{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_59031/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_59031","id":"gutenberg_59031","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59031","summary":null,"tags":["Authors, American -- 19th century -- Diaries","Category: American Literature","Category: Biographies","Category: Nature/Gardening/Animals","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862 -- Diaries"],"text":"Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed\nProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was\nproduced from images generously made available by The\nInternet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Note:\n\n Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have\n been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.\n\n Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.\n\n The following alternate spellings were noted, but retained:\n\n Shakspeare and Shakespeare\n Minot and Minott\n\n\n\n\n MANUSCRIPT EDITION\n\n LIMITED TO SIX HUNDRED COPIES\n\n NUMBER ____\n\n\n\n\n [Illustration: _Star-flowers (Trientalis) (page 266)_]\n\n [Illustration: _Fair Haven Pond from the Cliffs_]\n\n\n\n\n THE WRITINGS OF\n HENRY DAVID THOREAU\n\n JOURNAL\n\n EDITED BY BRADFORD TORREY\n\n II\n 1850-SEPTEMBER 15, 1851\n\n BOSTON AND NEW YORK\n HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY\n MDCCCCVI\n\n\n\n\n COPYRIGHT 1906 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.\n\n _All rights reserved_\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n CHAPTER I. 1850 (\u00c6T. 32-33) 3\n\n The Religion of the Hindoos\u2014Narrow Shoes\u2014The Town of\n Bedford\u2014A Visit to Haverhill and the Dustin House\u2014Taste\n in Eating\u2014Sawing Buttonwood Logs\u2014The Insanity of\n Heroes\u2014The Sand Cherry\u2014Life in a Small Meadow\u2014Turtle and\n Horned Pout\u2014Limestone\u2014The Energy of Our Ancestors\u2014A New\n Bosphorus\u2014Sippio Brister\u2019s Gravestone\u2014Fences\u2014Driving\n Cows to Pasture\u2014Setting Fire to the Woods\u2014The\n Incendiary\u2014The View from Goodman\u2019s Hill in Sudbury\u2014A\n Burner of Brush\u2014Tending a Burning\u2014The Regularity of the\n Cars\u2014The Levels of Life\u2014A Proposed Method of Fighting\n Wood-Fires\u2014The Yezidis\u2014Insects over the River\u2014Cows in a\n Pasture\u2014Horses Fighting\u2014The Advantages of a Fire in the\n Woods\u2014Walking by Night\u2014An Indian Squaw\u2014A Button from the\n Marquis of Ossoli\u2019s Coat\u2014Bones on the Beach\u2014Fresh Water\n in Sand-Bars\u2014Rags and Meanness\u2014Tobacco Legislation\u2014An\n Ideal Friend\u2014Conforming\u2014A Drunken Dutchman\u2014Legs as\n Compasses\u2014Walks about Concord\u2014Meadow-Hay\u2014The Old\n Marlborough Road\u2014Surface of Water\u2014The Money-Digger\u2014The\n Railroad\u2014Tall Ambrosia\u2014The Ways of Cows\u2014Flocks\n of Birds\u2014A Great Blue Heron\u2014The Elm\u2014Uncle Charles\n Dunbar\u2014Lines on a Flower growing in the Middle of the\n Road\u2014A Beautiful Heifer\u2014Water the Only Drink\u2014On the\n River\u2014Music\u2014The Canadian Excursion\u2014Living and Loving\n one\u2019s Life\u2014Canadian Houses\u2014A Frog in the Milk\u2014Apostrophe\n to Diana\u2014Aground at Patchogue\u2014The Relics of a Human\n Body on the Beach\u2014Echoes\u2014Sawmills\u2014Begging Indians\u2014The\n Indian and his Baskets\u2014Uncle Charles on the Dock at New\n York\u2014Nature in November\u2014The Approach of Winter\u2014Changes\n made in Views from the cutting down of Woods\u2014Cats\n run Wild\u2014The Growth of a Wood\u2014Canadian Greatcoats\u2014A\n Root Fence\u2014Wild Apples\u2014An Old Bone\u2014A Miser and his\n Surveyor\u2014The Remains of a Coal-Pit\u2014The Pickerel in the\n Brooks\u2014Wildness\u2014The Attraction of the West\u2014Frightened\n Cows\u2014The Passing of the Wild Apple\u2014Begging\n Governments\u2014Old Maps\u2014The First Cold Day\u2014A New Kind of\n Cranberry\u2014The Discoveries of the Unscientific Man\u2014The\n Sportiveness of Cattle\u2014Fair Haven Pond\u2014Friends and\n Acquaintances\u2014Summer Days in Winter\u2014A Muskrat on\n the Ice\u2014An Encampment of Indians at Concord\u2014Indian\n Lore\u2014Indian Inventions\u2014Instinct in Women\u2014The Little\n Irish Boy\u2014Puffballs\u2014An Ocean of Mist.\n\n CHAPTER II. December, 1850 (\u00c6T. 33) 120\n\n Moss\u2014Circulation in Plants\u2014The First Snow\u2014Blue-Curls\n and Indigo-weed\u2014Hands and Feet\u2014Sweet-Gale\u2014Promethea\n Cocoons\u2014Frozen-thawed Apples\u2014Swamps in Winter\u2014An\n Old-fashioned Snow-Storm\u2014A Shrike with Prey\u2014The Death of\n Friends\u2014Notes from Gordon Cumming\u2014Blue Jays.\n\n CHAPTER III. January-April, 1851 (\u00c6T. 33) 134\n\n A Visit to the Clinton Gingham-Mills\u2014Behavior\u2014The\n Knowledge of an Unlearned Man\u2014Snow-covered Hills\u2014The\n Walker Errant\u2014Sauntering\u2014Freedom\u2014F. A. Michaux on\n Certain Trees\u2014Divine Communications\u2014The Tameness of\n English Literature\u2014Quotations from Ovid\u2014Panoramas\n of the Rhine and the Mississippi\u2014The Fertility\n of America\u2014Midwinter\u2014Sir John Mandeville on the\n Peoples of the Earth\u2014A Society for the Diffusion\n of Useful Ignorance\u2014America the She Wolf To-day\u2014The\n Gregariousness of Man\u2014The Edge of the Meadow\u2014Fleets\n of Ice-Flakes\u2014Waterfalls within Us\u2014The Ice-Flakes\n again\u2014Antiquity\u2014The Health of the Farmer\u2014Eating\u2014The\n Fallibility of Friends\u2014Moral Freedom\u2014Manners and\n Character\u2014Getting a Living\u2014Actinism\u2014The Floating\n Crust of the Meadow\u2014Mythology and Geology\u2014Law and\n Lawlessness\u2014Carrying off Sims\u2014Governor Boutwell\u2014Concord\n and Slavery\u2014The Fugitive Slave Law\u2014Slavery and the\n Press\u2014Mahomet\u2014The Sentence of the Judge\u2014The Servility\n of Newspapers\u2014A False Idea of Liberty\u2014Real and Actual\n Communications\u2014The Cat\u2014Love and Marriage.\n\n CHAPTER IV. May, 1851 (\u00c6T. 33) 186\n\n Purity\u2014An Optical Illusion\u2014A Mountain Tarn\u2014Experiments\n in Living\u2014The Caliph Omar\u2014The Harivansa\u2014The Taming\n of Beasts and Men\u2014The Study of Nature\u2014False Teeth\n or a False Conscience\u2014Taking Ether\u2014Moonlight\u2014Notes\n from Michaux\u2014Vegetation and Human Life\u2014The\n Development of the Mind\u2014The Mind and its Roots\u2014Man\n our Contemporary\u2014Names\u2014Wild Apples and their\n Names\u2014An Inspiring Regret\u2014Medical Botany\u2014The\n Designs of Providence\u2014True Sites for Houses\u2014The\n View from the Wayland Hills\u2014An Organ-Grinder\u2014Materia\n Medica\u2014Tobacco\u2014More Names for Wild Apples.\n\n CHAPTER V. June, 1851 (\u00c6T. 33) 224\n\n A Visit to Worcester\u2014A Fallen Oak\u2014Angelica and\n Hemlock\u2014Transcendentalism\u2014The Past and the Future\u2014Who\n boosts You?\u2014F. A. Michaux on the Ohio\u2014Various Trees\u2014Our\n Garments and the Trees\u2019\u2014A Moonlight Walk\u2014Crossing\n Bridges at Night\u2014Air-Strata at Night\u2014A Book of the\n Seasons\u2014South American Notes from Darwin\u2019s \u201cVoyage of\n a Naturalist\u201d\u2014Moonlight\u2014Breathing\u2014The Shimmering of the\n Moon\u2019s Reflections on the Rippled Surface of a Pond\u2014The\n Bittern\u2019s Pumping\u2014Twilight\u2014Music Out-of-Doors\u2014The\n Whip-poor-will\u2019s Moon\u2014Fireflies\u2014Darwin again\u2014The\n Rapid Growth of Grass\u2014The Birch the Surveyor\u2019s\n Tree\u2014Criticism\u2014Calmness\u2014The Wood Thrush\u2019s Song\u2014The Ox\u2019s\n Badges of Servitude\u2014A Visit to a Menagerie\u2014Old Country\n Methods of Farming\u2014The Hyp\u00e6thral Character of the\n \u201cWeek\u201d\u2014Dog and Wagon\u2014Haying begun\u2014The Fragrance of the\n Fir.\n\n CHAPTER VI. July, 1851 (\u00c6T. 33-34) 280\n\n Travellers heard talking at\n Night\u2014Potato-Fields\u2014Hubbard\u2019s Bridge\u2014Moonlight\u2014Sam, the\n Jailer\u2014Intimations of the Night\u2014Shadows of Trees\u2014Perez\n Blood\u2019s Telescope\u2014The Chastity of the Mind\u2014A Rye-Field\u2014A\n Visit to the Cambridge Observatory\u2014Charles River\u2014A\n Gorgeous Sunset\u2014The Forms of Clouds\u2014A Moonlight Walk\u2014The\n Light of the Moon\u2014Waterfalls within Us\u2014Another Moonlight\n Walk\u2014Eating a Raw Turnip\u2014The Experience of Ecstasy\u2014The\n Song Sparrow\u2014Berry-Picking\u2014Signs of the Season\u2014The First\n of the Dog-Days\u2014Pitch Pine Woods\u2014The Ideal Self\u2014The Life\n of the Spirit\u2014A Proposed Occupation\u2014The River\u2019s Crop\u2014An\n Old Untravelled Road\u2014A Black Veil\u2014A Human Footprint\u2014The\n Gentleman\u2014An Immortal Melody\u2014Wild Pigeons\u2014Mirabeau\n as a Highwayman\u2014Ambrosial Fog\u2014Maimed Geniuses\u2014The\n Charm of the French Names in Canada\u2014Walking and\n Writing\u2014Swallows\u2014The Moods of the Mind\u2014Drought\u2014A South\n Shore Excursion\u2014On the Hingham Boat\u2014Hull\u2014The Cohasset\n Shore\u2014Daniel Webster\u2019s Farm\u2014A Mackerel Schooner\u2014Clark\u2019s\n Island\u2014A Boat Swamped\u2014Digging Clams\u2014The Rut of the\n Sea\u2014Seals in Plymouth Harbor\u2014Shells and Seaweeds\u2014The\n Sailboat\u2014Webster\u2019s Nearest Neighbor\u2014A Hard Man\u2014Plymouth.\n\n CHAPTER VII. August, 1851 (\u00c6T. 34) 367\n\n Return to Concord\u2014An Ill-managed Menagerie\u2014A Summer\n Evening\u2014A Musical Performer\u2014The Moon and the Clouds\u2014The\n Nearness of the Wild\u2014Travelling\u2014Profitable Interest\u2014The\n Spread of Inventions\u2014The Inspiring Melodies\u2014An Unheeded\n Warning\u2014Sounds of a Summer Night\u2014The Moon\u2019s War with\n the Clouds\u2014First Signs of Morning\u2014The Dawn\u2014Thistle\n and Bee\u2014Cool Weather\u2014Delight in Nature\u2014The Snake\n in the Stomach\u2014The Haying\u2014Dogs and Cows\u2014British\n Soldiers in Canada\u2014Liberty in Canada\u2014Canadian\n Fortifications\u2014Prehensile Intellects\u2014The Poet and\n his Moods\u2014Knowing one\u2019s Subject\u2014The Revolution of\n the Seasons\u2014Rattlesnake-Plantain\u2014The Creak of the\n Crickets\u2014Botanical Terms\u2014The Cardinal-Flower\u2014The\n Canadian Feudal System\u2014Government\u2014The Flowering of\n the Vervain\u2014The Conspicuous Flowers of the Season\u2014The\n Visit to Canada\u2014De Quincey\u2019s Style\u2014Charity and\n Almshouses\u2014Men observed as Animals\u2014The Price Farm\n Road\u2014Snake and Toad\u2014An August Wind\u2014Cutting Turf\u2014Burning\n Brush\u2014The Telegraph\u2014The Fortress of Quebec\u2014A Faithful\n Flower\u2014Potato Balls\u2014The Seal of Evening\u2014Solitude in\n Concord\u2014The Names of Plants.\n\n CHAPTER VIII. September, 1851 (\u00c6T. 34) 440\n\n Disease the Rule of Existence\u2014Finding one\u2019s\n Faculties\u2014Telegraphs\u2014Moose-lipped Words\u2014Cato\u2019s De\n Re Rustica\u2014The Horse and Man\u2014Health and Disease\u2014The\n Telegraph Harp\u2014Walking in England\u2014A Walk to\n Boon\u2019s Pond in Stow\u2014The Farmer and His Oxen\u2014Tempe\n and Arcadia\u2014Footpaths for Poets\u2014Writing on Many\n Subjects\u2014Dammed Streams\u2014The Dog of the Woods\u2014J. J.\n G. Wilkinson\u2014Fastidiousness\u2014A Lake by Moonlight\u2014A\n Formalist\u2014The Fullness of Life\u2014Creatures of\n Institutions\u2014Moments of Inspiration\u2014Gladness\u2014A\n September Evening\u2014Singing heard at Night\u2014Moonlight\n on the River\u2014Fair Haven by Moonlight\u2014Northern\n Lights\u2014Soaring Hawks\u2014The Grass and the Year\u2014The Sky\n at Night\u2014A Factory-Bell\u2014Sunrise\u2014The Color of the\n Poke\u2014The Stone-mason\u2019s Craft\u2014Moral Effort\u2014Benvenuto\n Cellini\u2014An Endymion Sleep\u2014The Mountains in the\n Horizon\u2014The Telegraph Harp\u2014Perambulating the Bounds\u2014A\n Pigeon-Place\u2014An Elusive Scent\u2014The Cross-leaved Polygala.\n\n\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n STAR-FLOWERS (TRIENTALIS) Frontispiece\n Carbon photograph (page 266)\n\n FAIR HAVEN POND FROM THE CLIFFS Colored plate\n\n FAIR HAVEN POND FROM THE CLIFFS 10\n\n NOVEMBER WOODS 86\n\n FIRST SNOW 122\n\n MIDWINTER 150\n\n TOWN BROOK, PLYMOUTH 364\n\n\n\n\nTHE JOURNAL OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU\nVOLUME II\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n1850 (\u00c6T. 32-33)[1]\n\n\nThe Hindoos are more serenely and thoughtfully religious than the\nHebrews. They have perhaps a purer, more independent and impersonal\nknowledge of God. Their religious books describe the first inquisitive\nand contemplative access to God; the Hebrew bible a conscientious\nreturn, a grosser and more personal repentance. Repentance is not a\nfree and fair highway to God. A wise man will dispense with repentance.\nIt is shocking and passionate. God prefers that you approach him\nthoughtful, not penitent, though you are the chief of sinners. It is\nonly by forgetting yourself that you draw near to him.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe calmness and gentleness with which the Hindoo philosophers approach\nand discourse on forbidden themes is admirable.\n\nWhat extracts from the Vedas I have read fall on me like the light of\na higher and purer luminary, which describes a loftier course through a\npurer stratum,\u2014free from particulars, simple, universal. It rises on me\nlike the full moon after the stars have come out, wading through some\nfar summer stratum of the sky.\n\nThe Vedant teaches how, \u201cby forsaking religious rites,\u201d the votary may\n\u201cobtain purification of mind.\u201d\n\nOne wise sentence is worth the state of Massachusetts many times over.\n\nThe Vedas contain a sensible account of God.\n\nThe religion and philosophy of the Hebrews are those of a wilder and\nruder tribe, wanting the civility and intellectual refinements and\nsubtlety of the Hindoos.\n\n * * * * *\n\nMan flows at once to God as soon as the channel of purity, physical,\nintellectual, and moral, is open.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWith the Hindoos virtue is an intellectual exercise, not a social and\npractical one. It is a knowing, not a doing.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI do not prefer one religion or philosophy to another. I have no\nsympathy with the bigotry and ignorance which make transient and\npartial and puerile distinctions between one man\u2019s faith or form of\nfaith and another\u2019s,\u2014as Christian and heathen. I pray to be delivered\nfrom narrowness, partiality, exaggeration, bigotry. To the philosopher\nall sects, all nations, are alike. I like Brahma, Hari, Buddha, the\nGreat Spirit, as well as God.\n\n [Part of leaf missing here.]\n\nA page with as true and inevitable and deep a meaning as a hillside,\na book which Nature shall own as her own flower, her own leaves; with\nwhose leaves her own shall rustle in sympathy imperishable and russet;\nwhich shall push out with the skunk-cabbage in the spring. I am not\noffended by the odor of the skunk in passing by sacred places.[2] I am\ninvigorated rather. It is a reminiscence of immortality borne on the\ngale. O thou partial world, when wilt thou know God? I would as soon\ntransplant this vegetable to Polynesia or to heaven with me as the\nviolet.\n\nShoes are commonly too narrow. If you should take off a gentleman\u2019s\nshoes, you would find that his foot was wider than his shoe. Think of\nhis wearing such an engine! walking in it many miles year after year!\nA shoe which presses against the sides of the foot is to be condemned.\nTo compress the foot like the Chinese is as bad as to compress the\nhead like the Flatheads, for the head and the foot are one body. The\nnarrow feet,\u2014they greet each other on the two sides of the Pacific.\nA sensible man will not follow fashion in this respect, but reason.\nBetter moccasins, or sandals, or even bare feet, than a tight shoe. A\nwise man will wear a shoe wide and large enough, shaped somewhat like\nthe foot, and tied with a leather string, and so go his way in peace,\nletting his foot fall at every step.\n\nWhen your shoe chafes your feet, put in a mullein leaf.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWhen I ask for a garment of a particular form, my tailoress tells me\ngravely, \u201cThey do not make them so now,\u201d and I find it difficult to get\nmade what I want, simply because she cannot believe that I mean what\nI say; it surpasses her credulity. Properly speaking, my style is as\nfashionable as theirs. \u201cThey do not make them so now,\u201d as if she quoted\nthe Fates! I am for a moment absorbed in thought, thinking, wondering\nwho _they_ are, where _they_ live. It is some Oak Hall, O call, O.\nK., all correct establishment which she knows but I do not. Oliver\nCromwell. I emphasize and in imagination italicize each word separately\nof that sentence to come at the meaning of it.[3]\n\n * * * * *\n\nOr you may walk into the foreign land of Bedford, where not even yet,\nafter four or five, or even seven or eight, miles, does the sky shut\ndown, but the airy and crystal dome of heaven arches high over all,\nwhen you did not suspect that there was so much daylight under its\ncrystal dome, and from the hill eastward perchance see the small town\nof Bedford standing stately on the crest of a hill like some city of\nBelgrade with one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. I wonder if\nMr. Fitch lives there among them.\n\nHow many noble men and women must have their abode there! So it\nseems,\u2014I trust that so it is,\u2014but I did not go into Bedford that time.\nBut alas! I have been into a village before now, and there was not a\nman of a large soul in it. In what respect was it better than a village\nof prairie-dogs.[4] I mean to hint no reproach even by implica-[part of\nleaf torn off].\n\n\nSunday, May 12, 1850, visited the site of the Dustin house in the\nnorthwest part of Haverhill, now but a slight indentation in a\ncorn-field, three or four feet deep, with an occasional brick and\ncellar-stone turned up in plowing. The owner, Dick Kimball, made\nmuch of the corn grown in this hole, some ears of which were sent to\nPhiladelphia. The apple tree which is said to have stood north from the\nhouse at a considerable distance is gone. A brick house occupied by a\ndescendant is visible from the spot, and there are old cellar-holes in\nthe neighborhood, probably the sites of some of the other eight houses\nwhich were burned on that day. It is a question with some which is the\nsite of the true Dustin house.\n\nAlso visited the same day an ancient garrison-house now occupied by\nFred. Ayer, who said it was built one hundred and fifty or one hundred\nand sixty years ago by one Emerson, and that several oxen were killed\nby lightning while it was building. There was also a pear tree nearly\nas old as the house. It was built of larger and thicker and harder\nbrick than are used nowadays, and on the whole looked more durable\nand still likely to stand a hundred years. The hard burnt blue-black\nends of some of the bricks were so arranged as to checker the outside.\nHe said it was considered the handsomest house in Haverhill when it\nwas built, and people used to come up from town some two miles to see\nit. He thought that they were the original doors which we saw. There\nwere but few windows, and most of them were about two feet and a half\nlong and a foot or more wide, only to fire out of. The oven originally\nprojected outside. There were two large fireplaces. I walked into one,\nby stooping slightly, and looked up at the sky. Ayer said jokingly that\nsome said they were so made to shoot wild geese as they flew over. The\nchains and hooks were suspended from a wooden bar high in the chimney.\nThe timbers were of immense size.\n\nFourteen vessels in or to be in the port of Haverhill, laden with coal,\nlumber, lime, wood, and so forth. Boys go [to] the wharf with their\nfourpences to buy a bundle of laths to make a hen-house; none elsewhere\nto be had.\n\nSaw two or three other garrison-houses. Mrs. Dustin was an Emerson, one\nof the family for whom I surveyed.\n\nMeasured a buttonwood tree in Haverhill, one of twenty and more set\nout about 1739 on the banks of the Merrimack. It was thirteen and\neight twelfths feet in circumference at three and a half feet from the\nground.\n\n * * * * *\n\nJewett\u2019s steam mill is profitable, because the planing machine alone,\nwhile that is running, makes shavings and waste enough to feed the\nengine, to say nothing of the sawdust from the sawmill; and the engine\nhad not required the least repair for several years. Perhaps, as there\nis not so much sawing and planing to be done in England, they therefore\nmay not find steam so cheap as water.\n\n * * * * *\n\nA single gentle rain in the spring makes the grass look many shades\ngreener.\n\nIt is wisest to live without any definite and recognized object from\nday to day,\u2014any particular object,\u2014for the world is round, and we are\nnot to live on a tangent or a radius to the sphere. As an old poet\nsays, \u201cthough man proposeth, God disposeth all.\u201d\n\nOur thoughts are wont to run in muddy or dusty ruts.\n\nI too revive as does the grass after rain. We are never so flourishing,\nour day is never so fair, but that the sun may come out a little\nbrighter through mists and we yearn to live a better life. What have we\nto boast of? We are made the very sewers, the cloac\u00e6, of nature.\n\nIf the hunter has a taste for mud turtles and muskrats and skunks and\nother such savage titbits, the fine lady indulges a taste for some form\nof potted cheese, or jelly made of a calf\u2019s foot, or anchovies from\nover the water, and they are even. He goes to the mill-pond, she to\nher preserve pot. I wonder how he, I wonder how I, can live this slimy,\nbeastly kind of life, eating and drinking.[5]\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe fresh foliage of the woods in May, when the leaves are about as big\nas a mouse\u2019s ear, putting out like taller grasses and herbs.\n\nIn all my rambles I have seen no landscape which can make me forget\nFair Haven. I still sit on its Cliff in a new spring day, and look\nover the awakening woods and the river, and hear the new birds sing,\nwith the same delight as ever. It is as sweet a mystery to me as ever,\nwhat this world is. Fair Haven Lake in the south, with its pine-covered\nisland and its meadows, the hickories putting out fresh young yellowish\nleaves, and the oaks light-grayish ones, while the oven-bird thrums\nhis sawyer-like strain, and the chewink rustles through the dry leaves\nor repeats his jingle on a tree-top, and the wood thrush, the genius\nof the wood, whistles for the first time his clear and thrilling\nstrain,\u2014it sounds as it did the first time I heard it. The sight of\nthese budding woods intoxicates me,\u2014this diet drink.\n\nThe strong-colored pine, the grass of trees, in the midst of which\nother trees are but as weeds or flowers,\u2014a little exotic.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIn the row of buttonwood trees on the banks of the Merrimack in\nHaverhill, I saw that several had been cut down, probably because\nof their unsightly appearance, they all suffering from the prevalent\ndisease which has attacked the buttonwood of late years, and one large\none still resting on its stump where it had fallen. It seemed like a\nwaste of timber or of fuel, but when I inquired about it, they answered\nthat the millers did not like to saw it. Like other ornamental trees\nwhich have stood by the roadside for a hundred years, the inhabitants\nhave been accustomed to fasten their horses to them, and have driven\nmany spikes into them for this purpose. One man, having carried some\nbuttonwood logs to mill, the miller agreed to saw them if he would make\ngood the injury which might be done to his saw. The other agreed to it,\nbut almost at the first clip they ran on to a spike and broke the saw,\nand the owner of the logs cried, \u201cStop!\u201d he would have no more sawed.\nThey are difficult to split, beside, and make poor timber at best,\nbeing very liable to warp.\n\nThe \u201citinerary distance\u201d between two points, a convenient expression.\n\n [Illustration: _Fair Haven Pond from the Cliffs_]\n\nHumboldt says, \u201cIt is still undetermined where life is most abundant:\nwhether on the earth or in the fathomless depths of the ocean.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt was a _mirage_, what in Sanscrit, according to Humboldt, is called\n\u201cthe thirst of the gazelle.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nNothing memorable was ever accomplished in a prosaic mood of mind.\nThe heroes and discoverers have found true more than was previously\nbelieved, only when they were expecting and dreaming of something more\nthan their contemporaries dreamed of,\u2014when they were in a frame of mind\nprepared in some measure for the truth.\n\nReferred to the world\u2019s standard, the hero, the discoverer, is insane,\nits greatest men are all insane. At first the world does not respect\nits great men. Some rude and simple nations go to the other extreme and\nreverence all kinds of insanity. Humboldt says, speaking of Columbus\napproaching the New World: \u201cThe grateful coolness of the evening air,\nthe ethereal purity of the starry firmament, the balmy fragrance of\nflowers, wafted to him by the land breeze, all led him to suppose (as\nwe are told by Herrera, in the Decades (5)), that he was approaching\nthe garden of Eden, the sacred abode of our first parents. The Orinoco\nseemed to him one of the four rivers which, according to the venerable\ntradition of the ancient world, flowed from Paradise, to water and\ndivide the surface of the earth, newly adorned with plants.\u201d\n\nExpeditions for the discovery of El Dorado, and also of the Fountain of\nYouth, led to real, though perhaps not compensatory, discoveries.[6]\n\n * * * * *\n\nI have heard my brother playing on his flute at evening half a\nmile off through the houses of the village, every note with perfect\ndistinctness. It seemed a more beautiful communication with me than\nthe sending up of a rocket would have been. So, if I mistake not, the\nsound of blasting rocks has been heard from down the river as far as\nLowell,\u2014some twenty miles by its course,\u2014where they were making a deep\ncut for the railroad.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe sand cherry (_Prunus depressa_ Pursh., _Cerasus pumila_ Mx.) grew\nabout my door, and near the end of May enlivened my yard with its\numbels arranged cylindrically about its short branches. In the fall,\nweighed down with the weight of its large and handsome cherries, it\nfell over in wreath-like rays on every side. I tasted them out of\ncompliment to nature, but I never learned to love them.[7]\n\nIf the long-continued rains cause the seeds to rot in the ground and\ndestroy the potatoes in the low lands, they are good for the grass on\nthe uplands, though the farmers say it is not so sweet.[8]\n\n * * * * *\n\nAs I walked, I was intoxicated with the slight spicy odor of the\nhickory buds and the bruised bark of the black birch, and, in the fall,\nthe pennyroyal.\n\nMany a time I have expected to find a woodchuck, or rabbit, or a gray\nsquirrel, when it was the ground-robin rustling the leaves.\n\nI have been surprised to discover the amount and the various kinds of\nlife which a single shallow swamp will sustain. On the south side of\nthe pond, not more than a quarter of a mile from it, is a small meadow\nof ten or a dozen acres in the woods, considerably lower than Walden,\nand which by some is thought to be fed by the former by a subterranean\noutlet,\u2014which is very likely, for its shores are quite springy and its\nsupply of water is abundant and unfailing,\u2014indeed tradition says that a\nsawmill once stood over its outlet, though its whole extent, including\nits sources, is not more than I have mentioned,\u2014a meadow through which\nthe Fitchburg Railroad passes by a very high causeway, which required\nmany a carload of sand, where the laborers for a long time seemed\nto make no progress, for the sand settled so much in the night that\nby morning they were where they were the day before, and finally the\nweight of the sand forced upward the adjacent crust of the meadow with\nthe trees on it many feet, and cracked it for some rods around. It is a\nwet and springy place throughout the summer, with a ditch-like channel,\nand in one part water stands the year round, with cat-o\u2019-nine-tails and\ntussocks and muskrats\u2019 cabins rising above it, where good cranberries\nmay be raked if you are careful to anticipate the frost which visits\nthis cool hollow unexpectedly early. Well, as I was saying, I heard a\nsplashing in the shallow and muddy water and stood awhile to observe\nthe cause of it. Again and again I heard and saw the commotion, but\ncould not guess the cause of it,\u2014what kind of life had its residence\nin that insignificant pool. We sat down on the hillside. Ere long a\nmuskrat came swimming by as if attracted by the same disturbance, and\nthen another and another, till three had passed, and I began to suspect\nthat they were at the bottom of it. Still ever and anon I observed\nthe same commotion in the waters over the same spot, and at length\nI observed the snout of some creature slyly raised above the surface\nafter each commotion, as if to see if it were observed by foes, and\nthen but a few rods distant I saw another snout above the water and\nbegan to divine the cause of the disturbance. Putting off my shoes\nand stockings, I crept stealthily down the hill and waded out slowly\nand noiselessly about a rod from the firm land, keeping behind the\ntussocks, till I stood behind the tussock near which I had observed the\nsplashing. Then, suddenly stooping over it, I saw through the shallow\nbut muddy water that there was a mud turtle there, and thrusting in my\nhand at once caught him by the claw, and, quicker than I can tell it,\nheaved him high and dry ashore; and there came out with him a large\npout just dead and partly devoured, which he held in his jaws. It was\nthe pout in his flurry and the turtle in his struggles to hold him fast\nwhich had created the commotion. There he had lain, probably buried\nin the mud at the bottom up to his eyes, till the pout came sailing\nover, and then this musky lagune had put forth in the direction of\nhis ventral fins, expanding suddenly under the influence of a more\nthan vernal heat,\u2014there are sermons in stones, aye and mud turtles at\nthe bottoms of the pools,\u2014in the direction of his ventral fins, his\ntender white belly, where he kept no eye; and the minister squeaked\nhis last.[9] Oh, what an eye was there, my countrymen! buried in mud\nup to the lids, meditating on what? sleepless at the bottom of the\npool, at the top of the bottom, directed heavenward, in no danger from\nmotes. Pouts expect their foes not from below. Suddenly a mud volcano\nswallowed him up, seized his midriff; he fell into those relentless\njaws from which there is no escape, which relax not their hold even in\ndeath.[10] There the pout might calculate on remaining until nine days\nafter the head was cut off. Sculled through Heywood\u2019s shallow meadow,\nnot thinking of foes, looking through the water up into the sky. I saw\nhis [the turtle\u2019s] brother sunning and airing his broad back like a\nship bottom up which had been scuttled,\u2014foundered at sea. I had no idea\nthat there was so much going on in Heywood\u2019s meadow.\n\nThe pickerel commonly lie perfectly still at night, like sticks, in\nvery shallow water near the shore near a brook\u2019s mouth. I have seen\na large one with a deep white wound from a spear, cutting him half in\ntwo, unhealed and unhealable, fast asleep, and forked him into my boat.\nI have struck a pickerel sound asleep and knew that I cut him almost\nin two, and the next moment heard him go ashore several rods off; for\nbeing thus awakened in their dreams they shoot off with one impulse,\nintending only to abandon those parts, without considering exactly\nto what places they shall go. One night a small pickerel, which the\nboat had probably struck in his sleep, leaped into the boat and so was\nsecured without a wound.\n\nThe chub is a soft fish and tastes like boiled brown paper salted.\n\nI was as interested in the discovery of limestone as if it had been\ngold, and wondered that I had never thought of it before. Now all\nthings seemed to radiate round limestone, and I saw how the farmers\nlived near to, or far from, a locality of limestone. I detected it\nsometimes in walls, and surmised from what parts it was probably\ncarted; or when I looked down into an old deserted well, I detected\nit in the wall, and found where the first settlers had quarried it\nextensively. I read a new page in the history of these parts in the\nold limestone quarries and kilns where the old settlers found the\nmaterials of their houses; and I considered that, since it was found\nso profitable even at Thomaston to burn lime with coal dust, perchance\nthese quarries might be worked again.[11]\n\nWhen the rocks were covered with snow, I even uncovered them with my\nhands, that I might observe their composition and strata, and thought\nmyself lucky when the sun had laid one bare for me; but [now] that they\nare all uncovered I pass by without noticing them. There is a time for\neverything.\n\nWe are never prepared to believe that our ancestors lifted large stones\nor built thick walls. I find that I must have supposed that they built\ntheir bank walls of such as a single man could handle. For since we\nhave put their lives behind us we can think of no sufficient motive\nfor such exertion. How can their works be so visible and permanent and\nthemselves so transient? When I see a stone which it must have taken\nmany yoke of oxen to move, lying in a bank wall which was built two\nhundred years ago, I am curiously surprised, because it suggests an\nenergy and force of which we have no memorials. Where are the traces\nof the corresponding moral and intellectual energy? I am not prepared\nto believe that a man lived here so long ago who could elevate into a\nwall and properly aline a rock of great size and fix it securely,\u2014such\nan Archimedes. I walk over the old corn-fields, it is true, where the\ngrassy corn-hills still appear in the woods, but there are no such\ntraces of them there. Again, we are wont to think that our ancestors\nwere all stalwart men, because only their most enduring works have\ncome down to us. I think that the man who lifted so large a rock in\nthe course of his ordinary work should have had a still larger for his\nmonument.\n\nI noticed a singular instance of ventriloquism to-day in a male chewink\nsinging on the top of a young oak. It was difficult to believe that the\nlast part of his strain, the concluding jingle, did not proceed from a\ndifferent quarter, a woodside many rods off. _Hip-you, he-he-he-he._ It\nwas long before I was satisfied that the last part was not the answer\nof his mate given in exact time. I endeavored to get between the two;\nindeed, I seemed to be almost between them already.\n\nI have not seen Walden so high for many years; it is within four feet\nof the pond-hole in Hubbard\u2019s woods.\n\nThe river is higher than it has been at this season for many years.\n\nWhen the far mountains are invisible, the near ones look the higher.\n\nThe oldest nature is elastic. I just felt myself raised upon the swell\nof the eternal ocean, which came rolling this way to land.\n\nWhen my eye ranges over some thirty miles of this globe\u2019s surface,\u2014an\neminence green and waving, with sky and mountains to bound it,\u2014I am\nricher than Cr\u0153sus.\n\nThe variously colored blossoms of the shrub oaks now, in May, hanging\ngracefully like ear-drops, or the similar blossoms of the large oaks.\n\nI have noticed the effect of a flag set up on a hill in the country. It\ntames the landscape, subdues it to itself. The hill looks as if it were\na military post. Our green, wild country landscape is gathered under\nthe folds of a flag.\n\n * * * * *\n\nA lively appearance is imparted to the landscape as seen from\nNawshawtuct, by the flood on the meadows,\u2014by the alternation of land\nand water, of green and of light colors. The frequent causeways, and\nthe hedgerows (?) jutting into the meadows, and the islands, have an\nappearance full of light and life.\n\nTo-day, May 31st, a red and white cow, being uneasy, broke out of\nthe steam-mill pasture and crossed the bridge and broke into Elijah\nWood\u2019s grounds. When he endeavored to drive her out by the bars, she\nboldly took to the water, wading first through the meadows full of\nditches, and swam across the river, about forty rods wide at this\ntime, and landed in her own pasture again. She was a buffalo crossing\nher Mississippi. This exploit conferred some dignity on the herd in my\neyes, already dignified, and reflectedly on the river, which I looked\non as a kind of Bosphorus.\n\nI love to see the domestic animals reassert their native rights,\u2014any\nevidence that they have not lost their original wild habits and\nvigor.[12]\n\nThere is a sweet wild world which lies along the strain of the wood\nthrush\u2014the rich intervales which border the stream of its song\u2014more\nthoroughly genial to my nature than any other.[13]\n\nThe blossoms of the tough and vivacious shrub oak are very handsome.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI visited a retired, now almost unused, graveyard in Lincoln to-day,\nwhere five British soldiers lie buried who fell on the 19th April, \u201975.\nEdmund Wheeler, grandfather of William, who lived in the old house now\npulled down near the present, went over the next day and carted them\nto this ground. A few years ago one Felch, a phrenologist, by leave of\nthe selectmen dug up and took away two skulls. The skeletons were very\nlarge, probably those of grenadiers. William Wheeler, who was present,\ntold me this. He said that he had heard old Mr. Child, who lived\nopposite, say that when one soldier was shot he leaped right up his\nfull length out of the ranks and fell dead; and he, William Wheeler,\nsaw a bullet-hole through and through one of the skulls.\n\nClose by stood a stone with this inscription:\u2014\n\n In memory of\n Sippio Brister\n a man of Colour\n who died\n Nov 1. 1820\n \u00c6t. 64.\n\nBut that is not telling us that he lived.[14]\n\n * * * * *\n\nThere was one Newell, a tailor, his neighbor, who became a Universalist\nminister. Breed put on his sign:\u2014\n\n Tailoring and barbering done with speed\n By John C Newell & John C Breed.[15]\n\nThe water was over the turnpike below Master Cheney\u2019s when I returned\n(May 31st, 1850).\n\n [A third of a page torn out here.]\n\nthat these fences, to a considerable extent, will be found to mark\nnatural divisions, especially if the land is not very minutely\ndivided,\u2014mowing (upland and meadow) pasture, woodland, and the\ndifferent kinds of tillage. There will be found in the farmer\u2019s motive\nfor setting a fence here or there some conformity to natural limits.\nThese artificial divisions no doubt have the effect of increasing the\narea and variety to the traveller. These various fields taken together\nappear more extensive than a single prairie of the same size would. If\nthe divisions corresponded [A third of a page torn out here.]\n\nThe year has many seasons more than are recognized in the almanac.\nThere is that time about the first of June, the beginning of summer,\nwhen the buttercups blossom in the now luxuriant grass and I am first\nreminded of mowing and of the dairy. Every one will have observed\ndifferent epochs. There is the time when they begin to drive cows\nto pasture,\u2014about the 20th of May,\u2014observed by the farmer, but a\nlittle arbitrary year by year. Cows spend their winters in barns and\ncow-yards, their summers in pastures. In summer, therefore, they may\nlow with emphasis, \u201cTo-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.\u201d I\nsometimes see a neighbor or two united with their boys and hired men\nto drive their cattle to some far-off country pasture, fifty or sixty\nmiles distant in New Hampshire, early in the morning, with their sticks\nand dogs. It is a memorable time with the farmers\u2019 boys, and frequently\ntheir first journey from home. The herdsman in some mountain pasture\nis expecting them. And then in the fall, when they go up to drive\nthem back, they speculate as to whether Janet or Brindle will know\nthem. I heard such a boy exclaim on such an occasion, when the calf of\nthe spring returned a heifer, as he stroked her side, \u201cShe knows me,\nfather; she knows me.\u201d Driven up to be the cattle on a thousand hills.\n\nI once set fire to the woods. Having set out, one April day, to go to\nthe sources of Concord River in a boat with a single companion, meaning\nto camp on the bank at night or seek a lodging in some neighboring\ncountry inn or farmhouse, we took fishing tackle with us that we might\nfitly procure our food from the stream, Indian-like. At the shoemaker\u2019s\nnear the river, we obtained a match, which we had forgotten. Though\nit was thus early in the spring, the river was low, for there had not\nbeen much rain, and we succeeded in catching a mess of fish sufficient\nfor our dinner before we had left the town, and by the shores of Fair\nHaven Pond we proceeded to cook them. The earth was uncommonly dry, and\nour fire, kindled far from the woods in a sunny recess in the hillside\non the east of the pond, suddenly caught the dry grass of the previous\nyear which grew about the stump on which it was kindled. We sprang to\nextinguish it at first with our hands and feet, and then we fought it\nwith a board obtained from the boat, but in a few minutes it was beyond\nour reach; being on the side of a hill, it spread rapidly upward,\nthrough the long, dry, wiry grass interspersed with bushes.\n\n\u201cWell, where will this end?\u201d asked my companion. I saw that it might be\nbounded by Well Meadow Brook on one side, but would, perchance, go to\nthe village side of the brook. \u201cIt will go to town,\u201d I answered. While\nmy companion took the boat back down the river, I set out through the\nwoods to inform the owners and to raise the town. The fire had already\nspread a dozen rods on every side and went leaping and crackling wildly\nand irreclaimably toward the wood. That way went the flames with wild\ndelight, and we felt that we had no control over the demonic creature\nto which we had given birth. We had kindled many fires in the woods\nbefore, burning a clear space in the grass, without ever kindling such\na fire as this.\n\nAs I ran toward the town through the woods, I could see the smoke over\nthe woods behind me marking the spot and the progress of the flames.\nThe first farmer whom I met driving a team, after leaving the woods,\ninquired the cause of the smoke. I told him. \u201cWell,\u201d said he, \u201cit\nis none of my stuff,\u201d and drove along. The next I met was the owner\nin his field, with whom I returned at once to the woods, running all\nthe way. I had already run two miles. When at length we got into the\nneighborhood of the flames, we met a carpenter who had been hewing\ntimber, an infirm man who had been driven off by the fire, fleeing\nwith his axe. The farmer returned to hasten more assistance. I, who was\nspent with running, remained. What could I do alone against a front of\nflame half a mile wide?\n\nI walked slowly through the wood to Fair Haven Cliff, climbed to the\nhighest rock, and sat down upon it to observe the progress of the\nflames, which were rapidly approaching me, now about a mile distant\nfrom the spot where the fire was kindled. Presently I heard the sound\nof the distant bell giving the alarm, and I knew that the town was on\nits way to the scene. Hitherto I had felt like a guilty person,\u2014nothing\nbut shame and regret. But now I settled the matter with myself shortly.\nI said to myself: \u201cWho are these men who are said to be the owners\nof these woods, and how am I related to them? I have set fire to the\nforest, but I have done no wrong therein, and now it is as if the\nlightning had done it. These flames are but consuming their natural\nfood.\u201d (It has never troubled me from that day to this more than if the\nlightning had done it. The trivial fishing was all that disturbed me\nand disturbs me still.) So shortly I settled it with myself and stood\nto watch the approaching flames.[16] It was a glorious spectacle, and\nI was the only one there to enjoy it. The fire now reached the base of\nthe cliff and then rushed up its sides. The squirrels ran before it in\nblind haste, and three pigeons dashed into the midst of the smoke. The\nflames flashed up the pines to their tops, as if they were powder.\n\nWhen I found I was about to be surrounded by the fire, I retreated\nand joined the forces now arriving from the town. It took us several\nhours to surround the flames with our hoes and shovels and by back\nfires subdue them. In the midst of all I saw the farmer whom I first\nmet, who had turned indifferently away saying it was none of his stuff,\nstriving earnestly to save his corded wood, his stuff, which the fire\nhad already seized and which it after all consumed.\n\nIt burned over a hundred acres or more and destroyed much young wood.\nWhen I returned home late in the day, with others of my townsmen, I\ncould not help noticing that the crowd who were so ready to condemn the\nindividual who had kindled the fire did not sympathize with the owners\nof the wood, but were in fact highly elate and as it were thankful for\nthe opportunity which had afforded them so much sport; and it was only\nhalf a dozen owners, so called, though not all of them, who looked sour\nor grieved, and I felt that I had a deeper interest in the woods, knew\nthem better and should feel their loss more, than any or all of them.\nThe farmer whom I had first conducted to the woods was obliged to ask\nme the shortest way back, through his own lot. Why, then, should the\nhalf-dozen owners [and] the individuals who set the fire alone feel\nsorrow for the loss of the wood, while the rest of the town have their\nspirits raised? Some of the owners, however, bore their loss like men,\nbut other some declared behind my back that I was a \u201cdamned rascal;\u201d\nand a flibbertigibbet or two, who crowed like the old cock, shouted\nsome reminiscences of \u201cburnt woods\u201d from safe recesses for some years\nafter. I have had nothing to say to any of them. The locomotive engine\nhas since burned over nearly all the same ground and more, and in some\nmeasure blotted out the memory of the previous fire. For a long time\nafter I had learned this lesson I marvelled that while matches and\ntinder were contemporaries the world was not consumed; why the houses\nthat have hearths were not burned before another day; if the flames\nwere not as hungry now as when I waked them. I at once ceased to regard\nthe owners and my own fault,\u2014if fault there was any in the matter,\u2014and\nattended to the phenomenon before me, determined to make the most of\nit. To be sure, I felt a little ashamed when I reflected on what a\ntrivial occasion this had happened, that at the time I was no better\nemployed than my townsmen.\n\nThat night I watched the fire, where some stumps still flamed at\nmidnight in the midst of the blackened waste, wandering through the\nwoods by myself; and far in the night I threaded my way to the spot\nwhere the fire had taken, and discovered the now broiled fish,\u2014which\nhad been dressed,\u2014scattered over the burnt grass.\n\nThis has been a cool day, though the first of summer. The prospect of\nthe meadows from Lee\u2019s Hill was very fine. I observe that the shadows\nof the trees are very distinct and heavy in such a day, falling\non the fresh grass. They are as obvious as the trees themselves by\nmid-afternoon. Commonly we do not make much account of the distinct\nshadows of objects in the landscape.\n\nWhat is bare and unsightly is covered by the water now. The verdure\nseems to spring directly from its bosom; there are no stems nor roots.\nThe meadows are so many mirrors reflecting the light,\u2014toward sunset\ndazzlingly bright.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI visited this afternoon (June 3d) Goodman\u2019s Hill in Sudbury, going\nthrough Lincoln over Sherman\u2019s Bridge and Round Hill, and returning\nthrough the Corner. It probably affords the best view of Concord River\nmeadows of any hill. The horizon is very extensive as it is, and if the\ntop were cleared so that you could get the western view, it would be\none of the most extensive seen from any hill in the county. The most\nimposing horizons are those which are seen from tops of hills rising\nout of a river valley. The prospect even from a low hill has something\nmajestic in it in such a case. The landscape is a vast amphitheatre\nrising to its rim in the horizon. There is a good view of Lincoln\nlying high up in among the hills. You see that it is the highest town\nhereabouts, and hence its fruit. The river at this time looks as large\nas the Hudson. I think that a river-valley town is much the handsomest\nand largest-featured,\u2014like Concord and Lancaster, for instance, natural\ncentres. Upon the hills of Bolton, again, the height of land between\nthe Concord and Nashua, I have seen how the peach flourishes. Nobscot,\ntoo, is quite imposing as seen from the west side of Goodman\u2019s Hill.\nOn the western side of a continuation of this hill is Wadsworth\u2019s\nbattle-field.[17]\n\nReturning, I saw in Sudbury twenty-five nests of the new (cliff?)\nswallow under the eaves of a barn. They seemed particularly social and\nloquacious neighbors, though their voices are rather squeaking. Their\nnests, built side by side, looked somewhat like large hornets\u2019 nests,\nenough so to prove a sort of connection. Their activity, sociability,\nand chattiness make them fit pensioners and neighbors of man\u2014summer\ncompanions\u2014for the barn-yard.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe last of May and the first of June the farmers are everywhere\nplanting their corn and beans and potatoes.\n\n * * * * *\n\nTo-day, June 4th, I have been tending a burning in the woods. Ray was\nthere. It is a pleasant fact that you will know no man long, however\nlow in the social scale, however poor, miserable, intemperate, and\nworthless he may appear to be, a mere burden to society, but you will\nfind at last that there is something which he understands and can do\nbetter than any other. I was pleased to hear that one man had sent Ray\nas the one who had had the most experience in setting fires of any man\nin Lincoln. He had experience and skill as a burner of brush.\n\nYou must burn against the wind always, and burn slowly. When the\nfire breaks over the hoed line, a little system and perseverance\nwill accomplish more toward quelling it than any man would believe.\nIt fortunately happens that the experience acquired is oftentimes\nworth more than the wages. When a fire breaks out in the woods, and\na man fights it too near and on the side, in the heat of the moment,\nwithout the systematic co\u00f6peration of others, he is disposed to think\nit a desperate case, and that this relentless fiend will run through\nthe forest till it is glutted with food; but let the company rest\nfrom their labors a moment, and then proceed more deliberately and\nsystematically, giving the fire a wider berth, and the company will\nbe astonished to find how soon and easily they will subdue it. The\nwoods themselves furnish one of the best weapons with which to contend\nwith the fires that destroy them,\u2014a pitch pine bough. It is the best\ninstrument to thrash it with. There are few men who do not love better\nto give advice than to give assistance.\n\nHowever large the fire, let a few men go to work deliberately but\nperseveringly to rake away the leaves and hoe off the surface of the\nground at a convenient distance from the fire, while others follow with\npine boughs to thrash it with when it reaches the line, and they will\nfinally get round it and subdue it, and will be astonished at their own\nsuccess.\n\nA man who is about to burn his field in the midst of woods should rake\noff the leaves and twigs for the breadth of a rod at least, making no\nlarge heaps near the outside, and then plow around it several furrows\nand break them up with hoes, and set his fire early in the morning,\nbefore the wind rises.\n\nAs I was fighting the fire to-day, in the midst of the roaring and\ncrackling,\u2014for the fire seems to snort like a wild horse,\u2014I heard\nfrom time to time the dying strain, the last sigh, the fine, clear,\nshrill scream of agony, as it were, of the trees breathing their last,\nprobably the heated air or the steam escaping from some chink. At first\nI thought it was some bird, or a dying squirrel\u2019s note of anguish, or\nsteam escaping from the tree. You sometimes hear it on a small scale\nin the log on the hearth. When a field is burned over, the squirrels\nprobably go into the ground. How foreign is the yellow pine to the\ngreen woods\u2014and what business has it here?\n\nThe fire stopped within a few inches of a partridge\u2019s nest to-day, June\n4th, whom we took off in our hands and found thirteen creamy-colored\neggs. I started up a woodcock when I went to a rill to drink, at the\nwesternmost angle of R. W. E.\u2019s wood-lot.\n\nTo-night, June 5th, after a hot day, I hear the first peculiar summer\nbreathing of the frogs.\n\nWhen all is calm, a small whirlwind will suddenly lift up the blazing\nleaves and let them fall beyond the line, and set all the woods in\na blaze in a moment. Or some slight almost invisible cinder, seed of\nfire, will be wafted from the burnt district on to the dry turf which\ncovers the surface and fills the crevices of many rocks, and there it\nwill catch as in tinder, and smoke and smoulder, perchance, for half\nan hour, heating several square yards of ground where yet no fire is\nvisible, until it spreads to the leaves and the wind fans it into a\nblaze.\n\nMen go to a fire for entertainment. When I see how eagerly men will\nrun to a fire, whether in warm or in cold weather, by day or by night,\ndragging an engine at their heels, I am astonished to perceive how good\na purpose the love of excitement is made to serve. What other force,\npray, what offered pay, what disinterested neighborliness could ever\neffect so much? No, these are boys who are to be dealt with, and these\nare the motives that prevail. There is no old man or woman dropping\ninto the grave but covets excitement.\n\nYesterday, when I walked to Goodman\u2019s Hill, it seemed to me that the\natmosphere was never so full of fragrance and spicy odors. There is a\ngreat variety in the fragrance of the apple blossoms as well as their\ntints. Some are quite spicy. The air seemed filled with the odor of\nripe strawberries, though it is quite too early for them. The earth was\nnot only fragrant but sweet and spicy to the smell, reminding us of\nArabian gales and what mariners tell of the spice islands. The first\nof June, when the lady\u2019s-slipper and the wild pink have come out in\nsunny places on the hillsides, then the summer is begun according to\nthe clock of the seasons.\n\n\nHere it is the 8th of June, and the grass is growing apace. In the\nfront yards of the village they are already beginning to cut it. The\nfields look luxuriant and verdurous, but, as the weather is warmer, the\natmosphere is not so clear. In distant woods the partridge sits on her\neggs, and at evening the frogs begin to dream and boys begin to bathe\nin the river and ponds.\n\nCultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long\non a level with the feet.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe cars come and go with such regularity and precision, and the\nwhistle and rumble are heard so far, that town clocks and family clocks\nare already half dispensed with, and it is easy to foresee that one\nextensive well-conducted and orderly institution like a railroad will\nkeep time and order for a whole country. The startings and arrivals of\nthe cars are the epochs in a village day.[18]\n\n * * * * *\n\nNot till June can the grass be said to be waving in the fields. When\nthe frogs dream, and the grass waves, and the buttercups toss their\nheads, and the heat disposes to bathe in the ponds and streams, then is\nsummer begun.\n\n\nJune 9th, 1850, Walden is still rising, though the rains have ceased\nand the river has fallen very much. I see the pollen of the pitch pine\nnow beginning to cover the surface of the pond. Most of the pines\nat the north-northwest end have none, and on some there is only one\npollen-bearing flower.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI saw a striped snake which the fire in the woods had killed, stiffened\nand partially blackened by the flames, with its body partly coiled up\nand raised from the ground, and its head still erect as if ready to\ndart out its tongue and strike its foe. No creature can exhibit more\nvenom than a snake, even when it is not venomous, strictly speaking.\n\nThe fire ascended the oak trees very swiftly by the moss which fringed\nthem.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt has a singular effect on us when we hear the geologist apply\nhis terms to Judea,\u2014speak of \u201climestone\u201d and \u201cblocks of trap and\nconglomerate, boulders of sandstone and quartz\u201d there. Or think of a\nchemical analysis of the water of the Dead Sea!\n\nThe pitch and white pines are two years or more maturing their seed.\n\nCertain rites are practiced by the Smrities (among the Hindoos) at the\ndigging of wells.\n\nIn early times the Brahmans, though they were the legislators of India,\npossessed no executive power and lived in poverty; yet they were for\nthe most part independent and respected.\n\nGalbraith\u2019s Math. Tables, Edinburgh, 1834. For descriptions of\ninstruments he refers to Jones\u2019s edition of Adam\u2019s Geom. and Graphical\nEssays, Biot\u2019s Trait\u00e9 d\u2019Astronomie Physique, Base du Syst\u00e8me M\u00e9trique,\nWoodhouse\u2019s, Vince\u2019s, and Pearson\u2019s Treatises of Astronomy. For\nproblems connected with trigonometrical surveying, to the third volume\nof Hutton\u2019s Course of Math. by Dr. O. Gregory, Baron Zach\u2019s work on the\nAttraction of Mountains, the Base du Syst\u00e8me de M\u00e9trique D\u00e9cimal, and\nPuissant\u2019s G\u00e9odesie.\n\nOlive or red seems the fittest color for a man, a denizen of the woods.\nThe _pale white man_! I do not wonder that the African pitied him.[19]\n\nThe white pine cones are now two inches long, curved sickle-like from\nthe topmost branches, reminding you of the tropical trees which bear\ntheir fruit at their heads.[20]\n\nThe life in us is like the water in the river; it may rise this year\nhigher than ever it was known to before and flood the uplands\u2014even this\nmay be the eventful year\u2014and drown out all our muskrats.[21]\n\nThere [are] as many strata at different levels of life as there are\nleaves in a book. Most men probably have lived in two or three. When\non the higher levels we can remember the lower levels, but when on the\nlower we cannot remember the higher.\n\nMy imagination, my love and reverence and admiration, my sense of the\nmiraculous, is not so excited by any event as by the remembrance of my\nyouth. Men talk about Bible miracles because there is no miracle in\ntheir lives. Cease to gnaw that crust. There is ripe fruit over your\nhead.\n\nWoe to him who wants a companion, for he is unfit to be the companion\neven of himself.\n\nWe inspire friendship in men when we have contracted friendship with\nthe gods.\n\nWhen we cease to sympathize with and to be personally related to men,\nand begin to be universally related, then we are capable of inspiring\nothers with the sentiment of love for us.\n\nWe hug the earth. How rarely we mount! How rarely we climb a tree! We\nmight get a little higher, methinks. That pine would make us dizzy. You\ncan see the mountains from it as you never did before.[22]\n\nShall not a man have his spring as well as the plants?\n\nThe halo around the shadow is visible both morning and evening.[23]\n\n * * * * *\n\nAfter this and some other fires in the woods which I helped to put\nout, a more effectual system by which to quell them occurred to me.\nWhen the bell rings, hundreds will run to a fire in the woods without\ncarrying any implement, and then waste much time after they get there\neither in doing nothing or what is worse than nothing, having come\nmainly out of curiosity, it being as interesting to see it burn as\nto put it out. I thought that it would be well if forty or fifty men\nin every country town should enroll themselves into a company for\nthis purpose and elect suitable officers. The town should provide a\nsufficient number of rakes, hoes, and shovels, which it should be the\nduty of certain of the company to convey to [the] woods in a wagon,\ntogether with the drum, on the first alarm, people being unwilling to\ncarry their own tools for fear they will be lost. When the captain or\none of the numerous vice-captains arrives, having inspected the fire\nand taken his measures, let him cause the roll to be called, however\nthe men may be engaged, and just take a turn or two with his men to\nform them into sections and see where they are. Then he can appoint and\nequip his rake-men and his hoe-men and his bough-men, and drop them at\nthe proper places, always retaining the drummer and a scout; and when\nhe has learned through his scout that the fire has broken out in a new\nplace, he, by beat of drum, can take up one or two men of each class\u2014as\nmany as can be spared\u2014and repair to the scene of danger.\n\nOne of my friends suggests instead of the drum some delicious music,\nadding that then he would come. It might be well, to refresh the men\nwhen wearied with work, and cheer them on their return. Music is the\nproper regulator.\n\n * * * * *\n\nSo, far in the East, among the Yezidis, or Worshippers of the Devil, so\ncalled, and the Chald\u00e6ans, and so forth, you may hear these remarkable\ndisputations on doctrinal points.[24]\n\n * * * * *\n\nAny reverence, even for a material thing, proceeds from an elevation of\ncharacter. Layard, speaking of the reverence for the sun exhibited by\nthe Yezidis, or Worshippers of the Devil, says: \u201cThey are accustomed to\nkiss the object on which its first beams fall; and I have frequently,\nwhen travelling in their company at sunrise, observed them perform this\nceremony. For fire, as symbolic, they have nearly the same reverence;\nthey never spit into it, but frequently pass their hands through the\nflame, kiss them, and rub them over their right eyebrow, or sometimes\nover the whole face.\u201d\n\nWho taught the oven-bird to conceal her nest? It is on the ground,\nyet out of sight. What cunning there is in nature! No man could have\narranged it more artfully for the purpose of concealment. Only the\nescape of the bird betrays it.\n\nI observe to-night, June 15th, the air over the river by the Leaning\nHemlocks filled with myriads of newly fledged insects drifting and\nfalling as it were like snowflakes from the maples, only not so white.\nNow they drift up the stream, now down, while the river below is\ndimpled with the fishes rising to swallow the innumerable insects which\nhave fallen [into] it and are struggling with it. I saw how He fed\nhis fish. They, swimming in the dark nether atmosphere of the river,\nrose lazily to its surface to swallow such swimmers of the light upper\natmosphere as sank to its bottom.[25]\n\nI picked up to-day the lower jaw of a hog, with white and sound teeth\nand tusks, which reminded me that there was an animal health and vigor\ndistinct from the spiritual health. This animal succeeded by other\nmeans than temperance and purity.[26]\n\nThere are thirty-eight lighthouses in Massachusetts. The light on the\nHighlands of Neversink is visible the greatest distance, _viz_. thirty\nmiles. There are two there, one revolving, one not.\n\nThe fantastic open light crosses which the limbs of the larch make,\nseen against the sky, of the sky-blue color its foliage.\n\nIn a swamp where the trees stand up to their knees, two or three feet\ndeep, in the fine bushes as in a moss bed.\n\nThe arbor-vit\u00e6 fans, rich, heavy, elaborate, like bead-work.\n\n\n_June 20._ I can see from my window three or four cows in a pasture on\nthe side of Fair Haven Hill, a mile and a half distant. There is but\none tree in the pasture, and they are all collected and now reposing in\nits shade, which, as it is early though sultry, is extended a good way\nalong the ground. It makes a pretty landscape. That must have been an\nepoch in the history of the cow when they discovered to stand in the\nshadow of a tree. I wonder if they are wise enough to recline on the\nnorth side of it, that they may not be disturbed so soon. It shows the\nimportance of leaving trees for shade in the pastures as well as for\nbeauty. There is a long black streak, and in it the cows are collected.\nHow much more they will need this shelter at noon! It is a pleasant\nlife they lead in the summer,\u2014roaming in well-watered pastures,\ngrazing, and chewing the cud in the shade,\u2014quite a philosophic life\nand favorable for contemplation, not like their pent-up winter life\nin close and foul barns. If only they could say as on the prairies,\n\u201cTo-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.\u201d\n\nCattle and horses, however, retain many of their wild habits or\ninstincts wonderfully. The seeds of instinct are preserved under their\nthick hides, like seeds in the bowels of the earth, an indefinite\nperiod.[27] I have heard of a horse which his master could not catch\nin his pasture when the first snowflakes were falling, who persisted in\nwintering out. As he persisted in keeping out of his reach, his master\nfinally left him. When the snow had covered the ground three or four\ninches deep, the horse pawed it away to come at the grass,\u2014just as\nthe wild horses of Michigan do, who are turned loose by their Indian\nmasters,\u2014and so he picked up a scanty subsistence. By the next day he\nhad had enough of free life and pined for his stable, and so suffered\nhimself to be caught.\n\nA blacksmith, my neighbor, heard a great clattering noise the other day\nbehind his shop, and on going out found that his mare and his neighbor\nthe pumpmaker\u2019s were fighting. They would run at one another, then turn\nround suddenly and let their heels fly. The rattling of their hoofs one\nagainst the other was the noise he heard. They repeated this several\ntimes with intervals of grazing, until one prevailed. The next day they\nbore the marks of some bruises, some places where the skin was rucked\nup, and some swellings.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAnd then for my afternoon walks I have a garden, larger than any\nartificial garden that I have read of and far more attractive to\nme,\u2014mile after mile of embowered walks, such as no nobleman\u2019s grounds\ncan boast, with animals running free and wild therein as from the\nfirst,\u2014varied with land and water prospect, and, above all, so retired\nthat it is extremely rare that I meet a single wanderer in its mazes.\nNo gardener is seen therein, no gates nor [_sic_]. You may wander away\nto solitary bowers and brooks and hills.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe ripple marks on the sandy bottom of Flint\u2019s Pond, where the rushes\ngrow, feel hard to the feet of the wader, though the sand is really\nsoft,\u2014made firm perchance by the weight of the water.[28]\n\nThe rushes over the water are white with the exuvi\u00e6, the skeletons,\nof insects,\u2014like blossoms,\u2014which have deposited their eggs on their\ntops. The skeletons looked like those of shad-flies, though some living\ninsects were not.\n\nI have seen crimson-colored eggs painting the leaves of the black birch\nquite beautifully.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAnd now the ascending sun has contracted the shadow of the solitary\ntree, and they are compelled to seek the neighboring wood for shelter.\n\n\n_June 21._ The flowers of the white pine are now in their prime, but I\nsee none of their pollen on the pond.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThis piece of rural pantomime, this bucolic, is enacted before me every\nday. Far over the hills on that fair hillside, I look into the pastoral\nage.\n\n * * * * *\n\nBut these are only the disadvantages of a fire. It is without doubt\nan advantage on the whole. It sweeps and ventilates the forest floor,\nand makes it clear and clean. It is nature\u2019s besom. By destroying the\npunier underwood it gives prominence to the larger and sturdier trees,\nand makes a wood in which you can go and come. I have often remarked\nwith how much more comfort and pleasure I could walk in woods through\nwhich a fire had run the previous year. It will clean the forest floor\nlike a broom perfectly smooth and clear,\u2014no twigs left to crackle\nunderfoot, the dead and rotten wood removed,\u2014and thus in the course of\ntwo or three years new huckleberry fields are created for the town,\u2014for\nbirds and men.\n\nWhen the lightning burns the forest its Director makes no apology to\nman, and I was but His agent. Perhaps we owe to this accident partly\nsome of the noblest natural parks. It is inspiriting to walk amid the\nfresh green sprouts of grass and shrubbery pushing upward through the\ncharred surface with more vigorous growth.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWherever a man goes men will pursue and paw him with their dirty\ninstitutions.[29]\n\nSometimes an arrowhead is found with the mouldering shaft still\nattached. (_Vide_ Charles Hubbard.) A little boy from Compton, R. I.,\ntold me that his father found an arrowhead sticking in a dead tree and\nnearly buried in it. Where is the hand that drew that bow? The arrow\nshot by the Indian is still found occasionally, sticking in the trees\nof our forest.\n\nIt is astonishing how much information is to be got out of very\nunpromising witnesses. A wise man will avail himself of the observation\nof all. Every boy and simpleton has been an observer in some field,\u2014so\nmany more senses they are, differently located. Will inquire of eyes\nwhat they have seen, of ears what they have heard, of hands what they\nhave done, of feet where they have been.\n\n\n_July 16._ I have not yet been able to collect half a thimbleful of the\npollen of the pine on Walden, abundant as it was last summer.\n\nThere is in our yard a little pitch pine four or five years old and not\nmuch more than a foot high, with small cones on it but no male flowers;\nand yet I do not know of another pitch pine tree within half a mile.\n\n * * * * *\n\nMany men walk by day; few walk by night. It is a very different season.\nInstead of the sun, there are the moon and stars; instead of the wood\nthrush, there is the whip-poor-will; instead of butterflies, fireflies,\nwinged sparks of fire! who would have believed it? What kind of life\nand cool deliberation dwells in a spark of fire in dewy abodes? Every\nman carries fire in his eye, or in his blood, or in his brain. Instead\nof singing birds, the croaking of frogs and the intenser dream of\ncrickets. The potatoes stand up straight, the corn grows, the bushes\nloom, and, in a moonlight night, the shadows of rocks and trees and\nbushes and hills are more conspicuous than the objects themselves. The\nslightest inequalities in the ground are revealed by the shadows; what\nthe feet find comparatively smooth appears rough and diversified to\nthe eye. The smallest recesses in the rocks are dim and cavernous; the\nferns in the wood appear to be of tropical size; the pools seen through\nthe leaves become as full of light as the sky. \u201cThe light of day takes\nrefuge in their bosom,\u201d as the Purana says of the ocean. The woods are\nheavy and dark. Nature slumbers. The rocks retain the warmth of the sun\nwhich they have absorbed all night.[30]\n\nThe names of those who bought these fields of the red men, the wild men\nof the woods, are Buttrick, Davis, Barrett, Bulkley, etc., etc. (_Vide_\nHistory.) Here and there still you will find a man with Indian blood in\nhis veins, an eccentric farmer descended from an Indian chief; or you\nwill see a solitary pure-blooded Indian, looking as wild as ever among\nthe pines, one of the last of the Massachusetts tribes, stepping into\na railroad car with his gun.\n\nStill here and there an Indian squaw with her dog, her only companion,\nlives in some lone house, insulted by school-children, making baskets\nand picking berries her employment. You will meet her on the highway,\nwith few children or none, with melancholy face, history, destiny;\nstepping after her race; who had stayed to tuck them up in their long\nsleep. For whom berries condescend to grow. I have not seen one on\nthe Musketaquid for many a year, and some who came up in their canoes\nand camped on its banks a dozen years ago had to ask me where it came\nfrom. A lone Indian woman without children, accompanied by her dog,\nwearing the shroud of her race, performing the last offices for her\ndeparted race. Not yet absorbed into the elements again; a daughter of\nthe soil; one of the nobility of the land. The white man an imported\nweed,\u2014burdock and mullein, which displace the ground-nut.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAs a proof that oysters do not move, I have been told by a Long Island\noysterman that they are found in large clusters surrounding the parent\noyster in the position in which they must have grown, the young being\nseveral years old.\n\nI find the actual to be far less real to me than the imagined. Why\nthis singular prominence and importance is given to the former, I do\nnot know. In proportion as that which possesses my thoughts is removed\nfrom the actual, it impresses me. I have never met with anything\nso truly visionary and accidental as some actual events. They have\naffected me less than my dreams. Whatever actually happens to a man is\nwonderfully trivial and insignificant,\u2014even to death itself, I imagine.\nHe complains of the fates who drown him, that they do not touch _him_.\nThey do not deal directly with him. I have in my pocket a button which\nI ripped off the coat of the Marquis of Ossoli[31] on the seashore\nthe other day. Held up, it intercepts the light and casts a shadow,\u2014an\n_actual_ button so called,\u2014and yet all the life it is connected with\nis less substantial to me than my faintest dreams. This stream of\nevents which we consent to call actual, and that other mightier stream\nwhich alone carries us with it,\u2014what makes the difference? On the one\nour bodies float, and we have sympathy with it through them; on the\nother, our spirits. We are ever dying to one world and being born into\nanother, and possibly no man knows whether he is at any time dead in\nthe sense in which he affirms that phenomenon of another, or not. Our\nthoughts are the epochs of our life: all else is but as a journal of\nthe winds that blew while we were here.[32]\n\nI do not think much of the actual. It is something which we have long\nsince done with. It is a sort of vomit in which the unclean love to\nwallow.\n\nThere was nothing at all remarkable about them. They were simply some\nbones lying on the beach. They would not detain a walker there more\nthan so much seaweed. I should think that the fates would not take\nthe trouble to show me any bones again, I so slightly appreciate the\nfavor.[33]\n\nDo a little more of that work which you have sometime confessed to\nbe good, which you feel that society and your justest judge rightly\ndemands of you. Do what you reprove yourself for not doing. Know\nthat you are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with yourself without\nreason. Let me say to you and to myself in one breath, Cultivate the\ntree which you have found to bear fruit in your soil. Regard not your\npast failures nor successes. All the past is equally a failure and\na success; it is a success in as much as it offers you the present\nopportunity. Have you not a pretty good thinking faculty, worth more\nthan the rarest gold watch? Can you not pass a judgment on something?\nDoes not the stream still rise to its fountain-head in you? Go to\nthe devil and come back again. Dispose of evil. Get punished once for\nall. Die, if you can. Depart. Exchange your salvation for a glass of\nwater. If you know of any risk to run, run it. If you don\u2019t know of\nany, enjoy confidence. Do not trouble yourself to be religious; you\nwill never get a thank-you for it. If you can drive a nail and have any\nnails to drive, drive them. If you have any experiments you would like\nto try, try them; now\u2019s your chance. Do not entertain doubts, if they\nare not agreeable to you. Send them to the tavern. Do not eat unless\nyou are hungry; there\u2019s no need of it. Do not read the newspapers.\nImprove every opportunity to be melancholy. Be as melancholy as you can\nbe, and note the result. Rejoice with fate. As for health, consider\nyourself well, and mind your business. Who knows but you are dead\nalready? Do not stop to be scared yet; there are more terrible things\nto come, and ever to come. Men die of fright and live of confidence.\nBe not simply obedient like the vegetables; set up your own Ebenezer.\nOf man\u2019s \u201c_dis_obedience and the fruit,\u201d etc. Do not engage to find\nthings as you think they are. Do what nobody can do for you. Omit to do\neverything else.[34]\n\n * * * * *\n\nAccording to Lieutenant Davis, the forms, extent, and distribution of\nsand-bars and banks are principally determined by tides, not by winds\nand waves.[35] On sand-bars recently elevated above the level of the\nocean, fresh water is obtained by digging a foot or two. It is very\ncommon for wells near the shore to rise and fall with the tide. It is\nan interesting fact that the low sand-bars in the midst of the ocean,\neven those which are laid bare only at low tide, are reservoirs of\nfresh water at which the thirsty mariner can supply himself. Perchance,\nlike huge sponges, they hold the rain and dew which falls on them, and\nwhich, by capillary attraction, is prevented from mingling with the\nsurrounding brine.[36]\n\nIt is not easy to make our lives respectable to ourselves by any course\nof activity. We have repeatedly to withdraw ourselves into our shells\nof thought like the tortoise, somewhat helplessly; and yet there is\neven more than philosophy in that. I do not love to entertain doubts\nand questions.\n\nI am sure that my acquaintances mistake me. I am not the man they take\nme for. On a little nearer view they would find me out. They ask my\nadvice on high matters, but they do not even know how poorly on\u2019t I\nam for hats and shoes. I have hardly a shift. Just as shabby as I am\nin my outward apparel,\u2014aye, and more lamentably shabby, for nakedness\nis not so bad a condition after all,\u2014am I in my inward apparel. If I\nshould turn myself inside out, my rags and meanness would appear. I am\nsomething to him that made me, undoubtedly, but not much to any other\nthat he has made.[37] All I can say is that I live and breathe and have\nmy thoughts.\n\nWhat is peculiar in the life of a man consists not in his obedience,\nbut his opposition, to his instincts. In one direction or another he\nstrives to live a supernatural life.\n\nWould it not be worth the while to discover nature in Milton?[38] Be\nnative to the universe. I, too, love Concord best, but I am glad when\nI discover, in oceans and wildernesses far away, the materials out of\nwhich a million Concords can be made,\u2014indeed, unless I discover them, I\nam lost myself,\u2014that there too I am at home. Nature is as far from me\nas God, and sometimes I have thought to go West after her. Though the\ncity is no more attractive to me than ever, yet I see less difference\nbetween a city and some dismallest swamp than formerly. It is a swamp\ntoo dismal and dreary, however, for me. I would as lief find a few owls\nand frogs and mosquitoes less. I prefer even a more cultivated place,\nfree from miasma and crocodiles, and I will take my choice.[39]\n\nFrom time to time I overlook the promised land, but I do not feel that\nI am travelling toward it. The moment I begin to look there, men and\ninstitutions get out of the way that I may see. I see nothing permanent\nin the society around me, and am not quite committed to any of its\nways.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe heaven-born Numa, or Lycurgus, or Solon, gravely makes laws to\nregulate the exportation of tobacco. Will a divine legislator legislate\nfor slaves, or to regulate the exportation of tobacco? What shall a\nState say for itself at the last day, in which this is a principal\nproduction?\n\nWhat have grave, not to say divine, legislators\u2014Numas, Lycurguses,\nSolons\u2014to do with the exportation or the importation of tobacco.\nThere was a man appealed to me the other day, \u201cCan you give me a chaw\nof tobacco?\u201d I _legislated_ for him. Suppose you were to submit the\nquestion to any _son of God_, in what State would you get it again?[40]\n\nDo not waste any reverence on my attitude. I manage to sit up where I\nhave dropped. Except as you reverence the evil one,\u2014or rather the evil\n_myriad_. As for missing friends,\u2014fortunate perhaps is he who has any\nto miss, whose place a thought will not supply. I have an ideal friend\nin whose place actual persons sometimes stand for a season. The last\nI may often miss, but the first I recover when I am myself again. What\nif we do miss one another? have we not agreed upon a rendezvous? While\neach travels his own way through the wood with serene and inexpressible\njoy, though it be on his hands and knees over the rocks and fallen\ntrees, he cannot but be on the right way; there is no wrong way to him.\nI have found myself as well off when I have fallen into a quagmire, as\nin an armchair in the most hospitable house. The prospect was pretty\nmuch the same. Without anxiety let us wander on, admiring whatever\nbeauty the woods exhibit.[41]\n\nDo you know on what bushes a little peace, faith, and contentment grow?\nGo a-berrying early and late after them.[42] Miss our friends! It is\nnot easy to get rid of them. We shall miss our bodies directly.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAs to conforming outwardly, and living your own life inwardly, I have\nnot a very high opinion of that course. Do not let your right hand know\nwhat your left hand does in that line of business. I have no doubt it\nwill prove a failure.[43]\n\nThe wind through the blind just now sounded like the baying of a\ndistant hound,\u2014somewhat plaintive and melodious.\n\nThe railroad cuts make cliffs for swallows.\n\n * * * * *\n\nGetting into Patchogue late one night in an oyster-boat, there was a\ndrunken Dutchman aboard whose wit reminded me of Shakespeare. When we\ncame to leave the beach, our boat was aground, and we were detained\nthree hours waiting for the tide. In the meanwhile two of the fishermen\ntook an extra dram at the beach house. Then they stretched themselves\non the seaweed by the shore in the sun to sleep off the effects of\ntheir debauch. One was an inconceivably broad-faced young Dutchman,\u2014but\noh! of such a peculiar breadth and heavy look, I should not know\nwhether to call it more ridiculous or sublime. You would say that\nhe had humbled himself so much that he was beginning to be exalted.\nAn indescribable mynheerish stupidity. I was less disgusted by their\nfilthiness and vulgarity, because I was compelled to look on them as\nanimals, as swine in their sty. For the whole voyage they lay flat on\ntheir backs on the bottom of the boat, in the bilge-water and wet with\neach bailing, half insensible and wallowing in their vomit. But ever\nand anon, when aroused by the rude kicks or curses of the skipper, the\nDutchman, who never lost his wit nor equanimity, though snoring and\nrolling in the vomit produced by his debauch, blurted forth some happy\nrepartee like an illuminated swine. It was the earthiest, slimiest wit\nI ever heard. The countenance was one of a million. It was unmistakable\nDutch. In the midst of a million faces of other races it could not be\nmistaken. It told of Amsterdam. I kept racking my brains to conceive\nhow he could have been born in America, how lonely he must feel, what\nhe did for fellowship. When we were groping up the narrow creek of\nPatchogue at ten o\u2019clock at night, keeping our boat off, now from this\nbank, now from that, with a pole, the two inebriates roused themselves\nbetimes. For in spite of their low estate they seemed to have all their\nwits as much about them as ever, aye, and all the self-respect they\never had. And the Dutchman gave wise directions to the steerer, which\nwere not heeded. Suddenly rousing himself up where the sharpest-eyed\nmight be bewildered in the darkness, he leaned over the side of the\nboat and pointed straight down into the creek, averring that that\nidentical hole was a first-rate place for eels. And again he roused\nhimself at the right time and declared what luck he had once had with\nhis pots (not his cups) in another place, which we were floating over\nin the dark. At last he suddenly stepped on to another boat which\nwas moored to the shore, with a divine ease and sureness, saying,\n\u201cWell, good-night, take care of yourselves, I can\u2019t be with you any\nlonger.\u201d He was one of the few remarkable men whom I have met. I have\nbeen impressed by one or two men in their cups. There was really a\ndivinity stirred within them, so that in their case I have reverenced\nthe drunken, as savages the insane, man. So stupid that he could never\nbe intoxicated. When I said, \u201cYou have had a hard time of it to-day,\u201d\nhe answered with indescribable good humor out of the very midst of his\ndebauch, with watery eyes, \u201cWell, it doesn\u2019t happen every day.\u201d It was\nhappening then.[44] He had taken me aboard on his back, the boat lying\na rod from the shore, before I knew his condition. In the darkness our\nskipper steered with a pole on the bottom, for an oysterman knows the\nbottom of his bay as well as the shores, and can tell where he is by\nthe soundings.[45]\n\n * * * * *\n\nThere was a glorious lurid sunset to-night, accompanied with many\nsombre clouds, and when I looked into the west with my head turned, the\ngrass had the same fresh green, and the distant herbage and foliage in\nthe horizon the same bark blue, and the clouds and sky the same bright\ncolors beautifully mingled and dissolving into one another, that I have\nseen in pictures of tropical landscapes and skies. Pale saffron skies\nwith faint fishes of rosy clouds dissolving in them. A blood-stained\nsky. I regretted that I had an impatient companion. What shall we make\nof the fact that you have only to stand on your head a moment to be\nenchanted with the beauty of the landscape?\n\nI met with a man on the beach who told me that when he wanted to jump\nover a brook he held up one leg a certain height, and then, if a line\nfrom his eye through his toe touched the opposite bank, he knew that\nhe could jump it. I asked him how he knew when he held his leg at the\nright angle, and he said he knew the hitch very well. An Irishman told\nme that he held up one leg and if he could bring his toe in a range\nwith his eye and the opposite bank he knew that he could jump it. Why,\nI told him, I can blot out a star with my toe, but I would not engage\nto jump the distance. It then appeared that he knew when he had got his\nleg at the right height by a certain hitch there was in it. I suggested\nthat he should connect his two ankles with a string.[46]\n\n * * * * *\n\nI knew a clergyman who, when any person died, was wont to speak of that\nportion of mankind who survived as living monuments of God\u2019s mercy. A\nnegative kind of life to live!\n\n * * * * *\n\nI can easily walk ten, fifteen, twenty, any number of miles, commencing\nat my own door, without going by any house, without crossing a road\nexcept where the fox and the mink do. Concord is the oldest inland town\nin New England, perhaps in the States, and the walker is peculiarly\nfavored here. There are square miles in my vicinity which have no\ninhabitant. First along by the river, and then the brook, and then the\nmeadow and the woodside. Such solitude! From a hundred hills I can see\ncivilization and abodes of man afar. These farmers and their works are\nscarcely more obvious than woodchucks.[47]\n\n * * * * *\n\nAs I was going by with a creaking wheelbarrow, one of my neighbors, who\nheard the music, ran out with his grease-pot and brush and greased the\nwheels.\n\nThat is a peculiar season when about the middle of August the farmers\nare getting their meadow-hay. If you sail up the river, you will see\nthem in all meadows, raking hay and loading it on to carts, great\ntowering [?] teams, under which the oxen stand like beetles, chewing\nthe cud, waiting for men to put the meadow on. With the heaviest load\nthey dash aside to crop some more savory grass,\u2014the half-broken steers.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThere was reason enough for the first settler\u2019s selecting the elm out\nof all the trees of the forest with which to ornament his villages. It\nis beautiful alike by sunlight and moonlight, and the most beautiful\nspecimens are not the largest. I have seen some only twenty-five or\nthirty years old, more graceful and healthy, I think, than any others.\nIt is almost become a villageous tree,\u2014like martins and bluebirds.\n\nThe high blueberry has the wildest flavor of any of the huckleberry\ntribe. It is a little mithridatic. It is like eating a poisonous berry\nwhich your nature makes harmless. I derive the same pleasure as if I\nwere eating dog-berries, nightshade, and wild parsnip with impunity.\n\nMan and his affairs,\u2014Church and State and school, trade and commerce\nand agriculture,\u2014Politics,\u2014for that is the word for them all here\nto-day,\u2014I am pleased to see how little space it occupies in the\nlandscape. It is but a narrow field. That still narrower highway yonder\nleads to it. I sometimes direct the traveller[48] [Two pages missing.]\n\n And once again,\n When I went a-maying,\n And once or twice more\n I had seen thee before,\n For there grow the mayflower\n (_Epig\u00e6a repens_)\n And the mountain cranberry\n And the screech owl _strepens_.\n\n O whither dost thou go?\n Which way dost thou flow?\n Thou art the way.\n Thou art a road\n Which Dante never trode.\n Not many they be\n Who enter therein,\n Only the guests of the\n Irishman Quin.[49]\n\nThere was a cross-eyed fellow used to help me survey,\u2014he was my\nstake-driver,\u2014and all he said was, at every stake he drove, \u201cThere, I\nshouldn\u2019t like to undertake to pull _that_ up with my teeth.\u201d\n\nIt sticks in my _crop_. That\u2019s a good phrase. Many things stick there.\n\n The man of wild habits,\n Partridges and rabbits,\n Who has no cares\n Only to set snares,\n Who liv\u2019st all alone,\n Close to the bone,\n And where life is sweetest\n Constantly eatest.\n\n Where they once dug for money,\n But never found \u201cony.\u201d\n\n To market fares\n With early apples and pears.\n When the spring stirs my blood\n With the instinct to travel,\n I can get enough gravel\n On the Old Marlborough Road.\n\n If you\u2019ll leave your abode\n With your fancy unfurled,\n You may go round the world\n By the Old Marlborough Road.\n\n Nobody repairs it,\n For nobody wears it.\n It is a living way,\n As the Christians say.\n What is it, what is it,\n But a direction out there\n And the bare possibility\n Of going somewhere?\n Great guide-_boards_ of stone,\n But travellers none.\n It is worth going there to see\n Where you might be.\n They\u2019re a great endeavor\n To be something for ever.\n They are a monument to somebody,\n To some selectman\n Who thought of the plan.\n What king\n Did the thing,\n I am still wondering.\n Cenotaphs of the towns\n Named on their crowns;\n Huge as Stonehenge;\n Set up how or when,\n By what selectmen?\n Gourgas or Lee,\n Clark or Darby?\n Blank tablets of stone,\n Where a traveller might groan,\n And in one sentence\n Grave all that is known;\n Which another might read,\n In his extreme need.\n I know two or three\n Sentences, _i. e._,\n That might there be.\n Literature that might stand\n All over the land.\n Which a man might remember\n Till after December,\n And read again in the spring,\n After the thawing.[50]\n\n Old meeting-house bell,\n I love thy music well.\n It peals through the air,\n Sweetly full and fair,\n As in the early times,\n When I listened to its chimes.\n\nI walk over the hills, to compare _great_ things with _small_, as\nthrough a gallery of pictures, ever and anon looking through a gap in\nthe wood, as through the frame of a picture, to a more distant wood\nor hillside, painted with several more coats of air. It is a cheap but\npleasant effect. To a landscape in picture, glassed with air.\n\nWhat is a horizon without mountains?\n\n * * * * *\n\nA field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It has new life\nand motion. It is intermediate between land and sky. On land, only the\ngrass and trees wave, but the water itself is _rippled_ by the wind.\nI see the breeze dash across it in streaks and flakes of light. It is\nsomewhat singular that we should _look down_ on the surface of water.\nWe shall look down on the surface of air next, and mark where a still\nsubtler spirit sweeps over _it_.[51]\n\n Without inlet it lies,\n Without outlet it flows.\n From and to the skies\n It comes and it goes.\n I am its source,\n And my life is its course.\n I am its stony shore\n And the breeze that passes o\u2019er.[52]\n\n [Two thirds of a page missing.]\n\nAll that the money-digger had ever found was a pine-tree shilling, once\nas he was dunging out. He was paid much more for dunging out, but he\nvalued more the money which he found. The boy thinks most of the cent\nhe found, not the cent he earned; for it suggests to him that he may\nfind a great deal more, but he knows that he can\u2019t earn _much_, and\nperhaps did not deserve that.\n\n [Two pages missing.]\n\n Among the worst of men that ever lived.\n However, we did seriously attend,\n A little space we let our thoughts ascend,\n Experienced our religion and confessed\n \u2019T was good for us to be there,\u2014be anywhere.\n Then to a heap of apples we addressed,\n And cleared a five-rail fence with hand on the topmost rider\n _sine_ care.\n Then our Icarian thoughts returned to ground,\n And we went on to heaven the long way round.\n\n What\u2019s the railroad to me?\n I never go to see\n Where it ends.\n It fills a few hollows,\n And makes banks for the swallows;\n It sets the sand a-flowing,\n And blackberries a-growing.[53]\n\n\n_Aug. 31._\n\n\nTALL AMBROSIA\n\n Among the signs of autumn I perceive\n The Roman wormwood (called by learned men\n _Ambrosia elatior_, food for gods,\n For by impartial science the humblest weed\n Is as well named as is the proudest flower)\n Sprinkles its yellow dust over my shoes\n As I brush through the now neglected garden.\n We trample under foot the food of gods\n And spill their nectar in each drop of dew.\n My honest shoes, fast friends that never stray\n Far from my couch, thus powdered, countrified,\n Bearing many a mile the marks of their adventure,\n At the post-house disgrace the Gallic gloss\n Of those well-dressed ones who no morning dew\n Nor Roman wormwood ever have gone through,\n Who never walk, but are _transported_ rather,\n For what old crime of theirs I do not gather.\n\nThe gray blueberry bushes, venerable as oaks,\u2014why is not their fruit\npoisonous? Bilberry called _Vaccinium corymbosum_; some say _am\u0153num_,\nor blue bilberry, and _Vaccinium disomorphum_ Mx., black bilberry. Its\nfruit hangs on into September, but loses its wild and sprightly taste.\n\n Th\u2019 ambrosia of the Gods\u2019s a weed on earth,\n Their nectar is the morning dew which on-\n Ly our shoes taste, for they are simple folks.\n \u2019T is very fit the ambrosia of the gods\n Should be a weed on earth, as nectar is\n The morning dew which our shoes brush aside;\n For the gods are simple folks, and we should pine upon their\n humble fare.\n\nThe purple flowers of the humble trichostema mingled with the wormwood,\nsmelling like it; and the spring-scented, dandelion-scented primrose,\nyellow primrose. The swamp-pink (_Azalea viscosa_), its now withered\npistils standing out.\n\nThe odoriferous sassafras, with its delicate green stem, its\nthree-lobed leaf, tempting the traveller to bruise it, it sheds so\nrare a perfume on him, equal to all the spices of the East. Then its\nrare-tasting root bark, like nothing else, which I used to dig. The\nfirst navigators freighted their ships with it and deemed it worth its\nweight in gold.\n\nThe alder-leaved clethra (_Clethra alnifolia_), sweet-smelling queen of\nthe swamp; its long white racemes.\n\nWe are most apt to remember and cherish the flowers which appear\nearliest in the spring. I look with equal affection on those which are\nthe latest to bloom in the fall.\n\nThe choke-berry (_Pyrus arbutifolia_).\n\nThe beautiful white waxen berries of the cornel, either _Cornus alba_\nor _paniculata_, white-berried or panicled, beautiful both when full\nof fruit and when its cymes are naked; delicate red cymes or stems of\nberries; spreading its little fairy fingers to the skies, its little\npalms; fairy palms they might be called.\n\nOne of the viburnums, _Lentago_ or _pyrifolium_ or _nudum_, with its\npoisonous-looking fruit in cymes, first greenish-white, then red, then\npurple, or all at once.\n\nThe imp-eyed, red, velvety-looking berry of the swamps.[54]\n\nThe spotted polygonum (_Polygonum Persicaria_), seen in low lands amid\nthe potatoes now, wild prince\u2019s-feather (?), slight flower that does\nnot forget to grace the autumn.\n\nThe late whortleberry\u2014dangleberry\u2014that ripens now that other\nhuckleberries and blueberries are shrivelled and spoiling, September\n1st; dangle down two or three inches; can rarely find many. They have\na more transparent look, large, blue, long-stemmed, dangling, fruit of\nthe swamp concealed.\n\nI detect the pennyroyal which my feet have bruised. Butter-and-eggs\nstill hold out to bloom.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI notice that cows never walk abreast, but in single file commonly,\nmaking a narrow cow-path, or the herd walks in an irregular and loose\nwedge. They retain still the habit of all the deer tribe, acquired when\nthe earth was all covered with forest, of travelling from necessity in\nnarrow paths in the woods.\n\nAt sundown a herd of cows, returning homeward from pasture over a\nsandy knoll, pause to paw the sand and challenge the representatives\nof another herd, raising a cloud of dust between the beholder and\nthe setting sun. And then the herd boys rush to mingle in the fray\nand separate the combatants, two cows with horns interlocked, the one\npushing the other down the bank.\n\nMy grandmother called her cow home at night from the pasture over the\nhill, by thumping on a mortar out of which the cow was accustomed to\neat salt.\n\nAt Nagog I saw a hundred bushels of huckleberries in one field.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe Roman wormwood, pigweed, a stout, coarse red-topped (?) weed\n(_Amaranthus hybridus_), and spotted polygonum; these are the lusty\ngrowing plants now, September 2d.\n\nTall, slender, minute white-flowered weed in gardens, annual fleabane\n(_Erigeron Canadensis_).\n\n * * * * *\n\nOne of my neighbors, of whom I borrowed a horse, cart, and harness\nto-day, which last was in a singularly dilapidated condition,\nconsidering that he is a wealthy farmer, did not know but I would make\na book about it.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAs I was stalking over the surface of this planet in the dark to-night,\nI started a plover resting on the ground and heard him go off with\nwhistling wings.\n\n * * * * *\n\nMy friends wonder that I love to walk alone in solitary fields and\nwoods by night. Sometimes in my loneliest and wildest midnight walk\nI hear the sound of the whistle and the rattle of the cars, where\nperchance some of those very friends are being whirled by night over,\nas they think, a well-known, safe, and public road. I see that men\ndo not make or choose their own paths, whether they are railroads\nor trackless through the wilds, but what the powers permit each one\nenjoys. My solitary course has the same sanction that the Fitchburg\nRailroad has. If they have a charter from Massachusetts and\u2014what is\nof much more importance\u2014from Heaven, to travel the course and in the\nfashion they do, I have a charter, though it be from Heaven alone,\nto travel the course I do,\u2014to take the necessary lands and pay the\ndamages. It is by the grace of God in both cases.\n\n * * * * *\n\nNow, about the first of September, you will see flocks of small birds\nforming compact and distinct masses, as if they were not only animated\nby one spirit but actually held together by some invisible fluid or\nfilm, and will hear the sound of their wings rippling or fanning the\nair as they flow through it, flying, the whole mass, ricochet like a\nsingle bird,\u2014or as they flow over the fence. Their mind must operate\nfaster than man\u2019s, in proportion as their bodies do.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWhat a generation this is! It travels with some brains in its hat,\nwith a couple of spare cigars on top of them. It carries a heart in its\nbreast, covered by a lozenge in its waistcoat pocket.\n\n * * * * *\n\nJohn Garfield brought me this morning (September 6th) a young great\nheron (_Ardea Herodias_), which he shot this morning on a pine tree\non the North Branch. It measured four feet, nine inches, from bill\nto toe and six feet in alar extent, and belongs to a different race\nfrom myself and Mr. Frost. I am glad to recognize him for a native of\nAmerica,\u2014why not an American citizen?\n\nIn the twilight, when you can only see the outlines of the trees in\nthe horizon, the elm-tops indicate where the houses are. I have looked\nafar over fields and even over distant woods and distinguished the\nconspicuous graceful, sheaf-like head of an elm which shadowed some\nfarmhouse. From the northwest (?) part of Sudbury you can see an elm on\nthe Boston road, on the hilltop in the horizon in Wayland, five or six\nmiles distant. The elm is a tree which can be distinguished farther off\nperhaps than any other. The wheelwright still makes his hubs of it, his\nspokes of white oak, his fellies of yellow oak, which does not crack on\nthe corners. In England, \u2019tis said, they use the ash for fellies.\n\nThere is a little grove in a swampy place in Conantum where some\nrare things grow,\u2014several bass trees, two kinds of ash, sassafras,\nmaidenhair fern, the white-berried plant (ivory?), etc., etc., and the\nsweet viburnum (?) in the hedge near by.\n\nThis will be called the wet year of 1850. The river is as high now,\nSeptember 9th, as in the spring, and hence the prospects and the\nreflections seen from the village are something novel.\n\n * * * * *\n\nRoman wormwood, pigweed, amaranth, polygonum, and one or two coarse\nkinds of grass reign now in the cultivated fields.\n\nThough the potatoes have man with all his implements on their side,\nthese rowdy and rampant weeds completely bury them, between the last\nhoeing and the digging. The potatoes hardly succeed with the utmost\ncare: these weeds only ask to be _let alone_ a little while. I judge\nthat they have not got the rot. I sympathize with all this luxuriant\ngrowth of weeds. Such is the year. The weeds grow as if in sport and\nfrolic.\n\n * * * * *\n\nYou might say green as green-briar.\n\nI do not know whether the practice of putting indigo-weed about horses\u2019\ntackling to keep off flies is well founded, but I hope it is, for I\nhave been pleased to notice that wherever I have occasion to tie a\nhorse I am sure to find indigo-weed not far off, and therefore this,\nwhich is so universally dispersed, would be the fittest weed for this\npurpose.\n\nThe thistle is now in bloom, which every child is eager to clutch\nonce,\u2014just a child\u2019s handful.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe prunella, self-heal, small purplish-flowered plant of low grounds.\n\n * * * * *\n\nCharles[55] grew up to be a remarkably eccentric man. He was of large\nframe, athletic, and celebrated for his feats of strength. His lungs\nwere proportionally strong. There was a man who heard him named once,\nand asked if it was the same Charles Dunbar whom he remembered when he\nwas a little boy walking on the coast of Maine. A man came down to the\nshore and hailed a vessel that was sailing by. He should never forget\nthat man\u2019s name.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt was well grassed, and delicate flowers grew in the middle of the\nroad.\n\n I saw a delicate flower had grown up two feet high\n Between the horses\u2019 path and the wheel-track,\n Which Dakin\u2019s and Maynard\u2019s wagons had\n Passed over many a time.\n An inch more to right or left had sealed its fate,\n Or an inch higher. And yet it lived and flourished\n As much as if it had a thousand acres\n Of untrodden space around it, and never\n Knew the danger it incurred.\n It did not borrow trouble nor invite an\n Evil fate by apprehending it.[56]\n For though the distant market-wagon\n Every other day inevitably rolled\n This way, it just as inevitably rolled\n In those ruts. And the same\n Charioteer who steered the flower\n Upward guided the horse and cart aside from it.\n There were other flowers which you would say\n Incurred less danger, grew more out of the way,\n Which no cart rattled near, no walker daily passed,\n But at length one rambling deviously\u2014\n For no rut restrained\u2014plucked them,\n And then it appeared that they stood\n Directly in his way, though he had come\n From farther than the market-wagon.\n\nAnd then it appeared that this brave flower which grew between the\nwheel and horse did actually stand farther out of the way than that\nwhich stood in the wide prairie where the man of science plucked it.\n\n To-day I climbed a handsome rounded hill\n Covered with hickory trees, wishing to see\n The country from its top, for low hills\n Show unexpected prospects. I looked\n Many miles over a woody lowland\n Toward Marlborough, Framingham, and Sudbury;\n And as I sat amid the hickory trees\n\nAnd the young sumachs, enjoying the prospect, a neat herd of cows\napproached, of unusually fair proportions and smooth, clean skins,\nevidently petted by their owner, who must have carefully selected\nthem. One more confiding heifer, the fairest of the herd, did by\ndegrees approach as if to take some morsel from our hands, while\nour hearts leaped to our mouths with expectation and delight. She by\ndegrees drew near with her fair limbs progressive, making pretense of\nbrowsing; nearer and nearer, till there was wafted toward us the bovine\nfragrance,\u2014cream of all the dairies that ever were or will be,\u2014and\nthen she raised her gentle muzzle toward us, and snuffed an honest\nrecognition within hand\u2019s reach. I saw \u2019t was possible for his herd to\ninspire with love the herdsman. She was as delicately featured as a\nhind. Her hide was mingled white and fawn-color, and on her muzzle\u2019s\ntip there was a white spot not bigger than a daisy, and on her side\ntoward me the map of Asia plain to see.\n\nFarewell, dear heifer! Though thou forgettest me, my prayer to heaven\nshall be that thou may\u2019st not forget thyself. There was a whole bucolic\nin her snuff. I saw her name was Sumach. And by the kindred spots I\nknew her mother, more sedate and matronly, with full-grown bag; and\non her sides was Asia, great and small, the plains of Tartary, even to\nthe pole, while on her daughter it was Asia Minor. She not disposed to\nwanton with the herdsman.\n\nAnd as I walked, she followed me, and took an apple from my hand, and\nseemed to care more for the hand than apple. So innocent a face as I\nhave rarely seen on any creature, and I have looked in face of many\nheifers. And as she took the apple from my hand, I caught the apple\nof her eye. She smelled as sweet as the clethra blossom. There was no\nsinister expression. And for horns, though she had them, they were so\nwell disposed in the right place, bent neither up nor down, I do not\nnow remember she had any. No horn was held toward me.[57]\n\n\n_Sept. 11. Wednesday._ The river higher than I ever knew it at this\nseason, as high as in the spring.\n\n * * * * *\n\nYesterday, September 14, walked to White Pond in Stow, on the\nMarlborough road, having passed one pond called sometimes Pratt\u2019s\nPond, sometimes Bottomless Pond, in Sudbury. Saw afterward another pond\nbeyond Willis\u2019s also called Bottomless Pond, in a thick swamp. To name\ntwo ponds bottomless when both of them have a bottom! Verily men choose\ndarkness rather than light.[58]\n\nThe farmers are now cutting\u2014topping\u2014their corn, gathering their early\nfruit, raking their cranberries, digging their potatoes, etc.\n\nEverything has its use, and man seeks sedulously for the best article\nfor each use. The watchmaker finds the oil of the porpoise\u2019s jaw the\nbest for oiling his watches. Man has a million eyes, and the race knows\ninfinitely more than the individual. Consent to be wise through your\nrace.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAutumnal mornings, when the feet of countless sparrows are heard like\nrain-drops on the roof by the boy who sleeps in the garret.\n\n * * * * *\n\nVillages with a single long street lined with trees, so straight and\nwide that you can see a chicken run across it a mile off.\n\n\n_Sept. 19._ The gerardia, yellow trumpet-like flower. Veiny-leaved\nhawkweed (leaves handsome, radical excepting one or two; know\nthem well) (_Hieracium venosum_), flower like a dandelion.\nCanada snapdragon, small pea-like blue flower in the wood-paths,\n(_Antirrhinum Canadense_). Pine-weed, thickly branched low weed with\nred seed-vessels, in wood-paths and fields, (_Sarothra gentianoides_).\nCucumber-root (_Medeola_). Tree-primrose. Red-stemmed cornel. The very\nminute flower which grows now in the middle of the Marlborough road.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI am glad to have drunk water so long, as I prefer the natural sky\nto an opium-eater\u2019s heaven,\u2014would keep sober always, and lead a\nsane life not indebted to stimulants. Whatever my practice may be, I\nbelieve that it is the only drink for a wise man, and only the foolish\nhabitually use any other. Think of dashing the hopes of a morning with\na cup of coffee, or of an evening with a dish of tea! Wine is not a\nnoble liquor, except when it is confined to the pores of the grape.\nEven music is wont to be intoxicating. Such apparently slight causes\ndestroyed Greece and Rome, and will destroy England and America.[59]\n\nI have seen where the rain dripped from the trees on a sand-bank on\nthe Marlborough road, that each little pebble which had protected the\nsand made the summit of a sort of basaltic column of sand,\u2014a phenomenon\nwhich looked as if it might be repeated on a larger scale in nature.\n\nThe goldenrods and asters impress me not like individuals but great\nfamilies covering a thousand hills and having a season to themselves.\n\nThe indigo-weed turns black when dry, and I have been interested to\nfind in each of its humble seed-vessels a worm.\n\nThe Deep Cut is sometimes excited to productiveness by a rain in\nmidsummer. It impresses me somewhat as if it were a cave, with all its\nstalactites turned wrong side outward. Workers in bronze should come\nhere for their patterns.\n\nThose were carrots which I saw naturalized in Wheeler\u2019s field. It was\nfour or five years since he planted there.\n\nTo-day I saw a sunflower in the woods.\n\nIt is pleasant to see the _Viola pedata_ blossoming again now, in\nSeptember, with a beauty somewhat serener than that of these yellow\nflowers.\n\nThe trees on the bank of the river have white furrows worn about them,\nmarking the height of the freshets, at what levels the water has stood.\n\nWater is so much more fine and sensitive an element than earth. A\nsingle boatman passing up or down unavoidably shakes the whole of a\nwide river, and disturbs its every reflection. The air is an element\nwhich our voices shake still further than our oars the water.\n\nThe red maples on the river, standing far in the water when the\nbanks are overflown and touched by the earliest frosts, are memorable\nfeatures in the scenery of the stream at this season.\n\nNow you can scent the ripe grapes far off on the banks as you row\nalong. Their fragrance is finer than their flavor.\n\nMy companion said he would drink when the boat got under the bridge,\nbecause the water would be cooler in the shade, though the stream\nquickly passes through the piers from shade to sun again. It is\nsomething beautiful, the act of drinking, the stooping to imbibe some\nof this widespread element, in obedience to instinct, without whim. We\ndo not so simply drink in other influences.\n\nIt is pleasant to have been to a place by the way a river went.\n\nThe forms of trees and groves change with every stroke of the oar.\n\nIt seems hardly worth the while to risk the dangers of the sea between\nLeghorn and New York for the sake of a cargo of juniper berries and\nbitter almonds.\n\nOh, if I could be intoxicated on air and water![60] on hope and memory!\nand always see the maples standing red in the midst of the waters on\nthe meadow!\n\nThose have met with losses, who have lost their children. I saw the\nwidow this morning whose son was drowned.\n\nThat I might never be blind to the beauty of the landscape! To hear\nmusic without any vibrating cord!\n\nA family in which there was singing in the morning. To hear a neighbor\nsinging! All other speech sounds thereafter like profanity. A man\ncannot sing falsehood or cowardice; he must sing truth and heroism to\nattune his voice to some instrument. It would be noblest to sing with\nthe wind. I have seen a man making himself a viol, patiently and fondly\nparing the thin wood and shaping it, and when I considered the end of\nthe work he was ennobled in my eyes. He was building himself a ship\nin which to sail to new worlds. I am much indebted to my neighbor who\nwill now and then in the intervals of his work draw forth a few strains\nfrom his accordion. Though he is but a learner, I find when his strains\ncease that I have been elevated.\n\nThe question is not whether you drink, but what liquor.\n\n * * * * *\n\nPlucked a wild rose the 9th of October on Fair Haven Hill.\n\nButter-and-eggs, which blossomed several months ago, still freshly [in]\nbloom (October 11th).\n\nHe knew what shrubs were best for withes.\n\nThis is a remarkable year. Huckleberries are still quite abundant and\nfresh on Conantum. There have been more berries than pickers or even\nworms. (October 9th.)\n\nI am always exhilarated, as were the early voyagers, by the sight\nof sassafras (_Laurus Sassafras_). The green leaves bruised have the\nfragrance of lemons and a thousand spices. To the same order belong\ncinnamon, cassia, camphor.\n\nHickory is said to be an Indian name. (Nuttall\u2019s continuation of\nMichaux.)\n\nThe seed vessel of the sweet-briar is a very beautiful glossy\nelliptical fruit. What with the fragrance of its leaves, its blossom,\nand its fruit, it is thrice crowned.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI observed to-day (October 17th) the small blueberry bushes by the\npath-side, now blood-red, full of white blossoms as in the spring, the\nblossoms of spring contrasting strangely with the leaves of autumn. The\nformer seemed to have expanded from sympathy with the maturity of the\nleaves.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWalter Colton in his \u201cCalifornia\u201d[61] says, \u201cAge is no certain evidence\nof merit, since folly runs to seed as fast as wisdom.\u201d\n\nThe imagination never forgives an insult.\n\n * * * * *\n\nLeft Concord, Wednesday morning, September 25th, 1850, for Quebec.\nFare $7.00 to and fro. Obliged to leave Montreal on return as soon as\nFriday, October 4th. The country was new to me beyond Fitchburg.\n\nIn Ashburnham and afterwards I noticed the woodbine.[62]\n\n[Eighty-four pages missing,\u2014doubtless the Canada journal.]\n\n * * * * *\n\nHowever mean your life is, meet it and live; do not shun it and call it\nhard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are\nrichest. The faultfinder will find faults even in paradise. Love your\nlife, poor as it is. You may perchance have some pleasant, thrilling,\nglorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from\nthe windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man\u2019s house.\nThe snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see\nbut a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering\nthoughts as anywhere, and, indeed, the town\u2019s poor seem to live the\nmost independent lives of any. They are simply great enough to receive\nwithout misgiving. Cultivate poverty like sage, like a garden herb. Do\nnot trouble yourself to get new things, whether clothes or friends.\nThat is dissipation. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not\nchange; we change. If I were confined to a corner in a garret all my\ndays, like a spider, the world would be just as large to me while I had\nmy thoughts.[63]\n\nIn all my travels I never came to the abode of the present.\n\nI live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose alloy was poured a\nlittle bell-metal. Sometimes in the repose of my mid-day there reaches\nmy ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise of my\ncontemporaries.[64]\n\nThat the brilliant leaves of autumn are not withered ones is proved by\nthe fact that they wilt when gathered as soon as the green.\n\nBut now, October 31st, they are all withered. This has been the most\nperfect afternoon in the year. The air quite warm enough, perfectly\nstill and dry and clear, and not a cloud in the sky. Scarcely the song\nof a cricket is heard to disturb the stillness. When they ceased their\nsong I do not know. I wonder that the impetus which our hearing had got\ndid not hurry us into deafness over a precipitous silence. There must\nhave been a thick web of cobwebs on the grass this morning, promising\nthis fair day, for I see them still through the afternoon, covering not\nonly the grass but the bushes and the trees. They are stretched across\nthe unfrequented roads from weed to weed, and broken by the legs of the\nhorses.\n\nI thought to-day that it would be pleasing to study the dead and\nwithered plants, the ghosts of plants, which now remain in the fields,\nfor they fill almost as large a space to the eye as the green have\ndone. They live not in memory only, but to the fancy and imagination.\n\nAs we were passing through Ashburnham, by a new white house which stood\nat some distance in a field, one passenger exclaimed so that all the\npassengers could hear him, \u201cThere, there\u2019s not so good a house as that\nin all Canada.\u201d And I did not much wonder at his remark. There is a\nneatness as well as thrift and elastic comfort, a certain flexible\neasiness of circumstance when not rich, about a New England house\nwhich the Canadian houses do not suggest. Though of stone, they were\nno better constructed than a stone barn would be with us. The only\nbuilding on which money and taste are expended is the church.[65] At\nBeauport we examined a magnificent cathedral, not quite completed,\nwhere I do not remember that there were any but the meanest houses in\nsight around it.\n\nOur Indian summer, I am tempted to say, is the finest season of the\nyear. Here has been such a day as I think Italy never sees.\n\nThough it has been so warm to-day, I found some of the morning\u2019s frost\nstill remaining under the north side of a wood, to my astonishment.\n\nWhy was this beautiful day made, and no man to improve it? We went\nthrough Seven-Star (?) Lane to White Pond.\n\nLooking through a stately pine grove, I saw the western sun falling in\ngolden streams through its aisles. Its west side, opposite to me, was\nall lit up with golden light; but what was I to it? Such sights remind\nme of houses which we never inhabit,\u2014that commonly I am not at home in\nthe world. I see somewhat fairer than I enjoy or possess.\n\nA fair afternoon, a celestial afternoon, cannot occur but we mar our\npleasure by reproaching ourselves that we do not make all our days\nbeautiful. The thought of what I am, of my pitiful conduct, deters me\nfrom receiving what joy I might from the glorious days that visit me.\nAfter the era of youth is passed, the knowledge of ourselves is an\nalloy that spoils our satisfactions.\n\nI am wont to think that I could spend my days contentedly in any\nretired country house that I see; for I see it to advantage now and\nwithout incumbrance; I have not yet imported my humdrum thoughts, my\nprosaic habits, into it to mar the landscape. What is this beauty in\nthe landscape but a certain fertility in me? I look in vain to see it\nrealized but in my own life. If I could wholly cease to be ashamed of\nmyself, I think that all my days would be fair.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWhen I asked at the principal bookstore in Montreal to see such books\nas were published there, the answer was that none were published there\nbut those of a statistical character and the like, that their books\ncame from the States.[66]\n\n [Two thirds of a page missing]\n\nAs once he was riding past Jennie Dugan\u2019s, was invited by her\nboys to look into their mother\u2019s spring-house. He looked in. It\n_was_ a delectable place to keep butter and milk cool and sweet in\ndog-days,\u2014but there was a leopard frog swimming in the milk, and\nanother sitting on the edge of the pan.\n\n [Half a page missing.]\n\nThou art a personality so vast and universal that I have never seen\none of thy features. I am suddenly very near to another land than can\nbe bought and sold; this is not Charles Miles\u2019s swamp. This is a far,\nfar-away field on the confines of the actual Concord, where nature is\npartially present. These farms I have myself surveyed; these lines I\nhave run; these bounds I have set up; they have no chemistry to fix\nthem; they fade from the surface of the glass (the picture); this light\nis too strong for them.\n\n [Four and two thirds pages missing.]\n\nMy dear, my dewy sister, let thy rain descend on me. I not only love\nthee, but I love the best of thee; that is to love thee rarely. I do\nnot love thee every day. Commonly I love those who are less than thou.\nI love thee only on great days. Thy dewy words feed me like the manna\nof the morning. I am as much thy sister as thy brother. Thou art as\nmuch my brother as my sister. It is a portion of thee and a portion of\nme which are of kin. Thou dost not have to woo me. I do not have to woo\nthee. O my sister! O Diana, thy tracks are on the eastern hills. Thou\nsurely passedst that way. I, the hunter, saw them in the morning dew.\nMy eyes are the hounds that pursue thee. Ah, my friend, what if I do\nnot answer thee? I hear thee. Thou canst speak; I cannot. I hear and\nforget to answer. I am occupied with hearing. I awoke and thought of\nthee; thou wast present to my mind. How camest thou there? Was I not\npresent to thee likewise?[67]\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe oystermen had anchored their boat near the shore without regard to\nthe state of the tide, and when we came to it to set sail, just after\nnoon, we found that it was aground. Seeing that they were preparing to\npush it off, I was about to take off my shoes and stockings in order\nto wade to it first, but a Dutch sailor with a singular bullfrog or\ntrilobite expression of the eyes, whose eyes were like frog ponds in\nthe broad platter of his cheeks and gleamed like a pool covered with\nfrog-spittle, immediately offered me the use of his back. So mounting,\nwith my legs under his arms, and hugging him like one of [the] family,\nhe set me aboard of the periauger?\n\nThey then leaned their hardest against the stern, bracing their feet\nagainst the sandy bottom in two feet of water, the Dutchman with his\nbroad back among them. In the most Dutch-like and easy way they applied\nthemselves to this labor, while the skipper tried to raise the bows,\nnever jerking or hustling but silently exerting what vigor was inherent\nin them, doing, no doubt, their utmost endeavor, while I pushed with a\nspike pole; but it was all in vain. It was decided to be unsuccessful;\nwe did not disturb its bed by a grain of sand. \u201cWell, what now?\u201d said\nI. \u201cHow long have we got to wait?\u201d \u201cTill the tide rises,\u201d said the\ncaptain. But no man knew of the tide, how it was. So I went in to\nbathe, looking out for sharks and chasing crabs, and the Dutchman waded\nout among the mussels to spear a crab. The skipper stuck a clamshell\ninto the sand at the water\u2019s edge to discover if it was rising, and the\nsailors,\u2014the Dutchman and the other,\u2014having got more drink at Oakes\u2019s,\nstretched themselves on the seaweed close to the water\u2019s edge [and]\nwent to sleep. After an hour or more we could discover no change in the\nshell even by a hair\u2019s breadth, from which we learned that it was about\nthe turn of the tide and we must wait some hours longer.[68]\n\nI once went in search of the relics of a human body\u2014a week after a\nwreck\u2014which had been cast up the day before on to the beach, though\nthe sharks had stripped off the flesh. I got the direction from a\nlighthouse. I should find it a mile or two distant over the sand, a\ndozen rods from the water, by a stick which was stuck up covered with\na cloth. Pursuing the direction pointed out, I expected that I should\nhave to look very narrowly at the sand to find so small an object,\nbut so completely smooth and bare was the beach\u2014half a mile wide of\nsand\u2014and so magnifying the mirage toward the sea that when I was half\na mile distant the insignificant stick or sliver which marked the spot\nlooked like a broken mast in the sand. As if there was no other object,\nthis trifling sliver had puffed itself up to the vision to fill the\nvoid; and there lay the relics in a certain state, rendered perfectly\ninoffensive to both bodily and spiritual eye by the surrounding\nscenery,\u2014a slight inequality in the sweep of the shore. Alone with\nthe sea and the beach, attending to the sea, whose hollow roar seemed\naddressed to the ears of the departed,\u2014articulate speech to them. It\nwas as conspicuous on that sandy plain as if a generation had labored\nto pile up a cairn there. Where there were so few objects, the least\nwas obvious as a mausoleum. It reigned over the shore. That dead body\npossessed the shore as no living one could. It showed a title to the\nsands which no living ruler could.[69]\n\nMy father was commissary at Fort Independence in the last war. He says\nthat the baker whom he engaged returned eighteen ounces of bread for\nsixteen of flour, and was glad of the job on those terms.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIn a pleasant spring morning all men\u2019s sins are forgiven. You may have\nknown your neighbor yesterday for a drunkard and a thief, and merely\npitied or despised him, and despaired of the world; but the sun shines\nbright and warm this first spring morning, and you meet him quietly,\nserenely at any work, and see how even his exhausted, debauched veins\nand nerves expand with still joy and bless the new day, feel the spring\ninfluence with the innocence[70] [Two thirds of a page missing.]\n\n * * * * *\n\nThere is a good echo from that wood to one standing on the side of\nFair Haven. It was particularly good to-day. The woodland lungs seemed\nparticularly sound to-day; they echoed your shout with a fuller and\nrounder voice than it was given in, seeming to _mouth_ it. It was\nuttered with a sort of sweeping intonation half round a vast circle,\n_ore rotundo_, by a broad dell among the tree-tops passing it round to\nthe entrance of all the aisles of the wood. You had to choose the right\nkey or pitch, else the woods would not echo it with any spirit, and so\nwith eloquence. Of what significance is any sound if Nature does not\necho it? It does not prevail. It dies away as soon as uttered. I wonder\nthat wild men have not made more of echoes, or that we do not hear that\nthey have made more. It would be a pleasant, a soothing and cheerful\nmission to go about the country in search of them,\u2014articulating,\nspeaking, vocal, oracular, resounding, sonorous, hollow, prophetic\nplaces; places wherein to found an oracle, sites for oracles, sacred\nears of Nature.\n\nI used to strike with a paddle on the side of my boat on Walden Pond,\nfilling the surrounding woods with circling and dilating sound, awaking\nthe woods, \u201cstirring them up,\u201d as a keeper of a menagerie his lions\nand tigers, a growl from all. All melody is a sweet echo, as it were\ncoincident with [the] movement of our organs. We wake the echo of the\nplace we are in, its slumbering music.\n\nI should think that savages would have made a god of echo.\n\nI will call that Echo Wood.\n\nCrystal Water for White Pond.\n\nThere was a sawmill once on Nut Meadow Brook, near Jennie\u2019s Road. These\nlittle brooks have their history. They once turned sawmills. They even\nused their _influence_ to destroy the primitive [forests] which grew on\ntheir banks, and now, for their reward, the sun is let in to dry them\nup and narrow their channels. Their crime rebounds against themselves.\nYou still find the traces of ancient dams where the simple brooks\nwere taught to use their influence to destroy the primitive forests on\ntheir borders, and now for penalty they flow in shrunken channels, with\nrepentant and plaintive tinkling through the wood, being by an evil\nspirit turned against their neighbor forests.\n\nWhat does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free,\nmeandering brook.\n\n * * * * *\n\nYou must walk like a camel, which is said to be the only beast which\nruminates when it walks.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe actual life of men is not without a dramatic interest to the\nthinker. It is not in all its respects prosaic. Seventy thousand\npilgrims proceed annually to Mecca from the various nations of Islam.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI was one evening passing a retired farmhouse which had a smooth green\nplat before it, just after sundown, when I saw a hen turkey which had\ngone to roost on the front fence with her wings outspread over her\nyoung now pretty well advanced, who were roosting on the next rail\na foot or two below her. It completed a picture of rural repose and\nhappiness such as I had not seen for a long time. A particularly neat\nand quiet place, where the very ground was swept around the wood-pile.\nThe neighboring fence of roots, agreeable forms for the traveller to\nstudy, like the bones of marine monsters and the horns of mastodons or\nmegatheriums.\n\n * * * * *\n\nYou might say of a philosopher that he was in this world as a spectator.\n\n * * * * *\n\nA squaw came to our door to-day with two pappooses, and said, \u201cMe\nwant a pie.\u201d Theirs is not common begging. You are merely the rich\nIndian who shares his goods with the poor. They merely offer you an\nopportunity to be generous and hospitable.\n\nEqually simple was the observation which an Indian made at Mr. Hoar\u2019s\ndoor the other day, who went there to sell his baskets. \u201cNo, we don\u2019t\nwant any,\u201d said the one who went to the door. \u201cWhat! do you mean to\nstarve us?\u201d asked the Indian in astonishment, as he was going out\n[_sic_] the gate. The Indian seems to have said: I too will do like the\nwhite man; I will go into business. He sees his white neighbors well\noff around him, and he thinks that if he only enters on the profession\nof basket-making, riches will flow in unto him as a matter of course;\njust as the lawyer weaves arguments, and by some magical means wealth\nand standing follow. He thinks that when he has made the baskets he\nhas done his part, now it is yours to buy them. He has not discovered\nthat it is necessary for him to make it worth your while to buy them,\nor make some which it will be worth your while to buy. With great\nsimplicity he says to himself: I too will be a man of business; I will\ngo into trade. It isn\u2019t enough simply to make baskets. You have got to\nsell them.[71]\n\n * * * * *\n\nI have an uncle who once, just as he stepped on to the dock at New\nYork from a steamboat, saw some strange birds in the water and called\nto [a] Gothamite to know what they were. Just then his hat blew off\ninto the dock, and the man answered by saying, \u201cMister, your hat is\noff,\u201d whereupon my uncle, straightening himself up, asked again with\nvehemence, \u201cBlast you, sir, I want to know what those birds are.\u201d By\nthe time that he had got this information, a sailor had recovered his\nhat.\n\n\n_Nov. 8._ The stillness of the woods and fields is remarkable at this\nseason of the year. There is not even the creak of a cricket to be\nheard. Of myriads of dry shrub oak leaves, not one rustles. Your own\nbreath can rustle them, yet the breath of heaven does not suffice to.\nThe trees have the aspect of waiting for winter. The autumnal leaves\nhave lost their color; they are now truly sere, dead, and the woods\nwear a sombre color. Summer and harvest are over. The hickories,\nbirches, chestnuts, no less than the maples, have lost their leaves.\nThe sprouts, which had shot up so vigorously to repair the damage which\nthe choppers had done, have stopped short for the winter. Everything\nstands silent and expectant. If I listen, I hear only the note of a\nchickadee,\u2014our most common and I may say native bird, most identified\nwith our forests,\u2014or perchance the scream of a jay, or perchance from\nthe solemn depths of these woods I hear tolling far away the knell\nof one departed. Thought rushes in to fill the vacuum. As you walk,\nhowever, the partridge still bursts away. The silent, dry, almost\nleafless, certainly fruitless woods. You wonder what cheer that bird\ncan find in them. The partridge bursts away from the foot of a shrub\noak like its own dry fruit, immortal bird! This sound still startles\nus. Dry goldenrods, now turned gray and white, lint our clothes as we\nwalk. And the drooping, downy seed-vessels of the epilobium remind us\nof the summer. Perchance you will meet with a few solitary asters in\nthe dry fields, with a little color left. The sumach is stripped of\neverything but its cone of red berries.\n\nThis is a peculiar season, peculiar for its stillness. The crickets\nhave ceased their song. The few birds are well-nigh silent. The tinted\nand gay leaves are now sere and dead, and the woods wear a sombre\naspect. A carpet of snow under the pines and shrub oaks will make it\nlook more cheerful. Very few plants have now their spring. But thoughts\nstill spring in man\u2019s brain. There are no flowers nor berries to speak\nof. The grass begins to die at top. In the morning it is stiff with\nfrost. Ice has been discovered in somebody\u2019s tub very early this morn,\nof the thickness of a dollar. The flies are betwixt life and death.\nThe wasps come into the houses and settle on the walls and windows. All\ninsects go into crevices. The fly is entangled in a web and struggles\nvainly to escape, but there is no spider to secure him; the corner\nof the pane is a deserted camp. When I lived in the woods the wasps\ncame by thousands to my lodge in November, as to winter quarters,\nand settled on my windows and on the walls over my head, sometimes\ndeterring visitors from entering. Each morning, when they were numbed\nwith cold, I swept some of them out. But I did not trouble myself\nto get rid of them. They never molested me, though they bedded with\nme, and they gradually disappeared into what crevices I do not know,\navoiding winter.[72] I saw a squash-bug go slowly behind a clapboard to\navoid winter. As some of these melon seeds come up in the garden again\nin the spring, so some of these squash-bugs come forth. The flies are\nfor a long time in a somnambulic state. They have too little energy or\n_vis vit\u00e6_ to clean their wings or heads, which are covered with dust.\nThey buzz and bump their heads against the windows two or three times a\nday, or lie on their backs in a trance, and that is all,\u2014two or three\nshort spurts. One of these mornings we shall hear that Mr. Minott had\nto break the ice to water his cow. And so it will go on till the ground\nfreezes. If the race had never lived through a winter, what would they\nthink was coming?\n\n [Illustration: _November Woods_]\n\nWalden Pond has at last fallen a little. It has been so high over\nthe stones\u2014quite into the bushes\u2014that walkers have been excluded from\nit.[73] There has been no accessible shore. All ponds have been high.\nThe water stood higher than usual in the distant ponds which I visited\nand had never seen before. It has been a peculiar season. At Goose\nPond, I notice that the birches of one year\u2019s growth from the stumps\nstanding in the water are all dead, apparently killed by the water,\nunless, like the pine, they die down after springing from the stump.\n\nIt is warm somewhere any day in the year. You will find some nook\nin the woods generally, at mid-forenoon of the most blustering day,\nwhere you may forget the cold. I used to resort to the northeast side\nof Walden, where the sun, reflected from the pine woods on the stony\nshore, made it the fireside of the pond. It is so much pleasanter and\nwholesomer to be warmed by the sun when you can, than by a fire.\n\nI saw to-day a double reflection on the pond of the cars passing, one\nbeneath the other, occasioned by a bright rippled streak on the surface\nof the water, from which a second reflection sprang.\n\n * * * * *\n\nOne who would study lichens must go into a new country where the rocks\nhave not been burned.\n\n * * * * *\n\nTherien says that the Canadians say _marche-donc_ to their horses; and\nthat the acid fruit must be spelled _painb\u00e9na_.[74] He says that the\nFrench acre or _arpent_ is ten perches by ten, of eighteen feet each.\n\n\n_Nov. 9._ It is a pleasant surprise to walk over a hill where an old\nwood has recently been cut off, and, on looking round, to see, instead\nof dense ranks of trees almost impermeable to light, distant well-known\nblue mountains in the horizon and perchance a white village over an\nexpanded open country. I now take this in preference to all my old\nfamiliar walks. So a new prospect and walks can be created where we\nleast expected it. The old men have seen other prospects from these\nhills than we do. There was the old Kettell place, now Watt\u2019s, which\nI surveyed for him last winter and lotted off, where twenty-five years\nago I played horse in the paths of a thick wood and roasted apples and\npotatoes in an old pigeon-place[75] and gathered fruit at the pie-apple\ntree. A week or two after I surveyed it, it now being rotten and\ngoing to waste, I walked there and was surprised to find the place and\nprospect which I have described.\n\nI found many fresh violets (_Viola pedata_) to-day (November 9th) in\nthe woods.\n\nSaw a cat on the Great Fields, wilder than a rabbit, hunting artfully.\nI remember to have seen one once walking about the stony shore at\nWalden Pond. It is not often that they wander so far from the houses.\nI once, however, met with a cat with young kittens in the woods, quite\nwild.[76]\n\nThe leaves of the larch are now yellow and falling off. Just a month\nago, I observed that the white pines were parti-colored, green and\nyellow, the needles of the previous year now falling. Now I do not\nobserve any yellow ones, and I expect to find that it is only for a\nfew weeks in the fall after the new leaves have done growing that there\nare any yellow and falling,\u2014that there is a season when we may say the\nold pine leaves are now yellow, and again, they are fallen. The trees\nwere not so tidy then; they are not so full now. They look best when\ncontrasted with a field of snow.\n\nA rusty sparrow or two only remains to people the drear spaces. It goes\nto roost without neighbors.\n\nIt is pleasant to observe any growth in a wood. There is the pitch\npine field northeast of Beck Stow\u2019s Swamp, where some years ago I went\na-blackberrying and observed that the pitch pines were beginning to\ncome in, and I have frequently noticed since how fairly they grew,\ndotting the plain as evenly as if dispersed by art. To-day I was aware\nthat I walked in a pitch pine wood, which ere long, perchance, I may\nsurvey and lot off for a wood auction and see the choppers at their\nwork. There is also the old pigeon-place field by the Deep Cut. I\nremember it as an open grassy field. It is now one of our most pleasant\nwoodland paths. In the former place, near the edge of the old wood, the\nyoung pines line each side of the path like a palisade, they grow so\ndensely. It never rains but it pours, and so I think when I see a young\ngrove of pitch pines crowding each other to death in this wide world.\nThese are destined for the locomotive\u2019s maw. These branches, which it\nhas taken so many years to mature, are regarded even by the woodman as\n\u201ctrash.\u201d\n\nDelicate, dry, feathery (perchance fescue) grasses growing out of a\ntuft, gracefully bending over the pathway. I do not know what they are,\nbut they belong to the season.\n\nThe chickadees, if I stand long enough, hop nearer and nearer\ninquisitively, from pine bough to pine bough, till within four or five\nfeet, occasionally lisping a note.\n\nThe pitcher-plant, though a little frost-bitten and often cut off by\nthe mower, now stands full of water in the meadows. I never found one\nthat had not an insect in it.\n\nI sometimes see well-preserved walls running straight through the midst\nof high and old woods, built, of course, when the soil was cultivated\nmany years ago, and am surprised to see slight stones still lying one\nupon another, as the builder placed them, while this huge oak has grown\nup from a chance acorn in the soil.\n\nThough a man were known to have only one acquaintance in the world,\nyet there are so many men in the world, and they are so much alike,\nthat when he spoke what might be construed personally, no one would\nknow certainly whom he meant. Though there were but two on a desolate\nisland, they would conduct toward each other in this respect as if each\nhad intercourse with a thousand others.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI saw in Canada two or three persons wearing homespun gray greatcoats,\nwith comical and conical hoods which fell back on their backs between\nthe shoulders, like small bags ready to be turned up over the head when\nneed was, though then a hat usurped that place. I saw that these must\nbe what are called capots. They looked as if they would be convenient\nand proper enough as long as the coats were new and tidy, but as if\nthey would soon come to look like rags and unsightly.[77]\n\n\n_Nov. 11._ Gathered to-day the autumnal dandelion (?) and the common\ndandelion.\n\nSome farmers\u2019 wives use the white ashes of corn-cobs instead of\npearlash.\n\nI am attracted by a fence made of white pine roots. There is, or rather\nwas, one (for it has been tipped into the gutter this year) on the road\nto Hubbard\u2019s Bridge which I can remember for more than twenty years.\nIt is almost as indestructible as a wall and certainly requires fewer\nrepairs. It is light, white, and dry withal, and its fantastic forms\nare agreeable to my eye. One would not have believed that any trees\nhad such snarled and gnarled roots. In some instances you have a coarse\nnetwork of roots as they interlaced on the surface perhaps of a swamp,\nwhich, set on its edge, really looks like a fence, with its paling\ncrossing at various angles, and root repeatedly growing into root,\u2014a\nrare phenomenon above ground,\u2014so as to leave open spaces, square and\ndiamond-shaped and triangular, quite like a length of fence. It is\nremarkable how white and clean these roots are, and that no lichens,\nor very few, grow on them; so free from decay are they. The different\nbranches of the roots continually grow into one another, so as to make\ngrotesque figures, sometimes rude harps whose resonant strings of roots\ngive a sort of musical sound when struck, such as the earth spirit\nmight play on. Sometimes the roots are of a delicate wine-color here\nand there, an evening tint. No line of fence could be too long for\nme to study each individual stump. Rocks would have been covered with\nlichens by this time. Perhaps they are grown into one another that they\nmay stand more firmly.\n\nNow is the time for wild apples. I pluck them as a wild fruit native\nto this quarter of the earth, fruit of old trees that have been dying\never since I was a boy and are not yet dead. From the appearance of\nthe tree you would expect nothing but lichens to drop from it, but\nunderneath your faith is rewarded by finding the ground strewn with\nspirited fruit. Frequented only by the woodpecker, deserted now by the\nfarmer, who has not faith enough to look under the boughs.[78] Food for\nwalkers. Sometimes apples red inside, perfused with a beautiful blush,\nfaery food, too beautiful to eat,\u2014apple of the evening sky, of the\nHesperides.[79]\n\nThis afternoon I heard a single cricket singing, chirruping, in a bank,\nthe only one I have heard for a long time, like a squirrel or a little\nbird, clear and shrill,\u2014as I fancied, like an evening robin, singing\nin this evening of the year. A very fine and poetical strain for such a\nlittle singer. I had never before heard the cricket so like a bird. It\nis a remarkable note. The earth-song.\n\nThat delicate, waving, feathery dry grass which I saw yesterday is to\nbe remembered with the autumn. The dry grasses are not dead for me. A\nbeautiful form has as much life at one season as another.\n\nI notice that everywhere in the pastures minute young fragrant\nlife-everlasting, with only four or five flat-lying leaves and\nthread-like roots, all together as big as a fourpence, spot the ground,\nlike winter rye and grass which roots itself in the fall against\nanother year. These little things have bespoken their places for the\nnext season. They have a little pellet of cotton or down in their\ncentres, ready for an early start in the spring.\n\nThe autumnal (?) dandelion is still bright.\n\nI saw an old bone in the woods covered with lichens, which looked like\nthe bone of an old settler, which yet some little animal had recently\ngnawed, and I plainly saw the marks of its teeth, so indefatigable is\nNature to strip the flesh from bones and return it to dust again. No\nlittle rambling beast can go by some dry and ancient bone but he must\nturn aside and try his teeth upon it. An old bone is knocked about till\nit becomes dust; Nature has no mercy on it. It was quite too ancient\nto suggest disagreeable associations. It was like a piece of dry pine\nroot. It survives like the memory of a man. With time all that was\npersonal and offensive wears off. The tooth of envy may sometimes\ngnaw it and reduce it more rapidly, but it is much more a prey to\nforgetfulness. Lichens grow upon it, and at last, in what moment no\nman knows, it has completely wasted away and ceases to be a bone any\nlonger.\n\nThe fields are covered now with the empty cups of the _Trichostema\ndichotomum_, all dry.\n\nWe had a remarkable sunset to-night. I was walking in the meadow, the\nsource of Nut Meadow Brook.[80]\n\n [Two pages missing.]\n\nWe walked in so pure and bright a light, so softly and serenely\nbright, I thought I had never bathed in such a golden flood, without\na ripple or a murmur to it. The west side of every wood and rising\nground gleamed like the boundary of Elysium.[81] An adventurous spirit\nturns the evening into morning. A little black brook in the midst of\nthe marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying\nstump,\u2014an artery of the meadow.[82]\n\nSome circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout\nin the milk.\n\nA people who would begin by burning the fences and let the forest\nstand! I saw the fences half consumed, their ends lost in the middle\nof the prairie, and some worldly miser with a surveyor looking after\nhis bounds, while heaven had taken place around him, and he did not see\nthe angels around, but was looking for an old post-hole in the midst of\nparadise. I looked again and saw him standing in the middle of a boggy\nStygian fen, surrounded by devils, and he had found his bounds without\na doubt, three little stones where a stake had been driven, and,\nlooking nearer, I saw that the Prince of Darkness was his surveyor.[83]\n\n\n_Nov. 14._ Saw to-day, while surveying in the Second Division woods, a\nsingular round mound in a valley, made perhaps sixty or seventy years\nago. Cyrus Stow thought it was a pigeon-bed, but I soon discovered\nthe coal and that it was an old coal-pit. I once mistook one in the\nMaine woods for an Indian mound. The indestructible charcoal told the\ntale. I had noticed singular holes and trenches in the former wood, as\nif a fox had been dug out. The sun has probably been let in here many\ntimes, and this has been a cultivated field; and now it is clothed in\na savage dress again. The wild, rank, luxuriant place is where mosses\nand lichens abound. We find no heroes\u2019 cairns except those of heroic\ncolliers, who once sweated here begrimed and dingy, who lodged here,\ntending their fires, who lay on a beetle here, perchance, to keep\nawake.\n\n\n_Nov. 15._ I saw to-day a very perfect lichen on a rock in a meadow.\nIt formed a perfect circle about fifteen inches in diameter though the\nrock was uneven, and was handsomely shaded by a darker stripe of older\nleaves, an inch or more wide, just within its circumference, like a\nrich lamp-mat. The recent growth on the outside, half an inch in width,\nwas a sort of tea-green or bluish-green color.\n\nThe ivy berries are now sere and yellowish, or sand-colored, like the\nberries of the dogwood.\n\nThe farmers are now casting out their manure, and removing the\nmuck-heap from the shore of ponds where it will be inaccessible in the\nwinter; or are doing their fall plowing, which destroys many insects\nand mellows the soil. I also see some pulling their turnips, and even\ngetting in corn which has been left out notwithstanding the crows.\nThose who have wood to sell, as the weather grows colder and people can\nbetter appreciate the value of fuel, lot off their woods and advertise\na wood auction.\n\n * * * * *\n\nYou can tell when a cat has seen a dog by the size of her tail.\n\n\n_Nov. 16._ I found three good arrowheads to-day behind Dennis\u2019s. The\nseason for them began some time ago, as soon as the farmers had sown\ntheir winter rye, but the spring, after the melting of the snow, is\nstill better.\n\nI am accustomed to regard the smallest brook with as much interest for\nthe time being as if it were the Orinoco or Mississippi. What is the\ndifference, I would like to know, but mere size? And when a tributary\nrill empties in, it is like the confluence of famous rivers I have read\nof. When I cross one on a fence, I love to pause in mid-passage and\nlook down into the water, and study its bottom, its little mystery.\nThere is none so small but you may see a pickerel regarding you with\na wary eye, or a pygmy trout glance from under the bank, or in spring,\nperchance, a sucker will have found its way far up its stream. You are\nsometimes astonished to see a pickerel far up some now shrunken rill,\nwhere it is a mere puddle by the roadside. I have stooped to drink at\na clear spring no bigger than a bushel basket in a meadow, from which a\nrill was scarcely seen to dribble away, and seen lurking at its bottom\ntwo little pickerel not so big as my finger, sole monarchs of this\ntheir ocean, and who probably would never visit a larger water.\n\nIn literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is only\nanother name for tameness. It is the untamed, uncivilized, free, and\nwild thinking in Hamlet, in the Iliad, and in all the scriptures and\nmythologies that delights us,\u2014not learned in the schools, not refined\nand polished by art. A truly good book is something as wildly natural\nand primitive, mysterious and marvellous, ambrosial and fertile, as\na fungus or a lichen.[84] Suppose the muskrat or beaver were to turn\nhis views [_sic_] to literature, what fresh views of nature would he\npresent! The fault of our books and other deeds is that they are too\nhumane, I want something speaking in some measure to the condition of\nmuskrats and skunk-cabbage as well as of men,\u2014not merely to a pining\nand complaining coterie of philanthropists.\n\nI discover again about these times that cranberries are good to eat in\nsmall quantities as you are crossing the meadows.\n\nI hear deep amid the birches some row among the birds or the squirrels,\nwhere evidently some mystery is being developed to them. The jay is on\nthe alert, mimicking every woodland note. What _has_ happened? Who\u2019s\ndead? The twitter retreats before you, and you are never let into the\nsecret. Some tragedy surely is being enacted, but murder will out. How\nmany little dramas are enacted in the depth of the woods at which man\nis not present!\n\nWhen I am considering which way I will walk, my needle is slow to\nsettle, my compass varies by a few degrees and does not always point\ndue southwest; and there is good authority for these variations in the\nheavens. It pursues the straighter course for it at last, like the ball\nwhich has come out of a rifle, or the quoit that is twirled when cast.\nTo-day it is some particular wood or meadow or deserted pasture in that\ndirection that is my southwest.[85]\n\nI love my friends very much, but I find that it is of no use to go\nto see them. I hate them commonly when I am near them. They belie\nthemselves and deny me continually.\n\nSomebody shut the cat\u2019s tail in the door just now, and she made such\na caterwaul as has driven two whole worlds out of my thoughts. I saw\nunspeakable things in the sky and looming in the horizon of my mind,\nand now they are all reduced to a cat\u2019s tail. Vast films of thought\nfloated through my brain, like clouds pregnant with rain enough to\nfertilize and restore a world, and now they are all dissipated.\n\nThere is a place whither I should walk to-day. Though oftenest I fail\nto find, when by accident I ramble into it, great is my delight. I have\nstood by my door sometimes half an hour, irresolute as to what course\nI should take.[86]\n\nApparently all but the evergreens and oaks have lost their leaves now.\nIt is singular that the shrub oaks retain their leaves through the\nwinter. Why do they?\n\nThe walnut trees spot the sky with black nuts. Only catkins are seen on\nthe birches.\n\nI saw the other day a dead limb which the wind or some other cause had\nbroken nearly off, which had lost none of its leaves, though all the\nrest of the tree, which was flourishing, had shed them.\n\nThere seems to be in the fall a sort of attempt at a spring, a\nrejuvenescence, as if the winter were not expected by a part of nature.\nViolets, dandelions, and some other flowers blossom again, and mulleins\nand innumerable other plants begin again to spring and are only checked\nby the increasing cold. There is a slight uncertainty whether there\nwill be any winter this year.\n\nI was pleased to-day to hear a great noise and trampling in the woods\nproduced by some cows which came running toward their homes, which\napparently had been scared by something unusual, as their ancestors\nmight have been by wolves. I have known sheep to be scared in the same\n[way] and a whole flock to run bleating to me for protection.\n\nWhat shall we do with a man who is afraid of the woods, their solitude\nand darkness? What salvation is there for him? God is silent and\nmysterious.\n\nSome of our richest days are those in which no sun shines outwardly,\nbut so much the more a sun shines inwardly. I love nature, I love\nthe landscape, because it is so sincere. It never cheats me. It never\njests. It is cheerfully, musically earnest. I lie and relie [_sic_] on\nthe earth.\n\nLand where the wood has been cut off and is just beginning to come up\nagain is called sprout land.\n\nThe sweet-scented life-everlasting has not lost its scent yet, but\nsmells like the balm of the fields.\n\nThe partridge-berry leaves checker the ground on the side of\nmoist hillsides in the woods. Are _they_ not properly called\n_checker_-berries?\n\nThe era of wild apples will soon be over. I wander through old orchards\nof great extent, now all gone to decay, all of native fruit which for\nthe most part went to the cider-mill. But since the temperance reform\nand the general introduction of grafted fruit, no wild apples, such as\nI see everywhere in deserted pastures, and where the woods have grown\nup among them, are set out. I fear that he who walks over these hills\na century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild apples.\nAh, poor man! there are many pleasures which he will be debarred from!\nNotwithstanding the prevalence of the Baldwin and the Porter, I doubt\nif as extensive orchards are set out to-day in this town as there were\na century ago, when these vast straggling cider-orchards were planted.\nMen stuck in a tree then by every wall-side and let it take its chance.\nI see nobody planting trees to-day in such out of the way places, along\nalmost every road and lane and wall-side, and at the bottom of dells\nin the wood. Now that they have grafted trees and pay a price for them,\nthey collect them into a plot by their houses and fence them in.[87]\n\nMy Journal should be the record of my love. I would write in it only\nof the things I love, my affection for any aspect of the world, what\nI love to think of. I have no more distinctness or pointedness in my\nyearnings than an expanding bud, which does indeed point to flower and\nfruit, to summer and autumn, but is aware of the warm sun and spring\ninfluence only. I feel ripe for something, yet do nothing, can\u2019t\ndiscover what that thing is. I feel fertile merely. It is seedtime with\nme. I have lain fallow long enough.\n\nNotwithstanding a sense of unworthiness which possesses me, not without\nreason, notwithstanding that I regard myself as a good deal of a scamp,\nyet for the most part the spirit of the universe is unaccountably\nkind to me, and I enjoy perhaps an unusual share of happiness. Yet I\nquestion sometimes if there is not some settlement to come.\n\n\n_Nov. 17._ It is a strange age of the world this, when empires,\nkingdoms, and republics come a-begging to our doors and utter their\ncomplaints at our elbows. I cannot take up a newspaper but I find that\nsome wretched government or other, hard pushed and on its last legs,\nis interceding with me, the reader, to vote for it,\u2014more importunate\nthan an Italian beggar. Why does it not keep its castle in silence, as\nI do? The poor President, what with preserving his popularity and doing\nhis duty, does not know what to do. If you do not read the newspapers,\nyou may be impeached for treason. The newspapers are the ruling power.\nWhat Congress does is an afterclap. Any other government is reduced to\na few marines at Fort Independence. If a man neglects to read the Daily\nTimes, government will go on its knees to him; this is the only treason\nin these days. The newspapers devote some of their columns specially to\ngovernment and politics without charge, and this is all that saves it,\nbut I never read those columns.[88]\n\nI found this afternoon, in a field of winter rye, a snapping turtle\u2019s\negg, white and elliptical like a pebble, mistaking it for which I broke\nit. The little turtle was perfectly formed, even to the dorsal ridge,\nwhich was distinctly visible.\n\n * * * * *\n\n\u201cChesipooc Sinus\u201d is on Wytfliet\u2019s Map of 159-.\n\nEven the Dutch were forward to claim the great river of Canada. In a\nmap of New Belgium in Ogilby\u2019s \u201cAmerica,\u201d 1670, the St. Lawrence is\nalso called \u201cDe Groote Rivier van Niew Nederlandt.\u201d[89]\n\nOn this same map, east of Lake Champlain, called \u201cLacus Irocoisiensis\u201d\nor in Dutch \u201cMeer der Irocoisen,\u201d is a chain of mountains answering to\nthe Green Mountains of Vermont, and \u201cIrocoisia,\u201d or the country of the\nIroquois, between the mountains and the lake.\n\n\n_Nov. 19._ The first really cold day. I find, on breaking off a shrub\noak leaf, a little life at the foot of the leafstalk, so that a part\nof the green comes off. It has not died quite down to the point of\nseparation, as it will do, I suppose, before spring. Most of the oaks\nhave lost their leaves except on the lower branches, as if they were\nless exposed and less mature there, and felt the changes of the seasons\nless. The leaves have either fallen or withered long since, yet I\nfound this afternoon, cold as it is,\u2014and there has been snow in the\nneighborhood,\u2014some sprouts which had come up this year from the stump\nof a young black-looking oak, covered still with handsome fresh red\nand green leaves, very large and unwithered and unwilted. It was on\nthe south side of Fair Haven in a warm angle, where the wood was cut\nlast winter and the exposed edge of the still standing wood running\nnorth and south met the cliff at right angles and served for a fence to\nkeep off the wind. There were one or two stumps here whose sprouts had\nfresh leaves which transported me back to October. Yet the surrounding\nshrub oak leaves were as dry and dead as usual. There were also some\nminute birches only a year old, their leaves still freshly yellow, and\nsome young wild apple trees apparently still growing, their leaves as\ngreen and tender as in summer. The goldenrods, one or more species of\nthe white and some yellow ones, were many of them still quite fresh,\nthough elsewhere they are all whitish and dry. I saw one whose top\nrose above the edge of a rock, and so much of it was turned white and\ndry; but the lower part of its raceme was still yellow. Some of the\nwhite species seemed to have started again as if for another spring.\nThey had sprung up freshly a foot or more, and were budded to blossom,\nfresh and green. And sometimes on the same stem were old and dry and\nwhite downy flowers, and fresh green blossom-buds not yet expanded. I\nsaw there some _pale_ blue asters still bright, and the mullein leaves\nstill large and green, one green to its top. And I discovered that when\nI put my hand on the mullein leaves they felt decidedly warm, but the\nradical leaves of the goldenrods felt cold and clammy. There was also\nthe columbine, its leaves still alive and green; and I was pleased to\nsmell the pennyroyal which I had bruised, though this dried up long\nago. Each season is thus drawn out and lingers in certain localities,\nas the birds and insects know very well. If you penetrate to some\nwarm recess under a cliff in the woods, you will be astonished at the\namount of summer life that still flourishes there. No doubt more of\nthe summer\u2019s life than we are aware thus slips by and outman\u0153uvres the\nwinter, gliding from fence to fence. I have no doubt that a diligent\nsearch in proper places would discover many more of our summer flowers\nthus lingering till the snow came, than we suspect. It is as if the\nplant made no preparation for winter.\n\nNow that the grass is withered and the leaves are withered or fallen,\nit begins to appear what is evergreen: the partridge[-berry] and\ncheckerberry, and wintergreen leaves even, are more conspicuous.\n\nThe old leaves have been off the pines now for a month.\n\nI once found a kernel of corn in the middle of a deep wood by Walden,\ntucked in behind a lichen on a pine, about as high as my head, either\nby a crow or a squirrel. It was a mile at least from any corn-field.\n\nSeveral species plainly linger till the snow comes.\n\n\n_Nov. 20._ It is a common saying among country people that if you eat\nmuch fried hasty pudding it will make your hair curl. My experience,\nwhich was considerable, did not confirm this assertion.\n\nHorace Hosmer was picking out to-day half a bushel or more of a\ndifferent and better kind of cranberry, as he thought, separating them\nfrom the rest. They are very dark red, shaded with lighter, harder and\nmore oblong, somewhat like the fruit of the sweet-briar or a Canada red\nplum, though I have no common cranberry to compare with them. He says\nthat they grow apart from the others. I must see him about it. It may\nprove to be one more of those instances in which the farmer detects\na new species and makes use of the knowledge from year to year in his\nprofession, while the botanist expressly devoted to such investigation\nhas failed to observe it.\n\nThe farmer, in picking over many bushels of cranberries year after\nyear, finds at length, or has forced upon his observation, a new\nspecies of that berry, and avails himself thereafter of his discovery\nfor many years before the naturalist is aware of the fact.\n\nDesor, who has been among the Indians at Lake Superior this summer,\ntold me the other day that they had a particular name for each species\nof tree, as of the maple, but they had but one word for flowers; they\ndid not distinguish the species of the last.\n\nIt is often the unscientific man who discovers the new species. It\nwould be strange if it were not so. But we are accustomed properly to\ncall that only a scientific discovery which knows the relative value of\nthe thing discovered, uncovers a fact to mankind.\n\n\n_Nov. 21._ For a month past the grass under the pines has been covered\nwith a new carpet of pine leaves. It is remarkable that the old leaves\nturn and fall in so short a time.\n\nSome of the densest and most impenetrable clumps of bushes I have\nseen, as well on account of the closeness of their branches as of their\nthorns, have been wild apples. Its [_sic_] branches as stiff as those\nof the black spruce on the tops of mountains.[90]\n\nI saw a herd of a dozen cows and young steers and oxen on Conantum\nthis afternoon, running about and frisking in unwieldy sport like\nhuge rats. Any sportiveness in cattle is unexpected. They even played\nlike kittens, in their way; shook their heads, raised their tails, and\nrushed up and down the hill.[91]\n\nThe witch-hazel blossom on Conantum has for the most part lost its\nribbons now.\n\nSome distant angle in the sun where a lofty and dense white pine wood,\nwith mingled gray and green, meets a hill covered with shrub oaks,\naffects me singularly, reinspiring me with all the dreams of my youth.\nIt is a place far away, yet actual and where we have been. I saw the\nsun falling on a distant white pine wood whose gray and moss-covered\nstems were visible amid the green, in an angle where this forest\nabutted on a hill covered with shrub oaks. It was like looking into\ndreamland. It is one of the avenues to my future. Certain coincidences\nlike this are accompanied by a certain flash as of hazy lightning,\nflooding all the world suddenly with a tremulous serene light which it\nis difficult to see long at a time.\n\nI saw Fair Haven Pond with its island, and meadow between the island\nand the shore, and a strip of perfectly still and smooth water in the\nlee of the island, and two hawks, fish hawks perhaps, sailing over\nit. I did not see how it could be improved. Yet I do not see what\nthese things can be. I begin to see such an object when I cease to\n_understand_ it and see that I did not realize or appreciate it before,\nbut I get no further than this. How adapted these forms and colors to\nmy eye! A meadow and an island! What are these things? Yet the hawks\nand the ducks keep so aloof! and Nature is so reserved! I am made\nto love the pond and the meadow, as the wind is made to ripple the\nwater.[92]\n\nAs I looked on the Walden woods eastward across the pond, I saw\nsuddenly a white cloud rising above their tops, now here, now there,\nmarking the progress of the cars which were rolling toward Boston far\nbelow, behind many hills and woods.\n\nOctober must be the month of ripe and tinted leaves. Throughout\nNovember they are almost entirely withered and sombre, the few that\nremain. In this month the sun is valued. When it shines warmer or\nbrighter we are sure to observe it. There are not so many colors to\nattract the eye. We begin to remember the summer. We walk fast to keep\nwarm. For a month past I have sat by a fire.\n\nEvery sunset inspires me with the desire to go to a _West_ as distant\nand as fair as that into which the sun goes down.[93]\n\nI get nothing to eat in my walks now but wild apples, sometimes some\ncranberries, and some walnuts. The squirrels have got the hazelnuts and\nchestnuts.\n\n\n_Nov. 23._ To-day it has been finger-cold.[94] Unexpectedly I found ice\nby the side of the brooks this afternoon nearly an inch thick. Prudent\npeople get in their barrels of apples to-day.[95] The difference of\nthe temperature of various localities is greater than is supposed.\nIf I was surprised to find ice on the sides of the brooks, I was much\nmore surprised to find quite a pond in the woods, containing an acre\nor more, quite frozen over so that I walked across it. It was in a cold\ncorner, where a pine wood excluded the sun. In the larger ponds and the\nriver, of course, there is no ice yet. It is a shallow, weedy pond.\nI lay down on the ice and looked through at the bottom. The plants\nappeared to grow more uprightly than on the dry land, being sustained\nand protected by the water. Caddis-worms were everywhere crawling about\nin their handsome quiver-like sheaths or cases.\n\nThe wild apples, though they are more mellow and edible, have for some\ntime lost their beauty, as well as the leaves, and now too they are\nbeginning to freeze. The apple season is well-nigh over. Such, however,\nas are frozen while sound are not unpleasant to eat when the spring sun\nthaws them.[96]\n\nI find it to be the height of wisdom not to endeavor to oversee myself\nand live a life of prudence and common sense, but to see over and above\nmyself, entertain sublime conjectures, to make myself the thoroughfare\nof thrilling thoughts, live all that can be lived. The man who is\ndissatisfied with himself, what can he not do?\n\n\n_Nov. 24._ Plucked a buttercup on Bear Hill to-day.\n\nI have certain friends whom I visit occasionally, but I commonly part\nfrom them early with a certain bitter-sweet sentiment. That which we\nlove is so mixed and entangled with that we hate in one another that\nwe are more grieved and disappointed, aye, and estranged from one\nanother, by meeting than by absence. Some men may be my acquaintances\nmerely, but one whom I have been accustomed to regard, to idealize, to\nhave dreams about as a friend, and mix up intimately with myself, can\nnever degenerate into an acquaintance. I must know him on that higher\nground or not know him at all. We do not confess and explain, because\nwe would fain be so intimately related as to understand each other\nwithout speech. Our friend must be broad. His must be an atmosphere\ncoextensive with the universe, in which we can expand and breathe. For\nthe most part we are smothered and stifled by one another. I go and see\nmy friend and try his atmosphere. If our atmospheres do not mingle, if\nwe repel each other strongly, it is of no use to stay.\n\n\n_Nov. 25._ I feel a little alarmed when it happens that I have walked\na mile into the woods bodily, without getting there in spirit. I would\nfain forget all my morning\u2019s occupation, my obligations to society. But\nsometimes it happens that I cannot easily shake off the village; the\nthought of some work, some surveying, will run in my head, and I am not\nwhere my body is, I am out of my senses. In my walks I would return to\nmy senses like a bird or a beast. What business have I in the woods, if\nI am thinking of something out of the woods?[97]\n\nThis afternoon, late and cold as it is, has been a sort of Indian\nsummer. Indeed, I think that we have summer days from time to time\nthe winter through, and that it is often the snow on the ground makes\nthe whole difference. This afternoon the air was indescribably clear\nand exhilarating, and though the thermometer would have shown it to be\ncold, I thought that there was a finer and purer warmth than in summer;\na wholesome, intellectual warmth, in which the body was warmed by the\nmind\u2019s contentment. The warmth was hardly sensuous, but rather the\nsatisfaction of existence.\n\nI found Fair Haven skimmed entirely over, though the stones which I\nthrew down on it from the high bank on the east broke through. Yet the\nriver was open. The landscape looked singularly clean and pure and dry,\nthe air, like a pure glass, being laid over the picture, the trees so\ntidy, stripped of their leaves; the meadows and pastures, clothed with\nclean dry grass, looked as if they had been swept; ice on the water and\nwinter in the air, but yet not a particle of snow on the ground. The\nwoods, divested in great part of their leaves, are being ventilated.\nIt is the season of perfect works, of hard, tough, ripe twigs, not of\ntender buds and leaves. The leaves have made their wood, and a myriad\nnew withes stand up all around pointing to the sky, able to survive the\ncold. It is only the perennial that you see, the iron age of the year.\n\nThese expansions of the river skim over before the river itself takes\non its icy fetters. What is the analogy?\n\nI saw a muskrat come out of a hole in the ice. He is a man wilder\nthan Ray or Melvin. While I am looking at him, I am thinking what he\nis thinking of me. He is a different sort of a man, that is all. He\nwould dive when I went nearer, then reappear again, and had kept open\na place five or six feet square so that it had not frozen, by swimming\nabout in it. Then he would sit on the edge of the ice and busy himself\nabout something, I could not see whether it was a clam or not. What a\ncold-blooded fellow! thoughts at a low temperature, sitting perfectly\nstill so long on ice covered with water, mumbling a cold, wet clam in\nits shell. What safe, low, moderate thoughts it must have! It does not\nget on to stilts. The generations of muskrats do not fail. They are not\npreserved by the legislature of Massachusetts.\n\nBoats are drawn up high which will not be launched again till spring.\n\nThere is a beautiful fine wild grass which grows in the path in sprout\nland, now dry, white, and waving, in light beds soft to the touch.\n\nI experience such an interior comfort, far removed from the sense\nof cold, as if the thin atmosphere were rarefied by heat, were the\nmedium of invisible flames, as if the whole landscape were one great\nhearthside, that where the shrub oak leaves rustle on the hillside, I\nseem to hear a crackling fire and see the pure flame, and I wonder that\nthe dry leaves do not blaze into yellow flames.\n\nI find but little change yet on the south side of the Cliffs; only the\nleaves of the wild apple are a little frostbitten on their edges and\ncurled dry there; but some wild cherry leaves and blueberries are still\nfresh and tender green and red, as well as all the other leaves and\nplants which I noticed there the other day.\n\nWhen I got up so high on the side of the Cliff the sun was setting\nlike an Indian-summer sun. There was a purple tint in the horizon. It\nwas warm on the face of the rocks, and I could have sat till the sun\ndisappeared, to dream there. It was a mild sunset such as is to be\nattended to. Just as the sun shines into us warmly and serenely, our\nCreator breathes on us and re-creates us.\n\n\n_Nov. 26._ An inch of snow on ground this morning,\u2014our first.\n\nWent to-night to see the Indians, who are still living in tents. Showed\nthe horns of the moose, the black moose they call it, that goes in\nlowlands. Horns three or four feet wide. (The red moose they say is\nanother kind; runs on mountains and has horns six feet wide.) Can move\ntheir horns. The broad, flat side portions of the horns are covered\nwith hair, and are so soft when the creature is alive that you can run\na knife through them.[98] They color the lower portions a darker color\nby rubbing them on alders, etc., to harden them. Make _kee-nong-gun_\nor pappoose cradle, of the broad part of the horn, putting a rim on\nit. Once scared, will run all day. A dog will hang to their lips and be\ncarried along and swung against a tree and drop off. Always find two or\nthree together. Can\u2019t run on glare ice, but can run in snow four feet\ndeep. The caribou can run on ice.[99] Sometimes spear them with a sharp\npole, sometimes with a knife at the end of a pole. Signs, good or bad,\nfrom the turn of the horns. Their caribou-horns had been gnawed by mice\nin their wigwams. The moose-horns and others are not gnawed by mice\nwhile the creature is alive. Moose cover themselves with water, all but\nnoses, to escape flies.[100] About as many now as fifty years ago.\n\nImitated the sounds of the moose, caribou, and deer with a birch-bark\nhorn, which last they sometimes make very long. The moose can be heard\neight or ten miles sometimes,\u2014a loud sort of bellowing sound, clearer,\nmore sonorous than the looing of cattle. The caribou\u2019s, a sort of\nsnort; the small deer, like a lamb.\n\nMade their clothes of the young moose-skin. Cure the meat by smoking\nit; use no salt in curing it, but when they eat it.\n\nTheir spear very serviceable. The inner, pointed part, of a hemlock\nknot; the side spring pieces, of hickory. Spear salmon, pickerel,\ntrout, chub, etc.; also by birch-bark light at night, using the other\nend of spear as pole.\n\n [Illustration]\n\nTheir sled, _jeborgon_ or _jebongon_ (?), one foot wide, four or\nfive long, of thin wood turned up in front; draw by a strong rope of\nbasswood bark.\n\nCanoe of moose-hide. One hide will hold three or four. Can be taken\napart and put together very quickly. Can take out cross-bars and bring\nthe sides together. A very convenient boat to carry and cross streams\nwith. They say they did not make birch canoes till they had edge tools.\nThe birches the lightest. They think our birches the same, only second\ngrowth.\n\nTheir _kee-nong-gun_, or cradle, has a hoop to prevent the child\nbeing hurt when it falls. Can\u2019t eat dirt; can be hung up out of way of\nsnakes.\n\n_Aboak-henjo_ [?], a birch-bark vessel for water. Can boil meat in it\nwith hot stones; takes a long time. Also a vessel of birch bark, shaped\nlike a pan. Both ornamented by scratching the bark, which is wrong side\nout. Very neatly made. Valued our kettles much.\n\n [Illustration]\n\nDid not know use of eye in axe. Put a string through it and wore it\nround neck. Cut toes.\n\nDid not like gun. Killed one moose; scared all the rest.\n\nThe _squaw-heegun_ for cooking, a mere stick put through the game and\nstuck in the ground slanted over the fire, a spit. Can be eating one\nside while the other is doing.\n\nThe _ar-tu-e-se_, a stick, string, and bunch of leaves, which they toss\nand catch on the point of the stick. Make great use of it. Make the\nclouds go off the sun with it.\n\nSnowshoes of two kinds; one of same shape at both ends so that the\nMohawks could not tell which way they were going. (Put some rags in the\nheel-hole to make a toe-mark?)\n\n [Illustration: Side View]\n\n [Illustrations]\n\nLog trap to catch many kinds of animals. Some for bears let the log\nfall six or seven feet. First there is a frame, then the little stick\nwhich the animal moves, presses down, as he goes through under the log;\nthen the crooked stick is hung over the top of the frame, and holds\nup the log by a string; the weight of the log on this keeps the little\nstick up.\n\nA drizzling and misty day this has been, melting the snow. The mist,\ndivided into a thousand ghostly forms, was blowing across Walden.\nMr. Emerson\u2019s Cliff Hill, seen from the railroad through the mist,\nlooked like a dark, heavy, frowning New Hampshire mountain. I do not\nunderstand fully why hills look so much larger at such a time, unless,\nbeing the most distant we see and in the horizon, we suppose them\nfarther off and so magnify them. I think there can be no looming about\nit.\n\n\n_Nov. 28. Thursday._ Cold drizzling and misty rains, which have melted\nthe little snow. The farmers are beginning to pick up their dead wood.\nWithin a day or two the walker finds gloves to be comfortable, and\nbegins to think of an outside coat and of boots. Embarks in his boots\nfor the winter voyage.\n\nThe Indian talked about \u201cour folks\u201d and \u201cyour folks,\u201d \u201cmy grandfather\u201d\nand \u201cmy grandfather\u2019s cousin,\u201d Samoset.\n\nIt is remarkable, but nevertheless true, as far as my observation\ngoes, that women, to whom we commonly concede a somewhat finer and\nmore sibylline nature, yield a more implicit obedience even to their\nanimal instincts than men. The nature in them is stronger, the reason\nweaker. There are, for instance, many young and middle-aged men among\nmy acquaintance\u2014shoemakers, carpenters, farmers, and others\u2014who have\nscruples about using animal food, but comparatively few girls or women.\nThe latter, even the most refined, are the most intolerant of such\nreforms. I think that the reformer of the severest, as well as finest,\nclass will find more sympathy in the intellect and philosophy of man\nthan in the refinement and delicacy of woman. It is, perchance, a\npart of woman\u2019s conformity and easy nature. Her savior must not be too\nstrong, stern, and intellectual, but charitable above all things.\n\nThe thought of its greater independence and its closeness to nature\ndiminishes the pain I feel when I see a more interesting child than\nusual destined to be brought up in a shanty. I see that for the present\nthe child is happy and is not puny, and has all the wonders of nature\nfor its toys. Have I not faith that its tenderness will in some way be\ncherished and protected, as the buds of the spring in the remotest and\nwildest wintry dell no less than in the garden plot and summer-house?\n\n I am the little Irish boy\n That lives in the shanty.\n I am four years old to-day\n And shall soon be one and twenty.\n\n I shall grow up\n And be a great man,\n And shovel all day\n As hard as I can.\n\n Down in the Deep Cut,\n\n * * * * *\n\n Where the men lived\n Who made the railroad.\n\n For supper\n I have some potato\n And sometimes some bread,\n And then, if it\u2019s cold,\n I go right to bed.\n\n I lie on some straw\n Under my father\u2019s coat.\n\n At recess I play\n With little Billy Gray,\n And when school is done,\n Then home I run.\n\n And if I meet the cars,\n I get on the other track,\n And then I know whatever comes\n I needn\u2019t look back.\n\n My mother does not cry,\n And my father does not scold,\n For I am a little Irish boy,\n And I\u2019m four years old.\n\n Every day I go to school\n Along the railroad.\n It was so cold it made me cry\n The day that it snowed.\n\n And if my feet ache\n I do not mind the cold,\n For I am a little Irish boy,\n And I\u2019m four years old.[101]\n\n\n_Nov. 29._ Still misty, drizzling weather without snow or ice. The\npuffballs, with their open rays, checker the path-side in the woods,\nbut they are not yet dry enough to make much dust. Damp weather in the\nfall seems to cause them to crack open, _i. e._ their outer skin. They\nlook white like the shells of five-fingers on the shore.\n\nThe trees and shrubs look larger than usual when seen through the mist,\nperhaps because, though near, yet being in the visible horizon and\nthere being nothing beyond to compare them with, we naturally magnify\nthem, supposing them further off.\n\nIt is very still yet in the woods. There are no leaves to rustle, no\ncrickets to chirp, and but few birds to sing.\n\nThe pines standing in the ocean of mist, seen from the Cliffs, are\ntrees in every stage of transition from the actual to the imaginary.\nThe near are more distinct, the distant more faint, till at last they\nare a mere shadowy cone in the distance. What, then, are these solid\npines become? You can command only a circle of thirty or forty rods\nin diameter. As you advance, the trees gradually come out of the mist\nand take form before your eyes. You are reminded of your dreams. Life\nlooks like a dream. You are prepared to see visions. And now, just\nbefore sundown, the night wind blows up more mist through the valley,\nthickening the veil which already hung over the trees, and the gloom of\nnight gathers early and rapidly around. Birds lose their way.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nDECEMBER, 1850\n\n(\u00c6T. 33)\n\n\n_Dec. 1._ It is quite mild and pleasant to-day. I saw a little\ngreen hemisphere of moss which looked as if it covered a stone, but,\nthrusting my cane into it, I found it was nothing but moss, about\nfifteen inches in diameter and eight or nine inches high. When I broke\nit up, it appeared as if the annual growth was marked by successive\nlayers half an inch deep each. The lower ones were quite rotten, but\nthe present year\u2019s quite green, the intermediate white. I counted\nfifteen or eighteen. It was quite solid, and I saw that it continued\nsolid as it grew by branching occasionally, just enough to fill the\nnewly gained space, and the tender extremities of each plant, crowded\nclose together, made the firm and compact surface of the bed. There was\na darker line separating the growths, where I thought the surface had\nbeen exposed to the winter. It was quite saturated with water, though\nfirm and solid.\n\n\n_Dec. 2._ The woodpeckers\u2019 holes in the apple trees are about a fifth\nof an inch deep or just through the bark and half an inch apart.\nThey must be the decaying trees that are most frequented by them, and\nprobably their work serves to relieve and ventilate the tree and, as\nwell, to destroy its enemies.\n\nThe barberries are shrivelled and dried. I find yet cranberries hard\nand not touched by the frost.\n\n\n_Dec. 4. Wednesday._ Fair Haven Pond is now open, and there is no snow.\nIt is a beautiful, almost Indian-summer, afternoon, though the air is\nmore pure and glassy. The shrub oak fire burns briskly as seen from the\nCliffs. The evergreens are greener than ever. I notice the row of dwarf\nwillows advanced into the water in Fair Haven, three or four rods from\nthe dry land, just at the lowest water-mark. You can get no disease but\ncold in such an atmosphere.\n\nThough the sun is now an hour high, there is a peculiar bright light on\nthe pines and on their stems. The lichens on their bark reflect it. In\nthe horizon I see a succession of the brows of hills, bare or covered\nwith wood,\u2014look over the eyebrows of the recumbent earth. These are\nseparated by long valleys filled with vapory haze.\n\nIf there is a little more warmth than usual at this season, then the\nbeautiful air which belongs to winter is perceived and appreciated.\n\n\n_Dec. 6._ Being at Newburyport this evening, Dr. (H. C.?) Perkins\nshowed me the circulations in the nitella, which is slightly different\nfrom the chara, under a microscope. I saw plainly the circulation,\nlooking like bubbles going round in each joint, up one side and down\nthe other of a sort of white line, and sometimes a dark-colored mote\nappeared to be carried along with them. He said that the circulation\ncould be well seen in the common celandine, and moreover that when a\nshade was cast on it by a knife-blade the circulation was reversed.\nEther would stop it, or the death of the plant.\n\nHe showed me a green clamshell,\u2014_Anodon fluviatilis_,\u2014which he said was\na _female_ with young, found in a pond near by.\n\nAlso the head of a Chinook or Flathead.\n\nAlso the humerus of a mylodon (of Owen) from Oregon. Some more remains\nhave been found in Missouri, and a whole skeleton in Buenos Ayres. A\ndigging animal.\n\nHe could not catch his frogs asleep.\n\n\n_Dec. 8._ It snowed in the night of the 6th, and the ground is now\ncovered,\u2014our first snow, two inches deep. A week ago I saw cows being\ndriven home from pasture. Now they are kept at home. Here\u2019s an end to\ntheir grazing. The farmer improves this first slight snow to accomplish\nsome pressing jobs,\u2014to move some particular rocks on a drag, or the\nlike. I perceive how quickly he has seized the opportunity. I see\nno tracks now of cows or men or boys beyond the edge of the wood.\nSuddenly they are shut up. The remote pastures and hills beyond the\nwoods are now closed to cows and cowherds, aye, and to cowards. I am\nstruck by this sudden solitude and remoteness which these places have\nacquired. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter\nmakes possible! carpeting the earth with snow, furnishing more than\nwoolen feet to all walkers, cronching the snow only. From Fair Haven I\nsee the hills and fields, aye, and the icy woods in the corner shine,\ngleam with the dear old wintry sheen. Those are not surely the cottages\nI have seen all summer. They are some cottages which I have in my mind.\n\n [Illustration: _First Snow_]\n\nNow Fair Haven Pond is open and ground is covered with snow and ice; a\nweek or two ago the pond was frozen and the ground was still bare.\n\nStill those particular red oak leaves which I had noticed are quite\nunwilted under the cliffs, and the apple leaves, though standing\nin snow and ice and incrusted with the latter, still ripe red, and\n_tender_ fresh green leaves.\n\nIt is interesting to observe the manner in which the plants bear\ntheir snowy burden. The dry calyx leaves, like an oblong cup, of the\n_Trichostema dichotomum_ have caught the rain or melting snow, and so\nthis little butter-boat is filled with a frozen pure drop which stands\nup high above the sides of the cup,\u2014so many pearly drops covering the\nwhole plant,\u2014in the wood-paths. The pennyroyal there also retains its\nfragrance under the ice and snow.\n\nI find that the indigo-weed, whose _shade_ still stands and holds its\nblack seed-vessels, is not too humble to escape enemies. Almost every\nseed-vessel, which contains half a dozen seeds or more, contains also a\nlittle black six-legged bug about as big as a bug [_sic_], which gnaws\nthe seeds; and sometimes I find a grub, though it is now cold weather\nand the plant is covered with ice. Not only our peas and grain have\ntheir weevils, but the fruit of the indigo-weed!\n\nThis evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the\nfrozen snow-crust.\n\n\n_Dec. 13._ The river froze over last night,\u2014skimmed over.\n\n\n_Dec. 16._ Walden is open still. The river is probably open again.\n\nThere are wild men living along the shores of the Frozen Ocean.\nWho shall say that there is not as great an interval between the\ncivilized man and the savage as between the savage and the brute? The\nundiscovered polar regions are the home of men.\n\nI am struck with the difference between my feet and my hands. My feet\nare much nearer to foreign or inanimate matter or nature than my hands;\nthey are more brute, they are more like the earth they tread on, they\nare more clod-like and lumpish, and I scarcely animate them.\n\nLast Sunday, or the 14th, I walked on Loring\u2019s Pond to three or four\nislands there which I had never visited, not having a boat in the\nsummer. On one containing an acre or two, I found a low, branching\nshrub frozen into the edge of the ice, with a fine spicy scent\nsomewhat like sweet-fern and a handsome imbricate bud. When I rubbed\nthe dry-looking fruit in my hands, it felt greasy and stained them a\npermanent yellow, which I could not wash out; it lasted several days,\nand my fingers smelled medicinal. I conclude that it is sweet-gale, and\nwe named the island Myrica Island.\n\nOn those unfrequented islands, too, I noticed the red osier or willow,\nthat common hard-berried plant with small red buds,[102] apparently two\nkinds of swamp-pink buds, some yellow, some reddish, a brittle, rough\nyellowish bush with handsome pinkish shoots; in one place in the meadow\nthe greatest quantity of wild rose hips of various forms that I ever\nsaw, now slightly withered; they were as thick as winterberries.\n\nI noticed a bush covered with cocoons which were artfully concealed by\ntwo leaves wrapped round them, one still hanging by its stem, so that\nthey looked like a few withered leaves left dangling. The worm, having\nfirst encased itself in another leaf for greater protection, folded\nmore loosely around itself one of the leaves of the plant, taking care,\nhowever, to encase the leaf-stalk and the twig with a thick and strong\nweb of silk, so far from depending on the strength of the stalk, which\nis now quite brittle. The strongest fingers cannot break it, and the\ncocoon can only be got off by slipping it up and off the twig. There\nthey hang themselves secure for the winter, proof against cold and the\nbirds, ready to become butterflies when new leaves push forth.[103]\n\nThe snow everywhere was covered with snow-fleas like pepper. When\nyou hold a mass in your hand, they skip and are gone before you know\nit. They are so small that they go through and through the new snow.\nSometimes when collected they look like some powder which the hunter\nhas spilled in the path.\n\n\n_Dec. 17._ Flint\u2019s Pond apparently froze completely over last night.\nIt is about two inches thick. Walden is only slightly skimmed over a\nrod from the shore. I noticed, where it had been frozen for some time\nnear the shore of Flint\u2019s Pond and the ice was thicker and whiter,\nthere were handsome spider-shaped dark places, where the under ice had\nmelted, and the water had worn it running through,\u2014a handsome figure on\nthe icy carpet.\n\nI noticed when the snow first came that the days were very sensibly\nlengthened by the light being reflected from the snow. Any work which\nrequired light could be pursued about half an hour longer. So that we\nmay well pray that the ground may not be laid bare by a thaw in these\nshort winter days.\n\n\n_Dec. 19._ Yesterday I tracked a partridge in the new-fallen snow, till\nI came to where she took to flight, and I could track her no further. I\nsee where the snowbirds have picked the seeds of the Roman wormwood and\nother weeds and have covered the snow with the shells and husks. The\nsmilax berries are as plump as ever. The catkins of the alders are as\ntender and fresh-looking as ripe mulberries. The dried choke-cherries\nso abundant in the swamp are now quite sweet. The witch-hazel is\ncovered with fruit and drops over gracefully like a willow, the yellow\nfoundation of its flowers still remaining. I find the sweet-gale\n(_Myrica_) by the river also. The wild apples are frozen as hard as\nstones, and rattle in my pockets, but I find that they soon thaw when\nI get to my chamber and yield a sweet cider.[104] I am astonished that\nthe animals make no more use of them.\n\n\n_Dec. 22._ The apples are now thawed. This is their first thawing.\nThose which a month ago were sour, crabbed, and uneatable are now\nfilled with a rich, sweet cider which I am better acquainted with\nthan with wine. And others, which have more substance, are a sweet and\nluscious food,\u2014in my opinion of more worth than the pineapples which\nare imported from the torrid zone. Those which a month ago I tasted\nand repented of it, which the farmer willingly left on the tree, I\nam now glad to find have the property of hanging on like the leaves\nof the shrub oak. It is a way to keep cider sweet without boiling.\nLet the frost come to freeze them first solid as stones, and then the\nsun or a warm winter day\u2014for it takes but little heat\u2014to thaw them,\nand they will seem to have borrowed a flavor from heaven through the\nmedium of the air in which they hang. I find when I get home that they\nhave thawed in my pocket and the ice is turned to cider. But I suspect\nthat after the second freezing and thawing they will not be so good.\nI bend to drink the cup and save my lappets. What are the half-ripe\nfruits of the torrid south, to this fruit matured by the cold of the\nfrigid north. There are those crabbed apples with which I cheated my\ncompanion, and kept a smooth face to tempt him to eat. Now we both\ngreedily fill our pockets with them, and grow more social with their\nwine. Was there one that hung so high and sheltered by the tangled\nbranches that our sticks could not dislodge it? It is a fruit never\nbrought to market that I am aware of,\u2014quite distinct from the apple of\nthe markets, as from dried apple and cider. It is not every winter that\nproduces it in perfection.[105]\n\nIn winter I can explore the swamps and ponds. It is a dark-aired\nwinter day, yet I see the summer plants still peering above the snow.\nThere are but few tracks in all this snow. It is the Yellow Knife\nRiver or the Saskatchewan. The large leafy lichens on the white pines,\nespecially on the outside of the wood, look almost a golden yellow\nin the light reflected from the snow, while deeper in the wood they\nare ash-colored. In the swamps the dry, yellowish-colored fruit of\nthe poison dogwood hangs like jewelry on long, drooping stems. It is\npleasant to meet it, it has so much character relatively to man. Here\nis a stump on which a squirrel has sat and stripped the pine cones of a\nneighboring tree. Their cores and scales lie all around. He knew that\nthey contained an almond[106] before the naturalist did. He has long\nbeen a close observer of Nature; opens her caskets. I see more tracks\nin the swamps than elsewhere.\n\n\n_Dec. 23._ Here is an old-fashioned snow-storm. There is not much\npassing on railroads. The engineer says it is three feet deep above.\nWalden is frozen, one third of it, though I thought it was all frozen\nas I stood on the shore on one side only. There is no track on the\nWalden road. A traveller might cross it in the woods and not be sure it\nwas a road. As I pass the farmers\u2019 houses I observe the cop [_sic_] of\nthe sled propped up with a stick to prevent its freezing into the snow.\nThe needles of the pines are drooping like cockerels\u2019 feathers after a\nrain, and frozen together by the sleety snow. The pitch pines now bear\ntheir snowy fruit.\n\nI can discern a faint foot or sled path sooner when the ground is\ncovered with snow than when it is bare. The depression caused by the\nfeet or the wheels is more obvious; perhaps the light and shade betray\nit, but I think it is mainly because the grass and weeds rise above it\non each side and leave it blank, and a blank space of snow contrasts\nmore strongly with the woods or grass than bare or beaten ground.\n\nEven the surface of the snow is wont to be in waves like billows of the\nocean.\n\n\n_Dec. 24._ In walking across the Great Meadows to-day on the\nsnow-crust, I noticed that the fine, dry snow which was blown over the\nsurface of the frozen field, when I [looked] westward over it or toward\nthe sun, looked precisely like steam curling up from its surface, as\nsometimes from a wet roof when the sun comes out after a rain.\n\nThe snow catches only in the hollows and against the reeds and grass,\nand never rests there, but when it has formed a broad and shallow drift\nor a long and narrow one like a winrow on the ice, it blows away again\nfrom one extremity, and leaves often a thin, tongue-like projection at\none end, some inches above the firm crust.\n\nI observe that there are many dead pine-needles sprinkled over the\nsnow, which had not fallen before.\n\nSaw a shrike pecking to pieces a small bird, apparently a snowbird. At\nlength he took him up in his bill, almost half as big as himself, and\nflew slowly off with his prey dangling from his beak. I find that I had\nnot associated such actions with my idea of birds. It was not birdlike.\n\nIt is never so cold but it melts somewhere. Our mason well remarked\nthat he had sometimes known it to be melting and freezing at the same\ntime on a particular side of a house; while it was melting on the roof\nthe icicles [were] forming under the eaves. It is always melting and\nfreezing at the same time when icicles are formed.\n\nOur thoughts are with those among the dead into whose sphere we are\nrising, or who are now rising into our own. Others we inevitably\nforget, though they be brothers and sisters. Thus the departed may\nbe nearer to us than when they were present. At death our friends and\nrelations either draw nearer to us and are found out, or depart further\nfrom us and are forgotten. Friends are as often brought nearer together\nas separated by death.\n\n\n_Dec. 26. Thursday._ The pine woods seen from the hilltops, now that\nthe ground is covered with snow, are not green but a dark brown,\ngreenish-brown perhaps. You see dark patches of wood. There are still\nhalf a dozen fresh ripe red and glossy oak leaves left on the bush\nunder the Cliffs.\n\nWalden not yet more than half frozen over.\n\n\n_Dec. 30._ In R. Gordon Cumming\u2019s \u201cHunter\u2019s Life in South Africa,\u201d[107]\nI find an account of the honey-bird, which will lead a person to a wild\nbees\u2019 nest and, having got its share of the spoil, will sometimes lead\nto a second and third. (Vol. I, page 49.)\n\nHe saw dry sheep\u2019s dung burning, and after eighteen months it was\nburning still. One heap was said to have burned seven years. Remarkable\nfor burning slowly. (Page 62.)\n\nHe came across a Boer who manufactured ashes by burning a particular\nbush and sold it to the richer Boers. (Page 71.)\n\nHe says that the oryx or gemsbok, a kind of antelope, never tastes\nwater. Lives on the deserts. (Page 94.)\n\nThe Bushmen conceal water in ostrich eggs at regular intervals across\nthe desert, and so perform long journeys over them safely. (Page 101.)\n\nThe hatching of ostrich eggs not left to heat of sun. (Page 105.) The\nnatives empty them by a small aperture at one end, fill with water, and\ncork up the hole with grass. (Page 106.)\n\nThe Hottentots devoured the marrow of a koodoo raw as a matter of\ncourse.[108]\n\nThe Bechuanas use \u201cthe assagai,\u201d \u201ca sort of light spear or javelin\u201d\nwith a shaft six feet long, which they will send through a man\u2019s body\nat a hundred yards. (Page 201.)\n\nThe Bakatlas smelt and work in iron quite well; make spears,\nbattle-axes, knives, needles, etc., etc. (Page 207.)\n\nThe skin of the eland just killed, like that of most other antelopes,\nemits the most delicious perfume of trees and grass. (Page 218.)[109]\n\nWhen waiting by night for elephants to approach a fountain, he \u201cheard\na low rumbling noise ..., caused (as the Bechuanas affirmed) by the\nbowels of the elephants which were approaching the fountain.\u201d (Page\n261.)\n\n\u201cA child can put a hundred of them [elephants][110] to flight by\npassing at a quarter of a mile to windward.\u201d (Page 263.)\n\nIt is incredible how many \u201cgoodly\u201d trees an elephant will destroy,\nsometimes wantonly. (265.)\n\nAn elephant\u2019s friend will protect its wounded companion at the risk of\nits own life. (268.)\n\nThe rhinoceros-birds stick their bills in the ear of the rhinoceros\nand wake him up when the hunter is approaching. They live on ticks and\nother parasitic insects on his body. He perfectly understands their\nwarning. He has chased a rhinoceros many miles on horseback and fired\nmany shots before he fell, and all the while the birds remained by\nhim, perched on his back and sides, and as each bullet struck him they\nascended about six feet into the air, uttering a cry of alarm, and\nthen resumed their position. Sometimes they were swept off his back\nby branches of trees. When the rhinoceros was shot at midnight, they\nhave remained by his body thinking him asleep, and on the hunter\u2019s\napproaching in the morning have tried to wake him up. (Page 293.)\n\nThe Bechuanas make a pipe in a few moments by kneading moistened earth\nwith their knuckles on a twig, until a hole is established, then one\nend of the aperture is enlarged with their fingers for a bowl. (Page\n306.)\n\n\n_Dec. 31._ I observe that in the cut by Walden Pond the sand and stones\nfall from the overhanging bank and rest on the snow below; and thus,\nperchance, the stratum deposited by the side of the road in the winter\ncan permanently be distinguished from the summer one by some faint\nseam, to be referred to the peculiar conditions under which it was\ndeposited.\n\nThe pond has been frozen over since I was there last.\n\nCertain meadows, as Heywood\u2019s, contain warmer water than others and are\nslow to freeze. I do not remember to have crossed this with impunity\nin all places. The brook that issues from it is still open completely,\nthough the thermometer was down to eight below zero this morning.\n\nThe blue jays evidently notify each other of the presence of an\nintruder, and will sometimes make a great chattering about it, and so\ncommunicate the alarm to other birds and to beasts.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nJANUARY-APRIL, 1851\n\n(\u00c6T. 33)\n\n\n_Jan. 2._ Saw at Clinton last night a room at the gingham-mills which\ncovers one and seven-eighths acres and contains 578 looms, not to speak\nof spindles, both throttle and mule. The rooms all together cover three\nacres. They were using between three and four hundred horse-power, and\nkept an engine of two hundred horse-power, with a wheel twenty-three\nfeet in diameter and a band ready to supply deficiencies, which have\nnot often occurred. Some portion of the machinery\u2014I think it was where\nthe cotton was broken up, lightened up, and mixed before being matted\ntogether\u2014revolved eighteen hundred times in a minute.\n\nI first saw the pattern room where patterns are made by a hand loom.\nThere were two styles of warps ready for the woof or filling. The\noperator must count the threads of the woof, which in the mill is done\nby the machinery. It was the ancient art of weaving, the shuttle flying\nback and forth, putting in the filling. As long as the warp is the\nsame, it is but one \u201cstyle,\u201d so called.\n\nThe cotton should possess a long staple and be clean and free from\nseed. The Sea Island cotton has a long staple and is valuable for\nthread. Many bales are thoroughly mixed to make the goods of one\nquality. The cotton is then torn to pieces and thoroughly lightened\nup by cylinders armed with hooks and by fans; then spread, a certain\nweight on a square yard, and matted together, and torn up and matted\ntogether again two or three times over; then the matted cotton fed\nto a cylindrical card, a very thin web of it, which is gathered into\na copper trough, making six (the six-card machines) flat, rope-like\nbands, which are united into one at the railway head and drawn. And\nthis operation of uniting and drawing or stretching goes on from one\nmachine to another until the thread is spun, which is then dyed (calico\nis printed after being woven),\u2014having been wound off on to reels and so\nmade into skeins,\u2014dyed and dried by steam; then, by machinery, wound\non to spools for the warp and the woof. From a great many spools the\nwarp is drawn off over cylinders and different-colored threads properly\nmixed and arranged. Then the ends of the warp are drawn through the\nharness of the loom by hand. The operator knows the succession of\nred, blue, green, etc., threads, having the numbers given her, and\ndraws them through the harness accordingly, keeping count. Then the\nwoof is put in, or it is _woven_!! Then the inequalities or nubs are\npicked off by girls. If _they_ discover any imperfection, they tag it,\nand if necessary the wages of the weaver are reduced. Now, I think,\nit is passed over a red-hot iron cylinder, and the fuzz singed off,\nthen washed with wheels with cold water; then the water forced out by\ncentrifugal force within horizontal wheels. Then it is starched, the\nends stitched together by machinery; then stretched smooth, dried, and\nironed by machinery; then measured, folded, and packed.\n\nThis the agent, Forbes, says is the best gingham-mill in this country.\nThe goods are better than the imported. The English have even stolen\ntheir name Lancaster Mills, calling them \u201cLancasterian.\u201d\n\nThe machinery is some of it peculiar, part of the throttle spindles (?)\nfor instance.\n\nThe coach-lace-mill, only place in this country where it is made by\nmachinery; made of thread of different materials, as cotton, worsted,\nlinen, as well as colors, the raised figure produced by needles\ninserted woof fashion. Well worth examining further. Also pantaloon\nstuffs made in same mill and dyed after being woven, the woolen not\ntaking the same dye with the cotton; hence a slight parti-colored\nappearance. These goods are sheared, _i. e._ a part of the nap taken\noff, making them smoother. Pressed between pasteboards.\n\nThe Brussels carpets made at the carpet-factory said to be the best in\nthe world. Made like coach lace, only wider.\n\nErastus (?) Bigelow inventor of what is new in the above machinery;\nand, with his brother and another, owner of the carpet-factory.\n\nI am struck by the fact that no work has been shirked when a piece of\ncloth is produced. Every thread has been counted in the finest web;\nit has not been matted together. The operator has succeeded only by\npatience, perseverance, and fidelity.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe direction in which a railroad runs, though intersecting another at\nright angles, may cause that one will be blocked up with snow and the\nother be comparatively open even for great distances, depending on the\ndirection of prevailing winds and valleys. There are the Fitchburg and\nNashua & Worcester.\n\n\n_Jan. 4._ The longest silence is the most pertinent question most\npertinently put. Emphatically silent. The most important question,\nwhose answers concern us more than any, are never put in any other way.\n\nIt is difficult for two strangers, mutually well disposed, so truly\nto bear themselves toward each other that a feeling of falseness and\nhollowness shall not soon spring up between them. The least anxiety\nto behave truly vitiates the relation. I think of those to whom I am\nat the moment truly related, with a joy never expressed and never to\nbe expressed, before I fall asleep at night, though I am hardly on\nspeaking terms with them these years. When I think of it, I am truly\nrelated to them.\n\n\n_Jan. 5._ The catkins of the alders are now frozen stiff!!\n\nAlmost all that my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be\nbad. If I repent of anything, it is of my good behavior. What demon\npossessed me that I behaved so well? You may say the wisest thing you\ncan, old man,\u2014you who have lived seventy years, not without honor of\na kind,\u2014I hear an irresistible voice, the voice of my destiny, which\ninvites me away from all that.[111]\n\n\n_Jan. 7._ The snow is sixteen inches deep at least, but [it] is a mild\nand genial afternoon, as if it were the beginning of a January thaw.\nTake away the snow and it would not be winter but like many days in\nthe fall. The birds acknowledge the difference in the air; the jays are\nmore noisy, and the chickadees are oftener heard.\n\nMany herbs are not crushed by the snow.\n\nI do not remember to have seen fleas except when the weather was mild\nand the snow damp.\n\nI must live above all in the present.\n\n * * * * *\n\nScience does not embody all that men know, only what is for men of\nscience. The woodman tells me how he caught trout in a box trap, how\nhe made his trough for maple sap of pine logs, and the spouts of sumach\nor white ash, which have a large pith. He can relate his facts to human\nlife.\n\nThe knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a\nforest, but covered with mosses and lichens and for the most part\ninaccessible and going to waste; the knowledge of the man of science is\nlike timber collected in yards for public works, which still supports\na green sprout here and there, but even this is liable to dry rot.\n\nI felt my spirits rise when I had got off the road into the open\nfields, and the sky had a new appearance. I stepped along more\nbuoyantly. There was a warm sunset over the wooded valleys, a yellowish\ntinge on the pines. Reddish dun-colored clouds like dusky flames stood\nover it. And then streaks of blue sky were seen here and there. The\nlife, the joy, that is in blue sky after a storm! There is no account\nof the blue sky in history. Before I walked in the ruts of travel; now\nI adventured. This evening a fog comes up from the south.\n\nIf I have any conversation with a scamp in my walk, my afternoon is\nwont to be spoiled.\n\nThe squirrels and apparently the rabbits have got all the frozen apples\nin the hollow behind Miles\u2019s. The rabbits appear to have devoured what\nthe squirrels dropped and left. I see the tracks of both leading from\nthe woods on all sides to the apple trees.\n\n\n_Jan. 8._ The smilax (green-briar) berries still hang on like small\ngrapes. The thorn of this vine is very perfect, like a straight dagger.\n\nThe light of the setting sun falling on the snow-banks to-day made them\nglow almost yellow.\n\nThe hills seen from Fair Haven Pond make a wholly new landscape;\ncovered with snow and yellowish green or brown pines and shrub\noaks, they look higher and more massive. Their white mantle relates\nthem to the clouds in the horizon and to the sky. Perchance what is\nlight-colored looks loftier than what is dark.\n\nYou might say of a very old and withered man or woman that they hung\non like a shrub oak leaf, almost to a second spring. There was still a\nlittle life in the heel of the leaf-stalk.\n\n\n_Jan. 10._ The snow shows how much of the mountains in the horizon are\ncovered with forest. I can also see plainer as I stand on a hill what\nproportion of the township is in forest.\n\nGot some excellent frozen-thawed apples off of Annursnack, soft and\nluscious as a custard and free from worms and rot. Saw a partridge\nbudding, but they did not appear to have pecked the apples.\n\nThere was a remarkable sunset; a mother-of-pearl sky seen over the\nPrice farm; some small clouds, as well as the edges of large ones, most\nbrilliantly painted with mother-of-pearl tints through and through. I\nnever saw the like before. Who can foretell the sunset,\u2014what it will\nbe?\n\nThe near and bare hills covered with snow look like mountains, but the\nmountains in the horizon do not look higher than hills.\n\nI frequently see a hole in the snow where a partridge has squatted, the\nmark or form of her tail very distinct.\n\nThe chivalric and heroic spirit, which once belonged to the chevalier\nor rider only, seems now to reside in the walker. To represent the\nchivalric spirit we have no longer a knight, but a walker, errant.[112]\nI speak not of pedestrianism, or of walking a thousand miles in a\nthousand successive hours.\n\nThe Adam who daily takes a turn in his garden.\n\nMethinks I would not accept of the gift of life, if I were required\nto spend as large a portion of it sitting foot up or with my legs\ncrossed, as the shoemakers and tailors do. As well be tied neck and\nheels together and cast into the sea. Making acquaintance with my\nextremities.\n\nI have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who\nunderstood the art of taking walks daily,\u2014not [to] exercise the legs\nor body merely, nor barely to recruit the spirits, but positively\nto exercise both body and spirit, and to succeed to the highest and\nworthiest ends by the abandonment of all specific ends,\u2014who had a\ngenius, so to speak, for sauntering. And this word \u201csaunter,\u201d by the\nway, is happily derived \u201cfrom idle people who roved about the country\n[in the Middle Ages][113] and asked charity under pretence of going\n_\u00e0 la Sainte Terre_,\u201d to the Holy Land, till, perchance, the children\nexclaimed, \u201cThere goes a _Sainte-Terrer_,\u201d a Holy-Lander. They who\nnever go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed\nmere idlers and vagabonds.[114]\n\n * * * * *\n\n [Four pages missing.]\n\n[Perhaps I am more] than usually jealous of my freedom. I feel that my\nconnections with and obligations to society are at present very slight\nand transient. Those slight labors which afford me a livelihood, and\nby which I am serviceable to my contemporaries, are as yet a pleasure\nto me, and I am not often reminded that they are a necessity. So far\nI am successful, and only he is successful in his business who makes\nthat pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him. But I\nforesee that if my wants should be much increased the labor required to\nsupply them would become a drudgery. If I should sell both my forenoons\nand afternoons to society, neglecting my peculiar calling, there would\nbe nothing left worth living for. I trust that I shall never thus sell\nmy birthright for a mess of pottage.[115]\n\nF. Andrew Michaux says that \u201cthe species of large trees are much more\nnumerous in North America than in Europe: in the United States there\nare more than one hundred and forty species that exceed thirty feet in\nheight; in France there are but thirty that attain this size, of which\neighteen enter into the composition of the forests, and seven only are\nemployed in building.\u201d[116]\n\nThe perfect resemblance of the chestnut, beech, and hornbeam in Europe\nand the United States rendered a separate figure unnecessary.\n\nHe says the white oak \u201cis the only oak on which a few of the dried\nleaves persist till the circulation is renewed in the spring.\u201d\n\nHad often heard his father say that \u201cthe fruit of the common European\nwalnut, in its natural state, is harder than that of the American\nspecies just mentioned [the pacane-nut hickory][117] and inferior to it\nin size and quality.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe arts teach us a thousand lessons. Not a yard of cloth can be woven\nwithout the most thorough fidelity in the weaver. The ship must be made\n_absolutely_ tight before it is launched.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt is an important difference between two characters that the one is\nsatisfied with a happy but level success but the other as constantly\nelevates his aim. Though my life is low, if my spirit looks upward\nhabitually at an elevated angle, it is as it were redeemed. When the\ndesire to be better than we are is really sincere we are instantly\nelevated, and so far better already.\n\nI lose my friends, of course, as much by my own ill treatment and ill\nvaluing of them, prophaning of them, cheapening of them, as by their\ncheapening of themselves, till at last, when I am prepared to [do] them\njustice, I am permitted to deal only with the memories of themselves,\ntheir ideals still surviving in me, no longer with their actual selves.\nWe exclude ourselves, as the child said of the stream in which he\nbathed head or foot. (_Vide_ Confucius.)\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt is something to know when you are addressed by Divinity and not by\na common traveller. I went down cellar just now to get an armful of\nwood and, passing the brick piers with my wood and candle, I heard,\nmethought, a commonplace suggestion, but when, as it were by accident,\nI reverently attended to the hint, I found that it was the voice\nof a god who had followed me down cellar to speak to me. How many\ncommunications may we not lose through inattention!\n\nI would fain keep a journal which should contain those thoughts and\nimpressions which I am most liable to forget that I have had; which\nwould have in one sense the greatest remoteness, in another, the\ngreatest nearness to me.\n\n\u2019T is healthy to be sick sometimes.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI do not know but the reason why I love some Latin verses more than\nwhole English poems is simply in the elegant terseness and conciseness\nof the language, an advantage which the individual appears to have\nshared with his nation.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWhen we can no longer ramble in the fields of nature, we ramble in the\nfields of thought and literature. The old become readers. Our heads\nretain their strength when our legs have become weak.\n\nEnglish literature from the days of the minstrels to the Lake Poets,\nChaucer and Spenser and Shakspeare and Milton included, breathes no\nquite fresh and, in this sense, wild strain. It is an essentially tame\nand civilized literature, reflecting Greece and Rome. Her wilderness\nis a greenwood, her wild man a Robin Hood. There is plenty of genial\nlove of nature in her poets, but [not so much of nature herself.] Her\nchronicles inform us when her wild animals, but not when the wild man\nin her, became extinct.[118] There was need of America. I cannot think\nof any poetry which adequately expresses this yearning for the Wild,\nthe _wilde_.[119]\n\n * * * * *\n\nOvid says:\u2014\n\n Nilus in extremum fugit perterritus orbem,\n Occuluitque caput, quod adhuc latet.\n\n (Nilus, terrified, fled to the extremity of the globe,\n And hid his head, which is still concealed.)\n\nAnd we moderns must repeat, \u201c_Quod adhuc latet_.\u201d Pha\u00ebton\u2019s epitaph:\u2014\n\n Hic situs est Pha\u00ebton, curr\u00fbs auriga paterni;\n Quem si non tenuit, magnis tamen excidit ausis.\n\nHis sister Lampetie _subit\u00e2 radice retenta est_. All the sisters were\nchanged to trees while they were in vain beseeching their mother not to\nbreak their branches. _Cortex in verba novissima venit._\n\nHis brother Cycnus, lamenting the death of Pha\u00ebton killed by Jove\u2019s\nlightning, and the metamorphosis of his sisters, was changed into a\nswan,\u2014\n\n nec se coeloque, Jovique\n Credit, ut injust\u00e8 missi memor ignis ab illo.\n\n (Nor trusts himself to the heavens\n Nor to Jove, as if remembering the fire unjustly sent by him),\n\n_i. e._ against Pha\u00ebton. (Reason why the swan does not fly.)\n\n ... precibusque minas regaliter addit.\n ([Jove] royally adds threats to prayers.)\n\nCallisto _miles erat Phoebes_, _i. e._ a huntress.\n\n ... (neque enim coelestia tingi\n Ora decet lachrymis).\n\n (For it is not becoming that the faces of the celestials be tinged\n with tears,\u2014keep a stiff upper lip.)\n\nHow much more fertile a nature has Grecian mythology its root in\nthan English literature! The nature which inspired mythology still\nflourishes. Mythology is the crop which the Old World bore before its\nsoil was exhausted. The West is preparing to add its fables to those of\nthe East.[120] A more fertile nature than the Mississippi Valley.\n\nNone of your four-hour nights for me. The wise man will take a fool\u2019s\nallowance. The corn would not come to much if the nights were but four\nhours long.\n\nThe soil in which those fables grew is deep and inexhaustible.\n\n * * * * *\n\nLead cast by the Balearian sling:\u2014\n\n Volat illud, et incandescit eundo;\n Et, quos non habuit, sub nubibus invenit ignes.\n (That flies and grows hot with going,\n And fires which it had not finds amid the clouds.)\n\n * * * * *\n\nI went some months ago to see a panorama of the Rhine. It was like\na dream of the Middle Ages. I floated down its historic stream in\nsomething more than imagination, under bridges built by the Romans and\nrepaired by later heroes, past cities and castles whose very names were\nmusic to me,\u2014made my ears tingle,\u2014and each of which was the subject\nof a legend. There seemed to come up from its waters and its vine-clad\nhills and valleys a hushed music as of crusaders departing for the Holy\nLand. There were Ehrenbreitstein and Rolandseck and Coblentz, which I\nknew only in history. I floated along through the moonlight of history\nunder the spell of enchantment. It was as if I remembered a glorious\ndream,\u2014as if I had been transported to a heroic age and breathed an\natmosphere of chivalry. Those times appeared far more poetic and heroic\nthan these.\n\nSoon after I went to see the panorama of the Mississippi, and as\nI fitly worked my way upward in the light of to-day, and saw the\nsteamboats wooding up, and looked up the Ohio and the Missouri, and\nsaw its unpeopled cliffs, and counted the rising cities,[121] and saw\nthe Indians removing west across the stream, and heard the legends\nof Dubuque and of Wenona\u2019s Cliff,\u2014still thinking more of the future\nthan of the past or present,\u2014I saw that this was a Rhine stream of a\ndifferent kind.[122]\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe Old World, with its vast deserts and its arid and elevated steppes\nand table-lands, contrasted with the New World with its humid and\nfertile valleys and savannas and prairies and its boundless primitive\nforests, is like the exhausted Indian corn lands contrasted with the\npeat meadows. America requires some of the sand of the Old World to be\ncarted on to her rich but as yet unassimilated meadows.\n\n * * * * *\n\nGuyot says, \u201cThe Baltic Sea has a depth of only 120 feet between\nthe coasts of Germany and those of Sweden\u201d (page 82). \u201cThe Adriatic,\nbetween Venice and Trieste, has a depth of only 130 feet.\u201d \u201cBetween\nFrance and England, the greatest depth does not exceed 300 feet.\u201d The\nmost extensive forest, \u201cthe most gigantic wilderness,\u201d on the earth\nis in the basin of the Amazon, and extends almost unbroken more than\nfifteen hundred miles. South America the kingdom of palms; nowhere\na greater number of species. \u201cThis is a sign of the preponderating\ndevelopment of leaves over every other part of the vegetable growth; of\nthat expansion of foliage, of that _leafiness_, peculiar to warm and\nmoist climates. America has no plants with slender, shrunken leaves,\nlike those of Africa and New Holland. The Ericas, or heather, so\ncommon, so varied, so characteristic of the flora of the Cape of Good\nHope, is a form unknown to the New World. There is nothing resembling\nthose Metrosideri of Africa, those dry Myrtles (Eucalyptus) and\nwillow-leaved acacias, whose flowers shine with the liveliest colors,\nbut their narrow foliage, turned edgewise to the vertical sun, casts no\nshadow.\u201d[123]\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe white man derives his nourishment from the earth,\u2014from the roots\nand grains, the potato and wheat and corn and rice and sugar, which\noften grow in fertile and pestilential river bottoms fatal to the life\nof the cultivator. The Indian has but a slender hold on the earth. He\nderives his nourishment in great part but indirectly from her, through\nthe animals he hunts.[124]\n\n * * * * *\n\n\u201cCompared with the Old World, the New World is the humid side of our\nplanet, the _oceanic, vegetative_ world, the passive element awaiting\nthe excitement of a livelier impulse from without.\u201d[125]\n\n * * * * *\n\n\u201cFor the American, this task is to work the virgin soil.\u201d\n\n\u201cAgriculture here already assumes proportions unknown everywhere\nelse.\u201d[126]\n\n\n_Feb. 9._ The last half of January was warm and thawy. The swift\nstreams were open, and the muskrats were seen swimming and diving\nand bringing up clams, leaving their shells on the ice. We had now\nforgotten summer and autumn, but had already begun to anticipate\nspring. Fishermen improved the warmer weather to fish for pickerel\nthrough the ice. Before it was only the autumn landscape with a thin\nlayer of snow upon it; we saw the withered flowers through it; but\nnow we do not think of autumn when we look on this snow. That earth\nis effectually buried. It is midwinter. Within a few days the cold\nhas set in stronger than ever, though the days are much longer now.\nNow I travel across the fields on the crust which has frozen since the\nJanuary thaw, and I can cross the river in most places. It is easier to\nget about the country than at any other season,\u2014easier than in summer,\nbecause the rivers and meadows are frozen and there is no high grass or\nother crops to be avoided; easier than in December before the crust was\nfrozen.\n\n * * * * *\n\nSir John Mandeville says, \u201cIn fro what partie of the earth that men\ndwell, outher aboven or benethen, it seemeth always to hem that dwellen\nthere, that they gon more right than any other folk.\u201d Again, \u201cAnd yee\nshulle undirstonde, that of all theise contrees, and of all theise\nyles, and of all the dyverse folk, that I have spoken of before,\nand of dyverse laws and of dyverse beleeves that thei have, yit is\nthere non of hem alle, but that thei have sum resoun within hem and\nunderstondinge, but gif it be the fewere.\u201d\n\nI have heard that there is a Society for the Diffusion of Useful\nKnowledge. It is said that knowledge is power and the like. Methinks\nthere is equal need of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance,\nfor what is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit\nthat we know something, which robs us of the advantages of our actual\nignorance.[127]\n\n * * * * *\n\nFor a man\u2019s ignorance sometimes is not only useful but beautiful, while\nhis knowledge is oftentimes worse than useless, beside being ugly.[128]\nIn reference to important things, whose knowledge amounts to more\nthan a consciousness of his ignorance? Yet what more refreshing and\ninspiring knowledge than this?\n\nHow often are we wise as serpents without being harmless as doves!\n\nDonne says, \u201cWho are a little wise the best fools be.\u201d Cudworth says,\n\u201cWe have all of us by nature \u03bc\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c5\u03bc\u03ac \u03c4\u03b5 (as both Plato and Aristotle\ncall it), a certain divination, presage and parturient vaticination\nin our minds, of some higher good and perfection than either power\nor knowledge.\u201d Aristotle himself declares, that there is \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u03b9\n\u03ba\u03c1\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c4\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd, which is \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03ae,\u2014(something better than reason and\nknowledge, which is the principle and original of all). Lavater says,\n\u201cWho finds the clearest not clear, thinks the darkest not obscure.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nMy desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to commune with\nthe spirit of the universe, to be intoxicated even with the fumes, call\nit, of that divine nectar, to bear my head through atmospheres and over\nheights unknown to my feet, is perennial and constant.[129]\n\n [Illustration: _Midwinter_]\n\nIt is remarkable how few events or crises there are in our minds\u2019\nhistories, how little _exercised_ we have been in our minds, how few\nexperiences we have had.[130]\n\n [Four pages missing.]\n\nThe story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a mere\nfable; the founders of every state which has risen to eminence have\ndrawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar source. It is because\nthe children of the empire were not suckled by wolves that they were\nconquered and displaced by the children of the northern forests who\nwere.[131]\n\nAmerica is the she wolf to-day, and the children of exhausted Europe\nexposed on her uninhabited and savage shores are the Romulus and Remus\nwho, having derived new life and vigor from her breast, have founded a\nnew Rome in the West.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt is remarkable how few passages, comparatively speaking, there are in\nthe best literature of the day which betray any intimacy with Nature.\n\nIt is apparent enough to me that only one or two of my townsmen or\nacquaintances\u2014not more than one in many thousand men, indeed\u2014feel or at\nleast obey any strong attraction drawing them toward the forest or to\nNature, but all, almost without exception, gravitate exclusively toward\nmen, or society.[132] The young men of Concord and in other towns\ndo not walk in the woods, but congregate in shops and offices. They\nsuck one another. Their strongest attraction is toward the mill-dam.\nA thousand assemble about the fountain in the public square,\u2014the town\npump,\u2014be it full or dry, clear or turbid, every morning, but not one\nin a thousand is in the meanwhile drinking at that fountain\u2019s head. It\nis hard for the young, aye, and the old, man in the outskirts to keep\naway from the mill-dam a whole day; but he will find some excuse, as an\nounce of cloves that might be wanted, or a _New England Farmer_ still\nin the office, to tackle up the horse, or even go afoot, but he will go\nat some rate. This is not bad comparatively; this is because he cannot\ndo better. In spite of his hoeing and chopping, he is unexpressed and\nundeveloped.\n\nI do not know where to find in any literature, whether ancient or\nmodern, any adequate account of that Nature with which I am acquainted.\nMythology comes nearest to it of any.[133]\n\nThe actual life of men is not without a dramatic interest at least to\nthe thinker. It is not always and everywhere prosaic. Seventy thousand\npilgrims proceed annually to Mecca from the various nations of Islam.\nBut this is not so significant as the far simpler and more unpretending\npilgrimage to the shrines of some obscure individual, which yet makes\nno bustle in the world.\n\nI believe that Adam in paradise was not so favorably situated on\nthe whole as is the backwoodsman in America.[134] You all know how\nmiserably the former turned out,\u2014or was turned out,\u2014but there is some\nconsolation at least in the fact that it yet remains to be seen how the\nwestern Adam in the wilderness will turn out.\n\n In Adam\u2019s fall\n We sinned all.\n In the new Adam\u2019s rise\n We shall all reach the skies.\n\nAn infusion of hemlock in our tea, if we must drink tea,\u2014not the\npoison hemlock, but the hemlock spruce, I mean,[135]\u2014or perchance the\nArbor-Vit\u00e6, the tree of life,\u2014is what we want.\n\n\n_Feb. 12. Wednesday._ A beautiful day, with but little snow or ice on\nthe ground. Though the air is sharp, as the earth is half bare the hens\nhave strayed to some distance from the barns. The hens, standing around\ntheir lord and pluming themselves and still fretting a little, strive\nto fetch the year about.\n\nA thaw has nearly washed away the snow and raised the river and the\nbrooks and flooded the meadows, covering the old ice, which is still\nfast to the bottom.\n\nI find that it is an excellent walk for variety and novelty and\nwildness, to keep round the edge of the meadow,\u2014the ice not being\nstrong enough to bear and transparent as water,\u2014on the bare ground\nor snow, just between the highest water mark and the present water\nline,\u2014a narrow, meandering walk, rich in unexpected views and objects.\nThe line of rubbish which marks the higher tides\u2014withered flags and\nreeds and twigs and cranberries\u2014is to my eyes a very agreeable and\nsignificant line, which Nature traces along the edge of the meadows. It\nis a strongly marked, enduring natural line, which in summer reminds\nme that the water has once stood over where I walk. Sometimes the\ngrooved trees tell the same tale. The wrecks of the meadow, which fill\na thousand coves, and tell a thousand tales to those who can read them.\nOur prairial, mediterranean shore. The gentle rise of water around\nthe trees in the meadow, where oaks and maples stand far out in the\nsea, and young elms sometimes are seen standing close around some rock\nwhich lifts its head above the water, as if protecting it, preventing\nit from being washed away, though in truth they owe their origin and\npreservation to it. It first invited and detained their seed, and now\npreserves the soil in which they grow. A pleasant reminiscence of the\nrise of waters, to go up one side of the river and down the other,\nfollowing this way, which meanders so much more than the river itself.\nIf you cannot go on the ice, you are then gently compelled to take this\ncourse, which is on the whole more beautiful,\u2014to follow the sinuosities\nof the meadow. Between the highest water mark and the present water\nline is a space generally from a few feet to a few rods in width. When\nthe water comes over the road, then my spirits rise,\u2014when the fences\nare carried away. A prairial walk. Saw a caterpillar crawling about on\nthe snow.\n\nThe earth is so bare that it makes an impression on me as if it were\ncatching cold.\n\nI saw to-day something new to me as I walked along the edge of the\nmeadow. Every half-mile or so along the channel of the river I saw at a\ndistance where apparently the ice had been broken up while freezing by\nthe pressure of other ice,\u2014thin cakes of ice forced up on their edges\nand reflecting the sun like so many mirrors, whole fleets of shining\nsails, giving a very lively appearance to the river,\u2014where for a dozen\nrods the flakes of ice stood on their edges, like a fleet beating\nup-stream against the sun, a fleet of ice-boats.\n\nIt is remarkable that the cracks in the ice on the meadows sometimes\nmay be traced a dozen rods from the water through the snow in the\nneighboring fields.\n\nIt is only necessary that man should start a fence that Nature should\ncarry it on and complete it. The farmer cannot plow quite up to the\nrails or wall which he himself has placed, and hence it often becomes\na hedgerow and sometimes a coppice.\n\nI found to-day apples still green under the snow, and others frozen and\nthawed, sweeter far than when sound,\u2014a sugary sweetness.[136]\n\nThere is something more than association at the bottom of the\nexcitement which the roar of a cataract produces. It is allied to the\ncirculation in our veins. We have a waterfall which corresponds even\nto Niagara somewhere within us.[137] It is astonishing what a rush\nand tumult a slight inclination will produce in a swollen brook. How\nit proclaims its glee, its boisterousness, rushing headlong in its\nprodigal course as if it would exhaust itself in half an hour! How it\nspends itself! I would say to the orator and poet, Flow freely and\n_lavishly_ as a brook that is full,\u2014without stint. Perchance I have\nstumbled upon the origin of the word \u201clavish.\u201d It does not hesitate\nto tumble down the steepest precipice and roar or tinkle as it goes,\nfor fear it will exhaust its fountain. The impetuosity of descending\nwater even by the slightest inclination! It seems to flow with ever\nincreasing rapidity.\n\nIt is difficult to believe what philosophers assert, that it is merely\na difference in the form of the elementary particles\u2014as whether\nthey are square or globular\u2014which makes the difference between the\nsteadfast, everlasting, and reposing hillside and the impetuous torrent\nwhich tumbles down it.\n\nIt is refreshing to walk over sprout-lands, where oak and chestnut\nsprouts are mounting swiftly up again into the sky, and already\nperchance their sere leaves begin to rustle in the breeze and reflect\nthe light on the hillsides.\n\n \u201cHeroic underwoods that take the air\n With freedom, nor respect their parents\u2019 death.\u201d[138]\n\nI trust that the walkers of the present day are conscious of the\nblessings which they enjoy in the comparative freedom with which they\ncan ramble over the country and enjoy the landscape, anticipating with\ncompassion that future day when possibly it will be partitioned off\ninto so-called pleasure-grounds, where only a few may enjoy the narrow\nand exclusive pleasure which is compatible with ownership,\u2014when walking\nover the surface of God\u2019s earth shall be construed to mean trespassing\non some gentleman\u2019s grounds, when fences shall be multiplied and man\ntraps and other engines invented to confine men to the public road. I\nam thankful that we have yet so much room in America.[139]\n\n\n_Feb. 13._ Skated to Sudbury. A beautiful, summer-like day. The\nmeadows were frozen just enough to bear. Examined now the fleets of\nice-flakes close at hand. They are a very singular and interesting\nphenomenon, which I do not remember to have seen. I should say that\nwhen the water was frozen about as thick as pasteboard, a violent gust\nhad here and there broken it up, and while the wind and waves held it\nup on its edge, the increasing cold froze it in firmly. So it seemed,\nfor the flakes were for the most part turned one way; _i. e._ standing\non one side, you saw only their edges, on another\u2014the northeast or\nsouthwest\u2014their sides. They were for the most part of a triangular\nform, like a shoulder[_sic_]-of-mutton sail, slightly scalloped, like\nshells. They looked like a fleet of a thousand mackerel-fishers under\na press of sail careering before a smacking breeze. Sometimes the\nsun and wind had reduced them to the thinness of writing-paper, and\nthey fluttered and rustled and tinkled merrily. I skated through them\nand strewed their wrecks around. They appear to have been elevated\nexpressly to reflect the sun like mirrors, to adorn the river and\nattract the eye of the skater. Who will say that their principal end\nis not answered when they excite the admiration of the skater? Every\nhalf-mile or mile, as you skate up the river, you see these crystal\nfleets. Nature is a great imitator and loves to repeat herself. She\nwastes her wonders on the town. It impresses me as one superiority in\nher art, if art it may be called, that she does not require that man\nappreciate her, takes no steps to attract his attention.\n\n [Illustration]\n\nThe trouble is in getting on and off the ice; when you are once on you\ncan go well enough. It melts round the edges.\n\nAgain I saw to-day, half a mile off in Sudbury, a sandy spot on the top\nof a hill, where I prophesied that I should find traces of the Indians.\nWhen within a dozen rods, I distinguished the foundation of a lodge,\nand merely passing over it, I saw many fragments of the arrowhead\nstone. I have frequently distinguished these localities half a mile\n[off], gone forward, and picked up arrowheads.\n\nSaw in a warm, muddy brook in Sudbury, quite open and exposed, the\nskunk-cabbage spathes above water. The tops of the spathes were\nfrost-bitten, but the fruit [_sic_] sound. There was one partly\nexpanded. The first flower of the season; for it is a flower. I doubt\nif there is [a] month without its flower. Examined by the botany all\nits parts,\u2014the first flower I have seen. The _Ictodes f\u0153tidus_.\n\nAlso mosses, mingled red and green. The red will pass for the blossom.\n\nAs for antiquities, one of our old deserted country roads, marked only\nby the parallel fences and cellar-hole with its bricks where the last\ninhabitant died, the victim of intemperance, fifty years ago, with\nits bare and exhausted fields stretching around, suggests to me an\nantiquity greater and more remote from the America of the newspapers\nthan the tombs of Etruria. I insert the rise and fall of Rome in the\ninterval. This is the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt is important to observe not only the subject of our pure and\nunalloyed joys, but also the secret of any dissatisfaction one may\nfeel.\n\nIn society, in the best institutions of men, I remark a certain\nprecocity. When we should be growing children, we are already little\nmen. Infants as we are, we make haste to be weaned from our great\nmother\u2019s breast, and cultivate our parts by intercourse with one\nanother.\n\nI have not much faith in the method of restoring impoverished soils\nwhich relies on manuring mainly and does not add some virgin soil or\nmuck.\n\nMany a poor, sore-eyed student that I have heard of would grow faster,\nboth intellectually and physically, if, instead of sitting up so very\nlate to study, he honestly slumbered a fool\u2019s allowance.[140]\n\nI would not have every man cultivated, any more than I would have every\nacre of earth cultivated. Some must be preparing a mould by the annual\ndecay of the forests which they sustain.[141]\n\nSaw half a dozen cows let out and standing about in a retired meadow as\nin a cow-yard.\n\n\n_Feb. 14._ Consider the farmer, who is commonly regarded as the\nhealthiest man. He may be the toughest, but he is not the healthiest.\nHe has lost his elasticity; he can neither run nor jump. Health is\nthe free use and command of all our faculties, and equal development.\nHis is the health of the ox, an overworked buffalo. His joints are\nstiff. The resemblance is true even in particulars. He is cast away in\na pair of cowhide boots, and travels at an ox\u2019s pace. Indeed, in some\nplaces he puts his foot into the skin of an ox\u2019s shin. It would do\nhim good to be thoroughly shampooed to make him supple. His health is\nan insensibility to all influence. But only the healthiest man in the\nworld is sensible to the finest influence; he who is affected by more\nor less of electricity in the air.\n\nWe shall see but little way if we require to understand what we see.\nHow few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding!\nHow many greater things might he be seeing in the meanwhile!\n\nOne afternoon in the fall, November 21st, I saw Fair Haven Pond with\nits island and meadow; between the island and the shore, a strip of\nperfectly smooth water in the lee of the island; and two hawks sailing\nover it; and something more I saw which cannot easily be described,\nwhich made me say to myself that the landscape could not be improved.\nI did not see how it could be improved. Yet I do not know what these\nthings can be; I begin to see such objects only when I leave off\nunderstanding them, and afterwards remember that I did not appreciate\nthem before. But I get no further than this. How adapted these forms\nand colors to our eyes, a meadow and its islands! What are these\nthings? Yet the hawks and the ducks keep so aloof, and nature is so\nreserved! We are made to love the river and the meadow, as the wind to\nripple the water.[142]\n\nThere is a difference between eating for strength and from mere\ngluttony. The Hottentots eagerly devour the marrow of the koodoo and\nother antelopes raw, as a matter of course, and herein perchance have\nstolen a march on the cooks of Paris. The eater of meat must come to\nthis. This is better than stall-fed cattle and slaughter-house pork.\nPossibly they derive a certain wild-animal vigor therefrom which the\nmost artfully cooked meats do not furnish.[143]\n\nWe learn by the January thaw that the winter is intermittent and are\nreminded of other seasons. The back of the winter is broken.\n\n\n_Feb. 15._ Fatal is the discovery that our friend is fallible, that he\nhas prejudices. He is, then, only prejudiced in our favor. What is the\nvalue of his esteem who does not justly esteem another?\n\nAlas! Alas! when my friend begins to deal in confessions, breaks\nsilence, makes a theme of friendship (which then is always something\npast), and descends to merely human relations! As long as there is a\nspark of love remaining, cherish that alone. Only _that_ can be kindled\ninto a flame. I thought that friendship, that love was still possible\nbetween [us]. I thought that we had not withdrawn very far asunder.\nBut now that my friend rashly, thoughtlessly, profanely speaks,\n_recognizing_ the distance between us, that distance seems infinitely\nincreased.\n\nOf our friends we do not incline to speak, to complain, to others; we\nwould not disturb the foundations of confidence that may still be.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWhy should we not still continue to live with the intensity and\nrapidity of infants? Is not the world, are not the heavens, as\nunfathomed as ever? Have we exhausted any joy, any sentiment?\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe author of Festus well exclaims:\u2014\n\n \u201cCould we but think with the intensity\n We love with, we might do great things, I think.\u201d\n\n\n_Feb. 16._ Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free\nfrom King George the Fourth and continue the slaves of prejudice? What\nis it [to] be born free and equal, and not to live? What is the value\nof any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a\nfreedom to be slaves or a freedom to be free, of which we boast? We are\na nation of politicians, concerned about the outsides of freedom, the\nmeans and outmost defenses of freedom. It is our children\u2019s children\nwho may perchance be essentially free. We tax ourselves unjustly.\nThere is a part of us which is not represented. It is taxation without\nrepresentation. We quarter troops upon ourselves. In respect to virtue\nor true manhood, we are essentially provincial, not metropolitan,\u2014mere\nJonathans. We are provincial, because we do not find at home our\nstandards; because we do not worship truth but the reflection of truth;\nbecause we are absorbed in and narrowed by trade and commerce and\nagriculture, which are but means and not the end. We are essentially\nprovincial, I say, and so is the English Parliament. Mere country\nbumpkins they betray themselves, when any more important question\narises for them to settle. Their natures are subdued to what they work\nin!\n\nThe finest manners in the world are awkwardness and fatuity when\ncontrasted with a finer intelligence. They appear but as the fashions\nof past days,\u2014mere courtliness, small-clothes, and knee-buckles,\u2014have\nthe vice of getting out of date; an attitude merely. The vice of\nmanners is that they are continually deserted by the character; they\nare cast-off clothes or shells, claiming the respect of the living\ncreature. You are presented with the shells instead of the meat, and\nit is no excuse generally that, in the case of some fish, the shells\nare of more worth than the meat. The man who thrusts his manners upon\nme does as if he were to insist on introducing me to his cabinet\nof curiosities, when I wish to see himself. Manners are conscious;\ncharacter is unconscious.[144]\n\nMy neighbor does not recover from his formal bow so soon as I do from\nthe pleasure of meeting him.\n\n * * * * *\n\n_Feb. 18. Tuesday._ Ground nearly bare of snow. Pleasant day with a\nstrong south wind. Skated, though the ice was soft in spots. Saw the\nskunk-cabbage in flower. Gathered nuts and apples on the bare ground,\nstill sound and preserving their colors, red and green, many of them.\n\nYesterday the river was over the road by Hubbard\u2019s Bridge.\n\nSurveyed White Pond yesterday, February 17th.\n\nThere is little or nothing to be remembered written on the subject\nof getting an honest living. Neither the New Testament nor Poor\nRichard speaks to our condition. I cannot think of a single page which\nentertains, much less answers, the questions which I put to myself on\nthis subject. How to make the getting our living poetic! for if it is\nnot poetic, it is not life but death that we get. Is it that men are\ntoo disgusted with their experience to speak of it? or that commonly\nthey do not question the common modes? The most practically important\nof all questions, it seems to me, is how shall I get my living, and\nyet I find little or nothing said to the purpose in any book. Those\nwho are living on the interest of money inherited, or dishonestly, _i.\ne._ by false methods, acquired, are of course incompetent to answer it.\nI consider that society with all its arts, has done nothing for us in\nthis respect. One would think, from looking at literature, that this\nquestion had never disturbed a solitary individual\u2019s musings. Cold and\nhunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men\nhave adopted and advise to ward them off.[145] If it were not that I\ndesire to do something here,\u2014accomplish some work,\u2014I should certainly\nprefer to suffer and die rather than be at the pains to get a living by\nthe modes men propose.\n\nThere may be an excess even of informing light.\n\nNiepce, a Frenchman, announced that \u201cno substance can be exposed to\nthe sun\u2019s rays without undergoing a chemical change.\u201d Granite rocks\nand stone structures and statues of metal, etc., \u201care,\u201d says Robert\nHunt, \u201call alike destructively acted upon during the hours of sunshine,\nand, but for provisions of nature no less wonderful, would soon perish\nunder the delicate touch of the most subtile of the agencies of the\nuniverse.\u201d But Niepce showed, says Hunt, \u201cthat those bodies which\nunderwent this change during daylight possessed the power of restoring\nthemselves to their original conditions during the hours of night, when\nthis excitement was no longer influencing them.\u201d So, in the case of the\ndaguerreotype, \u201cthe picture which we receive to-night, unless we adopt\nsome method of securing its permanency, fades away before the morning,\nand we try to restore it in vain.\u201d (Infers) \u201cthe hours of darkness\nare as necessary to the inorganic creation as we know night and sleep\nare to the organic kingdom.\u201d Such is the influence of \u201cactinism,\u201d that\npower in the sun\u2019s rays which produces a chemical effect.[146]\n\n\n_Feb. 25._ A very windy day. A slight snow which fell last night was\nmelted at noon. A strong, gusty wind; the waves on the meadows make a\nfine show. I saw at Hubbard\u2019s Bridge that all the ice had been blown\nup-stream from the meadows, and was collected over the channel against\nthe bridge in large cakes. These were covered and intermingled with a\nremarkable quantity of the meadow\u2019s crust. There was no ice to be seen\nup-stream and no more downstream.\n\nThe meadows have been flooded for a fortnight, and this water has\nbeen frozen barely thick enough to bear once only. The old ice on the\nmeadows was covered several feet deep. I observed from the bridge, a\nfew rods off northward, what looked like an island directly over the\nchannel. It was the crust of the meadow afloat. I reached [it] with\na little risk and found it to be four rods long by one broad,\u2014the\nsurface of the meadow with cranberry vines, etc., all connected and\nin their natural position, and no ice visible but around its edges. It\nappeared to be the frozen crust (which was separated from the unfrozen\nsoil as ice is from the water beneath), buoyed up (?), perchance, by\nthe ice around its edges frozen to the stubble. Was there any pure\nice under it? Had there been any above it? Will frozen meadow float?\nHad ice which originally supported it from above melted except about\nthe edges? When the ice melts or the soil thaws, of course it falls\nto the bottom, wherever it may be. Here is another agent employed in\nthe distribution of plants. I have seen where a smooth shore which I\nfrequented for bathing was in one season strewn with these hummocks,\nbearing the button-bush with them, which have now changed the character\nof the shore. There were many rushes and lily-pad stems on the ice. Had\nthe ice formed about them as they grew, broken them off when it floated\naway, and so they were strewn about on it?\n\n\n_Feb. 26. Wednesday._ Examined the floating meadow again to-day. It\nis more than a foot thick, the under part much mixed with ice,\u2014ice\nand muck. It appeared to me that the meadow surface had been heaved by\nthe frost, and then the water had run down and under it, and finally,\nwhen the ice rose, lifted it up, wherever there was ice enough mixed\nwith it to float it. I saw large cakes of ice with other large cakes,\nthe latter as big as a table, on top of them. Probably the former rose\nwhile the latter were already floating about. The plants scattered\nabout were bulrushes and lily-pad stems.\n\nSaw five red-wings and a song sparrow (?) this afternoon.\n\n\n_Feb. 27._ Saw to-day on Pine Hill behind Mr. Joseph Merriam\u2019s house\na Norway pine, the first I have seen in Concord. Mr. Gleason pointed\nit out to me as a singular pine which he did not know the name of. It\nwas a very handsome tree, about twenty-five feet high. E. Wood thinks\nthat he has lost the surface of two acres of his meadow by the ice. Got\nfifteen cartloads out of a hummock left on another meadow. Blue-joint\nwas introduced into the first meadow where it did not grow before.\n\n * * * * *\n\nOf two men, one of whom knows nothing about a subject, and, what is\nextremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, and the other really knows\nsomething about it, but thinks that he knows all,\u2014what great advantage\nhas the latter over the former? which is the best to deal with? I do\nnot know that knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel\nand grand surprise, or a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of\nall that we had called knowledge before; an indefinite sense of the\ngrandeur and glory of the universe. It is the lighting up of the mist\nby the sun. But man cannot be said to know in any higher sense, [any\nmore] than he can look serenely and with impunity in the face of the\nsun.[147]\n\nA culture which imports much muck from the meadows and deepens\nthe soil, not that which trusts to heating manures and improved\nagricultural implements only.\n\n * * * * *\n\nHow, when a man purchases a thing, he is determined to get and get hold\nof it, using how many expletives and how long a string of synonymous\nor similar terms signifying possession, in the legal process! What\u2019s\nmine\u2019s my own. An old deed of a small piece of swamp land, which I have\nlately surveyed at the risk of being mired past recovery, says that\n\u201cthe said Spaulding his Heirs and Assigns, shall and may from this (?)\ntime, and at all times forever hereafter, by force and virtue of these\npresents, lawfully, peaceably and quietly have, hold, use, occupy,\npossess and enjoy the said swamp,\u201d etc.\n\n * * * * *\n\nMagnetic iron, being anciently found in _Magnesia_,\u2014hence _magnes_, or\nmagnet,\u2014employed by Pliny and others. Chinese appear to have discovered\nthe magnet very early, A. D. 121 and before (?); used by them to steer\nships in 419; mentioned by an Icelander, 1068; in a French poem, 1181;\nin Torf\u00e6us\u2019 History of Norway, 1266. Used by De Gama in 1427. Leading\nstone, hence loadstone.\n\nThe peroxide of hydrogen, or ozone, at first thought to be a chemical\ncuriosity merely, is found to be very generally diffused through\nnature.\n\nThe following bears on the floating ice which has risen from the bottom\nof the meadows. Robert Hunt says: \u201cWater conducts heat downward but\nvery slowly; a mass of ice will remain undissolved but a few inches\nunder water on the surface of which ether or any other inflammable\nbody is burning. If ice swam beneath the surface, the summer sun would\nscarcely have power to thaw it; and thus our lakes and seas would be\ngradually converted into solid masses.\u201d\n\nThe figures of serpents, of griffins, flying dragons, and other\nembellishments of heraldry, the eastern idea of the world on an\nelephant, that on a tortoise, and that on a serpent again, etc.,\nusually regarded as mythological in the common sense of that word,\nare thought by some to \u201cindicate a faint and shadowy knowledge of a\nprevious state of organic existence,\u201d such as geology partly reveals.\n\nThe fossil tortoise has been found in Asia large enough to support an\nelephant.\n\nAmmonites, snake-stones, or petrified snakes have been found from of\nold, often decapitated.\n\nIn the northern part of Great Britain the fossil remains of encrinites\nare called \u201cSt. Cuthbert\u2019s beads.\u201d \u201cFiction dependent on truth.\u201d\n\nWestward is heaven, or rather heavenward is the west. The way to heaven\nis from east to west round the earth. The sun leads and shows it. The\nstars, too, light it.\n\nNature and man; some prefer the one, others the other; but that is all\n_de gustibus_. It makes no odds at what well you drink, provided it be\na well-head.\n\nWalking in the woods, it may be, some afternoon, the shadow of the\nwings of a thought flits across the landscape of my mind, and I am\nreminded how little eventful are our lives. What have been all these\nwars and rumors of wars, and modern discoveries and improvements\nso-called? A mere irritation in the skin. But this shadow which is so\nsoon past, and whose substance is not detected, suggests that there\nare events of importance whose interval is to us a true historic\nperiod.[148]\n\nThe lecturer is wont to describe the Nineteenth Century, the\nAmerican [of] the last generation, in an off-hand and triumphant\nstrain, wafting him to paradise, spreading his fame by steam and\ntelegraph, recounting the number of wooden stopples he has whittled.\nBut who does not perceive that this is not a sincere or pertinent\naccount of any man\u2019s or nation\u2019s life? It is the hip-hip-hurrah\nand mutual-admiration-society style. Cars go by, and we know their\nsubstance as well as their shadow. They stop and we get into them. But\nthose sublime thoughts passing on high do not stop, and we never get\ninto them. Their conductor is not like one of us.\n\nI feel that the man who, in his conversation with me about the life\nof man in New England, lays much stress on railroads, telegraphs, and\nsuch enterprises does not go below the surface of things. He treats the\nshallow and transitory as if it were profound and enduring. In one of\nthe mind\u2019s avatars, in the interval between sleeping and waking, aye,\neven in one of the interstices of a Hindoo dynasty, perchance, such\nthings as the Nineteenth Century, with all its improvements, may come\nand go again. Nothing makes a deep and lasting impression but what is\nweighty.\n\nObey the law which reveals, and not the law revealed.\n\nI wish my neighbors were wilder.\n\nA wildness whose glance no civilization could endure.[149]\n\nHe who lives according to the highest law is in one sense lawless. That\nis an unfortunate discovery, certainly, that of a law which binds us\nwhere we did not know that we were bound. Live free, child of the mist!\nHe for whom the law is made, who does not obey the law but whom the\nlaw obeys, reclines on pillows of down and is wafted at will whither\nhe pleases, for man is superior to all laws, both of heaven and earth,\nwhen he takes his liberty.[150]\n\nWild as if we lived on the marrow of antelopes devoured raw.[151]\n\nThere would seem to be men in whose lives there have been no events of\nimportance, more than in the beetle\u2019s which crawls in our path.\n\n\n_March 19._ The ice in the pond is now soft and will not bear a heavy\nstone thrown from the bank. It is melted for a rod from the shore. The\nground has been bare of snow for some weeks, but yesterday we had a\nviolent northeast snow-storm, which has drifted worse than any the past\nwinter. The spring birds\u2014ducks and geese, etc.\u2014had come, but now the\nspring seems far off.\n\nNo good ever came of obeying a law which you had discovered.\n\n\n_March 23._ For a week past the elm buds have been swollen. The willow\ncatkins have put out. The ice still remains in Walden, though it will\nnot bear. Mather Howard saw a large meadow near his house which had\nrisen up but was prevented from floating away by the bushes.\n\n\n_March 27._ Walden is two-thirds broken up. It will probably be quite\nopen by to-morrow night.\n\n\n_March 30._ Spring is already upon us. I see the tortoises, or rather\nI hear them drop from the bank into the brooks at my approach. The\ncatkins of the alders have blossomed. The pads are springing at the\nbottom of the water. The pewee is heard, and the lark.\n\n * * * * *\n\n\u201cIt is only the squalid savages and degraded boschmen of creation that\nhave their feeble teeth and tiny stings steeped in venom, and so made\nformidable,\u201d\u2014ants, centipedes, and mosquitoes, spiders, wasps, and\nscorpions.\u2014HUGH MILLER.\n\nTo attain to a true relation to one human creature is enough to make a\nyear memorable.\n\nThe man for whom law exists\u2014the man of forms, the conservative\u2014is a\ntame man.\n\n\nCARRYING OFF SIMS\n\nA recent English writer (De Quincey),[152] endeavoring to account for\nthe atrocities of Caligula and Nero, their monstrous and anomalous\ncruelties, and the general servility and corruption which they imply,\nobserves that it is difficult to believe that \u201cthe descendants of a\npeople so severe in their habits\u201d as the Romans had been \u201ccould thus\nrapidly\u201d have degenerated and that, \u201cin reality, the citizens of Rome\nwere at this time a new race, brought together from every quarter\nof the world, but especially from Asia.\u201d A vast \u201cproportion of the\nancient citizens had been cut off by the sword,\u201d and such multitudes\nof emancipated slaves from Asia had been invested with the rights of\ncitizens \u201cthat, in a single generation, Rome became almost transmuted\ninto a baser metal.\u201d As Juvenal complained, \u201cthe Orontes ... had\nmingled its impure waters with those of the Tiber.\u201d And \u201cprobably,\nin the time of Nero, not one man in six was of pure Roman descent.\u201d\nInstead of such, says another, \u201ccame Syrians, Cappadocians, Phrygians,\nand other enfranchised slaves.\u201d \u201cThese in half a century had sunk so\nlow, that Tiberius pronounced her [Rome\u2019s][153] very senators to be\n_homines ad servitutem natos_, men born to be slaves.\u201d[154]\n\nSo one would say, in the absence of particular genealogical evidence,\nthat the vast majority of the inhabitants of the city of Boston,\neven those of senatorial dignity,\u2014the Curtises, Lunts, Woodburys,\nand others,\u2014were not descendants of the men of the Revolution,\u2014the\nHancocks, Adamses, Otises,\u2014but some \u201cSyrians, Cappadocians, and\nPhrygians,\u201d merely, _homines ad servitutem natos_, men born to be\nslaves. But I would have done with comparing ourselves with our\nancestors, for on the whole I believe that even they, if somewhat\nbraver and less corrupt than we, were not men of so much principle and\ngenerosity as to go to war in behalf of another race in their midst. I\ndo not believe that the North will soon come to blows with the South\non this question. It would be too bright a page to be written in the\nhistory of the race at present.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThere is such an officer, if not such a man, as the Governor of\nMassachusetts. What has he been about the last fortnight? He has\nprobably had as much as he could do to keep on the fence during this\nmoral earthquake. It seems to me that no such keen satire, no such\ncutting insult, could be offered to that man, as the absence of all\ninquiry after him in this crisis. It appears to [have] been forgotten\nthat there was such a man or such an office. Yet no doubt he has been\nfilling the gubernatorial chair all the while. One Mr. Boutwell,\u2014so\nnamed, perchance, because he goes about well to suit the prevailing\nwind.[155]\n\nIn \u201975 two or three hundred of the inhabitants of Concord assembled\nat one of the bridges with arms in their hands to assert the right\nof three millions to tax themselves, to have a voice in governing\nthemselves. About a week ago the authorities of Boston, having the\nsympathy of many of the inhabitants of Concord, assembled in the gray\nof the dawn, assisted by a still larger armed force, to send back a\nperfectly innocent man, and one whom they knew to be innocent, into a\nslavery as complete as the world ever knew. Of course it makes not the\nleast difference\u2014I wish you to consider this\u2014who the man was,\u2014whether\nhe was Jesus Christ or another,\u2014for inasmuch as ye did it unto the\nleast of these his brethren ye did it unto him. Do you think _he_ would\nhave stayed here in liberty and let the black man go into slavery in\nhis stead? They sent him back, I say, to live in slavery with other\nthree millions\u2014mark that\u2014whom the same slave power, or slavish power,\nNorth and South, holds in that condition,\u2014three millions who do not,\nlike the first mentioned, assert the right to govern themselves but\nsimply to run away and stay away from their prison.\n\nJust a week afterward, those inhabitants of this town who especially\nsympathize with the authorities of Boston in this their deed caused the\nbells to be rung and the cannon to be fired to celebrate the courage\nand the love of liberty of those men who assembled at the bridge. As if\n_those_ three millions had fought for the right to be free themselves,\nbut to hold in slavery three million others. Why, gentlemen, even\nconsistency, though it is much abused, is sometimes a virtue. Every\nhumane and intelligent inhabitant of Concord, when he or she heard\nthose bells and those cannon, thought not so much of the events of the\n19th of April, 1775, as of the event of the 12th of April, 1851.\n\nI wish my townsmen to consider that, whatever the human law may be,\nneither an individual nor a nation can ever deliberately commit the\nleast act of injustice without having to pay the penalty for it. A\ngovernment which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it!\u2014it\nwill become the laughing-stock of the world.\n\nMuch as has been said about American slavery, I think that commonly\nwe do not yet realize what slavery is. If I were seriously to propose\nto Congress to make mankind into sausages, I have no doubt that most\nwould smile at my proposition and, if any believed me to be in earnest,\nthey would think that I proposed something much worse than Congress had\never done. But, gentlemen, if any of you will tell me that to make a\nman into a sausage would be much worse\u2014would be any worse\u2014than to make\nhim into a slave,\u2014than it was then to enact the fugitive slave law,\u2014I\nshall here accuse him of foolishness, of intellectual incapacity, of\nmaking a distinction without a difference. The one is just as sensible\na proposition as the other.[156]\n\nWhen I read the account of the carrying back of the fugitive into\nslavery, which was read last Sunday evening, and read also what was not\nread here, that the man who made the prayer on the wharf was Daniel\nFoster of _Concord_, I could not help feeling a slight degree of\npride because, of all the towns in the Commonwealth, Concord was the\nonly one distinctly named as being represented in that new tea-party,\nand, as she had a place in the first, so would have a place in this,\nthe last and perhaps next most important chapter of the History of\nMassachusetts. But my second feeling, when I reflected how short a\ntime that gentleman has resided in this town, was one of doubt and\nshame, because the _men_ of Concord in recent times have done nothing\nto entitle them to the honor of having their town named in such a\nconnection.\n\nI hear a good deal said about trampling this law under foot. Why, one\nneed not go out of his way to do that. This law lies not at the level\nof the head or the reason. Its natural habitat is in the dirt. It was\nbred and has its life only in the dust and mire, on a level with the\nfeet; and he who walks with freedom, unless, with a sort of quibbling\nand Hindoo mercy, he avoids treading on every venomous reptile, will\ninevitably tread on it, and so trample it under foot.\n\nIt has come to this, that the friends of liberty, the friends of the\nslave, have shuddered when they have understood that his fate has been\nleft to the legal tribunals, so-called, of the country to be decided.\nThe people have no faith that justice will be awarded in such a case.\nThe judge may decide this way or that; it is a kind of accident\nat best. It is evident that he is not a competent authority in so\nimportant a case. I would not trust the life of my friend to the judges\nof all the Supreme Courts in the world put together, to be sacrificed\nor saved by precedent. I would much rather trust to the sentiment of\nthe people, which would itself be a precedent to posterity. In their\nvote you would get something worth having at any rate, but in the other\ncase only the trammelled judgment of an individual, of no significance,\nbe it which way it will.\n\nI think that recent events will be valuable as a criticism on the\nadministration of justice in our midst, or rather as revealing what\nare the true sources of justice in any community. It is to some extent\nfatal to the courts when the people are compelled to go behind the\ncourts. They learn that the courts are made for fair weather and for\nvery civil cases.[157]\n\n [Two pages missing.]\n\nlet us entertain opinions of our own;[158] let us be a town and not\na suburb, as far from Boston in this sense as we were by the old road\nwhich led through Lexington; a place where tyranny may ever be met with\nfirmness and driven back with defeat to its ships.\n\nConcord has several more bridges left of the same sort, which she is\ntaxed to maintain. Can she not raise men to defend them?\n\n * * * * *\n\nAs for measures to be adopted, among others I would advise\nabolitionists to make as earnest and vigorous and persevering an\nassault on the press, as they have already made, and with effect too,\non the church. The church has decidedly improved within a year or\ntwo, aye, even within a fortnight; but the press is, almost without\nexception, corrupt. I believe that in this country the press exerts a\ngreater and a more pernicious influence than the church. We are not a\nreligious people, but we are a nation of politicians. We do not much\ncare for, we do not read, the Bible, but we do care for and we do read\nthe newspaper. It is a bible which we read every morning and every\nafternoon, standing and sitting, riding and walking. It is a bible\nwhich every man carries in his pocket, which lies on every table and\ncounter, which the mail and thousands of missionaries are continually\ndispersing. It is the only book which America has printed, and is\ncapable of exerting an almost inconceivable influence for good or for\nbad. The editor is [a] preacher whom you voluntarily support. Your tax\nis commonly one cent, and it costs nothing for pew hire. But how many\nof these preachers preach the truth? I repeat the testimony of many\nan intelligent traveller, as well as my own convictions, when I say\nthat probably no country was ever ruled by so mean a class of tyrants\nas are the editors of the periodical press in _this_ country. Almost\nwithout exception the tone of the press is mercenary and servile. The\n_Commonwealth_, and the _Liberator_, are the only papers, as far as\nI know, which make themselves heard in condemnation of the cowardice\nand meanness of the authorities of Boston as lately exhibited. The\nother journals, almost without exception,\u2014as the _Advertiser_, the\n_Transcript_, the _Journal_, the _Times_, _Bee_, _Herald_, etc.,\u2014by\ntheir manner of referring to and speaking of the Fugitive Slave Law or\nthe carrying back of the slave, insult the common sense of the country.\nAnd they do this for the most part, because they think so to secure the\napprobation of their patrons, and also, one would think, because they\nare not aware that a sounder sentiment prevails to any extent.\n\nBut, thank fortune, this preacher can be more easily reached by the\nweapons of the reformer than could the recreant priest. The _free_ men\nof New England have only to refrain from purchasing and reading these\nsheets, have only to withhold their cents, to kill a score of them at\nonce.[159]\n\n * * * * *\n\nMahomet made his celestial journey in so short a time that \u201con his\nreturn he was able to prevent the complete overturn of a vase of water,\nwhich the angel Gabriel had struck with his wing on his departure.\u201d\n\nWhen he took refuge in a cave near Mecca, being on his flight\n(Hegira) to Medina, \u201cby the time that the Koreishites [who were close\nbehind][160] reached the mouth of the cavern, an acacia tree had sprung\nup before it, in the spreading branches of which a pigeon had made\nits nest, and laid its eggs, and over the whole a spider had woven its\nweb.\u201d\n\nHe said of himself, \u201cI am no king, but the son of a Koreishite woman,\nwho ate flesh dried in the sun.\u201d\n\nHe exacted \u201ca tithe of the productions of the earth, where it was\nfertilized by brooks and rain; and a twentieth part where its fertility\nwas the result of irrigation.\u201d\n\n\n_April 22._ Had mouse-ear in blossom for a week. Observed the crowfoot\non the Cliffs in abundance, and the saxifrage. The wind last Wednesday,\nApril 16th, blew down a hundred pines on Fair Haven Hill.\n\nHaving treated my friend ill, I wished to apologize; but, not meeting\nhim, I made an apology to myself.\n\nIt is not the invitation which I hear, but which I feel, that I obey.\n\n\n_April 26._ The judge whose words seal the fate of a man for the\nlongest time and furthest into eternity is not he who merely pronounces\nthe verdict of the law, but he, whoever he may be, who, from a love\nof truth and unprejudiced by any custom or enactment of men, utters a\ntrue opinion or _sentence_ concerning him. He it is that _sentences_\nhim.[161] More fatal, as affecting his good or ill fame, is the\nutterance of the least inexpugnable truth concerning him, by the\nhumblest individual, than the sentence of the supremest court in the\nland.\n\n * * * * *\n\nGathered the mayflower and cowslips yesterday, and saw the houstonia,\nviolets, etc. Saw a dandelion in blossom.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAre they Americans, are they New-Englanders, are they inhabitants\nof Concord,\u2014Buttricks and Davises and Hosmers by name,\u2014who read and\nsupport the Boston _Herald_, _Advertiser_, _Traveller_, _Journal_,\n_Transcript_, etc., etc., _Times_? Is that the _Flag of our Union_?\n\nCould slavery suggest a more complete servility? Is there any dust\nwhich such conduct does not lick and make fouler still with its slime?\nHas not the Boston _Herald_ acted its part well, served its master\nfaithfully? How could it have gone lower on its belly? How can a man\nstoop lower than he is low? do more than put his extremities in the\nplace of that head he has? than make his head his _lower_ extremity?\nAnd when I say the Boston _Herald_ I mean the Boston press, with such\nfew and slight exceptions as need not be made. When I have taken up\nthis paper or the Boston _Times_, with my cuffs turned up, I have\nheard the gurgling of the sewer through every column; I have felt\nthat I was handling a paper picked out of the public sewers, a leaf\nfrom the gospel of the gambling-house, the groggery, and the brothel,\nharmonizing with the gospel of the Merchants\u2019 Exchange.[162]\n\nI do not know but there are some who, if they were tied to the\nwhipping-post and could but get one hand free, would use it to ring\nthe bells and fire the cannon to celebrate their liberty. It reminded\nme of the Roman Saturnalia, on which even the slaves were allowed to\ntake some liberty. So some of you took the liberty to ring and fire.\nThat was the extent of your freedom; and when the sound of the bells\ndied away, your liberty died away also, and when the powder was all\nexpended, your liberty went off with the smoke. Nowadays men wear a\nfool\u2019s-cap and call it a liberty-cap. The joke could be no broader\nif the inmates of the prisons were to subscribe for all the powder to\nbe used in such salutes, and hire their jailors to do the firing and\nringing for them.[163]\n\n\n_April 29._ Every man, perhaps, is inclined to think his own situation\nsingular in relation to friendship. Our thoughts would imply that other\nmen _have_ friends, though we have not. But I do not know of two whom\nI can speak of as standing in this relation to one another. Each one\nmakes a standing offer to mankind, \u201cOn such and such terms I will give\nmyself to you;\u201d but it is only by a miracle that his terms are ever\naccepted.\n\nWe have to defend ourselves even against those who are nearest to\nfriendship with us.\n\nWhat a difference it is!\u2014to perform the pilgrimage of life in the\nsociety of a mate, and not to have an acquaintance among all the tribes\nof men!\n\nWhat signifies the census\u2014this periodical numbering of men\u2014to one who\nhas no friend?\n\nI distinguish between my _actual_ and my _real_ communication with\nindividuals. I _really_ communicate with my friends and congratulate\nmyself and them on our relation and rejoice in their presence and\nsociety oftenest when they are personally absent. I remember that not\nlong ago, as I laid my head on my pillow for the night, I was visited\nby an inexpressible joy that I was permitted to know and be related\nto such mortals as I was then actually related to; and yet no special\nevent that I could think of had occurred to remind me of any with\nwhom I was connected, and by the next noon, perchance, those essences\nthat had caused me joy would have receded somewhat. I experienced a\nremarkable gladness in the thought that they existed. Their existence\nwas then blessed to me. Yet such has never been my actual waking\nrelation to any.\n\nEvery one experiences that, while his relation to another actually may\nbe one of distrust and disappointment, he may still have relations to\nhim ideally and so really, in spite of both. He is faintly conscious of\na confidence and satisfaction somewhere, and all further intercourse is\nbased on this experience of success.\n\nThe very dogs and cats incline to affection in their relation to man.\nIt often happens that a man is more humanely related to a cat or dog\nthan to any human being. What bond is it relates us to any animal we\nkeep in the house but the bond of affection? In a degree we grow to\nlove one another.\n\n\n_April 30._ What is a chamber to which the sun does not rise in the\nmorning? What is a chamber to which the sun does not set at evening?\nSuch are often the chambers of the mind, for the most part.\n\nEven the cat which lies on a rug all day commences to prowl about the\nfields at night, resumes her ancient forest habits. The most tenderly\nbred grimalkin steals forth at night,\u2014watches some bird on its perch\nfor an hour in the furrow, like a gun at rest. She catches no cold;\nit is her nature. Caressed by children and cherished with a saucer of\nmilk. Even she can erect her back and expand her tail and spit at her\nenemies like the wild cat of the woods. Sweet Sylvia!\n\nWhat is the singing of birds, or any natural sound, compared with the\nvoice of one we love?\n\nTo one we love we are related as to nature in the spring. Our dreams\nare mutually intelligible. We take the census, and find that there is\none.\n\nLove is a mutual confidence whose foundations no one knows. The one I\nlove surpasses all the laws of nature in sureness. Love is capable of\nany wisdom.\n\n \u201cHe that hath love and judgment too\n Sees more than any other doe.\u201d\n\nBy our very mutual attraction, and our attraction to all other spheres,\nkept properly asunder. Two planets which are mutually attracted, being\nat the same time attracted by the sun, preserve equipoise and harmony.\n\nDoes not the history of chivalry and knight-errantry suggest or point\nto another relation to woman than leads to marriage, yet an elevating\nand all-absorbing one, perchance transcending marriage? As yet men know\nnot one another, nor does man know woman.\n\nI am sure that the design of my maker when he has brought me nearest\nto woman was not the propagation, but rather the maturation, of the\nspecies. Man is capable of a love of woman quite transcending marriage.\n\nI observe that the _New York Herald_ advertises situations wanted by\n\u201crespectable young women\u201d by the column, but never by respectable young\nmen, rather \u201cintelligent\u201d and \u201csmart\u201d ones; from which I infer that the\npublic opinion of New York does not require young men to be respectable\nin the same sense in which it requires young women to be so.\n\nMay it consist with the health of some bodies to be impure?\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nMAY, 1851\n\n(\u00c6T. 33)\n\n\n_May 1._ Observed the _Nuphar advena_, yellow water-lily, in blossom;\nalso the _Laurus Benzoin_, or fever-bush, spice-wood, near William\nWheeler\u2019s in Lincoln, resembling the witch-hazel. It is remarkable that\nthis aromatic shrub, though it grows by the roadside and does not hide\nitself, may be, as it were, effectually concealed, though it blossoms\nevery spring. It may be observed only once in many years.\n\nThe blossom-buds of the peach have expanded just enough to give a\nslight peach tint to the orchards.\n\nIn regard to purity, I do not know whether I am much worse or better\nthan my acquaintances. If I confine my thought to myself, I appear,\nwhether by constitution or by education, irrevocably impure, as if\nI should be shunned by my fellow-men if they knew me better, as if I\nwere of two inconsistent natures; but again, when I observe how the\nmass of men speak of woman and of chastity,\u2014with how little love and\nreverence,\u2014I feel that so far I am unaccountably better than they. I\nthink that none of my acquaintances has a greater love and admiration\nfor chastity than I have. Perhaps it is necessary that one should\nactually stand low himself in order to reverence what is high in\nothers.\n\nAll distant landscapes seen from hilltops are veritable pictures,\nwhich will be found to have no actual existence to him who travels\nto them. \u201c\u2019T is distance lends enchantment to the view.\u201d It is the\nbare landscape without this depth of atmosphere to glass it. The\ndistant river-reach seen in the north from the Lincoln Hill, high in\nthe horizon, like the ocean stream flowing round Homer\u2019s shield, the\nrippling waves reflecting the light, is unlike the same seen near at\nhand. Heaven intervenes between me and the object. By what license do\nI call it Concord River. It redeems the character of rivers to see them\nthus. They were worthy then of a place on Homer\u2019s shield.\n\nAs I looked to-day from Mt. Tabor in Lincoln to the Waltham hill, I\nsaw the same deceptive slope, the near hill melting into the further\ninseparably, indistinguishably; it was one gradual slope from the\nbase of the near hill to the summit of the further one, a succession\nof copse-woods, but I knew that there intervened a valley two or\nthree miles wide, studded with houses and orchards and drained by a\nconsiderable stream. When the shadow of a cloud passed over the nearer\nhill, I could distinguish its shaded summit against the side of the\nother.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI had in my mind\u2019s eye a silent gray tarn which I had seen the summer\nbefore high up on the side of a mountain, Bald Mountain, where the\nhalf-dead spruce trees stood far in the water draped with wreathy mist\nas with usnea moss, made of dews, where the mountain spirit bathed;\nwhose bottom was high above the surface of other lakes. Spruces whose\ndead limbs were more in harmony with the mists which draped them.\n\nThe forenoon that I moved to my house, a poor old lame fellow who had\nformerly frozen his feet hobbled off the road, came and stood before my\ndoor with one hand on each door-post, looking into the house, and asked\nfor a drink of water. I knew that rum or something like it was the only\ndrink he loved, but I gave him a dish of warm pond water, which was all\nI had, nevertheless, which to my astonishment he drank, being used to\ndrinking.\n\nNations! What are nations? Tartars! and Huns! and Chinamen! Like\ninsects they swarm. The historian strives in vain to make them\nmemorable. It is for want of a man that there are so many men. It is\nindividuals that populate the world.\n\n\nTHE SPIRIT OF LODIN\n\n \u201cI look down from my height on nations,\n And they become ashes before me;\n Calm is my dwelling in the clouds;\n Pleasant are the great fields of my rest.\u201d[164]\n\nMan is as singular as God.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThere is a certain class of unbelievers who sometimes ask me such\nquestions as, if I think that I can live on vegetable food alone; and\nto strike at the root of the matter at once, I am accustomed to answer\nsuch, \u201cYes, I can live on board nails.\u201d If they cannot understand that,\nthey cannot understand much that I have to say. That cuts the matter\nshort with them. For my own part, I am glad to hear of experiments of\nthis kind being tried; as that a young man tried for a fortnight to see\nif he could live on hard, raw corn on the ear, using his tooth for his\nonly mortar. The squirrel tribe tried the same and succeeded. The human\nrace is interested in these experiments, though a few old women may be\nalarmed, who own their thirds in mills.[165]\n\n * * * * *\n\nKhaled would have his weary soldiers vigilant still; apprehending a\nmidnight sally from the enemy, \u201cLet no man sleep,\u201d said he. \u201cWe shall\nhave rest enough after death.\u201d Would such an exhortation be understood\nby Yankee soldiers?\n\n * * * * *\n\nOmar answered the dying Abu Beker: \u201cO successor to the apostle of God!\nspare me from this burden. I have no need of the Caliphat.\u201d \u201cBut the\nCaliphat has need of you!\u201d replied the dying Abu Beker.\n\n * * * * *\n\n\u201cHeraclius had heard of the mean attire of the Caliph Omar, and asked\nwhy, having gained so much wealth by his conquests, he did not go\nrichly clad like other princes? They replied, that he cared not for\nthis world, but for the world to come, and sought favor in the eyes\nof God alone. \u2018In what kind of a palace does he reside?\u2019 asked the\nemperor. \u2018In a house built of mud.\u2019 \u2018Who are his attendants?\u2019 \u2018Beggars\nand the poor.\u2019 \u2018What tapestry does he sit upon?\u2019 \u2018Justice and equity.\u2019\n\u2018What is his throne?\u2019 \u2018Abstinence and true knowledge.\u2019 \u2018What is his\ntreasure?\u2019 \u2018Trust in God.\u2019 \u2018And who are his guard?\u2019 \u2018The bravest of the\nUnitarians.\u2019\u201d\n\nIt was the custom of Ziyad, once governor of Bassora, \u201cwherever he held\nsway, to order the inhabitants to leave their doors open at night, with\nmerely a hurdle at the entrance to exclude cattle, engaging to replace\nany thing that should be stolen: and so effective was his police, that\nno robberies were committed.\u201d\n\nAbdallah was \u201cso fixed and immovable in prayer, that a pigeon once\nperched upon his head mistaking him for a statue.\u201d\n\n\n_May 6. Monday._ The Harivansa describes a \u201csubstance called\n_Poroucha_, a spiritual substance known also under the name of Mahat,\nspirit united to the five elements, soul of being, now enclosing\nitself in a body like ours, now returning to the eternal body; it is\nmysterious wisdom, the perpetual sacrifice made by the virtue of the\n_Yoga_, the fire which animates animals, shines in the sun, and is\nmingled with all bodies. Its nature is to be born and to die, to pass\nfrom repose to movement. The spirit led astray by the senses, in the\nmidst of the creation of Brahma, engages itself in works and knows\nbirth, as well as death. The organs of the senses are its paths, and\nits work manifests itself in this creation of Brahma. Thought tormented\nby desires, is like the sea agitated by the wind. Brahma has said: the\nheart filled with strange affections is to be here below purified by\nwisdom. Here below even, clothed already as it were in a luminous form,\nlet the spirit, though clogged by the bonds of the body, prepare for\nitself an abode sure and permanent.\n\n\u201cHe who would obtain final emancipation must abstain from every\nexterior action. The operation which conducts the pious and penitent\nBrahman to the knowledge of the truth, is all interior, intellectual,\nmental. They are not ordinary practices which can bring light into the\nsoul.\n\n\u201cThe Mouni who desires his final emancipation will have care evening\nand morning to subdue his senses, to fix his mind on the divine\nessence, and to transport himself by the force of his soul to the\neternal abode of Vichnou. Although he may have engaged in works, he\ndoes not wear the clog of them, because his soul is not attached to\nthem. A being returns to life in consequence of the affection which he\nhas borne for terrestrial things: he finds himself emancipated, when he\nhas felt only indifference for them.\n\n\u201cThe Richis mingle with nature, which remains strange to their senses.\nLuminous and brilliant they cover themselves with a humid vapor, under\nwhich they seem no more to exist, although existing always, like the\nthread which is lost and confounded in the woof.\n\n\u201cFree in this world, as the birds in the air, disengaged from every\nkind of chain.\n\n\u201cThus the Yogin, absorbed in contemplation, contributes for his part\nto creation: he breathes a divine perfume, he hears wonderful things.\nDivine forms traverse him without tearing him, and united to the\nnature which is proper to him, he goes, he acts, as animating original\nmatter.\u201d\n\nLike some other preachers, I have added my texts\u2014derived from the\nChinese and Hindoo scriptures\u2014long after my discourse was written.\n\n * * * * *\n\nA commentary on the Sankhya Karika says, \u201cBy external knowledge worldly\ndistinction is acquired; by internal knowledge, liberation.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe Sankhya Karika says, \u201cBy attainment of perfect knowledge, virtue\nand the rest become causeless; yet soul remains awhile invested with\nbody, as the potter\u2019s wheel continues whirling from the effect of the\nimpulse previously given to it.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nI rejoice that horses and steers have to [be] _broken_ before they can\nbe made the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats\nstill left to sow before they become submissive members of society.\nUndoubtedly all men are not equally fit subjects for civilization,\nand because the majority, like dogs and sheep, are tame by inherited\ndisposition, is no reason why the others should have their natures\nbroken, that they may be reduced to the same level. Men are in the\nmain alike, but they were made several in order that [they] might\nbe various. If a low use is to be served, one man will do nearly or\nquite as well as another; if a high one, individual excellence is to\nbe regarded. Any man can stop a hole to keep the wind away, but no\nother man can serve that use which the author of this illustration did.\nConfucius says, \u201cThe skins of the tiger and the leopard when they are\ntanned, are as the skins of the dog and the sheep tanned.\u201d But it is\nnot the part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to\nmake sheep ferocious. It is evident, then, that tanning their skins for\nshoes and the like is not the best use to which they can be put.[166]\n\n * * * * *\n\nHow important is a constant intercourse with nature and the\ncontemplation of natural phenomena to the preservation of moral and\nintellectual health! The discipline of the schools or of business can\nnever impart such serenity to the mind. The philosopher contemplates\nhuman affairs as calmly and from as great a remoteness as he does\nnatural phenomena. The ethical philosopher needs the discipline of\nthe natural philosopher. He approaches the study of mankind with great\nadvantages who is accustomed to the study of nature.\n\nThe Brahman Saradwata, says the Dharma Sacontala, was at first\nconfounded on entering the city, \u201cbut now,\u201d says he, \u201cI look on it as\nthe freeman on the captive, as a man just bathed in pure water on a man\nsmeared with oil and dust.\u201d\n\n\n_May 10._ Heard the snipe over the meadows this evening.\n\n\n_May 12._ Heard the golden robin and the bobolink.\n\nBut where she has her seat,\u2014whether in Westford or in Boxboro,\u2014not\neven the assessors know. Inquire perchance of that dusky family on\nthe cross-road, which is said to have Indian blood in their veins.\nOr perchance where this old cellar-hole now grassed over is faintly\nvisible, Nature once had her dwelling. Ask the crazy old woman who\nbrings huckleberries to the village, but who lives nobody knows where.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIf I have got false teeth, I trust that I have not got a false\nconscience. It is safer to employ the dentist than the priest to repair\nthe deficiencies of nature.\n\nBy taking the ether the other day I was convinced how far asunder a man\ncould be separated from his senses. You are told that it will make you\nunconscious, but no one can imagine what it is to be unconscious\u2014how\nfar removed from the state of consciousness and all that we call \u201cthis\nworld\u201d\u2014until he has experienced it. The value of the experiment is\nthat it does give you experience of an interval as between one life and\nanother,\u2014a greater space than you ever travelled. You are a sane mind\nwithout organs,\u2014groping for organs,\u2014which if it did not soon recover\nits old senses would get new ones. You expand like a seed in the\nground. You exist in your roots, like a tree in the winter. If you have\nan inclination to travel, take the ether; you go beyond the furthest\nstar.\n\nIt is not necessary for them to take ether, who in their sane and\nwaking hours are ever translated by a thought; nor for them to see with\ntheir hindheads, who sometimes see from their foreheads; nor listen to\nthe spiritual knockings, who attend to the intimations of reason and\nconscience.\n\n\n_May 16._ Heard the whip-poor-will this evening. A splendid full moon\nto-night. Walked from 6.30 to 10 P. M. Lay on a rock near a meadow,\nwhich had absorbed and retained much heat, so that I could warm my back\non it, it being a cold night. I found that the side of the sand-hill\nwas cold on the surface, but warm two or three inches beneath.[167]\n\nIf there is a more splendid moonlight than usual, only the belated\ntraveller observes it. When I am outside, on the outskirts of the town,\nenjoying the still majesty of the moon, I am wont to think that all men\nare aware of this miracle, that they too are silently worshipping this\nmanifestation of divinity elsewhere. But when I go into the house I\nam undeceived; they are absorbed in checkers or chess or novel, though\nthey may have been advertised of the brightness through the shutters.\n\nIn the moonlight night what intervals are created! The rising moon is\nrelated to the near pine tree which rises above the forest, and we get\na juster notion of distance. The moon is only somewhat further off and\non one side. There may be only three objects,\u2014myself, a pine tree, and\nthe moon, nearly equidistant.\n\nTalk of demonstrating the rotation of the earth on its axis,\u2014see the\nmoon rise, or the sun!\n\nThe moonlight reveals the beauty of trees. By day it is so light and in\nthis climate so _cold_ commonly, that we do not perceive their shade.\nWe do not know when we are beneath them.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAccording to Michaux, the canoe birch (_Betula papyracea_) ceases\nbelow the forty-third degree of latitude. Sections of the wood from\njust below the first ramification are used to inlay mahogany, in these\nparts. It is brought from Maine for fuel.\n\nCommon white birch (_B. populifolia_) not found south of Virginia.\nIts epidermis incapable of being divided like the canoe birch and the\nEuropean white.\n\nThe common alder (_Alnus serrulata_) blooms in January.\n\nThe locust (_Robinia Pseudacacia_) was one of the earliest trees\nintroduced into Europe from America (by one Robin, about 1601); now\nextensively propagated in England, France, and Germany. Used for\ntrunnels to the exclusion of all others in the Middle and Southern\nStates. Instead of decaying, acquire hardness with time.\n\n\n_May 18. Sunday._ Lady\u2019s-slipper almost fully blossomed. The log of\na canoe birch on Fair Haven, cut down the last winter, more than a\nfoot in diameter at the stump; one foot in diameter at ten feet from\nthe ground. I observed that all parts of the epidermis exposed to the\nair and light were white, but the inner surfaces, freshly exposed,\nwere a buff or salmon-color. Sinclair says that in winter it is white\nthroughout. But this was cut before the sap flowed??! Was there any\nsap in the log? I counted about fifty rings. The shrub oaks are now\nblossoming. The scarlet tanagers are come. The oak leaves of all colors\nare just expanding, and are more beautiful than most flowers. The\nhickory buds are almost leaves. The landscape has a new life and light\ninfused into it. The deciduous trees are springing, to countenance\nthe pines, which are evergreen. It seems to take but one summer day\nto fetch the summer in. The turning-point between winter and summer\nis reached. The birds are in full blast. There is a peculiar freshness\nabout the landscape; you scent the fragrance of new leaves, of hickory\nand sassafras, etc. And to the eye the forest presents the tenderest\ngreen. The blooming of the apple trees is becoming general.\n\nI think that I have made out two kinds of poplar,\u2014the _Populus\ntremuloides_, or American aspen, and the _P. grandidentata_, or large\nAmerican aspen, whose young leaves are downy.\n\n * * * * *\n\nMichaux says that the locust begins to convert its sap into perfect\nwood from the third year; which is not done by the oak, the chestnut,\nthe beech, and the elm till after the tenth or the fifteenth year.\n\nHe quotes the saying, \u201cThe foot of the owner is the best manure for\nhis land.\u201d \u201cHe\u201d is Augustus L. Hillhouse, who writes the account of the\nolive at the request of Michaux.\n\nThe elder Michaux found the balsam poplar (_P. balsamifera_) very\nabundant on Lake St. John and the Saguenay River, where it is eighty\nfeet high and three feet in diameter. This, however, is distinct\nfrom the _P. candicans_, heart-leaved balsam poplar, which M. finds\nhereabouts, though never in the woods, and does not know where it came\nfrom.\n\nHe praises the Lombardy poplar because, its limbs being compressed\nabout the trunk, it does not interfere with the walls of a house nor\nobstruct the windows.\n\nNo wood equal to our black ash for oars, so pliant and elastic\nand strong, second only to hickory for handspikes; used also for\nchair-bottoms and riddles.\n\nThe French call the nettle-tree _bois inconnu_.\n\nOur white elm (_Ulmus Americana_) \u201cthe most magnificent vegetable of\nthe temperate zone.\u201d\n\nThe _Pinus mitis_, yellow pine, or spruce pine, or short-leaved pine. A\ntwo-leaved pine widely diffused, but not found northward beyond certain\ndistricts of Connecticut and Massachusetts. In New Jersey fifty or\nsixty feet high and fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter. Sometimes\nthree leaves on fresh shoots; smallest of pine cones; seeds cast first\nyear. Very excellent wood for houses, masts, decks, yards, beams, and\ncabins, next in durability to the long-leaved pine. Called at Liverpool\nNew York pine. Its regular branches make it to be called spruce pine\nsometimes.\n\n_Pinus australis_, or long-leaved pine, an invaluable tree, called\nyellow pine, pitch pine, and broom pine where it grows; in the North,\nSouthern pine and red pine; in England, Georgia pitch pine. First\nappears at Norfolk, Virginia; thence stretches six hundred miles\nsouthwest. Sixty or seventy feet high, by fifteen to eighteen inches;\nleaves a foot long, three in a sheath; negroes use them for brooms.\nBeing stronger, more compact and durable, because the resin is equally\ndistributed, and also fine-grained and susceptible of a bright polish,\nit is preferred to every other pine. In naval architecture, most\nesteemed of all pines,\u2014keels, beams, side-planks, trunnels, etc. For\ndecks preferred to yellow pine,\u2014and flooring houses. Sold for more\nat Liverpool than any other pine. Moreover it supplies nearly all the\nresinous matter used and exported. Others which contain much pitch are\nmore dispersed. At present (1819) this business is confined to North\nCarolina.\n\nM. says the branches of resinous trees consist almost wholly of\n_wood_, of which the organization is even more perfect than in the\nbody of the tree. They use dead wood for the tar, etc., in which it has\naccumulated.\n\nSays the vicinity of Brunswick, Me., and Burlington, Vt., are the most\nnortherly limits of the pitch pine or _P. rigida_. (I saw what I should\nhave called a pitch pine at Montmorency.)\n\nWhite pine (_P. Strobus_) most abundant between forty-third and\nforty-seventh degrees, one hundred and eighty feet by seven and\neight twelfths the largest. \u201cThe loftiest and most valuable\u201d of the\nproductions of the New Hampshire forest.\n\nThe black spruce is called _\u00e9pinette noire_ and _\u00e9pinette \u00e0 la bi\u00e8re_\nin Canada. From its strength best substitute for oak and larch. Used\nhere for rafters and preferred to hemlock; tougher than white pine, but\nmore liable to crack.\n\nThe white spruce (_Abies alba_) called _\u00e9pinette blanche_ in Canada.\nNot so large as the last and wood inferior.\n\nHemlock spruce (_Abies Canadensis_) called _p\u00e9russe_ in Canada. In\nMaine, Vermont, and upper New Hampshire, three fourths of the evergreen\nwoods, the rest being black spruce. Belongs to cold regions; begins\nto appear about Hudson\u2019s Bay. Its fibre makes the circuit of stocks\nfifteen or twenty inches in diameter in ascending five or six feet.\nOld trees have their circles separated, and the boards are _shaky_.\nDecays rapidly when exposed to the air. It is firmer, though coarser,\nthan the white pine; affords tighter hold to nails. Used in Maine for\nthreshing-floors, resisting indentation. Most common use sheathing of\nhouses, to be covered with clapboards. Used for laths.\n\nWhite cedar (_Cupressus thyoides_). \u201cThe perfect wood resists the\nsuccession of dryness and moisture longer than that of any other\nspecies;\u201d hence for shingles.\n\nLarch (_Larix Americana_); in Canada _\u00e9pinette rouge_; _tamarack_ by\nthe Dutch. Male aments appear before the leaves. Wood superior to any\npine or spruce in strength and durability. Used in Maine for knees.\n\nCedar of Lebanon (_Larix cedrus_) largest and most majestic of resinous\ntrees of the Old World and one of the finest vegetable productions of\nthe globe.\n\nCedar Island in Lake Champlain northern limit of red cedar (_Juniperus\nVirginiana_). Eastward, not beyond Wiscasset. Seeds mature at beginning\nof fall and _sown at once_; shoot next spring. Gin made from them.\n\nArbor-vit\u00e6 (_Thuya occidentalis_), the only species of _Thuya_ in the\nNew World. Lake St. John in Canada its northern limit; abounds between\n48\u00b0 50\u00b4 and 45\u00b0. The posts last thirty-five or forty years, and the\nrails sixty, or three or four times as long as those of any other\nspecies. In northern New England States the best for fences; last\nlonger in clay than sand.\n\nThe superiority of mahogany in the fineness of its grain and its\nhardness, which make it susceptible of a brilliant polish. Native trees\nin Northern States used in cabinet making are black, yellow, and canoe\nbirches, red-flowering curled maple, bird\u2019s-eye maple, wild cherry, and\nsumach.\n\nThe circle[s] of peck and other measures made at Hingham of black, red,\nor gray oak are \u201calways of a dull blue color, produced by the gallic\nacid of the wood acting upon the iron vessel in which it is boiled.\u201d\n\nWhite ash used for sieve rims, rake heads and handles, scythe handles,\npulleys, etc. Rake teeth of the mockernut hickory.\n\nIn New York and Philadelphia \u201cthe price [of wood for fuel][168] nearly\nequals and sometimes exceeds that of the best wood in Paris, though\nthis immense capital annually requires more than 300,000 cords, and is\nsurrounded to the distance of 300 miles by cultivated plains.\u201d Said in\nbook of 1819.\n\n\n_May 19._ Found the _Arum triphyllum_ and the nodding trillium, or\nwake-robin, in Conant\u2019s Swamp. An ash also in bloom there, and the\nsassafras quite striking. Also the fringed polygala by Conantum wood.\n\n * * * * *\n\nSinclair says the hornbeam is called \u201cswamp beech\u201d in Vermont.\n\n\n_May 20. Tuesday._ There is, no doubt, a perfect analogy between the\nlife of the human being and that of the vegetable, both of the body and\nthe mind. The botanist Gray says:\u2014\n\n\u201cThe organs of plants are of two sorts:\u20141. Those of _Vegetation_,\nwhich are concerned in growth,\u2014by which the plant takes in the a\u00ebrial\nand earthy matters on which it lives, and elaborates them into the\nmaterials of its own organized substance; 2. Those of _Fructification_\nor _Reproduction_, which are concerned with the propagation of the\nspecies.\u201d\n\nSo is it with the human being. I am concerned first to come to my\n_Growth_, intellectually and morally (and physically, of course, as\na means to this, for the body is the symbol of the soul), and then to\nbear my _Fruit_, do my _Work_, _propagate_ my kind, not only physically\nbut _morally_, not only in body but in mind.\n\n\u201cThe organs of vegetation are the _Root_, _Stem_, and _Leaves_. The\n_Stem_ is the axis and original basis of the plant.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe first point of the stem pre\u00ebxists in the embryo (_i. e._ in the\nrudimentary plantlet contained within the seed): it is here called the\nradicle.\u201d Such is the rudiment of mind, already partially developed,\nmore than a bud, but pale, having never been exposed to the light, and\nslumbering coiled up, packed away in the seed, unfolded [_sic_].\n\nConsider the still pale, rudimentary, infantine, radicle-like thoughts\nof some students, which who knows what they might expand to, if they\nshould ever come to the light and air, if they do not become rancid and\nperish in the seed. It is not every seed that will survive a thousand\nyears. Other thoughts further developed, but yet pale and languid, like\nshoots grown in a cellar.\n\n\u201cThe plant ... develops from the first in two opposite directions,\n_viz._ upwards [to expand in the light and air] to produce and continue\nthe stem (or _ascending axis_), and downwards [avoiding the light][169]\nto form the root (or _descending_ axis). The former is ordinarily or in\ngreat part a\u00ebrial, the latter subterranean.\u201d\n\nSo the mind develops from the first in two opposite directions: upwards\nto expand in the light and air; and downwards avoiding the light to\nform the root. One half is a\u00ebrial, the other subterranean. The mind\nis not well balanced and firmly planted, like the oak, which has not\nas much root as branch, whose roots like those of the white pine are\nslight and near the surface. One half of the mind\u2019s development must\nstill be root,\u2014in the embryonic state, in the womb of nature, more\nunborn than at first. For each successive new idea or bud, a new\nrootlet in the earth. The growing man penetrates yet deeper by his\nroots into the womb of things. The infant is comparatively near the\nsurface, just covered from the light; but the man sends down a tap-root\nto the centre of things.\n\nThe mere logician, the mere reasoner, who weaves his arguments as\na tree its branches in the sky,\u2014nothing equally developed in the\nroots,\u2014is overthrown by the first wind.\n\nAs with the roots of the plant, so with the roots of the mind, the\nbranches and branchlets of the root \u201care mere repetitions for the\npurpose of multiplying the absorbing points, which are chiefly the\ngrowing or newly formed extremities, sometimes termed _spongelets_. It\nbears no other organs.\u201d\n\nSo this organ of the mind\u2019s development, the _Root_, bears no organs\nbut spongelets or absorbing points.\n\nAnnuals, which perish root and all the first season, especially have\nslender and thread-like fibrous roots. But biennials are particularly\ncharacterized by distended, fleshy roots containing starch, a stock\nfor future growth, to be consumed during their second or flowering\nseason,\u2014as carrots, radishes, turnips. Perennials frequently have\nmany thickened roots clustered together, tuberous or palmate roots,\nfasciculated or clustered as in the dahlia, p\u00e6ony, etc.\n\nRoots may spring from any part of the stem under favorable\ncircumstances; \u201cthat is to say in darkness and moisture, as when\ncovered by the soil or resting on its surface.\u201d\n\nThat is, the most clear and ethereal ideas (Ant\u00e6us-like) readily ally\nthemselves to the earth, to the primal womb of things. They put forth\nroots as soon as branches; they are eager to be _soiled_. No thought\nsoars so high that it sunders these apron-strings of its mother.\nThe thought that comes to light, that pierces the empyrean on the\nother side, is wombed and rooted in darkness, a moist and fertile\ndarkness,\u2014its roots in Hades like the tree of life. No idea is so\nsoaring but it will readily put forth roots. Wherever there is an\nair-and-light-seeking bud about to expand, it may become in the earth\na darkness-seeking root. Even swallows and birds-of-paradise _can_ walk\non the ground. To quote the sentence from Gray entire: \u201cRoots not only\nspring from the root-end of the primary stem in germination, but also\nfrom any subsequent part of the stem under favorable circumstances,\nthat is to say, in darkness and moisture, as when covered by the soil\nor resting on its surface.\u201d\n\nNo thought but is connected as strictly as a flower, with the\nearth. The mind flashes not so far on one side but its rootlets, its\nspongelets, find their way instantly on the other side into a moist\ndarkness, uterine,\u2014a low bottom in the heavens, even miasma-exhaling to\nsuch immigrants as are not acclimated. A cloud is uplifted to sustain\nits roots. Imbosomed in clouds as in a chariot, the mind drives through\nthe boundless fields of space. Even there is the dwelling of Indra.\n\nI might here quote the following, with the last\u2014of roots: \u201cThey may\neven strike in the open air and light, as is seen in the copious a\u00ebrial\nrootlets by which the Ivy, the Poison Ivy, and the Trumpet Creeper\nclimb and adhere to the trunks of trees or other bodies; and also in\nEpiphytes or Air-plants, of most warm regions, which have no connection\nwhatever with the soil, but germinate and grow high in air on the\ntrunks or branches of trees, etc.; as well as in some terrestrial\nplants, such as the Banian and Mangrove, that send off a\u00ebrial roots\nfrom their trunks or branches, which finally reach the ground.\u201d\n\nSo, if our light-and-air-seeking tendencies extend too widely for our\noriginal root or stem, we must send downward new roots to ally us to\nthe earth.\n\nAlso there are parasitic plants which have their roots in the branches\nor roots of other trees, as the mistletoe, the beech-drops, etc. There\nare minds which so have their roots in other minds as in the womb of\nnature,\u2014if, indeed, most are not such?!\n\n\n_May 21. Wednesday._ Yesterday I made out the black and the white\nashes. A double male white ash in Miles\u2019s Swamp, and two black ashes\nwith sessile leaflets. A female white ash near railroad, in Stow\u2019s\nland. The white ashes by Mr. Pritchard\u2019s have no blossoms, at least as\nyet.\n\nIf I am right, the _black_ ash is improperly so called, from the color\nof its bark being lighter than the white. Though it answers to the\ndescription in other respects, even to the elder-like odor of the\nleaves, I should like still to see a description of the yellow ash\nwhich grows in made [_sic_].\n\nThe day before yesterday I found the male sassafras in abundance but no\nfemale.\n\nThe leaves of my new pine on Merriam\u2019s or Pine Hill are of intermediate\nlength between those of the yellow pine and the Norway pine. I can\nfind no cone to distinguish the tree by; but, as the leaves are\n_semicylindrical_ and not _hollowed_ I think it must be the red\nor Norway Pine, though it does not look very red, and is _spruce_!\nanswering perhaps to the description of the yellow pine, which is\nsometimes called spruce pine.\n\nTo-day examined the flowers of the _Nemopanthes Canadensis_,\u2014a genus of\na single species, says Emerson. It bears the beautiful crimson velvety\nberry of the swamps, and is what I have heard called the cornel. Common\nname wild holly.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI have heard now within a few days that peculiar dreaming sound of the\nfrogs[170] which belongs to the summer,\u2014their midsummer night\u2019s dream.\n\nOnly that thought and that expression are good which are musical.\n\nI think that we are not commonly aware that man is our\ncontemporary,\u2014that in this strange, outlandish world, so barren, so\nprosaic, fit not to live in but merely to pass through, that even here\nso divine a creature as man does actually live. Man, the crowning fact,\nthe god we know. While the earth supports so rare an inhabitant, there\nis somewhat to cheer us. Who shall say that there is no God, if there\nis a _just_ man. It is only within a year that it has occurred to me\nthat there is such a being actually existing on the globe. Now that I\nperceive that it is so, many questions assume a new aspect. We have not\nonly the idea and vision of the divine ourselves, but we have brothers,\nit seems, who have this idea also. Methinks my neighbor is better than\nI, and his thought is better than mine. There is a representative of\nthe divinity on earth, of [whom] all things fair and noble are to\nbe expected. We have the material of heaven here. I think that the\nstanding miracle to man is man. Behind the paling yonder, come rain\nor shine, hope or doubt, there dwells a man, an actual being who can\nsympathize with our sublimest thoughts.\n\nThe revelations of nature are infinitely glorious and cheering, hinting\nto us of a remote future, of possibilities untold; but startlingly near\nto us some day we find a fellow-man.\n\nThe frog had eyed the heavens from his marsh, until his mind was filled\nwith visions, and he saw more than belongs to this fenny earth. He\nmistrusted that he was become a dreamer and visionary. Leaping across\nthe swamp to his fellow, what was his joy and consolation to find that\nhe too had seen the same sights in the heavens, he too had dreamed the\nsame dreams!\n\nFrom nature we turn astonished to this _near_ but supernatural fact.\n\nI think that the existence of man in nature is the divinest and most\nstartling of all facts. It is a fact which few have realized.\n\nI can go to my neighbors and meet on ground as elevated as we could\nexpect to meet upon if we were now in heaven.\n\n \u201cAnd we live,\n We of this mortal mixture, in the same law\n As the pure colorless intelligence\n Which dwells in Heaven, and the dead Hadean shades.\u201d\n\nI do not think that man can understand the _importance_ of man\u2019s\nexistence, its bearing on the other phenomena of life, until it shall\nbecome a remembrance to him the survivor that such a being or such a\nrace once existed on the earth. Imagine yourself alone in the world,\na musing, wondering, reflecting spirit, _lost_ in thought, and imagine\nthereafter the creation of man!\u2014man made in the image of God!\n\nLooking into a book on dentistry the other day, I observed a list of\nauthors who had written on this subject. There were Ran and Tan and\nYungerman, and I was impressed by the fact that there was nothing in\na name. It was as if they had been named by the child\u2019s rigmarole of\n_Iery [wiery] ichery van, tittle-tol-tan_, etc. I saw in my mind a herd\nof wild creatures swarming over the earth, and to each one its own\nherdsman had affixed some barbarous name, or sound, or syllables, in\nhis own dialect,\u2014so in a thousand languages. Their names were seen to\nbe as meaningless exactly as Bose or Tray, the names of dogs.[171] Men\nget named no better.\n\nWe seem to be distinct ourselves, never repeated, and yet we bear\nno names which express a proportionate distinctness; they are quite\naccidental. Take away their names, and you leave men a wild herd,\ndistinguished only by their individual qualities. It is as if you were\nto give names in the Caffre dialect to the individuals in a herd of\nspring-boks or gnus.\n\nWe have but few patronymics, but few Christian names, in proportion\nto the number of us. Is it that men ceased to be original when genuine\nand original names ceased to be given. Have we not enough character to\nestablish a new patronymic.\n\nMethinks it would be some advantage to philosophy if men were _named_\nmerely in the gross, as they are known. It would only be necessary to\nknow the genus and, perchance, the species and variety, to know the\nindividual.\n\nI will not allow _mere names_ to make distinctions for me, but still\nsee men in herds for all _them_. A familiar name cannot make a man less\nstrange to me. It may be given to a savage who retains in secret his\nown wild title earned in the woods. I see that the neighbor who wears\nthe familiar epithet of William or Edwin takes it off with his jacket.\nIt does not adhere to him when asleep or when in anger, or aroused by\nany passion or inspiration. I seem to hear pronounced by some of his\nkin at such a time his original wild name in some jaw-breaking or else\nmelodious tongue. As the names of the Poles and Russians are to us, so\nare ours to them.\n\nOur names are as cheap as the names given to dogs. We know what are\ndogs\u2019 names; we know what are men\u2019s names. Sometimes it would be\nsignificant and truer, it would lead to generalization, it would avoid\nexaggeration, to say, \u201c_There was a man_ who said or did\u2014,\u201d instead of\ndesignating him by some familiar, but perchance delusive, name.\n\nWe hardly believe that every private soldier in a Roman army had a name\nof his own.[172]\n\nIt is interesting to see how the names of famous men are repeated,\u2014even\nof great poets and philosophers. The poet is not known to-day even by\nhis neighbors to be more than a common man. He is perchance the butt\nof many. The proud farmer looks down [on] and boorishly ignores him,\nor regards him as a loafer who treads down his grass, but perchance\nin course of time the poet will have so succeeded that some of the\nfarmer\u2019s posterity, though equally boorish with their ancestor, will\nbear the poet\u2019s name. The boor names his boy Homer, and so succumbs\nunknowingly to the bard\u2019s victorious fame. Anything so fine as poetic\ngenius he cannot more directly recognize. The unpoetic farmer names his\nchild Homer.\n\nYou have a wild savage in you, and a savage name is perchance somewhere\nrecorded as yours.[173]\n\n\n_May 23. Friday._ And wilder still there grows elsewhere, I hear,\na native and aboriginal crab-apple, _Malus_ (as Michaux, or, as\nEmerson has it, _Pyrus_) _coronaria_ in Southern States, and also\n_angustifolia_ in the Middle States; whose young leaves \u201chave a\nbitter and slightly aromatic taste\u201d (Michaux), whose beautiful flowers\nperfume the air to a great distance. \u201cThe apples ... are small, green,\nintensely acid, and very odoriferous. Some farmers make cider of them,\nwhich is said to be excellent: they make very fine sweet-meats also,\nby the addition of a large quantity of sugar\u201d (Michaux). Celebrated\nfor \u201cthe beauty of its flowers, and for the sweetness of its perfume\u201d\n(Michaux).[174]\n\nMichaux says that the wild apple of Europe has yielded to cultivation\nnearly three hundred species in France alone. Emerson says, referring\nto Loudon, \u201cIn 1836, the catalogue and the gardens of the London\nHorticultural Society contained upwards of 1400 distinct sorts, and new\nones are every year added.\u201d\n\nBut here are species which they have not in their catalogue, not to\nmention the varieties which the crab might yield to cultivation.[175]\n\nThis genus, so kind to the human race, the _Malus_ or _Pyrus_;\n_Rosace\u00e6_ the family, or others say _Pomace\u00e6_. Its flowers are perhaps\nthe most beautiful of any tree. I am frequently compelled to turn\nand linger by some more than usually beautiful two-thirds-expanded\nblossoms.[176] If such were not so common, its fame would be loud as\nwell as wide. Its most copious and delicious blossoms.\n\nBut our wild apple is wild perchance like myself, who belong not to\nthe aboriginal race here, but have strayed into the woods from the\ncultivated stock,[177]\u2014where the birds, where winged thoughts or\nagents, have planted or are planting me. Even these at length furnish\nhardy stocks for the orchard.\n\nYou might call one _Malus oculata_; another _M. Iridis_; _M. cum\nparvuli d\u00e6monis oculis_, or Imp-eyed; Blue-Jay Apple, or _M. corvi\ncristati_; Wood-Dell Apple (_M. silvestri-vallis_); Field-Dell Apple\n(_M. campestri-vallis_); Meadow Apple (_M. pratensis_); Rock Meadow\nApple (_saxopratensis_); Partridge or Grouse Apple or bud [_sic_];\nApple of the Hesperides (_Malus Hesperidum_); Woodside Apple;\nWood Apple (_M. silvatica_); the Truant\u2019s Apple (_M. cessatoris_);\nSaunterer\u2019s Apple (_M. erronis vel vagabundi_); the Wayside Apple\n(_M. trivialis_); Beauty of the Air (_decus a\u00ebris_); December-eating;\nFrozen-thawed (_gelato-soluta_ or _gelata regelata_); the Concord Apple\n(_M. Concordiensis_); the Brindled Apple; Wine of New England (_M.\nvinosa_); the Chickaree Apple; the Green Apple (_M. viridis_); the\nDysentery or Cholera-morbus Apple.[178]\n\nDistinctly related things are strangely near in _fact_, brush one\nanother with their jackets. Perchance this window-seat in which we sit\ndiscoursing Transcendentalism, with only Germany and Greece stretching\nbehind our minds, was made so deep because this was a few years ago a\ngarrison-house, with thick log walls, bullet-proof, behind which men\nsat to escape the wild red man\u2019s bullet and the arrow and the tomahawk,\nand bullets fired by Indians are now buried in its walls. Pythagoras\nseems near compared with them.\n\n\n_May 24. Saturday._ Our most glorious experiences are a kind of regret.\nOur regret is so sublime that we may mistake it for triumph. It is\nthe painful, plaintively sad surprise of our Genius remembering our\npast lives and contemplating what is possible. It is remarkable that\nmen commonly never refer to, never hint at, any crowning experiences\nwhen the common laws of their being were unsettled and the divine and\neternal laws prevailed in them. Their lives are not revolutionary; they\nnever recognize any other than the local and temporal authorities. It\nis a regret so divine and inspiring, so genuine, based on so true and\ndistinct a contrast, that it surpasses our proudest boasts and the\nfairest expectations.\n\nMy most sacred and memorable life is commonly on awaking in the\nmorning. I frequently awake with an atmosphere about me as if my\nunremembered dreams had been divine, as if my spirit had journeyed to\nits native place, and, in the act of re\u00ebntering its native body, had\ndiffused an elysian fragrance around.\n\nThe Genius says: \u201cAh! That is what you were! That is what you may yet\nbe!\u201d It is glorious for us to be able to regret even such an existence.\n\nA sane and growing man revolutionizes every day. What institutions of\nman can survive a morning experience? A single night\u2019s sleep, if we\nhave indeed slumbered and forgotten anything and grown in our sleep,\nputs them behind us like the river Lethe. It is no unusual thing for\nhim to see the kingdoms of this world pass away.[179]\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt is an interesting inquiry to seek for the medicines which will\ncure our ails in the plants which grow around us. At first we are not\ndisposed to believe that man and plants are so intimately related. Very\nfew plants have been medically examined. And yet this is the extent\nof most men\u2019s botany; and it is more extensive than would at first be\nsupposed. The botanist is startled by some countryman\u2019s familiarity\nwith an obscure plant to him rare and strange. He, who has been an\nobserver for some years, knows not what it is, but the unobserving\ncountryman, who sees nothing but what is thrust upon him, or the old\nwoman who rarely goes out of the house, shows an easy familiarity with\nit and can call it by name.\n\nI am struck by the fact that, though any important individual\nexperience is rare, though it is so rare that the individual is\nconscious of a relation to his maker transcending time and space and\nearth, though any knowledge of, or communication from, \u201cProvidence\u201d\nis the rarest thing in the world, yet men very easily, regarding\nthemselves in the gross, speak of carrying out the designs of\nProvidence as nations. How often the Saxon man talks of carrying out\nthe designs of Providence, as if he had some knowledge of Providence\nand His designs. Men allow themselves to associate Providence and\ndesigns of Providence with their dull, prosaic, every-day thoughts\nof things. That language is usurped by the stalest and deadest\nprose, which can only report the most choice poetic experience. This\n\u201cProvidence\u201d is the stalest jest in the universe. The office-boy sweeps\nout his office \u201cby the leave of Providence.\u201d\n\n\n_May 25._ A fine, freshening air, a little hazy, that bathes and washes\neverything, saving the day from extreme heat. Walked to the hills south\nof Wayland by the road by Deacon Farrar\u2019s. First vista just beyond\nMerron\u2019s (?), looking west down a valley, with a verdant-columned elm\nat the extremity of the vale and the blue hills and horizon beyond.\nThese are the resting-places in a walk. We love to see any part of the\nearth tinged with blue, cerulean, the color of the sky, the celestial\ncolor. I wonder that houses are not oftener located mainly that they\nmay command particular rare prospects, every convenience yielding to\nthis. The farmer would never suspect what it was you were buying, and\nsuch sites would be the cheapest of any. A site where you might avail\nyourself of the art of Nature for three thousand years, which could\nnever be materially changed or taken from you, a noble inheritance\nfor your children. The true sites for human dwellings are unimproved.\nThey command no price in the market. Men will pay something to look\ninto a travelling showman\u2019s box, but not to look upon the fairest\nprospects on the earth. A vista where you have the near green horizon\ncontrasted with the distant blue one, terrestrial with celestial earth.\nThe prospect of a vast horizon must be accessible in our neighborhood.\nWhere men of enlarged views may be educated. An unchangeable kind of\nwealth, a _real_ estate.\n\nThere we found the celandine in blossom and the _Ranunculus bulbosus_,\nwhich we afterwards saw _double_ in Wayland, having nine petals.\n\nThe _Pyrus arbutifolia_, variety _melanocarpa_. Gray makes also the\nvariety _erythrocarpa_. Is this the late red choke-berry of the swamps?\nand is the former the earlier black one of the swamps?\n\nBy Farrar\u2019s the _Nepeta Glechoma_, a kind of mint. Linn\u00e6us calls it\n_Glechoma hederacea_. Looks somewhat like catnep.\n\nThe marsh-marigold, _Caltha palustris_, improperly called cowslip.\n\nThe white oak, _Quercus alba_. And the commonest scrub oak, the bear or\nblack oak, _Q. ilicifolia_.\n\nThe chinquapin, or dwarf chestnut, oak, the smallest of our oaks, _Q.\nprinoides_.\n\nThe _Crat\u00e6gus coccinea_ (?), or scarlet-fruited thorn (?)\n\nAnother glorious vista with a wide horizon at the yellow Dutch house,\njust over the Wayland line, by the black spruce, heavy and dark as\nnight, which we could see two or three miles as a landmark. Now at\nleast, before the deciduous trees have fully expanded their leaves, it\nis remarkably black. It is more stoutly and irregularly branched than\nHolbrook\u2019s spruces\u2014has a much darker foliage; but the cone scales of\nboth are slightly waved or notched. Are they, then, both black spruce?\nThe cones are enough like, and the thickness of the leaves; their\ncolor enough unlike. Here is a view of the Jenkins house, the fish-pole\nhouse, and Wachusett beyond.\n\nNoticed what I think must be a young poison sumach[180] abundant by the\nroadside in woods, with last year\u2019s berries, with small greenish-yellow\nflowers, but leaves not pinnatifid, three together; from one to two\nfeet high. What is it?\n\n_Alnus serrulata_, the common alder, with a grayish stem, leaves smooth\non both sides.\n\n_Alnus incana_, the speckled alder, downy on under side of leaves.\n\nThe hard-berried plant seems to be _Andromeda ligustrina_ (?) of Gray,\n_A. paniculata_ of Bigelow, _Lyonia paniculata_ of Emerson.\n\nThyme-leaved veronica, little bluish-white, streak-petalled flower by\nroad sides. _Silene Pennsylvanica._\n\nWhat is the orange-yellow aster-like flower of the meadows now in\nblossom with a sweet-smelling stem when bruised?[181]\n\nWhat the delicate pinkish and yellowish flower with hoary-green stem\nand leaves, of rocky hills.[182]\n\nSaw Bunker Hill Monument and Charlestown from the Wayland hills, and\nacross the valleys to Milton Hill.[183] Westward, or west by south,\nan island in a pond or in the river (!which see!) A grand horizon.\nProbably saw the elm between Wayland and Weston which is seen so far\nin the horizon from the northwest part of Sudbury. A good, a rare place\nthis must be to view the Sudbury or Wayland meadows a little earlier.\n\nCame back across lots to the black spruce.\n\nNow, at 8.30 o\u2019clock P. M., I hear the dreaming of the frogs.[184] So\nit seems to me, and so significantly passes my life away. It is like\nthe dreaming of frogs in a summer evening.\n\n\n_May 27._ I saw an organ-grinder this morning before a rich man\u2019s\nhouse, thrilling the street with harmony, loosening the very\npaving-stones and tearing the routine of life to rags and tatters, when\nthe lady of the house shoved up a window and in a semiphilanthropic\ntone inquired if he wanted anything to eat. But he, very properly it\nseemed to me, kept on grinding and paid no attention to her question,\nfeeding her ears with melody unasked for. So the world shoves up its\nwindow and interrogates the poet, and sets him to gauging ale casks in\nreturn. It seemed to me that the music suggested that the recompense\nshould be as fine as the gift. It would be much nobler to enjoy the\nmusic, though you paid no money for it, than to presume always a\nbeggarly relation. It is after all, perhaps, the best instrumental\nmusic that we have.\n\n\n_May 28._ The trees now begin to shade the streets. When the sun\ngets high in the sky the trees give shade. With oppressive heats come\nrefreshing shadows.\n\nThe buttercups spot the churchyard.\n\n\n_May 29._ It is evident that the virtues of plants are almost\ncompletely unknown to us, and we esteem the few with which we are\nbetter acquainted unreasonably above the many which are comparatively\nunknown to us. Bigelow says: \u201cIt is a subject of some curiosity to\nconsider, if the knowledge of the present Materia Medica were by any\nmeans to be lost, how many of the same articles would again rise\ninto notice and use. Doubtless a variety of new substances would\ndevelop unexpected powers, while perhaps the poppy would be shunned\nas a deleterious plant, and the cinchona might grow unmolested upon\nthe mountains of Quito.\u201d Sawyer regards _Nux vomica_ among the most\nvaluable. B. says (1817): \u201cWe have yet to discover our anodynes and\nour emetics, although we abound in bitters, astringents, aromatics,\nand demulcents. In the present state of our knowledge we could not\nwell dispense with opium and ipecacuanha, yet a great number of foreign\ndrugs, such as gentian, columbo, chamomile, kino, catechu, cascarilla,\ncanella, etc., for which we pay a large annual tax to other countries,\nmight in all probability be superseded by the indigenous products of\nour own. It is certainly better that our own country people should have\nthe benefit of collecting such articles, than that we should pay for\nthem to the Moors of Africa, or the Indians of Brazil.\u201d\n\nThe thorn-apple (_Datura Stramonium_) (apple of Peru, devil\u2019s-apple,\nJamestown-weed) \u201cemigrates with great facility, and often springs\nup in the ballast of ships, and in earth carried from one country to\nanother.\u201d It secretes itself in the hold of vessels and migrates. It\nis a sort of cosmopolitan weed, a roving weed. What adventures! What\nhistorian knows when first it came into a country! He quotes Beverly\u2019s\n\u201cHistory of Virginia\u201d as saying that some soldiers in the days of\nBacon\u2019s rebellion, having eaten some of this plant, which was boiled\nfor salad by mistake, were made natural fools and buffoons by it for\neleven days, without injury to their bodies (? ?).\n\nThe root of a biennial or perennial will accumulate the virtues of the\nplant more than any other part.\n\nB. says that Pursh states that the sweet-scented goldenrod (_Solidago\nodora_) \u201chas for some time [_i. e._ before 1817][185] been an article\nof exportation to China, where it fetches a high price.\u201d And yet it is\nknown to very few New-Englanders.\n\n\u201cNo botanist,\u201d says B., \u201ceven if in danger of starving in a wilderness,\nwould indulge his hunger on a root or fruit taken from an unknown\nplant of the natural order _Lurid\u00e6_, of the _Multisiliqu\u00e6_, or the\n_umbelliferous aquatics_. On the contrary he would not feel a moment\u2019s\nhesitation in regard to any of the _Gramina_, the fruit of the\n_Pomace\u00e6_ and several other natural families of plants, which are known\nto be uniformly innocent in their effects.\u201d\n\nThe aromatic flavor of the checkerberry is also perceived in the\n_Gaultheria hispidula_, in _Spir\u00e6a ulmaria_ and the root of _Spir\u00e6a\nlobata_, and in the birches.\n\nHe says ginseng, spigelia, snake-root, etc., form considerable articles\nof exportation.\n\nThe odor of skunk-cabbage is perceived in some North American currants,\nas _Ribes rigens_ of Michaux on high mountains.\n\nAt one time the Indians about Quebec and Montreal were so taken up\nwith searching for ginseng that they could not be hired for any other\npurpose. It is said that both the Chinese and the Indians named this\nplant from its resemblance to the figure of a man.[186]\n\nThe Indians use the bark of _Dirca palustris_, or leather-wood,\nfor their cordage. It was after the long-continued search of many\ngenerations that these qualities were discovered.\n\nOf tobacco (_Nicotiana Tabacum_) B. says, after speaking of its\npoisonous qualities: \u201cYet the first person who had courage and patience\nenough to persevere in its use, until habit had overcome his original\ndisgust, eventually found in it a pleasing sedative, a soother of\ncare, and a material addition to the pleasures of life. Its use, which\noriginated among savages, has spread into every civilized country;\nit has made its way against the declamations of the learned, and the\nprohibitions of civil and religious authority, and it now gives rise\nto an extensive branch of agriculture, or of commerce, in every part of\nthe globe.\u201d Soon after its introduction into Europe, \u201cthe rich indulged\nin it as a luxury of the highest kind; and the poor gave themselves\nup to it, as a solace for the miseries of life.\u201d Several varieties are\ncultivated.\n\nIn return for many foreign weeds, we have sent abroad, says B., \u201cthe\n_Erigeron Canadensis_ and the prolific families of _Ambrosia_ and\n_Amaranthus_.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Indians were acquainted with the medicinal properties of more than\none species of Euphorbia.\u201d\n\nI noticed the button-bush, May 25th, around an elevated pond or\nmud-hole, its leaves just beginning to expand. This slight amount of\ngreen contrasted with its dark, craggly [_sic_], naked-looking stem and\nbranches\u2014as if subsiding waters had left them bare\u2014looked Dantesque and\ninfernal. It is not a handsome bush at this season, it is so slow to\nput out its leaves and hide its naked and unsightly stems.\n\nThe _Andromeda ligustrina_ is late to leave out.\n\n_Malus excelsa_; _amara_; _florida_; _palustris_; _gratissima_;\n_ramosa_; _spinosa_; _ferruginea_; _aromatica_; _aurea_; _rubiginosa_;\n_odorata_; _tristis_; _officinalis!! herbacea_; _vulgaris_;\n_\u00e6stivalis_; _autumnalis_; _riparia_; _versicolor_; _communis_;\n_farinosa_; _super septa pendens_;[187] _Malus sepium_; _vinum\nNov\u00e6-Angli\u00e6_; _succosa_; _s\u00e6pe formicis pr\u00e6occupata_; _vermiculosa\naut verminosa aut a vermibus corrupta vel erosa_; _Malus semper\nvirens et viridis_; _cholera-morbifera_ or _dysenterifera_; _M.\nsylvestripaludosa, excelsa et ramosa superne, difficilis conscendere_,\n(_fructus difficillimus stringere, parvus et durus_); _Cortex picis\nperforata_ or _perterebata_; _rupestris_; _agrestis_; _arvensis_;\n_Assabettia_; Railroad Apple; _Musketaquidensis_; Dew Apple\n(_rorifera_); the apple whose fruit we tasted in our youth which grows\n_passim et nusquam_, (_Malus cujus fructum ineunte \u00e6tate gustavi qu\u00e6\npassim et nusquam viget_); our own particular apple; _Malus numquam\nlegata vel stricta_; _cortice muscos\u00e2_; _Malus vi\u00e6-ferre\u00e6_; _sylvatica\nin sylvis densissimis_.[188]\n\n\n_May 30. Friday._ There was a Concord man once who had a foxhound named\nBurgoyne. He called him Bug_\u012bne_. A good name.[189]\n\n\n_May 31._ _Pedestrium solatium in apricis locis; nodosa._[190]\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nJUNE, 1851\n\n(\u00c6T. 33)\n\n\n_June 3. Tuesday._ Lectured in Worcester last Saturday, and walked to\n_As-_ or _Has_nebumskit Hill in Paxton the next day. Said to be the\nhighest land in Worcester County except Wachusett.\n\nMet Mr. Blake, Brown, Chamberlin, Hinsdale, Miss Butman (?), Wyman,\nConant.\n\nReturned to Boston yesterday. Conversed with John Downes, who is\nconnected with the Coast Survey, is printing tables for astronomical,\ngeodesic, and other uses. He tells me that he once saw the common\nsucker in numbers piling up stones as big as his fist (like the piles\nwhich I have seen), taking them up or moving them with their mouths.\n\nDr. Harris suggests that the mountain cranberry which I saw at Ktaadn\nwas the _Vaccinium Vitis-Id\u00e6a_, cow-berry, because it was edible and\nnot the _Uva-Ursi_, or bear-berry, which we have in Concord.\n\nSaw the _Uvularia perfoliata_, perfoliate bellwort, in Worcester near\nthe hill; an abundance of mountain laurel on the hills, now budded to\nblossom and the fresh lighter growth contrasting with the dark green;\nan abundance of very large checkerberries, or partridge-berries, as\nBigelow calls them, on Hasnebumskit. Sugar maples about there. A very\nextensive view, but the western view not so much wilder as I expected.\nSee Barre, about fifteen miles off, and Rutland, etc., etc. Not so much\nforest as in our neighborhood; high, swelling hills, but less shade for\nthe walker. The hills are green, the soil springier; and it is written\nthat water is more easily obtained on the hill than in the valleys. Saw\na Scotch fir, the pine so valued for tar and naval uses in the north of\nEurope.\n\nMr. Chamberlin told me that there was no corporation in Worcester\nexcept the banks (which I suspect may not be literally true), and\nhence their freedom and independence. I think it likely there is a gas\ncompany to light the streets at least.\n\nJohn Mactaggart finds the ice thickest not in the largest lakes in\nCanada, nor in the smallest, where the surrounding forests melt it. He\nsays that the surveyor of the boundary-line between England and United\nStates on the Columbia River saw pine trees which would require sixteen\nfeet in the blade to a cross-cut saw to do anything with them.\n\nI examined to-day a large swamp white oak in Hubbard\u2019s meadow, which\nwas blown down by the same storm which destroyed the lighthouse.\nAt five feet from the ground it was nine and three fourths feet\nin circumference; the first branch at eleven and a half feet from\nground; and it held its size up to twenty-three feet from the ground.\nIts whole height, measured on the ground, was eighty feet, and its\nbreadth about sixty-six feet. The roots on one side were turned up\nwith the soil on them, making an object very conspicuous a great\ndistance off, the highest root being eighteen feet from the ground\nand fourteen feet above centre of trunk. The roots, which were small\nand thickly interlaced, were from three to nine inches beneath the\nsurface (in other trees I saw them level with the surface) and thence\nextended fifteen to eighteen inches in depth (_i. e._ to this depth\nthey occupied the ground). They were broken off at about eleven feet\nfrom the centre of the trunk and were there on an average one inch in\ndiameter, the largest being three inches in diameter. The longest root\nwas broken off at twenty feet from the centre, and was there three\nquarters of an inch in diameter. The tree was rotten within. The lower\nside of the soil (what was originally the lower), which clothed the\nroots for nine feet from the centre of the tree, was white and clayey\nto appearance, and a sparrow was sitting on three eggs within the mass.\nDirectly under where the massive trunk had stood, and within a foot of\nthe surface, you could apparently strike in a spade and meet with no\nobstruction to a free cultivation. There was no taproot to be seen. The\nroots were encircled with dark, nubby rings. The tree, which still had\na portion of its roots in the ground and held to them by a sliver on\nthe leeward side, was alive and had leaved out, though on many branches\nthe leaves were shrivelled again. _Quercus bicolor_ of Bigelow, _Q.\nPrinus discolor_ Mx. f.\n\n [Illustration]\n\nI observed the grass waving to-day for the first time,\u2014the swift\nCamilla on it. It might have been noticed before. You might have seen\nit now for a week past on grain-fields.\n\nClover has blossomed.\n\nI noticed the indigo-weed a week or two ago pushing up like asparagus.\nMethinks it must be the small andromeda (?), that dull red mass of\nleaves in the swamp, mixed perchance with the rhodora, with its dry\nfruitlike appendages, as well as the _Andromeda paniculata_, else\ncalled _ligustrina_, and the clethra. It was the golden senecio\n(_Senecio aureus_) which I plucked a week ago in a meadow in Wayland.\nThe earliest, methinks, of the aster and autumnal-looking yellow\nflowers. Its bruised stems enchanted me with their indescribable sweet\nodor, like I cannot think what.\n\nThe _Phaseolus vulgaris_ includes several kinds of bush beans, of which\nthose I raised were one.\n\n\n_June 6. Friday._ Gathered last night the strong, rank,\npenetrating-scented angelica.\n\nUnder the head of the _Cicuta maculata_, or American hemlock,\u2014\u201cIt\nis a rule sanctioned by the observations of medical botanists, that\numbelliferous plants, which grow in or about the water, are of a\npoisonous nature.\u201d[191] He does not say that the angelica is poisonous,\nbut I suppose that it is. It has such a rank, offensive, and killing\nodor as makes me think of the ingredients of the witches\u2019 cauldron. It\ndid not leave my hands, which had carried it, long after I had washed\nthem. A strong, penetrating, lasting, and sickening odor.\n\nGathered to-night the _Cicuta maculata_, American hemlock, the veins of\nthe leaflets ending in the notches and the root fasciculated.\n\nBigelow says, \u201cThe leaves of the _Solidago odora_ have a delightfully\nfragrant odor, partaking of that of anise and sassafras, but different\nfrom either.\u201d[192]\n\n\n_June 7._ My practicalness is not to be trusted to the last. To be\nsure, I go upon my legs for the most part, but, being hard-pushed and\ndogged by a superficial common sense which is bound to near objects\nby beaten paths, I am off the handle, as the phrase is,\u2014I begin to be\ntranscendental and show where my heart is. I am like those guinea-fowl\nwhich Charles Darwin saw at the Cape de Verd Islands. He says, \u201cThey\navoided us like partridges on a rainy day in September, running with\ntheir heads cocked up; and if pursued, they readily took to the wing.\u201d\nKeep your distance, do not infringe on the interval between us, and I\nwill pick up lime and lay real terrestrial eggs for you, and let you\nknow by cackling when I have done it.\n\nWhen I have been asked to speak at a temperance meeting, my answer has\nbeen, \u201cI am too transcendental to serve you in your way.\u201d They would\nfain confine me to the rum-sellers and rum-drinkers, of whom I am not\none, and whom I know little about.\n\nIt is a certain faeryland where we live. You may walk out in any\ndirection over the earth\u2019s surface, lifting your horizon, and\neverywhere your path, climbing the convexity of the globe, leads you\nbetween heaven and earth, not away from the light of the sun and stars\nand the habitations of men. I wonder that I ever get five miles on\nmy way, the walk is so crowded with events and phenomena. How many\nquestions there are which I have not put to the inhabitants!\n\nBut how far can you carry _your_ practicalness? How far does your\nknowledge really extend? When I have read in deeds only a hundred years\nold the words \u201cto enjoy and possess, he and his assigns, _forever_,\u201d\nI have seen how short-sighted is the sense which conducts from day to\nday. When I read the epitaphs of those who died a century ago, they\nseem deader even than they expected. A day seems proportionally a long\npart of your \u201cforever and a day.\u201d\n\nThere are few so temperate and chaste that they can afford to remind us\neven at table that they have a palate and a stomach.\n\nWe believe that the possibility of the future far exceeds the\naccomplishment of the past. We review the past with the common sense,\nbut we anticipate the future with transcendental senses. In our sanest\nmoments we find ourselves naturally expecting or prepared for far\ngreater changes than any which we have experienced within the period\nof distinct memory, only to be paralleled by experiences which are\nforgotten. Perchance there are revolutions which create an interval\nimpassable to the memory.\n\nWith reference to the near past, we all occupy the region of common\nsense, but in the prospect of the future we are, by instinct,\ntranscendentalists.\n\nWe affirm that all things are possible, but only these things have\nbeen to our knowledge. I do not even infer the future _from what I\nknow of the past_. I am hardly better acquainted with the past than\nwith the future. What is new to the individual may be familiar to the\nexperience of his race. It must be rare indeed that the experience\nof the individual transcends that of his race. It will be perceived\nthat there are two kinds of change,\u2014that of the race, and that of the\nindividual within the limits of the former.\n\n * * * * *\n\nOne of those gentle, straight-down rainy days, when the rain begins\nby spotting the cultivated fields as if shaken from a pepper-box; a\nfishing day, when I see one neighbor after another, having donned his\noil-cloth suit, walking or riding past with a fish-pole, having struck\nwork,\u2014a day and an employment to make philosophers of them all.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWhen introduced to high life I cannot help perceiving how it is as a\nthing jumped at, and I find that I do not get on in my enjoyment of\nthe fine arts which adorn it, because my attention is wholly occupied\nwith the jump, remembering that the greatest genuine leap on record,\ndue to human muscles alone, is that of certain wandering Arabs who\ncleared twenty-five feet on level ground. The first question which I\nam tempted to put to the proprietor of such great impropriety is, \u201cWho\nboosts you?\u201d Are you one of the ninety-nine who fail or the hundredth,\nwho succeeds?\n\n\n_June 8. Sunday._ In F. A. Michaux\u2019s, _i. e._ the younger Michaux\u2019s,\n\u201cVoyage \u00e0 l\u2019ouest des Monts All\u00e9ghanys, 1802,\u201d printed at Paris, 1808:\u2014\n\nHe says the common inquiry in the newly settled West was, \u201c\u2018From what\npart of the world have you come?\u2019 As if these vast and fertile regions\nwould naturally be the point of union (_r\u00e9union_, meeting) and the\ncommon country of all the inhabitants of the globe.\u201d[193]\n\nThe current of the Ohio is so swift in the spring that it is not\nnecessary to row. Indeed rowing would do more harm than good, since\nit would tend to turn the ark out of the current on to some isle or\nsand-bar, where it would be entangled amid floating trees. This has\ndetermined the form of the bateaux, which are not the best calculated\nfor swiftness but to obey the current. They are from fifteen to fifty\nfeet long by ten to twelve and fifteen, with square ends, and roof of\nboards like a house at one end. The sides are about four and a half\nfeet above the water. \u201cI was alone on the shore of the Monongahela,\nwhen I perceived, for the first time, in the distance, five or six of\nthese bateaux which were descending this river. I could not conceive\nwhat those great square boxes were, which, abandoned to the current,\npresented alternately their ends, their sides, and even (or also (?),\n_et m\u00eame_) their angles. As they came nearer, I heard a confused noise\nbut without distinguishing anything, on account of the elevation of the\nsides. It was only on ascending the bank of the river that I perceived,\nin these bateaux, many families carrying with them their horses, cows,\npoultry, dismounted carts (_charrettes_), plows, harnesses, beds,\nagricultural implements, in short all that constitute the movables of a\nhousehold (_m\u00e9nage_) and the carrying on (_exploitation_) of a farm.\u201d\nBut he was obliged to paddle his log canoe \u201c_sans cesse_\u201d because of\nthe sluggishness of the current of the Ohio in April, 1802.\n\nA Vermonter told him that the expense of clearing land in his State\nwas always defrayed by the potash obtained from the ashes of the trees\nwhich were burnt, and sometimes people took land to clear on condition\nthat they should have what potash they could make.\n\nAfter travelling more than three thousand miles in North America, he\nsays that no part is to be compared for the \u201c_force v\u00e9g\u00e9tative des\nfor\u00eats_\u201d to the region of the Ohio between Wheeling and Marietta.\nThirty-six miles above the last place he measured a plane tree\non the bank of the Ohio which, at four feet from the ground, was\nforty-seven in circumference. It is true it was \u201c_renfl\u00e9 d\u2019une mani\u00e8re\nprodigieuse_.\u201d Tulip and plane trees, his father had said, attained the\ngreatest diameter of North American trees.\n\nGinseng was then the only \u201cterritorial\u201d production of Kentucky which\nwould pay the expense of transportation _by land_ to Philadelphia. They\ncollected it from spring to the first frosts. Even hunters carried\nfor this purpose, beside their guns, a bag and a little \u201c_pioche_.\u201d\nFrom twenty-five to thirty \u201c_milliers pesant_\u201d were then transported\nannually, and this commerce was on the increase. Some transported it\nthemselves from Kentucky to China, _i. e._ without selling it [to]\nthe merchants of the seaboard. Traders in Kentucky gave twenty to\ntwenty-four \u201csous\u201d the pound for it.\n\nThey habituated their wild hogs to return to the house from time to\ntime by distributing corn for them once or twice a week. So I read that\nin Buenos Ayres they collect the horses into the corral twice a week to\nkeep them tame in a degree.\n\n * * * * *\n\nGathered the first strawberries to-day.\n\nObserved on Fair Haven a tall pitch pine, such as some call yellow\npine,\u2014very smooth, yellowish, and destitute of branches to a great\nheight. The outer and darker-colored bark appeared to have scaled\noff, leaving a fresh and smooth surface. At the ground, all round the\ntree, I saw what appeared to be the edges of the old surface scales,\nextending to two inches more in thickness. The bark was divided into\nlarge, smooth plates, one to two feet long and four to six inches wide.\n\nI noticed that the cellular portion of the bark of the canoe birch\nlog from which I stripped the epidermis a week or two ago was turned\na complete brick-red color very striking to behold and reminding\nme of the red man and all strong, natural things,\u2014the color of our\nblood somewhat. Under the epidermis it was still a sort of buff. The\ndifferent colors of the various parts of this bark, at various times,\nfresh or stale, are extremely agreeable to my eye.\n\nI found the white-pine-top full of staminate blossom-buds not yet fully\ngrown or expanded, with a rich red tint like a tree full of fruit, but\nI could find no pistillate blossom.\n\nThe fugacious-petalled cistus, and the pink, and the lupines of various\ntints are seen together.\n\nOur outside garments, which are often thin and fanciful and merely for\nshow, are our epidermis, hanging loose and fantastic like that of the\nyellow birch, which may be cast off without harm, stripped off here and\nthere without fatal injury; sometimes called cuticle and false skin.\nThe vital principle wholly wanting in it; partakes not of the life of\nthe plant. Our thicker and more essential garments are our cellular\nintegument. When this is removed, the tree is said to be girdled and\ndies. Our shirt is the cortex, liber, or true bark, beneath which\nis found the alburnum or sap-wood, while the heart in old stocks is\ncommonly rotten or has disappeared. As if we grew like trees, and were\nof the exogenous kind.\n\n\n_June 9._ James Wood, Senior, told me to-day that Asa (?) Melvin\u2019s\nfather told him that he had seen alewives caught (many of them) in the\nmeadow which we were crossing, on the west of Bateman\u2019s Pond, where now\nthere is no stream, and though it is wet you can walk everywhere; also\none shad. He thinks that a great part of the meadow once belonged to\nthe pond.\n\nGathered the _Linn\u00e6a borealis_.\n\n\n_June 11. Wednesday._ Last night a beautiful summer night, not too\nwarm, moon not quite full, after two or three rainy days. Walked to\nFair Haven by railroad, returning by Potter\u2019s pasture and Sudbury\nroad. I feared at first that there would be too much white light,\nlike the pale remains of daylight, and not a yellow, gloomy, dreamier\nlight; that it would be like a candlelight by day; but when I got\naway from the town and deeper into the night, it was better. I hear\nwhip-poor-wills, and see a few fireflies in the meadow.\n\nI saw by the shadows cast by the inequalities of the clayey sand-bank\nin the Deep Cut that it was necessary to see objects by moonlight\nas well as sunlight, to get a complete notion of them. This bank had\nlooked much more flat by day, when the light was stronger, but now the\nheavy shadows revealed its prominences. The prominences are light, made\nmore remarkable by the dark shadows which they cast.\n\nWhen I rose out of the Deep Cut into the old pigeon-place field, I rose\ninto a warmer stratum of air, it being lighter. It told of the day, of\nsunny noontide hours,\u2014an air in which work had been done, which men had\nbreathed. It still remembered the sunny banks,\u2014of the laborer wiping\nhis brow, of the bee humming amid flowers, the hum of insects. Here is\na puff of warmer air which has taken its station on the hills; which\nhas come up from the sultry plains of noon.[194]\n\nI hear the nighthawks uttering their squeaking notes high in the air\nnow at nine o\u2019clock P. M., and occasionally\u2014what I do not remember to\nhave heard so late\u2014their booming note. It sounds more as if under a\ncope than by day. The sound is not so fugacious, going off to be lost\namid the spheres, but is echoed hollowly to earth, making the low roof\nof heaven vibrate. Such a sound is more confused and dissipated by day.\n\nThe whip-poor-will suggests how wide asunder [are] the woods and the\ntown. Its note is very rarely heard by those who live on the street,\nand then it is thought to be of ill omen. Only the dwellers on the\noutskirts of the village hear it occasionally. It sometimes comes into\ntheir yards. But go into the woods in a warm night at this season, and\nit is the prevailing sound. I hear now five or six at once. It is no\nmore of ill omen therefore here than the night and the moonlight are.\nIt is a bird not only of the woods, but of the night side of the woods.\n\nNew beings have usurped the air we breathe, rounding Nature, filling\nher crevices with sound. To sleep where you may hear the whip-poor-will\nin your dreams!\n\nI hear from this upland, from which I see Wachusett by day, a wagon\ncrossing one of the bridges. I have no doubt that in some places\nto-night I should be sure to hear every carriage which crossed a bridge\nover the river within the limits of Concord, for in such an hour and\natmosphere the sense of hearing is wonderfully assisted and asserts\na new dignity, and [we] become the Hearalls of the story. The late\ntraveller cannot drive his horse across the distant bridge, but this\nstill and resonant atmosphere tells the tale to my ear. Circumstances\nare very favorable to the transmission of such a sound. In the first\nplace, planks so placed and struck like a bell swung near the earth\nemit a very resonant and penetrating sound; add that the bell is, in\nthis instance, hung over water, and that the night air, not only on\naccount of its stillness, but perhaps on account of its density, is\nmore favorable to the transmission of sound. If the whole town were a\nraised planked floor, what a din there would be!\n\nI hear some whip-poor-wills on hills, others in thick wooded vales,\nwhich ring hollow and cavernous, like an apartment or cellar, with\ntheir note. As when I hear the working of some artisan from within an\napartment.\n\nI now descend round the corner of the grain-field, through the pitch\npine wood into a lower field, more inclosed by woods, and find myself\nin a colder, damp and misty atmosphere, with much dew on the grass. I\nseem to be nearer to the origin of things. There is something creative\nand primal in the cool mist. This dewy mist does not fail to suggest\nmusic to me, unaccountably; fertility, the origin of things. An\natmosphere which has forgotten the sun, where the ancient principle of\nmoisture prevails. It is laden with the condensed fragrance of plants\nand, as it were, distilled in dews.\n\nThe woodland paths are never seen to such advantage as in a moonlight\nnight, so embowered, still opening before you almost against\nexpectation as you walk; you are so completely in the woods, and yet\nyour feet meet no obstacles. It is as if it were not a path, but an\nopen, winding passage through the bushes, which your feet find.\n\nNow I go by the spring, and when I have risen to the same level as\nbefore, find myself in the warm stratum again.\n\nThe woods are about as destitute of inhabitants at night as the\nstreets. In both there will be some night-walkers. There are but few\nwild creatures to seek their prey. The greater part of its inhabitants\nhave retired to rest.\n\nAh, that life that I have known! How hard it is to remember what is\nmost memorable! We remember how we itched, not how our hearts beat.\nI can sometimes recall to mind the quality, the immortality, of my\nyouthful life, but in memory is the only relation to it.\n\nThe very cows have now left their pastures and are driven home to their\nyards. I meet no creature in the fields.\n\nI hear the night-warbler[195] breaking out as in his dreams, made so\nfrom the first for some mysterious reason.\n\nOur spiritual side takes a more distinct form, like our shadow which we\nsee accompanying us.\n\nI do not know but I feel less vigor at night; my legs will not\ncarry me so far; as if the night were less favorable to muscular\nexertion,\u2014weakened us, somewhat as darkness turns plants pale. But\nperhaps my experience is to be referred to being already exhausted by\nthe day, and I have never tried the experiment fairly. Yet sometimes\nafter a hard day\u2019s work I have found myself unexpectedly vigorous. It\nwas so hot summer before last that the Irish laborers on the railroad\nworked by night instead of day for a while, several of them having\nbeen killed by the heat and cold water. I do not know but they did as\nmuch work as ever by day. Yet methinks Nature would not smile on such\nlabors.\n\nOnly the Hunter\u2019s and Harvest moons are famous, but I think that each\nfull moon deserves to be and has its own character well marked. One\nmight be called the Midsummer-Night Moon.\n\nThe wind and water are still awake. At night you are sure to hear\nwhat wind there is stirring. The wind blows, the river flows, without\nresting. There lies Fair Haven Lake, undistinguishable from fallen sky.\nThe pines seem forever foreign, at least to the civilized man,\u2014not only\ntheir aspect but their scent, and their turpentine.\n\nSo still and moderate is the night! No scream is heard, whether of fear\nor joy. No great comedy nor tragedy is being enacted. The chirping of\ncrickets is the most universal, if not the loudest, sound. There is no\nFrench Revolution in Nature, no excess. She is warmer or colder by a\ndegree or two.\n\nBy night no flowers, at least no variety of colors. The pinks are no\nlonger pink; they only shine faintly, reflecting more light. Instead of\nflowers underfoot, stars overhead.\n\nMy shadow has the distinctness of a second person, a certain black\ncompanion bordering on the imp, and I ask, \u201cWho is this?\u201d which I see\ndodging behind me as I am about to sit down on a rock.\n\nNo one, to my knowledge, has observed the minute differences in the\nseasons. Hardly two nights are alike. The rocks do not feel warm\nto-night, for the air is warmest; nor does the sand particularly. A\nbook of the seasons, each page of which should be written in its own\nseason and out-of-doors, or in its own locality wherever it may be.\n\nWhen you get into the road, though far from the town, and feel the sand\nunder your feet, it is as if you had reached your own gravel walk. You\nno longer hear the whip-poor-will, nor regard your shadow, for here you\nexpect a fellow-traveller. You catch yourself walking merely. The road\nleads your steps and thoughts alike to the town. You see only the path,\nand your thoughts wander from the objects which are presented to your\nsenses. You are no longer in place. It is like conformity,\u2014walking in\nthe ways of men.\n\nIn Charles Darwin\u2019s \u201cVoyage of a Naturalist round the World,\u201d commenced\nin 1831:\u2014\n\nHe gave to Ehrenberg some of an impalpably fine dust which filled the\nair at sea near the Cape de Verd Islands, and he found it to consist in\ngreat part of \u201cinfusoria with siliceous shields, and of the siliceous\ntissue of plants;\u201d found in this sixty-seven different organic forms.\nThe infusoria with two exceptions inhabitants of fresh water. Vessels\nhave even run on shore owing to the obscurity. Is seen a thousand miles\nfrom Africa. Darwin found particles of stone above a thousandth of an\ninch square.\n\nSpeaking of St. Paul\u2019s Rocks, Lat. 58\u00b4 N., Long. 29\u00b0 15\u00b4 W., \u201cNot\na single plant, not even a lichen, grows on this islet; yet it is\ninhabited by several insects and spiders. The following list completes,\nI believe, the terrestrial fauna: a fly (Olfersia) living on the booby,\nand a tick which must have come here as a parasite on the birds; a\nsmall brown moth, belonging to a genus that feeds on feathers; a beetle\n(Quedius), and a woodlouse from beneath the dung; and lastly numerous\nspiders, which I suppose prey on these small attendants and scavengers\nof the waterfowl. The often-repeated description of the stately palm\nand other noble tropical plants, then birds, and lastly man, taking\npossession of the coral islets as soon as formed, in the Pacific,\nis probably not quite correct; I fear it destroys the poetry of this\nstory, that feather and dirt-feeding and parasitic insects and spiders\nshould be the first inhabitants of newly-formed oceanic land.\u201d\n\nAt Bahia or San Salvador, Brazil, took shelter under a tree \u201cso thick\nthat it would never have been penetrated by common English rain,\u201d but\nnot so there.\n\nOf a partridge near the mouth of the Plata, \u201cA man on horseback,\nby riding round and round in a circle, or rather in a spire, so as\nto approach closer each time, may knock on the head as many as he\npleases.\u201d Refers to Hearne\u2019s Journey, page 383, for \u201cIn Arctic North\nAmerica the Indians catch the Varying Hare by walking spirally round\nand round it, when on its form: the middle of the day is reckoned the\nbest time, when the sun is high, and the shadow of the hunter not very\nlong.\u201d\n\nIn the same place, \u201cGeneral Rosas is also a perfect horseman\u2014an\naccomplishment of no small consequence in a country where an assembled\narmy elected its general by the following trial: A troop of unbroken\nhorses being driven into a corral, were let out through a gateway,\nabove which was a cross-bar: it was agreed whoever should drop from\nthe bar on one of these wild animals, as it rushed out, and should be\nable, without saddle or bridle, not only to ride it, but also to bring\nit back to the door of the corral, should be their general. The person\nwho succeeded was accordingly elected, and doubtless made a general fit\nfor such an army. This extraordinary feat has also been performed by\nRosas.\u201d\n\nSpeaks of the Gaucho sharpening his knife on the back of the armadillo\nbefore he kills him.\n\nAlcide d\u2019Orbigny, from 1825 to 1833 in South America, now (1846)\npublishing the results on a scale which places him second to Humboldt\namong South American travellers.\n\nHail in Buenos Ayres as large as small apples; killed thirteen deer,\nbeside ostriches, which last also it blinded, etc., etc. Dr. Malcomson\ntold him of hail in India, in 1831, which \u201cmuch injured the cattle.\u201d\nStones flat, one ten inches in circumference; passed through windows,\nmaking round holes.\n\nA difference in the country about Montevideo and somewhere else\nattributed to the manuring and grazing of the cattle. Refers to Atwater\nas saying that the same thing is observed in the prairies of North\nAmerica, \u201cwhere coarse grass, between five and six feet high, when\ngrazed by cattle, changes into common pasture land.\u201d (_Vide_ Atwater\u2019s\nwords in Silliman\u2019s _North American Journal_, vol. i, p. 117.)\n\nI would like to read Azara\u2019s Voyage.\n\nSpeaks[196] of the fennel and the cardoon (_Cynara cardunculus_),\nintroduced from Europe, now very common in those parts of South\nAmerica. The latter occurs now on both sides the Cordilleras across\nthe continent. In Banda Oriental alone \u201cvery many (probably several\nhundred) square miles are covered by one mass of these prickly plants,\nand are impenetrable by man or beast. Over the undulating plains, where\nthese great beds occur, nothing else can now live.... I doubt whether\nany case is on record of an invasion on so grand a scale of one plant\nover the aborigines.\u201d\n\nHorses first landed at the La Plata in 1535. Now these, with cattle\nand sheep, have altered the whole aspect of the country,\u2014vegetation,\netc. \u201cThe wild pig in some parts probably replaces the peccari; packs\nof wild dogs may be heard howling on the wooded banks of the less\nfrequented streams; and the common cat, altered into a large and fierce\nanimal, inhabits rocky hills.\u201d\n\nAt sea, eye being six feet above level, horizon is two and four fifths\nmiles distant. \u201cIn like manner, the more level the plain, the more\nnearly does the horizon approach within these narrow limits; and this,\nin my opinion, entirely destroys that grandeur which one would have\nimagined that a vast level plain would have possessed.\u201d\n\nDarwin found a tooth of a _native horse_ contemporary with the\nmastodon, on the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, though he says there is good\nevidence against any horse living in America at the time of Columbus.\nHe speaks of their remains being common in North America. Owen has\nfound Darwin\u2019s tooth similar to one Lyell brought from the United\nStates, but unlike any other, fossil or living, and named this American\nhorse _Equus curvidens_, from a slight but peculiar curvature in it.\n\nThe great table-land of southern Mexico makes the division between\nNorth and South America with reference to the migration of animals.\n\nQuotes Captain Owen\u2019s \u201cSurveying Voyage\u201d for saying that, at the town\nof Benguela on the west coast of Africa in a time of great drought,\na number of elephants entered in a body to possess themselves of\nthe wells. After a desperate conflict and the loss of one man, the\ninhabitants\u2014three thousand\u2014drove them off. During a great drought in\nIndia, says Dr. Malcomson, \u201ca hare drank out of a vessel held by the\nadjutant of the regiment.\u201d\n\nThe guanacos (wild llama) and other animals of this genus have the\nhabit of dropping their dung from day to day in the same heap. The\nPeruvian Indians use it for fuel, and are thus aided in collecting it.\n\nRowing up a stream which takes its rise in a mountain, you meet at\nlast with pebbles which have been washed down from it, when many miles\ndistant. I love to think of this kind of introduction to it.\n\nThe only quadruped native to the Falkland Islands is a large wolf-like\nfox. As far as he is aware, \u201cthere is no other instance in any part of\nthe world of so small a mass of broken land, distant from a continent,\npossessing so large an aboriginal quadruped peculiar to itself.\u201d\n\nIn the Falkland Isles, where other fuel is scarce, they frequently cook\ntheir beef with the bones from which the meat has been scraped. Also\nthey have \u201ca green little bush about the size of common heath, which\nhas the useful property of burning while fresh and green.\u201d\n\nSaw a cormorant play with its fishy prey as a cat with a mouse,\u2014eight\ntimes let it go and dive after it again.\n\nSeminal propagation produces a more original individual than that by\nbuds, layers, and grafts.\n\nSome inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego having got some putrid whale\u2019s\nblubber in time of famine, \u201can old man cut off thin slices and\nmuttering over them, broiled them for a minute, and distributed them to\nthe famished party, who during this time preserved a profound silence.\u201d\nThis was the only evidence of any religious worship among them. It\nsuggests that even the animals may have something divine in them and\nakin to revelation,\u2014some inspirations allying them to man as to God.\n\n\u201cNor is it easy to teach them our superiority except by striking a\nfatal blow. Like wild beasts, they do not appear to compare numbers;\nfor each individual, if attacked, instead of retiring, will endeavor\nto dash your brains out with a stone, as certainly as a tiger under\nsimilar circumstances would tear you.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe were well clothed, and though sitting close to the fire, were\nfar from too warm; yet these naked savages, though further off, were\nobserved, to our great surprise, to be streaming with perspiration at\nundergoing such a roasting.\u201d[197]\n\nEhrenberg examined some of the white paint with which the Fuegians\ndaub themselves, and found it to be composed of infusoria, including\nfourteen polygastrica, and four phytolitharia, inhabitants of fresh\nwater, all old and known forms!!\n\nAgain of the Fuegians: \u201cSimple circumstances\u2014such as the beauty\nof scarlet cloth or blue beads, the absence of women, our care in\nwashing ourselves\u2014excited their admiration far more than any grand or\ncomplicated object, such as our ship. Bougainville has well remarked\nconcerning these people, that they treat the \u2018chef-d\u2019\u0153uvres de\nl\u2019industrie humaine, comme ils traitent les loix de la nature es ses\nph\u00e9nom\u00e8nes.\u2019\u201d\n\nHe was informed of a tribe of foot Indians now changing into horse\nIndians apparently in Patagonia.\n\n\u201cWith the exception of a few berries, chiefly of a dwarf arbutus,\nthe natives [_i. e._ of Tierra del Fuego][198] eat no vegetable food\nbesides this fungus\u201d (_Cyttaria Darwinii_). The \u201conly country ... where\na cryptogamic plant affords a staple article of food.\u201d\n\nNo reptiles in Tierra del Fuego nor in Falkland Islands.\n\nDescribes a species of kelp there,\u2014_Macrocystis pyrifera_. \u201cI know few\nthings more surprising than to see this plant growing and flourishing\namidst those great breakers of the Western Ocean, which no mass of\nrock, let it be ever so hard, can long resist.... A few [stems][199]\ntaken together are sufficiently strong to support the weight of\nthe large loose stones to which, in the inland channels, they grow\nattached; and yet some of these stones were so heavy that, when drawn\nto the surface, they could scarcely be lifted into a boat by one\nperson.\u201d Captain Cook thought that some of it grew to the length of\nthree hundred and sixty feet. \u201cThe beds of this sea-weed, even when\nnot of great breadth,\u201d says D., \u201cmake excellent natural floating\nbreakwaters. It is quite curious to see, in an exposed harbor, how\nsoon the waves from the open sea, as they travel through the straggling\nstems, sink in height, and pass into smooth water.\u201d\n\nNumber of living creatures of all orders whose existence seems to\ndepend on the kelp; a volume might be written on them. If a forest were\ndestroyed anywhere, so many species would not perish as if this weed\nwere, and with the fish would go many birds and larger marine animals,\nand hence the Fuegian himself perchance.\n\nTree ferns in Van Diemen\u2019s Land (lat. 45\u00b0) six feet in circumference.\n\nMissionaries encountered icebergs in Patagonia in latitude\ncorresponding to the Lake of Geneva, in a season corresponding to June\nin Europe. In Europe, the most southern glacier which comes down to\nthe sea is on coast of Norway, latitude 67\u00b0,\u201420\u00b0, or 1230 [geographical\nmiles] nearer the pole.\n\nErratic boulders not observed in the intertropical parts of the world;\ndue to icebergs or glaciers.\n\nUnder soil perpetually frozen in North America in 56\u00b0 at three feet; in\nSiberia in 62\u00b0 at twelve to fifteen feet.\n\nIn an excursion from Valparaiso to the base of the Andes: \u201cWe unsaddled\nour horses near the spring, and prepared to pass the night. The evening\nwas fine, and the atmosphere so clear that the masts of the vessels\nat anchor in the bay of Valparaiso, although no less than twenty-six\ngeographical miles distant, could be distinguished clearly as little\nblack streaks.\u201d Anson had been surprised at the distance at which his\nvessels were discovered from the coast without knowing the reason,\u2014the\ngreat height of the land and the transparency of the air.\n\nFloating islands from four to six feet thick in Lake Tagua-tagua in\ncentral Chile; blown about.\n\n\n_June 12._ Listen to music religiously, as if it were the last strain\nyou might hear.[200]\n\nThere would be this advantage in travelling in your own country, even\nin your own neighborhood, that you would be so thoroughly prepared to\nunderstand what you saw you would make fewer travellers\u2019 mistakes.\n\nIs not he hospitable who entertains thoughts?\n\n\n_June 13._ Walked to Walden last night (moon not quite full) by\nrailroad and upland wood-path, returning by Wayland road. Last full\nmoon the elms had not leaved out,\u2014cast no heavy shadows,\u2014and their\noutlines were less striking and rich in the streets at night.\n\nI noticed night before night before last from Fair Haven how valuable\nwas some water by moonlight, like the river and Fair Haven Pond, though\nfar away, reflecting the light with a faint glimmering sheen, as in the\nspring of the year. The water shines with an inward light like a heaven\non earth. The silent depth and serenity and majesty of water! Strange\nthat men should distinguish gold and diamonds, when these precious\nelements are so common. I saw a distant river by moonlight, making no\nnoise, yet flowing, as by day, still to the sea, like melted silver\nreflecting the moonlight. Far away it lay encircling the earth. How far\naway it may look in the night, and even from a low hill how miles away\ndown in the valley! As far off as paradise and the delectable country!\nThere is a certain glory attends on water by night. By it the heavens\nare related to the earth, undistinguishable from a sky beneath you.\nAnd I forgot to say that after I reached the road by Potter\u2019s bars,\u2014or\nfurther, by Potter\u2019s Brook,\u2014I saw the moon suddenly reflected full from\na pool. A puddle from which you may see the moon reflected, and the\nearth dissolved under your feet. The magical moon with attendant stars\nsuddenly looking up with mild lustre from a window in the dark earth.\n\nI observed also the same night a halo about my shadow in the moonlight,\nwhich I referred to the accidentally lighter color of the surrounding\nsurface; I transferred my shadow to the darkest patches of grass,\nand saw the halo there equally. It serves to make the outlines of the\nshadow more distinct.\n\nBut now for last night. A few fireflies in the meadow. Do they shine,\nthough invisibly, by day? Is their candle lighted by day? It is not\nnightfall till the whip-poor-wills begin to sing.\n\nAs I entered the Deep Cut, I was affected by beholding the first faint\nreflection of genuine and unmixed moonlight on the eastern sand-bank\nwhile the horizon, yet red with day, was tingeing the western side.\nWhat an interval between those two lights! The light of the moon,\u2014in\nwhat age of the world does that fall upon the earth? The moonlight was\nas the earliest and dewy morning light, and the daylight tinge reminded\nme much more of the night. There were the old and new dynasties\nopposed, contrasted, and an interval between, which time could not\nspan. Then is night, when the daylight yields to the nightlight. It\nsuggested an interval, a distance not recognized in history. Nations\nhave flourished in that light.\n\nWhen I had climbed the sand-bank on the left, I felt the warmer current\nor stratum of air on my cheek, like a blast from a furnace.\n\nThe white stems of the pines, which reflected the weak light, standing\nthick and close together while their lower branches were gone, reminded\nme that the pines are only larger grasses which rise to a chaffy head,\nand we the insects that crawl between them. They are particularly\ngrass-like.\n\nHow long do the gales retain the heat of the sun? I find them retreated\nhigh up the sides of hills, especially on open fields or cleared\nplaces. Does, perchance, any of this pregnant air survive the dews of\nnight? Can any of it be found remembering the sun of yesterday even in\nthe morning hours. Does, perchance, some puff, some blast, survive the\nnight on elevated clearings surrounded by the forest?\n\nThe bullfrog belongs to summer. The different frogs mark the\nseasons pretty well,\u2014the peeping hyla, the dreaming frog,[201] and\nthe bullfrog. I believe that all may be heard at last occasionally\ntogether.\n\nI heard partridges drumming to-night as late as 9 o\u2019clock. What\nsingularly space penetrating and filling sound! Why am I never nearer\nto its source?\n\nWe do not commonly live our life out and full; we do not fill all our\npores with our blood; we do not inspire and expire fully and entirely\nenough, so that the wave, the comber, of each inspiration shall break\nupon our extremest shores, rolling till it meets the sand which bounds\nus, and the sound of the surf come back to us. Might not a bellows\nassist us to breathe? That our breathing should create a wind in a\ncalm day! We live but a fraction of our life. Why do we not let on the\nflood, raise the gates, and set all our wheels in motion? He that hath\nears to hear, let him hear. Employ your senses.\n\nThe newspapers tell us of news not to be named even with that in its\nown kind which an observing man can pick up in a solitary walk, as if\nit gained some importance and dignity by its publicness. Do we need to\nbe advertised each day that such is still the routine of life?[202]\n\nThe tree-toad\u2019s, too, is a summer sound.\n\nI hear, just as the night sets in, faint notes from time to time from\nsome sparrow (?) falling asleep,\u2014a vesper hymn,\u2014and later, in the\nwoods, the chuckling, rattling sound of some unseen bird on the near\ntrees. The nighthawk booms wide awake.\n\nBy moonlight we see not distinctly even the surface of the earth, but\nour daylight experience supplies us with confidence.\n\nAs I approached the pond down Hubbard\u2019s Path, after coming out of\nthe woods into a warmer air, I saw the shimmering of the moon on its\nsurface, and, in the near, now flooded cove, the water-bugs, darting,\ncircling about, made streaks or curves of light. The moon\u2019s inverted\npyramid of shimmering light commenced about twenty rods off, like so\nmuch micaceous sand. But I was startled to see midway in the dark water\na bright flamelike, more than phosphorescent light crowning the crests\nof the wavelets, which at first I mistook for fireflies, and thought\neven of cucullos.[203] It had the appearance of a pure, smokeless\nflame a half-dozen inches long, issuing from the water and bending\nflickeringly along its surface. I thought of St. Elmo\u2019s lights and the\nlike. But, coming near to the shore of the pond itself, these flames\nincreased, and I saw that even this was so many broken reflections of\nthe moon\u2019s disk, though one would have said they were of an intenser\nlight than the moon herself; from contrast with the surrounding water\nthey were. Standing up close to the shore and nearer the rippled\nsurface, I saw the reflections of the moon sliding down the watery\nconcave like so many lustrous burnished coins poured from a bag with\ninexhaustible lavishness, and the lambent flames on the surface were\nmuch multiplied, seeming to slide along a few inches with each wave\nbefore they were extinguished; and I saw how farther and farther off\nthey gradually merged in the general sheen, which, in fact, was made\nup of a myriad little mirrors reflecting the disk of the moon with\nequal brightness to an eye rightly placed. The pyramid or sheaf of\nlight which we see springing from near where we stand only, in fact,\nis the outline of that portion of the shimmering surface which an eye\ntakes in. To myriad eyes suitably placed, the whole surface of the pond\nwould be seen to shimmer, or rather it would be seen, as the waves\nturned up their mirrors, to be covered with those bright flame-like\nreflections of the moon\u2019s disk, like a myriad candles everywhere\nissuing from the waves; _i. e._ if there were as many eyes as angles\npresented by the waves, the whole surface would appear as bright as\nthe moon; and these reflections are dispersed in all directions into\nthe atmosphere, flooding it with light. No wonder that water reveals\nitself so far by night; even further in many states of the atmosphere\nthan by day. I thought at first it [was] some unusual phosphorescence.\nIn some positions these flames were star-like points, brighter than the\nbrightest stars. Suddenly a flame would show itself in a near and dark\nspace, precisely like some inflammable gas on the surface,\u2014as if an\ninflammable gas made its way up from the bottom.\n\nI heard my old musical, simple-noted owl. The sound of the _dreaming_\nfrogs[204] prevails over the others. Occasionally a bullfrog near me\nmade an obscene noise, a sound like an eructation, near me. I think\nthey must be imbodied eructations. They suggest flatulency.\n\nThe pond is higher than ever, so as to hinder fishermen, and I could\nhardly get to the true shore here on account of the bushes. I pushed\nout in a boat a little and heard the chopping of the waves under its\nbow. And on the bottom I saw the moving reflections of the shining\nwaves, faint streaks of light revealing the shadows of the waves or the\nopaqueness of the water.\n\nAs I climbed the hill again toward my old bean-field, I listened to\nthe ancient, familiar, immortal, dear cricket sound under all others,\nhearing at first some distinct chirps; but when these ceased I was\naware of the general earth-song, which my hearing had not heard, amid\nwhich these were only taller flowers in a bed, and I wondered if behind\nor beneath this there was not some other chant yet more universal. Why\ndo we not hear when this begins in the spring? and when it ceases in\nthe fall? Or is it too gradual?\n\nAfter I have got into the road I have no thought to record all the way\nhome,\u2014the walk is comparatively barren. The leafy elm sprays seem to\ndroop more by night (??).\n\n\n_June 14. Saturday._ Full moon last night. Set out on a walk to\nConantum at 7 P. M. A serene evening, the sun going down behind clouds,\na few white or slightly shaded piles of clouds floating in the eastern\nsky, but a broad, clear, mellow cope left for the moon to rise into.\nAn evening for poets to describe. Met a man driving home his cow from\npasture and stopping to chat with his neighbor; then a boy, who had\nset down his pail in the road to stone a bird most perseveringly, whom\nI heard afterward behind me telling his pail to be quiet in a tone of\nassumed anger, because it squeaked under his arm. As I proceed along\nthe back road I hear the lark still singing in the meadow, and the\nbobolink, and the gold robin on the elms, and the swallows twittering\nabout the barns. A small bird chasing a crow high in the air, who is\ngoing home at night. All nature is in an expectant attitude. Before\nGoodwin\u2019s house, at the opening of the Sudbury road, the swallows\nare diving at a tortoise-shell cat, who curvets and frisks rather\nawkwardly, as if she did not know whether to be scared or not. And\nnow, having proceeded a little way down this road, the sun having\nburied himself in the low cloud in the west and hung out his crimson\ncurtains,[205] I hear, while sitting by the wall, the sound of the\nstake-driver at a distance,\u2014like that made by a man pumping in a\nneighboring farmyard, watering his cattle, or like chopping wood before\nhis door on a frosty morning,[206] and I can imagine like driving a\nstake in a meadow. The pumper. I immediately went in search of the\nbird, but, after going a third of a mile, it did not sound much nearer,\nand the two parts of the sound did not appear to proceed from the same\nplace. What is the peculiarity of these sounds which penetrate so far\non the keynote of nature? At last I got near to the brook in the meadow\nbehind Hubbard\u2019s wood, but I could not tell if [it] were further or\nnearer than that. When I got within half a dozen rods of the brook, it\nceased, and I heard it no more. I suppose that I scared it. As before\nI was further off than I thought, so now I was nearer than I thought.\nIt is not easy to understand how so small a creature can make so loud\na sound by merely sucking in or throwing out water with pump-like\nlungs.[207] As yet no moon, but downy piles of cloud scattered here and\nthere in the expectant sky.\n\nSaw a blue flag blossom in the meadow while waiting for the\nstake-driver.\n\nIt was a sound as of gulping water.\n\nWhere my path crosses the brook in the meadow there is a singularly\nsweet scent in the heavy air bathing the brakes, where the brakes\ngrow,\u2014the fragrance of the earth, as if the dew were a distillation\nof the fragrant essences of nature. When I reach the road, the farmer\ngoing home from town invites me to ride in his high-set wagon, not\nthinking why I walk, nor can I shortly explain. He remarks on the\ncoolness of the weather. The angelica is budded, a handsome luxuriant\nplant. And now my senses are captivated again by a sweet fragrance as\nI enter the embowered willow causeway, and I know not if it be from\na particular plant or all together,\u2014sweet-scented vernal grass or\nsweet-briar. Now the sun is fairly gone, I hear the dreaming frog,[208]\nand the whip-poor-will from some _darker_ wood,\u2014it is not far from\neight,\u2014and the cuckoo. The song sparrows sing quite briskly among the\nwillows, as if it were spring again, and the blackbird\u2019s harsher note\nresounds over the meadows, and the veery\u2019s comes up from the wood.\nFishes are dimpling the surface of the river, seizing the insects which\nalight. A solitary fisherman in his boat inhabits the scene. As I rose\nthe hill beyond the bridge, I found myself in a cool, fragrant, dewy,\nup-country, mountain morning air, a new region. (When I had issued from\nthe willows on to the bridge, it was like coming out of night into\ntwilight, the river reflected so much light.) The moon was now seen\nrising over Fair Haven and at the same time reflected in the river,\npale and white like a silvery cloud, barred with a cloud, not promising\nhow it will shine anon. Now I meet an acquaintance coming from a remote\nfield in his hay-rigging, with a jag of wood; who reins up to show me\nhow large a woodchuck he has killed, which he found eating his clover.\nBut now he must drive on, for behind comes a boy taking up the whole\nroad with a huge roller drawn by a horse, which goes lumbering and\nbouncing along, getting out of the way of night,\u2014while the sun has gone\nthe other way,\u2014and making such a noise as if it had the contents of\na tinker\u2019s shop in its bowels, and rolls the whole road smooth like a\nnewly sown grain-field.\n\nIn Conant\u2019s orchard I hear the faint cricket-like song of a sparrow\nsaying its vespers, as if it were a link between the cricket and the\nbird. The robin sings now, though the moon shines silverly, and the\nveery jingles its trill. I hear the fresh and refreshing sound of\nfalling water, as I have heard it in New Hampshire. It is a sound we do\nnot commonly hear. I see that the whiteweed is in blossom, which, as I\nhad not walked by day for some time, I had not seen before.\n\nHow moderate, deliberate, is Nature! How gradually the shades of night\ngather and deepen, giving man ample leisure to bid farewell to-day,\nconclude his day\u2019s affairs, and prepare for slumber! The twilight seems\nout of proportion to the length of the day. Perchance it saves our\neyes. Now for some hours the farmers have been getting home.\n\nSince the alarm about mad dogs a couple of years ago there are\ncomparatively few left to bark at the traveller and bay the moon. All\nnature is abandoned to me.\n\nYou feel yourself\u2014your body, your legs,\u2014more at night, for there\nis less beside to be distinctly known, and hence perhaps you think\nyourself more tired than you are. I see indistinctly oxen asleep in\nthe fields, silent in majestic slumber, like the sphinx,\u2014statuesque,\nEgyptian, reclining. What solid rest! How their heads are supported!\nA sparrow or a cricket makes more noise. From Conant\u2019s summit I hear\nas many as fifteen whip-poor-wills\u2014or whip-or-I-wills\u2014at once, the\nsucceeding cluck sounding strangely foreign, like a hewer at work\nelsewhere.\n\nThe moon is accumulating yellow light and triumphing over the clouds,\nbut still the west is suffused here and there with a slight red tinge,\nmarking the path of the day. Though inexperienced ones might call it\nnight, it is not yet. Dark, heavy clouds lie along the western horizon,\nexhibiting the forms of animals and men, while the moon is behind\na cloud. Why do we detect these forms so readily?\u2014whales or giants\nreclining, busts of heroes, Michael-Angelic. There is the gallery of\nstatuary, the picture gallery of man,\u2014not a board upon an Italian\u2019s\nhead, but these dark figures along the horizon,\u2014the board some Titan\ncarries on his head. What firm and heavy outlines for such soft and\nlight material!\n\nHow sweet and encouraging it is to hear the sound of some artificial\nmusic from the midst of woods or from the top of a hill at night, borne\non the breeze from some distant farmhouse,\u2014the human voice or a flute!\nThat is a civilization one can endure, worth having. I could go about\nthe world listening for the strains of music. Men use this gift but\nsparingly, methinks. What should we think of a bird which had the gift\nof song but used it only once in a dozen years, like the tree which\nblossoms only once in a century?\n\nNow the dorbug comes humming by, the first I have heard this year. In\nthree months it will be the Harvest Moon. I cannot easily believe it.\nWhy not call this the Traveller\u2019s Moon? It would be as true to call\nthe last (the May) the Planter\u2019s Moon as it is to call September\u2019s the\nHarvest Moon, for the farmers use one about as little as the other.\nPerhaps this is the Whip-poor-will\u2019s Moon. The bullfrog now, which I\nhave not heard before, this evening. It is nearly nine. They are much\nless common and their note more intermittent than that of the dreamers.\nI scared up a bird on a _low_ bush, perchance on its nest. It is rare\nthat you start them at night from such places.\n\nPeabody says that the nighthawk retires to rest about the time the\nwhip-poor-will begins its song. The whip-poor-will begins now at\n7.30. I hear the nighthawk after 9 o\u2019clock. He says it flies low in\nthe evening, but it also flies high, as it must needs do to make the\nbooming sound.\n\nI hear the lowing of cows occasionally, and the barking of dogs.\nThe pond by moonlight, which may make the object in a walk, suggests\nlittle to be said. Where there was only one firefly in a dozen rods, I\nhastily ran to one which had crawled up to the top of a grass-head and\nexhibited its light, and instantly another sailed in to it, showing\nits light also; but my presence made them extinguish their lights.\nThe latter retreated, and the former crawled slowly down the stem.\nIt appeared to me that the first was a female who thus revealed her\nplace to the male, who was also making known his neighborhood as he\nhovered about, both showing their lights that they might come together.\nIt was like a mistress who had climbed to the turrets of her castle\nand exhibited there a blazing taper for a signal, while her lover\nhad displayed his light on the plain. If perchance she might have any\nlovers abroad.\n\nNot much before 10 o\u2019clock does the moonlight night begin. When man is\nasleep and day fairly forgotten, then is the beauty of moonlight seen\nover lonely pastures where cattle are silently feeding.[209] Then let\nme walk in a diversified country, of hill and dale, with heavy woods\none side, and copses and scattered trees and bushes enough to give me\nshadows. Returning, a mist is on the river. The river is taken into the\nwomb of Nature again.\n\nNow is the clover month, but haying is not yet begun.\n\n * * * * *\n\nEvening.\u2014Went to Nawshawtuct by North Branch.\n\nOvertaken by a slight shower. The same increased fragrance from the\nground\u2014sweet-fern, etc.\u2014as in the night, and for the like reason\nprobably. The houstonias still blossom freshly, as I believe they\ncontinue to do all summer. The fever-root in blossom; pictured in\nBigelow\u2019s \u201cMedical Botany.\u201d _Triosteum perfoliatum_, near the top of\nHill, under the wall, looks somewhat like a milkweed. The _Viburnum\ndentatum_, very regularly toothed, just ready to blossom; sometimes\ncalled arrow-wood.\n\nNature seems not [to] have designed that man should be much abroad by\nnight, and in the moon proportioned the light fitly. By the faintness\nand rareness of the light compared with that of the sun, she expresses\nher intention with regard to him.\n\n\n_June 15. Sunday._ Darwin still:\u2014\n\nFinds runaway sailors on the Chonos Archipelago, who he thought \u201chad\nkept a very good reckoning of time,\u201d having lost only four days in\nfifteen months.\n\nNear same place, on the islands of the archipelago, he found wild\npotato, the tallest four feet high, tubers generally small but one two\ninches in diameter; \u201cresembled in every respect, and had the same smell\nas English potatoes; but when boiled they shrunk much, and were watery\nand insipid, without any bitter taste.\u201d\n\nSpeaking of the surf on the coast of Chiloe, \u201cI was assured that,\nafter a heavy gale, the roar can be heard at night even at Castro,\na distance of no less than twenty-one sea-miles, across a hilly and\nwooded country.\u201d\n\nSubsidence and elevation of the west coast of South America and of the\nCordilleras. \u201cDaily it is forced home on the mind of the geologist,\nthat nothing, not even the wind that blows, is so unstable as the level\nof the crust of this earth.\u201d\n\nWould like to see Sir Francis Head\u2019s travels in South America,\u2014Pampas\nperhaps.[210] Also Chambers\u2019 \u201cSea Levels.\u201d Also travels of Spix and Von\nMartius.\n\nIt is said that hydrophobia was first known in South America in 1803.\n\nAt the Galapagos, the tortoises going to any place travel night and day\nand so get there sooner than would be expected,\u2014about eight miles in\ntwo or three days. He rode on their backs.\n\nThe productions of the Galapagos Archipelago, from five to six hundred\nmiles from America, are still of the American type. \u201cIt was most\nstriking to be surrounded by new birds, new reptiles, new shells,\nnew insects, new plants, and yet, by innumerable trifling details of\nstructure, and even by the tones of voice and plumage of the birds,\nto have the temperate plains of Patagonia, or the hot, dry deserts of\nNorthern Chile, vividly brought before my eyes.\u201d What is most singular,\nnot only are the plants, etc., to a great extent peculiar to these\nislands, but each for the most part has its own kinds, though they are\nwithin sight of each other.\n\nBirds so tame that they can be killed with a stick. _I_ would suggest\nthat, from having dealt so long with the inoffensive and slow-moulded\ntortoise, they have not yet acquired an instinctive fear of man, who is\na new-comer. Methinks tortoises, lizards, etc., for wild creatures are\nremarkable for the nearness to which man approaches them and handles\nthem, as logs,\u2014cold-blooded, lumpish forms of life,\u2014only taking care\nnot to step into their mouths. An alligator has been known to have come\nout of the mud like a mud volcano where was now the floor of a native\u2019s\nhut.\n\n\u201cThe common dock is ... widely disseminated, [in New Zealand][211] and\nwill, I fear, forever remain a proof of the rascality of an Englishman,\nwho sold the seeds for those of the tobacco plant.\u201d\n\nThe New-Hollanders a little higher in the scale of civilization than\nthe Fuegians.\n\nPuzzled by a \u201cwell rounded fragment of greenstone, rather larger than\na man\u2019s head,\u201d which a captain had found on a small coral circle or\natoll near Keeling Island, \u201cwhere every other particle of matter is\ncalcareous,\u201d about six hundred miles from Sumatra. D. agrees with\nKotzebue (_vide_ Kotzebue) who states that (Darwin\u2019s words) \u201cthe\ninhabitants of the Radack Archipelago, a group of lagoon-islands in the\nmidst of the Pacific, obtained stones for sharpening their instruments\nby searching the roots of trees which are cast upon the beach,\u201d and\n\u201claws have been established that such stones belong to the chief, and\na punishment is inflicted on any one who attempts to steal them.\u201d Let\ngeologists look out. \u201cSome natives carried by Kotzebue to Kamtschatka\ncollected stones to take back to their country.\u201d\n\nFound no bottom at 7200 feet, and 2200 yards from shore of Keeling\nIsland, a coral isle.\n\nHis theory of the formation of coral isles by the subsidence of the\nland appears probable. He concludes that \u201cthe great continents are,\nfor the most part, rising areas; and ... the central parts of the great\noceans are sinking areas.\u201d\n\nNot a _private_ person on the island of Ascension; the inhabitants are\npaid and victualled by the British government. Springs, cisterns, etc.,\nare managed by the same. \u201cIndeed, the whole island may be compared to\na huge ship kept in first-rate order.\u201d\n\n_Vide_ \u201cCircumnavigation of Globe up to Cook.\u201d\n\n_Vide_ \u201cVoyages Round the World since Cook.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe author of the article on Orchids in the _Eclectic_ says that \u201ca\nsingle plant produced three different flowers of genera previously\nsupposed to be quite distinct.\u201d\n\nSaw the first wild rose to-day on the west side of the railroad\ncauseway. The whiteweed has suddenly appeared, and the clover gives\nwhole fields a rich and florid appearance,\u2014the rich red and the\nsweet-scented white. The fields are blushing with the red species as\nthe western sky at evening. The blue-eyed grass, well named, looks up\nto heaven. And the yarrow, with its persistent dry stalks and heads,\nis now ready to blossom again. The dry stems and heads of last year\u2019s\ntansy stand high above the new green leaves.\n\nI sit in the shade of the pines to hear a wood thrush at noon. The\nground smells of dry leaves; the heat is oppressive. The bird begins\non a low strain, _i. e._ it first delivers a strain on a lower key,\nthen a moment after another a little higher, then another still varied\nfrom the others,\u2014no two successive strains alike, but either ascending\nor descending. He confines himself to his few notes, in which he is\nunrivalled, as if his kind had learned this and no more anciently.\n\nI perceive, as formerly, a white froth dripping from the pitch pines,\njust at the base of the new shoots. It has no taste. The pollywogs in\nthe pond are now full-tailed. The hickory leaves are blackened by a\nrecent frost, which reminds me that this is near their northern limit.\n\nIt is remarkable the rapidity with which the grass grows. The 25th of\nMay I walked to the hills in Wayland, and when I returned across lots\ndo not remember that I had much occasion to think of the grass, or to\ngo round any fields to avoid treading on it; but just a week afterward,\nat Worcester, it was high and waving in the fields, and I was to\nsome extent confined to the road; and the same was the case here.\nApparently in one month you get from fields which you can cross without\nhesitation, to haying time. It has grown you hardly know when, be the\nweather what it may, sunshine or storm. I start up a solitary woodcock\nin the shade, in some copse; goes off with a startled, rattling,\nhurried note.\n\nAfter walking by night several times I now walk by day, but I am not\naware of any crowning advantage in it. I see small objects better, but\nit does not enlighten me any. The day is more trivial.\n\nWhat a careful gardener Nature is! She does not let the sun come out\nsuddenly with all his intensity after rain and cloudy weather, but\ngraduates the change to suit the tenderness of plants.\n\nI see the tall crowfoot now in the meadows (_Ranunculus acris_), with\na smooth stem. I do not notice the _bulbosus_, which was so common a\nfortnight ago. The rose-colored flowers of the _Kalmia angustifolia_,\nlambkill, just opened and opening. The _Convallaria bifolia_ growing\nstale in the woods. The _Hieracium venosum_, veiny-leaved hawkweed,\nwith its yellow blossoms in the woodland path. The _Hypoxis erecta_,\nyellow Bethlehem-star, where there is a thick, wiry grass in open\npaths; should be called yellow-eyed grass, methinks. The _Pyrola\nasarifolia_, with its pagoda-like stem of flowers, _i. e_. broad-leaved\nwintergreen. The _Trientalis Americana_, like last, in the woods, with\nits star-like white flower and pointed whorled leaves. The prunella too\nis in blossom, and the rather delicate _Thesium umbellatum_, a white\nflower. The Solomon\u2019s-seal, with a greenish drooping raceme of flowers\nat the top, I do not identify.\n\nI notice to-day the same remarkable bushy growth on the fir (in\nWheildon\u2019s garden) that I have noticed on the pines and cedars. The\nleaves are not so thickly set and are much stiffer.\n\nI find that I postpone all actual intercourse with my friends to\na certain real intercourse which takes place commonly when we are\nactually at a distance from one another.\n\n\n_June 22. Sunday._ Is the shrub with yellow blossoms which I found last\nweek near the Lincoln road while surveying for E. Hosmer and thought to\nbe _Xylosteum ciliatum_, or fly honeysuckle, the same with the yellow\ndiervilla which I find in Laurel Glen to-day?\n\nThe birch is the surveyor\u2019s tree. It makes the best stakes to look\nat through the sights of a compass, except when there is snow on the\nground. Their white bark was not made in vain. In surveying wood-lots\nI have frequent occasion to say this is what they were made for.\n\nI see that Dugan has trimmed off and peeled the limbs of the willows on\nthe Turnpike to sell at the Acton powder-mill. I believe they get eight\ndollars a cord for this wood.\n\nI. Hapgood of Acton got me last Friday to compare the level of\nhis cellar-bottom with his garden, for, as he says, when Robbins &\nWetherbee keep the water of Nashoba Brook back so as to flood his\ngarden, it comes into his cellar. I found that part of the garden five\ninches lower than the cellar-bottom. Men are affected in various ways\nby the actions of others. If a man far away builds a dam, I have water\nin my cellar. He said that the water was sometimes a foot deep in the\ngarden.\n\nWe are enabled to criticise others only when we are different from, and\nin a given particular superior to, them ourselves. By our aloofness\nfrom men and their affairs we are enabled to overlook and criticise\nthem. There are but few men who stand on the hills by the roadside.\nI am sane only when I have risen above my common sense, when I do\nnot take the foolish view of things which is commonly taken, when\nI do not live for the low ends for which men commonly live. Wisdom\nis not common. To what purpose have I senses, if I am thus absorbed\nin affairs? My pulse must beat with Nature. After a hard day\u2019s work\nwithout a thought, turning my very brain into a mere tool, only in\nthe quiet of evening do I so far recover my senses as to hear the\ncricket, which in fact has been chirping all day. In my better hours I\nam conscious of the influx of a serene and unquestionable wisdom which\npartly unfits, and if I yielded to it more rememberingly would wholly\nunfit me, for what is called the active business of life, for that\nfurnishes nothing on which the eye of reason can rest. What is that\nother kind of life to which I am thus continually allured? which alone\nI love? Is it a life for this world? Can a man feed and clothe himself\ngloriously who keeps only the truth steadily before him? who calls in\nno evil to his aid? Are there duties which necessarily interfere with\nthe serene perception of truth? Are our serene moments mere foretastes\nof heaven,\u2014joys gratuitously vouchsafed to us as a consolation,\u2014or\nsimply a transient realization of what might be the whole tenor of our\nlives?\n\nTo be calm, to be serene! There is the calmness of the lake when there\nis not a breath of wind; there is the calmness of a stagnant ditch.\nSo is it with us. Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily,\nas we never were before in our lives, not by an opiate, but by some\nunconscious obedience to the all-just laws, so that we become like\na still lake of purest crystal and without an effort our depths are\nrevealed to ourselves. All the world goes by us and is reflected in our\ndeeps. Such clarity! obtained by such pure means! by simple living, by\nhonesty of purpose. We live and rejoice. I awoke into a music which no\none about me heard. Whom shall I thank for it? The luxury of wisdom!\nthe luxury of virtue! Are there any intemperate in these things? I\nfeel my Maker blessing me. To the sane man the world is a musical\ninstrument. The very touch affords an exquisite pleasure.\n\nAs I walk the railroad causeway, I notice that the fields and meadows\nhave acquired various tinges as the season advances, the sun gradually\nusing all his paints. There is the rosaceous evening red tinge of red\nclover,\u2014like an evening sky gone down upon the grass,\u2014the whiteweed\ntinge, the white clover tinge, which reminds me how sweet it smells.\nThe tall buttercup stars the meadow on another side, telling of the\nwealth of dairies. The blue-eyed grass, so beautiful near at hand,\nimparts a kind of slate or clay blue tinge to the meads.\n\nIt is hot noon. The white pines are covered with froth at the base\nof the new shoots, as I noticed the pitch pines were a week ago; as\nif they perspired. I am threading an open pitch and white pine wood,\neasily traversed, where the pine-needles redden all the ground, which\nis as smooth as a carpet. Still the blackberries love to creep over\nthis floor, for it is not many years since this was a blackberry-field.\nAnd I hear around me, but never in sight, the many wood thrushes\nwhetting their steel-like notes. Such keen singers! It takes a fiery\nheat, many dry pine leaves added to the furnace of the sun, to temper\ntheir strains! Always they are either rising or falling to a new\nstrain. After what a moderate pause they deliver themselves again!\nsaying ever a new thing, avoiding repetition, methinks answering one\nanother. While most other birds take their siesta, the wood thrush\ndischarges his song. It is delivered like a bolas, or a piece of\njingling steel.\n\nThe domestic ox has his horns tipped with brass. This and his shoes\nare the badges of servitude which he wears; as if he would soon get to\njacket and trousers. I am singularly affected when I look over a herd\nof reclining oxen in their pasture, and find that every one has these\nbrazen balls on his horns. They are partly humanized so. It is not pure\nbrute; there is art added. Where are these balls sold? Who is their\nmaker? The bull has a ring in his nose.\n\nThe _Lysimachia quadrifolia_ exhibits its small yellow blossoms now in\nthe wood-path. Butter-and-eggs has blossomed. The _Uvularia vulgaris_,\nor bladderwort, a yellow pea-like flower, has blossomed in stagnant\npools.\n\n\n_June 23._ It is a pleasant sound to me, the squeaking and the booming\nof nighthawks flying over high open fields in the woods. They fly like\nbutterflies, not to avoid birds of prey but, apparently, to secure\ntheir own insect prey. There is a particular part of the railroad just\nbelow the shanty where they may be heard and seen in greatest numbers.\nBut often you must look a long while before you can detect the mote in\nthe sky from which the note proceeds.\n\nThe common cinquefoil (_Potentilla simplex_) greets me with its\nsimple and unobtrusive yellow flower in the grass. The _P. argentea_,\nhoary cinquefoil, also is now in blossom. _P. sarmentosa_, running\ncinquefoil, we had common enough in the spring.\n\n\n_June 26. Thursday._ The slight reddish-topped grass (red-top?) now\ngives a reddish tinge to some fields, like sorrel.\n\nVisited a menagerie this afternoon. I am always surprised to see the\nsame spots and stripes on wild beasts from Africa and Asia and also\nfrom South America,\u2014on the Brazilian tiger and the African leopard,\u2014and\ntheir general similarity. All these wild animals\u2014lions, tigers,\nchetas, leopards, etc.\u2014have one hue,\u2014tawny and commonly spotted or\nstriped,\u2014what you may call pard-color, a color and marking which I had\nnot associated with America. These are wild beasts. What constitutes\nthe difference between a wild beast and a tame one? How much more human\nthe one than the other! Growling, scratching, roaring, with whatever\nbeauty and gracefulness, still untamable, this royal Bengal tiger or\nthis leopard. They have the character and the importance of another\norder of men. The majestic lion, the king of beasts,\u2014he must retain his\ntitle.\n\nI was struck by the gem-like, changeable, greenish reflections from\nthe eyes of the grizzly bear, so glassy that you never saw the surface\nof the eye. They [were] quite demonic. Its claws, though extremely\nlarge and long, look weak and made for digging or pawing the earth and\nleaves. It is unavoidable, the idea of transmigration; not merely a\nfancy of the poets, but an instinct of the race.\n\n\n_June 29._ There is a great deal of white clover this year. In many\nfields where there has been no clover seed sown for many years at\nleast, it is more abundant than the red, and the heads are nearly as\nlarge. Also pastures which are close cropped, and where I think there\nwas little or no clover last year, are spotted white with a humbler\ngrowth. And everywhere, by roadsides, garden borders, etc., even\nwhere the sward is trodden hard, the small white heads on short stems\nare sprinkled everywhere. As this is the season for the swarming of\nbees, and this clover is very attractive to them, it is probably the\nmore difficult to secure them; at any rate it is the more important\nto secure their services now that they can make honey so fast. It is\nan interesting inquiry why this year is so favorable to the growth of\nclover!\n\nI am interested to observe how old-country methods of farming resources\nare introduced among us. The Irish laborer, for instance, seeing that\nhis employer is contemplating some agricultural enterprise, as ditching\nor fencing, suggests some old-country mode with [which] he has been\nfamiliar from a boy, which is often found to be cheaper as well as more\nornamental than the common; and Patrick is allowed to accomplish the\nobject his own way, and for once exhibits some skill and has not to\nbe shown, but, working with a will as well as with pride, does better\nthan ever in the old country. Even the Irishman exhibits what might be\nmistaken for a Yankee knack, exercising a merely inbred skill derived\nfrom the long teachings and practice of his ancestors.\n\nI saw an Irishman building a bank of sod where his employer had\ncontemplated building a bank wall, piling up very neatly and solidly\nwith his spade and a line the sods taken from the rear, and coping the\nface at a very small angle from the perpendicular, intermingling the\nsods with bushes as they came to hand, which would grow and strengthen\nthe whole. It was much more agreeable to the eye, as well as less\nexpensive, than stone would have been, and he thought that it would be\nequally effective as a fence and no less durable. But it is true only\nexperience will show when the same practice may be followed in this\nclimate and in Ireland,\u2014whether our atmosphere is not too dry to admit\nof it. At any rate it was wise in the farmer thus to avail himself of\nany peculiar experience which his hired laborer possessed. That was\nwhat he _should_ buy.\n\nAlso I noticed the other day where one who raises seeds, when his\nropes and poles failed, had used ropes twisted of straw to support\nhis plants,\u2014a resource probably suggested and supplied by his foreign\nlaborers. It is only remarkable that so few improvements or resources\nare or are to be adopted from the Old World.\n\nI look down on rays of prunella by the roadsides now. The panicled or\nprivet andromeda with its fruit-like white flowers. Swamp-pink I see\nfor the first time this season.\n\nThe tree-primrose (scabish)[212] (_\u0152nother biennais_), a rather coarse\nyellow flower with a long tubular calyx, naturalized extensively in\nEurope. The clasping bellflower (_Campanula perfoliata_, from the\nheart-shaped leaves clasping the stalk), an interesting flower.\n\nThe _Convolvulus sepium_, large bindweed, make a fresh morning\nimpression as of dews and purity. The adder\u2019s-tongue arethusa, a\ndelicate pink flower.\n\nHow different is day from day! Yesterday the air was filled with a\nthick fog-like haze, so that the sun did not once shine with ardor,\nbut everything was so tempered under this thin veil that it was a\nluxury merely to be outdoors,\u2014you were less out for it. The shadows of\nthe apple trees even early in the afternoon were remarkably distinct.\nThe landscape wore a classical smoothness. Every object was as in [a]\npicture with a glass over it. I saw some hills on this side the river,\nlooking from Conantum, on which, the grass being of a yellow tinge,\nthough the sun did not shine out on them, they had the appearance\nof being shone upon peculiarly. It was merely an unusual yellow tint\nof the grass. The mere surface of water was an object for the eye to\nlinger on.\n\nThe panicled cornel, a low shrub, in blossom by wall-sides now.\n\nI thought that one peculiarity of my \u201cWeek\u201d was its _hyp\u00e6thral_\ncharacter, to use an epithet applied to those Egyptian temples which\nare open to the heavens above, _under the ether_. I thought that it had\nlittle of the atmosphere of the house about it, but might wholly have\nbeen written, as in fact it was to a considerable extent, out-of-doors.\nIt was only at a late period in writing it, as it happened, that I used\nany phrases implying that I lived in a house or led a _domestic_ life.\nI trust it does not smell [so much] of the study and library, even of\nthe poet\u2019s attic, as of the fields and woods; that it is a hyp\u00e6thral or\nunroofed book, lying open under the ether and permeated by it, open to\nall weathers, not easy to be kept on a shelf.\n\nThe potatoes are beginning to blossom.\n\nRiding to survey a wood-lot yesterday, I observed that a dog\naccompanied the wagon. Having tied the horse at the last house and\nentered the woods, I saw no more of the dog while there; but when\nriding back to the village, I saw the dog again running by the wagon,\nand in answer to my inquiry was told that the horse and wagon were\nhired and that the dog always accompanied the horse. I queried whether\nit might happen that a dog would accompany the wagon if a strange horse\nwere put into it; whether he would ever attach himself to an inanimate\nobject. Methinks the driver, though a stranger, as it were added\nintellect to the mere animality of the horse, and the dog, not making\nvery nice distinctions, yielded respect to the horse and equipage as if\nit were human. If the horse were to trot off alone without a wagon or\ndriver, I think it doubtful if the dog would follow; if with the wagon,\nthen the chances of his following would be increased; but if with a\ndriver, though a stranger, I have found by experience that he would\nfollow.\n\nAt a distance in the meadow I hear still, at long intervals, the\nhurried commencement of the bobolink\u2019s strain, the bird just dashing\ninto song, which is as suddenly checked, as it were, by the warder\nof the seasons, and the strain is left incomplete forever. Like human\nbeings they are inspired to sing only for a short season.[213]\n\nThat little roadside pea-like-blossomed blue flower[214] is interesting\nto me. The mulleins are just blossoming.\n\nThe voice of the crickets, heard at noon from deep in the grass, allies\nday to night. It is unaffected by sun and moon. It is a midnight sound\nheard at noon, a midday sound heard at midnight.\n\nI observed some mulleins growing on the western slope of the sandy\nrailroad embankment, in as warm a place as can easily be found, where\nthe heat was reflected from the sand oppressively at 3 o\u2019clock P. M.\nthis hot day; yet the green and living leaves felt rather cool than\notherwise to the hand, but the dead ones at the root were quite warm.\nThe living plant thus preserves a cool temperature in the hottest\nexposure, as if it kept a cellar below, from which cooling liquors were\ndrawn up.\n\nYarrow is now in full bloom, and elder, and a small many-headed white\ndaisy like a small whiteweed. The epilobium, too, is out.\n\nThe night-warbler sings the same strain at noon. The song sparrow still\noccasionally reminds me of spring.\n\nI observe that the high water in the ponds, which have been rising\nfor a year, has killed most of the pitch pines and alders which it had\nplanted and merely watered at its edge during the years of dryness. But\nnow it comes to undo its own work.\n\nHow awful is the least unquestionable meanness, when we cannot deny\nthat we have been guilty of it. There seem to be no bounds to our\nunworthiness.\n\n\n_June 30._ Haying has commenced. I see the farmers in distant fields\ncocking their hay now at six o\u2019clock. The day has been so oppressively\nwarm that some workmen have lain by at noon, and the haymakers are\nmowing now in the early twilight.\n\nThe blue flag (_Iris versicolor_) enlivens the meadow. The lark sings\nat sundown off in the meadow. It is a note which belongs to a New\nEngland summer evening. Though so late, I hear the summer hum of a bee\nin the grass, as I am on my way to the river behind Hubbard\u2019s to bathe.\nAfter hoeing in a dusty garden all this warm afternoon,\u2014so warm that\nthe baker says he never knew the like and expects to find his horses\ndead in the stable when he gets home,\u2014it is very grateful to wend one\u2019s\nway at evening to some pure and cool stream and bathe therein.\n\nThe cranberry is now in blossom. Their fresh shoots have run a foot or\ntwo over the surface.\n\nI have noticed an abundance of poison sumach this season. It is now in\nblossom. In some instances it has the size and form of a healthy peach\ntree.\n\nThe cuckoo is faintly heard from a neighboring grove. Now that it\nis beginning to be dark, as I am crossing a pasture I hear a happy,\ncricket-like, shrill little lay from a sparrow, either in the grass\nor else on that distant tree, as if it were the vibrations of a\nwatch-spring; its vespers. The tree-primrose, which was so abundant in\none field last Saturday, is now all gone. The cattle on Bear Garden\nHill, seen through the twilight, look monstrously large. I find\nabounding in the meadows the adder\u2019s-tongue arethusa and occasionally\nwith it the _Cymbidium tuberosum_ of the same tint. The obtuse galium\nis a delicate vine-like plant with a minute white blossom in the same\nplaces. The St. John\u2019s-wort has blossomed. The (_\u0152nothera pumila_, or\ndwarf tree-primrose, a neat yellow flower, abounds in the meadows;\nwhich the careless would mistake at a distance for buttercups. The\nwhite buds of the clethra (alder-leaved) rise above their recent\nshoots. The narrow-leaved cotton-grass spots the meadow with white,\nseeming like loose down, its stems are so slight. The carrot growing\nwild which I observed by the railroad is now blossoming, with its\ndishing blossom. I found by the railroad, a quarter of a mile from\nthe road, some common garden catch-fly, the pink flower, growing\nwild. Angelica is now in blossom, with its large umbels. Swamp rose,\nfugacious-petalled. The prinos, or winterberry, budded, with white\nclustered berry-like flower-buds, is a pretty contrast to itself in\nthe winter,\u2014wax-like. While bathing I plucked the common floating\nplant like a small yellow lily, the yellow water ranunculus (_R.\nmultifidus_). What I suppose is the _Aster miser_, small-flowered\naster, like a small many-headed whiteweed, has now for a week been in\nbloom; a humble weed, but one of the earliest of the asters.[215] The\numbelled thesium, a simple white flower, on the edge of the woods.\n_Erysimum officinale_, hedge mustard, with its yellow flowers.\n\nI first observed about ten days ago that the fresh shoots of the fir\nbalsam (_Abies balsamifera_), found under the tree wilted, or plucked\nand kept in the pocket or in the house a few days, emit the fragrance\nof strawberries, only it is somewhat more aromatic and spicy. It was to\nme a very remarkable fragrance to be emitted by a pine. A very rich,\ndelicious, aromatic, spicy fragrance, which if the fresh and living\nshoots emitted, they would be still more to be sought after.\n\nSaw a brood of young partridges yesterday, a little larger than robins.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nJULY, 1851\n\n(\u00c6T. 33-34)\n\n\n_July 2._ It is a fresh, cool summer morning. From the road at N.\nBarrett\u2019s, on my way to P. Blood\u2019s at 8.30 A. M., the Great Meadows\nhave a slight bluish misty tinge in part; elsewhere a sort of hoary\nsheen like a fine downiness, inconceivably fine and silvery far\naway,\u2014the light reflected from the grass blades, a sea of grass hoary\nwith light, the counterpart of the frost in spring. As yet no mower\nhas profaned it; scarcely a footstep since the waters left it. Miles of\nwaving grass adorning the surface of the earth.\n\nLast night, a sultry night which compelled to leave all windows open,\nI heard two travellers talking aloud, was roused out of my sleep by\ntheir loud, day-like, and somewhat unearthly discourse at perchance\none o\u2019clock. From the country, whiling away the night with loud\ndiscourse. I heard the words \u201cTheodore Parker\u201d and \u201cWendell Phillips\u201d\nloudly spoken, and so did half a dozen of my neighbors, who also were\nawakened. Such is fame. It affected [me] like Dante talking of the men\nof this world in the infernal regions. If the travellers had called my\nown name I should equally have thought it an unearthly personage which\nit would take me some hours into daylight to realize. O traveller,\nhaven\u2019t you got any further than that? My genius hinted before I fairly\nawoke, \u201cImprove your time.\u201d What is the night that a traveller\u2019s voice\nshould sound so hollow in it? that a man speaking aloud in the night,\nspeaking in regions under the earth, should utter the words \u201cTheodore\nParker\u201d?\n\nA traveller! I love his title. A traveller is to be reverenced as such.\nHis profession is the best symbol of our life. Going from \u2014\u2014 toward\n\u2014\u2014; it is the history of every one of us. I am interested in those that\ntravel in the night.\n\nIt takes but little distance to make the hills and even the meadows\nlook blue to-day. That principle which gives the air an azure color is\nmore abundant.\n\nTo-day the milkweed is blossoming. Some of the raspberries are ripe,\nthe most innocent and simple of fruits, the purest and most ethereal.\nCherries are ripe. Strawberries in the gardens have passed their prime.\n\nMany large trees, especially elms, about a house are a surer indication\nof old family distinction and worth than any evidence of wealth. Any\nevidence of care bestowed on these trees secures the traveller\u2019s\nrespect as for a nobler husbandry than the raising of corn and\npotatoes.\n\nI passed a regular country dooryard this forenoon, the unpainted\none-story house, long and low with projecting stoop, a deep grass-plot\nunfenced for yard, hens and chickens scratching amid the chip dirt\nabout the door,\u2014this last the main feature, relics of wood-piles, sites\nof the wooden towers.\n\nThe nightshade has bloomed and the prinos, or winterberry.\n\n\n_July 5._ The vetch-like flower by the Marlborough road, the _Tephrosia\nVirginica_, is in blossom, with mixed red and yellowish blossoms.\nAlso the white fine-flowered Jersey tea (_Ceanothus Americana_), and,\nby the side of wood-paths, the humble cow-wheat (_Apocynum_, etc.).\nThe blue flower by the roadside, slender but pretty spike, is the\npale lobelia (_L. pallida_). The reddish blossoms of the umbelled\nwintergreen (_Pyrola umbellata_) are now in perfection and are\nexceedingly beautiful. Also the white sweet-scented flowers of the _P.\nrotundifolia_.\n\nIt is a remarkably cool, clear, breezy atmosphere to-day. One would\nsay there were fewer flowers just now than there have been and are to\nbe; _i. e._ we do not look so much for the blossoming of new flowers.\nThe earliest small fruits are just beginning to be ripe,\u2014the raspberry,\nthimble-berry, blueberry, etc. We have no longer the blossoms of those\nwhich must ripen their fruits in early autumn.\n\nI am interested in those fields in the woods where the potato is\ncultivated, growing in the light, dry, sandy soil, free from weeds; now\nin blossom, the slight vine not crowded in the hill. I think they do\nnot promise many potatoes, though mealy and wholesome like nuts. Many\nfields have now received their last hoeing, and the farmers\u2019 work seems\nto be soon over with them. What a pleasant interview he must have had\nwith them! What a liberal education with these professors! Better than\na university. It is pleasing to consider man\u2019s cultivating this plant\nthus assiduously, without reference to any crop it may yield him, as if\nhe were to cultivate johnswort in like manner. What influences does he\nreceive from this long intercourse.\n\nThe flowers of the umbelled pyrola, or common wintergreen, are\nreally very handsome now, dangling red from their little umbels like\njewelry,\u2014especially the unexpanded buds with their red calyx-leaves\nagainst the white globe of petals.\n\nThere is a handsome wood-path on the east side of White Pond. The\nshadows of the pine stems and branches falling across the path, which\nis perfectly red with pine-needles, make a very handsome carpet. Here\nis a small road running north and south along the edge of the wood,\nwhich would be a good place to walk by moonlight.\n\nThe calamint grows by the lane beyond Seven-Star Lane; now in blossom.\n\nAs we come over Hubbard\u2019s Bridge between 5 and 6 P. M., the sun\ngetting low, a cool wind blowing up the valley, we sit awhile on the\nrails which are destined for the new railing. The light on the Indian\nhill is very soft and glorious, giving the idea of the most wonderful\nfertility. The most barren hills are gilded like waving grain-fields.\nWhat a paradise to sail by! The cliffs and woods up the stream are\nnearer and have more shadow and actuality about them. This retired\nbridge is a favorite spot with me. I have witnessed many a fair sunset\nfrom it.\n\n\n_July 6. Sunday._ I walked by night last moon, and saw its disk\nreflected in Walden Pond, the broken disk, now here, now there, a\npure and memorable flame unearthly bright, like a cucullo[216] of a\nwater-bug. Ah! but that first faint tinge of moonlight on the gap!\n(seen some time ago),[217]\u2014a silvery light from the east before day had\ndeparted in the west. What an immeasurable interval there is between\nthe first tinge of moonlight which we detect, lighting with mysterious,\nsilvery, poetic light the western slopes, like a paler grass, and the\nlast wave of daylight on the eastern slopes! It is wonderful how our\nsenses ever span so vast an interval, how from being aware of the one\nwe become aware of the other. And now the night wind blows,\u2014from where?\nWhat gave it birth? It suggests an interval equal to that between\nthe most distant periods recorded in history. The silver age is not\nmore distant from the golden than moonlight is from sunlight. I am\nlooking into the west, where the red clouds still indicate the course\nof departing day. I turn and see the silent, spiritual, contemplative\nmoonlight shedding the softest imaginable light on the western slopes\nof the hills, as if, after a thousand years of polishing, their\nsurfaces were just beginning to be bright,\u2014a pale whitish lustre.\nAlready the crickets chirp to the moon a different strain, and the\nnight wind rustles the leaves of the wood. A different dynasty has\ncommenced. Yet moonlight, like daylight, is more valuable for what\nit suggests than for what it actually is. It is a long past season of\nwhich I dream. And the reason is perchance because it is a more sacred\nand glorious season, to which I instantly refer all glorious actions in\npast time. Let a nobler landscape present itself, let a purer air blow,\nand I locate all the worthies of the world. Ah, there is the mysterious\nlight which for some hours has illustrated Asia and the scene of\nAlexander\u2019s victories, now at length, after two or three hours spent\nin surmounting the billows of the Atlantic, come to shine on America.\nThere, on that illustrated sand-bank, was revealed an antiquity beside\nwhich Nineveh is young. Such a light as sufficed for the earliest ages.\nFrom what star has it arrived on this planet? Yet even at midday I\nsee the full moon shining in the sky. What if, in some vales, only its\nlight is reflected? What if there are some spirits which walk in its\nlight alone still? who separate the moonlight from the sunlight, and\nare shined on by the former only? I passed from dynasty to dynasty,\nfrom one age of the world to another age of the world, from Jove\nperchance back to Saturn. What river of Lethe was there to run between?\nI bade farewell to that light setting in the west and turned to salute\nthe new light rising in the east.\n\nThere is some advantage in being the humblest, cheapest, least\ndignified man in the village, so that the very stable boys shall damn\nyou. Methinks I enjoy that advantage to an unusual extent. There is\nmany a coarsely well-meaning fellow, who knows only the skin of me, who\naddresses me familiarly by my Christian name. I get the whole good of\nhim and lose nothing myself. There is \u201cSam,\u201d the jailer,\u2014whom I never\ncall Sam, however,\u2014who exclaimed last evening: \u201cThoreau, are you going\nup the street pretty soon? Well, just take a couple of these handbills\nalong and drop one in at Hoar\u2019s piazza and one at Holbrook\u2019s, and\nI\u2019ll do as much for you another time.\u201d I am not above being used, aye\nabused, sometimes.\n\nThe red clover heads are now turned black. They no longer impart that\nrosaceous tinge to the meadows and fertile fields. It is but a short\ntime that their rich bloom lasts. The white is black or withering\nalso. Whiteweed still looks white in the fields. Blue-eyed grass is\nnow rarely seen. The grass in the fields and meadows is not so fresh\nand fair as it was a fortnight ago. It is dryer and riper and ready for\nthe mowers. Now June is past. June is the month for grass and flowers.\nNow grass is turning to hay, and flowers to fruits. Already I gather\nripe blueberries on the hills. The red-topped grass is in its prime,\ntingeing the fields with red.\n\nIt is a free, flowing wind, with wet clouds in the sky, though the\nsun shines. The distant hills look unusually near in this atmosphere.\nActon meeting-houses seen to stand on the side of some hills, Nagog or\nNashoba, beyond, as never before. Nobscot looks like a high pasture in\nthe sunlight not far off. From time to time I hear a few drops of rain\nfalling on the leaves, but none is felt and the sun does not cease to\nshine. All serious showers go round me and get out of my way.\n\nThe clasping harebell is certainly a pretty flower, and so is the\ntephrosia. The poke has blossomed and the indigo-weed.\n\n\n_July 7._ The intimations of the night are divine, methinks. Men\nmight meet in the morning and report the news of the night,\u2014what\ndivine suggestions have been made to them. I find that I carry with\nme into the day often some such hint derived from the gods,\u2014such\nimpulses to purity, to heroism, to literary effort even, as are never\nday-born.[218]\n\nOne of those mornings which usher in no day, but rather an endless\nmorning, a protracted auroral season, for clouds prolong the twilight\nthe livelong day.\n\nAnd now that there is an interregnum in the blossoming of the flowers,\nso is there in the singing of the birds. The golden robin is rarely\nheard, and the bobolink, etc.\n\nI rejoice when in a dream I have loved virtue and nobleness.\n\nWhere is Grecian history? It is when in the morning I recall the\nintimations of the night.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe moon is now more than half full. When I come through the village\nat 10 o\u2019clock this cold night, cold as in May, the heavy shadows of\nthe elms covering the ground with their rich tracery impress me as\nif men had got so much more than they had bargained for, not only\ntrees to stand in the air, but to checker the ground with their\nshadows. At night they lie along the earth. They tower, they arch,\nthey droop over the streets like chandeliers of darkness. In my walk\nthe other afternoon, I saw the sun shining into the depths of a thick\npine wood, checkering the ground like moonlight and illuminating the\nlichen-covered bark of a large white pine, from which it was reflected\nthrough the surrounding thicket as from another sun. This was so deep\nin the woods that you would have said no sun could penetrate thither.\n\nI have been to-night with Anthony Wright to look through Perez Blood\u2019s\ntelescope a second time. A dozen of Blood\u2019s neighbors were swept along\nin the stream of our curiosity. One who lived half a mile this side\nsaid that Blood had been down that way within a day or two with his\nterrestrial, or day, glass, looking into the eastern horizon [at]\nthe hills of Billerica, Burlington, and Woburn. I was amused to see\nwhat sort of respect this man with a telescope had obtained from his\nneighbors, something akin to that which savages award to civilized men,\nthough in this case the interval between the parties was very slight.\nMr. Blood, with his skull-cap on, his short figure, his north European\nfigure, made me think of Tycho Brahe. He did not invite us into his\nhouse this cool evening,\u2014men nor women,\u2014nor did he ever before to my\nknowledge. I am still contented to see the stars with my naked eye. Mr.\nWright asked him what his instrument cost. He answered, \u201cWell, that\nis something I don\u2019t like to tell.\u201d (Stuttering or hesitating in his\nspeech a little as usual.) \u201cIt is a very proper question, however.\u201d\n\u201cYes,\u201d said I, \u201cand you think that you have given a very proper\nanswer.\u201d\n\nReturning, my companion, Wright, the sexton, told me how dusty he\nfound it digging a grave that afternoon,\u2014for one who had been a pupil\nof mine. For two feet, he said, notwithstanding the rain, he found the\nsoil as dry as ashes.\n\nWith a certain wariness, but not without a slight shudder at the\ndanger oftentimes, I perceive how near I had come to admitting into\nmy mind the details of some trivial affair, as a case at court; and\nI am astonished to observe how willing men are to lumber their minds\nwith such rubbish,\u2014to permit idle rumors, tales, incidents, even of an\ninsignificant kind, to intrude upon what should be the sacred ground of\nthe thoughts. Shall the temple of our thought be a public arena where\nthe most trivial affairs of the market and the gossip of the tea-table\nis discussed,\u2014a dusty, noisy, trivial place? Or shall it be a quarter\nof heaven itself, a place consecrated to the service of the gods, a\nhyp\u00e6thral temple? I find it so difficult to dispose of the few facts\nwhich to me are significant, that I hesitate to burden my mind with\nthe most insignificant, which only a divine mind could illustrate.\nSuch is, for the most part, the news,\u2014in newspapers and conversation.\nIt is important to preserve the mind\u2019s chastity in this respect. Think\nof admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into\nthe mind, to stalk profanely through its very _sanctum sanctorum_\nfor an hour, aye, for many hours! to make a very bar-room of your\nmind\u2019s inmost apartment, as if for a moment the dust of the street\nhad occupied you, aye, the very street itself, with all its travel,\npassed through your very mind of minds, your thoughts\u2019 shrine, with\nall its filth and bustle! Would it not be an intellectual suicide? By\nall manner of boards and traps, threatening the extreme penalty of the\ndivine law, excluding trespassers from these grounds, it behooves us\nto preserve the purity and sanctity of the mind.[219] It is so hard\nto forget what it is worse than useless to remember. If I am to be a\nchannel or thoroughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain springs,\nand not the town sewers,\u2014the Parnassian streams. There is inspiration,\nthe divine gossip which comes to the ear of the attentive mind from\nthe courts of heaven; there is the profane and stale revelation of the\nbar-room and the police court. The same ear is fitted to receive both\ncommunications. Only the character of the individual determines to\nwhich source chiefly it shall be open and to which closed. I believe\nthat the mind can be profaned by the habit of attending to trivial\nthings, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality. They\nshall be dusty as stones in the street. Our very minds shall be paved\nand macadamized, as it were, their foundation broken into fragments\nfor the wheels of travel to roll over. If we have thus desecrated\nourselves, the remedy will be, by circumspection and wariness, by our\naspiration and devotion, to consecrate ourselves, to make a fane of the\nmind. I think that we should treat our minds as innocent and ingenuous\nchildren whose guardians we are,\u2014be careful what objects and what\nsubjects we thrust on their attention. Even the facts of science may\ndust the mind by their dryness, unless they are in a sense effaced each\nmorning, or rather rendered fertile by the dews of fresh and living\ntruth. Every thought that passes through the mind helps to wear and\ntear it, and to deepen the ruts, which, as in the streets of Pompeii,\nevince how much it has been used. How many things there are concerning\nwhich we might well deliberate whether we had better know them![220]\nRoutine, conventionality, manners, etc., etc.,\u2014how insensibly an undue\nattention to these dissipates and impoverishes the mind, robs it of its\nsimplicity and strength, emasculates it!\n\nKnowledge does not come to us by details but by _lieferungs_ from the\ngods. What else is it to wash and purify ourselves? Conventionalities\nare as bad as impurities.[221] Only thought which is expressed by\nthe mind in repose\u2014as it were, lying on its back and contemplating\nthe heavens\u2014is adequately and fully expressed. What are sidelong,\ntransient, passing half-views? The writer expressing his thought must\nbe as well seated as the astronomer contemplating the heavens; he must\nnot occupy a constrained position. The facts, the experience, we are\nwell poised upon! which secures our whole attention!\n\nThe senses of children are unprofaned. Their whole body is one sense;\nthey take a physical pleasure in riding on a rail, they love to\nteeter. So does the unviolated, the unsophisticated mind derive an\ninexpressible pleasure from the simplest exercise of thoughts.\n\nI can express adequately only the thought which I _love_ to express.\nAll the faculties in repose but the one you are using, the whole energy\nconcentrated in that. Be ever so little distracted, your thoughts\nso little confused, your engagements so few, your attention so free,\nyour existence so mundane, that in all places and in all hours you can\nhear the sound of crickets in those seasons when they are to be heard.\nIt is a mark of serenity and health of mind when a person hears this\nsound much,\u2014in streets of cities as well as in fields. Some ears never\nhear this sound; are called deaf. Is it not because they have so long\nattended to other sounds?\n\n\n_July 8. Tuesday._ Walked along the Clamshell bank after sundown. A\ncloudy sky. The heads of the grass in the pasture behind Dennis\u2019s have\na reddish cast, but another grass, with a lighter-colored stem and\nleaves, on the higher parts of the field gives a yellowish tinge to\nthose parts, as if they reflected a misty sunlight. Even much later in\nthe night these light spots were distinguishable. I am struck by the\ncool, juicy, pickled-cucumber green of the potato-fields now. How lusty\nthese vines look! The pasture naturally exhibits at this season no such\nliving green as the cultivated fields. I perceive that flower of the\nlowlands now, with a peculiar leaf and conspicuous white umbels.[222]\n\n [Illustration]\n\nHere are mulleins covering a field (the Clamshell field) where three\nyears [ago] were none noticeable, but a smooth uninterrupted pasture\nsod. Two years ago it was plowed for the first time for many years,\nand millet and corn and potatoes planted, and now _where the millet\ngrew_ these mulleins have sprung up. Who can write the history of\nthese fields? The millet does not perpetuate itself, but the few seeds\nof the mullein, which perchance were brought here with it, are still\nmultiplying the race.\n\nThe thick heads of the yellow dock warn me of the lapse of time.\n\nHere are some rich rye-fields waving over all the land, their heads\nnodding in the evening breeze with an apparently alternating motion;\n_i. e._ they do not all bend at once by ranks, but separately, and\nhence this agreeable alternation. How rich a sight this cereal fruit,\nnow yellow for the cradle,\u2014_flavus_! It is an impenetrable phalanx.\nI walk for half a mile beside these Macedonians, looking in vain for\nan opening. There is no Arnold Winkelried to gather these spear-heads\nupon his breast and make an opening for me. This is food for man.\nThe earth labors not in vain; it is bearing its burden. The yellow,\nwaving, rustling rye extends far up and over the hills on either side,\na kind of pinafore to nature, leaving only a narrow and dark passage\nat the bottom of a deep ravine. How rankly it has grown! How it hastes\nto maturity! I discover that there is such a goddess as Ceres. These\nlong grain-fields which you must respect,\u2014must go round,\u2014occupying\nthe ground like an army. The small trees and shrubs seen dimly in\nits midst are overwhelmed by the grain as by an inundation. They are\nseen only as indistinct forms of bushes and green leaves mixed with\nthe yellow stalks. There are certain crops which give me the idea\nof bounty, of the _Alma Natura_.[223] They are the grains. Potatoes\ndo not so fill the lap of earth. This rye excludes everything else\nand takes possession of the soil. The farmer says, \u201cNext year I will\nraise a crop of rye;\u201d and he proceeds to clear away the brush, and\neither plows it, or, if it is too uneven or stony, burns and harrows\nit only, and scatters the seed with faith. And all winter the earth\nkeeps his secret,\u2014unless it did leak out somewhat in the fall,\u2014and in\nthe spring this early green on the hillsides betrays him. When I see\nthis luxuriant crop spreading far and wide in spite of rock and bushes\nand unevenness of ground, I cannot help thinking that it must have\nbeen unexpected by the farmer himself, and regarded by him as a lucky\naccident for which to thank fortune. This, to reward a transient faith,\nthe gods had given. As if he must have forgotten that he did it, until\nhe saw the waving grain inviting his sickle.\n\n\n_July 9._ When I got out of the cars at Porter\u2019s, Cambridge, this\nmorning, I was pleased to see the handsome blue flowers of the succory\nor endive (_Cichorium Intybus_), which reminded me that within the hour\nI had been whirled into a new botanical region. They must be extremely\nrare, if they occur at all, in Concord. This weed is handsomer than\nmost garden flowers. Saw there also the _Cucubalus Behen_, or bladder\ncampion, also the autumnal dandelion (_Apargia autumnalis_).\n\nVisited the Observatory. Bond said they were cataloguing the stars\nat Washington (?), or trying to. They do not at Cambridge; of no\nuse with their force. Have not force enough now to make mag[netic]\nobs[ervations]. When I asked if an observer with the small telescope\ncould find employment, he said, Oh yes, there was employment enough for\nobservation with the naked eye, observing the changes in the brilliancy\nof stars, etc., etc., if they could only get some good observers. One\nis glad to hear that the naked eye still retains some importance in the\nestimation of astronomers.\n\nComing out of town,\u2014willingly as usual,\u2014when I saw that reach of\nCharles River just above the depot, the fair, still water this cloudy\nevening suggesting the way to eternal peace and beauty, whence it\nflows, the placid, lake-like fresh water, so unlike the salt brine,\naffected me not a little. I was reminded of the way in which Wordsworth\nso coldly speaks of some natural visions or scenes \u201cgiving him\npleasure.\u201d This is perhaps the first vision of elysium on this route\nfrom Boston. And just then I saw an encampment of Penobscots, their\nwigwams appearing above the railroad fence, they, too, looking up the\nriver as they sat on the ground, and enjoying the scene. What can be\nmore impressive than to look up a noble river just at evening,\u2014one,\nperchance, which you have never explored,\u2014and behold its placid waters,\nreflecting the woods and sky, lapsing inaudibly toward the ocean; to\nbehold as a lake, but know it as a river, tempting the beholder to\nexplore it and his own destiny at once? Haunt of waterfowl. This was\nabove the factories,\u2014all that I saw. That water could never have flowed\nunder a factory. How _then_ could it have reflected the sky?\n\n\n_July 10._ A gorgeous sunset after rain, with horizontal bars of\nclouds, red sashes to the western window, barry clouds hanging like\na curtain over the window of the west, damask. First there is a\nlow arch of the storm clouds in the west, under which is seen the\nclearer, fairer, serener sky and more distant sunset clouds, and under\nall, on the horizon\u2019s edge, heavier, massive dark clouds, not to be\ndistinguished from the mountains. How many times I have seen this kind\nof sunset,\u2014the most gorgeous sight in nature! From the hill behind\nMinott\u2019s I see the birds flying against this red sky, the sun having\nset; one looks like a bat. Now between two stupendous mountains of the\nlow stratum under the evening red, clothed in slightly rosaceous amber\nlight, through a magnificent gorge, far, far away, as perchance may\noccur in pictures of the Spanish coast viewed from the Mediterranean,\nI see a city, the eternal city of the west, the phantom city, in whose\nstreets no traveller has trod, over whose pavements the horses of the\nsun have already hurried, some Salamanca of the imagination. But it\nlasts only for a moment, for now the changing light has wrought such\nchanges in it that I see the resemblance no longer.\n\nA softer amber sky than in any picture. The swallows are improving\nthis short day, twittering as they fly, and the huckleberry-bird[224]\nrepeats his jingling strain, and the song sparrow, more honest than\nmost.\n\nI am always struck by the centrality of the observer\u2019s position. He\nalways stands fronting the middle of the arch, and does not suspect at\nfirst that a thousand observers on a thousand hills behold the sunset\nsky from equally favorable positions.\n\nAnd now I turn and observe the dark masses of the trees in the east,\nnot green but black. While the sun was setting in the west, the trees\nwere rising in the east.\n\nI perceive that the low stratum of dark clouds under the red sky all\ndips one way, and to a remarkable degree presents the appearance of the\nbutt ends of cannons slanted toward the sky, thus:\u2014\n\n [Illustration]\n\nSuch uniformity on a large scale is unexpected and pleasant to detect,\nevincing the simplicity of the laws of their formation. Uniformity in\nthe shapes of clouds of a single stratum is always to be detected, the\nsame wind shaping clouds of the like consistency and in like positions.\nNo doubt an experienced observer could discover the states of the upper\natmosphere by studying the forms and characters of the clouds. I traced\nthe distinct form of the cannon in seven instances, stretching over the\nwhole length of the cloud, many a mile in the horizon.\n\nAnd the nighthawk dashes past in the twilight with mottled (?) wing,\nwithin a rod of me.\n\n\n_July 11. Friday._ At 7.15 P. M. with W. E. C. go forth to see the\nmoon, the glimpses of the moon. We think she is not quite full; we\ncan detect a little flatness on the eastern side. Shall we wear thick\ncoats? The day has been warm enough, but how cool will the night be?\nIt is not sultry, as the last night. As a general rule, it is best to\nwear your thickest coat even in a July night. Which way shall we walk?\nNorthwest, that we may see the moon returning? But on that side the\nriver prevents our walking in the fields, and on other accounts that\ndirection is not so attractive. We go toward Bear Garden Hill. The sun\nis setting. The meadow-sweet has bloomed. These dry hills and pastures\nare the places to walk by moonlight. The moon is silvery still, not\nyet inaugurated. The tree-tops are seen against the amber west. I seem\nto see the outlines of one spruce among them, distinguishable afar.\nMy thoughts expand and flourish most on this barren hill, where in\nthe twilight I see the moss spreading in rings and prevailing over the\nshort, thin grass, carpeting the earth, adding a few inches of green to\nits circle annually while it dies within.\n\nAs we round the sandy promontory, we try the sand and rocks with our\nhands. The sand is cool on the surface but warmer a few inches beneath,\nthough the contrast is not so great as it was in May. The larger\nrocks are perceptibly warm. I pluck the blossom of the milkweed in the\ntwilight and find how sweet it smells. The white blossoms of the Jersey\ntea dot the hillside, with the yarrow everywhere. Some woods are black\nas clouds; if we knew not they were green by day, they would appear\nblacker still. When we sit, we hear the mosquitoes hum. The woodland\npaths are not the same by night as by day; if they are a little grown\nup, the eye cannot find them, but must give the reins to the feet, as\nthe traveller to his horse. So we went through the aspens at the base\nof the Cliffs, their round leaves reflecting the lingering twilight on\nthe one side, the waxing moonlight on the other. Always the path was\nunexpectedly open.\n\nNow we are getting into moonlight. We see it reflected from particular\nstumps in the depths of the darkest woods, and from the stems of\ntrees, as if it selected what to shine on,[225]\u2014a silvery light. It\nis a light, of course, which we have had all day, but which we have\nnot appreciated, and proves how remarkable a lesser light can be when\na greater has departed. How simply and naturally the moon presides!\n\u2019T is true she was eclipsed by the sun, but now she acquires an\nalmost equal respect and worship by reflecting and representing him,\nwith some new quality, perchance, added to his light, showing how\noriginal the disciple may be who still in midday is seen, though pale\nand cloud-like, beside his master. Such is a worthy disciple. In his\nmaster\u2019s presence he still is seen and preserves a distinct existence;\nand in his absence he reflects and represents him, not without adding\nsome new quality to his light, not servile and never rival. As the\nmaster withdraws himself, the disciple, who was a pale cloud before,\nbegins to emit a silvery light, acquiring at last a tinge of golden\nas the darkness deepens, but not enough to scorch the seeds which have\nbeen planted or to dry up the fertilizing dews which are falling.\n\nPassing now near Well Meadow Head toward Baker\u2019s orchard. The\nsweet-fern and indigo-weed fill the path up to one\u2019s middle, wetting\nus with dews so high. The leaves are shining and flowing.[226] We\nwade through the luxuriant vegetation, seeing no bottom. Looking back\ntoward the Cliffs, some dead trees in the horizon, high on the rocks,\nmake a wild New Hampshire prospect. There is the faintest possible\nmist over the pond-holes, where the frogs are eructating, like the\nfalling of huge drops, the bursting of mephitic air-bubbles rising from\nthe bottom, a sort of blubbering,\u2014such conversation as I _have_ heard\nbetween men, a belching conversation, expressing a sympathy of stomachs\nand abdomens. The peculiar appearance of the indigo-weed, its misty\nmassiveness, is striking. In Baker\u2019s orchard the thick grass looks like\na sea of mowing in this weird moonlight, a bottomless sea of grass.\nOur feet must be imaginative, must know the earth in imagination only,\nas well as our heads. We sit on the fence, and, where it is broken\nand interrupted, the fallen and slanting rails are lost in the grass\n(really thin and wiry) as in water. We even see our tracks a long way\nbehind, where we have brushed off the dew. The clouds are peculiarly\nwispy to-night, somewhat like fine flames, not massed and dark nor\ndowny, not thick, but slight, thin wisps of mist.\n\nI hear the sound of Heywood\u2019s Brook falling into Fair Haven Pond,\ninexpressibly refreshing to my senses. It seems to flow through my\nvery bones. I hear it with insatiable thirst. It allays some sandy heat\nin me. It affects my circulations; methinks my arteries have sympathy\nwith it. What is it I hear but the pure waterfalls within me, in the\ncirculation of my blood, the streams that fall into my heart? What\nmists do I ever see but such as hang over and rise from my blood? The\nsound of this gurgling water, running thus by night as by day, falls\non all my dashes, fills all my buckets, overflows my float-boards,\nturns all the machinery of my nature, makes me a flume, a sluice-way,\nto the springs of nature. Thus I am washed; thus I drink and quench my\nthirst.[227] Where the streams fall into the lake, if they are only a\nfew inches more elevated, all walkers may hear.\n\nOn the high path through Baker\u2019s wood I see, or rather feel, the\ntephrosia. Now we come out into the open pasture. And under those woods\nof elm and buttonwood, where still no light is seen, repose a family\nof human beings. By night there is less to distinguish this locality\nfrom the woods and meadows we have threaded. We might go very near to\nfarmhouses covered with ornamental trees and standing on a highroad,\nthinking that [we] were in the most retired woods and fields still.\nHaving yielded to sleep, man is a less obtrusive inhabitant of nature.\nNow, having reached the dry pastures again, we are surrounded by a\nflood of moonlight. The dim cart-path over the sward curves gracefully\nthrough the pitch pines, ever to some more fairy-like spot. The rails\nin the fences shine like silver. We know not whether we are sitting on\nthe ruins of a wall, or the materials which are to compose a new one.\nI see, half a mile off, a phosphorescent arc on the hillside, where\nBartlett\u2019s Cliff reflects the moonlight. Going by the shanty, I smell\nthe excrements of its inhabitants, which I had never smelt before.\n\nAnd now, at half-past 10 o\u2019clock, I hear the cockerels crow in\nHubbard\u2019s barns, and morning is already anticipated. It is the\nfeathered, wakeful thought in us that anticipates the following day.\nThis sound is wonderfully exhilarating at all times. These birds are\nworth far more to me for their crowing and cackling than for their\ndrumsticks and eggs.[228] How singular the connection of the hen with\nman,\u2014that she leaves her eggs in his barns always! She is a domestic\nfowl, though still a little shyish of him. I cannot [help] looking at\nthe whole as an experiment still and wondering that in each case it\nsucceeds. There is no doubt at last but hens may be kept. They will put\ntheir eggs in your barn by a tacit agreement. They will not wander far\nfrom your yard.\n\n\n_July 12._ 8 P. M.\u2014Now at least the moon is full, and I walk alone,\nwhich is best by night, if not by day always. Your companion must\nsympathize with the present mood. The conversation must be located\nwhere the walkers are, and vary exactly with the scene and events and\nthe contour of the ground. Farewell to those who will talk of nature\nunnaturally, whose presence is an interruption. I know but one with\nwhom I can walk. I might as well be sitting in a bar-room with them as\nwalk and talk with most. We are never side by side in our thoughts, and\nwe cannot hear each other\u2019s silence. Indeed, we cannot be silent. We\nare forever breaking silence, that is all, and mending nothing. How can\nthey keep together who are going different ways!\n\nI start a sparrow from her three eggs in the grass, where she had\nsettled for the night. The earliest corn is beginning to show its\ntassels now, and I scent it as I walk,\u2014its peculiar dry scent.[229]\n(This afternoon I gathered ripe blackberries, and felt as if the autumn\nhad commenced.) Now perchance many sounds and sights only remind\nme that they once said something to me, and are so by association\ninteresting. I go forth to be reminded of a previous state of\nexistence, if perchance any memento of it is to be met with hereabouts.\nI have no doubt that Nature preserves her integrity. Nature is in as\nrude health as when Homer sang. We may at last by our sympathies be\nwell. I see a skunk on Bear Garden Hill stealing noiselessly away from\nme, while the moon shines over the pitch pines, which send long shadows\ndown the hill. Now, looking back, I see it shining on the south side\nof farmhouses and barns with a weird light, for I pass here half an\nhour later than last night. I smell the huckleberry bushes. I hear\na human voice,\u2014some laborer singing after his day\u2019s toil,\u2014which I do\nnot often hear. Loud it must be, for it is far away. Methinks I should\nknow it for a white man\u2019s voice. Some strains have the melody of an\ninstrument. Now I hear the sound of a bugle in the \u201cCorner,\u201d reminding\nme of poetic wars; a few flourishes and the bugler has gone to rest.\nAt the foot of the Cliff hill I hear the sound of the clock striking\nnine, as distinctly as within a quarter of a mile usually, though there\nis no wind. The moonlight is more perfect than last night; hardly a\ncloud in the sky,\u2014only a few fleecy ones. There is more serenity and\nmore light. I hear that sort of throttled or chuckling note as of a\nbird flying high, now from this side, then from that.[230] Methinks\nwhen I turn my head I see Wachusett from the side of the hill. I smell\nthe butter-and-eggs as I walk. I am startled by the rapid transit of\nsome wild animal across my path, a rabbit or a fox,\u2014or you hardly know\nif it be not a bird. Looking down from the cliffs, the leaves of the\ntree-tops shine more than ever by day. Here and there a lightning-bug\nshows his greenish light over the tops of the trees.\n\nAs I return through the orchard, a foolish robin bursts away from\nhis perch unnaturally, with the habits of man. The air is remarkably\nstill and unobjectionable on the hilltop, and the whole world below\nis covered as with a gossamer blanket of moonlight. It is just about\nas yellow as a blanket. It is a great dimly burnished shield with\ndarker blotches on its surface. You have lost some light, it is true,\nbut you have got this simple and magnificent stillness, brooding like\ngenius.[231]\n\n\n_July 13._ Observed yesterday, while surveying near Gordon\u2019s, a bittern\nflying over near Gordon\u2019s, with moderate flight and outstretched neck,\nits breast-bone sticking out sharp like the bone in the throats of\nsome persons, its anatomy exposed. The evergreen is very handsome in\nthe woods now, rising somewhat spirally in a round tower of five or\nsix stories, surmounted by a long bud. Looking across the river to\nConantum from the open plains, I think how the history of the hills\nwould read, since they have been pastured by cows, if every plowing\nand mowing and sowing and chopping were recorded. I hear, 4 P. M., a\npigeon woodpecker on a dead pine near by, uttering a harsh and scolding\nscream, spying me. The chewink jingles on the tops of the bushes, and\nthe rush sparrow,[232] the vireo, and oven-bird at a distance; and a\nrobin sings, superior to all; and a barking dog has started something\non the opposite side of the river; and now the wood thrush surpasses\nthem all. These plains are covered with shrub oaks, birches, aspens,\nhickories, mingled with sweet-fern and brakes and huckleberry bushes\nand epilobium, now in bloom, and much fine grass. The hellebore by the\nbrooksides has now fallen over, though it is not broken off. The cows\nnow repose and chew the cud under the shadow of a tree, or crop the\ngrass in the shade along the side of the woods, and when you approach\nto observe them they mind you just enough. I turn up the _Juniperus\nrepens_, and see the lighter color of its leaves on the under sides,\nand its berries with three petal-like divisions in one end. The\nsweet-scented life-everlasting is budded.\n\nThis might be called the Hayer\u2019s or Haymaker\u2019s Moon, for I perceive\nthat when the day has been oppressively warm the haymakers rest at noon\nand resume their mowing after sunset, sometimes quite into evening.\n\n\n_July 14._ Passing over the Great Fields (where I have been surveying\na road) this forenoon, where were some early turnips, the county\ncommissioners plucked and pared them with their knives and ate them.\nI, too, tried hard to chew a mouthful of raw turnip and realize the\nlife of cows and oxen, for it might be a useful habit in extremities.\nThese things occur as the seasons revolve. These are things which\ntravellers will do. How many men have tasted a raw turnip! How few have\neaten a whole one! Some bovine appetites, which find some fodder in\nevery field. For like reasons we sometimes eat sorrel and say we love\nit, that we may return the hospitality of Nature by exhibiting a good\nappetite.\n\nThe citizen looks sharp to see if there is any dogwood or poison sumach\nin the swamp before he enters.\n\nIf I take the same walk by moonlight an hour later or earlier in the\nevening, it is as good as a different one. I love the night for its\nnovelty; it is less prophaned than the day.[233]\n\nThe creaking of the crickets seems at the very foundation of all sound.\nAt last I cannot tell it from a ringing in my ears. It is a sound from\nwithin, not without. You cannot dispose of it by listening to it. In\nproportion as I am stilled I hear it. It reminds me that I am a denizen\nof the earth.\n\n\n_July 16. Wednesday._ Methinks my present experience is nothing; my\npast experience is all in all. I think that no experience which I\nhave to-day comes up to, or is comparable with, the experiences of my\nboyhood. And not only this is true, but as far back as I can remember\nI have unconsciously referred to the experiences of a previous state of\nexistence. \u201cFor life is a forgetting,\u201d etc. Formerly, methought, nature\ndeveloped as I developed, and grew up with me. My life was ecstasy.\nIn youth, before I lost any of my senses, I can remember that I was\nall alive, and inhabited my body with inexpressible satisfaction; both\nits weariness and its refreshment were sweet to me. This earth was the\nmost glorious musical instrument, and I was audience to its strains. To\nhave such sweet impressions made on us, such ecstasies begotten of the\nbreezes! I can remember how I was astonished. I said to myself,\u2014I said\nto others,\u2014\u201cThere comes into my mind such an indescribable, infinite,\nall-absorbing, divine, heavenly pleasure, a sense of elevation and\nexpansion, and [I] have had nought to do with it. I perceive that\nI am dealt with by superior powers.[234] This is a pleasure, a joy,\nan existence which I have not procured myself. I speak as a witness\non the stand, and tell what I have perceived.\u201d The morning and the\nevening were sweet to me, and I led a life aloof from society of men.\nI wondered if a mortal had ever known what I knew. I looked in books\nfor some recognition of a kindred experience, but, strange to say, I\nfound none. Indeed, I was slow to discover that other men had had this\nexperience, for it had been possible to read books and to associate\nwith men on other grounds. The maker of me was improving me. When I\ndetected this interference I was profoundly moved. For years I marched\nas to a music in comparison with which the military music of the\nstreets is noise and discord. I was daily intoxicated, and yet no man\ncould call me intemperate. With all your science can you tell how it\nis, and whence it is, that light comes into the soul?\n\nSet out at 3 P. M. for Nine-Acre Corner Bridge _via_ Hubbard\u2019s Bridge\nand Conantum, returning _via_ Dashing Brook, rear of Baker\u2019s, and\nrailroad at 6.30 P. M.\n\nThe song sparrow, the most familiar and New England bird, is heard\nin fields and pastures, setting this midsummer day to music, as if\nit were the music of a mossy rail or fence post; a little stream of\nsong, cooling, rippling through the noon,\u2014the usually unseen songster\nusually unheard like the cricket, it is so common,\u2014like the poet\u2019s\nsong, unheard by most men, whose ears are stopped with business, though\nperchance it sang on the fence before the farmer\u2019s house this morning\nfor an hour. There are little strains of poetry in our animals.\n\nBerries are just beginning to ripen, and children are planning\nexpeditions after them. They are important as introducing children\nto the fields and woods, and as wild fruits of which much account\nis made. During the berry season the schools have a vacation, and\nmany little fingers are busy picking these small fruits. It is ever\na pastime, not a drudgery. I remember how glad I was when I was kept\nfrom school a half a day to pick huckleberries on a neighboring hill\nall by myself to make a pudding for the family dinner. Ah, they got\nnothing but the pudding, but I got invaluable experience beside! A half\na day of liberty like that was like the promise of life eternal. It was\nemancipation in New England. O, what a day was there, my countrymen!\n\nI see the yellow butterflies now gathered in fleets in the road, and\non the flowers of the milkweed (_Asclepias pulchra_) by the roadside,\na really handsome flower; also the smaller butterfly, with reddish\nwings, and a larger, black or steel-blue, with wings spotted red on\nedge, and one of equal size, reddish copper-colored. Now you may see a\nboy stealing after one, hat in hand. The earliest corn begins to tassel\nout, and my neighbor has put his hand in the hill some days ago and\nabstracted some new potatoes as big as nuts, then covered up again.\nNow they will need\u2014or will get\u2014no more weeding. The lark sings in the\nmeadow; the very essence of the afternoon is in his strain. This is a\nNew England sound, but the cricket is heard under all sounds. Still\nthe cars come and go with the regularity of nature, of the sun and\nmoon. (If a hen puts her eggs elsewhere than in the barns,\u2014in woods\nor among rocks,\u2014she is said to _steal_ her nest!) The twittering of\nswallows is in the air, reminding me of water. The meadow-sweet is now\nin bloom, and the yarrow prevails by all roadsides. I see the hardhack\ntoo, homely but dear plant, just opening its red clustered flowers.\nThe small aster, too, now abounds (_Aster miser_),[235] and the tall\nbuttercup still. After wading through a swamp the other day with my\nshoes in my hand, I wiped my feet with sassafras leaves, which reminded\nme of some Arabian practices, the bruised leaves perfuming the air and\nby their softness being adapted to this purpose. The tree-primrose,\nor scabish, still is seen over the fence. The red-wings and crow\nblackbirds are heard chattering on the trees, and the cow troopials are\naccompanying the cows in the pastures for the sake of the insects they\nscare up. Oftentimes the thoughtless sportsman has lodged his charge of\nshot in the cow\u2019s legs or body in his eagerness to obtain the birds.\nSt. John\u2019s-wort, one of the first of yellow flowers, begins to shine\nalong the roadside. The mullein for some time past. I see a farmer\ncradling his rye, John Potter. Fields are partly mown,\u2014some English\ngrass on the higher parts of the meadow next to the road. The farmer\u2019s\nwork comes not all at once. In haying time there is a cessation from\nother labors to a considerable extent. Planting is done, and hoeing\nmainly; only some turnip seed is to be scattered amid the corn. I hear\nthe kingbird twittering or chattering like a stout-chested swallow.\nThe prunella sends back a blue ray from under my feet as I walk; the\npale lobelia too. The plaintive, spring-restoring peep of a bluebird\nis occasionally heard. I met loads of hay on the road, which the oxen\ndraw indifferently, swaggering in their gait, as if it were not fodder\nfor them. Methinks they should testify sometimes that they are working\nfor themselves. The whiteweed is turning black. Grapes are half grown\nand lead the mind forward to autumn. It is an air this afternoon\nthat makes you indifferent to all things,\u2014perfect summer, but with\na comfortable breeziness. You know not heat nor cold. What season of\nthe year is this? The balls of the button-bush are half formed, with\nits fine, glossy, red-stemmed leaf atoning for its nakedness in the\nspring. My eye ranges over green fields of oats, for which there is a\ndemand then somewhere. The wild rose peeps from amid the alders and\nother shrubs by the roadside. The elder-blow fills the air with its\nscent. The angelica, with its large umbels, is gone to seed. On it I\nfind one of those slow-moving green worms, with rings spotted black and\nyellow, like an East Indian production. What if these grew as large\nas elephants? The honest and truly fair is more modestly colored.\nNotwithstanding the drifting clouds, you fear no rain to-day. As you\nwalk, you smell some sweet herbage, but detect not what it is. Hay is\nsticking to the willows and the alders on the causeway, and the bridge\nis sprinkled with it. The hemlock (_Cicuta Americana_) displays its\nwhite umbels now. The yellow lilies reign in the river. The painted\ntortoises drop off the willow stumps as you go over the bridge. The\nriver is now so low that you can see its bottom, shined on by the\nsun, and travellers stop to look at fishes as they go over, leaning on\nthe rails. The pickerel-weed sends up its heavenly blue. The color of\nthe cows on Fair Haven Hill, how fair a contrast to the hillside! How\nstriking and wholesome their clean brick-red! When were they painted?\nHow carelessly the eye rests on them, or passes them by as things of\ncourse! The tansy is budded. The devil\u2019s-needles seem to rest in air\nover the water. There is nothing New-English about them.\n\nNow, at 4 P. M., I hear the pewee in the woods, and the cuckoo reminds\nme of some silence among the birds I had not noticed. The vireo\n(red-eyed?) sings like a robin at even, incessantly,\u2014for I have now\nturned into Conant\u2019s woods. The oven-bird helps fill some pauses. The\npoison sumach shows its green berries, now unconscious of guilt. The\nheart-leaved loosestrife (_Lysimachia ciliata_) is seen in low open\nwoods. The breeze displays the white under sides of the oak leaves and\ngives a fresh and flowing look to the woods. The river is a dark-blue\nwinding stripe amid the green of the meadow. What is the color of the\nworld? Green mixed with yellowish and reddish for hills and ripe grass,\nand darker green for trees and forests; blue spotted with dark and\nwhite for sky and clouds, and dark blue for water. Beyond the old house\nI hear the squirrel chirp in the wall like a sparrow; so Nature merges\nher creations into one. I am refreshed by the view of Nobscot and the\nsouthwestern vales, from Conantum, seething with the blue element.\nHere comes a small bird with a ricochet flight and a faint twittering\nnote like a messenger from Elysium. The rush sparrow jingles her small\nchange, pure silver, on the counter of the pasture. From far I see the\nrye stacked up. A few dead trees impart the effect of wildness to the\nlandscape, though it is a feature rare in an old settled country.\n\nMethinks this is the first of dog-days. The air in the distance has\na peculiar blue mistiness, or furnace-like look, though, as I have\nsaid, it is not sultry yet. It is not the season for distant views.\nMountains are not _clearly_ blue now. The air is the opposite to what\nit is in October and November. You are not inclined to travel. It is\na world of orchards and small-fruits now, and you can stay at home if\nthe well has cool water in it. The black thimble-berry is an honest,\nhomely berry, now drying up as usual. I used to have a pleasant time\nstringing them on herd\u2019s-grass stems, tracing the wall-sides for them.\nIt is pleasant to walk through these elevated fields, terraced upon\nthe side of the hill so that the eye of the walker looks off into the\nblue cauldron of the air at his own level. Here the haymakers have just\ngone to tea,\u2014at 5 o\u2019clock, the farmer\u2019s hour, before the afternoon is\nended, while he still thinks much work may still be done before night.\nHe does not wait till he is strongly reminded of the night. In the\ndistance some burdened fields are black with haycocks. Some thoughtless\nand cruel sportsman has killed twenty-two young partridges not much\nbigger than robins, against the laws of Massachusetts and humanity. At\nthe Corner Bridge the white lilies are budded. Green apples are now so\nlarge as to remind me of coddling and the autumn again.[236] The season\nof fruits is arrived. The dog\u2019s-bane has a pretty, delicate bell-like\nflower. The Jersey tea abounds. I see the marks of the scythes in the\nfields, showing the breadth of each swath the mowers cut. Cool springs\nare now a desideratum. The geranium still hangs on. Even the creeping\nvines love the brooks, and I see where one slender one has struggled\ndown and dangles into the current, which rocks it to and fro. Filberts\nare formed, and you may get the berry stains out of your hands with\ntheir husks, if you have any. Nightshade is in blossom. Came through\nthe pine plains behind James Baker\u2019s, where late was open pasture,\nnow open pitch pine woods, only here and there the grass has given\nplace to a carpet of pine-needles. These are among our pleasantest\nwoods,\u2014open, level, with blackberry vines interspersed and flowers,\nas lady\u2019s-slippers, earlier, and pinks on the outskirts. Each tree has\nroom enough. And now I hear the wood thrush from the shade, who loves\nthese pine woods as well as I. I pass by Walden\u2019s scalloped shore.\nThe epilobium reflects a pink gleam up the vales and down the hills.\nThe chewink jingles on a bush\u2019s top. Why will the Irishman drink of a\npuddle by the railroad instead of digging a well? How shiftless! What\ndeath in life! He cannot be said to live who does not get pure water.\n\nThe milkweeds, or silkweeds, are rich flowers, now in blossom. The\n_Asclepias syriaca_, or common milkweed; its buds fly open at a touch.\nBut handsomer much is _Asclepias pulchra_, or water silkweed. The thin\ngreen bark of this last, and indeed of the other, is so strong that a\nman cannot break a small strip of it by pulling. It contains a mass\nof fine silken fibres, arranged side by side like the strings of a\nfiddle-bow, and may be bent short without weakening it.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWhat more glorious condition of being can we imagine than from impure\nto be becoming pure? It is almost desirable to be impure that we may\nbe the subject of this improvement. That I am innocent to myself!\nThat I love and reverence my life! That I am better fitted for a lofty\nsociety to-day than I was yesterday! To make my life a sacrament! What\nis nature without this lofty tumbling? May I treat myself with more\nand more respect and tenderness. May I not forget that I am impure\nand vicious. May I not cease to love purity. May I go to my slumbers\nas expecting to arise to a new and more perfect day. May I so live\nand refine my life as fitting myself for a society ever higher than I\nactually enjoy. May I treat myself tenderly as I would treat the most\ninnocent child whom I love; may I treat children and my friends as my\nnewly discovered self. Let me forever go in search of myself; never for\na moment think that I have found myself; be as a stranger to myself,\nnever a familiar, seeking acquaintance still. May I be to myself as one\nis to me whom I love, a dear and cherished object. What temple, what\nfane, what sacred place can there be but the innermost part of my own\nbeing? The possibility of my own improvement, that is to be cherished.\nAs I regard myself, so I am. O my dear friends, I have not forgotten\nyou. I will know you to-morrow. I associate you with my ideal self.\nI had ceased to have faith in myself. I thought I was grown up and\nbecome what I was intended to be, but it is earliest spring with me.\nIn relation to virtue and innocence the oldest man is in the beginning\nspring and vernal season of life. It is the love of virtue makes us\nyoung ever. That is the fountain of youth, the very aspiration after\nthe perfect. I love and worship myself with a love which absorbs my\nlove for the world. The lecturer suggested to me that I might become\nbetter than I am. Was it not a good lecture, then? May I dream not that\nI shunned vice; may I dream that I loved and practiced virtue.\n\n\n_July 18._ It is a test question affecting the youth of a person,\u2014Have\nyou knowledge of the morning? Do you sympathize with that season of\nnature? Are you abroad early, brushing the dews aside? If the sun rises\non you slumbering, if you do not hear the morning cock-crow, if you\ndo not witness the blushes of Aurora, if you are not acquainted with\nVenus as the morning star, what relation have you to wisdom and purity?\nYou have then forgotten your Creator in the days of your youth! Your\nshutters were darkened till noon! You rose with a sick headache! In the\nmorning sing, as do the birds. What of those birds which should slumber\non their perches till the sun was an hour high? What kind of fowl would\nthey be and new kind of bats and owls,\u2014hedge sparrows or larks? then\ntook a dish of tea or hot coffee before they began to sing?\n\nI might have added to the list of July 16th the _Aralia hispida_,\nbristling aralia; the heart-leaved loosestrife (_Lysimachia ciliata_);\nalso the upright loosestrife (_L. racemosa_), with a rounded terminal\nraceme; the tufted vetch (_Vicia cracca_). Sweet-gale fruit now green.\n\nI first heard the locust sing, so dry and piercing, by the side of the\npine woods in the heat of the day.\n\n\n_July 19._ Here I am thirty-four years old,[237] and yet my life is\nalmost wholly unexpanded. How much is in the germ! There is such an\ninterval between my ideal and the actual in many instances that I may\nsay I am unborn. There is the instinct for society, but no society.\nLife is not long enough for one success. Within another thirty-four\nyears that miracle can hardly take place. Methinks my seasons revolve\nmore slowly than those of nature; I am differently timed. I am\ncontented. This rapid revolution of nature, even of nature in me, why\nshould it hurry me? Let a man step to the music which he hears, however\nmeasured. Is it important that I should mature as soon as an apple\ntree? aye, as soon as an oak? May not my life in nature, in proportion\nas it is supernatural, be only the spring and infantile portion of my\nspirit\u2019s life? Shall I turn my spring to summer? May I not sacrifice a\nhasty and petty completeness here to entireness there? If my curve is\nlarge, why bend it to a smaller circle? My spirit\u2019s unfolding observes\nnot the pace of nature. The society which I was made for is not here.\nShall I, then, substitute for the anticipation of that this poor\nreality? I would [rather] have the unmixed expectation of that than\nthis reality. If life is a waiting, so be it. I will not be shipwrecked\non a vain reality. What were any reality which I can substitute? Shall\nI with pains erect a heaven of blue glass over myself, though when it\nis done I shall be sure to gaze still on the true ethereal heaven far\nabove, as if the former were not,\u2014that still distant sky o\u2019er-arching\nthat blue expressive eye of heaven?[238] I am enamored of the blue-eyed\narch of heaven.\n\n_I_ did not _make_ this demand for a more thorough sympathy. This is\nnot my idiosyncrasy or disease. He that made the demand will answer the\ndemand.\n\nMy blood flows as slowly as the waves of my native Musketaquid; yet\nthey reach the ocean sooner, perchance, than those of the Nashua.\n\nAlready the goldenrod is budded, but I can make no haste for that.\n\n\n2 P. M.\u2014The weather is warm and dry, and many leaves curl. There is\na threatening cloud in the southwest. The farmers dare not spread\ntheir hay. It remains cocked in the fields. As you walk in the woods\nnowadays, the flies striking against your hat sound like rain-drops.\nThe stump or root fences on the Corner road remind me of fossil remains\nof mastodons, etc., exhumed and bleached in sun and rain. To-day I met\nwith the first orange flower of autumn. What means this doubly torrid,\nthis Bengal, tint? Yellow took sun enough, but this is the fruit of\na dog-day sun. The year has but just produced it. Here is the Canada\nthistle in bloom, visited by butterflies and bees. The butterflies\nhave swarmed within these few days, especially about the milkweeds.\nThe swamp-pink still fills the air with its perfume in swamps and by\nthe causeways, though it is far gone. The wild rose still scatters its\npetals over the leaves of neighboring plants. The wild morning-glory\nor bindweed, with its delicate red and white blossoms. I remember it\never as a goblet full of purest morning air and sparkling with dew,\nshowing the dew-point, winding round itself for want of other support.\nIt grows by the Hubbard Bridge causeway, near the angelica. The\ncherry-birds are making their _seringo_ sound as they flit past. They\nsoon find out the locality of the cherry trees. And beyond the bridge\nthere is a goldenrod partially blossomed. Yesterday it was spring, and\nto-morrow it will be autumn. Where is the summer then? First came the\nSt. John\u2019s-wort and now the goldenrod to admonish us. I hear, too, a\ncricket amid these stones under the blackberry vines, singing as in the\nfall. Ripe blackberries are multiplying. I see the red-spotted berries\nof the small Solomon\u2019s-seal in my path. I notice, in the decayed end of\nan oak post, that the silver grain is not decayed, but remains sound in\nthin flakes, alternating with the decayed portions and giving the whole\na honeycombed look. Such an object supramundane, as even a swallow may\ndescend to light on, a dry mullein stalk for instance. I see that hens,\ntoo, follow the cows feeding near the house, like the cow troopial,\nand for the same object. They cannot so well scare up insects for\nthemselves. This is the dog the cowbird uses to start up its insect\ngame. I see yellow butterflies in pairs, pursuing each other a rod or\ntwo into the air, and now, as he had bethought himself of the danger\nof being devoured by a passing bird, he descends with a zigzag flight\nto the earth, and the other follows. The black huckleberries are now so\nthick among the green ones that they no longer incur suspicion of being\nworm-eaten.\n\nWhen formerly I was looking about to see what I could do for a living,\nsome sad experience in conforming to the wishes of friends being\nfresh in my mind to tax my ingenuity, I thought often and seriously of\npicking huckleberries; that surely I could do, and its small profits\nmight suffice, so little capital it required, so little distraction\nfrom my wonted thoughts, I foolishly thought. While my acquaintances\nwent unhesitatingly into trade or the professions, I thought of this\noccupation as most like theirs; ranging the hills all summer to pick\nthe berries which came in my way, which I might carelessly dispose of;\nso to keep the flocks of King Admetus. My greatest skill has been to\nwant but little. I also dreamed that I might gather the wild herbs, or\ncarry evergreens to such villagers as loved to be reminded of the woods\nand so find my living got. But I have since learned that trade curses\neverything it handles; and though you _trade_ in messages from heaven,\nthe whole curse of trade attaches to the business.[239]\n\nThe wind rises more and more. The river and the pond are blacker\nthan the threatening cloud in the south. The thunder mutters in the\ndistance. The surface of the water is slightly rippled. Where the\npads grow is a light green border. The woods roar. Small white clouds\nare hurrying across the dark-blue ground of the storm, which rests\non all the woods of the south horizon. But still no rain now for some\nhours, as if the clouds were dissipated as fast as they reached this\natmosphere.\n\nThe barberry\u2019s fruit hangs yellowish-green. What pretty covers the\nthick bush makes, so large and wide and drooping! The _Fringilla\njuncorum_ sings still, in spite of the coming tempest, which,\nperchance, only threatens.\n\nThe woodchuck is a good native of the soil. The distant hillside and\nthe grain-fields and pastures are spotted yellow or white with his\nrecent burrows, and the small mounds remain for many years. Here where\nthe clover has lately been cut, see what a yellow mound is brought to\nlight!\n\n [Illustration]\n\nHeavily hangs the common yellow lily (_Lilium Canadense_) in the\nmeadows. In the thick alder copses by the causeway-side I find\nthe _Lysimachia hybrida_. Here is the _Lactuca sanguinea_ with\nits runcinate leaves, tall stem, and pale-crimson ray. And that\ngreen-stemmed one higher than my head, resembling the last in its\nleaves, is perchance the \u201ctall lettuce,\u201d or fireweed. Can that fine\nwhite-flowered meadow-plant with the leaf be a thalictrum?\n\n\n_July 20. Sunday morning._ A thunder-shower in the night. Thunder near\nat hand, though louder, is a more trivial and earthly sound than at a\ndistance; likened to sounds of men. The clap which waked me last night\nwas as if some one was moving lumber in an upper apartment, some vast\nhollow hall, tumbling it down and dragging it over the floor; and ever\nand anon the lightning filled the damp air with light, like some vast\nglow-worm in the fields of ether opening its wings.\n\nThe river, too, steadily yields its crop. In louring days it is\nremarkable how many villagers resort to it. It is of more worth than\nmany gardens. I meet one, late in the afternoon, going to the river\nwith his basket on his arm and his pole in hand, not ambitious to catch\npickerel this time, but he thinks he may perhaps get a mess of small\nfish. These [_sic_] kind of values are real and important, though but\nlittle appreciated, and he is not a wise legislator who underrates them\nand allows the bridges to be built low so as to prevent the passage of\nsmall boats. The town is but little conscious how much interest it has\nin the river, and might vote it away any day thoughtlessly. There is\nalways to be seen either some unshaven wading man, an old mower of the\nriver meadows, familiar with water, vibrating his long pole over the\nlagoons of the off-shore pads, or else some solitary fisher, in a boat\nbehind the willows, like a mote in the sunbeams reflecting the light;\nand who can tell how many a mess of river fish is daily cooked in the\ntown? They are an important article of food to many a poor family.\n\nSome are poets, some are not,\u2014as in relation to getting a living, so\nto getting a wife. As their ideals of life vary, so do their ideals of\nlove.\n\n\n4 P. M. Annursnack.\u2014The under sides of the leaves, exposed by the\nbreeze, give a light bluish tinge to the woods as I look down on them.\nLooking at the woods west of this hill, there is a grateful dark shade\nunder their eastern sides, where they meet the meadows, their cool\nnight side,\u2014a triangular segment of night, to which the sun has set.\nThe mountains look like waves on a blue ocean tossed up by a stiff\ngale. The _Rhexia Virginica_ is in bloom.\n\n\n_July 21._ 8 A. M.\u2014The forenoon is fuller of light. The butterflies on\nthe flowers look like other and frequently larger flowers themselves.\nNow I yearn for one of those old, meandering, dry, uninhabited roads,\nwhich lead away from towns, which lead us away from temptation, which\nconduct to the outside of earth, over its uppermost crust; where you\nmay forget in what country you are travelling; where no farmer can\ncomplain that you are treading down his grass, no gentleman who has\nrecently constructed a seat in the country that you are trespassing;\non which you can go off at half-cock and wave adieu to the village;\nalong which you may travel like a pilgrim, going nowhither; where\ntravellers are not too often to be met; where my spirit is free; where\nthe walls and fences are not cared for; where your head is more in\nheaven than your feet are on earth; which have long reaches where you\ncan see the approaching traveller half a mile off and be prepared for\nhim; not so luxuriant a soil as to attract men; some root and stump\nfences which do not need attention; where travellers have no occasion\nto stop, but pass along and leave you to your thoughts; where it\nmakes no odds which way you face, whether you are going or coming,\nwhether it is morning or evening, mid-noon or midnight; where earth\nis cheap enough by being public; where you can walk and think with\nleast obstruction, there being nothing to measure progress by; where\nyou can pace when your breast is full, and cherish your moodiness;\nwhere you are not in false relations with men, are not dining nor\nconversing with them; by which you may go to the uttermost parts of\nthe earth. It is wide enough, wide as the thoughts it allows to visit\nyou. Sometimes it is some particular half-dozen rods which I wish to\nfind myself pacing over, as where certain airs blow; then my life will\ncome to me, methinks; like a hunter I walk in wait for it. When I am\nagainst this bare promontory of a huckleberry hill, then forsooth my\nthoughts will expand. Is it some influence, as a vapor which exhales\nfrom the ground, or something in the gales which blow there, or in\nall things there brought together agreeably to my spirit? The walls\nmust not be too high, imprisoning me, but low, with numerous gaps. The\ntrees must not be too numerous, nor the hills too near, bounding the\nview, nor the soil too rich, attracting the attention to the earth.\nIt must simply be the way and the life,\u2014a way that was never known\nto be repaired, nor to need repair, within the memory of the oldest\ninhabitant. I cannot walk habitually in those ways that are liable to\nbe mended; for sure it was the devil only that wore them. Never by the\nheel of thinkers (of thought) were they worn; the zephyrs could repair\nthat damage. The saunterer wears out no road, even though he travel on\nit, and therefore should pay no highway, or rather _low_ way, tax. He\nmay be taxed to construct a higher way than men travel. A way which no\ngeese defile, nor hiss along it, but only sometimes their wild brethren\nfly far overhead; which the kingbird and the swallow twitter over, and\nthe song sparrow sings on its rails; where the small red butterfly is\nat home on the yarrow, and no boys threaten it with imprisoning hat.\nThere I can walk and stalk and pace and plod. Which nobody but Jonas\nPotter travels beside me; where no cow but his is tempted to linger for\nthe herbage by its side; where the guide-board is fallen, and now the\nhand points to heaven significantly,\u2014to a Sudbury and Marlborough in\nthe skies. That\u2019s a road I can travel, that the particular Sudbury I\nam bound for, six miles an hour, or two, as you please; and few there\nbe that enter thereon. There I can walk, and recover the lost child\nthat I am without any ringing of a bell; where there was nothing ever\ndiscovered to detain a traveller, but all went through about their\nbusiness; where I never passed the time of day with any,\u2014indifferent\nto me were the arbitrary divisions of time; where Tullus Hostilius\nmight have disappeared,\u2014at any rate has never been seen. The road\nto the Corner! the ninety and nine acres that you go through to get\nthere! I would rather see it again, though I saw it this morning,\nthan Gray\u2019s churchyard. The road whence you may hear a stake-driver,\na whip-poor-will, a quail in a midsummer day, a\u2014yes, a quail comes\nnearest to the _gum-c_[240] bird heard there; where it would not be\nsport for a sportsman to go. And the mayweed looks up in my face,\u2014not\nthere; the pale lobelia, the Canada snapdragon, rather. A little\nhardhack and meadowsweet peep over the fence,\u2014nothing more serious to\nobstruct the view,\u2014and thimble-berries are the food of thought, before\nthe drought, along by the walls.[241]\n\nIt is they who go to Brighton and to market that wear out the roads,\nand they should pay all the tax. The deliberate pace of a thinker never\nmade a road the worse for travelling on.\n\nThere I have freedom in my thought, and in my soul am free. Excepting\nthe omnipresent butcher with his calf-cart, followed by a distracted\nand anxious cow.[242]\n\nBe it known that in Concord, where the first forcible resistance to\nBritish aggression was made in the year 1775, they chop up the young\ncalves and give them to the hens to make them lay, it being considered\nthe cheapest and most profitable food for them, and they sell the milk\nto Boston.\n\nOn the promenade deck of the world, an outside passenger. The\ninattentive, ever strange baker, whom no weather detains, that does not\nbake his bread in this hemisphere,\u2014and therefore it is dry before it\ngets here. Ah! there is a road where you might advertise to fly, and\nmake no preparations till the time comes; where your wings will sprout\nif anywhere, where your feet are not confined to earth. An airy head\nmakes light walking.\n\nWhere I am not confined and balked by the sight of distant farmhouses\nwhich I have not gone past. In roads the obstructions are not under\nmy feet,\u2014I care not for rough ground or wet even,\u2014but they are in my\nvision and in the thoughts or associations which I am compelled to\nentertain. I must be fancy-free; I must feel that, wet or dry, high\nor low, it is the genuine surface of the planet, and not a little\nchip-dirt or a compost-heap, or made land or redeemed. Where I can\nsit by the wall-side and not be peered at by any old ladies going\na-shopping, not have to bow to one whom I may have seen in my youth,\u2014at\nleast, not more than once. I am engaged and cannot be polite. Did\nyou ever hear of such a thing as a man sitting in the road, and then\nhave four eyes levelled at you? Have we any more right sometimes to\nlook at one than to point a revolver at him; it might go off; and\nso, perchance, we might _see_ him,\u2014though there is not so much danger\nof _that_,\u2014which would be equally fatal, if it _should_ ever happen,\nthough perhaps it never has.\n\nA thinker\u2019s weight is in his thought, not in his tread; when he thinks\nfreely, his body weighs nothing. He cannot tread down your grass,\nfarmers.[243]\n\nI thought to walk this forenoon instead of this afternoon, for I have\nnot been in the fields and woods much of late except when surveying,\nbut the least affair of that kind is as if you had [a] black veil\ndrawn over your face which shut out nature, as that eccentric and\nmelancholy minister whom I have heard of.[244] It may be the fairest\nday in all the year and you shall not know it. One little chore to do,\none little commission to fulfill, one message to carry, would spoil\nheaven itself. Talk about a lover being engaged! He is the only man in\nall the world who is free. And all you get is your dollars. To go forth\nbefore the heat is intolerable, and see what is the difference between\nforenoon and afternoon. It seems there is a little more coolness in\nthe air; there is still some dew, even on this short grass in the\nshade of the walls and woods; and a feeling of vigor the walker has.\nThere are few sounds but the slight twittering of swallows, and the\n_springy_ note of the sparrow in the grass or trees, and a lark in the\nmeadow (now at 8 A. M.), and the cricket under all to ally the hour\nto night. Day is, in fact, about as still as night. Draw the veil of\nnight over this landscape, and these sounds would not disturb nor be\ninconsistent for their loudness with the night. It is a difference\nof white and black. Nature is in a white sleep. It threatens to be a\nhot day, and the haymakers are whetting their scythes in the fields,\nwhere they have been out since 4 o\u2019clock. When I have seen them in\nthe twilight commencing their labors, I have been impressed as if\nit were last night. There is something ghastly about such very early\nlabor. I cannot detect the whole and characteristic difference between\nthis and afternoon, though it is positive and decided enough, as my\ninstincts know. By 2 o\u2019clock it will be warmer and hazier, obscuring\nthe mountains, and the leaves will curl, and the dust will rise more\nreadily. Every herb is fresher now, has recovered from yesterday\u2019s\ndrought. The cooler air of night still lingers in the fields, as by\nnight the warm air of day. The noon is perchance the time to stay in\nthe house.\n\nThere is no glory so bright but the veil of business can hide it\neffectually. With most men life is postponed to some trivial business,\nand so therefore is heaven. Men think foolishly they may abuse and\nmisspend life as they please and when they get to heaven turn over a\nnew leaf.\n\nI see the track of a bare human foot in the dusty road, the toes\nand muscles all faithfully imprinted. Such a sight is so rare that\nit affects me with surprise, as the footprint on the shore of Juan\nFernandez did Crusoe. It is equally rare here. I am affected as\nif some Indian or South-Sea-Islander had been along, some man who\nhad a foot. I am slow to be convinced that any of my neighbors\u2014the\njudge on the bench, the parson in the pulpit\u2014might have made that or\nsomething like it, however irregular. It is pleasant as it is to see\nthe tracks of cows and deer and birds. I am brought so much nearer to\nthe tracker\u2014when again I think of the sole of my own foot\u2014than when I\nbehold that of his shoe merely, or am introduced to him and converse\nwith him in the usual way. I am disposed to say to the judge whom I\nmeet, \u201cMake tracks.\u201d\n\nMen are very generally spoiled by being so civil and well-disposed.\nYou can have no profitable conversation with them, they are so\nconciliatory, determined to agree with you. They exhibit such\nlong-suffering and kindness in a short interview. I would meet with\nsome provoking strangeness, so that we may be guest and host and\nrefresh one another. It is possible for a man wholly to disappear and\nbe merged in his manners. The thousand and one gentlemen whom I meet,\nI meet despairingly and but to part from them, for I am not cheered\nby the hope of any rudeness from them. A cross man, a coarse man, an\neccentric man, a silent, a man who does not drill well,\u2014of him there\nis some hope. Your gentlemen, they are all alike. They utter their\nopinions as if it was not a man that uttered them. It is \u201cjust as you\nplease;\u201d they are indifferent to everything. They will talk with you\nfor nothing. The interesting man will rather avoid [you], and it is\na rare chance if you get so far as talk with him. The laborers whom\nI know, the loafers, fishers, and hunters, I can spin yarns with\nprofitably, for it is hands off; they are they and I am I still;\nthey do not come to me and quarter themselves on me for a day or an\nhour to be treated politely, they do not cast themselves on me for\nentertainment, they do not approach me with a flag of truce. They\ndo not go out of themselves to meet me. I am never electrified by my\ngentleman; he is not an electric eel, but one of the common kind that\nslip through your hands, however hard you clutch them, and leave them\ncovered with slime. He is a man, every inch of him; is worth a groom.\n\nTo eat berries on the dry pastures of Conantum, as if they were the\nfood of thought, dry as itself! Berries are now thick enough to pick.\n\n * * * * *\n\n9 A. M. On Conantum.\u2014A quarter of a mile is distance enough to make the\natmosphere look blue now. This is never the case in spring or early\nsummer. It was fit that I should see an indigo-bird here, concerned\nabout its young, a perfect embodiment of the darkest blue that ever\nfills the valleys at this season. The meadow-grass reflecting the light\nhas a bluish cast also.\n\nRemember thy Creator in the days of thy youth; _i. e._, lay up a store\nof natural influences. Sing while you may, before the evil days come.\nHe that hath ears, let him hear. See, hear, smell, taste, etc., while\nthese senses are fresh and pure.\n\nThere is always a kind of fine \u00e6olian harp music to be heard in the\nair. I hear now, as it were, the mellow sound of distant horns in the\nhollow mansions of the upper air, a sound to make all men divinely\ninsane that hear it, far away overhead, subsiding into my ear. To\nears that are expanded what a harp this world is! The occupied ear\nthinks that beyond the cricket no sound can be heard, but there is an\nimmortal melody that may be heard morning, noon, and night, by ears\nthat can attend, and from time to time this man or that hears it,\nhaving ears that were made for music. To hear this the hardhack and the\nmeadow-sweet _aspire_. They are thus beautifully painted, because they\nare tinged in the lower stratum of that melody.\n\nI eat these berries as simply and naturally as thoughts come to my\nmind.\n\nNever yet did I chance to sit in a house, except my own house in the\nwoods, and hear a wood thrush sing. Would it not be well to sit in such\na chamber within sound of the finest songster of the grove?\n\nThe quail, invisible, whistles, and who attends?\n\n10 A. M.\u2014The white lily has opened. How could it stand these heats?\nIt has pantingly opened, and now lies stretched out by its too long\nstem on the surface of the shrunken river. The air grows more and more\nblue, making pretty effects when one wood is seen from another through\na little interval. Some pigeons here are resting in the thickest of\nthe white pines during the heat of the day, migrating, no doubt. They\nare unwilling to move for me. Flies buzz and rain about my hat, and the\ndead twigs and leaves of the white pine, which the choppers have left\nhere, exhale a dry and almost sickening scent. A cuckoo chuckles, half\nthrottled, on a neighboring tree, and now, flying into the pine, scares\nout a pigeon, which flies with its handsome tail spread, dashes this\nside and that between the trees helplessly, like a ship carrying too\nmuch sail in midst of a small creek, some great amiral; having no room\nto man\u0153uvre,\u2014a fluttering flight.\n\nThe mountains can scarcely be seen for the blue haze,\u2014only Wachusett\nand the near ones. The thorny apple bush on Conantum has lately sent up\nbranches from its top, resolved to become a tree; and these spreading\n(and bearing fruit), the whole has the form of a vast hour-glass. The\nlower part being the most dense by far, you would say the sand had run\nout.[245]\n\nI now return through Conant\u2019s leafy woods by the spring, whose floor is\nsprinkled with sunlight,\u2014low trees which yet effectually shade you.\n\nThe dusty mayweed now blooms by the roadside, one of the humblest\nflowers. The rough hawkweed, too, by the damp roadside, resembling\nin its flower the autumnal dandelion. That was probably the _Verbena\nhastata_, or common blue vervain, which I found the other day by Walden\nPond.\n\nThe _Antirrhinum Canadense_, Canada snapdragon, in the Corner road; and\nthe ragged orchis on Conantum.\n\n * * * * *\n\n8.30 P. M.\u2014The streets of the village are much more interesting to\nme at this hour of a summer evening than by day. Neighbors, and also\nfarmers, come a-shopping after their day\u2019s haying, are chatting in\nthe streets, and I hear the sound of many musical instruments and of\nsinging from various houses. For a short hour or two the inhabitants\nare sensibly employed. The evening is devoted to poetry, such as the\nvillagers can appreciate.\n\nHow rare to meet with a farmer who is a man of sentiment! Yet there\nwas one, Gen. Joshua Buttrick, who died the other day, who is said to\nhave lived in his sentiments. He used to say that the smell of burning\npowder excited him.\n\nIt is said that Mirabeau took to highway robbery \u201cto ascertain what\ndegree of resolution was necessary in order to place one\u2019s self in\nformal opposition to the most sacred laws of society.\u201d He declared\nthat \u201ca soldier who fights in the ranks does not require half so much\ncourage as a foot-pad.\u201d \u201cHonor and religion have never stood in the way\nof a well-considered and a firm resolve.[246] Tell me, Du Saillant,\nwhen you lead your regiment into the heat of battle, to conquer a\nprovince to which he whom you call your master has no right whatever,\ndo you consider that you are performing a better action than mine, in\nstopping your friend on the king\u2019s highway, and demanding his purse?\u201d\n\n\u201cI obey without reasoning,\u201d replied the count.\n\n\u201cAnd I reason without obeying, when obedience appears to me to be\ncontrary to reason,\u201d rejoined Mirabeau.[247]\n\nThis was good and manly, as the world goes; and yet it was desperate.\nA saner man would have found opportunities enough to put himself in\nformal opposition to the most sacred laws of society, and so test his\nresolution, in the natural course of events, without violating the\nlaws of his own nature. It is not for a man to _put himself_ in such an\nattitude to society, but to _maintain_ himself in whatever attitude he\nfinds himself through obedience to the laws of his being, which will\nnever be one of opposition to a just government.[248] Cut the leather\nonly where the shoe pinches. Let us not have a rabid virtue that will\nbe revenged on society,\u2014that falls on it, not like the morning dew, but\nlike the fervid noonday sun, to wither it.\n\n\n_July 22._ The season of morning fogs has arrived. I think it is\nconnected with dog-days. Perhaps it is owing to the greater contrast\nbetween the night and the day, the nights being nearly as cold, while\nthe days are warmer? Before I rise from my couch, I see the ambrosial\nfog stretched over the river, draping the trees. It is the summer\u2019s\nvapor bath. What purity in the color! It is almost musical; it is\npositively fragrant. How faery-like it has visited our fields. I am\nstruck by its firm outlines, as distinct as a pillow\u2019s edge, about the\nheight of my house. A great crescent over the course of the river from\nsouthwest to northeast. Already, 5.30 A. M., some parts of the river\nare bare. It goes off in a body down the river, before this air, and\ndoes not rise into the heavens. It retreats, and I do not see how it\nis dissipated. This slight, thin vapor which is left to curl over the\nsurface of the still, dark water, still as glass, seems not [to] be the\nsame thing,\u2014of a different quality. I hear the cockerels crow through\nit, and the rich crow of young roosters, that sound indicative of the\nbravest, rudest health, hoarse without cold, hoarse with rude health.\nThat crow is all-nature-compelling; famine and pestilence flee before\nit. These are our fairest days, which are born in a fog.\n\nI saw the tall lettuce yesterday (_Lactuca elongata_), whose top or\nmain shoot had been broken off, and it had put up various stems, with\nentire and lanceolate, not runcinate leaves as usual, thus making what\nsome botanists have called a variety, _\u03b2. linearis_. So I have met\nwith some geniuses who, having met with some such accident maiming\nthem, have been developed in some such _monstrous_ and partial, though\noriginal, way. They were original in being less than themselves.\n\nYes, your leaf is peculiar, and some would make of you a distinct\nvariety, but to me you appear like the puny result of an accident and\nmisfortune, for you have lost your main shoot, and the leaves which\nwould have grown runcinate are small and lanceolate.\n\nThe last Sunday afternoon I smelled the clear pork frying for a\nfarmer\u2019s supper thirty rods off (what a Sunday supper!), the windows\nbeing open, and could imagine the _clear_ tea without milk which\nusually accompanies it.\n\nNow the cat-o\u2019-nine-tails are seen in the impenetrable meadows, and\nthe tall green rush is perfecting its tufts. The spotted polygonum (_P.\nPersicaria_) by the roadside.\n\nI scare up a woodcock from some moist place at midday.\n\nThe pewee and kingbird are killing bees, perched on a post or a dead\ntwig.\n\nI bathe me in the river. I lie down where it is shallow, amid the\nweeds over its sandy bottom; but it seems shrunken and parched; I\nfind it difficult to get _wet_ through. I would fain be the channel\nof a mountain brook. I bathe, and in a few hours I bathe again, not\nremembering that I was wetted before. When I come to the river, I take\noff my clothes and carry them over, then bathe and wash off the mud and\ncontinue my walk. I would fain take rivers in my walks endwise.\n\nThere was a singular charm for me in those French names,\u2014more than\nin the things themselves. The names of Italian and Grecian cities,\nvillages, and natural features are not more poetic to me than the\nnames of those humble Canadian villages. To be told by a habitant,\nwhen I asked the name of a village in sight, that is St. F\u00e9r\u00e9ol or St.\nAnne\u2019s! But I was quite taken off my feet when, running back to inquire\nwhat river we were crossing, and thinking for a long time he said _la\nrivi\u00e8re d\u2019oc\u00e9an_, it flashed upon me at last that it was _La Rivi\u00e8re du\nChien_.[249]\n\n * * * * *\n\nThere was so much grace and sentiment and refinement in the names, how\ncould they be coarse who took them so often on their lips,\u2014St. Anne\u2019s,\nSt. Joseph\u2019s; the holy Anne\u2019s, the holy Joseph\u2019s! Next to the Indian,\nthe French missionary and voyageur and Catholic habitant have named the\nnatural features of the land. The _prairie_, the _voyageur_! Or does\nevery man think his neighbor is the richer and more fortunate man, his\nneighbor\u2019s fields the richest?\n\nIt needed only a little outlandishness in the names, a little foreign\naccent, a few more vowels in the words, to make me locate all my ideals\nat once. How prepared we are for another world than this! We are no\nsooner over the line of the States than we expect to see men leading\npoetic lives,\u2014nothing so natural, that is the presumption. The names\nof the mountains, and the streams, and the villages reel with the\nintoxication of poetry\u2014Longueuil, Chambly, Barthillon (?), Montilly\n(?).[250]\n\nWhere there were books only, to find realities. Of course we assign to\nthe place the idea which the written history or poem suggested. Quebec,\nof course, is never seen for what it simply is to practical eyes, but\nas the local habitation of those thoughts and visions which we have\nderived from reading of Wolfe and Montcalm, Montgomery and Arnold. It\nis hard to make me attend to the geology of Cape Diamond or the botany\nof the Plains of Abraham.[251] How glad we are to find that there is\nanother race of men! for they may be more successful and fortunate than\nwe.\n\nCanada is not a place for railroads to terminate in, or for criminals\nto run to.[252]\n\n\n_July 23. Wednesday._ I remember the last moon, shining through a\ncreamy atmosphere, with a tear in the eye of Nature and her tresses\ndishevelled and drooping, sliding up the sky, the glistening air,\nthe leaves shining with dew, pulsating upward; an atmosphere unworn,\nunprophaned by day. What self-healing in Nature!\u2014swept by the dews.\n\nFor some weeks past the roadsides and the dry and trivial fields have\nbeen covered with the field trefoil (_Trifolium arvense_), now in\nbloom.\n\n * * * * *\n\n8 A. M.\u2014A comfortable breeze blowing. Methinks I can write better\nin the afternoon, for the novelty of it, if I should go abroad this\nmorning. My genius makes distinctions which my understanding cannot,\nand which my senses do not report. If I should reverse the usual,\u2014go\nforth and saunter in the fields all the forenoon, then sit down in my\nchamber in the afternoon, which it is so unusual for me to do,\u2014it would\nbe like a new season to me, and the novelty of it [would] inspire me.\nThe wind has fairly blown me outdoors; the elements were so lively and\nactive, and I so sympathized with them, that I could not sit while the\nwind went by. And I am reminded that we should especially improve the\nsummer to live out-of-doors. When we may so easily, it behooves us to\nbreak up this custom of sitting in the house, for it is but a custom,\nand I am not sure that it has the sanction of common sense. A man no\nsooner gets up than he sits down again. Fowls leave their perch in the\nmorning, and beasts their lairs, unless they are such as go abroad only\nby night. The cockerel does not take up a new perch _in the barn_, and\nhe is the embodiment of health and common sense. Is the literary man to\nlive always or chiefly sitting in a chamber through which nature enters\nby a window only? What is the use of the summer?\n\nYou must walk so gently as to hear the finest sounds, the faculties\nbeing in repose. Your mind must not perspire. True, out of doors my\nthought is commonly drowned, as it were, and shrunken, pressed down\nby stupendous piles of light ethereal influences, for the pressure\nof the atmosphere is still fifteen pounds to a square inch. I can do\nlittle more than preserve the equilibrium and resist the pressure of\nthe atmosphere. I can only nod like the rye-heads in the breeze. I\nexpand more surely in my chamber, as far as expression goes, as if that\npressure were taken off; but here outdoors is the place to store up\ninfluences.\n\nThe swallow\u2019s twitter is the sound of the lapsing waves of the air, or\nwhen they break and burst, as his wings represent the ripple. He has\nmore air in his bones than other birds; his feet are defective. The\nfish of the air. His note is the voice of the air. As fishes may hear\nthe sound of waves lapsing on the surface and see the outlines of the\nripples, so we hear the note and see the flight of swallows.\n\nThe influences which make for one walk more than another, and one\nday more than another, are much more ethereal than terrestrial. It is\nthe quality of the air much more than the quality of the ground that\nconcerns the walker,\u2014cheers or depresses him. What he may find in the\nair, not what he may find on the ground.\n\nOn such a road (the Corner) I walk securely, seeing far and wide on\nboth sides, as if I were flanked by light infantry on the hills, to\nrout the provincials, as the British marched into Concord, while my\ngrenadier thoughts keep the main road. That is, my light-armed and\nwandering thoughts scour the neighboring fields, and so I know if the\ncoast is clear. With what a breadth of van I advance! I am not bounded\nby the walls. I think more than the road full. (Going southwesterly.)\n\nWhile I am abroad, the ovipositors plant their seeds in me; I am\nfly-blown with thought, and go home to hatch and brood over them.\n\nI was too discursive and rambling in my thought for the chamber, and\nmust go where the wind blows on me walking.\n\nA little brook crossing the road (the Corner road), a few inches\u2019 depth\nof transparent water rippling over yellow sand and pebbles, the pure\nblood of nature. How miraculously crystal-like, how exquisite, fine,\nand subtle, and liquid this element, which an imperceptible inclination\nin the channel causes to flow thus surely and swiftly! How obedient\nto its instinct, to the faintest suggestion of the hills! If inclined\nbut a hair\u2019s breadth, it is in a torrent haste to obey. And all the\nrevolutions of the planet\u2014nature is so exquisitely adjusted\u2014and the\nattraction of the stars do not disturb this equipoise, but the rills\nstill flow the same way, and the water levels are not disturbed.\n\nWe are not so much like debauchees as in the afternoon.\n\nThe mind is subject to moods, as the shadows of clouds pass over the\nearth. Pay not too much heed to them. Let not the traveller stop for\nthem. They consist with the fairest weather. By the mood of my mind, I\nsuddenly felt dissuaded from continuing my walk, but I observed at the\nsame instant that the shadow of a cloud was passing over [the] spot\non which I stood, though it was of small extent, which, if it had no\nconnection with my mood, at any rate suggested how transient and little\nto be regarded that mood was. I kept on, and in a moment the sun shone\non my walk within and without.\n\nThe button-bush in blossom. The tobacco-pipe in damp woods. Certain\nlocalities only a few rods square in the fields and on the hills,\nsometimes the other side of a wall, attract me as if they had been the\nscene of pleasure in another state of existence.\n\nBut this habit of close observation,\u2014in Humboldt, Darwin, and others.\nIs it to be kept up long, this science? Do not tread on the heels of\nyour experience. Be impressed without making a minute of it. Poetry\nputs an interval between the impression and the expression,\u2014waits till\nthe seed germinates naturally.\n\n\n_July 24._ 5 A. M.\u2014The street and fields betray the drought and look\nmore parched than at noon; they look as I feel,\u2014languid and thin and\nfeeling my nerves. The potatoes and the elms and the herbage by the\nroadside, though there is a slight dew, seem to rise out of an arid and\nthirsty soil into the atmosphere of a furnace slightly cooled down. The\nleaves of the elms are yellow. Ah! now I see what the noon was and what\nit may be again. The effects of drought are never more apparent than\nat dawn. Nature is like a hen panting with open mouth, in the grass, as\nthe morning after a debauch.\n\n\n_July 25. Friday._ Started for Clark\u2019s Island at 7 A. M.\n\nAt 9 A. M. took the Hingham boat and was landed at Hull. There was\na pleasure party on board, apparently boys and girls belonging to\nthe South End, going to Hingham. There was a large proportion of\nill-dressed and ill-mannered boys of Irish extraction. A sad sight to\nbehold! Little boys of twelve years, prematurely old, sucking cigars! I\nfelt that if I were their mothers I should whip them and send them to\nbed. Such children should be dealt with as for stealing or impurity.\nThe opening of this valve for the safety of the city! Oh, what a\nwretched resource! What right have parents to beget, to bring up, and\nattempt to _educate_ children in a city? I thought of infanticide among\nthe Orientals with complacency. I seemed to hear infant voices lisp,\n\u201cGive us a fair chance, parents.\u201d There is no such squalidness in the\ncountry. You would have said that they must all have come from the\nhouse of correction and the farm-school, but such a company do the boys\nin Boston streets make. The birds have more care for their young,\u2014where\nthey place their nests. What are a city\u2019s charities? She cannot be\ncharitable any more than the old philosopher could move the earth,\nunless she has a resting-place without herself. A true culture is more\npossible to the savage than to the boy of average intellect, born of\naverage parents, in a great city. I believe that they perish miserably.\nHow can they be kept clean, physically or morally? It is folly to\nattempt to educate children within a city; the first step must be to\nremove them out of it. It seemed a groping and helpless philanthropy\nthat I heard of.\n\nI heard a boy telling the story of Nix\u2019s Mate to some girls, as we\npassed that spot, how \u201che said, \u2018If I am guilty, this island will\nremain; but if I am innocent, it will be washed away,\u2019 and now it\nis all washed away.\u201d[253] This was a simple and strong expression of\nfeeling suitable to the occasion, by which he committed the evidence\nof his innocence to the dumb isle, such as the boy could appreciate, a\nproper sailor\u2019s legend; and I was reminded that it is the illiterate\nand unimaginative class that seizes on and transmits the legends in\nwhich the more cultivated delight. No fastidious poet dwelling in\nBoston had tampered with it,\u2014no narrow poet, but broad mankind, sailors\nfrom all ports sailing by. They, sitting on the deck, were the literary\nacademy that sat upon its periods.\n\nOn the beach at Hull, and afterwards all along the shore to Plymouth,\nI saw the datura, the variety (red-stemmed), methinks, which some call\n_Tatula_ instead of _Stramonium_. I felt as if I was on the highway of\nthe world, at sight of this cosmopolite and veteran traveller. It told\nof commerce and sailors\u2019 yarns without end. It grows luxuriantly in\nsand and gravel. This Captain Cook among plants, this Norseman or sea\npirate, viking or king of the bays, the beaches. It is not an innocent\nplant; it suggests commerce, with its attendant vices.[254]\n\nSaw a public house where I landed at Hull, made like some barns which\nI have seen, of boards with a cleat nailed over the cracks, without\nclapboards or paint, evidently very simple and cheap, yet neat and\nconvenient as well as airy. It interested me, as the New House at Long\nIsland did not, as it brought the luxury and comfort of the seashore\nwithin reach of the less wealthy. It was such an exhibition of good\nsense as I was not prepared for and do not remember to have seen\nbefore. Ascended to the top of the hill, where is the old French fort,\nwith the well said to be ninety feet deep, now covered.[255] I saw some\nhorses standing on the very top of the ramparts, the highest part of\nHull, where there was hardly room to turn round, for the sake of the\nbreeze.[256] It was excessively warm, and their instincts, or their\nexperience perchance, guided them as surely to the summit as it did\nme. Here is the telegraph, nine miles from Boston, whose State-House\nwas just visible,\u2014movable signs on a pole with holes in them for the\npassage of the wind. A man about the telegraph station thought it the\nhighest point in the harbor; said they could tell the kind of vessel\nthirty miles off, the number at masthead ten or twelve miles, name on\nhull six or seven miles. They can see furthest in the fall. There is\na mist summer and winter, when the contrast between the temperature\nof the sea and the air is greatest. I did not see why this hill should\nnot be fortified as well as George\u2019s Island, it being higher and also\ncommanding the main channel. However, an enemy could go by all the\nforts in the dark, as Wolfe did at Quebec.[257] They are bungling\ncontrivances.\n\n [Illustrations]\n\nHere the bank is rapidly washing away. On every side, in Boston Harbor,\nthe evidences of the wasting away of the islands are so obvious and\nstriking that they appear to be wasting faster than they are. You\nwill sometimes see a springing hill, showing by the interrupted arch\nof its surface against the sky how much space [it] must have occupied\nwhere there is now water, as at Point Allerton,\u2014what botanists call\npremorse. Hull looks as if it had been two islands, since connected\nby a beach. I was struck by the gracefully curving and fantastic shore\nof a small island (Hog Island) inside of Hull, where everything seemed\nto be gently lapsing into futurity, as if the inhabitants should bear\na ripple for device on their coat-of-arms, a wave passing over them,\nwith the datura growing on their shores. The wrecks of isles fancifully\narranged into a new shore. To see the sea nibbling thus voraciously\nat the continents![258] A man at the telegraph told me of a white oak\npole a foot and a half in diameter, forty feet high, and four feet or\nmore in the rock at Minot\u2019s Ledge, with four guys, which stood only one\nyear. Stone piled up cob-fashion near same place stood eight years.\n\nHull pretty good land, but bare of trees\u2014only a few cherries for the\nmost part\u2014and mostly uncultivated, being owned by few. I heard the\nvoices of men shouting aboard a vessel half a mile from the shore,\nwhich sounded as if they were in a barn in the country, they being\nbetween the sails. It was not a sea sound. It was a purely rural\nsound.[259]\n\nMan needs to know but little more than a lobster in order to catch him\nin his traps. Here were many lobster traps on the shore. The beds of\ndry seaweed or eel-grass on the beach remind me of narrow shavings. On\nthe farther hill in Hull, I saw a field full of Canada thistles close\nup to the fences on all sides, while beyond them there was none. So\nmuch for these fields having been subjected to different culture. So a\ndifferent culture in the case of men brings in different weeds. As are\nthe virtues, so are the vices. Weeds come in with the seeds, though\nperhaps much more in the manure. Each kind of culture will introduce\nits own weeds.\n\nI am bothered to walk with those who wish to keep step with me. It is\nnot necessary to keep step with your companion, as some endeavor to do.\n\nThey told me at Hull that they burned the _stem_ of the kelp chiefly\nfor potash. Chemistry is not a splitting hairs when you have got half\na dozen raw Irishmen in the laboratory.\n\nAs I walked on the beach (Nantasket), panting with thirst, a man\npointed to a white spot on the side of a distant hill (Strawberry\nHill he called it) which rose from the gravelly beach, and said that\nthere was a pure and cold and unfailing spring; and I could not help\nadmiring that in this town of Hull, of which I had heard, but now for\nthe first time saw, a single spring should appear to me and should be\nof so much value. I found Hull indeed, but there was also a spring on\nthat parched, unsheltered shore; the spring, though I did not visit it,\nmade the deepest impression on my mind. Hull, the place of the spring\nand of the well. This is what the traveller would remember. All that he\nremembered of Rome was a spring on the Capitoline Hill![260]\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt is the most perfect seashore I have seen.[261] The rockweed falls\nover you like the _tresses_ of mermaids, and you see the propriety of\nthat epithet. You cannot swim among these weeds and pull yourself up by\nthem without thinking of mermen and mermaids.\n\nThe barnacles on the rocks, which make a whitish strip a few feet in\nwidth just above the weeds, remind me of some vegetable growth which I\nhave seen,\u2014surrounded by a circle of calyx-like or petal-like shells\nlike some buds or seed-vessels. They, too, clinging to the rocks\nlike the weeds; lying along the seams of the rock like buttons on a\nwaistcoat.\n\nI saw in Cohasset, separated from the sea only by a narrow beach, a\nvery large and handsome but shallow lake, of at least four hundred\nacres, with five rocky islets in it; which the sea had tossed over the\nbeach in the great storm in the spring, and, after the alewives had\npassed into it, stopped up its outlet; and now the alewives were dying\nby thousands, and the inhabitants apprehended a pestilence as the water\nevaporated. The water was very foul.[262]\n\nThe rockweed is considered the best for manure. I saw them drying\nthe Irish moss in quantities at Jerusalem Village in Cohasset. It is\nsaid to be used for sizing calico. Finding myself on the edge of a\nthunder-storm, I stopped a few moments at the Rock House in Cohasset,\nclose to the shore. There was scarcely rain enough to wet one, and no\nwind. I was therefore surprised to hear afterward, through a young man\nwho had just returned from Liverpool, that there was a severe squall at\nquarantine ground, only seven or eight miles northwest of me, such as\nhe had not experienced for three years, which sunk several boats and\ncaused some vessels to drag their anchors and come near going ashore;\nproving that the gust which struck the water there must have been of\nvery limited breadth, for I was or might have been overlooking the spot\nand felt no wind. This rocky shore is called Pleasant Cove on large\nmaps; on the map of Cohasset alone, the name seems to be confined to\nthe cove where I first saw the wreck of the St. John alone.[263]\n\nBrush Island, opposite this, with a hut on it, not permanently\ninhabited. It takes but little soil to tempt men to inhabit such\nplaces. I saw here the American holly (_Ilex opaca_), which is not\nfound further north than Massachusetts, but south and west. The yellow\ngerardia in the woods.\n\n\n_July 26._ At Cohasset.\u2014Called on Captain Snow, who remembered hearing\nfishermen say that they \u201cfitted out at Thoreau\u2019s;\u201d remembered him. He\nhad commanded a packet between Boston or New York and England. Spoke\nof the wave which he sometimes met on the Atlantic coming against the\nwind, and which indicated that the wind was blowing from an opposite\nquarter at a distance, the undulation travelling faster than the wind.\nThey see Cape Cod loom here. Thought the Bay between here and Cape\nAnn thirty fathoms deep; between here and Cape Cod, sixty or seventy\nfathoms. The \u201cAnnual of Scientific Discovery\u201d for 1851 says, quoting a\nMr. A. G. Findley, \u201cWaves travel very great distances, and are often\nraised by distant hurricanes, having been felt simultaneously at St.\nHelena and Ascension, though 600 miles apart, and it is probable that\nground swells often originate at the Cape of Good Hope, 3000 miles\ndistant.\u201d Sailors tell of tide-rips. Some are thought to be occasioned\nby earthquakes.\n\nThe ocean at Cohasset did not look as if any were ever shipwrecked in\nit. Not a vestige of a wreck left. It was not grand and sublime now,\nbut beautiful. The water held in the little hollows of the rocks, on\nthe receding of the tide, is so crystal-pure that you cannot believe it\nsalt, but wish to drink it.[264]\n\nThe architect of a Minot Rock lighthouse might profitably spend a day\nstudying the worn rocks of Cohasset shore, and learn the power of the\nwaves, see what kind of sand the sea is using to grind them down.\n\nA fine delicate seaweed, which some properly enough call sea-green. Saw\nhere the staghorn, or velvet, sumach (_Rhus typhina_), so called from\nform of young branches, a size larger than the _Rhus glabra_ common\nwith us. The _Plantago maritima_, or sea plantain, properly named.\nI guessed its name before I knew what it was called by botanists.\nThe American sea-rocket (_Bunias edentula_) I suppose it was that I\nsaw,\u2014the succulent plant with much cut leaves and small pinkish (?)\nflowers.\n\n\n_July 27. Sunday._ Walked from Cohasset to Duxbury and sailed thence to\nClark\u2019s Island.\n\nVisited the large tupelo tree (_Nyssa multiflora_) in Scituate, whose\nrounded and open top, like some umbelliferous plant\u2019s, I could see from\nMr. Sewal\u2019s, the tree which George Emerson went twenty-five miles to\nsee, called sometimes snag-tree and swamp hornbeam, also pepperidge\nand gum-tree. Hard to split. We have it in Concord. Cardinal-flower in\nbloom. Scituate meeting-houses on very high ground; the principal one\na landmark for sailors. Saw the buckthorn, which is naturalized. One of\nMarshfield meeting-houses on the height of land on my road. The country\ngenerally descends westerly toward the sources of Taunton River.\n\nAfter taking the road by Webster\u2019s beyond South Marshfield, I walked\na long way at noon, hot and thirsty, before I could find a suitable\nplace to sit and eat my dinner,\u2014a place where the shade and the sward\npleased me. At length I was obliged to put up with a small shade close\nto the ruts, where the only stream I had seen for some time crossed\nthe road. Here, also, numerous robins came to cool and wash themselves\nand to drink. They stood in the water up to their bellies, from time\nto time wetting their wings and tails and also ducking their heads and\nsprinkling the water over themselves; then they sat on a fence near by\nto dry. Then a goldfinch came and did the same, accompanied by the less\nbrilliant female. These birds evidently enjoyed their bath greatly, and\nit seemed indispensable to them.\n\nA neighbor of Webster\u2019s told me that he had hard on to sixteen hundred\nacres and was still buying more,\u2014a farm and factory within the year;\ncultivated a hundred and fifty acres. I saw twelve acres of potatoes\ntogether, the same of rye and wheat, and more methinks of buckwheat.\nFifteen or sixteen men, Irish mostly, at ten dollars a month, doing the\nwork of fifty, with a Yankee overseer, long a resident of Marshfield,\nnamed Wright. Would eat only the produce of his farm during the few\nweeks he was at home,\u2014brown bread and butter and milk,\u2014and sent out for\na pig\u2019s cheek to eat with his greens. Ate only what grew on his farm,\nbut drank more than ran on his farm.\n\nTook refuge from the rain at a Mr. Stetson\u2019s in Duxbury.\n\nI forgot to say that I passed the Winslow House, now belonging to\nWebster. This land was granted to the family in 1637.\n\nSailed with tavern-keeper Winsor, who was going out mackereling. Seven\nmen, stripping up their clothes, each bearing an armful of wood and\none some new potatoes, walked to the boats, then shoved them out a\ndozen rods over the mud, then rowed half a mile to the schooner of\nforty-three tons. They expected [to] be gone about a week, and to begin\nto fish perhaps the next morning. Fresh mackerel which they carried\nto Boston. Had four dories, and commonly fished from them. Else they\nfished on the starboard side aft, where their lines hung ready with the\nold baits on, two to a man. I had the experience of going on a mackerel\ncruise.\n\nThey went aboard their schooner in a leisurely way this Sunday evening,\nwith a fair but very slight wind, the sun now setting clear and shining\non the vessel after several thunder-showers. I was struck by the small\nquantity of supplies which they appeared to take. We climbed aboard,\nand there we were in a mackerel schooner. The baits were not dry on\nthe hooks. Winsor cast overboard the foul juice of mackerels mixed\nwith rain-water which remained in his trough. There was the mill in\nwhich to grind up the mackerel for bait, and the trough to hold it, and\nthe long-handled dipper to cast it overboard with; and already in the\nharbor we saw the surface rippled with schools of small mackerel. They\nproceeded leisurely to weigh anchor, and then to raise their two sails.\nThere was one passenger, going for health or amusement, who had been\nto California. I had the experience of going a-mackereling, though I\nwas landed on an island before we got out of the harbor. They expected\nto commence fishing the next morning. It had been a very warm day with\nfrequent thunder-showers. I had walked from Cohasset to Duxbury, and\nhad walked about the latter town to find a passage to Clark\u2019s Island,\nabout three miles distant, but no boat could stir, they said, at that\nstate of the tide.[265] The tide was down, and boats were left high\nand dry. At length I was directed to Winsor\u2019s tavern, where perchance I\nmight find some mackerel-fishers, who were going to sail that night to\nbe ready for fishing in the morning, and, as they would pass near the\nisland, they would take me. I found it so. Winsor himself was going.\nI told him he was the very man for me; but I must wait an hour. So\nI ate supper with them. Then one after another of his crew was seen\nstraggling to the shore, for the most part in high boots,\u2014some made of\nindia-rubber,\u2014some with their pants stripped up. There were seven for\nthis schooner, beside a passenger and myself. The leisurely manner in\nwhich they proceeded struck me. I had taken off my shoes and stockings\nand prepared to wade. Each of the seven took an armful of pine wood and\nwalked with it to the two boats, which lay at high-water mark in the\nmud; then they resolved that each should bring one more armful and that\nwould be enough. They had already got a barrel of water and had some\nmore in the schooner, also a bucket of new potatoes. Then, dividing\ninto two parties, we pulled and shoved the boats a dozen rods over\nthe mud and water till they floated, then rowed half a mile or more\nover the shallow water to the little schooner and climbed aboard. Many\nseals had their heads out. We gathered about the helmsman and talked\nabout the compass, which was affected by the iron in the vessel, etc.,\netc.[266]\n\n * * * * *\n\n [Illustration]\n\nClark\u2019s Island, Sunday night.\u2014On Friday night December 8th, O. S.,\nthe Pilgrims, exploring in the shallop, landed on Clark\u2019s Island (so\ncalled from the master\u2019s mate of the May-Flower), where they spent\nthree nights and kept their first Sabbath. On Monday, or the 11th,\nO. S., they landed on the Rock. This island contains about eighty-six\nacres and was once covered with red cedars which were sold at Boston\nfor gate-posts. I saw a few left, one, two feet in diameter at the\nground, which was probably standing when the Pilgrims came. Ed. Watson,\nwho could remember them nearly fifty years, had observed but little\nchange in them. Hutchinson calls this one of the best islands in\nMassachusetts Bay. The town kept it at first as a sacred place, but\nfinally sold it in 1690 to Samuel Lucas, Elkanah Watson, and George\nMorton. Saw a stag\u2019s-horn sumach five or six inches in diameter and\neighteen feet high. Here was the marsh goldenrod (_Solidago l\u00e6vigata_)\nnot yet in blossom; a small bluish flower in the marshes, which they\ncalled rosemary; a kind of chenopodium which appeared distinct from the\ncommon; and a short oval-leaved, set-looking plant which I suppose is\n_Glaux maritima_, sea milkwort, or saltwort. Skates\u2019 eggs, called in\nEngland skate-barrows from their form, on the sand. The old cedars were\nflat-topped, spreading, the stratum of the wind drawn out.\n\n\n_July 28. Monday morning._ Sailed [to] the Gurnet, which runs down\nseven miles into the bay from Marshfield. Heard the _peep_ of the\n_beach-bird_. Saw some ring-necks in company with peeps. They told of\neagles which had flown low over the island lately. Went by Saquish.\nGathered a basketful of Irish moss bleached on the beach. Saw a\nfield full of pink-blossomed potatoes at the lighthouse, remarkably\nluxuriant and full of blossoms; also some French barley. Old fort and\nbarracks by lighthouse. Visited lobster houses or huts there, where\nthey use lobsters to catch bait for lobsters. Saw on the shanties signs\nfrom ships, as \u201cJustice Story\u201d and \u201cMargueritta.\u201d To obtain bait is\nsometimes the main thing. Samphire (_Salicornia_), which they pickle;\nalso a kind of prickly samphire, which I suppose is saltwort, or\n_Salsola Caroliniana_. Well at Clark\u2019s Island twenty-seven and three\nquarters feet deep. Cut the rockweed on the rocks at low tide once in\ntwo or three years. Very valuable; more than they have time to save.\n\nUncle Ned told of a man who went off fishing from back of Wellfleet in\ncalm weather, and with great difficulty got ashore through the surf.\nThose in the other boat, who had landed, were unwilling to take the\nresponsibility of telling them when to pull for shore; the one who had\nthe helm was inexperienced. They were swamped at once. So treacherous\nis this shore. Before the wind comes, perchance, the sea may run so as\nto upset and drown you on the shore. At first they thought to pull for\nProvincetown, but night was coming on, and that was distant many a long\nmile. Their case was a desperate one. When they came near the shore\nand saw the terrific breakers that intervened, they were deterred. They\nwere thoroughly frightened.[267]\n\n [Illustrations]\n\nWere troubled with skunks on this island; they must have come over on\nthe ice. Foxes they had seen; had killed one woodchuck; even a large\n_mud turtle_, which they _conjectured some bird must have dropped_.\nMuskrats they had seen, and killed two raccoons once. I went a-clamming\njust before night. This the clam-digger, borrowed of Uncle Bill\n(Watson) in his schooner home. The clams nearly a foot deep, but I\nbroke many in digging. Said not to be good now, but we found them good\neaten fresh. No sale for them now; fetch twenty-five cents a bucket in\ntheir season. Barry caught squids as bait for bass. We found many dead\nclams,\u2014their shells full of sand,\u2014called sand clams.[268] By a new clam\nlaw any one can dig clams here. Brown\u2019s Island, so called, a shoal off\nthe Gurnet, thought to have been an isle once, a dangerous place. Saw\nhere fences, the posts set in cross sleepers, made to be removed in\nwinter.\n\nThe finest music in a menagerie, its wildest strains, have something\nin them akin to the cries of the tigers and leopards heard in their\nnative forests. Those strains are not unfitted to the assemblage\nof wild beasts. They express to my ear what the tiger\u2019s stripes and\nthe leopard\u2019s spots express to my eye; and they appear to grin with\nsatisfaction at the sound. That nature has any place at all for music\nis very good.\n\n\n_July 29. Tuesday._ A northeast wind with rain, but the sea is the\nwilder for it. I heard the surf roar on the Gurnet [in] the night,\nwhich, as Uncle Ned and Freeman said, showed that the wind would work\nround east and we should have rainy weather. It was the wave reaching\nthe shore before the wind. The ocean was heaped up somewhere to the\neastward, and this roar was occasioned by its effort to preserve its\nequilibrium. The rut of the sea.[269] In the afternoon I sailed to\nPlymouth, three miles, notwithstanding the drizzling rain, or \u201cdrisk,\u201d\nas Uncle Ned called it. We passed round the head of Plymouth beach,\nwhich is three miles long. I did not know till afterward that I had\nlanded where the Pilgrims did and passed over the Rock on Hedge\u2019s\nWharf. Returning, we had more wind and tacking to do.\n\nSaw many seals together on a flat. Singular that these strange animals\nshould be so abundant here and yet the man who lives a few miles inland\nnever hear of them. To him there is no report of the sea, though he may\nread the Plymouth paper. The Boston papers do not tell us that they\nhave seals in the Harbor. The inhabitants of Plymouth do not seem to\nbe aware of it. I always think of seals in connection with Esquimaux or\nsome other outlandish people, not in connection with those who live on\nthe shores of Boston and Plymouth harbors. Yet from their windows they\nmay daily see a family [of] seals, the real _Phoca vitulina_, collected\non a flat or sporting in the waves. I saw one dashing through the waves\njust ahead of our boat, going to join his companions on the bar,\u2014as\nstrange to me as the merman. No less wild, essentially, than when the\nPilgrims came is this harbor.\n\n [Illustrations]\n\nIt being low tide, we landed on a flat which makes out from Clark\u2019s\nIsland, to while away the time, not being able to get quite up yet.\nI found numerous _large_ holes of the sea clam in this sand (no small\nclams), and dug them out easily and rapidly with my hands. Could have\ngot a large quantity in a short time; but here they do not eat them;\nthink they will make you sick. They were not so deep in the sand, not\nmore than five or six inches. I saw where one had squirted full ten\nfeet before the wind, as appeared by the marks of the drops on the\nsand. Some small ones I found not more than a quarter of an inch in\nlength. Le Baron brought me [a] round clam or quahog alive, with a\nvery thick shell, and not so nearly an isosceles triangle as the sea\nclam,\u2014more like this: with a protuberance on the back. The sea clam: A\nsmall, narrow clam which they called the bank clam; also crab-cases,\nhandsomely spotted. Small crab always in a cockle-shell if not in a\ncase of his own. A cockle as large as my fist. Mussels, small ones,\nempty shells; an extensive bank where they had died. Occasionally a\nlarge deep-sea mussel, which some kelp had brought up. We caught some\nsand eels seven or eight inches long,\u2014_Ammodytes tobianus_, according\nto Storer, and not the _A. lancea_ of Yarrell, though the size of the\nlast comes nearer. They were in the shallow pools left on the sand (the\nflat was here pure naked yellowish sand), and quickly buried themselves\nwhen pursued. They are used as bait for bass. Found some sand-circles\nor sandpaper, like top of a stone jug cut off, with a large nose; said\nto be made by the foot of the large cockle, which has some glutinous\nmatter on it.[270] A circle of sand about as thick as thick pasteboard.\nIt reminded me of the caddis-worm cases, skate-barrows, etc., etc. I\nobserved the shell of a sea clam one valve of which was filled exactly\neven full with sand,\u2014evenly as if it had been heaped and then scraped\noff, as when men measure by the peck. This was a fresher one of the\nmyriad sand-clams, and it suggested to me how the stone clams which I\nhad seen on Cape Cod might have been formed. Perchance a clamshell was\nthe mould in which they were cast, and a slight hardening of the level\nsurface, before the whole is turned to stone, causes them to split in\ntwo. The sand was full of stone clams in the mould.[271] I saw the kelp\nattached to stones half as big as my head, which it had transported. I\ndo not think I ever saw the kelp _in situ_. Also attached to a deep-sea\nmussel. The kelp is like a broad ruffled belt. The middle portion is\nthicker and flat, the edges for two or three inches thinner and fuller,\nso that it is fulled or ruffled, as if the edges had been hammered. The\nextremity is generally worn and ragged from the lashing of the waves.\nIt is the prototype of a fringed belt. Uncle Ned said that the cows\nate it.[272] We saw in the shallow water a long, _round_ green grass,\nsix or eight feet long, clogging up the channel. Round grass, I think\nthey called it. We caught a lobster, as you might catch a mud turtle in\nthe country, in the shallow water, pushing him ashore with the paddle,\ntaking hold of his tail to avoid being bitten. They are obliged to put\nwooden plugs or wedges beside their claws to prevent their tearing each\nother to pieces. All weeds are bleached on the beach.\n\nThis sailing on salt water was something new to me. The boat is such\na living creature, even this clumsy one sailing within five points of\nthe wind. The sailboat is an admirable invention, by which you compel\nthe wind to transport you even against itself. It is easier to guide\nthan a horse; the slightest pressure on the tiller suffices. I think\nthe inventor must have been greatly surprised, as well as delighted,\nat the success of his experiment. It is so contrary to expectation, as\nif the elements were disposed to favor you. This deep, unfordable sea!\nbut this wind ever blowing over it to transport you! At 10 P. M. it was\nperfectly fair and bright starlight.\n\n\n_July 30. Wednesday._ The house here stands within a grove of\nbalm-of-Gileads, horse-chestnuts, cherries, apples, and plums, etc.\nUncle Bill, who lives in his schooner,\u2014not turned up Numidian fashion,\nbut anchored in the mud,\u2014whom I meant to call on yesterday morn, lo!\nhad run over to \u201cthe Pines\u201d last evening, fearing an easterly storm.\nHe outrode the great gale in the spring alone in the harbor, dashing\nabout. He goes after rockweed, lighters vessels, and saves wrecks.\nNow I see him lying in the mud over at the Pines in the horizon, which\nplace he cannot leave if he will, till flood-tide; but he will not, it\nseems. This waiting for the tide is a singular feature in the life by\nthe shore. In leaving your boat to-day you must always have reference\nto what you are going to do the next day. A frequent answer is, \u201cWell,\nyou can\u2019t start for two hours yet.\u201d It is something new to a landsman,\nand at first he is not disposed to wait.[273] I saw some heaps of\nshells left by the Indians near the northern end of the island. They\nwere a rod in diameter and a foot or more high in the middle, and\ncovered with a shorter and greener grass than the surrounding field.\nFound one imperfect arrowhead.\n\nAt 10 A. M. sailed to Webster\u2019s, past Powder Point in Duxbury. We\ncould see his land from the island. I was steersman and learned the\nmeaning of some nautical phrases,\u2014\u201cluff,\u201d to keep the boat close to\nthe wind till the sails begin to flap; \u201cbear away,\u201d to put the sail\nmore at right angles with the wind; a \u201cclose haul,\u201d when the sails are\nbrought and belayed nearly or quite in a line with the vessel. On the\nmarshes we saw patches of a \u201c_black_ grass.\u201d A large field of wheat at\nWebster\u2019s,\u2014half a dozen acres at least,\u2014many apple trees, three-thorned\nacacias, tulip-trees; cranberry experiment; seaweed spread under his\ntomatoes. Wild geese with black and gray heads and necks, not so heavy\nand clumsy as the tame Bremens. Large, noisy Hongkong geese. Handsome\ncalves. Three thousand (?) acres of marsh.\n\nTalked with Webster\u2019s nearest neighbor, Captain Hewit, whose small\nfarm he surrounds and endeavors in vain to buy. A fair specimen of\na retired Yankee sea-captain turned farmer. Proud of the quantity of\ncarrots he had raised on a small patch. It was better husbandry than\nWebster\u2019s. He told a story of his buying a cargo for his owners at\nSt. Petersburg just as peace was declared in the last war. These men\nare not so remarkable for anything as the quality of hardness. The\nvery fixedness and rigidity of their jaws and necks express a sort of\nadamantine hardness. This is what they have learned by contact with the\nelements. The man who does not grow rigid with years and experience!\nWhere is he? What avails it to grow hard merely? The harder you are,\nthe more brittle really, like the bones of the old. How much rarer and\nbetter to grow mellow! A sort of stone fruit the man bears commonly; a\nbare stone it is, without any sweet and mellow pericarp around it. It\nis like the peach which has dried to the stone as the season advanced;\nit is dwindled to a dry stone with its almond. In presence of one of\nthese hard men I think: \u201cHow brittle! How easily you would crack! What\na poor and lame conclusion!\u201d I can think of nothing but a stone in his\nhead. Truly genial men do not grow [hard]. It is the result of despair,\nthis attitude of resistance. They behave like men already driven to the\nwall. Notwithstanding that the speaker trembles with infirmity while\nhe speaks,\u2014his hand on the spade,\u2014it is such a trembling as betrays a\nstony nature. His hand trembles so that the full glass of cider which\nhe prizes to a drop will have lost half its contents before it reaches\nhis lips, as if a tempest had arisen in it. Hopelessly hard. But there\nis another view of him. He is somebody. He has an opinion to express,\nif you will wait to hear him. A certain manliness and refreshing\nresistance is in him. He generally makes Webster a call, but Webster\ndoes not want to see you more than twenty minutes. It does not take him\nlong to say all he has got to say. He had not seen him to speak to him\nsince he had come home this time. He had sent him over a couple of fine\ncod the night before. Such a man as Hewit sees not finely but coarsely.\n\nThe eagle given by Lawrence on the hill in the buckwheat field.\n\n\n_July 31. Thursday._ Those same round shells (_Scutella parma_\n(_placenta_) ?) on the sand as at Cape Cod, the live ones reddish, the\ndead white. Went off early this morning with Uncle Ned to catch bass\nwith the small fish I had found on the sand the night before. Two of\nhis neighbor Albert Watson\u2019s boys were there,\u2014not James, the oldest,\nbut Edward, the sailor, and Mortimer (or Mort),\u2014in their boat. They\nkilled some striped bass (_Labrax lineatus_) with paddles in a shallow\ncreek in the sand, and caught some lobsters. I remarked that the\nseashore was singularly clean, for, notwithstanding the spattering of\nthe water and mud and squirting of the clams and wading to and fro the\nboat, my best black pants retained no stains nor dirt, as they would\nacquire from walking in the country. I caught a bass with a young\u2014haik?\n(perchance), trailing thirty feet behind while Uncle Ned paddled.\nThey catch them in England with a \u201ctrawl-net.\u201d Sometimes they weigh\nseventy-five pounds here.\n\nAt 11 A. M. set sail to Plymouth. We went somewhat out of a direct\ncourse, to take advantage of the tide, which was coming in. Saw the\nsite of the first house, which was burned, on Leyden Street. Walked\nup the same, parallel with the Town Brook. Hill from which Billington\nSea was discovered hardly a mile from the shore, on Watson\u2019s grounds.\nWatson\u2019s Hill, where treaty was made across brook south of Burying\nHill. At Watson\u2019s,[274] the oriental plane, _Abies Douglasii_,\nginkgo tree (_q. v._ on Common), a foreign hardhack, English oak\n(dark-colored, small leaf), Spanish chestnut, Chinese arbor-vit\u00e6,\nNorway spruce (like our fir balsam), a new kind of fir balsam. Black\neagle one of the good cherries. Fuchsias in hothouse. Earth bank\ncovered with cement.\n\nMr. Thomas Russell, who cannot be seventy, at whose house on Leyden\nStreet I took tea and spent the evening, told me that he remembered to\nhave seen Ebenezer Cobb, a native of Plymouth, who died in Kingston in\n1801, aged one hundred and seven, who remembered to have had personal\nknowledge of Peregrine White, saw him an old man riding on horseback\n(he lived to be eighty-three). White was born at Cape Cod Harbor before\nthe Pilgrims got to Plymouth. C. Sturgis\u2019s mother told me the same\nof herself at the same time. She remembered Cobb sitting in an arm\nchair like the one she herself occupied, with his silver locks falling\nabout his shoulders, twirling one thumb over the other. Lyell in first\nvolume, \u201cSecond Visit,\u201d page 97, published 1849,[275] says: \u201cColonel\nPerkins, of Boston, ... informed me, in 1846, that there was but one\nlink wanting in the chain of personal communication between him and\nPeregrine White, the first white child born in Massachusetts, a few\ndays after the Pilgrims landed. White lived to an advanced age, and was\nknown to a man of the name of Cobb, whom Colonel Perkins visited, in\n1807, with some friends who yet survive. Cobb died in 1808, the year\nafter Colonel Perkins saw him.\u201d\n\n [Illustration: _Town Brook, Plymouth_]\n\nRussell told me that he once bought some _primitive_ woodland in\nPlymouth which was sold at auction\u2014the biggest pitch pines two feet\ndiameter\u2014for _eight shillings_ an acre. If he had bought enough, it\nwould have been a fortune. There is still forest in this town which\nthe axe has not touched, says George Bradford. According to Thatcher\u2019s\nHistory of Plymouth, there were 11,662 acres of woodland in 1831, or\ntwenty square miles. Pilgrims first saw Billington Sea about January\n1st; visited it January 8th. The oldest stone in the Plymouth Burying\nGround, 1681. (Coles (?) Hill, where those who died the first winter\nwere buried, is said to have been levelled and sown to conceal loss\nfrom Indians.) Oldest on our hill, 1677. In Mrs. Plympton\u2019s garden on\nLeyden Street, running down to Town Brook, saw an abundance of pears,\ngathered excellent June-eating apples, saw a large lilac about eight\ninches diameter. Methinks a soil may improve when at length it has\nshaded itself with vegetation.\n\nWilliam S. Russell, the registrar at the court-house, showed the oldest\ntown records, for all are preserved. On first page a plan of Leyden\nStreet dated December, 1620, with names of settlers. They have a great\nmany folios. The writing plain. Saw the charter granted by the Plymouth\nCompany to the Pilgrims, signed by Warwick, dated 1629, and the box in\nwhich it was brought over, with the seal.\n\n [Illustrations]\n\nPilgrim Hall. They used to crack off pieces of the Forefathers\u2019 Rock\nfor visitors with a cold chisel, till the town forbade it. The stone\nremaining at wharf is about seven feet square. Saw two old armchairs\nthat came over in the Mayflower, the large picture by Sargent,\nStandish\u2019s sword, gun-barrel with which Philip was killed, mug and\npocket-book of Clark the mate, iron pot of Standish, old pipe-tongs.\nIndian relics: a flayer; a pot or mortar of a kind of fire-proof stone,\nvery hard, only seven or eight inches long. A commission from Cromwell\nto Winslow (?), his signature torn off. They talk of a monument on the\nRock. The Burying Hill 165 feet high. Manomet 394 feet high by State\nmap. Saw more pears at Washburn\u2019s garden. No graves of Pilgrims.\n\nSeaweed generally used along shore. Saw the _Prinos glabra_, ink-berry,\nat Billington Sea. Sandy plain with oaks of various kinds cut in less\nthan twenty years. No communication with Sandwich. Plymouth end of\nworld; fifty miles thither by railroad. Old Colony road poor property.\nNothing saves Plymouth but the Rock. Fern-leaved beach.\n\nSaw the king crab (_Limulus polyphemus_), horseshoe and saucepan\nfish, at the Island, covered with sea-green and buried in the sand for\nconcealment.\n\nIn Plymouth the _Convolvulus arvensis_, small bindweed.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nAUGUST, 1851\n\n(\u00c6T. 34)\n\n\nLeft [Plymouth] at 9 A. M., August 1st. After Kingston came Plympton,\nHalifax, and Hanson, all level with frequent cedar swamps, especially\nthe last,\u2014also in Weymouth.\n\nDesor and Cabot think the jellyfish _Oceania tubulosa_ are buds from\na polyp of genus _Syncoryne_. Desor, accounting for suspended moisture\nor fogs over sandbanks (or shoals), says, the heat being abstracted by\nradiation, the moisture is condensed in form of fog.\n\nLieutenant Walsh lost his lead and wire when 34,200 [feet], or more\nthan six statute miles, had run out perpendicularly.\n\n * * * * *\n\nI could make a list of things ill-managed. We Yankees do not deserve\nour fame. _Viz._ [_sic_]:\u2014\n\nI went to a menagerie the other day, advertised by a flaming show-bill\nas big as a barn-door. The proprietors had taken wonderful pains to\ncollect rare and interesting animals from all parts of the world,\nand then placed by them a few stupid and ignorant fellows, coachmen\nor stablers, who knew little or nothing about the animals and were\nunwilling even to communicate the little they knew. You catch a rare\ncreature, interesting to all mankind, and then place the first biped\nthat comes along, with but a grain more reason in him, to exhibit and\ndescribe the former. At the expense of millions, this rare quadruped\nfrom the sun [_sic_] is obtained, and then Jack Halyard or Tom\nCoach-whip is hired to explain it. Why all this pains taken to catch\nin Africa, and no pains taken to exhibit in America? Not a cage was\nlabelled. There was nobody to tell us how or where the animals were\ncaught, or what they were. Probably the proprietors themselves do\nnot know,\u2014or what their habits are. They told me that a hyena came\nfrom South America. But hardly had we been ushered into the presence\nof this choice, this admirable collection, than a ring was formed\nfor Master Jack and the pony! Were they _animals_, then, who had\ncaught and exhibited these, and who had come to see these? Would it\nnot be worth the while to learn something? to have some information\nimparted? The absurdity of importing the behemoth, and then, instead\nof somebody appearing [to] tell which it is, to have to _while away\nthe time_,\u2014though your curiosity is growing desperate to learn one\nfact about the creature,\u2014to have Jack and the pony introduced!!! Why,\nI expected to see some descendant of Cuvier there, to improve this\nopportunity for a lecture on natural history!\n\nThat is what they should do,\u2014make this an occasion for communicating\nsome solid information. That would be fun alive! that would be a sunny\nday, a sun day, in one\u2019s existence, not a secular day of Shetland\nponies. Not Jack and his pony and a tintamarre of musical instruments,\nand a man with his head in the lion\u2019s mouth. First let him prove\nthat he has got a head on his shoulders. I go not there to see a man\nhug a lion or fondle a tiger, but to learn how he is related to the\nwild beast. There\u2019ll be All-Fools\u2019 days enough without our creating\nany intentionally. The presumption is that men wish to behave like\nreasonable creatures; that they do not need, and are not seeking,\nrelaxation; that they are not dissipated. Let it be a travelling\nzo\u00f6logical garden, with a travelling professor to accompany it. At\npresent, foolishly, the professor goes alone with his poor painted\nillustrations of animals, while the menagerie takes another road,\nwithout its professor,\u2014only its keepers, stupid coachmen.\n\nI. M. June [?] & Co., or Van Amburgh & Co., are engaged in a pecuniary\nspeculation in which certain wild beasts are used as the counters.\nCuvier & Co. are engaged in giving a course of lectures on Natural\nHistory. Now why could they not put head and means together for the\nbenefit of mankind, and still get their living? The present institution\nis imperfect precisely because its object is to enrich Van Amburgh\n& Co., and their low aim unfits them for rendering any more valuable\nservice; but no doubt the most valuable course would also be the most\nvaluable in a pecuniary sense. No doubt a low self-interest is a better\nmotive force to these enterprises than no interest at all; but a high\nself-interest, which consists with the greatest advantage of all, would\nbe a better still.\n\nItem 2nd: Why have we not a decent pocket-map of the State of\nMassachusetts? There is the large map. Why is it not cut into half a\ndozen sheets and folded into a small cover for the pocket? Are there no\ntravellers to use it? Well, to tell the truth, there are but few, and\nthat\u2019s the reason why. Men go by railroad, and State maps hanging in\nbar-rooms are small enough. The State has been admirably surveyed at a\ngreat cost, and yet Dearborn\u2019s Pocket-Map is the best one we have!\n\n\n_Aug. 4._ Now the hardhack and meadow-sweet reign, the former one\nof our handsomest flowers, I think. The mayweed, too, dusty by the\nroadside, and in the fields I scent the sweet-scented life-everlasting,\nwhich is half expanded. The grass is withered by the drought. The\npotatoes begin generally to flat down. The corn is tasselled out; its\ncrosses show in all fields above the blades. The turnips are growing in\nits midst.\n\nAs my eye rested on the blossom of the meadowsweet in a hedge, I heard\nthe note of an autumnal cricket, and was penetrated with the sense\nof autumn. Was it sound? or was it form? or was it scent? or was it\nflavor? It is now the royal month of August. When I hear this sound,\nI am as dry as the rye which is everywhere cut and housed, though I am\ndrunk with the season\u2019s wine.\n\nThe farmer is the most inoffensive of men, with his barns and cattle\nand poultry and grain and grass. I like the smell of his hay well\nenough, though as grass it may be in my way.\n\nThe yellow Bethlehem-star still, and the yellow gerardia, and a bluish\n\u201csavory-leaved aster.\u201d\n\n\n_Aug. 5._ 7.30 P. M.\u2014Moon half full. I sit beside Hubbard\u2019s Grove. A\nfew level red bars above the horizon; a dark, irregular bank beneath\nthem, with a streak of red sky below, on the horizon\u2019s edge. This\nwill describe many a sunset. It is 8 o\u2019clock. The farmer has driven\nin his cows, and is cutting an armful of green corn fodder for them.\nAnother is still patching the roof of his barn, making his hammer heard\nafar in the twilight, as if he took a satisfaction in his elevated\nwork,\u2014sitting astride the ridge,\u2014which he wished to prolong. The robin\nutters a sort of cackling note, as if he had learned the ways of man.\nThe air is still. I hear the voices of loud-talking boys in the early\ntwilight, it must be a mile off. The swallows go over with a watery\ntwittering.\n\nWhen the moon is on the increase and half full, it is already in\nmid-heavens at sunset, so that there is no marked twilight intervening.\nI hear the whip-poor-will at a distance, but they are few of late.\n\nIt is almost dark. I hear the voices of berry-pickers coming homeward\nfrom Bear Garden. Why do they go home, as it were defeated by the\napproaching night? Did it never occur to them to stay overnight? The\nwind now rising from over Bear Garden Hill falls gently on my ear and\ndelivers its message, the same that I have so often heard passing over\nbare and stony mountain-tops, so uncontaminated and untamed is the\nwind. The air that has swept over Caucasus and the sands of Arabia\ncomes to breathe on New England fields. The dogs bark; they are not\nas much stiller as man. They are on the alert, suspecting the approach\nof foes. The darkness perchance affects them, makes them mad and wild.\nThe mosquitoes hum about me. I distinguish the modest moonlight on my\npaper.\n\nAs the twilight deepens and the moonlight is more and more bright, I\nbegin to distinguish myself, who I am and where; as my walls contract,\nI become more collected and composed, and sensible of my own existence,\nas when a lamp is brought into a dark apartment and I see who the\ncompany are. With the coolness and the mild silvery light, I recover\nsome sanity, my thoughts are more distinct, moderated, and tempered.\nReflection is more possible while the day goes by. The intense light\nof the sun unfits me for meditation, makes me wander in my thought;\nmy life is too diffuse and dissipated; routine succeeds and prevails\nover us; the trivial has greater power then, and most at noonday, the\nmost trivial hour of the twenty-four. I am sobered by the moonlight.\nI bethink myself. It is like a cup of cold water to a thirsty man. The\nmoonlight is more favorable to meditation than sunlight.\n\nThe sun lights this world from without, shines in at a window, but the\nmoon is like a lamp within an apartment. It shines for us. The stars\nthemselves make a more visible, and hence a nearer and more domestic,\nroof at night. Nature broods us, and has not left our germs of thought\nto be hatched by the sun. We feel her heat and see her body darkening\nover us. Our thoughts are not dissipated, but come back to us like an\necho.\n\nThe different kinds of moonlight are infinite. This is not a night for\ncontrasts of light and shade, but a faint diffused light in which there\nis light enough to travel, and that is all.\n\nA road (the Corner road) that passes over the height of land between\nearth and heaven, separating those streams which flow earthward from\nthose which flow heavenward.\n\nAh, what a poor, dry compilation is the \u201cAnnual of Scientific\nDiscovery!\u201d I trust that observations are made during the year which\nare not chronicled there,\u2014that some mortal may have caught a glimpse of\nNature in some corner of the earth during the year 1851. One sentence\nof perennial poetry would make me forget, would atone for, volumes of\nmere science. The astronomer is as blind to the significant phenomena,\nor the significance of phenomena, as the wood-sawyer who wears glasses\nto defend his eyes from sawdust. The question is not what you look at,\nbut what you see.\n\nI hear now from Bear Garden Hill\u2014I rarely walk by moonlight without\nhearing\u2014the sound of a flute, or a horn, or a human voice. It is a\nperformer I never see by day; should not recognize him if pointed\nout; but you may hear his performance in every horizon. He plays but\none strain and goes to bed early, but I know by the character of that\nsingle strain that he is deeply dissatisfied with the manner in which\nhe spends his day. He is a slave who is purchasing his freedom. He is\nApollo watching the flocks of Admetus on every hill, and this strain\nhe plays every evening to remind him of his heavenly descent. It is all\nthat saves him,\u2014his one redeeming trait. It is a reminiscence; he loves\nto remember his youth. He is sprung of a noble family. He is highly\nrelated, I have no doubt; was tenderly nurtured in his infancy, poor\nhind as he is. That noble strain he utters, instead of any jewel on his\nfinger, or precious locket fastened to his breast, or purple garments\nthat came with him. The elements recognize him, and echo his strain.\nAll the dogs know him their master, though lords and ladies, rich men\nand learned, know him not. He is the son of a rich man, of a famous\nman who served his country well. He has heard his sire\u2019s stories. I\nthought of the time when he would discover his parentage, obtain his\ninheritance and sing a strain suited to the morning hour. He cherishes\nhopes. I never see the man by day who plays that clarionet.\n\nThe distant lamps in the farmhouse look like fires. The trees and\nclouds are seen at a distance reflected in the river as by day. I see\nFair Haven Pond from the Cliffs, as it were through a slight mist.\nIt is the wildest scenery imaginable,\u2014a Lake of the Woods. I just\nremembered the wildness of St. Anne\u2019s. That\u2019s the Ultima Thule of\nwildness to me.\n\nWhat an entertainment for the traveller, this incessant motion\napparently of the moon traversing the clouds! Whether you sit or stand,\nit is always preparing new developments for you. It is event enough\nfor simple minds. You all alone, the moon all alone, overcoming with\nincessant victory whole squadrons of clouds above the forests and the\nlakes and rivers and the mountains. You cannot always calculate which\none the moon will undertake next.[276]\n\nI see a solitary firefly over the woods.\n\nThe moon wading through clouds; though she is eclipsed by this one,\nI see her shining on a more distant but lower one. The entrance into\nHubbard\u2019s Wood above the spring, coming from the hill, is like the\nentrance to a cave; but when you are within, there are some streaks of\nlight on the edge of the path.\n\nAll these leaves so still, none whispering, no birds in motion,\u2014how can\nI be else than still and thoughtful?\n\n\n_Aug. 6._ The motions of circus horses are not so expressive of music,\ndo not harmonize so well with a strain of music, as those of animals\nof the cat kind. An Italian has just carried a hand-organ through\nthe village. I hear it even at Walden Wood. It is as if a cheeta had\nskulked, howling, through the streets of the village, with knotted\ntail, and left its perfume there.\n\nNeglected gardens are full of fleabane (?) now, not yet in blossom.\nThoroughwort has opened, and goldenrod is gradually opening. The smooth\nsumach shows its red fruit. The berries of the bristly aralia are\nturning dark. The wild holly\u2019s scarlet fruit is seen and the red cherry\n(_Cerasus_). After how few steps, how little exertion, the student\nstands in pine woods above the Solomon\u2019s-seal and the cow-wheat,\nin a place still unaccountably strange and wild to him, and to all\ncivilization! This so easy and so common, though our literature implies\nthat it is rare! We in the country make no report of the seals and\nsharks in our neighborhood to those in the city. We send them only our\nhuckleberries, not free wild thoughts.\n\nWhy does not man sleep all day as well as all night, it seems so very\nnatural and easy? For what is he awake?\n\nA man must generally get away some hundreds or thousands of miles\nfrom home before he can be said to begin his travels. Why not\nbegin his travels at home? Would he have to go far or look very\nclosely to discover novelties? The traveller who, in this sense,\npursues his travels at home, has the advantage at any rate of a\nlong residence in the country to make his observations correct and\nprofitable. Now the American goes to England, while the Englishman\ncomes to America, in order to describe the country. No doubt there\n[are] some advantages in this kind of mutual criticism. But might\nthere not be invented a better way of coming at the truth than this\nscratch-my-back-and-I\u2019ll-scratch-yours method? Would not the American,\nfor instance, who had himself, perchance, travelled in England and\nelsewhere make the most profitable and accurate traveller in his\nown country? How often it happens that the traveller\u2019s principal\ndistinction is that he is one who knows less about a country than a\nnative! Now if he should begin with all the knowledge of a native, and\nadd thereto the knowledge of a traveller, both natives and foreigners\nwould be obliged to read his book; and the world would be absolutely\nbenefited. It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in\nhis native village; to make any progress between his door and his gate.\nBut such a traveller will make the distances which Hanno and Marco\nPolo and Cook and Ledyard went over ridiculous. So worthy a traveller\nas William Bartram heads his first chapter with the words, \u201cThe author\nsets sail from Philadelphia, and arrives at Charleston, from whence he\nbegins his travels.\u201d\n\nI am, perchance, most and most profitably interested in the things\nwhich I already know a little about; a mere and utter novelty is a mere\nmonstrosity to me. I am interested to see the yellow pine, which we\nhave not in Concord, though Michaux says it grows in Massachusetts; or\nthe Oriental plane, having often heard of it and being well acquainted\nwith its sister, the Occidental plane; or the English oak, having heard\nof the royal oak and having oaks ourselves; but the new Chinese flower,\nwhose cousin I do not happen to know, I pass by with indifference. I do\nnot know that I am very fond of novelty. I wish to get a clearer notion\nof what I have already some inkling.\n\nThese Italian boys with their hand-organs remind me of the keepers of\nwild beasts in menageries, whose whole art consists in stirring up\ntheir beasts from time to time with a pole. I am reminded of bright\nflowers and glancing birds and striped pards of the jungle; these\ndelicious harmonies tear me to pieces while they charm me. The tiger\u2019s\nmusical smile.\n\nHow some inventions have spread! Some, brought to perfection by the\nmost enlightened nations, have been surely and rapidly communicated to\nthe most savage. The gun, for instance. How soon after the settlement\nof America were comparatively remote Indian tribes, most of whose\nmembers had never seen a white man, supplied with guns! The gun is\ninvented by the civilized man, and the savage in remote wildernesses on\nthe other side of the globe throws away his bow and arrows and takes up\nthis arm. Bartram, travelling in the Southern States between 1770 and\n1780, describes the warriors as so many gun-men.\n\nAh, yes, even here in Concord horizon Apollo is at work for King\nAdmetus! Who is King Admetus? It is Business, with his four prime\nministers Trade and Commerce and Manufactures and Agriculture. And this\nis what makes mythology true and interesting to us.\n\n\n_Aug. 8._ 7.30 P. M.\u2014To Conantum.\n\nThe moon has not yet quite filled her horns. I perceive why we so often\nremark a dark cloud in the west at and after sunset. It is because\nit is almost directly between us and the sun, and hence we see the\ndark side, and moreover it is much darker than it otherwise would be,\nbecause of the little light reflected from the earth at that hour. The\nsame cloud at midday and overhead might not attract attention. There\nis a pure amber sky beneath the present bank, thus framed off from the\nrest of the heavens, which, with the outlines of small dead elms seen\nagainst it,\u2014I hardly know if far or near,\u2014make picture enough. Men\nwill travel far to see less interesting sights than this. Turning away\nfrom the sun, we get this enchanting view, as when a man looks at the\nlandscape with inverted head. Under shadow of the dark cloud which I\nhave described, the cricket begins his strain, his ubiquitous strain.\nIs there a fall cricket distinct from the species we hear in spring and\nsummer? I smell the corn-field over the brook a dozen rods off, and it\nreminds me of the green-corn feasts of the Indians. The evening train\ncomes rolling in, but none of the passengers jumping out in such haste\nattend to the beautiful, fresh picture which Nature has unrolled in the\nwest and surmounted with that dark frame. The circular platter of the\ncarrot\u2019s blossom is now perfect.\n\nMight not this be called the Invalid\u2019s Moon, on account of the warmth\nof the nights? The principal employment of the farmers now seems to be\ngetting their meadow-hay and cradling some oats, etc.\n\nThe light from the western sky is stronger still than that of the moon,\nand when I hold up my hand, the west side is lighted while the side\ntoward the moon is comparatively dark. But now that I have put this\ndark wood (Hubbard\u2019s) between me and the west, I see the moonlight\nplainly on my paper; I am even startled by it. One star, too,\u2014is it\nVenus?\u2014I see in the west. Starlight! that would be a good way to mark\nthe hour, if we were precise. Hubbard\u2019s Brook. How much the beauty of\nthe moon is enhanced by being seen shining between two trees, or even\nby the neighborhood of clouds! I hear the clock striking eight faintly.\nI smell the late shorn meadows.\n\nOne will lose no music by not attending the oratorios and operas. The\nreally inspiring melodies are cheap and universal, and are as audible\nto the poor man\u2019s son as to the rich man\u2019s. Listening to the harmonies\nof the universe is not allied to dissipation. My neighbors have gone\nto the vestry to hear \u201cNed Kendal,\u201d the bugler, to-night, but I am\ncome forth to the hills to hear my bugler in the horizon. I can forego\nthe seeming advantages of cities without misgiving. No heavenly strain\nis lost to the ear that is fitted to hear it, for want of money or\nopportunity. I am convinced that for instrumental music all Vienna\ncannot serve me more than the Italian boy who seeks my door with his\norgan.\n\nAnd now I strike the road at the causeway. It is hard, and I hear\nthe sound of my steps, a sound which should never be heard, for it\ndraws down my thoughts. It is more like the treadmill exercise. The\nfireflies are not so numerous as they have been. There is no dew\nas yet. The planks and railing of Hubbard\u2019s Bridge are removed. I\nwalk over on the string-pieces, resting in the middle until the moon\ncomes out of a cloud, that I may see my path, for between the next\npiers the string-pieces also are removed and there is only a rather\nnarrow plank, let down three or four feet. I essay to cross it, but\nit springs a little and I mistrust myself, whether I shall not plunge\ninto the river. Some demonic genius seems to be warning me. Attempt\nnot the passage; you will surely be drowned. It is very real that I am\nthus affected. Yet I am fully aware of the absurdity of minding such\nsuggestions. I put out my foot, but I am checked, as if that power had\nlaid a hand on my breast and chilled me back. Nevertheless, I cross,\nstooping at first, and gain the other side. (I make the most of it on\naccount of the admonition, but it was nothing to remark on. I returned\nthe same way two hours later and made nothing of it.) It is easy to see\nhow, by yielding to such feelings as this, men would re\u00ebstablish all\nthe superstitions of antiquity. It is best that reason should govern\nus, and not these blind intimations, in which we exalt our fears into\na genius.\n\nOn Conantum I sit awhile in the shade of the woods and look out on the\nmoonlit fields. White rocks are more remarkable than by day.[277]\n\nThe air is warmer than the rocks now. It is perfectly warm and I am\ntempted to stay out all night and observe each phenomenon of the night\nuntil day dawns. But if I should do so, I should not wonder if the town\nwere raised to hunt me up. I could lie out here on this pinnacle rock\nall night without cold. To lie here on your back with nothing between\nyour eye and the stars,\u2014nothing but space,\u2014they your nearest neighbors\non that side, be they strange or be they tame, be they other worlds\nor merely ornaments to this, who could ever go to sleep under these\ncircumstances? Sitting on the door-step of Conant house at 9 o\u2019clock, I\nhear a pear drop. How few of all the apples that fall do we hear fall!\nI hear a horse _sneeze_ (?) from time to time in his pasture. He sees\nme and knows me to be a man, though I do not see him. I hear the nine\no\u2019clock bell ringing in Bedford. An unexpectedly musical sound that\nof a bell in the horizon always is. Pleasantly sounds the voice of\none village to another. It is sweet as it is rare. Since I sat here a\nbright star has gone behind the stem of a tree, proving that my machine\nis moving,\u2014proving it better for me than a rotating pendulum. I hear a\nsolitary whip-poor-will, and a bullfrog on the river,\u2014fewer sounds than\nin spring. The gray cliffs across the river are plain to be seen.\n\nAnd now the star appears on the other side of the tree, and I must go.\nStill no dew up here. I see three scythes hanging on an apple tree.\nThere is the wild apple tree where hangs the forgotten scythe,[278]\u2014the\nrock where the shoe was left. The woods and the separate trees cast\nlonger shadows than by day, for the moon goes lower in her course\nat this season. Some dew at last in the meadow. As I recross the\nstring-pieces of the bridge, I see the water-bugs swimming briskly in\nthe moonlight. I scent the Roman wormwood in the potato-fields.\n\n\n_Aug. 9. Saturday._ Tansy now in bloom and the fresh white clethra.\nAmong the pines and birches I hear the invisible locust. As I am going\nto the pond to bathe, I see a black cloud in the northern horizon and\nhear the muttering of thunder, and make haste. Before I have bathed\nand dressed, the gusts which precede the tempest are heard roaring in\nthe woods, and the first black, gusty clouds have reached my zenith.\nHastening toward town, I meet the rain at the edge of the wood, and\ntake refuge under the thickest leaves, where not a drop reaches me,\nand, at the end of half an hour, the renewed singing of the birds alone\nadvertises me that the rain has ceased, and it is only the dripping\nfrom the leaves which I hear in the woods. It was a splendid sunset\nthat day, a celestial light on all the land, so that all people went to\ntheir doors and windows to look on the grass and leaves and buildings\nand the sky, and it was equally glorious in whatever quarter you\nlooked; a sort of fulgor as of stereotyped lightning filled the air.\nOf which this is my solution. We were in the westernmost edge of the\nshower at the moment the sun was setting, and its rays shone through\nthe cloud and the falling rain. We were, in fact, in a rainbow and it\nwas here its arch rested on the earth. At a little distance we should\nhave seen all the colors.\n\nThe _\u0152nothera biennis_ along the railroad now. Do the cars disperse\nseeds? The _Trichostema dichotomum_ is quite beautiful now in the cool\nof the morning. The epilobium in the woods still. Now the earliest\napples begin to be ripe, but none are so good to eat as some to\nsmell. Some knurly apple which I pick up in the road reminds me by its\nfragrance of all the wealth of Pomona.[279]\n\n\n_Aug. 12. Tuesday._ 1.30 A. M.\u2014Full moon. Arose and went to the river\nand bathed, stepping very carefully not to disturb the household,\nand still carefully in the street not to disturb the neighbors. I did\nnot walk naturally and freely till I had got over the wall. Then to\nHubbard\u2019s Bridge at 2 A. M. There was a whip-poor-will in the road\njust beyond Goodwin\u2019s, which flew up and lighted on the fence and kept\nalighting on the fence within a rod of me and circling round me with\na slight squeak as if inquisitive about me. I do not remember what I\nobserved or thought in coming hither.\n\nThe traveller\u2019s whole employment is to calculate what cloud will\nobscure the moon and what she will triumph over. In the after-midnight\nhours the traveller\u2019s sole companion is the moon. All his thoughts\nare centred in her. She is waging continual war with the clouds in his\nbehalf. What cloud will enter the lists with her next, this employs his\nthoughts; and when she enters on a clear field of great extent in the\nheavens, and shines unobstructedly, he is glad. And when she has fought\nher way through all the squadrons of her foes, and rides majestic in a\nclear sky, he cheerfully and confidently pursues his way, and rejoices\nin his heart. But if he sees that she has many new clouds to contend\nwith, he pursues his way moodily, as one disappointed and aggrieved; he\nresents it as an injury to himself. It is his employment to watch the\nmoon, the companion and guide of his journey, wading through clouds,\nand calculate what one is destined to shut out her cheering light. He\ntraces her course, now almost completely obscured, through the ranks\nof her foes, and calculates where she will issue from them.[280] He\nis disappointed and saddened when he sees that she has many clouds to\ncontend with.\n\nSitting on the sleepers of Hubbard\u2019s Bridge, which is being repaired,\nnow, 3 o\u2019clock A. M., I hear a cock crow. How admirably adapted to the\ndawn is that sound! as if made by the first rays of light rending the\ndarkness, the creaking of the sun\u2019s axle heard already over the eastern\nhills.\n\nThough man\u2019s life is trivial and handselled, Nature is holy and heroic.\nWith what infinite faith and promise and moderation begins each new\nday! It is only a little after 3 o\u2019clock, and already there is evidence\nof morning in the sky.\n\nHe rejoices when the moon comes forth from the squadrons of the\nclouds unscathed and there are no more any obstructions in her path,\nand the cricket also seems to express joy in his song. It does not\nconcern men who are asleep in their beds, but it is very important to\nthe traveller, whether the moon shines bright and unobstructed or is\nobscured by clouds. It is not easy to realize the serene joy of all the\nearth when the moon commences to shine unobstructedly, unless you have\noften been a traveller by night.[281]\n\nThe traveller also resents it if the wind rises and rustles the leaves\nor ripples the water and increases the coolness at such an hour.\n\nA solitary horse in his pasture was scared by the sudden sight of me,\nan apparition to him, standing still in the moonlight, and moved about,\ninspecting with alarm, but I spoke and he heard the sound of my voice;\nhe was at once reassured and expressed his pleasure by wagging his\nstump of a tail, though still half a dozen rods off. How wholesome the\ntaste of huckleberries, when now by moonlight I feel for them amid the\nbushes!\n\nAnd now the first signs of morning attract the traveller\u2019s attention,\nand he cannot help rejoicing, and the moon begins gradually to fade\nfrom his recollection. The wind rises and rustles the copses. The sand\nis cool on the surface but warm two or three inches beneath, and the\nrocks are quite warm to the hand, so that he sits on them or leans\nagainst them for warmth, though indeed it is not cold elsewhere.[282]\nAs I walk along the side of Fair Haven Hill, I see a ripple on the\nriver, and now the moon has gone behind a large and black mass of\nclouds, and I realize that I may not see her again in her glory this\nnight, that perchance ere she rises from this obscurity, the sun\nwill have risen, and she will appear but as a cloud herself, and\nsink unnoticed into the west (being a little after full (a day?)).\nAs yet no sounds of awakening men; only the more frequent crowing\nof cocks, still standing on their perches in the barns. The milkmen\nare the earliest risers,\u2014though I see no lanthorns carried to their\nbarns in the distance,\u2014preparing to carry the milk of cows in their\ntin cans for men\u2019s breakfasts, even for those who dwell in distant\ncities. In the twilight now, by the light of the stars alone, the moon\nbeing concealed, they are pressing the bounteous streams from full\nudders into their milk-pails, and the sound of the streaming milk is\nall that breaks the sacred stillness of the dawn; distributing their\nmilk to such as have no cows. I perceive no mosquitoes now. Are they\nvespertinal, like the singing of the whip-poor-will? I see the light\nof the obscured moon reflected from the river brightly. With what mild\nemphasis Nature marks the spot!\u2014so bright and serene a sheen that does\nnot more contrast with the night.\n\n4 A. M.\u2014It adds a charm, a dignity, a glory, to the earth to see the\nlight of the moon reflected from her streams. There are but us three,\nthe moon, the earth which wears this jewel (the moon\u2019s reflection) in\nher crown, and myself. Now there has come round the Cliff (on which I\nsit), which faces the west, all unobserved and mingled with the dusky\nsky of night, a lighter and more ethereal living blue, whispering of\nthe sun still far, far away, behind the horizon. From the summit of our\natmosphere, perchance, he may already be seen by soaring spirits that\ninhabit those thin upper regions, and they communicate the glorious\nintelligence to us lower ones. The real _divine_, the heavenly, blue,\nthe Jove-containing air, it is, I see through this dusky lower stratum.\nThe sun gilding the summits of the air. The broad artery of light flows\nover all the sky. Yet not without sadness and compassion I reflect that\nI shall not see the moon again in her glory. (Not far from four, still\nin the night, I heard a nighthawk squeak and _boom_, high in the air,\nas I sat on the Cliff. What is said about this being less of a night\nbird than the whip-poor-will is perhaps to be questioned. For neither\ndo I remember to have heard the whip-poor-will _sing_ at 12 o\u2019clock,\nthough I met one sitting and flying between two and three this morning.\nI believe that both may be heard at midnight, though very rarely.)\nNow at _very earliest_ dawn the nighthawk booms and the whip-poor-will\nsings. Returning down the hill by the path to where the woods [are] cut\noff, I see the signs of the day, the morning red. There is the lurid\nmorning star, soon to be blotted out by a cloud.\n\nThere is an early redness in the east which I was not prepared for,\nchanging to amber or saffron, with clouds beneath in the horizon and\nalso above this clear streak.\n\nThe birds utter a few languid and yawning notes, as if they had not\nleft their perches, so sensible to light to wake so soon,\u2014a faint\npeeping sound from I know not what kind, a slight, innocent, half-awake\nsound, like the sounds which a quiet housewife makes in the earliest\ndawn. Nature preserves her innocence like a beautiful child. I hear\na wood thrush even now, long before sunrise, as in the heat of the\nday. And the pewee and the catbird and the vireo, red-eyed? I do not\nhear\u2014or do not mind, perchance\u2014the crickets now. Now whip-poor-wills\ncommence to sing in earnest, considerably _after_ the wood thrush. The\nwood thrush, that beautiful singer, inviting the day once more to enter\nhis pine woods. (So you may hear the wood thrush and whip-poor-will\nat the same time.) Now go by two whip-poor-wills, in haste seeking\nsome coverts from the eye of day. And the bats are flying about on the\nedge of the wood, improving the last moments of their day in catching\ninsects. The moon appears at length, not yet as a cloud, but with a\nfrozen light, ominous of her fate. The early cars sound like a wind in\nthe woods. The chewinks make a business now of waking each other up\nwith their low _yorrick_ in the neighboring low copse. The sun would\nhave shown before but for the cloud. Now, on his rising, not the clear\nsky, but the cheeks of the clouds high and wide, are tinged with red,\nwhich, like the sky before, turns gradually to saffron and then to the\nwhite light of day.\n\nThe nettle-leaved vervain (_Verbena urticifolia_) by roadside at\nEmerson\u2019s. What we have called hemp answers best to _Urtica dioica_,\nlarge stinging nettle? Now the great sunflower\u2019s golden disk is seen.\n\nThe days for some time have been sensibly shorter; there is time for\nmusic in the evening.\n\nI see polygonums in blossom by roadside, white and red.\n\nA eupatorium from Hubbard\u2019s Bridge causeway answers to _E. purpureum_,\nexcept in these doubtful points, that the former has four leaves\nin a whorl, is unequally serrate, the stem is _nearly_ filled with\na thin pith, the corymb is not merely terminal, florets eight and\nnine. Differs from _verticillatum_ in the stem being not solid, and I\nperceive no difference between calyx and corolla in color, if I know\nwhat the two are. It may be one of the intermediate varieties referred\nto.\n\n\n_Aug. 15. Friday._ _Hypericum Canadense_, Canadian St. John\u2019s-wort,\ndistinguished by its red capsules. The petals shine under the\nmicroscope, as if they had a golden dew on them.\n\n_Cnicus pumilus_, pasture thistle. How many insects a single one\nattracts! While you sit by it, bee after bee will visit it, and busy\nhimself probing for honey and loading himself with pollen, regardless\nof your overshadowing presence. He sees its purple flower from afar,\nand that use there is in its color.\n\n_Oxalis stricta_, upright wood-sorrel, the little yellow ternate-leaved\nflower in pastures and corn-fields.\n\n_Sagittaria sagittifolia_, or arrowhead. It has very little root that\nI can find to eat.\n\n_Campanula crinoides_, var. 2nd, slender bellflower, vine-like like a\ngalium, by brook-side in Depot Field.\n\nImpatiens, noli-me-tangere, or touch-me-not, with its dangling yellow\npitchers or horns of plenty, which I have seen for a month by damp\ncauseway thickets, but the whole plant was so tender and drooped so\nsoon I could not get it home.\n\nMay I love and revere myself above all the gods that men have ever\ninvented. May I never let the vestal fire go out in my recesses.\n\n\n_Aug. 16._ _Agrimonia Eupatoria_, small-flowered (yellow) plant with\nhispid fruit, two or three feet high, Turnpike, at Tuttle\u2019s peat\nmeadow. Hemp (_Cannabis sativa_), said by Gray to have been introduced;\nnot named by Bigelow. Is it not a native?\n\nIt is true man can and does live by preying on other animals, but this\nis a miserable way of sustaining himself, and he will be regarded\nas a benefactor of his race, along with Prometheus and Christ, who\nshall teach men to live on a more innocent and wholesome diet. Is it\nnot already acknowledged to be a reproach that man is a carnivorous\nanimal?[283]\n\n\n_Aug. 17._ For a day or two it has been quite cool, a coolness that\nwas felt even when sitting by an open window in a thin coat on the\nwest side of the house in the morning, and you naturally sought the\nsun at that hour. The coolness concentrated your thought, however.\nAs I could not command a sunny window, I went abroad on the morning\nof the 15th and lay in the sun in the fields in my thin coat, though\nit was rather cool even there. I feel as if this coolness would do me\ngood. If it only makes my life more pensive! Why should pensiveness be\nakin to sadness? There is a certain fertile sadness which I would not\navoid, but rather earnestly seek. It is positively joyful to me. It\nsaves my life from being trivial. My life flows with a deeper current,\nno longer as a shallow and brawling stream, parched and shrunken by\nthe summer heats. This coolness comes to condense the dews and clear\nthe atmosphere. The stillness seems more deep and significant. Each\nsound seems to come from out a greater thoughtfulness in nature, as if\nnature had acquired some character and mind. The cricket, the gurgling\nstream, the rushing wind amid the trees, all speak to me soberly yet\nencouragingly of the steady onward progress of the universe. My heart\nleaps into my mouth at the sound of the wind in the woods. I, whose\nlife was but yesterday so desultory and shallow, suddenly recover\nmy spirits, my spirituality, through my hearing. I see a goldfinch\ngo twittering through the still, louring day, and am reminded of the\npeeping flocks which will soon herald the thoughtful season. Ah! if I\ncould so live that there should be no desultory moment in all my life!\nthat in the trivial season, when small fruits are ripe, my fruits might\nbe ripe also! that I could match nature always with my moods! that\nin each season when some part of nature especially flourishes, then a\ncorresponding part of me may not fail to flourish! Ah, I would walk,\nI would sit and sleep, with natural piety! What if I could pray aloud\nor to myself as I went along by the brooksides a cheerful prayer like\nthe birds! For joy I could embrace the earth; I shall delight to be\nburied in it. And then to think of those I love among men, who will\nknow that I love them though I tell them not! I sometimes feel as if I\nwere rewarded merely for expecting better hours. I did not despair of\nworthier moods, and now I have occasion to be grateful for the flood\nof life that is flowing over me. I am not so poor: I can smell the\nripening apples; the very rills are deep; the autumnal flowers, the\n_Trichostema dichotomum_,\u2014not only its bright blue flower above the\nsand, but its strong wormwood scent which belongs to the season,\u2014feed\nmy spirit, endear the earth to me, make me value myself and rejoice;\nthe quivering of pigeons\u2019 wings reminds me of the tough fibre of the\nair which they rend. I thank you, God. I do not deserve anything, I am\nunworthy of the least regard; and yet I am made to rejoice. I am impure\nand worthless, and yet the world is gilded for my delight and holidays\nare prepared for me, and my path is strewn with flowers. But I cannot\nthank the Giver; I cannot even whisper my thanks to those human friends\nI have. It seems to me that I am more rewarded for my expectations\nthan for anything I do or can do. Ah, I would not tread on a cricket\nin whose song is such a revelation, so soothing and cheering to my\near! Oh, keep my senses pure! And why should I speak to my friends?\nfor how rarely is it that I am I; and are they, then, they? We will\nmeet, then, far away. The seeds of the summer are getting dry and\nfalling from a thousand nodding heads. If I did not know you through\nthick and thin, how should I know you at all? Ah, the very brooks seem\nfuller of reflections than they were! Ah, such provoking sibylline\nsentences they are! The shallowest is all at once unfathomable. How\ncan that depth be fathomed where a man may see himself reflected? The\nrill I stopped to drink at I drink in more than I expected. I satisfy\nand still provoke the thirst of thirsts. Nut Meadow Brook where it\ncrosses the road beyond Jenny Dugan\u2019s that was. I do not drink in vain.\nI mark that brook as if I had swallowed a water snake that would live\nin my stomach. I have swallowed something worth the while. The day\nis not what it was before I stooped to drink. Ah, I shall hear from\nthat draught! It is not in vain that I have drunk. I have drunk an\narrowhead. It flows from where all fountains rise.\n\nHow many ova have I swallowed? Who knows what will be hatched within\nme? There were some seeds of thought, methinks, floating in that water,\nwhich are expanding in me. The man must not drink of the running\nstreams, the living waters, who is not prepared to have all nature\nreborn in him,\u2014to suckle monsters. The snake in my stomach lifts his\nhead to my mouth at the sound of running water. When was it that I\nswallowed a snake? I have got rid of the snake in my stomach. I drank\nof stagnant waters once. That accounts for it. I caught him by the\nthroat and drew him out, and had a well day after all. Is there not\nsuch a thing as getting rid of the snake which you have swallowed when\nyoung, when thoughtless you stooped and drank at stagnant waters, which\nhas worried you in your waking hours and in your sleep ever since,\nand appropriated the life that was yours? Will he not ascend into your\nmouth at the sound of running water? Then catch him boldly by the head\nand draw him out, though you may think his tail be curled about your\nvitals.\n\nThe farmers are just finishing their meadow-haying. (To-day is Sunday.)\nThose who have early potatoes may be digging them, or doing any other\njob which the haying has obliged them to postpone. For six weeks or\nmore this has been the farmer\u2019s work, to shave the surface of the\nfields and meadows clean. This is done all over the country. The\nrazor is passed over these parts of nature\u2019s face the country over. A\nthirteenth labor which methinks would have broken the back of Hercules,\nwould have given him a memorable sweat, accomplished with what sweating\nof scythes and early and late! I chance [to] know one young man who\nhas lost his life in this season\u2019s campaign, by overdoing. In haying\ntime some men take double wages, and they are engaged long before in\nthe spring. To shave all the fields and meadows of New England clean!\nIf men did this but once, and not every year, we should never hear the\nlast of that labor; it would be more famous in each farmer\u2019s case than\nBuonaparte\u2019s road over the Simplon. It has no other bulletin but the\ntruthful \u201cFarmer\u2019s Almanac.\u201d Ask them where scythe-snaths are made and\nsold, and rifles too, if it is not a real labor. In its very weapons\nand its passes it has the semblance of war. Mexico was won with less\nexertion and less true valor than are required to do one season\u2019s\nhaying in New England. The former work was done by those who played\ntruant and ran away from the latter. Those Mexicans were mown down\nmore easily than the summer\u2019s crop of grass in many a farmer\u2019s fields.\nIs there not some work in New England men? This haying is no work for\nmarines, nor for deserters; nor for United States troops, so called,\nnor for West Point cadets. It would wilt them, and they would desert.\nHave they not deserted? and run off to West Point? Every field is a\nbattle-field to the mower,\u2014a pitched battle too,\u2014and whole winrows\nof dead have covered it in the course of the season. Early and late\nthe farmer has gone forth with his formidable scythe, weapon of time,\nTime\u2019s weapon, and fought the ground inch by inch. It is the summer\u2019s\nenterprise. And if we were a more poetic people, horns would be blown\nto celebrate its completion. There might be a Haymakers\u2019 Day. New\nEngland\u2019s peaceful battles. At Bunker Hill there were some who stood at\nthe rail-fence and behind the winrows of new-mown hay.[284] They have\nnot yet quitted the field. They stand there still; they alone have not\nretreated.\n\nThe _Polygala sanguinea_, caducous polygala, in damp ground, with red\nor purple heads. The dandelion still blossoms, and the lupine still,\nbelated.\n\nI have been to Tarbell\u2019s Swamp by the Second Division this afternoon,\nand to the Marlborough road.\n\nIt has promised rain all day; cloudy and still and rather cool; from\ntime to time a few drops gently spitting, but no shower. The landscape\nwears a sober autumnal look. I hear a drop or two on my hat. I wear a\nthick coat. The birds seem to know that it will not rain just yet. The\nswallows skim low over the pastures, twittering as they fly near me\nwith forked tail, dashing near me as if I scared up insects for them.\nI see where a squirrel has been eating hazelnuts on a stump.\n\nTarbell\u2019s Swamp is mainly composed of low and even but dense beds\nof _Andromeda calyculata_, or dwarf andromeda, which bears the early\nflower in the spring. Here and there, mingled with it, is the water (?)\nandromeda; also pitch pines, birches, hardhack, and the common alder\n(_Alnus serrulata_), and, in separate and lower beds, the cranberry;\nand probably the _Rhodora Canadensis_ might be found.\n\nThe lead-colored berries of the _Viburnum dentatum_ now. Cow-wheat\nand indigo-weed still in bloom by the dry wood-path-side, and Norway\ncinquefoil. I detected a wild apple on the Marlborough road by its\nfragrance, in the thick woods; small stems, four inches in diameter,\nfalling over or leaning like rays on every side; a clean white fruit,\nthe ripest yellowish, a pleasant acid. The fruit covered the ground. It\nis unusual to meet with an early apple thus wild in the thickest woods.\nIt seemed admirable to me. One of the noblest of fruits. With green\nspecks under the skin.\n\n_Prenanthes alba_, white-flowering prenanthes, with its strange halbert\nand variously shaped leaves; neottia; and hypericum.\n\nI hear the rain (11 P. M.) distilling upon the ground, wetting the\ngrass and leaves. The melons needed it. Their leaves were curled and\ntheir fruit stinted.\n\nI am less somnolent for the cool season. I wake to a perennial day.\n\nThe hayer\u2019s work is done, but I hear no boasting, no firing of guns\nnor ringing of bells. He celebrates it by going about the work he had\npostponed \u201ctill after haying\u201d! If all this steadiness and valor were\nspent upon some still worthier enterprise!!\n\nAll men\u2019s employments, all trades and professions, in some of their\naspects are attractive. Hence the boy I knew, having sucked cider at\na minister\u2019s cider-mill, resolved to be a minister and make cider,\nnot thinking, boy as he was, how little fun there was in being a\nminister, willing to purchase that pleasure at any price. When I saw\nthe carpenters the other day repairing Hubbard\u2019s Bridge, their bench on\nthe new planking they had laid over the water in the sun and air, with\nno railing yet to obstruct the view, I was almost ready to resolve that\nI would be a carpenter and work on bridges, to secure a pleasant place\nto work. One of the men had a fish-line cast round a sleeper, which he\nlooked at from time to time.\n\nJohn Potter told me that those root fences on the Corner road were at\nleast sixty or seventy years old.[285] I see a solitary goldfinch now\nand then.\n\n_Hieracium Marianum_ or _scabrum_; _H. Kalmii_ or _Canadense_;\nMarlborough road. _Leontodon autumnale_ passim.\n\n\n_Aug. 18._ It plainly makes men sad to think. Hence _pensiveness_ is\nakin to sadness.\n\nSome dogs, I have noticed, have a propensity to worry cows. They go off\nby themselves to distant pastures, and ever and anon, like four-legged\ndevils, they worry the cows,\u2014literally full of the devil. They are so\nfull of the devil they know not what to do. I come to interfere between\nthe cows and their tormentors. Ah, I grieve to see the devils escape\nso easily by their swift limbs, imps of mischief! They are the dog\nstate of those boys who pull down hand-bills in the streets. Their next\nmigration perchance will be into such dogs as these, ignoble fate! The\ndog, whose office it should be to guard the herd, turned its tormentor.\nSome courageous cow endeavoring in vain to toss the nimble devil.\n\nThose soldiers in the Champ de Mars[286] at Montreal convinced me that\nI had arrived in a foreign country under a different government, where\nmany are under the control of one. Such perfect drill could never be\nin a republic. Yet it had the effect on us as when the keeper shows his\nanimals\u2019 claws. It was the English leopard showing his claws. The royal\nsomething or other.[287] I have no doubt that soldiers well drilled, as\na class, are peculiarly destitute of originality and independence. The\nmen were dressed above their condition; had the bearing of gentlemen\nwithout a corresponding intellectual culture.[288]\n\nThe Irish was a familiar element, but the Scotch a novel one. The\nSt. Andrew\u2019s Church was prominent, and sometimes I was reminded of\nEdinburgh,\u2014indeed, much more than of London.\n\nWarburton remarked, soon after landing at Quebec, that everything\nwas cheap in that country but men. My thought, when observing how\nthe wooden pavements were sawed by hand in the streets, instead of by\nmachinery, because labor was cheap, how cheap men are here![289]\n\nIt is evident that a private man is not worth so much in Canada as\nin the United States, and if that is the bulk of a man\u2019s property,\n_i. e._ the being private and peculiar, he had better stay here. An\nEnglishman, methinks, not to speak of other nations, habitually regards\nhimself merely as a constituent part of the English nation; he holds\na recognized place as such; he is a member of the royal regiment of\nEnglishmen. And he is proud of his nation. But an American cares very\nlittle about such, and greater freedom and independence are possible\nto him. He is nearer to the primitive condition of man. Government lets\nhim alone, and he lets government alone.[290]\n\nI often thought of the Tories and refugees who settled in Canada at\n[the time of] the Revolution. These English were to a considerable\nextent their descendants.\n\nQuebec began to be fortified in a more regular manner in 1690.\n\nThe most modern fortifications have an air of antiquity about them;\nthey have the aspect of ruins in better or worse repair,\u2014ruins kept\nin repair from the day they were built, though they were completed\nyesterday,\u2014because they are not in a true sense the work of this\nage. I couple them with the dismantled Spanish forts to be found in\nso many parts of the world. They carry me back to the Middle Ages,\nand the siege of Jerusalem, and St. Jean d\u2019Acre, and the days of the\nBucaniers. Such works are not consistent with the development of the\nintellect. Huge stone structures of all kinds, both by their creation\nand their influence, rather oppress the intellect than set it free.\nA little thought will dismantle them as fast as they are built. They\nare a bungling contrivance. It is an institution as rotten as the\nchurch. The sentinel with his musket beside a man with his umbrella is\nspectral. There is not sufficient reason for his existence. My friend\nthere, with a bullet resting on half an ounce of powder, does he think\nthat he needs that argument in conversing with me? Of what use this\nfortification, to look at it from the soldier\u2019s point of view? General\nWolfe sailed by it with impunity, and took the town of Quebec without\nexperiencing any hindrance from its fortifications. How often do we\nhave to read that the enemy occupied a position which commanded the\nold, and so the fort was evacuated![291]\n\nHow impossible it is to give that soldier a good education, without\nfirst making him virtually a deserter.[292]\n\nIt is as if I were to come to a country village surrounded with\npalisadoes in the old Indian style,\u2014interesting as a relic of antiquity\nand barbarism. A fortified town is a man cased in the heavy armor of\nantiquity, and a horse-load of broadswords and small-arms slung to him,\nendeavoring to go about his business.\n\nThe idea seemed to be that some time the inhabitants of Canada might\nwish to govern themselves, and this was to hinder. But the inhabitants\nof California succeed well without any such establishment.[293] There\nwould be the same sense in a man\u2019s wearing a breastplate all his days\nfor fear somebody should fire a bullet at his vitals. The English in\nCanada seem to be everywhere prepared and preparing for war. In the\nUnited States they are prepared for anything; they may even be the\naggressors. This is a ruin kept in a remarkably good repair. There are\nsome eight hundred or a thousand men there to exhibit it. One regiment\ngoes bare-legged to increase the attraction. If you wish to study the\nmuscles of the leg about the knee, repair to Quebec.[294]\n\n\n_Aug. 19._ _Clematis Virginiana_; calamint; _Lycopus Europeus_, water\nhorehound.\n\nThis is a world where there are flowers. Now, at 5 A. M., the fog,\nwhich in the west looks like a wreath of hard-rolled cotton-batting,\nis rapidly dispersing. The echo of the railroad whistle is heard\nthe horizon round; the gravel train is starting out. The farmers are\ncradling oats in some places. For some days past I have noticed a _red_\nmaple or two about the pond, though we have had no frost. The grass is\nvery wet with dew this morning.\n\nThe way in which men cling to old institutions after the life has\ndeparted out of them, and out of themselves, reminds me of those\nmonkeys which cling by their tails,\u2014aye, whose tails contract about\nthe limbs, even the dead limbs, of the forest, and they hang suspended\nbeyond the hunter\u2019s reach long after they are dead. It is of no use\nto argue with such men. They have not an apprehensive intellect, but\nmerely, as it were, a prehensile tail. Their intellect possesses merely\nthe quality of a prehensile tail. The tail itself contracts around the\ndead limb even after they themselves are dead, and not till sensible\ncorruption takes place do they fall. The black howling monkey, or\ncaraya. According to Azara, it is extremely difficult to get at them,\nfor \u201cwhen mortally wounded they coil the tail round a branch, and hang\nby it with the head downwards for days after death, and until, in fact,\ndecomposition begins to take effect.\u201d The commenting naturalist says,\n\u201cA singular peculiarity of this organ is to contract at its extremity\nof its own accord as soon as it is extended to its full length.\u201d I\nrelinquish argument, I wait for decomposition to take place, for the\nsubject is dead; as I value the hide for the museum. They say, \u201cThough\nyou\u2019ve got my soul, you sha\u2019n\u2019t have my carcass.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nP. M.\u2014To Marlborough Road _via_ Clamshell Hill, Jenny Dugan\u2019s, Round\nPond, Canoe Birch Road (Deacon Dakin\u2019s), and White Pond.\n\nHow many things concur to keep a man at home, to prevent his yielding\nto his inclination to wander! If I would extend my walk a hundred\nmiles, I must carry a tent on my back for shelter at night or in the\nrain, or at least I must carry a thick coat to be prepared for a change\nin the weather. So that it requires some resolution, as well as energy\nand foresight, to undertake the simplest journey. Man does not travel\nas easily as the birds migrate. He is not everywhere at home, like\nflies. When I think how many things I can conveniently carry, I am\nwont to think it most convenient to stay at home. My home, then, to a\ncertain extent is the place where I keep my thick coat and my tent and\nsome books which I cannot carry; where, next, I can depend upon meeting\nsome friends; and where, finally, I, even I, have established myself in\nbusiness. But this last in my case is the least important qualification\nof a home.\n\nThe poet must be continually watching the moods of his mind, as the\nastronomer watches the aspects of the heavens. What might we not\nexpect from a long life faithfully spent in this wise? The humblest\nobserver would see some stars shoot. A faithful description as by a\ndisinterested person of the thoughts which visited a certain mind\nin threescore years and ten, as when one reports the number and\ncharacter of the vehicles which pass a particular point. As travellers\ngo round the world and report natural objects and phenomena, so\nfaithfully let another stay at home and report the phenomena of his\nown life,\u2014catalogue stars, those thoughts whose orbits are as rarely\ncalculated as comets. It matters not whether they visit my mind or\nyours,\u2014whether the meteor falls in my field or in yours,\u2014only that it\ncome from heaven. (I am not concerned to express that kind of truth\nwhich Nature has expressed. Who knows but I may suggest some things to\nher? Time was when she was indebted to such suggestions from another\nquarter, as her present advancement shows. I deal with the truths\nthat recommend themselves to me,\u2014please me,\u2014not those merely which any\nsystem has voted to accept.) A meteorological journal of the mind. You\nshall observe what occurs in your latitude, I in mine.\n\nSome institutions\u2014most institutions, indeed\u2014have had a divine origin.\nBut of most that we see prevailing in society nothing but the form,\nthe shell, is left; the life is extinct, and there is nothing divine\nin them. Then the reformer arises inspired to reinstitute life, and\nwhatever he does or causes to be done is a re\u00ebstablishment of that same\nor a similar divineness. But some, who never knew the significance\nof these instincts, are, by a sort of false instinct, found clinging\nto the shells. Those who have no knowledge of the divine appoint\nthemselves defenders of the divine, as champions of the church, etc. I\nhave been astonished to observe how long some audiences can endure to\nhear a man speak on a subject which he knows nothing about, as religion\nfor instance, when one who has no ear for music might with the same\npropriety take up the time of a musical assembly with putting through\nhis opinions on music. This young man who is the main pillar of some\ndivine institution,\u2014does he know what he has undertaken? If the saints\nwere to come again on earth, would they be likely to stay at his house?\nwould they meet with his approbation even? _Ne sutor ultra crepidam._\nThey who merely have a talent for affairs are forward to express their\nopinions. A Roman soldier sits there to decide upon the righteousness\nof Christ. The world does not long endure such blunders, though they\nare made every day. The weak-brained and pusillanimous farmers would\nfain abide by the institutions of their fathers. Their argument is\nthey have not long to live, and for that little space let them not be\ndisturbed in their slumbers; blessed are the peacemakers; let this cup\npass from me, etc.\n\nHow vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to\nlive! Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts\nbegin to flow, as if I had given vent to the stream at the lower end\nand consequently new fountains flowed into it at the upper. A thousand\nrills which have their rise in the sources of thought burst forth and\nfertilize my brain. You need to increase the draught below, as the\nowners of meadows on Concord River say of the Billerica Dam. Only while\nwe are in action is the circulation perfect. The writing which consists\nwith habitual sitting is mechanical, wooden, dull to read.\n\nThe grass in the high pastures is almost as dry as hay. The seasons\ndo not cease a moment to revolve, and therefore Nature rests no longer\nat her culminating point than at any other. If you are not out at the\nright instant, the summer may go by and you not see it. How much of the\nyear is spring and fall! how little can be called summer! The grass\nis no sooner grown than it begins to wither. How much Nature herself\nsuffers from drought! It seems quite as much as she can do to produce\nthese crops.\n\nThe most inattentive walker can see how the science of geology took its\nrise. The inland hills and promontories betray the action of water on\ntheir rounded sides as plainly as if the work were completed yesterday.\nHe sees it with but half an eye as he walks, and forgets his thought\nagain. Also the level plains and more recent meadows and marine shells\nfound on the tops of hills. The geologist painfully and elaborately\nfollows out these suggestions, and hence his fine-spun theories.\n\nThe goldfinch, though solitary, is now one of the commonest birds in\nthe air.\n\nWhat if a man were earnestly and wisely to set about recollecting and\npreserving the thoughts which he has had! How many perchance are now\nirrecoverable! Calling in his neighbors to aid him.\n\nI do not like to hear the name of particular States given to birds\nand flowers which are found in all equally,\u2014as Maryland yellow-throat,\netc., etc. The _Canadenses_ and _Virginicas_ may be suffered to pass\nfor the most part, for there is historical as well as natural reason at\nleast for them. Canada is the peculiar country of some and the northern\nlimit of many more plants. And Virginia, which was originally the name\nfor all the Atlantic shore, has some right to stand for the South.\n\nThe fruit of the sweet-gale by Nut Meadow Brook is of a yellowish green\nnow and has not yet its greasy feel.\n\nThe little red-streaked and dotted excrescences on the shrub oaks I\nfind as yet no name for.\n\nNow for the pretty red capsules or pods of the _Hypericum Canadense_.\n\nWhite goldenrod is budded along the Marlborough road.\n\nChickadees and jays never fail. The cricket\u2019s is a note which does not\nattract you to itself. It is not easy to find one.\n\nI fear that the character of my knowledge is from year to year becoming\nmore distinct and scientific; that, in exchange for views as wide as\nheaven\u2019s cope, I am being narrowed down to the field of the microscope.\nI see details, not wholes nor the shadow of the whole. I count some\nparts, and say, \u201cI know.\u201d The cricket\u2019s chirp now fills the air in dry\nfields near pine woods.\n\nGathered our first watermelon to-day. By the Marlborough road I notice\nthe richly veined leaves of the _Neottia pubescens_, or veined neottia,\nrattlesnake-plantain. I like this last name very well, though it might\nnot be easy to convince a quibbler or proser of its fitness. We want\nsome name to express the mystic wildness of its rich leaves. Such\nwork as men imitate in their embroidery, unaccountably agreeable to\nthe eye, as if it answered its end only when it met the eye of man; a\nreticulated leaf, visible only on one side; little things which make\none pause in the woods, take captive the eye.\n\nHere is a bees\u2019 or wasps\u2019 nest in the sandy, mouldering bank by the\nroadside, four inches in diameter, as if made of scales of striped\nbrown paper. It is singular if indeed man first made paper and then\ndiscovered its resemblance to the work of the wasps, and did not derive\nthe hint from them.\n\nCanoe birches by road to Dakin\u2019s. Cuticle stripped off; inner bark dead\nand scaling off; new (inner) bark formed.\n\nThe Solomon\u2019s-seals are fruited now, with finely red-dotted berries.\n\nThere was one original name well given, _Buster_ Kendal.[295] The\nfragrance of the clethra fills the air by watersides. In the hollows\nwhere in winter is a pond, the grass is short, thick, and green still,\nand here and there are tufts pulled up as if by the mouth of cows.\n\nSmall rough sunflower by side of road between canoe birch and White\nPond,\u2014_Helianthus divaricatus_.\n\n_Lespedeza capitata_, shrubby lespedeza, White Pond road and\nMarlborough road.\n\n_L. polystachya_, hairy lespedeza, Corner road beyond Hubbard\u2019s Bridge.\n\n\n_Aug. 20._ 2 P. M.\u2014To Lee\u2019s Bridge _via_ Hubbard\u2019s Wood, Potter\u2019s\nfield, Conantum, returning by Abel Minott\u2019s house, Clematis Brook,\nBaker\u2019s pine plain, and railroad.\n\nI hear a cricket in the Depot Field, walk a rod or two, and find the\nnote proceeds from near a rock. Partly under a rock, between it and the\nroots of the grass, he lies concealed,\u2014for I pull away the withered\ngrass with my hands,\u2014uttering his night-like creak, with a vibratory\nmotion of his wings, and flattering himself that it is night, because\nhe has shut out the day. He was a black fellow nearly an inch long,\nwith two long, slender feelers. They plainly avoid the light and hide\ntheir heads in the grass. At any rate they regard this as the evening\nof the year. They are remarkably secret and unobserved, considering\nhow much noise they make. Every milkman has heard them all his life; it\nis the sound that fills his ears as he drives along. But what one has\never got off his cart to go in search of one? I see smaller ones moving\nstealthily about, whose note I do not know. Who ever distinguished\ntheir various notes, which fill the crevices in each other\u2019s song? It\nwould be a curious ear, indeed, that distinguished the species of the\ncrickets which it heard, and traced even the earth-song home, each part\nto its particular performer. I am afraid to be so knowing. They are shy\nas birds, these little bodies. Those nearest me continually cease their\nsong as I walk, so that the singers are always a rod distant, and I\ncannot easily detect one. It is difficult, moreover, to judge correctly\nwhence the sound proceeds. Perhaps this wariness is necessary to save\nthem from insectivorous birds, which would otherwise speedily find out\nso loud a singer. They are somewhat protected by the universalness\nof the sound, each one\u2019s song being merged and lost in the general\nconcert, as if it were the creaking of earth\u2019s axle. They are very\nnumerous in oats and other grain, which conceals them and yet affords\na clear passage. I never knew any drought or sickness so to prevail as\nto quench the song of the crickets; it fails not in its season, night\nor day.\n\nThe _Lobelia inflata_, Indian-tobacco, meets me at every turn. At first\nI suspect some new bluish flower in the grass, but stooping see the\ninflated pods. Tasting one such herb convinces me that there are such\nthings as drugs which may either kill or cure.[296]\n\nThe _Rhexia Virginica_ is a showy flower at present.\n\nHow copious and precise the botanical language to describe the leaves,\nas well as the other parts of a plant! Botany is worth studying if\nonly for the precision of its terms,\u2014to learn the value of words and\nof system. It is wonderful how much pains has been taken to describe\na flower\u2019s leaf, compared for instance with the care that is taken in\ndescribing a psychological fact. Suppose as much ingenuity (perhaps it\nwould be needless) in making a language to express the sentiments! We\nare armed with language adequate to describe each leaf in the field,\nor at least to distinguish it from each other, but not to describe a\nhuman character. With equally wonderful indistinctness and confusion\nwe describe men. The precision and copiousness of botanical language\napplied to the description of moral qualities!\n\nThe neottia, or ladies\u2019-tresses, behind Garfield\u2019s house. The golden\nrobin is now a rare bird to see. Here are the small, lively-tasting\nblackberries, so small they are not commonly eaten. The grasshoppers\nseem no drier than the grass. In Lee\u2019s field are two kinds of plantain.\nIs the common one found there?\n\nThe willow reach by Lee\u2019s Bridge has been stripped for powder.\nNone escapes. This morning, hearing a cart, I looked out and saw\nGeorge Dugan going by with a horse-load of his willow toward Acton\npowder-mills, which I had seen in piles by the turnpike. Every\ntraveller has just as particular an errand which I might likewise\nchance to be privy to.\n\nNow that I am at the extremity of my walk, I see a threatening cloud\nblowing up from the south, which however, methinks, will not compel me\nto make haste.\n\n_Apios tuberosa_, or _Glycine Apios_, ground-nut. The prenanthes now\ntakes the place of the lactucas, which are gone to seed.\n\nIn the dry ditch, near Abel Minott\u2019s house that was, I see\ncardinal-flowers, with their red artillery, reminding me of\nsoldiers,\u2014red men, war, and bloodshed. Some are four and a half feet\nhigh. Thy sins shall be as scarlet. Is it my sins that I see? It shows\nhow far a little color can go; for the flower is not large, yet it\nmakes itself seen from afar, and so answers the purpose for which it\nwas colored completely. It is remarkable for its intensely brilliant\nscarlet color. You are slow to concede to it a high rank among flowers,\nbut ever and anon, as you turn your eyes away, it dazzles you and you\npluck it. _Scutellaria lateriflora_, side-flowering skullcap, here.\nThis brook deserves to be called Clematis Brook (though that name is\ntoo often applied), for the clematis is very abundant, running over the\nalders and other bushes on its brink. Where the brook issues from the\npond, the nightshade grows profusely, spreading five or six feet each\nway, with its red berries now ripe. It grows, too, at the upper end of\nthe pond. But if it is the button-bush that grows in the now low water,\nit should rather be called the Button-Bush Pond. Now the tall rush is\nin its prime on the shore here, and the clematis abounds by this pond\nalso.\n\nI came out by the leafy-columned elm under Mt. Misery, where the trees\nstood up one above another, higher and higher, immeasurably far to my\nimagination, as on the side of a New Hampshire mountain.\n\nOn the pitch pine plain, at first the pines are far apart, with a\nwiry grass between, and goldenrod and hardhack and St. John\u2019s-wort and\nblackberry vines, each tree merely keeping down the grass for a space\nabout itself, meditating to make a forest floor; and here and there\nyounger pines are springing up. Further in, you come to moss-covered\npatches, dry, deep white moss, or almost bare mould, half covered with\npine needles. Thus begins the future forest floor.\n\nThe sites of the shanties that once stood by the railroad in Lincoln\nwhen the Irish built it, the still remaining hollow square mounds of\nearth which formed their embankments, are to me instead of barrows and\ndruidical monuments and other ruins. It is a sufficient antiquity to\nme since they were built, their material being earth. Now the Canada\nthistle and the mullein crown their tops. I see the stones which made\ntheir simple chimneys still left one upon another at one end, which\nwere surmounted with barrels to eke them out; and clean boiled beef\nbones and old shoes are strewn about. Otherwise it is a clean ruin, and\nnothing is left but a mound, as in the graveyard.\n\n_Sium lineare_, a kind of water-parsnip, whose blossom resembles the\n_Cicuta maculata_. The flowers of the blue vervain have now nearly\nreached the summit of their spikes.\n\nA traveller who looks at things with an impartial eye may see what the\noldest inhabitant has not observed.\n\n\n_Aug. 21._ To a great extent the feudal system still prevails there\n(in Canada), and I saw that I should be a bad citizen, that any man who\nthought for himself and was only reasonably independent would naturally\nbe a rebel. You could not read or hear of their laws without seeing\nthat it was a legislating for a few and not for all. That certainly\nis the best government where the inhabitants are least often reminded\nof the government. (Where a man cannot be a poet even without danger\nof being made poet-laureate! Where he cannot be healthily neglected,\nand grow up a man, and not an Englishman merely!) Where it is the most\nnatural thing in the world for a government that does not understand\nyou, to let you alone. Oh, what a government were there, my countrymen!\nIt is a government, that English one,\u2014and most other European\nones,\u2014that cannot afford to be forgotten, as you would naturally forget\nthem, that cannot let you go alone, having learned to walk. It appears\nto me that a true Englishman can only speculate within bounds; he has\nto pay his respects to so many things that before he knows it he has\npaid all he is worth. The principal respect in which our government is\nmore tolerable is in the fact that there is so much less of government\nwith us. In the States it is only once in a dog\u2019s age that a man need\nremember his government, but here he is reminded of it every day.\nGovernment parades itself before you. It is in no sense the servant but\nthe master.[297]\n\nWhat a faculty must that be which can paint the most barren landscape\nand humblest life in glorious colors! It is pure and invigorated senses\nreacting on a sound and strong imagination. Is not that the poet\u2019s\ncase? The intellect of most men is barren. They neither fertilize nor\nare fertilized. It is the marriage of the soul with Nature that makes\nthe intellect fruitful, that gives birth to imagination. When we were\ndead and dry as the highway, some sense which has been healthily fed\nwill put us in relation with Nature, in sympathy with her; some grains\nof fertilizing pollen, floating in the air, fall on us, and suddenly\nthe sky is all one rainbow, is full of music and fragrance and flavor.\nThe man of intellect only, the prosaic man, is a barren, staminiferous\nflower; the poet is a fertile and perfect flower. Men are such\nconfirmed arithmeticians and slaves of business that I cannot easily\nfind a blank-book that has not a red line or a blue one for the dollars\nand cents, or some such purpose.[298]\n\nAs is a man\u2019s intellectual character, is not such his physical after\nall? Can you not infer from knowing the intellectual characters of two\nwhich is most tenacious of life, which would die the hardest and will\nlive the longest, which is the toughest, which has most brute strength,\nwhich the most passive endurance? Methinks I could to some extent infer\nthese things.\n\n * * * * *\n\n1 P. M.\u2014Round Flint\u2019s Pond _via_ railroad, my old field, Goose Pond,\nWharf Rock, Cedar Hill, Smith\u2019s, and so back.\n\nBigelow, speaking of the spikes of the blue vervain (_Verbena\nhastata_), says, \u201cThe flowering commences at their base and is long\nin reaching their summit.\u201d I perceive that only one circle of buds,\nabout half a dozen, blossoms at a time,\u2014and there are about thirty\ncircles in the space of three inches,\u2014while the next circle of buds\nabove at the same time shows the blue. Thus this triumphant blossoming\ncircle travels upward, driving the remaining buds off into space.[299]\nI think it was the 16th of July when I first noticed them (on another\nplant), and now they are all within about half an inch of the top of\nthe spikes. Yet the blossoms have got no nearer the top on long [_sic_]\nspikes, which had many buds, than on short ones only an inch long.\nPerhaps the blossoming commenced enough earlier on the long ones to\nmake up for the difference in length. It is very pleasant to measure\nthe progress of the season by this and similar clocks. So you get,\nnot the absolute time, but the true time of the season.[300] But I\ncan measure the progress of the seasons only by observing a particular\nplant, for I notice that they are by no means equally advanced.\n\nThe prevailing conspicuous flowers at present are: The early\ngoldenrods, tansy, the life-everlastings, flea-bane (though not for its\nflower), yarrow (rather dry), hardhack and meadow-sweet (both getting\ndry, also mayweed), _Eupatorium purpureum_, scabish, clethra (really\na fine, sweet-scented, and this year particularly fair and fresh,\nflower, some unexpanded buds at top tinged with red), Rhexia Virginica,\nthoroughwort, _Polygala sanguinea_, prunella, and dog\u2019s-bane (getting\nstale), etc., etc. Touch-me-not (less observed), Canada snapdragon\nby roadside (not conspicuous). The purple gerardia now, horsemint, or\n_Mentha borealis_, _Veronica scutellata_ (marsh speedwell), _Ranunculus\nacris_ (tall crowfoot) still. Mowing to some extent improves the\nlandscape to the eye of the walker. The aftermath, so fresh and green,\nbegins now to recall the spring to my mind. In some fields fresh\nclover heads appear. This is certainly better than fields of lodged\nand withered grass. I find ground-nuts by the railroad causeway three\nquarters of an inch long by a third of an inch. The epilobium still.\nCow-wheat (_Melampyrum Americanum_) still flourishes as much if not\nmore than ever, and, shrubby-looking, helps cover the ground where the\nwood has recently been cut off, like huckleberry bushes.\n\nThere is some advantage, intellectually and spiritually, in taking wide\nviews with the bodily eye and not pursuing an occupation which holds\nthe body prone. There is some advantage, perhaps, in attending to the\ngeneral features of the landscape over studying the particular plants\nand animals which inhabit it. A man may walk abroad and no more see the\nsky than if he walked under a shed. The poet is more in the air than\nthe naturalist, though they may walk side by side. Granted that you\nare out-of-doors; but what if the outer door _is_ open, if the inner\ndoor is shut! You must walk sometimes perfectly free, not prying nor\ninquisitive, not bent upon seeing things. Throw away a whole day for a\nsingle expansion, a single inspiration of air.\n\nAny anomaly in vegetation makes Nature seem more real and present in\nher working, as the various red and yellow excrescences on young oaks.\nI am affected as if it were a different Nature that produced them. As\nif a poet were born who had designs in his head.[301]\n\nIt is remarkable that animals are often obviously, manifestly, related\nto the plants which they feed upon or live among,\u2014as caterpillars,\nbutterflies, tree-toads, partridges, chewinks,\u2014and this afternoon I\nnoticed a yellow spider on a goldenrod; as if every condition might\nhave its expression in some form of animated being.[302]\n\nSpear-leaved goldenrod in path to northeast of Flint\u2019s Pond. _Hieracium\npaniculatum_, a very delicate and slender hawkweed. I have now found\nall the hawkweeds. Singular these genera of plants, plants manifestly\nrelated yet distinct. They suggest a history to nature, a natural\n_history_ in a new sense.[303]\n\nAt Wharf Rock found water lobelia in blossom. I saw some smilax vines\nin the swamp, which were connected with trees ten feet above the ground\nwhereon they grew and four or five feet above the surrounding bushes.\nThis slender vine, which cannot stand erect, how did it establish that\nconnection? Have the trees and shrubs by which it once climbed been\ncut down? Or perchance do the young and flexible shoots blow up in\nhigh winds and fix themselves?[304] On Cedar Hill, south side pond, I\nstill hear the locust, though it has been so much colder for the last\nweek. It is quite hazy in the west, though comparatively clear in other\ndirections. The barberry bushes, with their drooping wreaths of fruit\nnow turning red, bushed up with some other shrub or tree.\n\n\n_Aug. 22._ I found last winter that it was expected by my townsmen\nthat I would give some account of Canada because I had _visited_\nit, and because many of them had, and so felt interested in the\nsubject,\u2014visited it as the bullet visits the wall at which it is fired,\nand from which it rebounds as quickly, and flattened (somewhat damaged,\nperchance)! Yes, a certain man contracted to take fifteen hundred live\nYankees through Canada, at a certain rate and within a certain time.\nIt did not matter to him what the commodity was, if only it would pack\nwell and were delivered to him according to agreement at the right\nplace and time and rightly ticketed, so much in bulk, wet or dry,\non deck or in the hold, at the option of the carrier how to stow the\ncargo and not always right side up. In the meanwhile, it was understood\nthat the freight was not to be willfully and intentionally debarred\nfrom seeing the country if it had eyes. It was understood that there\nwould be a country to be seen on either side, though that was a secret\nadvantage which the contractors seemed not to be aware of. I fear that\nI have not got much to say, not having seen much, for the very rapidity\nof the motion had a tendency to keep my eyelids closed. What I _got_ by\ngoing to Canada was a cold, and not till I get a fever, which I never\nhad, shall I know how to appreciate it.[305]\n\nIt is the fault of some excellent writers\u2014De Quincey\u2019s first\nimpressions on seeing London suggest it to me\u2014that they express\nthemselves with too great fullness and detail. They give the most\nfaithful, natural, and lifelike account of their sensations, mental\nand physical, but they lack moderation and sententiousness. They do\nnot affect us by an ineffectual earnestness and a reserve of meaning,\nlike a stutterer; they say all they mean. Their sentences are not\nconcentrated and nutty. Sentences which suggest far more than they say,\nwhich have an atmosphere about them, which do not merely report an old,\nbut make a new, impression; sentences which suggest as many things and\nare as durable as a Roman aqueduct; to frame these, that is the art of\nwriting. Sentences which are expensive, towards which so many volumes,\nso much life, went; which lie like boulders on the page, up and down or\nacross; which contain the seed of other sentences, not mere repetition,\nbut creation; which a man might sell his grounds and castles to build.\nIf De Quincey had suggested each of his pages in a sentence and passed\non, it would have been far more excellent writing. His style is nowhere\nkinked and knotted up into something hard and significant, which you\ncould swallow like a diamond, without digesting.[306]\n\n\n_Aug. 23. Saturday._ To Walden to bathe at 5.30 A. M. Traces of the\nheavy rains in the night. The sand and gravel are beaten hard by them.\nThree or four showers in succession. But the grass is not so wet as\nafter an ordinary dew. The _Verbena hastata_ at the pond has reached\nthe top of its spike, a little in advance of what I noticed yesterday;\nonly one or two flowers are adhering. At the commencement of my walk I\nsaw no traces of fog, but after detected fogs over particular meadows\nand high up some brooks\u2019 valleys, and far in the Deep Cut the wood fog.\nFirst muskmelon this morning.\n\nI rarely pass the shanty in the woods, where human beings are lodged,\nliterally, no better than pigs in a sty,\u2014little children, a grown\nman and his wife, and an aged grandmother living this squalid life,\nsquatting on the ground,\u2014but I wonder if it can be indeed true that\nlittle Julia Riordan calls this place home, comes here to rest at night\nand for her daily food,\u2014in whom ladies and gentlemen in the village\ntake an interest. Of what significance are charity and almshouses?\nThat there they live unmolested! in one sense so many degrees below the\nalmshouse! beneath charity! It is admirable,\u2014Nature against almshouses.\nA certain wealth of nature, not poverty, it suggests. Not to identify\nhealth and contentment, aye, and independence, with the possession of\nthis world\u2019s goods! It is not wise to waste compassion on them.\n\nAs I go through the Deep Cut, I hear one or two early humblebees, come\nout on the damp sandy bank, whose low hum sounds like distant horns\nfrom far in the horizon over the woods. It was long before I detected\nthe bees that made it, so far away and musical it sounded, like the\nshepherds in some distant eastern vale greeting the king of day.[307]\n\nThe farmers now carry\u2014those who have got them\u2014their early potatoes and\nonions to market, starting away early in the morning or at midnight. I\nsee them returning in the afternoon with the empty barrels.\n\nPerchance the copious rain of last night will trouble those who had not\nbeen so provident as to get their hay from the Great Meadows, where it\nis often lost.\n\n * * * * *\n\nP. M.\u2014Walk to Annursnack and back over stone bridge.\n\nI sometimes reproach myself because I do not find anything attractive\nin certain mere trivial employments of men,\u2014that I skip men so\ncommonly, and their affairs,\u2014the professions and the trades,\u2014do not\nelevate them at least in my thought and get some material for poetry\nout of them directly. I will not avoid, then, to go by where these men\nare repairing the stone bridge,\u2014see if I cannot see poetry in that,\nif that will not yield me a reflection. It is narrow to be confined\nto woods and fields and grand aspects of nature only. The greatest\nand wisest will still be related to men. Why not see men standing in\nthe sun and casting a shadow, even as trees? May not some light be\nreflected from them as from the stems of trees? I will try to enjoy\nthem as animals, at least. They are perhaps better animals than men.\nDo not neglect to speak of men\u2019s low life and affairs with sympathy,\nthough you ever so speak as to suggest a contrast between them and the\nideal and divine. You may be excused if you are always pathetic, but do\nnot refuse to recognize.\n\nResolve to read no book, to take no walk, to undertake no enterprise,\nbut such as you can endure to give an account of to yourself. Live thus\ndeliberately for the most part.\n\nWhen I stopped to gather some blueberries by the roadside this\nafternoon, I heard the shrilling of a cricket or a grasshopper close to\nme, quite clear, almost like a bell, a stridulous sound, a clear ring,\nincessant, not intermittent, like the song of the black fellow I caught\nthe other day, and not suggesting the night, but belonging to day. It\nwas long before I could find him, though all the while within a foot or\ntwo. I did not know whether to search amid the grass and stones or amid\nthe leaves. At last, by accident I saw him, he shrilling all the while\nunder an alder leaf two feet from the ground,\u2014a slender green fellow\nwith long feelers and transparent wings. When he shrilled, his wings,\nwhich opened on each other in the form of a heart perpendicularly to\nhis body like the wings of fairies, vibrated swiftly on each other. The\napparently wingless female, as I thought, was near.\n\nWe experience pleasure when an elevated field or even road in which we\nmay be walking holds its level toward the horizon at a tangent to the\nearth, is not convex with the earth\u2019s surface, but an absolute level.\n\nOn or under east side of Annursnack, _Epilobium coloratum_,\ncolored willow-herb, near the spring. Also _Polygonum sagittatum_,\nscratch-grass.\n\nThe Price Farm road, one of those everlasting roads which the sun\ndelights to shine along in an August afternoon, playing truant; which\nseem to stretch themselves with terrene jest as the weary traveller\njourneys on; where there are three white sandy furrows (_lir\u00e6_), two\nfor the wheels and one between them for the horse, with endless green\ngrass borders between and room on each side for huckleberries and\nbirches; where the walls indulge in freaks, not always parallel to\nthe ruts, and goldenrod yellows all the path; which some elms began to\nborder and shade once, but left off in despair, it was so long; from\nno point on which can you be said to be at any definite distance from\na town.\n\nI associate the beauty of Quebec with the steel-like and flashing\nair.[308]\n\nOur little river reaches are not to be forgotten. I noticed that seen\nnorthward on the Assabet from the Causeway Bridge near the second stone\nbridge. There was [a] man in a boat in the sun, just disappearing in\nthe distance round a bend, lifting high his arms and dipping his paddle\nas if he were a vision bound to land of the blessed,\u2014far off, as in\npicture. When I see Concord to purpose, I see it as if it were not real\nbut painted, and what wonder if I do not speak to _thee_? I saw a snake\nby the roadside and touched him with my foot to see if he were alive.\nHe had a toad in his jaws, which he was preparing to swallow with his\njaws distended to three times his width, but he relinquished his prey\nin haste and fled; and I thought, as the toad jumped leisurely away\nwith his slime-covered hind-quarters glistening in the sun, as if I,\nhis deliverer, wished to interrupt his meditations,\u2014without a shriek or\nfainting,\u2014I thought what a healthy indifference he manifested. Is not\nthis the broad earth still? he said.[309]\n\n\n_Aug. 24._ _Mollugo verticillata_, carpet-weed, flat, whorl-leaved weed\nin gardens, with small white flowers. _Portulaca oleracea_, purslane,\nwith its yellow blossoms. _Chelone glabra._ I have seen the small\nmulleins as big as a ninepence in the fields for a day or two.[310]\n\nThe weather is warmer again after a week or more of cool days. There is\ngreater average warmth, but not such intolerable heats as in July. The\nnights especially are more equably warm now, even when the day has been\ncomparatively rather cool. There are few days now, fewer than in July,\nwhen you cannot lie at your length on the grass. You have now forgotten\nwinter and its fashions, and have learned new summer fashions. Your\nlife may be out-of-doors now mainly.\n\n [Illustration]\n\nRattlesnake grass is ripe. The pods of the _Asclepias pulchra_ stand\nup pointedly like slender vases on a salver,\u2014 an open salver truly!\nThose of the _Asclepias Syriaca_ hang down. The interregnum in the\nblossoming of flowers being _well_ over, many small flowers blossom\nnow in the low grounds, having just reached their summer. It is now dry\nenough, and they feel the heat their tenderness required. The autumnal\nflowers,\u2014goldenrods, asters, and johnswort,\u2014though they have made\ndemonstrations, have not yet commenced to reign. The tansy is already\ngetting stale; it is perhaps the first conspicuous yellow flower that\npasses from the stage.[311]\n\nIn Hubbard\u2019s Swamp, where the blueberries, dangleberries, and\nespecially the pyrus or choke-berries were so abundant last summer,\nthere is now perhaps not one (unless a blueberry) to be found. Where\nthe choke-berries held on all last winter, the black and the red.\n\nThe common skullcap (_Scutellaria galericulata_), quite a handsome and\nmiddling-large blue flower. _Lobelia pallida_ still. Pointed cleavers\nor clivers (_Galium asprellum_). Is that the naked viburnum, so common,\nwith its white, red, then purple berries, in Hubbard\u2019s meadow?[312]\n\nDid I find the dwarf tree-primrose in Hubbard\u2019s meadow to-day? _Stachys\naspera_, hedge-nettle or woundwort, a rather handsome purplish flower.\nThe capsules of the _Iris versicolor_, or blue flag, are now ready for\nhumming [?]. Elderberries are ripe.\n\n\n_Aug. 25. Monday._ What the little regular, rounded, light-blue flower\nin Heywood Brook which I make Class V, Order 1? Also the small purplish\nflower growing on the mud in Hubbard\u2019s meadow, perchance C. XIV, with\none pistil? What the bean vine in the garden, Class VIII, Order 1? I\ndo not find the name of the large white polygonum of the river. Was it\nthe filiform ranunculus which I found on Hubbard\u2019s shore? _Hypericum\nVirginicum_, mixed yellow and purple. The black rough fruit of the\nskunk-cabbage, though green within, barely rising above the level of\nthe ground; you see where it has been cut in two by the mowers in the\nmeadows. _Polygonum amphibium_, red, in river. _Lysimachia hybrida_\nstill. Checkerberry in bloom. Blue-eyed grass still. _Rhus copallina_,\nmountain or dwarf sumach. I now know all of the _Rhus_ genus in\nBigelow. We have all but the staghorn in Concord. What a miserable name\nhas the _Gratiola aurea_, hedge hyssop! Whose hedge does it grow by,\npray, in this part of the world?[313]\n\n\n_Aug. 26._ A cool and even piercing wind blows to-day, making all\nshrubs to bow and trees to wave; such as we could not have had in\nJuly. I speak not of its coolness but its strength and steadiness. The\nwind and the coldness increased as the day advanced, and finally the\nwind went down with the sun. I was compelled to put on an extra coat\nfor my walk. The ground is strewn with windfalls, and much fruit will\nconsequently be lost.\n\nThe wind roars amid the pines like the surf. You can hardly hear\nthe crickets for the din, or the cars. I think the last must be\nconsiderably delayed when their course is against it. Indeed it is\ndifficult to enjoy a quiet thought. You sympathize too much with\nthe commotion and restlessness of the elements. Such a blowing,\nstirring, bustling day,\u2014what does it mean? All light things decamp;\nstraws and loose leaves change their places. Such a blowing day is\nno doubt indispensable in the economy of nature. The whole country is\na seashore, and the wind is the surf that breaks on it. It shows the\nwhite and silvery under sides of the leaves. Do plants and trees need\nto be thus tried and twisted? Is it a first intimation to the sap to\ncease to ascend, to thicken their stems? The _Gerardia pedicularia_,\nbushy gerardia, I find on the White Pond road.\n\nI perceive that some farmers are cutting turf now. They require\nthe driest season of the year. There is something agreeable to my\nthoughts in thus burning a part of the earth, the stock of fuel is so\ninexhaustible. Nature looks not mean and niggardly, but like an ample\nloaf. Is not he a rich man who owns a peat meadow? It is to enjoy the\nluxury of wealth. It must be a luxury to sit around the fire in winter\ndays and nights and burn these dry slices of the meadow which contain\nroots of all herbs. You dry and burn the very earth itself. It is a\nfact kindred with salt-licks. The meadow is strewn with the fresh bars,\nbearing the marks of the fork, and the turf-cutter is wheeling them out\nwith his barrow. To sit and see the world aglow and try to imagine how\nit would seem to have it so destroyed!\n\nWoodchucks are seen tumbling into their holes on all sides.\n\n\n_Aug. 27._ I see the volumes of smoke\u2014not quite the blaze\u2014from burning\nbrush, as I suppose, far in the western horizon. I believe it is at\nthis season of the year chiefly that you see this sight. It is always\na question with some whether it is not a fire in the woods, or some\nbuilding. It is an interesting feature in the scenery at this season.\nThe farmer\u2019s simple enterprises.\n\nThe vervain which I examined by the railroad the other day has still\na quarter of an inch to the top of its spikes. Hawkweed groundsel\n(_Senecio hieracifolius_) (fireweed). _Rubus sempervirens_, evergreen\nraspberry, the small low blackberry, is now in fruit. The _Medeola\nVirginica_, cucumber-root, the whorl-leaved plant, is now in green\nfruit. _Polygala cruciata_, cross-leaved polygala, in the meadow\nbetween Trillium Woods and railroad. This is rare and new to me.\nIt has a very sweet, but as it were intermittent, fragrance, as of\ncheckerberry and mayflowers combined. The handsome calyx-leaves.[314]\n\n\n_Aug. 28._ The pretty little blue flower in the Heywood Brook, Class\nV, Order 1. Corolla about one sixth of an inch in diameter, with five\nrounded segments; stamens and pistil shorter than corolla; calyx with\nfive acute segments and acute sinuses; leaves not opposite, lanceolate,\nspatulate, blunt, somewhat hairy on upper side with a midrib only,\nsessile; flowers in a loose raceme on rather long pedicels. Whole\nplant decumbent, curving upward. Wet ground. Said to be like the\nforget-me-not.\n\n_Raphanus Raphanistrum_, or wild radish, in meadows.\n\nI find three or four ordinary laborers to-day putting up the necessary\noutdoor fixtures for a magnetic telegraph from Boston to Burlington.\nThey carry along a basket full of simple implements, like travelling\ntinkers, and, with a little rude soldering, and twisting, and\nstraightening of wires, the work is done. It is a work which seems to\nadmit of the greatest latitude of ignorance and bungling, and as if you\nmight set your hired man with the poorest head and hands to building\na magnetic telegraph. All great inventions stoop thus low to succeed,\nfor the understanding is but little above the feet. They preserve so\nlow a tone; they are simple almost to coarseness and commonplaceness.\nSomebody had told them what he wanted, and sent them forth with a coil\nof wire to make a magnetic telegraph. It seems not so wonderful an\ninvention as a common cart or a plow.\n\n * * * * *\n\nEvening.\u2014A new moon visible in the east [_sic_]. How unexpectedly\nit always appears! You easily lose it in the sky. The whip-poor-will\nsings, but not so commonly as in spring. The bats are active.\n\nThe poet is a man who lives at last by watching his moods. An old poet\ncomes at last to watch his moods as narrowly as a cat does a mouse.\n\nI omit the unusual\u2014the hurricanes and earthquakes\u2014and describe the\ncommon. This has the greatest charm and is the true theme of poetry.\nYou may have the extraordinary for your province, if you will let me\nhave the ordinary. Give me the obscure life, the cottage of the poor\nand humble, the workdays of the world, the barren fields, the smallest\nshare of all things but poetic perception. Give me but the eyes to see\nthe things which you possess.[315]\n\n\n_Aug. 29._ Though it is early, my neighbor\u2019s hens have strayed far into\nthe fog toward the river. I find a wasp in my window, which already\nappears to be taking refuge from winter and unspeakable fate.\n\nThose who first built it, coming from old France, with the memory\nand tradition of feudal days and customs weighing on them, were\nunquestionably behind their age, and those who now inhabit it and\nrepair it are behind their ancestors. It is as if the inhabitants of\nBoston should go down to Fort Independence, or the inhabitants of New\nYork should go over to Castle William, to live. I rubbed my eyes to be\nsure that I was in the Nineteenth Century. That would be a good place\nto read Froissart\u2019s Chronicles, I thought. It is a specimen of the Old\nWorld in the New. It is such a reminiscence of the Middle Ages as one\nof Scott\u2019s novels. Those old chevaliers thought they could transplant\nthe feudal system to America. It has been set out, but it has not\nthriven.[316]\n\nMight I not walk a little further, till I hear new crickets, till their\ncreak has acquired some novelty, as if they were a new species whose\nhabitat I had reached?[317]\n\nThe air is filled with mist, yet a transparent mist, a principle in it\nyou might call _flavor_, which ripens fruits. This haziness seems to\nconfine and concentrate the sunlight, as if you lived in a halo. It is\nAugust.\n\nA flock of forty-four young turkeys with their old [_sic_], half a mile\nfrom a house on Conantum by the river, the old faintly gobbling, the\nhalf-grown young peeping. Turkey-men!\n\n_Gerardia glauca_ (_quercifolia_, says one), tall gerardia, one flower\nonly left; also _Corydalis glauca_.\n\n\n_Aug. 30. Saturday._ I perceive in the Norway cinquefoil (_Potentilla\nNorvegica_), now nearly out of blossom, that the alternate five leaves\nof the calyx are closing over the seeds to protect them. This evidence\nof forethought, this simple _reflection_ in a double sense of the\nterm, in this flower, is affecting to me, as if it said to me: \u201cEven\nI am doing my appointed work in this world faithfully. Not even do I,\nhowever obscurely I may grow among the other loftier and more famous\nplants, shirk my work, humble weed as I am. Not even when I have\nblossomed, and have lost my painted petals and am preparing to die down\nto my root, do I forget to fall with my arms around my babe, faithful\nto the last, that the infant may be found preserved in the arms of\nthe frozen mother.\u201d That thus all the Norway cinquefoils in the world\nhad curled back their calyx leaves, their warm cloaks, when now their\nflowering season was past, over their progeny, from the time they were\ncreated! There is one door closed, of the closing year. Nature ordered\nthis bending back of the calyx leaves, and every year since this plant\nwas created her order has been faithfully obeyed, and this plant acts\nnot an obscure, but essential, part in the revolution of the seasons.\nI am not ashamed to be contemporary with the Norway cinquefoil. May\nI perform my part as well![318] There is so much done toward closing\nup the year\u2019s accounts. It is as good as if I saw the great globe go\nround. It is as if I saw the Janus doors of the year closing. The fall\nof each humblest flower marks the annual period of some phase of human\nlife, experience. I can be said to note the flower\u2019s fall only when I\nsee in it the symbol of my own change. When I experience this, then the\nflower appears to me.\n\n_Drosera rotundifolia_ in Moore\u2019s new field ditch. The _Viola pedata_\nand the houstonia now. What is the peculiarity of these flowers that\n_they_ blossom again? Is it merely because they blossomed so early in\nthe spring, and now are ready for a new spring? They impress me as so\nmuch more native or naturalized here.\n\nWe love to see Nature fruitful in whatever kind. It assures us of\nher vigor and that she may equally bring forth the fruits which we\nprize. I love to see the acorns plenty, even on the shrub oaks, aye,\nand the nightshade berries. I love to see the potato balls numerous\nand large, as I go through a low field, poisonous though they look,\nthe plant thus, as it were, bearing fruit at both ends, saying ever\nand anon, \u201cNot only these tubers I offer you for the present, but if\nyou will have new varieties,\u2014if these do not satisfy you,\u2014plant these\nseeds.\u201d[319] What abundance! what luxuriance! what bounty! The potato\nballs, which are worthless to the farmer, combine to make the general\nimpression of the year\u2019s fruitfulness. It is as cheering to me as the\nrapid increase of the population of New York.\n\n\n_Aug. 31._ _Proserpinaca palustris_, spear-leaved proserpinaca,\nmermaid-weed. (This in Hubbard\u2019s Grove on my way to Conantum.)\nA hornets\u2019 (?) nest in a rather tall huckleberry bush, the stems\nprojecting through it, the leaves spreading over it. How these fellows\navail themselves of the vegetables! They kept arriving, the great\nfellows, but I never saw whence they came, but only heard the buzz\njust at the entrance. (With whitish abdomens.) At length, after I have\nstood before the nest five minutes, during which time they had taken no\nnotice of me, two seemed to be consulting at the entrance, and then one\nmade a threatening dash at me and returned to the nest. I took the hint\nand retired. They spoke as plainly as man could have done.[320]\n\nI see that the farmers have begun to top their corn.\n\nExamined my old friend the green locust (?), shrilling on an alder leaf.\n\nWhat relation does the fall dandelion bear to the spring dandelion?\nThere is a rank scent of tansy now on some roads, disagreeable to many\npeople from being associated in their minds with funerals, where it is\nsometimes put into the coffin and about the corpse. I have not observed\nmuch St. John\u2019s-wort yet. _Galium triflorum_, three-flowered cleavers,\nin Conant\u2019s Spring Swamp; also fever-bush there, now budded for next\nyear. Tobacco-pipe (_Monotropa uniflora_) in Spring Swamp Path. I came\nout of the thick, dark, swampy wood as from night into day. Having\nforgotten the daylight, I was surprised to see how bright it was. I\nhad light enough, methought, and here was an afternoon sun illumining\nall the landscape. It was a surprise to me to see how much brighter an\nordinary afternoon is than the light which penetrates a thick wood.\n\nOne of these drooping clusters of potato balls would be as good a\nsymbol, emblem, of the year\u2019s fertility as anything,\u2014better surely than\na bunch of grapes. Fruit of the strong soil, containing potash (?). The\nvintage is come; the olive is ripe.\n\n \u201cI come to pluck your berries harsh and crude;\n And with forc\u2019d fingers rude,\n Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year;\u201d\n\nWhy not for my coat-of-arms, for device, a drooping cluster of potato\nballs,\u2014in a _potato_ field?[321]\n\nWhat right has a New England poet to sing of wine, who never saw a\nvineyard, who obtains his liquor from the grocer, who would not dare,\nif he could, tell him what it is composed of. A Yankee singing in\npraise of wine! It is not sour grapes in this case, it is sweet grapes;\nthe more inaccessible they are the sweeter they are. It seemed to me\nthat the year had nothing so much to brag of as these potato balls.\nDo they not concern New-Englanders a thousand times more than all her\ngrapes? In Moore\u2019s new field they grow, cultivated with the bog hoe,\nmanured with ashes and sphagnum. How they take to the virgin soil![322]\nShannon tells me that he took a piece of bog land of Augustus Hayden,\ncleared, turned up the stumps and roots and burned it over, making a\ncoat of ashes six inches deep, then planted potatoes. He never put a\nhoe to it till he went to dig them; then between 8 o\u2019clock A. M. and 5\nP. M. he and another man dug and housed seventy-five bushels apiece!!\n\nCohush now in fruit, ivory-white berries tipped _now_ with black on\nstout red pedicels,\u2014_Act\u00e6a alba_. _Collinsonia Canadensis_, horseweed.\nI had discovered this singular flower there new to me, and, having a\nbotany by me, looked it out. What a surprise and disappointment, what\nan insult and impertinence to my curiosity and expectation, to have\ngiven me the name \u201chorseweed!\u201d\n\nCohush Swamp is about twenty rods by three or four. Among rarer\nplants it contains the basswood, the black (as well as white) ash,\nthe fever-bush, the cohush, the collinsonia, not to mention sassafras,\npoison sumach, ivy, agrimony, _Arum triphyllum_, (sweet viburnum (?)\nin hedges near by), ground-nut, touch-me-not (as high as your head),\nand _Eupatorium purpureum_ (eight feet, eight inches high, with a large\nconvex corymb (hemispherical) of many stories, fourteen inches wide;\nwidth of plant from tip of leaf to tip of leaf two feet, diameter of\nstalk one inch at ground, leaves seven in a whorl). Rare plants seem to\nlove certain localities. As if the original Conant had been a botanist\nand endeavored to form an arboretum. A natural arboretum?\n\nThe handsome sweet viburnum berries, now red on one cheek.\n\nIt was the filiform crowfoot (_Ranunculus filiformis_) that I saw by\nthe riverside the other day and to-day. The season advances apace.\nThe flowers of the nettle-leaved vervain are now near the ends of the\nspike, like the blue. _Utricularia inflata_, whorled bladderwort,\nfloating on the water at same place. _Gentiana Saponaria_ budded.\n_Gerardia flava_ at Conant\u2019s Grove.\n\nHalf an hour before sunset I was at Tupelo Cliff, when, looking up from\nmy botanizing (I had been examining the _Ranunculus filiformis_, the\n_Sium latifolium_ (? ?), and the obtuse galium on the muddy shore), I\nsaw the seal of evening on the river. There was a quiet beauty in the\nlandscape at that hour which my senses were prepared to appreciate. The\nsun going down on the west side, that hand being already in shadow for\nthe most part, but his rays lighting up the water and the willows and\npads even more than before. His rays then fell at right angles on their\nstems. I sitting on the old brown geologic rocks, their feet submerged\nand covered with weedy moss (utricularia roots?). Sometimes their tops\nare submerged. The cardinal-flowers standing by me. The trivialness\nof the day is past. The greater stillness, the _serenity_ of the air,\nits coolness and transparency, the mistiness being condensed, are\nfavorable to thought. (The pensive eve.) The coolness of evening comes\nto condense the haze of noon and make the air transparent and the\noutline of objects firm and distinct, and chaste (chaste eve); even as\nI am made more vigorous by my bath, am more _continent_ of thought.\nAfter bathing, even at noonday, a man realizes a morning or evening\nlife.[323] The evening air is such a bath for both mind and body. When\nI have walked all day in vain under the torrid sun, and the world has\nbeen all trivial,\u2014as well field and wood as highway,\u2014then at eve the\nsun goes down westward, and the wind goes down with it, and the dews\nbegin to purify the air and make it transparent, and the lakes and\nrivers acquire a glassy stillness, reflecting the skies, the reflex of\nthe day. I too am at the top of my condition for perceiving beauty.\nThus, long after feeding, the diviner faculties begin to be fed, to\nfeel their oats, their nutriment, and are not oppressed by the belly\u2019s\nload. It is abstinence from loading the belly anew until the brain\nand divine faculties have felt their vigor. Not till some hours does\nmy food invigorate my brain,\u2014ascendeth into the brain. We practice at\nthis hour an involuntary abstinence. We are comparatively chaste and\ntemperate as Eve herself; the nutriment is just reaching the brain.\nEvery sound is music now. The grating of some distant boat which a man\nis launching on the rocky bottom,\u2014though here is no man nor inhabited\nhouse, nor even cultivated field, in sight,\u2014this is heard with such\ndistinctness that I listen with pleasure as if it was [_sic_] music.\nThe attractive point is that line where the water meets the land, not\ndistinct, but known to exist. The willows are not the less interesting\nbecause of their nakedness below. How rich, like what we love to read\nof South American primitive forests, is the scenery of this river!\nWhat luxuriance of weeds, what depth of mud along its sides! These old\nantehistoric, geologic, antediluvian rocks, which only primitive wading\nbirds, still lingering among us, are worthy to tread. The season which\nwe seem to _live_ in anticipation of is arrived. The water, indeed,\nreflects heaven because my mind does; such is its own serenity, its\ntransparency and stillness.\n\nWith what sober joy I stand to let the water drip from me and feel my\nfresh vigor, who have been bathing in the same tub which the muskrat\nuses! Such a medicated bath as only nature furnishes. A fish leaps, and\nthe dimple he makes is observed now. How ample and generous was nature!\nMy inheritance is not narrow.[324] Here is no other this evening. Those\nresorts which I most love and frequent, numerous and vast as they are,\nare as it were given up to me, as much as if I were an autocrat or\nowner of the world, and by my edicts excluded men from my territories.\nPerchance there is some advantage here not enjoyed in older countries.\nThere are said to be two thousand inhabitants in Concord, and yet I\nfind such ample space and verge, even miles of walking every day in\nwhich I do not meet nor see a human being, and often not very recent\ntraces of them. So much of man as there is in your mind, there will be\nin your eye. Methinks that for a great part of the time, as much as it\nis possible, I walk as one possessing the advantages of human culture,\nfresh from society of men, but turned loose into the woods, the only\nman in nature, walking and meditating to a great extent as if man and\nhis customs and institutions were not. The catbird, or the jay, is sure\nof the whole of your ear now. Each noise is like a stain on pure glass.\nThe rivers now, these great blue subterranean heavens, reflecting the\nsupernal skies and red-tinted clouds.\n\nA fly (or gnat?) will often buzz round you and persecute you like an\nimp. How much of imp-like, pestering character they express! (I hear\na boy driving home his cows.) What unanimity between the water and the\nsky!\u2014one only a little denser element than the other. The grossest part\nof heaven. Think of a mirror on so large a scale! Standing on distant\nhills, you see the heavens reflected, the evening sky, in some low lake\nor river in the valley, as perfectly as in any mirror they could be.\nDoes it not prove how intimate heaven is with earth?\n\nWe commonly sacrifice to supper this serene and sacred hour. Our\ncustoms turn the hour of sunset to a trivial time, as at the meeting of\ntwo roads, one coming from the noon, the other leading to the night.\nIt might be [well] if our repasts were taken out-of-doors, in view of\nthe sunset and the rising stars; if there were two persons whose pulses\nbeat together, if men cared for the \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2, or _beauty_ of the world;\nif men were _social_ in a high and rare sense; if they associated on\nhigh levels; if we took in with our tea a draught of the transparent,\ndew-freighted evening air; if, with our bread and butter, we took a\nslice of the red western sky; if the smoking, steaming urn were the\nvapor on a thousand lakes and rivers and meads.\n\nThe air of the valleys at this hour is the distilled essence of all\nthose fragrances which during the day have been filling and have been\ndispersed in the atmosphere. The fine fragrances, perchance, which have\nfloated in the upper atmospheres have settled to these low vales!\n\nI talked of buying Conantum once, but for want of money we did not come\nto terms. But I have farmed it in my own fashion every year since.\n\nI have no objection to giving the names of some naturalists, men of\nflowers, to plants, if by their lives they have identified themselves\nwith them. There may be a few Kalmias. But it must be done very\nsparingly, or, rather, discriminatingly, and no man\u2019s name be used who\nhas not been such a lover of flowers that the flowers themselves may be\nsupposed thus to reciprocate his love.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nSEPTEMBER, 1851\n\n(\u00c6T. 34)\n\n\n_Sept. 1._ _Mikania scandens_, with its purplish white flowers, now\ncovering the button-bushes and willows by the side of the stream.\n_Bidens chrysanthemoides_, large-flowered bidens, edge of river.\nVarious-colored polygonums standing high among the bushes and weeds by\nriverside,\u2014white and reddish and red.\n\nIs not disease the rule of existence? There is not a lily pad floating\non the river but has been riddled by insects. Almost every shrub and\ntree has its gall, oftentimes esteemed its chief ornament and hardly\nto be distinguished from the fruit. If misery loves company, misery has\ncompany enough. Now, at midsummer, find me a perfect leaf or fruit.\n\nThe fruit of the trilliums is very handsome. I found some a month ago,\na singular _red_, angular-cased pulp, drooping, with the old anthers\nsurrounding it three quarters of an inch in diameter; and now there\nis another kind, a dense crowded cluster of many ovoid berries turning\nfrom green to scarlet or bright brick-color. Then there is the mottled\nfruit of the clustered Solomon\u2019s-seal, and also the greenish (with blue\nmeat) fruit of the _Convallaria multiflora_ dangling from the axils of\nthe leaves.\n\n\n_Sept. 2._ The dense fog came into my chamber early this morning,\nfreighted with light, and woke me. It was, no doubt, lighter at that\nhour than if there had been no fog.\n\nNot till after several months does an infant find its hands, and it\nmay be seen looking at them with astonishment, holding them up to the\nlight; and so also it finds its toes. How many faculties there are\nwhich we have never found![325] Some men, methinks, have found only\ntheir hands and feet. At least I have seen some who appeared never to\nhave found their heads, but used them only instinctively, as the negro\nwho butts with his,[326] or the water-carrier who makes a pack-horse of\nhis. They have but partially found their heads.\n\nWe cannot write well or truly but what we write with gusto. The body,\nthe senses, must conspire with the mind. Expression is the act of the\nwhole man, that our speech may be vascular. The intellect is powerless\nto express thought without the aid of the heart and liver and of every\nmember. Often I feel that my head stands out too dry, when it should\nbe immersed. A writer, a man writing, is the scribe of all nature; he\nis the corn and the grass and the atmosphere writing. It is always\nessential that we love to do what we are doing, do it with a heart.\nThe maturity of the mind, however, may perchance consist with a certain\ndryness.\n\nThere are flowers of thought, and there are leaves of thought; most of\nour thoughts are merely leaves, to which the thread of thought is the\nstem.\n\nWhat affinity is it brings the goldfinch to the sunflower\u2014both\nyellow\u2014to pick its seeds? Whatever things I perceive with my entire\nman, those let me record, and it will be poetry. The sounds which\nI hear with the consent and coincidence of all my senses, these are\nsignificant and musical; at least, they only are heard.[327]\n\nIn a day or two the first message will be conveyed or transmitted over\nthe magnetic telegraph through this town, as a thought traverses space,\nand no citizen of the town shall be aware of it. The atmosphere is full\nof telegraphs equally unobserved. We are not confined to Morse\u2019s or\nHouse\u2019s or Bain\u2019s line.\n\nRaise some sunflowers to attract the goldfinches, to feed them as well\nas your hens. What a broad and loaded, bounteously filled platter of\nfood is presented this _bon-vivant_!\n\nHere is one of those thick fogs which last well into the day. While the\nfarmer is concerned about the crops which his fields bear, I will be\nconcerned about the fertility of my human farm. I will watch the winds\nand the rains as they affect the crop of thought,\u2014the crop of crops,\nripe thoughts, which glow and rustle and fill the air with fragrance\nfor centuries. Is it a drought? How long since we had a rain? What is\nthe state of the springs? Are the low springs high?\n\nI now begin to pluck wild apples.\n\nThe difference is not great between some fruits in which the worm is\nalways present and those gall fruits which were produced by the insect.\n\nOld Cato says well, \u201c_Patremfamilias vendacem, non emacem, esse\noportet_.\u201d These Latin terminations express better than any English\nthat I know the greediness, as it were, and tenacity of purpose with\nwhich the husbandman and householder is required to be a seller and not\na buyer,\u2014with mastiff-like tenacity,\u2014these _lipped_ words, which, like\nthe lips of moose and browsing creatures, gather in the herbage and\ntwigs with a certain greed. This termination _cious_ adds force to a\nword, like the lips of browsing creatures, which greedily collect what\nthe jaw holds; as in the word \u201ctenacious\u201d the first half represents\nthe kind of jaw which holds, the last the lips which collect. It can\nonly be pronounced by a certain opening and protruding of the lips;\nso \u201cavaricious\u201d. These words express the sense of their simple roots\nwith the addition, as it were, of a certain lip greediness. Hence\n\u201ccapacious\u201d and \u201ccapacity,\u201d \u201cemacity.\u201d When these expressive words are\nused, the hearer gets something to chew upon. To be a seller with the\ntenacity and firmness and steadiness of the jaws which hold and the\ngreediness of the lips which collect. The audacious man not only dares,\nbut he greedily collects more danger to dare. The avaricious man not\nonly desires and satisfies his desire, but he collects ever new browse\nin anticipation of his ever-springing desires. What is _luscious_ is\nespecially enjoyed by the lips. The mastiff-mouthed are tenacious. To\nbe a seller with mastiff-mouthed tenacity of purpose, with moose-lipped\ngreediness,\u2014ability to browse! To be edacious and voracious is to be\nnot nibbling and swallowing merely, but eating and swallowing while the\nlips are greedily collecting more food.\n\nThere is a reptile in the throat of the greedy man always thirsting\nand famishing. It is not his own natural hunger and thirst which he\nsatisfies.\n\nThe more we know about the ancients, the more we find that they were\nlike the moderns. When I read Marcus Cato De Re Rustica, a small\ntreatise or Farmer\u2019s Manual of those days, fresh from the field\nof Roman life, all reeking with and redolent of the life of those\ndays, containing more indirect history than any of the histories of\nRome of direct,\u2014all of that time but that time,\u2014_here_ is a simple,\ndirect, pertinent word addressed to the Romans. And where are _the\nRomans_? Rome and the Romans are commonly a piece of rhetoric. As\nif New England had disappeared poetically and there were left Buel\u2019s\n\u201cFarmer\u2019s Companion,\u201d or the letters of Solon Robinson, or a volume\nof extracts from the _New England Farmer_. Though the Romans are no\nmore but a fable and an ornament of rhetoric, we have here their _New\nEngland Farmer_, the very manual those Roman farmers read, speaking as\nif they were to hear it, its voice not silenced, as if Rome were still\nthe mistress of the world,\u2014as fresh as a dripping dish-cloth from a\nRoman kitchen.[328] As when you overhaul the correspondence of a man\nwho died fifty years ago, with like surprise and feelings you overhaul\nthe manuscripts of the Roman nation. There exist certain old papers,\nmanuscripts, either the originals or faithful and trustworthy old\ncopies of the originals, which were left by the Roman people. They have\ngone their way, but these old papers of all sorts remain. Among them\nthere are some farm journals, or farm books; just such a collection of\ndiary and memorandum\u2014as when the cow calved, and the dimensions, with\na plan, of the barn, and how much paid to Joe Farrar for work done on\nthe farm, etc., etc.\u2014as you might find in an old farmer\u2019s pocket-book\nto-day.\n\nIndeed the farmer\u2019s was pretty much the same routine then as now.\nCato says: \u201cSterquilinium magnum stude ut habeas. Stercus sedulo\nconserva, cum exportabis purgato et comminuito. Per autumnum evehito.\u201d\n(Study to have a great dungheap. Carefully preserve your dung, when\nyou carry it out, make clean work of it and break it up fine. Carry\nit out during the autumn.) Just such directions as you find in the\n\u201cFarmer\u2019s Almanack\u201d to-day. It reminds me of what I see going on in our\nfields every autumn. As if the farmers of Concord were obeying Cato\u2019s\ndirections. And Cato but repeated the maxims of a remote antiquity.\nNothing can be more homely and suggestive of the every-day life of the\nRoman agriculturalists, thus supplying the very deficiencies in what is\ncommonly called Roman history, _i. e._ revealing to us the actual life\nof the Romans, the how they got their living and what they did from day\nto day.[329]\n\nThey planted _rapa_, _raphanos_, _milium_, and _panicum_ in low foggy\nland, _ager nebulosus_.\n\nI see the farmer now\u2014_i. e._ I shall in autumn\u2014on every side carting\nout his manure and sedulously making his compost-heap, or scattering\nit over his grass ground and breaking it up with a mallet; and it\nreminds me of Cato\u2019s advice. He died one hundred and fifty years before\nChrist.[330] Before Christianity was heard of, this was done. A Roman\nfamily appears to have had a great supply of tubs and kettles.\n\nA fire in the sitting-room to-day. Walk in the afternoon by Walden road\nand railroad to Minn\u2019s place, and round it to railroad and home. The\nfirst coolness is welcome, so serious and fertile of thought. My skin\ncontracts, and I become more continent. Carried umbrellas, it mizzling.\nAs in the night, now in the rain, I smell the fragrance of the woods.\nThe prunella leaves have turned a delicate claret or lake color by the\nroadside. I am interested in these revolutions as much as in those of\nkingdoms. Is there not tragedy enough in the autumn? Walden seems to\nbe going down at last. The pines are dead and leaning, red and half\nupset, about its shore. Thus, by its rising once in twenty-five years,\nperchance, it keeps an open shore, as if the ice had heaved them over.\nFound the succory at Minn\u2019s Bridge on railroad and beyond. Query: May\nnot this and the tree-primrose and other plants be distributed from\nBoston on the rays of the railroads, the seeds mixing with the grains\nand all kinds of dirt and being blown from the passing freight-cars?\nThe feathery-tailed fruit of the fertile flowers of the clematis\nconspicuous now.\n\nThe shorn meadows looked of a living green as we came home at eve,\neven greener than in spring. The _faenum cordum_, the aftermath,\n_sicilimenta de prato_, the second mowings of the meadow, this reminds\nme of, in Cato.[331]\n\n\n_Sept. 3._ Why was there never a poem on the cricket? Its creak\nseems to me to be one of the most prominent and obvious facts in the\nworld, and the least heeded. In the report of a man\u2019s contemplations\nI look to see somewhat answering to this sound.[332] When I sat on\nLee\u2019s Cliff the other day (August 29th), I saw a man working with a\nhorse in a field by the river, carting dirt; and the horse and his\nrelation to him struck me as very remarkable. There was the horse, a\nmere animated machine,\u2014though his tail was brushing off the flies,\u2014his\nwhole existence subordinated to the man\u2019s, with no tradition, perhaps\nno instinct, in him of independence and freedom, of a time when he was\nwild and free,\u2014completely humanized. No compact made with him that he\nshould have the Saturday afternoons, or the Sundays, or any holidays.\nHis independence never recognized, it being now quite forgotten both\nby men and by horses that the horse was ever free. For I am not aware\nthat there are any wild horses known surely not to be descended from\ntame ones. Assisting that man to pull down that bank and spread it over\nthe meadow; only keeping off the flies with his tail, and stamping,\nand catching a mouthful of grass or leaves from time to time, on his\nown account,\u2014all the rest for man. It seemed hardly worth while that\nhe should be _animated_ for this. It was plain that the man was not\neducating the horse; not trying to develop his nature, but merely\ngetting work out of him. That mass of animated matter seemed more\ncompletely the servant of man than any inanimate. For slaves have their\nholidays; a heaven is conceded to them, but to the horse none. Now\nand forever he is man\u2019s slave. The more I considered, the more the man\nseemed akin to the horse; only his was the stronger will of the two.\nFor a little further on I saw an Irishman shovelling, who evidently was\nas much tamed as the horse. He had stipulated that to a certain extent\nhis independence be recognized, and yet really he was but little more\nindependent. I had always instinctively regarded the horse as a free\npeople somewhere, living wild. Whatever has not come under the sway of\nman is wild. In this sense original and independent men are wild,\u2014not\ntamed and broken by society. Now for my part I have such a respect for\nthe horse\u2019s nature as would tempt me to let him alone; not to interfere\nwith him,\u2014his walks, his diet, his loves. But by mankind he is treated\nsimply as if he were an engine which must have rest and is sensible\nof pain. Suppose that every squirrel were made to turn a coffee-mill!\nSuppose that the gazelles were made to draw milk-carts!\n\nThere he was with his tail cut off, because it was in the way, or to\nsuit the taste of his owner; his mane trimmed, and his feet shod with\niron that he might wear longer. What is a horse but an animal that has\nlost its liberty? What is it but a system of slavery? and do you not\nthus by _insensible_ and unimportant degrees come to human slavery?\nHas lost its liberty!\u2014and has man got any more liberty himself for\nhaving robbed the horse, or has he lost just as much of his own, and\nbecome more like the horse he has robbed? Is not the other end of the\nbridle in this case, too, coiled round his own neck? Hence stable-boys,\njockeys, all that class that is daily transported by fast horses. There\nhe stood with his oblong square figure (his tail being cut off) seen\nagainst the water, brushing off the flies with his tail and stamping,\nbraced back while the man was filling the cart.[333]\n\nIt is a very remarkable and significant fact that, though no man is\nquite well or healthy, yet every one believes practically that health\nis the rule and disease the exception, and each invalid is wont to\nthink himself in a minority, and to postpone somewhat of endeavor to\nanother state of existence. But it may be some encouragement to men to\nknow that in this respect they stand on the same platform, that disease\nis, in fact, the _rule_ of our terrestrial life and the prophecy of a\n_celestial_ life. Where is the coward who despairs because he is sick?\nEvery one may live either the life of Achilles or of Nestor. Seen in\nthis light, our life with all its diseases will look healthy, and in\none sense the more healthy as it is the more diseased. Disease is not\nthe accident of the individual, nor even of the generation, but of\nlife itself. In some form, and to some degree or other, it is one of\nthe permanent conditions of life. It is, nevertheless, a cheering fact\nthat men affirm health unanimously, and esteem themselves miserable\nfailures. Here was no blunder. They gave us life on exactly these\nconditions, and methinks we shall live it with more heart when we\nperceive clearly that these are the terms on which we have it. Life\nis a warfare, a struggle, and the diseases of the body answer to the\ntroubles and defeats of the spirit. Man begins by quarrelling with the\nanimal in him, and the result is immediate disease. In proportion as\nthe spirit is the more ambitious and persevering, the more obstacles\nit will meet with. It is as a seer that man asserts his disease to be\nexceptional.[334]\n\n * * * * *\n\n2 P. M.\u2014To Hubbard\u2019s Swimming-Place and Grove in rain.\n\nAs I went under the new telegraph-wire, I heard it vibrating like a\nharp high overhead. It was as the sound of a far-off glorious life, a\nsupernal life, which came down to us, and vibrated the lattice-work of\nthis life of ours.[335]\n\nThe melons and the apples seem at once to feed my brain.\n\nHere comes a laborer from his dinner to resume his work at clearing\nout a ditch notwithstanding the rain, remembering as Cato says, _per\nferias potuisse fossas veteres tergeri_, that in the holidays old\nditches might have been cleared out. One would think that I were the\npaterfamilias come to see if the steward of my farm has done his duty.\n\nThe ivy leaves are turning red. Fall dandelions stand thick in the\nmeadows.\n\nHow much the Roman must have been indebted to his agriculture, dealing\nwith the earth, its clods and stubble, its dust and mire. Their farmer\nconsuls were their glory, and they well knew the farm to be the nursery\nof soldiers. Read Cato to see what kind of legs the Romans stood on.\n\nThe leaves of the hardhack are somewhat appressed, clothing the stem\nand showing their downy under sides like white, waving wands. Is it\npeculiar to the season, or the rain,\u2014or the plant?\n\nWalk often in drizzly weather, for then the small weeds (especially\nif they stand on bare ground), covered with rain-drops like beads,\nappear more beautiful than ever,\u2014the hypericums, for instance. They\nare equally beautiful when covered with dew, fresh and adorned, almost\nspirited away, in a robe of dewdrops.[336]\n\nSome farmers have begun to thresh and winnow their oats.\n\nIdentified spotted spurge (_Euphorbia maculata_), apparently out of\nblossom. Shepherd\u2019s-purse and chickweed.\n\nAs for walking, the inhabitants of large English towns are confined\nalmost exclusively to their parks and to the highways. The few\nfootpaths in their vicinities \u201care gradually vanishing,\u201d says\nWilkinson, \u201cunder the encroachments of the proprietors.\u201d He proposes\nthat the people\u2019s right to them be asserted and defended and that\nthey be kept in a passable state at the public expense. \u201cThis,\u201d\nsays he, \u201cwould be easily done by means of asphalt laid upon a good\nfoundation\u201d!!! So much for walking, and the prospects of walking, in\nthe neighborhood of English large towns.\n\nThink of a man\u2014he may be a genius of some kind\u2014being confined to\na highway and a park for his world to range in! I should die from\nmere nervousness at the thought of such confinement. I should\nhesitate before I were born, if those terms could be made known to me\nbeforehand. Fenced in forever by those green barriers of fields, where\ngentlemen are seated! Can they be said to be inhabitants of this globe?\nWill they be content to inhabit heaven thus partially?\n\n\n_Sept. 4._ 8 A. M.\u2014A clear and pleasant day after the rain. Start\nfor Boon\u2019s Pond in Stow with C. Every sight and sound was the more\ninteresting for the clear atmosphere. When you are starting away,\nleaving your more familiar fields, for a little adventure like a\nwalk, you look at every object with a traveller\u2019s, or at least with\nhistorical, eyes; you pause on the first bridge, where an ordinary walk\nhardly commences, and begin to observe and moralize like a traveller.\nIt is worth the while to see your native village thus sometimes, as if\nyou were a traveller passing through it, commenting on your neighbors\nas strangers.[337] We stood thus on Wood\u2019s Bridge, the first bridge,\nin the capacity of pilgrims and strangers to its familiarity, giving\nit one more chance with us, though our townsmen who passed may not have\nperceived it.\n\nThere was a pretty good-sized pickerel poised over the sandy bottom\nclose to the shore and motionless as a shadow. It is wonderful how they\nresist the slight current of our river and remain thus stationary for\nhours. He, no doubt, saw us plainly on the bridge,\u2014in the sunny water,\nhis whole form distinct and his shadow,\u2014motionless as the steel trap\nwhich does not spring till the fox\u2019s foot has touched it.\n\n\u2014\u2014 \u2014\u2014\u2019s dog sprang up, ran out, and growled at us, and in his eye I\nseemed to see the eye of his master. I have no doubt but that, as is\nthe master, such in course of time tend to become his herds and flocks\nas well as dogs. One man\u2019s oxen will be clever and solid, another\u2019s\nmischievous, another\u2019s mangy,\u2014in each case like their respective\nowners. No doubt man impresses his own character on the beasts which\nhe tames and employs; they are not only humanized, but they acquire\nhis particular human nature.[338] How much oxen are like farmers\ngenerally, and cows like farmers\u2019 wives! and young steers and heifers\nlike farmers\u2019 boys and girls! The farmer acts on the ox, and the ox\nreacts on the farmer. They do not meet half-way, it is true, but they\ndo meet at a distance from the centre of each proportionate to each\none\u2019s intellectual power.[339] The farmer is ox-like in his thought, in\nhis walk, in his strength, in his trustworthiness, in his taste.[340]\n\nHosmer\u2019s man was cutting his millet, and his buckwheat already lay in\n_red_ piles in the field.\n\nThe first picture we noticed was where the road turned among the pitch\npines and showed the Hadley house, with the high wooded hill behind\nwith dew and sun on it, the gracefully winding road path, and a more\ndistant horizon on the right of the house. Just beyond, on the left,\nit was pleasant walking where the road was shaded by a high hill, as\nit can be only in the morning. Even in the morning that additional\ncoolness and early-dawn-like feeling of a more sacred and earlier\nseason are agreeable.\n\nThe lane in front of Tarbell\u2019s house, which is but little worn and\nappears to lead nowhere, though it has so wide and all-engulfing an\nopening, suggested that such things might be contrived for effect in\nlaying out grounds. (Only those things are sure to have the greatest\nand best effect, which like this were not contrived for the sake of\neffect.) An open path which would suggest walking and adventuring on\nit, the going to some place strange and far away. It would make you\nthink of or imagine distant places and spaces greater than the estate.\n\nIt was pleasant, looking back just beyond, to see a heavy shadow (made\nby some high birches) reaching quite across the road. Light and shadow\nare sufficient contrast and furnish sufficient excitement when we are\nwell.\n\nNow we were passing the vale of Brown and Tarbell, a sunshiny mead\npastured by cattle and sparkling with dew, the sound of crows and\nswallows heard in the air, and leafy-columned elms seen here and there\nshining with dew. The morning freshness and unworldliness of that\ndomain![341] The vale of Tempe and of Arcady is not farther off than\nare the conscious lives of men from their opportunities. Our life is\nas far from corresponding to its scenery as we are distant from Tempe\nand Arcadia; that is to say, they are far away because we are far from\nliving natural lives. How absurd it would be to insist on the vale of\nTempe in particular when we have such vales as we have!\n\nIn the Marlborough road, in the woods, I saw a purple streak like\na stain on the red pine leaves and sand under my feet, which I was\nsurprised to find was made by a dense mass of purple fleas, somewhat\nlike snow-fleas,\u2014a faint purple stain as if some purple dye had been\nspilt. What is that slender pink flower that I find in the Marlborough\nroad,\u2014smaller than a snapdragon? The slender stems of grass which hang\nover the ruts and horses\u2019 path in this little-frequented road are so\nladen with dew that I am compelled to hold a bush before me to shake it\noff. The jays scream on the right and left and are seen flying further\noff as we go by.\n\nWe drink in the meadow at Second Division Brook, then sit awhile to\nwatch its yellowish pebbles and the cress (?) in it and other weeds.\nThe ripples cover its surface like a network and are faithfully\nreflected on the bottom. In some places, the sun reflected from ripples\non a flat stone looks like a golden comb. The whole brook seems as\nbusy as a loom: it is a woof and warp of ripples; fairy fingers are\nthrowing the shuttle at every step, and the long, waving brook is the\nfine product. The water is wonderfully clear.\n\nTo have a hut here, and a footpath to the brook! For roads, I think\nthat a poet cannot tolerate more than a footpath through the fields;\nthat is wide enough, and for purposes of winged poesy suffices. It\nis not for the muse to speak of cart-paths. I would fain travel by a\nfootpath round the world.[342] I do not ask the railroads of commerce,\nnot even the cart-paths of the farmer. Pray, what other path would you\nhave than a footpath? What else should wear a path? This is the track\nof man alone. What more suggestive to the pensive walker?[343] One\nwalks in a wheel-track with less emotion; he is at a greater distance\nfrom man; but this footpath was, perchance, worn by the bare feet of\nhuman beings, and he cannot but think with interest of them.\n\nThe grapes, though their leaves are withering and falling, are yet too\nsour to eat.\n\nIn the summer we lay up a stock of experiences for the winter, as the\nsquirrel of nuts,\u2014something for conversation in winter evenings. I love\nto think then of the more distant walks I took in summer.[344]\n\nAt the powder-mills the carbonic acid gas in the road from the building\nwhere they were making charcoal made us cough for twenty or thirty\nrods.\n\nSaw some gray squirrels whirling their cylinder by the roadside. How\nfitted that cylinder to this animal! \u201cA squirrel is easily taught to\nturn his cylinder\u201d might be a saying frequently applicable. And as\nthey turned, one leaped over or dodged under another most gracefully\nand unexpectedly, with interweaving motions. It was the circus and\nmenagerie combined. So human they were, exhibiting themselves.\n\nIn the Marlborough road, I forgot to say, we brushed the _Polygonum\narticulatum_ with its spikes of reddish-white flowers, a slender and\ntender plant which loves the middle of dry and sandy not-much-travelled\nroads. To find that the very atoms bloom, that there are flowers we\nrudely brush against which only the microscope reveals!\n\nIt is wise to write on many subjects, to try many themes, that so\nyou may find the right and inspiring one. Be greedy of occasions\nto express your thought. Improve the opportunity to draw analogies.\nThere are innumerable avenues to a perception of the truth. Improve\nthe suggestion of each object however humble, however slight and\ntransient the provocation. What else is there to be improved? Who knows\nwhat opportunities he may neglect? It is not in vain that the mind\nturns aside this way or that: follow its leading; apply it whither it\ninclines to go. Probe the universe in a myriad points. Be avaricious\nof these impulses. You must try a thousand themes before you find the\nright one, as nature makes a thousand acorns to get one oak. He is a\nwise man and experienced who has taken many views; to whom stones and\nplants and animals and a myriad objects have each suggested something,\ncontributed something.[345]\n\nAnd now, methinks, this wider wood-path[346] is not bad, for it admits\nof society more conveniently. Two can walk side by side in it in the\nruts, aye, and one more in the horse-track.[347] The Indian walked in\nsingle file, more solitary,\u2014not side by side, chatting as he went. The\nwoodman\u2019s cart and sled make just the path two walkers want through the\nwood.\n\nBeyond the powder-mills we watched some fat oxen, elephantine,\nbehemoths,\u2014one Rufus-Hosmer-eyed, with the long lash and projecting\neye-ball.\n\nNow past the paper-mills, by the westernmost road east of the river,\nthe first new ground we\u2019ve reached.\n\nNot only the prunella turns _lake_, but the _Hypericum Virginicum_ in\nthe hollows by the roadside,\u2014a handsome blush. A part of the autumnal\ntints, ripe leaves. Leaves acquire red blood. Red colors touch our\nblood, and excite us as well as cows and geese.\n\nAnd now we leave the road and go through the woods and swamps toward\nBoon\u2019s Pond, crossing two or three roads and by Potter\u2019s house in Stow;\nstill on east of river. The fruit of the _Pyrola rotundifolia_ in the\ndamp woods. Larch trees in Stow about the houses. Beyond Potter\u2019s we\nstruck into the extensive wooded plain where the ponds are found in\nStow, Sudbury, and Marlborough. Part of it called Boon\u2019s Plain.[348]\nBoon said to have lived on or under Bailey\u2019s Hill at west of pond.\nKilled by Indians between Boon[\u2019s Pond] and White\u2019s Pond as he was\ndriving his ox-cart. The oxen ran off to Marlborough garrison-house.\nHis remains have been searched for. A sandy plain, a large level tract.\nThe pond shores handsome enough, but water shallow and muddy looking.\nWell-wooded shores. The maples begin to show red about it. Much fished.\n\nSaw a load of sunflowers in a farmers [_sic_]. Such is the destiny of\nthis large, coarse flower; the farmers gather it like pumpkins.\n\nReturned by railroad down the Assabet. A potato-field yellow with\nwild radish. But no good place to bathe for three miles, Knight\u2019s\nnew dam has so raised the river. A permanent freshet, as it were, the\nfluviatile trees standing dead for fish hawk perches, and the water\nstagnant for weeds to grow in. You have only to dam up a running stream\nto give it the aspect of a dead stream, and to some degree restore its\nprimitive wild appearance. Tracts made inaccessible to man and at the\nsame time more fertile. Some speculator comes and dams up the stream\nbelow, and lo! the water stands over all meadows, making impassable\nmorasses and dead trees for fish hawks,\u2014a wild, stagnant, fenny\ncountry, the last gasp of wildness before it yields to the civilization\nof the factory,\u2014to cheer the eyes of the factory people and educate\nthem. It makes a little wilderness above the factories.\n\nThe woodbine now begins to hang red about the maples and other trees.\n\nAs I looked back up the stream from near the bridge (I suppose on the\nroad from Potter\u2019s house to Stow), I on the railroad, I saw the ripples\nsparkling in the sun, reminding me of the sparkling icy fleets which\nI saw last winter; and I saw how one corresponded to the other, ice\nwaves to water ones; the erect ice-flakes were the waves stereotyped.\nIt was the same sight, the reflection of the sun sparkling from a\nmyriad slanting surfaces at a distance, a rippled water surface or a\ncrystallized frozen one.\n\n [Illustration]\n\nHere crossed the river and climbed the high hills on the west side.\nThe walnut trees conformed in their branches to the slope of the hill,\nbeing just as high from the ground on the upper side as on the lower.\n\nOn all sides now I see and smell the withering leaves of brush that has\nbeen cut to clear the land. I see some blackened tracts which have been\nburnt over. It is remarkable, for it is rare to see the surface of the\nearth black. And in the horizon I can see the smokes of several fires.\nThe farmers improve this season, which is the driest, their haying\nbeing done and their harvest not begun, to do these jobs,\u2014burn brush,\nbuild walls, dig ditches, cut turf. This is what I find them doing all\nover the country now; also topping corn and digging potatoes.\n\nSaw quite a flock, for the first time, of goldfinches.\n\nOn the high, round hills in the east and southeast of Stow,\u2014perchance\nthey are called the Assabet Hills,\u2014rising directly from the river. They\nare the highest I know rising thus. The rounded hills of Stow. A hill\nand valley country. Very different from Concord.\n\nIt had been a warm day, especially warm to the head. I do not perspire\nas in the early summer, but am sensible of the ripening heat, more as\nif by contact. Suddenly the wind changed to east, and the atmosphere\ngrew more and more hazy and thick on that side, obstructing the view,\nwhile it was yet clear in the west. I thought it was the result of the\ncooler air from over the sea meeting and condensing the vapor in the\nwarm air of the land. That was the haze, or thin, dry fog which some\ncall smoke. It gradually moved westward and affected the prospect on\nthat side somewhat. It was a very thin fog invading all the east. I\nfelt the cool air from the ocean, and it was very refreshing. I opened\nmy bosom and my mouth to inhale it. Very delicious and invigorating.\n\nWe sat on the top of those hills looking down on the new brick\nice-house. Where there are several hills near together, you cannot\ndetermine at once which is the highest, whether the one you are on or\nthe next. So, when great men are assembled, each yields an uncertain\nrespect to the other, as if it were not certain whose crown rose\nhighest.\n\nUnder the nut trees on these hills, the grass is short and green as if\ngrazed close by cattle who had stood there for shade, making a distinct\ncircular yard. Yet, as there is no dung and the form corresponds so\nclosely to the tree, I doubt if that can be the cause.\n\nOn hillside north of river above powder-mills the _Pycnanthemum\nincanum_ (mountain mint, calamint) and the _Lespedeza violacea_.\n\nSaw what I thought a small red dog in the road, which cantered along\nover the bridge this side the powder-mills and then turned into the\nwoods. This decided me\u2014this turning into the woods\u2014that it was a fox.\nThe dog of the woods, the dog that is more at home in the woods than in\nthe roads and fields. I do not often see a dog turning into the woods.\n\nSome large white (?) oak acorns this side the last-named bridge. A\nfew oaks stand in the pastures still, great ornaments. I do not see\nany young ones springing up to supply their places. Will there be any\na hundred years hence? These are the remnants of the primitive wood,\nmethinks. We are a young people and have not learned by experience the\nconsequence of cutting off the forest. One day they will be planted,\nmethinks, and nature reinstated to some extent.\n\nI love to see the yellow knots and their lengthened stain on the dry,\nunpainted pitch[?]-pine boards on barns and other buildings,\u2014the Dugan\nhouse, for instance. The indestructible yellow fat! it fats my eyes to\nsee it; worthy for art to imitate, telling of branches in the forest\nonce.\n\n\n_Sept 5._ No doubt, like plants, we are fed through the atmosphere,\nand the varying atmospheres of various seasons of the year feed us\nvariously. How often we are sensible of being thus fed and invigorated!\nAnd all nature contributes to this aerial diet its food of finest\nquality. Methinks that in the fragrance of the fruits I get a finer\nflavor, and in beauty (which is appreciated by sight\u2014the taste and\nsmell of the eye) a finer still. As Wilkinson says, \u201cthe physical man\nhimself is the builded aroma of the world. This then, at least, is the\noffice of the lungs\u2014to drink the atmosphere with the planet dissolved\nin it.\u201d \u201cWhat is the import of _change of air_, and how each pair of\nlungs has a _native air_ under some one dome of the sky.\u201d\n\nWilkinson\u2019s book to some extent realizes what I have dreamed of,\u2014a\nreturn to the primitive analogical and derivative senses of words.\nHis ability to trace analogies often leads him to a truer word than\nmore remarkable writers have found; as when, in his chapter on the\nhuman skin, he describes the papillary cutis as \u201can encampment of\nsmall conical tents coextensive with the surface of the body.\u201d The\nfaith he puts in old and current expressions as having sprung from an\ninstinct wiser than science, and safely to be trusted if they can be\ninterpreted. The man of science discovers no world for the mind of man\nwith all its faculties to inhabit. Wilkinson finds a _home_ for the\nimagination, and it is no longer outcast and homeless. All perception\nof truth is the detection of an analogy; we reason from our hands to\nour head.\n\nIt is remarkable that Kalm says in 1748 (being in Philadelphia): \u201cCoals\nhave not yet been found in Pennsylvania; but people pretend to have\nseen them higher up in the country among the natives. Many people\nhowever agree that they are met with in great quantity more to the\nnorth, near Cape Breton.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nAs we grow old we live more coarsely, we relax a little in our\ndisciplines, and, to some extent, cease to obey our finest instincts.\nWe are more careless about our diet and our chastity. But we should be\nfastidious to the extreme of sanity.[349] All wisdom is the reward of\na discipline, conscious or unconscious.\n\nBy moonlight at Potter\u2019s Field toward Bear Garden Hill, 8 P. M. The\nwhip-poor-wills sing.\n\nCultivate reverence. It is as if you were so much more respectable\nyourself. By the quality of a man\u2019s writing, by the elevation of its\ntone, you may measure his self-respect. How shall a man continue his\nculture after manhood?\n\nMoonlight on Fair Haven Pond seen from the Cliffs. A sheeny lake in\nthe midst of a boundless forest, the windy surf sounding freshly and\nwildly in the single pine behind you; the silence of hushed wolves in\nthe wilderness, and, as you fancy, moose looking off from the shore\nof the lake. The stars of poetry and history and unexplored nature\nlooking down on the scene. This is my world now, with a dull whitish\nmark curving northward through the forest marking the outlet to the\nlake. Fair Haven by moonlight lies there like a lake in the Maine\nwilderness in the midst of a primitive forest untrodden by man. This\nlight and this hour take the civilization all out of the landscape.\nEven in villages dogs bay the moon; in forests like this we listen to\nhear wolves howl to Cynthia.\n\nEven at this hour in the evening the crickets chirp, the small birds\npeep, the wind roars in the wood, as if it were just before dawn. The\nmoonlight seems to linger as if it were giving way to the light of\ncoming day.\n\nThe landscape seen from the slightest elevation by moonlight is seen\nremotely, and flattened, as it were, into mere light and shade, open\nfield and forest, like the surface of the earth seen from the top of a\nmountain.\n\nHow much excited we are, how much recruited, by a great many particular\nfragrances! A field of ripening corn, now at night, that has been\ntopped, with the stalks stacked up to dry,\u2014an inexpressibly dry,\nrich, sweet, ripening scent.[350] I feel as if I were an ear of\nripening corn myself. Is not the whole air then a compound of such\nodors undistinguishable? Drying corn-stalks in a field; what an\nherb-garden![351]\n\n\n_Sept. 6._ The other afternoon I met Sam H\u2014\u2014 walking on the railroad\nbetween the depot and the back road. It was something quite novel to\nsee him there, though the railroad there is only a short thoroughfare\nto the public road. It then occurred to me that I had never met Mr.\nH. on the railroad, though he walks every day, and moreover that it\nwould be quite impossible for him to walk on the railroad, such a\nformalist as he is, such strait-jackets we weave for ourselves. He\ncould do nothing that was not sanctioned by the longest use of men,\nand as men had voted in all their assemblies from the first to travel\non the public way, he would confine himself to that. It would no doubt\nseem to him very improper, not to say undignified, to walk on the\nrailroad; and then, is it not forbidden by the railroad corporations?\nI was sure he could not keep the railroad, but was merely using the\nthoroughfare here which a thousand pioneers had prepared for him. I\nstood to see what he would do. He turned off the rails directly on to\nthe back road and pursued his walk. A passing train will never meet him\non the railroad causeway. How much of the life of certain men _goes_ to\nsustain, to make respected, the institutions of society. They are the\nones who pay the heaviest tax. Here are certain valuable institutions\nwhich can only be sustained by a wonderful strain which appears all to\ncome upon certain Spartans who volunteer. Certain men are always to be\nfound\u2014especially the children of our present institutions\u2014who are born\nwith an instinct to perceive them. They are, in effect, supported by\na fund which society possesses for that end, or they receive a pension\nand their life _seems_ to be a sinecure,\u2014but it is not. The unwritten\nlaws are the most stringent. They are required to wear a certain\ndress. What an array of gentlemen whose sole employment\u2014and it is no\nsinecure\u2014is to support their dignity, and with it the dignity of so\nmany indispensable institutions!\n\nThe use of many vegetables\u2014wild plants\u2014for food, which botanists\nrelate, such as Kalm at Cap aux Oyes on the St. Lawrence, _viz._ the\nsea plantain, sea-rocket, sweet-gale, etc., etc., making us feel the\npoorer at first because we never use them, really advertises us of our\nsuperior riches, and shows to what extremities men have been driven in\ntimes of scarcity. No people that fare as well as we will grub these\nweeds out of the seashore.\n\n * * * * *\n\n2 P. M.\u2014To Hapgood\u2019s in Acton direct, returning _via_ Strawberry Hill\nand Smith\u2019s Road.\n\nThe ripening grapes begin to fill the air with their fragrance. The\nvervain will hardly do for a clock, for I perceive that some later\nand smaller specimens have not much more than begun to blossom, while\nmost have done. Saw a tall pear tree by the roadside beyond Harris\u2019s\nin front of Hapgood\u2019s. Saw the lambkill (_Kalmia angustifolia_) in\nblossom\u2014a few fresh blossoms at _the ends_ of the fresh twigs\u2014on\nStrawberry Hill, beautiful bright flowers. Apparently a new spring with\nit, while seed vessels, apparently of this year, hung dry below.\n\nFrom Strawberry Hill the first, but a very slight, glimpse of Nagog\nPond by standing up on the wall. That is enough to relate of a hill,\nmethinks, that its elevation gives you the first sight of some distant\nlake. The horizon is remarkably blue with mist this afternoon. Looking\nfrom this hill over Acton, successive valleys filled with blue mist\nappear, and divided by darker lines of wooded hills. The shadows of the\nelms are deepened, as if the whole atmosphere were permeated by floods\nof ether. Annursnack never looked so well as now seen from this hill.\nThe ether gives a velvet softness to the whole landscape. The hills\nfloat in it. A blue veil is drawn over the earth.\n\nThe elecampane (_Inula Helenium_), with its broad leaves wrinkled\nunderneath and the remains of sunflower-like blossoms, in front of\nNathan Brooks\u2019s, Acton, and near J. H. Wheeler\u2019s. _Prenanthes alba_;\nthis Gray calls _Nabalus albus_, white lettuce or rattlesnake-root.\nAlso I _seem_ (?) to have found _Nabalus Fraseri_, or lion\u2019s-foot.\n\nEvery morning for a week there has been a fog which all disappeared by\nseven or eight o\u2019clock.\n\nA large field of sunflowers for hens now in full bloom at Temple\u2019s,\nsurrounding the house, and now, at 6 o\u2019clock P. M., facing the east.\n\nThe larches in the front yards, both Scotch and American, have turned\nred. Their fall has come.\n\n\n_Sept. 7._ We sometimes experience a mere fullness of life, which\ndoes not find any channels to flow into. We are stimulated, but to\nno obvious purpose. I feel myself uncommonly prepared for _some_\nliterary work, but I can select no work. I am prepared not so much for\ncontemplation, as for forceful expression. I am braced both physically\nand intellectually. It is not so much the music as the marching to\nthe music that I feel. I feel that the juices of the fruits which I\nhave eaten, the melons and apples, have ascended to my brain and are\nstimulating it. They give me a heady force. Now I can write nervously.\nCarlyle\u2019s writing is for the most part of this character.\n\nMiss Martineau\u2019s last book is not so bad as the timidity which fears\nits influence. As if the popularity of this or that book would be so\nfatal, and man would not still be man in the world. Nothing is so much\nto be feared as fear. Atheism may comparatively be popular with God\nhimself.[352]\n\nWhat shall we say of these timid folk who carry the principle of\nthinking nothing and doing nothing and being nothing to such an\nextreme? As if, in the absence of thought, that vast yearning of their\nnatures for something to fill the vacuum made the least traditionary\nexpression and shadow of a thought to be clung to with instinctive\ntenacity. They atone for their producing nothing by a brutish respect\nfor something. They are as simple as oxen, and as guiltless of thought\nand reflection. Their reflections are reflected from other minds. The\ncreature of institutions, bigoted and a conservatist, can say nothing\nhearty. He cannot meet life with life, but only with words. He rebuts\nyou by avoiding you. He is shocked like a woman.\n\nOur ecstatic states, which appear to yield so little fruit, have this\nvalue at least: though in the seasons when our genius reigns we may be\npowerless for expression, yet, in calmer seasons, when our talent is\nactive, the memory of those rarer moods comes to color our picture and\nis the permanent paint-pot, as it were, into which we dip our brush.\nThus no life or experience goes unreported at last; but if it be not\nsolid gold it is gold-leaf, which gilds the furniture of the mind.\nIt is an experience of infinite beauty on which we unfailingly draw,\nwhich enables us to exaggerate ever truly. Our moments of inspiration\nare not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for\nthose experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever\nand anon reminded of them. Their truth subsides, and in cooler moments\nwe can use them as paint to gild and adorn our prose. When I despair\nto sing them, I will remember that they will furnish me with paint\nwith which to adorn and preserve the works of talent one day. They are\nlike a pot of pure ether. They lend the writer when the moment comes\na certain superfluity of wealth, making his expression to overrun and\nfloat itself. It is the difference between our river, now parched and\ndried up, exposing its unsightly and weedy bottom, and the same when,\nin the spring, it covers all the meads with a chain of placid lakes,\nreflecting the forests and the skies.\n\nWe are receiving our portion of the infinite. The art of life! Was\nthere ever anything memorable written upon it? By what disciplines\nto secure the most life, with what care to watch our thoughts. To\nobserve what transpires, not in the street, but in the mind and heart\nof me! I do not remember any page which will tell me how to spend this\nafternoon. I do not so much wish to know how to economize time as how\nto spend it, by what means to grow rich, that the day may not have been\nin vain.\n\nWhat if one moon has come and gone with its world of poetry, its weird\nteachings, its oracular suggestions? So divine a creature, freighted\nwith hints for me, and I not use her! One moon gone by unnoticed!!\nSuppose you attend to the hints, to the suggestions, which the moon\nmakes for one month,\u2014commonly in vain,\u2014will they not be very different\nfrom anything in literature or religion or philosophy?[353]\n\nThe scenery, when it is truly seen, reacts on the life of the seer.\nHow to live. How to get the most life. As if you were to teach the\nyoung hunter how to entrap his game. How to extract its honey from the\nflower of the world. That is my every-day business. I am as busy as a\nbee about it. I ramble over all fields on that errand, and am never\nso happy as when I feel myself heavy with honey and wax. I am like\na bee searching the livelong day for the sweets of nature. Do I not\nimpregnate and intermix the flowers, produce rare and finer varieties\nby transferring my eyes from one to another? I do as naturally and as\njoyfully, with my own humming music, seek honey all the day. With what\nhoneyed thought any experience yields me I take a bee line to my cell.\nIt is with flowers I would deal. Where is the flower, there is the\nhoney,\u2014which is perchance the nectareous portion of the fruit,\u2014there\nis to be the fruit, and no doubt flowers are thus colored and painted\nto attract and guide the bee. So by the dawning or radiance of beauty\nare we advertised where is the honey and the fruit of thought, of\ndiscourse, and of action. We are first attracted by the beauty of the\nflower, before we discover the honey which is a foretaste of the future\nfruit. Did not the young Achilles (?) spend his youth learning how\nto hunt? The art of spending a day. If it is possible that we may be\naddressed, it behooves us to be attentive. If by watching all day and\nall night I may detect some trace of the Ineffable, then will it not\nbe worth the while to watch? Watch and pray without ceasing, but not\nnecessarily in sadness. Be of good cheer. Those Jews were too sad: to\nanother people a still deeper revelation may suggest only joy. Don\u2019t I\nknow what gladness is? Is it but the reflex of sadness, its back side?\nIn the Hebrew gladness, I hear but too distinctly still the sound of\nsadness retreating. Give me a gladness which has never given place to\nsadness.\n\nI am convinced that men are not well employed, that this is not the\nway to spend a day. If by patience, if by watching, I can secure one\nnew ray of light, can feel myself elevated for an instant upon Pisgah,\nthe world which was dead prose to me become living and divine, shall I\nnot watch ever? shall I not be a watchman henceforth? If by watching\na whole year on the city\u2019s walls I may obtain a communication from\nheaven, shall I not do well to shut up my shop and turn a watchman?\nCan a youth, a man, do more wisely than to go where his life is to [be]\nfound? As if I had suffered that to be rumor which may be verified. We\nare surrounded by a rich and fertile mystery. May we not probe it, pry\ninto it, employ ourselves about it, a little? To devote your life to\nthe discovery of the divinity in nature or to the eating of oysters,\nwould they not be attended with very different results?\n\nI cannot _easily_ buy a blank-book to write thoughts in; they are all\nruled for dollars and cents.[354]\n\nIf the wine, the water, which will nourish me grows on the surface of\nthe moon, I will do the best I can to go to the moon for it.\n\nThe discoveries which we make abroad are special and particular; those\nwhich we make at home are general and significant. The further off, the\nnearer the surface. The nearer home, the deeper. Go in search of the\nsprings of life, and you will get exercise enough. Think of a man\u2019s\nswinging dumb-bells for his health, when those springs are bubbling\nin far-off pastures unsought by him! The seeming necessity of swinging\ndumb-bells proves that he has lost his way.[355]\n\nTo watch for, describe, all the divine features which I detect in\nNature.\n\nMy profession is to be always on the alert to find God in nature, to\nknow his lurking-places, to attend all the oratorios, the operas, in\nnature.\n\nThe mind may perchance be persuaded to act, to energize, by the action\nand energy of the body. Any kind of liquid will fetch the pump.\n\nWe all have our states of fullness and of emptiness, but we overflow\nat different points. One overflows through the sensual outlets, another\nthrough his heart, another through his head, and another perchance only\nthrough the higher part of his head, or his poetic faculty. It depends\non where each is tight and open. We can, perchance, then direct our\nnutriment to those organs we specially use.\n\nHow happens it that there are few men so well employed,\u2014so much to\ntheir mind,\u2014but that a little money or fame would buy them off from\ntheir present pursuits?\n\nTo Conantum _via_ fields, Hubbard\u2019s Grove, and grain-field, to Tupelo\nCliff and Conantum and returning over peak same way. 6 P. M.\n\nI hear no larks sing at evening as in the spring, nor robins; only a\nfew distressed notes from the robin. In Hubbard\u2019s grain-field beyond\nthe brook, now the sun is down. The air is very still. There is a fine\nsound of crickets, not loud. The woods and single trees are heavier\nmasses in the landscape than in the spring. Night has more allies.\nThe heavy shadows of woods and trees are remarkable now. The meadows\nare green with their second crop. I hear only a tree-toad or song\nsparrow singing as in spring, at long intervals. The Roman wormwood is\nbeginning to yellow-green my shoes,\u2014intermingled with the blue-curls\nover the sand in this grain-field. Perchance some poet likened this\nyellow dust to the ambrosia of the gods. The birds are remarkably\nsilent. At the bridge perceive the bats are out. And the yet silvery\nmoon, not quite full, is reflected in the water. The water is perfectly\nstill, and there is a red tinge from the evening sky in it.\n\nThe sky is singularly marked this evening. There are bars or rays of\nnebulous light springing from the western horizon where the sun has\ndisappeared, and alternating with beautiful blue rays, more blue by\nfar than any other portion of the sky. These continue to diverge till\nthey have reached the middle, and then converge to the eastern horizon,\nmaking a symmetrical figure like the divisions of a muskmelon, not very\nbright, yet distinct, though growing less and less bright toward the\neast. It was a quite remarkable phenomenon encompassing the heavens,\nas if you were to behold the divisions of a muskmelon thus alternately\ncolored from within it. A proper vision, a colored mist. The most\nbeautiful thing in nature is the sun reflected from a tearful cloud.\nThese white and blue ribs embraced the earth. The two outer blues much\nthe brightest and matching one another.\n\nYou hear the hum of mosquitoes.\n\nGoing up the road. The sound of the crickets is now much more universal\nand loud. Now in the fields I see the white streak of the neottia in\nthe twilight. The whip-poor-wills sing far off. I smell burnt land\nsomewhere. At Tupelo Cliff I hear the sound of singers on the river,\nyoung men and women,\u2014which is unusual here,\u2014returning from their row.\nMan\u2019s voice, thus uttered, fits well the spaces. It fills nature. And,\nafter all, the singing of men is something far grander than any natural\nsound. It is wonderful that men do not oftener sing in the fields,\nby day and night. I bathe at the north side the Cliff, while the moon\nshines round the end of the rock. The opposite Cliff is reflected in\nthe water. Then sit on the south side of the Cliff in the woods. One\nor two fireflies. Could it be a glow-worm? I thought I saw one or two\nin the air. That is all in this walk. I hear a whip-poor-will uttering\na cluck of suspicion in my rear. He is suspicious and inquisitive.\nThe river stretches off southward from me. I see the sheeny portions\nof its western shore interruptedly for a quarter of a mile, where\nthe moonlight is reflected from the pads, a strong, gleaming light\nwhile the water is lost in the obscurity. I hear the sound from time\nto time of a leaping fish, or a frog, or a muskrat, or turtle. It is\neven warmer, _methinks_, than it was in August, and it is perfectly\nclear,\u2014the air. I know not how it is that this universal crickets\u2019\ncreak should sound thus regularly intermittent, as if for the most part\nthey fell in with one another and creaked in time, making a certain\npulsing sound, a sort of breathing or panting of all nature. You sit\ntwenty feet above the still river; see the sheeny pads, and the moon,\nand some bare tree-tops in the distant horizon. Those bare tree-tops\nadd greatly to the wildness.\n\nLower down I see the moon in the water as bright as in the heavens;\nonly the water-bugs disturb its disk; and now I catch a faint glassy\nglare from the whole river surface, which before was simply dark. This\nis set in a frame of double darkness on the east, _i. e._ the reflected\nshore of woods and hills and the reality, the shadow and the substance,\nbipartite, answering to each.\n\nI see the northern lights over my shoulder, to remind me of the\nEsquimaux and that they are still my contemporaries on this globe,\nthat they too are taking their walks on another part of the planet,\nin pursuit of seals, perchance.[356] The stars are dimly reflected in\nthe water. The path of water-bugs in the moon\u2019s rays is like ripples\nof light. It is only when you stand fronting the sun or moon that\nyou see their light reflected in the water. I hear no frogs these\nnights,\u2014bullfrogs or others,\u2014as in the spring. It is not the season of\nsound.\n\nAt Conantum end, just under the wall. From this point and at this\nheight I do not perceive any bright or yellowish light on Fair Haven,\nbut an oily and glass-like smoothness on its southwestern bay, through\na very slight mistiness. Two or three pines appear to stand in the\nmoonlit air on this side of the pond, while the enlightened portion of\nthe water is bounded by the heavy reflection of the wood on the east.\nIt was so soft and velvety a light as contained a thousand placid days\nsweetly put to rest in the bosom of the water. So looked the North Twin\nLake in the Maine woods. It reminds me of placid lakes in the mid-noon\nof Indian summer days, but yet more placid and civilized, suggesting\na higher cultivation, as the wild ever does, which \u00e6ons of summer days\nhave gone to make. Like a summer day seen far away. All the effects of\nsunlight, with a softer tone; and all this stillness of the water and\nthe air superadded, and the witchery of the hour. What gods are they\nthat require so fair a vase of gleaming water to their prospect in\nthe midst of the wild woods by night? Else why this beauty allotted to\nnight, a gem to sparkle in the zone of night? They are strange gods now\nout; methinks their names are not in any mythology.[357] I can faintly\ntrace its zigzag border of sheeny pads even here. If such is then to\nbe seen in remotest wildernesses, does it not suggest its own nymphs\nand wood gods to enjoy it? As when, at middle of the placid noon in\nIndian-summer days, all the surface of a lake is as one cobweb gleaming\nin the sun, which heaves gently to the passing zephyr. There was the\nlake, its glassy surface just distinguishable, its sheeny shore of\npads, with a few pines bathed in light on its hither shore, just as in\nthe middle of a November day, except that this was the chaster light\nof the moon, the cooler temperature of the night, and there were the\ndeep shades of night that fenced it round and imbosomed. It tells of a\nfar-away, long-passed civilization, of an antiquity superior to time,\nunappreciable by time.\n\nIs there such virtue in raking cranberries that those men\u2019s industry\nwhom I now see on the meadow shall reprove my idleness? Can I not\ngo over those same meadows after them, and rake still more valuable\nfruits? Can I not rake with my mind? Can I not rake a thought,\nperchance, which shall be worth a bushel of cranberries?\n\nA certain refinement and civilization in nature which increases with\nthe wildness. The civilization that consists with wildness, the light\nthat is in night. A smile as in a dream on the face of the sleeping\nlake. There is light enough to show what we see, what _night_ has to\nexhibit. Any more would obscure these objects. I am not advertised\nof any deficiency of light.[358] The actual is fair as a vision\nor a dream. If ever we have attained to any nobleness, even in our\nimagination and intentions, that will surely ennoble the features of\nnature for us, that will clothe them with beauty. Of course no jeweller\never dealt with a gem so fair and suggestive as this actual lake, the\nscene, it may be, of so much noble and poetic life, and not merely [to]\nadorn some monarch\u2019s crown.\n\nIt is remarkably still at this hour and season. No sound of bird or\nbeast for the most part. This has none of the reputed noxious qualities\nof night.\n\nOn the peak. The faint sounds of birds, dreaming aloud in the night,\nthe fresh, cool air, and sound of the wind rushing over the rocks\nremind me of the tops of mountains. That is, all the earth is but\nthe outside of the planet bordering on the hard-eyed sky. Equally\nwithdrawn and near to heaven is this pasture as the summit of the White\nMountains. All the earth\u2019s surface like a mountain-top, for I see its\nrelation to heaven as simply, and am not imposed upon by a difference\nof a few feet in elevation. In this faint, hoary light, all fields\nare like a mossy rock and remote from the cultivated plains of day.\nAll is equally savage, equally solitary and cool-aired, and the slight\ndifference in elevation is felt to be unimportant. It is all one with\nCaucasus, the slightest hill pasture.\n\nThe basswood had a singularly solid look and sharply defined, as by a\nweb or film, as if its leaves covered it like scales.\n\nScared up a whip-poor-will on the ground on the hill. Will not my\ntownsmen consider me a benefactor if I conquer some realms from the\nnight, if I can show them that there is some beauty awake while they\nare asleep, if I add to the domains of poetry,[359] if I report to the\ngazettes anything transpiring in our midst worthy of man\u2019s attention?\nI will say nothing now to the disparagement of Day, for he is not here\nto defend himself.\n\nThe northern lights now, as I descend from the Conantum house, have\nbecome a crescent of light crowned with short, shooting flames,\u2014or the\nshadows of flames, for sometimes they are dark as well as white. There\nis scarcely any dew even in the low lands.\n\nNow the fire in the north increases wonderfully, not shooting up so\nmuch as creeping along, like a fire on the mountains of the north\nseen afar in the night. The Hyperborean gods are burning brush, and\nit spread, and all the hoes in heaven couldn\u2019t stop it. It spread\nfrom west to east over the crescent hill. Like a vast fiery worm it\nlay across the northern sky, broken into many pieces; and each piece,\nwith rainbow colors skirting it, strove to advance itself toward the\neast, worm-like, on its own annular muscles. It has spread into their\nchoicest wood-lots. Now it shoots up like a single solitary watch-fire\nor burning bush, or where it ran up a pine tree like powder, and\nstill it continues to gleam here and there like a fat stump in the\nburning, and is reflected in the water. And now I see the gods by great\nexertions have got it under, and the stars have come out without fear,\nin peace.\n\nThough no birds sing, the crickets vibrate their shrill and stridulous\ncymbals, especially on the alders of the causeway, those minstrels\nespecially engaged for Night\u2019s quire.[360]\n\nIt takes some time to wear off the trivial impression which the day has\nmade, and thus the first hours of night are sometimes lost.\n\nThere were two hen-hawks soared and circled for our entertainment, when\nwe were in the woods on that Boon Plain the other day, crossing each\nother\u2019s orbits from time to time, alternating like the squirrels of the\nmorning, till, alarmed by our imitation of a hawk\u2019s shrill cry, they\ngradually inflated themselves, made themselves more aerial, and rose\nhigher and higher into the heavens, and were at length lost to sight;\nyet all the while earnestly looking, scanning the surface of the earth\nfor a stray mouse or rabbit.[361]\n\n\n_Sept. 8._ No fog this morning. Shall I not have words as fresh as\nmy thoughts? Shall I use any other man\u2019s word? A genuine thought\nor feeling can find expression for itself, if it have to invent\nhieroglyphics. It has the universe for type-metal. It is for want of\noriginal thought that one man\u2019s style is like another\u2019s.\n\n * * * * *\n\nCertainly the voice of no bird or beast can be compared with that of\nman for true melody. All other sounds seem to be hushed, as if their\npossessors were attending, when the voice of man is heard in melody.\nThe air gladly bears the burden. It is infinitely significant. Man only\nsings in concert. The bird\u2019s song is a mere interjectional shout of\njoy; man\u2019s a glorious expression of the foundations of his joy.\n\nDo not the song of birds and the fireflies go with the grass? While\nthe grass is fresh, the earth is in its vigor. The greenness of the\ngrass is the best symptom or evidence of the earth\u2019s youth or health.\nPerhaps it will be found that when the grass ceases to be fresh and\ngreen, or after June, the birds have ceased to sing, and that the\nfireflies, too, no longer in _myriads_ sparkle in the meadows. Perhaps\na history of the year would be a history of the grass, or of a leaf,\nregarding the grass-blades as leaves, for it is equally true that the\nleaves soon lose their freshness and soundness, and become the prey\nof insects and of drought. Plants commonly soon cease to grow for the\nyear, unless they may have a fall growth, which is a kind of second\nspring. In the feelings of the man, too, the year is already past, and\nhe looks forward to the coming winter. His occasional rejuvenescence\nand faith in the current time is like the aftermath, a scanty crop.\nThe enterprise which he has not already undertaken cannot be undertaken\nthis year. The period of youth is past. The year may be in its summer,\nin its manhood, but it is no longer in the flower of its age. It is a\nseason of withering, of dust and heat, a season of small fruits and\ntrivial experiences. Summer thus answers to manhood. But there is\nan aftermath in early autumn, and some spring flowers bloom again,\nfollowed by an Indian summer of finer atmosphere and of a pensive\nbeauty. May my life be not destitute of its Indian summer, a season of\nfine and clear, mild weather in which I may prolong my hunting before\nthe winter comes, when I may once more lie on the ground with faith, as\nin spring, and even with more serene confidence. And then I will [wrap\nthe] drapery of summer about me and lie down to pleasant dreams. As one\nyear passes into another through the medium of winter, so does this our\nlife pass into another through the medium of death.\n\nDe Quincey and Dickens have not moderation enough. They never stutter;\nthey flow too readily.\n\nThe tree-primrose and the dwarf ditto and epilobium still. Locust is\nheard. _Aster amplexicaulis_, beautiful blue, purplish blue (?), about\ntwenty-four rayed. _Utricularia vulgaris_, bladderwort. Dandelion and\nhoustonia.\n\n\n_Sept. 9._ 2 A. M.\u2014The moon not quite full. To Conantum _via_ road.\n\nThere is a low vapor in the meadows beyond the depot, dense and\nwhite, though scarcely higher than a man\u2019s head, concealing the stems\nof the trees. I see that the oaks, which are so dark and distinctly\noutlined, are illumined by the moon on the opposite side. This as\nI go up the back road. A few thin, ineffectual clouds in the sky. I\ncome out thus into the moonlit night, where men are not, as if into a\nscenery anciently deserted by men. The life of men is like a dream.\nIt is three thousand years since night has had possession. Go forth\nand hear the crickets chirp at midnight. Hear if their dynasty is not\nan ancient one and well founded. I feel the antiquity of the night.\nShe surely repossesses herself of her realms, as if her dynasty were\nuninterrupted, or she had underlain the day. No sounds but the steady\ncreaking of crickets and the occasional crowing of cocks.\n\nI go by the farmer\u2019s houses and barns, standing there in the dim light\nunder the trees, as if they lay at an immense distance or under a veil.\nThe farmer and his oxen now all asleep. Not even a watch-dog awake. The\nhuman slumbers. There is less of man in the world.\n\nThe fog in the lowlands on the Corner road is never still. It now\nadvances and envelops me as I stand to write these words, then clears\naway, with ever noiseless step. It covers the meadows like a web. I\nhear the clock strike three.\n\nNow at the clayey bank. The light of Orion\u2019s belt seems to show traces\nof the blue day through which it came to us. The sky at least is\nlighter on that side than in the west, even about the moon. Even by\nnight the sky is blue and not black, for we see through the veil of\nnight into the distant atmosphere of day. I see to the plains of the\nsun, where the sunbeams are revelling. The cricket\u2019s (?) song, on the\nalders of the causeway, not quite so loud at this hour as at evening.\nThe moon is getting low. I hear a wagon cross one of the bridges\nleading into the town. I see the moonlight at this hour on a different\nside of objects. I smell the ripe apples many rods off beyond the\nbridge. A sultry night; a thin coat is enough.\n\nOn the first top of Conantum. I hear the farmer harnessing his horse\nand starting for the distant market, but no man harnesses himself, and\nstarts for worthier enterprises. One cock-crow tells the whole story of\nthe farmer\u2019s life. The moon is now sinking into clouds in the horizon.\nI see the glow-worms deep in the grass by the little brookside in midst\nof Conantum. The moon shines dun and red. A solitary whip-poor-will\nsings.\n\nThe clock strikes four. A few dogs bark. A few more wagons start for\nmarket, their faint rattling heard in the distance. I hear my owl\nwithout a name; the murmur of the slow-approaching freight-train, as\nfar off, perchance, as Waltham; and one early bird.\n\nThe round, red moon disappearing in the west. I detect a whiteness in\nthe east. Some dark, massive clouds have come over from the west within\nthe hour, as if attracted by the approaching sun, and have arranged\nthemselves raywise about the eastern portal, as if to bar his coming.\nThey have moved suddenly and almost unobservedly quite across the sky\n(which before was clear) from west to east. No trumpet was heard which\nmarshalled and advanced these dark masses of the west\u2019s forces thus\nrapidly against the coming day. Column after column the mighty west\nsent forth across the sky while men slept, but all in vain.\n\nThe eastern horizon is now grown dun-colored, showing where the\nadvanced guard of the night are already skirmishing with the vanguard\nof the sun, a lurid light tingeing the atmosphere there, while a\ndark-columned cloud hangs imminent over the broad portal, untouched by\nthe glare. Some bird flies over, making a noise like the barking of a\npuppy.[362] It is yet so dark that I have dropped my pencil and cannot\nfind it.\n\nThe sound of the cars is like that of a rushing wind. They come\non slowly. I thought at first a morning wind was rising. And now\n(perchance at half-past four) I hear the sound of some far-off\nfactory-bell arousing the operatives to their early labors. It sounds\nvery sweet here. It is very likely some factory which I have never\nseen, in some valley which I have never visited; yet now I hear this,\nwhich is its only matin bell, sweet and inspiring as if it summoned\nholy men and maids to worship and not factory girls and men to resume\ntheir trivial toil, as if it were the summons of some religious or even\npoetic community. My first impression is that it is the matin bell of\nsome holy community who in a distant valley dwell, a band of spiritual\nknights,\u2014thus sounding far and wide, sweet and sonorous, in harmony\nwith their own morning thoughts. What else could I suppose fitting this\nearth and hour? Some man of high resolve, devoted soul, has touched the\nrope; and by its peals how many men and maids are waked from peaceful\nslumbers to fragrant morning thoughts! Why should I fear to tell that\nit is Knight\u2019s factory-bell at Assabet? A few melodious peals and all\nis still again.\n\nThe whip-poor-wills now begin to sing in earnest about half an hour\nbefore sunrise, as if making haste to improve the short time that is\nleft them. As far as my observation goes, they sing for several hours\nin the early part of the night, are silent commonly at midnight,\u2014though\nyou may meet [them] then sitting on a rock or flitting silently\nabout,\u2014then sing again just before sunrise. It grows more and more red\nin the east\u2014a fine-grained red under the overhanging cloud\u2014and lighter\ntoo, and the threatening clouds are falling off to southward of the\nsun\u2019s passage, shrunken and defeated, leaving his path comparatively\nclear. The increased light shows more distinctly the river and the fog.\n\n5 o\u2019clock.\u2014The light now reveals a thin film of vapor like a gossamer\nveil cast over the lower hills beneath the Cliffs and stretching to the\nriver, thicker in the ravines, thinnest on the even slopes. The distant\nmeadows towards the north beyond Conant\u2019s Grove, full of fog, appear\nlike a vast lake out of which rise Annursnack and Ponkawtasset like\nrounded islands. Nawshawtuct is a low and wooded isle, scarcely seen\nabove the waves. The heavens are now clear again. The vapor, which was\nconfined to the river and meadows, now rises and creeps up the sides\nof the hills. I see it in transparent columns advancing down the valley\nof the river, ghost-like, from Fair Haven, and investing some wooded or\nrocky promontory, before free. So ghosts are said to advance.\n\nAnnursnack is exactly like some round, steep, distant hill on the\nopposite shore of a large lake (and Tabor on the other side), with here\nand there some low Brush Island in middle of the waves (the tops of\nsome oaks or elms). Oh, what a sail I could take, if I had the right\nkind of bark, over to Annursnack! for there she lies four miles from\nland as sailors say. And all the farms and houses of Concord are at\nbottom of that sea. So I forget them, and my thought sails triumphantly\nover them. As I looked down where the village of Concord lay buried in\nfog, I thought of nothing but the surface of a lake, a summer sea over\nwhich to sail; no more than a voyager on the Dead Sea who had not read\nthe Testament would think of Sodom and Gomorrah, once cities of the\nplain. I only wished to get off to one of the low isles I saw in midst\nof the [sea] (it may have been the top of Holbrook\u2019s elm), and spend\nthe whole summer day there.\n\nMeanwhile the redness in the east had diminished and was less deep.\n(The fog over some meadows looked green.) I went down to Tupelo Cliff\nto bathe. A great bittern, which I had scared, flew heavily across\nthe stream. The redness had risen at length above the dark cloud, the\nsun approaching. And next the redness became a sort of yellowish or\nfawn-colored light, and the sun now set fire to the edges of the broken\ncloud which had hung over the horizon, and they glowed like burning\nturf.\n\n\n_Sept. 10._ As I watch the groves on the meadow opposite our house, I\nsee how differently they look at different hours of the day, _i. e._\nin different lights, when the sun shines on them variously. In the\nmorning, perchance, they seem one blended mass of light green. In the\nafternoon, distinct trees appear, separated by heavy shadows, and in\nsome places I can see quite through the grove.\n\n3 P. M.\u2014To the Cliffs and the Grape Cliff beyond.\n\nHardhack and meadow-sweet are now all dry. I see the smoke of burning\nbrush in the west horizon this dry and sultry afternoon, and wish to\nlook off from some hill. It is a kind of work the farmer cannot do\nwithout discovery. Sometimes I smell these smokes several miles off,\nand by the odor know it is not a burning building, but withered leaves\nand the rubbish of the woods and swamp. As I go through the woods, I\nsee that the ferns have turned brown and give the woods an autumnal\nlook. The boiling spring is almost completely dry. Nothing flows (I\nmean without the shed), but there are many hornets and yellow wasps\napparently buzzing and circling about in jealousy of one another,\neither drinking the stagnant water, which is the most accessible this\ndry parching day, or it may be collecting something from the slime,\u2014I\nthink the former.\n\nAs I go up Fair Haven Hill, I see some signs of the approaching fall\nof the white pine. On some trees the old leaves are already somewhat\nreddish, though not enough to give the trees a parti-colored look, and\nthey come off easily on being touched,\u2014the old leaves on the lower part\nof the twigs.\n\nSome farmers are sowing their winter rye? I see the fields smoothly\nrolled. (I hear the locust still.) I see others plowing steep rocky\nand bushy fields, apparently for the same purpose. How beautiful\nthe sprout-land (burnt plain) seen from the Cliff! No more cheering\nand inspiring sight than a young wood springing up thus over a large\ntract, when you look down on it, the light green of the maples shaded\noff into the darker oaks; and here and there a maple blushes quite\nred, enlivening the scene yet more. Surely this earth is fit to be\ninhabited, and many enterprises may be undertaken with hope where so\nmany young plants are pushing up. In the spring I burned over a hundred\nacres till the earth was sere and black, and by midsummer this space\nwas clad in a fresher and more luxuriant green than the surrounding\neven. Shall man then despair? Is he not a sprout-land too, after\nnever so many searings and witherings?[363] If you witness growth and\nluxuriance, it is all the same as if you grew luxuriantly.\n\nI see three smokes in Stow. One sends up dark volumes of wreathed\nsmoke, as if from the mouth of Erebus. It is remarkable what\neffects so thin and subtile a substance as smoke produces, even at a\ndistance,\u2014dark and heavy and powerful as rocks at a distance.\n\nThe woodbine is red on the rocks.\n\nThe poke is a very rich and striking plant. Some which stand under the\nCliffs quite dazzled me with their now purple stems gracefully drooping\neach way, their rich, somewhat yellowish, purple-veined leaves, their\nbright purple racemes,\u2014peduncles, and pedicels, and calyx-like petals\nfrom which the birds have picked the berries (these racemes, with their\npetals now turned to purple, are more brilliant than anything of the\nkind),\u2014flower-buds, flowers, ripe berries and dark purple ones, and\ncalyx-like petals which have lost their fruit, all on the same plant. I\nlove to see any redness in the vegetation of the temperate zone. It is\nthe richest color. I love to press these berries between my fingers and\nsee their rich purple wine staining my hand. It asks a bright sun on it\nto make it show to best advantage, and it must be seen at this season\nof the year. It speaks to my blood. Every part of it is flower, such is\nits superfluity of color,\u2014a feast of color. That is the richest flower\nwhich most abounds in color. What need to taste the fruit, to drink the\nwine, to him who can thus taste and drink with his eyes? Its boughs,\ngracefully drooping, offering repasts to the birds. It is cardinal in\nits rank, as in its color. Nature here is full of blood and heat and\nluxuriance. What a triumph it appears in Nature to have produced and\nperfected such a plant,\u2014as if this were enough for a summer.[364]\n\nThe downy seeds of the groundsel are taking their flight here. The\ncalyx has dismissed them and quite curled back, having done its part.\n_Lespedeza sessiliflora_, or reticulated lespedeza on the Cliffs now\nout of bloom. At the Grape Cliff, the few bright-red leaves of the\ntupelo contrast with the polished green ones. The tupelos with drooping\nbranches.\n\nThe grape-vines overrunning and bending down the maples form little\narching bowers over the meadow, five or six feet in diameter, like\nparasols held over the ladies of the harem, in the East. _Cuscuta\nAmericana_, or dodder, in blossom still. The _Desmodium paniculatum_ of\nDe Candolle and Gray (_Hedysarum paniculatum_ of Linn\u00e6us and Bigelow),\ntick-trefoil, with still one blossom, by the path-side up from the\nmeadow. The rhomboidal joints of its loments adhere to my clothes. One\nof an interesting family that thus disperse themselves. The oak-ball of\ndirty drab now.[365]\n\n\n_Sept. 11._ Every artisan learns positively something by his trade.\nEach craft is familiar with a few simple, well-known, well-established\nfacts, not requiring any genius to discover, but mere use and\nfamiliarity. You may go by the man at his work in the street every\nday of your life, and though he is there before you, carrying into\npractice certain essential information, you shall never be the wiser.\nEach trade is in fact a craft, a cunning, a covering an ability;\nand its methods are the result of a long experience. There sits a\nstone-mason, splitting Westford granite for fence-posts. Egypt has\nperchance taught New England something in this matter. His hammer,\nhis chisels, his wedges, his shims or half-rounds, his iron spoon,\u2014I\nsuspect that these tools are hoary with age as with granite dust. He\nlearns as easily where the best granite comes from as he learns how\nto erect that screen to keep off the sun. He knows that he can drill\nfaster into a large stone than a small one, because there is less jar\nand yielding. He deals in stone as the carpenter in lumber. In many of\nhis operations only the materials are different. His work is slow and\nexpensive. Nature is here hard to be overcome. He wears up one or two\ndrills in splitting a single stone. He must sharpen his tools oftener\nthan the carpenter. He fights with granite. He knows the temper of\nthe rocks. He grows stony himself. His tread is ponderous and steady\nlike the fall of a rock. And yet by patience and art he splits a\nstone as surely as the carpenter or woodcutter a log. So much time and\nperseverance will accomplish. One would say that mankind had much less\nmoral than physical energy, that any day you see men following the\ntrade of splitting rocks, who yet shrink from undertaking apparently\nless arduous moral labors, the solving of moral problems. See how\nsurely he proceeds. He does not hesitate to drill a dozen holes, each\none the labor of a day or two for a savage; he carefully takes out the\ndust with his iron spoon; he inserts his wedges, one in each hole, and\nprotects the sides of the holes and gives resistance to his wedges\nby thin pieces of half-round iron (or shims); he marks the red line\nwhich he has drawn, with his chisel, carefully cutting it straight; and\nthen how carefully he drives each wedge in succession, fearful lest he\nshould not have a good split!\n\nThe habit of looking at men in the gross makes their lives have less\nof human interest for us. But though there are crowds of laborers\nbefore us, yet each one leads his little epic life each day. There is\nthe stone-mason, who, methought, was simply a stony man that hammered\nstone from breakfast to dinner, and dinner to supper, and then went to\nhis slumbers. But he, I find, is even a man like myself, for he feels\nthe heat of the sun and has raised some boards on a frame to protect\nhim. And now, at mid-forenoon, I see his wife and child have come and\nbrought him drink and meat for his lunch and to assuage the stoniness\nof his labor, and sit to chat with him.\n\nThere are many rocks lying there for him to split from end to end,\nand he will surely do it. This only at the command of luxury, since\nstone posts are preferred to wood. But how many moral blocks are lying\nthere in every man\u2019s yard, which he surely will not split nor earnestly\nendeavor to split. There lie the blocks which will surely get split,\nbut here lie the blocks which will surely not get split. Do we say\nit is too hard for human faculties? But does not the mason dull a\nbasketful of steel chisels in a day, and yet, by sharpening them again\nand tempering them aright, succeed? Moral effort! Difficulty to be\novercome!!! Why, men work in stone, and sharpen their drills when they\ngo home to dinner!\n\nWhy should Canada, wild and unsettled as it is, impress one as an\nolder country than the States, except that her institutions are old.\nAll things seem to contend there with a certain rust of antiquity,\nsuch as forms on old armor and iron guns, the rust of conventions and\nformalities. If the rust was not on the tinned roofs and spires, it was\non the inhabitants.[366]\n\n * * * * *\n\n2 P. M.\u2014To Hubbard\u2019s Meadow Grove.\n\nThe skunk-cabbage\u2019s checkered fruit (spadix), one three inches long;\nall parts of the flower but the anthers left and enlarged. _Bidens\ncernua_, or nodding burr-marigold, like a small sunflower (with rays)\nin Heywood Brook, _i. e._ beggar-tick. _Bidens connata_ (?), without\nrays, in Hubbard\u2019s Meadow. Blue-eyed grass still. Drooping neottia\nvery common. I see some yellow butterflies and others occasionally and\nsingly only. The smilax berries are mostly turned dark. I started a\ngreat bittern from the weeds at the swimming-place.\n\nIt is very hot and dry weather. We have had no rain for a week, and\nyet the pitcher-plants have water in them. Are they ever quite dry?\nAre they not replenished by the dews always, and, being shaded by the\ngrass, saved from evaporation? What wells for the birds!\n\nThe white-red-purple-berried bush in Hubbard\u2019s Meadow, whose berries\nwere fairest a fortnight ago, appears to be the _Viburnum nudum_,\nor withe-rod. Our cornel (the common) with berries blue one side,\nwhitish the other, appears to be either the _Cornus sericea_ or _C.\nstolonifera_ of Gray, _i. e._ the silky, or the red-osier cornel\n(_osier rouge_), though its leaves are neither silky nor downy nor\nrough.\n\nThis and the last four or five nights have been perhaps the most sultry\nin the year thus far.\n\n\n_Sept. 12._ Not till after 8 A. M. does the fog clear off so much that\nI see the sun shining in patches on Nawshawtuct. This is the season of\nfogs.\n\nLike knight, like esquire. When Benvenuto Cellini was attacked by the\nconstables in Rome, his boy Cencio assisted him, or at least stood by,\nand afterward related his master\u2019s exploits; \u201cand as they asked him\nseveral times whether he had been afraid, he answered that they should\npropose the question to me, for he had been affected upon the occasion\njust in the same manner that I was.\u201d\n\nBenvenuto Cellini relates in his memoirs that, during his confinement\nin the castle of St. Angelo in Rome, he had a terrible dream or vision\nin which certain events were communicated to him which afterward\ncame to pass, and he adds: \u201cFrom the very moment that I beheld the\nphenomenon, there appeared (strange to relate!) a resplendent light\nover my head, which has displayed itself conspicuously to all that\nI have thought proper to show it to, but those were very few. This\nshining light is to be seen in the morning over my shadow till two\no\u2019clock in the afternoon, and it appears to the greatest advantage when\nthe grass is moist with dew: it is likewise visible in the evening\nat sunset. This phenomenon I took notice of when I was at Paris,\nbecause the air is exceedingly clear in that climate, so that I could\ndistinguish it there much plainer than in Italy, where mists are much\nmore frequent; but I can still see it even here, and show it to others,\nthough not to the same advantage as in France.\u201d This reminds me of\nthe halo around my shadow which I notice from the causeway in the\nmorning,\u2014also by moonlight,\u2014as if, in the case of a man of an excitable\nimagination, this were basis enough for his superstition.[367]\n\nAfter I have spent the greater part of a night abroad in the moonlight,\nI am obliged to sleep enough more the next night to make up for\nit,\u2014_Endymionis somnum dormire_ (to sleep an Endymion sleep), as the\nancients expressed it.[368] And there is something gained still by\nthus turning the day into night. Endymion is said to have obtained of\nJupiter the privilege of sleeping as much as he would. Let no man be\nafraid of sleep, if his weariness comes of obeying his Genius. He who\nhas spent the night with the gods sleeps more innocently by day than\nthe sluggard who has spent the day with the satyrs sleeps by night.\nHe who has travelled to fairyland in the night sleeps by day more\ninnocently than he who is fatigued by the merely trivial labors of the\nday sleeps by night. That kind of life which, sleeping, we dream that\nwe live awake, in our walks by night, we, waking, live, while our daily\nlife appears as a dream.\n\n * * * * *\n\n2 P. M.\u2014To the Three Friends\u2019 Hill beyond Flint\u2019s Pond, _via_ railroad,\nR. W. E.\u2019s wood-path south side Walden, George Heywood\u2019s cleared lot,\nand Smith\u2019s orchard; return _via_ east of Flint\u2019s Pond, _via_ Goose\nPond and my old home to railroad.\n\nI go to Flint\u2019s Pond for the sake of the mountain view from the hill\nbeyond, looking over Concord. I have thought it the best, especially\nin the winter, which I can get in this neighborhood. It is worth the\nwhile to see the mountains in the horizon once a day. I have thus seen\nsome earth which corresponds to my least earthly and trivial, to my\nmost heavenward-looking, thoughts. The earth seen through an azure, an\nethereal, veil. They are the natural _temples_, elevated brows, of the\nearth, looking at which, the thoughts of the beholder are naturally\nelevated and sublimed,\u2014etherealized. I wish to see the earth through\nthe medium of much air or heaven, for there is no paint like the air.\nMountains thus seen are worthy of worship. I go to Flint\u2019s Pond also to\nsee a rippling lake and a reedy island in its midst,\u2014Reed Island. A man\nshould feed his senses with the best that the land affords.[369]\n\nAt the entrance to the Deep Cut, I heard the telegraph-wire vibrating\nlike an \u00e6olian harp. It reminded me suddenly,\u2014reservedly, with a\nbeautiful paucity of communication, even silently, such was its\neffect on my thoughts,\u2014it reminded me, I say, with a certain pathetic\nmoderation, of what finer and deeper stirrings I was susceptible,\nwhich grandly set all argument and dispute aside, a triumphant\nthough transient exhibition of the truth. It told me by the faintest\nimaginable strain, it told me by the finest strain that a human ear can\nhear, yet conclusively and past all refutation, that there were higher,\ninfinitely higher, planes of life which it behooved me never to forget.\nAs I was entering the Deep Cut, the wind, which was conveying a message\nto me from heaven, dropped it on the wire of the telegraph which it\nvibrated as it passed. I instantly sat down on a stone at the foot of\nthe telegraph-pole, and attended to the communication. It merely said:\n\u201cBear in mind, Child, and never for an instant forget, that there are\nhigher planes, infinitely higher planes, of life than this thou art\nnow travelling on. Know that the goal is distant, and is upward, and is\nworthy all your life\u2019s efforts to attain to.\u201d And then it ceased, and\nthough I sat some minutes longer I heard nothing more.\n\nThere is every variety and degree of inspiration from mere fullness\nof life to the most rapt mood. A human soul is played on even as\nthis wire, which now vibrates slowly and gently so that the passer\ncan hardly hear it, and anon the sound swells and vibrates with such\nintensity as if it would rend the wire, as far as the elasticity and\ntension of the wire permits, and now it dies away and is silent, and\nthough the breeze continues to sweep over it, no strain comes from\nit, and the traveller hearkens in vain. It is no small gain to have\nthis wire stretched through Concord, though there may be no office\nhere. Thus I make my own use of the telegraph, without consulting the\ndirectors, like the sparrows, which I perceive use it extensively\nfor a perch. Shall I not go to this office to hear if there is\nany communication for me, as steadily as to the post-office in the\nvillage?[370]\n\nI can hardly believe that there is so great a difference between one\nyear and another as my journal shows. The 11th of this month last\nyear, the river was as high as it commonly is in the spring, over the\ncauseway on the Corner road. It is now quite low. Last year, October\n9th, the huckleberries were fresh and abundant on Conantum. They are\nnow already dried up.\n\nWe yearn to see the mountains daily, as the Israelites yearned for the\npromised land, and we daily live the fate of Moses, who only looked\ninto the promised land from Pisgah before he died.\n\nOn Monday, the 15th instant, I am going to perambulate the bounds of\nthe town. As I am partial to across-lot routes, this appears to be a\nvery proper duty for me to perform, for certainly no route can well\nbe chosen which shall be more across-lot, since the roads in no case\nrun round the town but ray out from its centre, and my course will lie\nacross each one. It is almost as if I had undertaken to walk round the\ntown at the greatest distance from its centre and at the same time from\nthe surrounding villages. There is no public house near the line. It\nis a sort of reconnoissance of its frontiers authorized by the central\ngovernment of the town, which will bring the surveyor in contact with\nwhatever wild inhabitant or wilderness its territory embraces.\n\nThis appears to be a very ancient custom, and I find that this word\n\u201cperambulation\u201d has exactly the same meaning that it has at present in\nJohnson and Walker\u2019s dictionary. A hundred years ago they went round\nthe towns of this State every three years. And the old selectmen tell\nme that, before the present split stones were set up in 1829, the\nbounds were marked by a heap of stones, and it was customary for each\nselectman to add a stone to the heap.\n\nSaw a pigeon-place on George Heywood\u2019s cleared lot,\u2014the six dead trees\nset up for the pigeons to alight on, and the brush house close by to\nconceal the man. I was rather startled to find such a thing going now\nin Concord. The pigeons on the trees looked like fabulous birds with\ntheir long tails and their pointed breasts. I could hardly believe\nthey were alive and not some wooden birds used for decoys, they sat\nso still; and, even when they moved their necks, I thought it was the\neffect of art. As they were not catching then, I approached and scared\naway a dozen birds who were perched on the trees, and found that they\nwere freshly baited there, though the net was carried away, perchance\nto some other bed. The smooth sandy bed was covered with buckwheat,\nwheat or rye, and acorns. Sometimes they use corn, shaved off the ear\nin its present state with a knife. There were left the sticks with\nwhich they fastened the nets. As I stood there, I heard a rushing sound\nand, looking up, saw a flock of thirty or forty pigeons dashing toward\nthe _trees_, who suddenly whirled on seeing me and circled round and\nmade a new dash toward the bed, as if they would fain alight if I had\nnot been there, then steered off. I crawled into the bough house and\nlay awhile looking through the leaves, hoping to see them come again\nand feed, but they did not while I stayed. This net and bed belong to\none Harrington of Weston, as I hear. Several men still take pigeons in\nConcord every year; by a method, methinks, extremely old and which I\nseem to have seen pictured in some old book of fables or symbols, and\nyet few in Concord know exactly how it is done. And yet it is all done\nfor money and because the birds fetch a good price, just as the farmers\nraise corn and potatoes. I am always expecting that those engaged in\nsuch a pursuit will be somewhat less grovelling and mercenary than the\nregular trader or farmer, but I fear that it is not so.\n\nFound a violet, apparently _Viola cucullata_, or hood-leaved violet,\nin bloom in Baker\u2019s Meadow beyond Pine Hill; also the _Bidens cernua_,\nnodding burr-marigold, with five petals, in same place. Went through\nthe old corn-field on the hillside beyond, now grown up to birches and\nhickories,\u2014woods where you feel the old corn-hills under your feet;\nfor these, not being disturbed or levelled in getting the crop, like\npotato-hills, last an indefinite while; and by some they are called\nIndian corn-fields, though I think erroneously, not only from their\nposition in rocky soil frequently, but because the squaws probably,\nwith their clamshells or thin stones or wooden hoes, did not hill their\ncorn more than many now recommend.\n\nWhat we call woodbine is the _Vitis hederacea_, or common creeper, or\nAmerican ivy.\n\nWhen I got into the Lincoln road, I perceived a singular sweet scent\nin the air, which I suspected arose from some plant now in a peculiar\nstate owing to the season, but though I smelled everything around,\nI could not detect it, but the more eagerly I smelled, the further\nI seemed to be from finding it; but when I gave up the search, again\nit would be wafted to me. It was one of the sweet scents which go to\nmake the autumn air, which fed my sense of smell rarely and dilated\nmy nostrils. I felt the better for it. Methinks that I possess the\nsense of smell in greater perfection than usual, and have the habit\nof smelling of every plant I pluck. How autumnal is the scent of ripe\ngrapes now by the roadside![371]\n\nFrom the pond-side hill I perceive that the forest leaves begin to look\nrather rusty or brown. The pendulous, drooping barberries are pretty\nwell reddened. I am glad when the berries look fair and plump. I love\nto gaze at the low island in the pond,\u2014at any island or inaccessible\nland. The isle at which you look always seems fairer than the mainland\non which you stand.\n\nI had already bathed in Walden as I passed, but now I forgot that I had\nbeen wetted, and wanted to embrace and mingle myself with the water of\nFlint\u2019s Pond this warm afternoon, to get wet inwardly and deeply.\n\nFound on the shore of the pond that singular willow-like herb in\nblossom, though its petals were gone. It grows up two feet from\na large woody horizontal root, and droops over to the sand again,\nmeeting which, it puts out a myriad rootlets from the side of its stem,\nfastens itself, and curves upward again to the air, thus spanning or\nlooping itself along. The bark just above the ground thickens into a\nsingular cellular or spongy substance, which at length appears to crack\nnearer the earth, giving that part of the plant a winged and somewhat\nfour-sided appearance. It appears to be the cellular tissue, or what\nis commonly called the green bark, and likewise invests the root to a\ngreat thickness, somewhat like a fungus, and is of a fawn-color. The\n_Lythrum verticillatum_, or swamp loosestrife, or grass poly, but I\nthink better named, as in Dewey, swamp-willow-herb.\n\nThe prinos berries are pretty red. Any redness like cardinal-flowers,\nor poke, or the evening sky, or cheron\u00e6a, excites us as a red flag does\ncows and turkeys.\n\n\n_Sept. 13._ Railroad causeway, before sunrise.\n\nHere is a morning after a warm, clear, moonlight night almost entirely\nwithout dew or fog. It has been a little breezy through the night, it\nis true; but why so great a difference between this and other mornings\nof late? I can walk in any direction in the fields without wetting my\nfeet.\n\nI see the same rays in the dun, buff, or fawn-colored sky now, just\ntwenty minutes before sunrise, though they do not extend quite so far\nas at sundown the other night. Why these rays? What is it divides the\nlight of the sun? Is it thus divided by distant inequalities in the\nsurface of the earth, behind which the other parts are concealed, and\nsince the morning atmosphere is clearer they do not reach so far? Some\nsmall island clouds are the first to look red.\n\nThe cross-leaved polygala emits its fragrance as if at will. You are\nquite sure you smelled it and are ravished with its sweet fragrance,\nbut now it has no smell. You must not hold it too near, but hold it on\nall sides and at all distances, and there will perchance be wafted to\nyou sooner or later a very sweet and penetrating fragrance. What it is\nlike you cannot surely tell, for you do not enjoy it long enough nor\nin volume enough to compare it. It is very likely that you will not\ndiscover any fragrance while you are rudely smelling at it; you can\nonly remember that you once perceived it. Both this and the caducous\npolygala are now somewhat faded.\n\nNow the sun is risen. The sky is almost perfectly clear this morning;\nnot a cloud in the horizon. The morning is not pensive like the\nevening, but joyous and youthful, and its blush is soon gone. It is\nunfallen day. The Bedford sunrise bell rings sweetly and musically at\nthis hour, when there is no bustle in the village to drown it. Bedford\ndeserves a vote of thanks from Concord for it. It is a great good at\nthese still and sacred hours, when towns can hear each other. It would\nbe nought at noon.\n\n\n_Sept. 14._ A great change in the weather from sultry to cold, from one\nthin coat to a thick coat or two thin ones.\n\n2 P. M.\u2014To Cliffs.\n\nThe dry grass yields a crisped sound to my feet. The white oak\nwhich appears to have made part of a hedge fence once, now standing\nin Hubbard\u2019s fence near the Corner road, where it stretches along\nhorizontally, is (one of its arms, for it has one running each way)\ntwo and a half feet thick, with a sprout growing perpendicularly out\nof it eighteen inches in diameter. The corn-stalks standing in stacks,\nin long rows along the edges of the corn-fields, remind me of stacks of\nmuskets.\n\n [Illustration]\n\nAs soon as berries are gone, grapes come. The chalices of the\n_Rhexia Virginica_, deer-grass or meadow-beauty, are literally little\nreddish chalices now, though many still have petals,\u2014little cream\npitchers.[372] The caducous polygala in cool places is faded almost\nwhite. I see the river at the foot of Fair Haven Hill running up-stream\nbefore the strong cool wind, which here strikes it from the north. The\ncold wind makes me shudder after my bath, before I get dressed.\n\n_Polygonum aviculare_\u2014knot-grass, goose-grass, or door-grass\u2014still in\nbloom.\n\n\n_Sept. 15. Monday._ Ice in the pail under the pump, and quite a frost.\n\nCommenced perambulating the town bounds. At 7.30 A. M. rode in company\nwith \u2014\u2014 and Mr. \u2014\u2014 to the bound between Acton and Concord near Paul\nDudley\u2019s. Mr. \u2014\u2014 told a story of his wife walking in the fields\nsomewhere, and, to keep the rain off, throwing her gown over her head\nand holding it in her mouth, and so being poisoned about her mouth from\nthe skirts of her dress having come in contact with poisonous plants.\nAt Dudley\u2019s, which house is handsomely situated, with five large elms\nin front, we met the selectmen of Acton, \u2014\u2014 \u2014\u2014 and \u2014\u2014 \u2014\u2014. Here were\nfive of us. It appeared that we weighed, \u2014 \u2014\u2014 I think about 160, \u2014\u2014\n155, \u2014\u2014 about 140, \u2014\u2014 130, myself 127. \u2014\u2014 described the wall about\nor at Forest Hills Cemetery in Roxbury as being made of stones upon\nwhich they were careful to preserve the moss, so that it cannot be\ndistinguished from a very old wall.\n\nFound one intermediate bound-stone near the powder-mill drying-house on\nthe bank of the river. The workmen there wore shoes without iron tacks.\nHe said that the kernel-house was the most dangerous, the drying-house\nnext, the press-house next. One of the powder-mill buildings in\nConcord? The potato vines and the beans which were still green are now\nblackened and flattened by the frost.\n\n\nEND OF VOLUME II\n\n\n\n\n The Riverside Press\n\n H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY\n CAMBRIDGE\n MASSACHUSETTS\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n [1] [A new book is begun here, but the first date is that of May\n 12, 1850, on p. 7 (p. 8 of the original). The first entries may or\n may not belong to this year.]\n\n [2] [See _Excursions_, p. 228; Riv. 280.]\n\n [3] [_Walden_, p. 27; Riv. 41, 42.]\n\n [4] [See _Walden_, p. 185; Riv. 262.]\n\n [5] [_Walden_, p. 241; Riv. 340.]\n\n [6] [_Cape Cod_, p. 121; Riv. 143, 144.]\n\n [7] [_Walden_, p. 126; Riv. 178.]\n\n [8] [_Walden_, p. 145; Riv. 206.]\n\n [9] [See _Journal_, vol. i, p. 475.]\n\n [10] [Channing, p. 298.]\n\n [11] [See _Journal_, vol. v, June 10, 1853.]\n\n [12] [_Excursions_, p. 234; Riv. 287.]\n\n [13] [_Excursions_, p. 225; Riv. 276.]\n\n [14] [_Walden_, p. 284; Riv. 399.]\n\n [15] [This in regard to Breed and Newell is written in a fine hand\n at the top of the page, and probably belonged with something on\n the part torn out.]\n\n [16] [See p. 40.]\n\n [17] [Where Captain Samuel Wadsworth fell in a battle with the\n Indians, April 18, 1676.]\n\n [18] [_Walden_, p. 130; Riv. 184, 185.]\n\n [19] [_Excursions_, p. 226; Riv. 277.]\n\n [20] I find that they are last year\u2019s. The white pine has not\n blossomed.\n\n [21] [_Walden_, p. 366; Riv. 513.]\n\n [22] [_Excursions_, pp. 244, 245; Riv. 300.]\n\n [23] [_Walden_, pp. 224, 225; Riv. 316.]\n\n [24] [_Cape Cod_, p. 54; Riv. 62.]\n\n [25] _Vide_ Kirby and Spence, vol. i.\n\n [26] [_Walden_, p. 242; Riv. 341.]\n\n [27] [_Excursions_, p. 234; Riv. 287.]\n\n [28] [_Walden_, p. 216; Riv. 305.]\n\n [29] [_Walden_, p. 190; Riv. 268.]\n\n [30] [_Excursions_, pp. 326-328; Riv. 401-403.]\n\n [31] [In July, 1850, Thoreau went to Fire Island with other\n friends of Margaret Fuller to search for her remains. See _Cape\n Cod_, pp. 107, 108; Riv. 126, 127. See also next page.]\n\n [32] [Part of draft of a letter to H. G. O. Blake, dated Aug. 9,\n 1850. Other parts follow. _Familiar Letters._]\n\n [33] [See _Cape Cod_, p. 108; Riv. 127. See also p. 80 of this\n volume.]\n\n [34] [_Familiar Letters_, Aug. 9, 1850.]\n\n [35] [_Cape Cod_, p. 155; Riv. 185.]\n\n [36] [_Cape Cod_, p. 225; Riv. 271.]\n\n [37] [_Familiar Letters_, Aug. 9, 1850.]\n\n [38] [Blake was at the time living in Milton, Mass.]\n\n [39] [_Familiar Letters_, Aug. 9, 1850.]\n\n [40] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 478; _Misc._, Riv. 282,\n 283.]\n\n [41] [_Familiar Letters_, Aug. 9, 1850.]\n\n [42] [Channing, p. 78.]\n\n [43] [_Familiar Letters_, Aug. 9, 1850.]\n\n [44] [Channing, pp. 36, 37.]\n\n [45] [See pp. 78, 79.]\n\n [46] [An example of Thoreau\u2019s practice work,\u2014the same story told\n in two forms. For its final form see _Cape Cod_, p. 88; Riv. 103,\n 104.]\n\n [47] [_Excursions_, p. 212; Riv. 260.]\n\n [48] [_Excursions_, pp. 212, 213; Riv. 260, 261.]\n\n [49] [_Excursions_, p. 215; Riv. 263.]\n\n [50] [_Excursions_, pp. 214-216; Riv. 263, 264.]\n\n [51] [_Walden_, pp. 209, 210; Riv. 296.]\n\n [52] [_Walden_, p. 215; Riv. 303.]\n\n [53] [_Walden_, pp. 135, 136; Riv. 192.]\n\n [54] Wild holly?\n\n [55] [Charles Dunbar was Thoreau\u2019s uncle. See Sanborn, pp. 21-23,\n 92, 93; also _Journal_, vol. iv, Jan. 1, 1853, and vol. viii, Apr.\n 3, 1856.]\n\n [56] [Channing, p. 293 (as prose).]\n\n [57] [Channing, pp. 76, 77; Sanborn, pp. 258, 259.]\n\n [58] [See _Walden_, p. 315; Riv. 441.]\n\n [59] [_Walden_, p. 240; Riv. 338.]\n\n [60] [_Walden_, p. 240; Riv. 338.]\n\n [61] [_Three Years in California_, 1850.]\n\n [62] [_Excursions_, p. 3; Riv. 3.]\n\n [63] [_Walden_, p. 361; Riv. 505, 506.]\n\n [64] [_Walden_, p. 362; Riv. 507.]\n\n [65] [_Excursions_, p. 100; Riv. 124.]\n\n [66] [_Excursions_, p. 15; Riv. 18.]\n\n [67] [Channing, pp. 70, 71; Sanborn, pp. 259, 260.]\n\n [68] [See pp. 49-51.]\n\n [69] [_Cape Cod_, pp. 107, 108; Riv. 126, 127. See also pp. 49-51\n of this volume.]\n\n [70] [_Walden_, pp. 346, 347; Riv. 484, 485.]\n\n [71] [_Walden_, pp. 20, 21; Riv. 32.]\n\n [72] [_Walden_, p. 265 (Riv. 372, 373), where October is the month\n named.]\n\n [73] It reached its height in \u201952, and has now fallen decidedly in\n the fall of \u201953.\n\n [74] [See _Excursions_, p. 48; Riv. 59.]\n\n [75] [See pp. 499, 500.]\n\n [76] [_Walden_, p. 257; Riv. 361, 362.]\n\n [77] [_Excursions_, p. 99; Riv. 123.]\n\n [78] [_Excursions_, p. 309; Riv. 379.]\n\n [79] [_Excursions_, p. 315; Riv. 387.]\n\n [80] [_Excursions_, p. 246; Riv. 302.]\n\n [81] [_Excursions_, p. 247; Riv. 303.]\n\n [82] [_Excursions_, p. 247; Riv. 303.]\n\n [83] [_Excursions_, p. 212; Riv. 259, 260.]\n\n [84] [_Excursions_, p. 231; Riv. 283.]\n\n [85] [_Excursions_, p. 217; Riv. 266.]\n\n [86] [_Excursions_, p. 217; Riv. 265, 266.]\n\n [87] [_Excursions_, p. 321; Riv. 394, 395.]\n\n [88] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, pp. 480, 481; _Misc._, Riv.\n 285, 286.]\n\n [89] [_Excursions_, p. 91; Riv. 113.]\n\n [90] [_Excursions_, p. 304; Riv. 373.]\n\n [91] [_Excursions_, p. 235; Riv. 287, 288.]\n\n [92] [See p. 161.]\n\n [93] [_Excursions_, p. 219; Riv. 268.]\n\n [94] [_Excursions_, p. 319; Riv. 392.]\n\n [95] [_Ibid._]\n\n [96] [_Excursions_, p. 319; Riv. 392.]\n\n [97] [_Excursions_, p. 211; Riv. 258, 259.]\n\n [98] [_Maine Woods_, p. 153; Riv. 187.]\n\n [99] [_Ibid._]\n\n [100] [_Ibid._]\n\n [101] [See _Journal_, vol. iii, pp. 149, 150, 241-244.]\n\n [102] Panicled andromeda.\n\n [103] [Evidently cocoons of the Promethea moth.]\n\n [104] [_Excursions_, p. 320; Riv. 393.]\n\n [105] [_Excursions_, pp. 319, 320; Riv. 392-394.]\n\n [106] [See _Journal_, vol. i, p. 338.]\n\n [107] [_Five Years of a Hunter\u2019s Life in the Far Interior of South\n Africa_, 1850.]\n\n [108] [_Excursions_, p. 225; Riv. 275, 276.]\n\n [109] [_Excursions_, p. 225; Riv. 276.]\n\n [110] [Thoreau supplies the word.]\n\n [111] [_Walden_, p. 11; Riv. 19.]\n\n [112] [_Excursions_, p. 206; Riv. 253.]\n\n [113] [The brackets are Thoreau\u2019s.]\n\n [114] [_Excursions_, p. 205; Riv. 251.]\n\n [115] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, pp. 460, 461; _Misc._, Riv.\n 260.]\n\n [116] [_Excursions_, p. 220; Riv. 269, 270.]\n\n [117] [The bracketed words are Thoreau\u2019s.]\n\n [118] [_Excursions_, p. 231; Riv. 283, 284.]\n\n [119] [_Excursions_, p. 232; Riv. 284.]\n\n [120] [_Excursions_, pp. 232, 233; Riv. 285.]\n\n [121] The fresh ruins of Nauvoo, the bright brick towns.\n Davenport?\n\n [122] [_Excursions_, pp. 223, 224; Riv. 274.]\n\n [123] [Arnold Guyot, _The Earth and Man_. Translated by C. C.\n Felton.]\n\n [124] My own.\n\n [125] [Guyot, _op. cit._]\n\n [126] [Guyot, _op. cit._]\n\n [127] [_Excursions_, p. 239; Riv. 293.]\n\n [128] [_Excursions_, p. 240; Riv. 294.]\n\n [129] [_Excursions_, p. 240; Riv. 294.]\n\n [130] [_Excursions_, p. 241; Riv. 295.]\n\n [131] [_Excursions_, pp. 224, 225; Riv. 275.]\n\n [132] [_Excursions_, p. 241; Riv. 296.]\n\n [133] [_Excursions_, p. 232; Riv. 284, 285.]\n\n [134] [_Excursions_, p. 223; Riv. 273.]\n\n [135] [_Excursions_, p. 225; Riv. 275.]\n\n [136] [See _Excursions_, p. 319; Riv. 392.]\n\n [137] [See p. 300.]\n\n [138] [W. E. Channing, \u201cWalden Spring.\u201d]\n\n [139] [_Excursions_, p. 216; Riv. 264, 265.]\n\n [140] [_Excursions_, p. 238; Riv. 291.]\n\n [141] [_Excursions_, p. 238; Riv. 292.]\n\n [142] [See p. 107.]\n\n [143] [_Excursions_, p. 225; Riv. 275, 276.]\n\n [144] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, pp. 476-478; _Misc._, Riv.\n 280-282.]\n\n [145] [_Cape Cod and Miscellanies_, p. 462; _Misc._, Riv. 262.]\n\n [146] [_Excursions_, p. 238; Riv. 292.]\n\n [147] [_Excursions_, p. 240; Riv. 294.]\n\n [148] [_Excursions_, p. 244; Riv. 299.]\n\n [149] [_Excursions_, p. 225; Riv. 276.]\n\n [150] [_Excursions_, p. 240; Riv. 295.]\n\n [151] [_Excursions_, p. 225; Riv. 276.]\n\n [152] [In _The C\u00e6sars_.]\n\n [153] [Supplied by Thoreau.]\n\n [154] [Blackwell, _Court of Augustus_; quoted by De Quincey in a\n note.]\n\n [155] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 390; _Misc._, Riv. 174.]\n\n [156] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, pp. 392-394; _Misc._, Riv.\n 177-179.]\n\n [157] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, pp. 394, 395; _Misc._, Riv.\n 179, 180.]\n\n [158] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 397; _Misc._, Riv. 183.]\n\n [159] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, pp. 397-399; _Misc._, Riv.\n 183-185.]\n\n [160] [The brackets are Thoreau\u2019s.]\n\n [161] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 396; _Misc._, Riv. 181.]\n\n [162] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, pp. 399, 400; _Misc._, Riv.\n 185, 186.]\n\n [163] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 393; _Misc._, Riv. 177,\n 178.]\n\n [164] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 473; _Misc._, Riv. 275,\n 276.]\n\n [165] [_Walden_, p.72; Riv. 103.]\n\n [166] [_Excursions_, pp. 235, 236; Riv. 288, 289.]\n\n [167] [_Excursions_, p. 328; Riv. 403.]\n\n [168] [Supplied by Thoreau.]\n\n [169] [The bracketed portions in both cases are Thoreau\u2019s.]\n\n [170] [Toads. See p. 250.]\n\n [171] [_Excursions_, p. 236; Riv. 289.]\n\n [172] [_Excursions_, pp. 236, 237; Riv. 289-291.]\n\n [173] [_Excursions_, p. 237; Riv. 290.]\n\n [174] [_Excursions_, p. 301; Riv. 370.]\n\n [175] [_Excursions_, p. 316; Riv. 388.]\n\n [176] [_Excursions_, p. 294; Riv. 361.]\n\n [177] [_Excursions_, p. 301; Riv. 369.]\n\n [178] [_Excursions_, p. 316; Riv. 388, 389.]\n\n [179] _Vide_ [p. 286].\n\n [180] Ivy?\n\n [181] Golden senecio.\n\n [182] Corydalis.\n\n [183] [Doubtless Blue Hill is meant, not the lower eminence known\n as Milton Hill.]\n\n [184] [Toads. See p. 250.]\n\n [185] [Supplied by Thoreau.]\n\n [186] Bigelow got this from Kalm. _Vide_ extract from Kalm.\n\n [187] _Parietes_, _sepes_, _sepimenta_ [alternatives for _septa_].\n\n [188] [_Excursions_, p. 316; Riv. 388, 389.]\n\n [189] [_Walden_, p. 308; Riv. 432.]\n\n [190] [_Excursions_, p. 316; Riv. 389.]\n\n [191] [Bigelow, _American Medical Botany_, vol. i.]\n\n [192] [Bigelow, _American Medical Botany_, vol. i.]\n\n [193] [_Excursions_, p. 221; Riv. 271.]\n\n [194] [_Excursions_, p. 328; Riv. 403.]\n\n [195] [The first mention in the Journal of a bird the identity of\n which Thoreau seems never to have made out. See _Journal_, vol. i,\n Introduction, p. xlvi.]\n\n [196] [That is, Darwin.]\n\n [197] [_Walden_, p. 14; Riv. 22.]\n\n [198] [The brackets are Thoreau\u2019s.]\n\n [199] [The word is supplied by Thoreau.]\n\n [200] [Channing, p. 78.]\n\n [201] Toad.\n\n [202] [See _Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, pp. 471, 472; _Misc._,\n Riv. 274.]\n\n [203] [Otherwise spelled \u201ccucuyo,\u201d a West Indian firefly.]\n\n [204] [Toads. See p. 250.]\n\n [205] How quietly we entertain the possibility of joy, of\n recreation, of light into [_sic_] our souls! We should be more\n excited at the pulling of a tooth.\n\n [206] [_Excursions_, p. 111; Riv. 137.]\n\n [207] [No water is used in producing the sound. Thoreau had been\n misinformed by one of his neighbors. See _Excursions_, p. 111;\n Riv. 137.]\n\n [208] Toad?\n\n [209] [_Excursions_, p. 326; Riv. 401.]\n\n [210] [_Rough Notes of Journeys in the Pampas and Andes._]\n\n [211] [Supplied by Thoreau.]\n\n [212] [Bigelow, in his _Florula Bostoniensis_, says of this plant,\n now generally called the evening-primrose, \u201cIn the country it is\n vulgarly known by the name of _Scabish_, a corruption probably\n of _Scabious_, from which however it is a very different plant.\u201d\n Josselyn gives a quaint description of it under the name of\n Lysimachus or Loose-strife in his _Two Voyages_, and says it \u201cis\n taken by the English for Scabious.\u201d]\n\n [213] I have since heard some complete strains.\n\n [214] Pale lobelia.\n\n [215] [Evidently not _Aster miser_, or, as it is now called _A.\n lateriflorus_, which flowers much later in the season.]\n\n [216] [See p. 252.]\n\n [217] [Night of June 12. See p. 249.]\n\n [218] [See pp. 213, 214.]\n\n [219] [Channing, p. 85.]\n\n [220] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, pp. 473-476; _Misc._, Riv.\n 276-279.]\n\n [221] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, pp. 475, 476; _Misc._, Riv.\n 279.]\n\n [222] Rue [_i. e._ meadow-rue].\n\n [223] [See _Journal_, vol. i, p. 59.]\n\n [224] [Thoreau\u2019s name for the field sparrow (_Spizella pusilla_,\n or, as it was called by Nuttall, _Fringilla juncorum_). He had the\n name from his old friend Minott.]\n\n [225] [_Excursions_, p. 327; Riv. 402.]\n\n [226] [_Excursions_, p. 327; Riv. 402.]\n\n [227] [See p. 155.]\n\n [228] [See _Walden_, pp. 140, 141; Riv. 199.]\n\n [229] [_Excursions_, p. 327; Riv. 403.]\n\n [230] [See _Excursions_, p. 326; Riv. 401.]\n\n [231] _Vide_ [p. 337.]\n\n [232] [The field sparrow. See _Journal_, vol. i, p. 252, note.]\n\n [233] [_Excursions_, p. 323; Riv. 398.]\n\n [234] [Channing, p. 84.]\n\n [235] [This is queried in pencil. See p. 278.]\n\n [236] [_Excursions_, p. 294; Riv. 361.]\n\n [237] [His birthday was July 12.]\n\n [238] [_Walden_, pp. 358, 359; Riv. 502.]\n\n [239] [_Walden_, p. 77; Riv. 110, 111.]\n\n [240] [So Channing (p. 128), who calls it \u201cone of Thoreau\u2019s names\n for some bird, so named by the farmers.\u201d The word as written is\n far from clear.]\n\n [241] _Vide_ p. [373.]\n\n [242] [Channing, pp. 126-128.]\n\n [243] [Channing, pp. 128, 129.]\n\n [244] [See Hawthorne\u2019s story \u201cThe Minister\u2019s Black Veil\u201d and\n footnote to the title, _Twice-Told Tales_, Riverside Edition, p.\n 52.]\n\n [245] [_Excursions_, p. 305; Riv. 375.]\n\n [246] [_Walden_, p. 355; Riv. 497.]\n\n [247] _Harper\u2019s New Monthly_, vol. i, p. 648, from _Chambers\u2019\n Edinburgh Journal_.\n\n [248] [_Walden_, p. 355; Riv. 497.]\n\n [249] [_Excursions_, pp. 56, 57; Riv. 69, 70.]\n\n [250] [_Excursions_, p. 57; Riv. 71.]\n\n [251] [_Excursions_, p. 88; Riv. 109, 110.]\n\n [252] [_Excursions_, p. 57; Riv. 71.]\n\n [253] [_Cape Cod_, p. 267; Riv. 323.]\n\n [254] [_Cape Cod_, p. 14; Riv. 15.]\n\n [255] [_Cape Cod_, p. 16; Riv. 17.]\n\n [256] [_Cape Cod_, p. 14; Riv. 15.]\n\n [257] [See _Excursions_, p. 79; Riv. 98.]\n\n [258] [_Cape Cod_, p. 15; Riv. 15, 16.]\n\n [259] [_Cape Cod_, pp. 14, 15; Riv. 15.]\n\n [260] [_Cape Cod_, pp. 15, 16; Riv. 16.]\n\n [261] [_Cape Cod_, pp. 16, 17; Riv. 17, 18.]\n\n [262] [_Cape Cod_, pp. 16, 17; Riv. 17-19.]\n\n [263] [_Cape Cod_, pp. 16, 18; Riv. 17, 19.]\n\n [264] [_Cape Cod_, pp. 17, 18; Riv. 18, 19.]\n\n [265] [Here he tells the story in a different form, showing an\n intention of using it later.]\n\n [266] [_Cape Cod_, pp. 182-184; Riv. 219-221.]\n\n [267] [_Cape Cod_, p. 157; Riv. 187, 188.]\n\n [268] [_Cape Cod_, pp. 109, 110; Riv. 129.]\n\n [269] [See _Cape Cod_, pp. 97, 98; Riv. 115.]\n\n [270] The nidus of the animal of _Natica_,\u2014cells with eggs in\n sand.\n\n [271] [_Cape Cod_, pp. 109, 110; Riv. 129.]\n\n [272] [_Cape Cod_, pp. 68, 69; Riv. 79.]\n\n [273] [_Cape Cod_, pp. 141, 142; Riv. 168, 169.]\n\n [274] [Marston Watson, Thoreau\u2019s friend and correspondent. See\n _Familiar Letters_, _passim_, and especially note to letter of\n April 25, 1858.]\n\n [275] [Sir Charles Lyell, _A Second Visit to the United States_.]\n\n [276] [_Excursions_, pp. 329, 330; Riv. 405. See also pp. 383-385\n of this volume.]\n\n [277] [_Excursions_, p. 327; Riv. 402.]\n\n [278] [_Excursions_ p. 317; Riv. 389.]\n\n [279] [_Excursions_, p. 295; Riv. 362.]\n\n [280] [_Excursions_, pp. 329, 330; Riv. 405, 406. See also p. 374\n of this volume.]\n\n [281] [_Excursions_, pp. 329, 330; Riv. 405, 406.]\n\n [282] [See _Excursions_, p. 328; Riv. 403.]\n\n [283] [_Walden_, p. 238; Riv. 336.]\n\n [284] Stark and his companions met the enemy in the hay-field.\n\n [285] Some were drawn out of the swamp behind Abiel Wheeler\u2019s. Old\n lady Potter tells me she cannot remember when they were not there.\n\n [286] [See _Excursions_, pp. 16, 17; Riv. 20.]\n\n [287] [_Excursions_, p. 79; Riv. 98.]\n\n [288] [_Excursions_, p. 27; Riv. 32, 33.]\n\n [289] [_Excursions_, pp. 29, 30; Riv. 36.]\n\n [290] [_Excursions_, pp. 82, 83; Riv. 102.]\n\n [291] [_Excursions_, pp. 77-79; Riv. 95-98.]\n\n [292] [_Excursions_, p. 27; Riv. 33.]\n\n [293] [_Excursions_, p. 78; Riv. 97.]\n\n [294] [_Excursions_, p. 79; Riv. 98.]\n\n [295] [See _Excursions_, p. 290; also _Journal_, vol. iii, p.\n 117.]\n\n [296] A farmer tells me that he knows when his horse has eaten it,\n because it makes him slobber badly.\n\n [297] [_Excursions_, p. 83; Riv. 102, 103.]\n\n [298] [Channing, pp. 85, 86.]\n\n [299] [Channing, p. 214.]\n\n [300] [Channing, p. 214.]\n\n [301] [Channing, p. 74.]\n\n [302] [Channing, p. 215.]\n\n [303] [Channing, p. 74.]\n\n [304] [Channing, p. 214.]\n\n [305] [_Excursions_, p. 3; Riv. 3.]\n\n [306] [Channing, pp. 229, 230.]\n\n [307] [Channing, p. 77.]\n\n [308] [_Excursions_, p. 88; Riv. 109.]\n\n [309] [Channing, pp. 287, 288.]\n\n [310] [The word \u201cmulleins\u201d is queried in pencil.]\n\n [311] [Channing, p. 215.]\n\n [312] Yes.\n\n [313] [Channing, p. 215.]\n\n [314] [Channing, p. 216.]\n\n [315] [Channing, p. 87.]\n\n [316] [_Excursions_, p. 81; Riv. 100, 101.]\n\n [317] [Channing, p. 70.]\n\n [318] [Channing, p. 74.]\n\n [319] [Channing, pp. 74, 215.]\n\n [320] [Channing, p. 249.]\n\n [321] [Channing, pp. 75, 216.]\n\n [322] [Channing, p. 216.]\n\n [323] [Channing, pp. 301, 302.]\n\n [324] [Channing, p. 301.]\n\n [325] [Channing, p. 203.]\n\n [326] [Channing, p. 86.]\n\n [327] [Channing, p. 87.]\n\n [328] [Channing, pp. 60, 61.]\n\n [329] [Channing, pp. 60, 61.]\n\n [330] [Channing, p. 60.]\n\n [331] [Channing, p. 220.]\n\n [332] [Channing, p. 78.]\n\n [333] [Channing, pp. 173-175.]\n\n [334] [Channing, p. 164.]\n\n [335] [Channing, p. 199.]\n\n [336] [Channing, p. 216.]\n\n [337] [Channing, p. 222.]\n\n [338] [Channing, p. 76.]\n\n [339] [_Ibid._]\n\n [340] [Channing, p. 175.]\n\n [341] [Channing, p. 222.]\n\n [342] [Channing, p. 69.]\n\n [343] _Vide_ last journal for bare foot track in Corner road [p.\n 328 of this volume].\n\n [344] [Channing, p. 70.]\n\n [345] [Channing, p. 86.]\n\n [346] By Second Division Brook.\n\n [347] [Channing, p. 70.]\n\n [348] _Vide_ hawks [p. 480].\n\n [349] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 468; _Misc._, Riv. 270.]\n\n [350] [See _Excursions_, p. 327; Riv. 403.]\n\n [351] [Channing, pp. 251, 252.]\n\n [352] [Channing, p. 90.]\n\n [353] [_Excursions_, p. 324; Riv. 398.]\n\n [354] [_Cape Cod, and Miscellanies_, p. 456; _Misc._, Riv. 254,\n 255.]\n\n [355] [_Excursions_, p. 209; Riv. 257.]\n\n [356] [Channing, p. 115.]\n\n [357] [Channing, p. 116.]\n\n [358] [Channing, p. 116.]\n\n [359] [_Excursions_, p. 323; Riv. 397, 398.]\n\n [360] [Channing, pp. 116, 117.]\n\n [361] _Vide_ back [p. 458].\n\n [362] It was a cuckoo.\n\n [363] [Channing, p. 217.]\n\n [364] [_Excursions_, pp. 253-255; Riv. 311, 312.]\n\n [365] [Channing, pp. 216, 217.]\n\n [366] [_Excursions_, pp. 80, 81; Riv. 100.]\n\n [367] [_Walden_, pp. 224, 225; Riv. 316, 317.]\n\n [368] [_Excursions_, p. 331; Riv. 407.]\n\n [369] [Channing, p. 163.]\n\n [370] [Channing, pp. 199, 200.]\n\n [371] [Channing, p. 217.]\n\n [372] [Channing, p. 222.]","title":"Journal 02, 1850-September 15, 1851: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume 08 (of 20)","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":139053}