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 satisfaction of existence.

November 25

I feel a little alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. 

November 25, 2017

I would fain forget all my morning's occupation, my obligations to society. But some times it happens that I cannot easily shake off the village; the thought of some work, some surveying, will run in my head, and I am not where my body is, I am out of my senses.

In my walks I would return to my senses like a bird or a beast.

What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?

This afternoon, late and cold as it is, has been a sort of Indian summer. Indeed, I think that we have summer days from time to time the winter through, and that it is often the snow on the ground makes the whole difference.

This afternoon the air was indescribably clear and exhilarating, and though the thermometer would have shown it to be cold, I thought that there was a finer and purer warmth than in summer; a wholesome, intellectual warmth, in which the body was warmed by the mind's contentment. The warmth was hardly sensuous, but rather the satisfaction of existence.


I found Fair Haven skimmed entirely over, though the stones which I threw down on it from the high bank on the east broke through.Yet the river was open.

The landscape looked singularly clean and pure and dry, the air, like a pure glass, being laid over the picture, the trees so tidy, stripped of their leaves; the meadows and pastures, clothed with clean dry grass, looked as if they had been swept; ice on the water and winter in the air, but yet not a particle of snow on the ground.

The woods, divested in great part of their leaves, are being ventilated.

It is the season of perfect works, of hard, tough, ripe twigs, not of tender buds and leaves. The leaves have made their wood, and a myriad new withes stand up all around pointing to the sky, able to survive the cold.

It is only the perennial that you see, the iron age of the year.

These expansions of the river skim over before the river itself takes on its icy fetters. What is the analogy?



I saw a muskrat come out of a hole in the ice. He is a man wilder than Ray or Melvin. While I am looking at him, I am thinking what he is thinking of me. He is a different sort of a man, that is all.

He would dive when I went nearer, then reappear again, and had kept open a place five or six feet square so that it had not frozen, by swimming about in it. Then he would sit on the edge of the ice and busy himself about something, I could not see whether it was a clam or not.

What a cold blooded fellow! thoughts at a low temperature, sitting perfectly still so long on ice covered with water, mumbling a cold, wet clam in its shell. What safe, low, moderate thoughts it must have! It does not get on to stilts.

The generations of muskrats do not fail. They are not preserved by the legislature of Massachusetts.


Boats are drawn up high which will not be launched again till spring.


There is a beautiful fine wild grass which grows in the path in sprout land, now dry, white, and waving, in light beds soft to the touch.

I experience such an interior comfort, far removed from the sense of cold, as if the thin atmosphere were rarefied by heat, were the medium of invisible flames, as if the whole landscape were one great hearthside, that where the shrub oak leaves rustle on the hillside, I seem to hear a crackling fire and see the pure flame, and I wonder that the dry leaves do not blaze into yellow flames.

I find but little change yet on the south side of the Cliffs; only the leaves of the wild apple are a little frostbitten on their edges and curled dry there, but some wild cherry leaves and blueberries are still fresh and tender green and red, as well as all the other leaves and plants which I noticed there the other day.

When I got up so high on the side of the Cliff the sun was setting like an Indian-summer sun. There was a purple tint in the horizon. It was warm on the face of the rocks, and I could have sat till the sun disappeared, to dream there. It was a mild sunset such as is to be attended to. 

November 25, 2021

Just as the sun shines into us warmly and serenely, our Creator breathes on us and re-creates us.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 25, 1850

What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods? See Walking (“I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. … But sometimes it happens that I cannot easily shake off the village. The thought of some work will run in my head and I am not where my body is. I am out of my senses. In my walks I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?” ); August 21, 1851 ("A man may walk abroad and no more see the sky than if he walked under a shed."); November 18 1851 ("The chopper who works in the woods all day is more open in some respects to the impressions they are fitted to make than the naturalist who goes to see them.. . .A man can hardly be said to be there if he knows that he is there, or to go there if he knows where he is going."); November 6, 1853 (“It is remarkable how little we attend to what is passing before us constantly, unless our genius directs our attention that way.”); January 7, 1857 ("I have told many that I walk every day about half the daylight, but I think they do not believe it. I wish to get the Concord, the Massachusetts, the America, out of my head and be sane a part of every day. . . .and therefore I come out to these solitudes, where the problem of existence is simplified.");September 13, 1859 ("Few live so far outdoors as to hear the first geese go over."); February 12, 1860 ("Surrounded by our thoughts or imaginary objects, living in our ideas, not one in a million ever sees the objects which are actually around him."); March 1, 1860 ("I have thoughts, as I walk, on some subject that is running in my head, but all their pertinence seems gone before I can get home to set them down.") See also December 20, 1851 ("Go out before sunrise or stay out till sunset "); December 29, 1856 (“We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day. . . .. Staying in the house breeds a sort of insanity always.”)

I found Fair Haven skimmed entirely over, . . . Yet the river was open. . . .Boats are drawn up high which will not be launched again till spring See November 18, 1858 ("Am surprised to see Fair Haven Pond completely frozen over during the last four days. It will probably open again."); November 21, 1852 ("I am surprised this afternoon to find the river skimmed over in some places, and Fair Haven Pond one-third frozen or skimmed over, though commonly there is scarcely any ice to be observed along the shores."); November 23, 1852 ("I am surprised to see Fair Haven entirely skimmed over"); November 24, 1858 ("Fair Haven Pond is closed still ");. November 26, 1855 ("The ice next the shore bears me and my boat"); November 26, 1857 ("Got my boat up this afternoon. (It is Thanksgiving Day.) One end had frozen in"):November 26, 1858 ("Got in boat on account of Reynolds’s new fence going up (earlier than usual)."); November 29, 1860 ("Get up my boat, 7 a. m. Thin ice of the night is floating down the river."); November 30, 1855 ("River skimmed over behind Dodd’s and elsewhere. Got in my boat. River remained iced over all day."); November 30, 1858 ("The river may be said to have frozen generally last night.")
.

When I got up so high on the side of the Cliff the sun was setting . . . and I could have sat till the sun disappeared.  See November 25, 1851 ("the sun had set and there was a very clear amber light in the west, and, turning about, we were surprised at the darkness in the east, the crescent of night, almost as if the air were thick, a thick snow-storm were gathering, which, as we had faced the west, we were not prepared for; yet the air was clear."); November 25, 1857 ("I shiver about awhile on Pine Hill, waiting for the sun to set. Methinks the air is dusky soon after four these days. . . . There is the sun a quarter of an hour high, shining on it through a perfectly clear sky, but to my eye it is singularly dark or dusky. And now the sun has disappeared"); November 27, 1853 ("The days are short enough now. The sun is already setting before I have reached the ordinary limit of my walk."); 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.") See also December 25, 1851 (“I go forth to see the sun set. Who knows how it will set, even half an hour beforehand ?”) June 5, 1854 ("I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature.”); August 14, 1854 ("I have come forth to this hill at sunset. . . to behold and commune with something grander than man.”)

The satisfaction of existence . . . our Creator breathes on us and re-creates us. SeeJune 22, 1851 ("Sometimes we are clarified and calmed . . ., so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal and without an effort our depths are revealed to our selves . All the world goes by us and is reflected in our deeps . . . . We live and rejoice . . . I feel my Maker blessing me."); July 16, 1851 (" My life was ecstasy. In youth,. . .I was all alive, and inhabited my body with inexpressible satisfaction;. . .To have such sweet impressions made on us, such ecstasies begotten of the breezes! I can remember how I was astonished. I said to myself, — I said to others, — "There comes into my mind such an indescribable, infinite, all-absorbing, divine, heavenly pleasure, a sense of elevation and expansion, and [I] have had nought to do with it. I perceive that I am dealt with by superior powers. This is a pleasure, a joy, an existence which I have not procured myself. . . .. The maker of me is improving me."); August 5, 1851 ("As the twilight deepens and the moonlight is more and more bright, I begin to distinguish myself, who I am and where. I become more collected and composed, and sensible of my own existence, as when a lamp is brought into a dark apartment. ... I am sobered by the moonlight. I bethink myself.”); August 23, 1852 ("There is something invigorating in this air, which I am peculiarly sensible is a real wind blowing from over the surface of a planet.”);December 11, 1855 ("To perceive freshly, with fresh senses, is to be inspired. My body is all sentient. As I go here or there, I am tickled by this or that I come in contact with, as if I touched the wires of a battery. The age of miracles is each moment thus returned. Now it is wild apples, now river reflections, now a flock of lesser redpolls.”) March 30, 1853 ("Ah, those youthful days! are they never to return? when the walker . . . sees, hears, scents, tastes, and feels only himself, - the phenomena that show themselves in him, - his expanding body, his intellect and heart.”)

This is a pleasure, a joy, an existence that I have not procured myself. See May 23, 1854("There was a time when the beauty and the music were all within, and I sat and listened to my thoughts, and there was a song in them. I sat for hours on rocks and wrestled with the melody which possessed me. I sat and listened by the hour to a positive though faint and distant music . . .. When I walked with a joy which knew not its own origin.")

The darkness in the east, the crescent of night.

November 25.

This morning the ground is again covered with snow, deeper than before.

In the afternoon walked to the east part of Lincoln.

Saw a tree on the turnpike full of hickory-nuts which had an agreeable appearance.

Saw also quite a flock of the pine grosbeak, a plump and handsome bird as big as a robin.

When returning between Bear Hill and the railroad, the sun had set and there was a very clear amber light in the west, and, turning about, we were surprised at the darkness in the east, the crescent of night, almost as if the air were thick, a thick snow-storm were gathering, which, as we had faced the west, we were not prepared for; yet the air was clear.

November 22, 2021

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.

When surveying in the swamp on the 20th last, at sundown, I heard the owls.

Hosmer said: “If you ever minded it, it is about the surest sign of rain that there is. Don't you know that last Friday night you heard them and spoke of them, and the next day it rained?”

This time there were other signs of rain in abundance. But night before last,” said I, “when you were not here, they hooted louder than ever, and we have had no rain yet.”

At any rate, it rained hard the 21st, and by that rain the river was raised much higher than it has been this fall.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 25, 1851

Saw a tree on the turnpike full of hickory-nuts which had an agreeable appearance. See November 27, 1857 ("Was struck by the appearance of a small hickory near the wall, in the rocky ravine just above the trough. Its trunk was covered with loose scales unlike the hickories near it and as much as the shagbark; but probably it is a shaggy or scaly-barked variety of Carya glabra. [Carya glabra – pignut hickory]. The husk is not thick, like that of the shagbark, but quite thin, and splits into four only part way down. The shell is not white nor sharply four-angled like the other, but it is rather like a pignut."); January 7, 1860 ("See, at White Pond . . . a pignut hickory, which was quite full of nuts and still has many on it.") See also November 26, 1860 ("Better for us is the wild strawberry than the pineapple, the wild apple than the orange, the hazelnut or pignut than the cocoanut or almond, and not on account of their flavor merely, but the part they play in our education."); November 28, 1860 ("The rich man's son gets cocoanuts, and the poor man's, pignuts; but the worst of it is that the former never goes a-cocoanutting, and so he never gets the cream of the cocoanut as the latter does the cream of the pignut")

A flock of the pine grosbeak, a plump and handsome. See December 24, 1851 (“Saw also some pine grosbeaks, magnificent winter birds, among the weeds and on the apple trees; . . .when they flit by, are seen to have gorgeous heads, breasts, and rumps, with red or crimson reflections.”);  December 11, 1855 ("When some rare northern bird like the pine grosbeak is seen thus far south in the Winter, he does not suggest poverty, but dazzles us with his beauty."); July 15, 1858 ("Saw two pine grosbeaks, male and female, . . .the male a brilliant red orange, —neck, head, breast beneath, and rump,—blackish wings and tail, with two white bars on wings. (Female, yellowish.) ")

The sun had set and there was a very clear amber light in the west, and, turning about, we were surprised at the darkness in the east, the crescent of night, almost as if the air were thick, . . yet the air was clear.  See November 25, 1857 ("I shiver about awhile on Pine Hill, waiting for the sun to set. Methinks the air is dusky soon after four these days. . . . There is the sun a quarter of an hour high, shining on it through a perfectly clear sky, but to my eye it is singularly dark or dusky. And now the sun has disappeared");November 27, 1853 ("The days are short enough now. The sun is already setting before I have reached the ordinary limit of my walk."); 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.")

That kind of sunset which I witnessed on Saturday and Sunday is perhaps peculiar to the late autumn. See note to 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."); November 23, 1851 ("Another such a sunset to-night as the last."); See also November 25, 1858 ("You are surprised, late these afternoons, a half an hour perhaps before sunset, . . . to see the singularly bright yellow light of the sun reflected from pines. . .through the clear, cold air, the wind, it may be, blowing strong from the northwest.. . . and when I look round northeast I am greatly surprised by the very brilliant sunlight of which I speak, surpassing the glare of any noontide, it seems to me");

When surveying in the swamp on the 20th last, at sundown, I heard the owls. See November 18,1851 ("Surveying these days the Ministerial Lot. Now at sundown I hear the hooting of an owl,-- hoo hoo hoo, hoorer, hoo. . . .I heard it last evening. It is a sound admirably suited to the swamp and to the twilight woods.")

It must be the largest lake in Middlesex.

November 7. 


8 A. M. – To Long Pond with W. E. C. . . .

Close by we found Long Pond, in Wayland, Framingham, and Natick, a great body of water with singularly sandy, shelving, caving, undermined banks; and there we ate our luncheon.

The mayflower leaves we saw there, and the Viola pedata in blossom.

We went down it a mile or two on the east side through the woods on its high bank, and then dined, looking far down to what seemed the Boston outlet (opposite to its natural outlet), where a solitary building stood on the shore.

It is a wild and stretching loch, where yachts might sail, — Cochituate.

It was not only larger but wilder and more novel than I had expected.

In some respects unlike New England.

I could hardly have told in what part of the world I was, if I had been carried there blindfolded.

Yet some features, at least the composition of the soil, were familiar.

The glorious sandy banks far and near, caving and sliding, — far sandy slopes, the forts of the land, where you see  the naked flesh of New England, her garment being blown aside like that of the priests (of the Levites?) when they ascend to the altar.

Seen through this November sky, these sands are dear to me, worth all the gold of California, suggesting Pactolus, while the Saxonville, factory-bell sounds o'er the woods.

That sound perchance it is that whets my vision. . . .

Dear to me to lie in, this sand; fit to preserve the bones of a race for thousands of years to come. And this is my home, my native soil; and I am a New-Englander. Of thee, O earth, are my bone and sinew made; to thee, O sun, am I brother. It must be the largest lake in Middlesex. To this dust my body will gladly return as to its origin. Here have I my habitat I am of thee.

Dear to me to lie in, this sand;

fit to preserve the bones of a race

for thousands of years to come.

And this is my home,

my native soil; and I am

a New-Englander.

Of thee, O earth,

are my bone

and sinew made.

To thee,

O sun,

am I brother.

To this dust

my body will gladly return

as to its origin.

Here have I

my habitat

I am of thee.

Returned by the south side of Dudley Pond, which looked fairer than ever, though smaller, - now so still, the afternoon somewhat advanced, Nobscot in the west in a purplish light . . .

At Nonesuch Pond, in Natick, we saw a boulder some thirty-two feet square by sixteen high, with a large rock leaning against it, -- under which we walked, -- forming a triangular frame, through which we beheld the picture of the pond. How many white Indians have passed under it! Boulder Pond!

Thence across lots by the Weston elm, to the bounds of Lincoln at the railroad.

Saw a delicate fringed purple flower, Gentiana crinita, between those Weston hills, in a meadow, and after on higher land.
. . .

The sun sets while we are perched on a high rock in the north of Weston.  It soon grows finger cold.

At Walden are three reflections of the bright full (or nearly) moon, one moon and two sheens further off.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 7, 1851

It is a wild and stretching loch, where yachts might sail, —Cochituate. See August 24, 1857 ("B. says . . . that Cochituate Pond is only between three and four miles long, or five including the meadows that are flowed, yet it has been called even ten miles long.")

Lake Cochituate was created by the construction, beginning in 1846, of a dam to raise Long Pond, as it was then called , nine feet to create the first public drinking water reservoir for Boston. The Lake consists of three linked kettle ponds in "the Great Sand Plain of Framingham" having a general north and south direction, within the Middlesex County towns of Framingham, Wayland and Natick. The Pond is nearly three and one half miles long , and its greatest breadth about eighteen hundred feet. It naturally discharges into the Sudbury River about 14 miles above Concord where the Sudbury or North River joins the Assabet to form the Concord River. See Annual Report of the Cochituate Water Board For 1851.

And this is my home, my native soil; and I am a New-Englander. See November 8, 1851 ("When I saw the bare sand at Cochituate I felt my relation to the soil. These are my sands not yet run out. Not yet will the fates turn the glass. This air have I title to taint with my decay. In this clean sand my bones will gladly lie. Like Viola pedata, I shall be ready to bloom again here in my Indian summer days. Here ever springing, never dying, with perennial root I stand; for the winter of the land is warm to me. While the flowers bloom again as in the spring, shall I pine? When I see her sands exposed, thrown up from beneath the surface, it touches me inwardly, it reminds me of my origin; for I am such a plant, so native to New England, me thinks, as springs from the sand cast up from below")

The Weston elm. See October 24, 1852 ("There is an agreeable prospect from near the post-office in the northwest of Sudbury. The southeast (?) horizon is very distant. . .extending to the Weston elm in the horizon. You are more impressed with the extent of earth overlooked than if the view were bounded by mountains.")

Three reflections of the bright full (or nearly) moon. See October 8, 1851 ("The sun set red in haze,. . .and the moon rose in like manner at the same time. . . . The moon is full."); February 3, 1852 ("The moon is nearly full tonight,"); March 7, 1852 ("To the woods by the full moon."); April 3, 1852 ("I came out mainly to see the light of the moon reflected from the meadowy flood. It is a pathway of light, of sheeny ripples, extending across the meadow toward the moon, consisting of a myriad little bent and broken moons.")

Sunset from Fair Haven Hill.

December 27.

Saturday.

Sunset from Fair Haven Hill.

This evening there are many clouds in the west into which the sun goes down so that we have our visible or apparent sunset and red evening sky as much as fifteen minutes before the real sunset.

You must be early on the hills to witness such a sunset, — by half past four at least.

Then all the vales, even to the horizon, are full of a purple vapor, which half veils the distant mountains, and the windows of undiscoverable farmhouses shine like an early candle or a fire.

After the sun has gone behind a cloud, there appears to be a gathering of clouds around his setting, and for a few moments his light in the amber sky seems more intense, brighter, and purer than at noonday.

I think you never see such a brightness in the noon day heavens as in the western sky sometimes, just before the sun goes down in clouds, like the ecstasy which we are told sometimes lights up the face of a dying man.

That is a serene or evening death, like the end of the day.

Then, at last, through all the grossness which has accumulated in the atmosphere of day, is seen a patch of serene sky fairer by contrast with the surrounding dark than midday, and even the gross atmosphere of the day is gilded and made pure as amber by the setting sun, as if the day's sins were forgiven it.

The man is blessed who every day is permitted to behold anything so pure and serene as the western sky at sunset, while revolutions vex the world.

There is no winter necessarily in the sky, though the snow covers the earth.

The sky is always ready to answer to our moods; we can see summer there or winter.

Snow and drifts on the earth; it swiftly descends from the heavens and leaves them pure.

The heavens present, perhaps, pretty much the same aspect summer and winter.

It is remarkable that the sun rarely goes down without a cloud.

Venus - I suppose it is - is now the evening star, and very bright she is immediately after sunset in the early twilight.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 27, 1851

Fair Haven Hill. See July 27, 1852 ("On Fair Haven Hill. . . .All the clouds in the sky are now close to the west horizon, so that the sun is nearly down before they are reached and lighted or gilded. . . . The sun is now set. All glow on the clouds is gone, except from one higher, small, rosy pink isle. The solemnity of the evening sky! Just before the earliest star I turn round, and there shines the moon, silvering the small clouds which have gathered."); May 22, 1854 ("How many times I have been surprised thus, on turning about on this very spot, at the fairness of the earth!”); February 21, 1855 (“I look at the Peterboro mountains with my glass from Fair Haven Hill. I think that there can be no more arctic scene than these mountains in the edge of the horizon completely crusted over with snow, with the sun shining on them.”); October 7, 1857 (" When I turn round half-way up Fair Haven Hill, by the orchard wall, and look northwest, I am surprised for the thousandth time at the beauty of the landscape. . . I think that Concord affords no better view.”); March 18, 1858 ("When I get two thirds up the hill, I look round and am for the hundredth time surprised by the landscape of the river valley and the horizon with its distant blue scalloped rim.")

The man is blessed who every day is permitted to behold anything so pure and serene as the western sky at sunset. See December 20, 1851( Sunset in winter from a clearing in the woods."); December 21, 1851 ("How swiftly the earth appears to revolve at sunset."); December 23, 1851 ("I see that there is to be a fine, clear sunset, and make myself a seat in the snow on the Cliff to witness it . . . having got home , I find that the evening star is shining brightly, and . . . just above the horizon, the narrowest imaginable white sickle of the new moon."); December 25, 1851 ("I go forth to see the sun set. Who knows how it will set, even half an hour beforehand? whether it will go down in clouds or a clear sky?"); January 17, 1852 (“In proportion as I have celestial thoughts, is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky sunset these winter days. That is the symbol of the unclouded mind that knows neither winter nor summer.")

There is no winter necessarily in the sky. . . we can see summer there or winter.. . .The heavens present, perhaps, pretty much the same aspect summer and winter. Compare December 31, 1851 ("Consider in what respects the winter sunsets differ from the summer ones "); December 31, 1851 (“I have not enough valued and attended to the pure clarity and brilliancy of the winter skies. . . . The day sky in winter corresponds for clarity to the night sky, in which the stars shine and twinkle so brightly in this latitude.”); January 1, 1852 ("The stars of higher magnitude are more bright and dazzling, and therefore appear more near and numerable, while those that appear indistinct and infinitely remote in the summer, imparting the impression of unfathomability to the sky, are scarcely seen at all. . . .These are some of the differences between this and the autumn or summer nights . . . the dazzle and seeming nearness of the stars."); January 17, 1852 (“sunset these winter days . . . is the symbol of the unclouded mind that knows neither winter nor summer.") January 22, 1854 ("Once or twice of late I have seen the mother-o'-pearl tints and rainbow flocks in the western sky.. . .Methinks the summer sky never exhibits this so finely. "); January 29, 1854 ("Tonight I feel it stinging cold . . .; it bites my ears and face, but the stars shine all the brighter.”); February 3, 1852 ("The heavens appear less thickly starred than in summer, - rather a few bright stars, brought nearer by this splendid twinkling in the cold sky.")March 20, 1852 ("the stars twinkle as in winter night.")

Venus is now the evening star, and very bright she is immediately after sunset in the early twilight See  December 27, 1853 ("It is a true winter sunset, almost cloudless, clear, cold indigo-y along the horizon. The evening star is seen shining brightly, before the twilight has begun. A rosy tint suffuses the eastern horizon.") 

A TRUE WINTER SUNSET December 27, 2017

The sky is always ready to answer to our moods. See January 17, 1852. ("As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind."); January 26, 1852. ("Would you see your mind, look at the sky.")

I go forth to see the sun set.

 

December 25.

Thursday.

Via spruce swamp on Conantum to hilltop, returning across river over shrub oak plain to Cliffs.

A wind is now blowing the light snow which fell a day or two ago into drifts, especially on the lee, now the south, side of the walls, the outlines of the drifts corresponding to the chinks in the walls and the eddies of the wind.

The snow glides, unperceived for the most part, over the open fields without rising into the air (unless the ground is elevated), until it reaches an opposite wall, which it sifts through and is blown over, blowing off from it like steam when seen in the sun.

As it passes through the chinks, it does not drive straight onward, but curves gracefully upwards into fantastic shapes, somewhat like the waves which curve as they break upon the shore; that is, as if the snow that passes through a chink were one connected body, detained by the friction of its lower side.

It takes the form of saddles and shells and porringers.

It builds up a fantastic alabaster wall  behind the first, a snowy sierra.

It is wonderful what sharp turrets it builds up, - builds up, i. e. by accumulation though seemingly by attrition, though the curves upward to a point like the prows of ancient vessels look like sharp carving, or as if the material had been held before the blowpipe.

So what was blown up into the air gradually sifts down into the road or field, and forms the slope of the sierra.

Astonishingly sharp and thin overhanging eaves it builds, even this dry snow, where it has the least suggestion from a wall or bank, — less than a mason ever springs his brick from.

This is the architecture of the snow.

On high hills exposed to wind and sun, it curls off like the steam from a damp roof in the morning.

Such sharply defined forms it takes as if the core had been the flames of gaslights.

I go forth to see the sun set.

Who knows how it will set, even half an hour beforehand? whether it will go down in clouds or a clear sky? 

I feel that it is late when the mountains in the north and northwest have ceased to reflect the sun. The shadow is not partial but universal.

In a winter day the sun is almost all in all.

I witness a beauty in the form or coloring of the clouds which addresses itself to my imagination, for which you account scientifically to my understanding, but do not so account to my imagination. It is what it suggests and is the symbol of that I care for, and if, by any trick of science, you rob it of its symbolicalness, you do me no service and explain nothing.

 I, standing twenty miles off, see a crimson cloud in the horizon.

 You tell me it is a mass of vapor which absorbs all other rays and reflects the red, but that is nothing to the purpose, for this red vision excites me, stirs my blood, makes my thoughts flow, and I have new and indescribable fancies, and you have not touched the secret of that influence.  If there is not something mystical in your explanation, something unexplainable to the understanding, some elements of mystery, it is quite insufficient.

 If there is nothing in it which speaks to my imagination, what boots it? 

What sort of science is that which enriches the understanding, but robs the imagination? not merely robs Peter to pay Paul, but takes from Peter more than it ever gives to Paul ? 

That is simply the way in which it speaks to the understanding, and that is the account which the understanding gives of it; but that is not the way it speaks to the imagination, and that is not the account which the imagination gives of it.

 Just as inadequate to a pure mechanic would be a poet's account of a steam-engine.

 If we knew all things thus mechanically merely, should we know anything really? 

It would be a truer discipline for the writer to take the least film of thought that floats in the twilight sky of his mind for his theme, about which he has scarcely one idea (that would be teaching his ideas how to shoot), faintest intimations, shadowiest subjects, make a lecture on this, by assiduity and attention get perchance two views of the same, increase a little the stock of knowledge, clear a new field instead of manuring the old; instead of making a lecture out of such obvious truths, hackneyed to the minds of all thinkers.

We seek too soon to ally the perceptions of the mind to the experience of the hand, to prove our gossamer truths practical, to show their connection with our every-day life (better show their distance from our every-day life), to relate them to the cider-mill and the banking institution.

Ah, give me pure mind, pure thought!

Let me not be in haste to detect the universal law; let me see more clearly a particular instance of it!

Much finer themes I aspire to, which will yield no satisfaction to the vulgar mind, not one sentence for them.

Perchance it may convince such that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in their philosophy.

Dissolve one nebula, and so destroy the nebular system and hypothesis.

Do not seek expressions, seek thoughts to be expressed.

By perseverance you get two views of the same rare truth.

That way of viewing things you know of, least insisted on by you, however, least remembered, — take that view, adhere to that, insist on that, see all things from that point of view.

Will you let these intimations go unattended to and watch the door-bell or knocker? That is your text.

Do not speak for other men; speak for yourself.

They show you as in a vision the kingdoms of the world, and of all the worlds, but you prefer to look in upon a puppet-show.

Though you should only speak to one kindred mind in all time, though you should not speak to one, but only utter aloud, that you may the more completely realize and live in the idea which contains the reason of your life, that you may build yourself up to the height of your conceptions, that you may remember your Creator in the days of your youth and justify His ways to man, that the end of life may not be its amusement, speak — though your thought presupposes the non-existence of your hearers — thoughts that transcend life and death.

What though mortal ears are not fitted to hear absolute truth!

Thoughts that blot out the earth are best conceived in the night, when darkness has already blotted it out from sight.

We look upward for inspiration.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 25, 1851

On high hills exposed to wind and sun, it curls off like the steam from a damp roof in the morning. See note to December 24, 1850 ("I notice that the fine, dry snow blown over the surface of the frozen fields looks like steam curling up, as from a wet roof when the sun comes out after a rain.") 

I go forth to see the sun set. See December 23, 1851 ("I see that there is to be a fine, clear sunset, and make myself a seat in the snow on the Cliff to witness it"); July 23, 1852 ("I sit at my window to observe the sun set"); June 5, 1854 ("I have come to this hill to see the sun go down.");; November 4, 1857 ("I climb Pine Hill just as the sun is setting,"); November 13, 1857 ("See the sun rise or set if possible each day."); December 23, 1859 ("I ascended Ball's Hill to see the sun set. How red its light at this hour! I covered its orb with my hand, and let its rays light up the fine woollen fibres of my glove. They were a dazzling rose-color.")

Let me not be in haste to detect the universal law; let me see more clearly a particular instance of it! See November 9, 1851 (“Observing me still scribbling, [Channing] will say that he confines himself to the ideal. . . he leaves the facts to me. Sometimes, too, he will say a little petulantly, "I am universal; I have nothing to do with the particular and definite.”")

What sort of science is that which enriches the understanding, but robs the imagination? See May 6, 1854 (“There is no such thing as pure objective observation. Your observation, to be interesting, i. e. to be significant, must be subjective. ”);November 5, 1857 ("I think that the man of science makes this mistake, and the mass of mankind along with him: that you should coolly give your chief attention to the phenomenon which excites you as something independent on you, and not as it is related to you.”): December 8, 1859 ("How is it that what is actually present and transpiring is commonly perceived by the common sense and understanding only, is bare and bald, without halo or the blue enamel of intervening air? . . . It is not simply the understanding now, but the imagination, that takes cognizance of it. The imagination requires a long range. It is the faculty of the poet to see present things as if, in this sense, also past and future, as if distant or universally significant. "); November 20, 1851 ("How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding!")

We look upward for inspiration. See December 20, 1851 ("Go out before sunrise or stay out till sunset."); January 17, 1852 (“In proportion as I have celestial thoughts, is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky sunset these winter days.."); January 26, 1852 ("Would you see your mind, look at the sky.")

There was more light in the water than in the sky.

November 30

8 A. M. To river, to examine roots,

I rake up almost everywhere from the bottom of the river that very fresh and bright green ranunculus, the handsomely divided leaf.

I ascertain this morning that that white root with eyes and slaty-tinged fibres and sharp leaves rolled up, found gnawed off and floating about muskrat-houses, is the root of the great yellow lily. The leaf-stalk is yellow, while that of the white lily is a downy or mildewy blue black. The yellow lily root is, then, a principal item, it would seem, in their vegetable diet. 

I find that those large triangular or rhomboidal or shell-shaped eyes or shoulders on this root are the bases of leaf-stalks which have rotted off, but toward the upper end of the root are still seen decaying.  They are a sort of abutment on which the leaf-stalk rested, and the fine black dots on them are the bases of the fine threads or fibres of the leaf-stalk, which, in the still living leaf-stalk, are distinguished by their purple color.

These eyes, like the leaves, of course, are arranged spirally around the roots in parallel rows, in quincunx order, so that four make a diamond figure,

The slate-tinged fibres spring from the bare white intervals between the bases of the leaves, Closely packed between, and protected by the under leaf stalk, I find already the tender club-shaped yellow flower-bud a quarter of an inch in diameter, with a stem two inches long and wider than the bud. 

I am surprised to find these roots, even within to the bases of the leaves about the buds, infested with white grubs nearly half an inch long and minute, threadlike red dish and speckled worms.

Also on the fibres are transparent elliptical chrysalids, the color of a snail-shell, containing insects apparently just ready to fly,

The white lily roots are more enveloped in down and fibre, a dark-blue or blackish down.

I raked up one dark-brown root somewhat like a white lily, except that it was smooth and the leaf-stalks were very slender and the leaf-buds minute. Perhaps it was the kalmiana lily.

I raked up one live clam in deep water, and could feel them like stones on the bottom.

All these leaves are lightly rolled up in the form of arrowheads, as thus best prepared to pierce whatever obstacles the mud or water may present.

There is a vast amount of decaying vegetable matter at the bottom of the river, and what I draw up on my rake emits a very offensive odor. 

1 P. M. – Down river by boat and inland to the green house beyond Blood's.

A mild and summery afternoon with much russet light on the landscape.

I think it was a flock of low-warbling tree sparrows which I saw amid the weeds beyond the monument, though they looked larger,

I am attracted nowadays by the various withered grasses and sedges, of different shades of straw-color and of various more or less graceful forms.

That which I call fescue grass is quite interesting, gracefully bending to the zephyr, and many others are very perfect and pure.

Wool-grass is one of the largest and most conspicuous. I observe it rising thinly above the water in which it is reflected, two or three feet, and all its narrow rustling leaves stream southeasterly from the stems, though it is now quite calm, proving the prevalence of northwesterly winds.

An abundance of withered sedges and other coarse grasses, which in the summer you scarcely noticed, now cover the low grounds, -- the granary of the winter birds.

A very different end they serve from the flowers which decay so early.

Their rigid culms enable them to withstand the blasts of winter. Though divested of color, fairly bleached, they are not in the least decayed but seasoned and living like the heart-wood.

Now, first since spring, I take notice of the cladonia lichens, which the cool fall rains appear to have started.

The Callitriche verna is perfectly fresh and green, though frozen in, in the pools.

We are going across the Hunt and Mason pastures.

The twigs of young cedars with apparently staminate buds have even a strawberry-like fragrance, and what a heavenly blue have the berries! - a peculiar light blue, whose bloom rubs off, contrasting with the green or purplish-brown leaves.

I do not know so fine a pine grove as that of Mason's. The young second-growth white pines are peculiarly soft, thick, and bushy there. They branch directly at the ground and almost horizontally, for the most part four or five large stems springing from the ground together, as if they had been broken down by cattle originally. But the result is a very dark and dense, almost impenetrable, but peculiarly soft and beautiful grove, which any gentleman might covet on his estate.

We returned by the bridle-road across the pastures.

When I returned to town the other night by the Walden road through the meadows from Brister's Hill to the poorhouse, I fell to musing upon the origin of the meanders in the road; for when I looked straight before or behind me, my eye met the fences at a short distance, and it appeared that the road, instead of being built in a straight line across the meadows, as one might have expected, pursued a succession of curves like a cow-path.  In fact, it was just such a meandering path as an eye of taste requires, and the landscape-gardener consciously aims to make, and the wonder is that a body of laborers left to themselves, without instruments or geometry, and perchance intending to make a straight road, — in short, that circumstances ordinarily, — will so commonly make just such a meandering road as the eye requires.

A man advances in his walk somewhat as a river does, meanderingly, and such, too, is the progress of the race.

The law that plants the rushes in waving lines along the edge of a pond, and that curves the pond shore itself, incessantly beats against the straight fences and highways of men and makes them conform to the line of beauty which is most agreeable to the eye at last.

There was more light in

 the water than in the sky

as we paddled home.

But to return to the walk of the day.

Though there were some clouds in the west, there was a bright silver twilight before we reached our boat.

C. remarked it descending into the hollows immediately after sunset,

A red house could hardly be distinguished at a distance, but a white one appeared to reflect light on the landscape. 

At first we saw no redness in the sky, but only some peculiar dark wisp-like clouds in the west, but on rising a hill I saw a few red stains like veins of red quartz on a ground of feldspar.

The river was perfectly smooth except the upwelling of its tide, 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.

The reflections of the trees and bushes on the banks were wonderfully dark and distinct, for though frequently we could not see the real bush in the twilight against the dark bank, in the water it appeared against the sky.  We were thus often enabled to steer clear of the overhanging bushes. 

It was an evening for the muskrats to be abroad, and we saw one, which dove as he was swimming rapidly, turning over like a wheel.

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

A flock of low-warbling tree sparrows. See December 3, 1853 ("Saw two tree sparrows on Monroe's larch by the waterside. Larger than chip-birds, with more bay above and a distinct white bar on wings, not to mention bright-chestnut crown and obscure spot on breast; all beneath pale-ash. . . . uttering from time to time a faint, tinkling chip")

.I do not know so fine a pine grove as that of Mason's. See November 30, 1851 ("My eye wanders across the valley to the pine woods which fringe the opposite side, and in their aspect my eye finds something which addresses itself to my nature.. . .I experienced a transient gladness, at any rate, at something which I saw. I am sure that my eye rested with pleasure on the white pines, now reflecting a silvery light, the infinite stories of their boughs, tier above tier, a sort of basaltic structure, a crumbling precipice of pine horizontally stratified. Each pine is like a great green feather stuck in the ground. A myriad white pine boughs extend themselves horizontally, one above and behind another, each bearing its burden of silvery sunlight, ")

Though frequently we could not see the real bush in the twilight against the dark bank, in the water it appeared against the sky. See November 2, 1857 ("In the reflection the tree is black against the clear whitish sky, though as I see it against the opposite woods it is a warm greenish yellow. But the river sees it against the bright sky, and hence the reflection is like ink. The water tells me how it looks to it seen from below."); November 23, 1853 ("What lifts and lightens and makes heaven of the earth is the fact that you see the reflections of the humblest weeds against the sky, but you cannot put your head low enough to see the substance so. The reflection enchants us, just as an echo does.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Reflections

It was an evening for the muskrats to be abroad, and we saw one, which dove as he was swimming rapidly, turning over like a wheel. See December 2, 1852 ("There goes a muskrat. He leaves so long a ripple behind that in this light you cannot tell where his body ends, and think him longer than he is.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

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

There was more light in

 the water than in the sky

as we paddled home.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  There was more light in the water than in the sky.

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-531130

My interest in the sun and the moon, in the morning and the evening.

July 26.

By my intimacy with nature I find myself withdrawn from man. My interest in the sun and the moon, in the morning and the evening, compels me to solitude.

The grandest picture in the world is the sunset sky.

In your higher moods what man is there to meet? You are of necessity isolated.

The mind that perceives clearly any natural beauty is in that instant withdrawn from human society.

My desire for society is infinitely increased; my fitness for any actual society is diminished.

Went to Cambridge and Boston to-day.

Dr. Harris says that my great moth is the Attacus luna; may be regarded as one of several emperor moths. They are rarely seen, being very liable to be snapped up by birds.

Once, as he was crossing the College Yard, he saw the wings of one coming down, which reached the ground just at his feet. What a tragedy! The wings came down as the only evidence that such a creature had soared, — wings large and splendid, which were designed to bear a precious burthen through the upper air.

So most poems, even epics, are like the wings come down to earth, while the poet whose adventurous flight they evidence has been snapped up [by] the ravenous vulture of this world.

If this moth ventures abroad by day, some bird will pick out the precious cargo and let the sails and rigging drift, as when the sailor meets with a floating spar and sail and reports a wreck seen in a certain latitude and longitude.

For what were such tender and defenseless organizations made?

The one I had, being put into a large box, beat itself — its wings, etc. — all to pieces in the night, in its efforts to get out, depositing its eggs, nevertheless, on the sides of its prison.

Perchance the entomologist never saw an entire specimen, but, as he walked one day, the wings of a larger species than he had ever seen came fluttering down.

The wreck of an argosy in the air. 

He tells me the glow-worms are first seen, he thinks, in the last part of August. Also that there is a large and brilliant glow-worm found here, more than an inch long, as he measured it to me on his finger, but rare. 

Perhaps the sunset glows are sudden in proportion as the edges of the clouds are abrupt, when the sun finally reaches such a point that his rays can be reflected from them.

At 10 p. m. I see high columns of fog, formed in the lowlands and lit by the moon, preparing to charge this higher ground. It is as if the sky reached the solid ground there, for they shut out the woods.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, July 26, 1852

My interest in the sun and the moon, in the morning and the evening, compels me to solitude.  See March 17, 1852 (“There is a moment in the dawn,. . . when we see things more truly than at any other time.”);  June 13, 1852 ("All things in this world must be seen with the morning dew on them, must be seen with youthful, early-opened, hopeful eyes"); August 31, 1852 ("The wind is gone down; the water is smooth; a serene evening is approaching; the clouds are dispersing. . . .The reflections are the more perfect for the blackness of the water. This is the most glorious part of this day, the serenest, warmest, brightest part, and the most suggestive. Evening is fairer than morning. Morning is full of promise and vigor. Evening is pensive. The serenity is far more remarkable to those who are on the water") ; January 26, 1853 (“ I look back . . . not into the night, but to a dawn for which no man ever rose early enough.”); May 17, 1853 ("Ah, the beauty of this last hour of the day — when a power stills the air and smooths all waters and all minds — that partakes of the light of the day and the stillness of the night"); August 11, 1853 (" What shall we name this season? — this very late afternoon, or very early evening, this season of the day most favorable for reflection, after the insufferable heats and the bustle of the day are over and before the twilight? The serene hour, the season of reflection! The pensive season.The few sounds now heard, far or near, are delicious. Each sound has a broad and deep relief of silence. It is not more dusky and obscure, but clearer than before. The poet arouses himself and collects his thoughts.");.Walden (“To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning. It matters not what the clocks say . . . Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me.”);  and A Book of the Seasons, The hour before sunset


The mind that perceives clearly any natural beauty is in that instant withdrawn from human society. See January 17, 1852 ("As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind. Some see only clouds there; some behold there serenity, purity, beauty ineffable."): June 21, 1852 ("The perception of beauty is a moral test."); November 18, 1857 ("You cannot perceive beauty but with a serene mind.")

Dr. Harris says that my great moth is the Attacus luna. See July 8, 1852  ("I found a remarkable moth lying flat on the still water as if asleep (they appear to sleep during the day), as large as the smaller birds. Five and a half inches in alar extent and about three inches the thing like the smaller figure in one position of the wings (with a remarkably narrow lunar-cut tail), of a sea-green color, with four conspicuous spots whitish within, then a red line, then yellowish border below or toward the tail, but brown, brown orange, and black above, toward head; a very robust body, covered with a kind of downy plumage, an inch and a quarter long by five eighths thick. The sight affected me as tropical, . . .  It suggests into what productions Nature would run if all the year were a July.")  See also June 27, 1858 ("See an Attacus luna in the shady path");June 27, 1859 ("At the further Brister's Spring, under the pine, I find an Attacus luna.");   June 29, 1859 ("I found the wing of an Attacus luna, — and July 1st another wing near Second Division, which makes three between June 27th and July 1st."); July 1, 1853 ; ("Saw one of those great pea-green emperor moths, like a bird, fluttering over the top of the woods this forenoon, 10 a. m., near Beck Stow's")  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Luna Moth (Attacus luna)

July 26. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, July 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 © 2009-2021