)

We have a cool, white, autumnal twilight, and as we pass the Hubbard Bridge, see the first stars. See August 28, 1853 ("A cool, white, autumnal evening.") ; August 30, 1856 ("A cold white horizon sky in the north, forerunner of the fall of the year."); September 11, 1854 ("This is a cold evening with a white twilight, and threatens frost, the first in these respects decidedly autumnal evening.");September 29, 1854 ("This evening is quite cool and breezy, with a prolonged white twilight, quite Septemberish."); November 2, 1853 ("We come home in the autumn twilight, which lasts long and is remarkably light, the air being purer, — clear white light, which penetrates the woods.");  November 14, 1853 ("This [October] light fades into the clear, white, leafless twilight of November, ")

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

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