Henry David Thoreau’s diary, 1852

Oak-apples are a winter fruit. The leaves being gone, they are now conspicuous and shine in the sun. Some trees are quite full of them. Do they not suggest that all…

I notice that almost every track which I made yesterday in the snow — perhaps ten inches deep — has got a dead leaf in it, though none is to be seen on the snow…

The sky shut out by snow-clouds. It spits a little snow and then holds up. Where a path has been shovelled through drifts in the road, and the cakes of snow piled…

What need to travel? There are no sierras equal to the clouds in the sunset sky. And are not these substantial enough? In a low orlevel country, perchance, the…

Monday. C. says that he studied lichens a little while, but he found that if you pursued that study you must give up man. It was so thin, and there was so little of…

When I see the dead stems of the tansy, goldenrod, johnswort, asters, hardhack, etc., etc., rising above the snow by the roadside, sometimes in dense masses, which…

We have heard a deal about English com- fort. But may you not trace these stories home to some wealthy Sardanapalus who was able to pay for obse- quious attendance…

I see that to some men their relation to mankind is all-important. It is fatal in their eyes to outrage the opinions and customs of their fellow-men. Failure and…

One day two young women — a Sunday — stopped at the door of my hut and asked for some water. I answered that I had no cold water but I would lend them a dipper.’…

Sunday. E. Hosmer tells me that his daugh- ter, walking with Miss Mary Emerson to some meeting or lecture, — perhaps it was Mrs. Smith’s, — the latter was saying…

I. felt a little wonder the other night that the large man went so as a matter of course with the human race, that he did not suspect that he belonged to some other…

Walked down the Boston road. It was good to look off over the great unspotted fields of snow, the walls and fences almost buried in it and hardly - a turf or stake…

Having occasion to get up and light a lamp in the middle of a sultry night, — perhaps it was to exterminate the mosquito race, — I observed a stream of large black…

The snow is so deep and the cold so intense that the crows are compelled to be very bold in seeking their food, and come very near the houses in the village. One is…

If thou art a writer, write as if thy time were short, for it is indeed short at the longest. Im- prove each occasion when thy soul is reached. Drain the cup of…

Sunday. 'The snow has been for some time more than a foot deep on a level, and some roads drifted quite full; and the cold for some weeks has been in- tense, as low…

Men have ever associated the verdure of evergreen trees — hemlocks, firs, spruces, etc. — with the moisture and coolness of mountains. Our word pine is from the…

The peculiarity of a work of genius is the absence of the speaker from his speech. He is but the medium. You behold a perfect work, but you do not behold the…

Perhaps I can never find so good a setting for my thoughts as I shall thus have taken them out of. The crystal never sparkles more brightly than in the cavern. ‘The…

We must be very active if we would be clean and live our own life, and not a languishing and scurvy one. The trees, which are stationary, are covered with…

Friday. I feel as if 1 were gradually part- ing company with certain friends, just as I perceive fa- miliar objects successively disappear when I am leaving my…

We hear the sounds of screech owls in our nostrils, and the snoring of men is perhaps not to be distinguished from that of pigs. [sic] is too grand for me. He…

When I hear that a friend on whom I re- lied has spoken of me, not with cold words perhaps, but even with a cold and indifferent tone, to another, ah! what…

Sir Francis Head says that in America “the moon looks larger” than in Europe. Here, then, more moonshine is to be expected. Perhaps the sun looks larger also. Such…

Mrs. Buttrick says that she has five cents for making a shirt, and that if she does her best she can make one in a day. It is interesting to see loads of hay coming…

When I review the list of my acquaintances from the most impartial point of view, and.consider each one’s excesses and defects of character, — which are the subject…

1 am interested to see the seeds of the poke, about a dozen, shiny black with a white spot, some- what like a saba bean in shape. The still full granary of the…

Now if there are any who think that I am vainglorious, that I set myself up above others and crow over their low estate, let-me tell them that I could tell a…

Wednesday. When the thermometer is down to 20° in the morning, as last month, I think of the poor dogs who have no masters. If a poor dog has no master, everybody…

Talking with Rice this afternoon about the bees which I discovered the other day, he told me something about his bee-hunting. He and Pratt .go out together once or…

But this points to a distinction between the civilized man and the savage; and, no doubt, they have designs on us in making (of the life of a civilized people) an…

Perhaps I am descended from that North- man named “'Thorer the Dog-footed.”’” Thorer Hund — “he was the most powerful man in the North” — to judge from his name…

Laing says that “the Heimskringla has been hardly used by the learned men of the period in which it was first published. It appeared first in the hterary world in…

Perhaps the peculharity of those western vistas was partly owing to the shortness of the days, when we naturally look to the heavens and make the most of the little…

When Eystein the Bad ravaged the land of Drontheim, “he then offered the people either his slave Thorer Faxe, or his dog, whose name was Sauer, to be their king.…

The sky appears broader now than it did. The day has opened its eyelids wider. The lengthening of the days, commenced a good while ago, is a kind of forerunner of…

Erling had a son Thorer. It is said of the former that “both winter and summer it was the cus- tom in his house to drink at the mid-day meal accord- ing to a…

“As fat as a hen in the forehead,’ —a saying which I heard my father use this morning.

Went to Plymouth to lecture or preach all day. Beomyces roseus (Batos, small, and pixys, a fungus). Saw in Plymouth, near Billington Sea, the Prinos glaber, or…

P. M.— Railroad causeway. I am reminded of spring by the quality of the air. The cock-crowing and even the telegraph harp pro- phesy it, though the ground is for…

The east side of Deep Cut nearly dry; sand has ceased flowing; west side just beginning. Now begin to see the Cladonia rangiferina (“reindeer moss”) in the dry…

The mosses now are in fruit — or have sent up their filaments with calyptre. The main river is not yet open but in very few places, but the North Branch, which is…

To-day it snows again, covering the ground. To get the value of the storm we must be out a long time and travel far in it, so that it may fairly pene- trate our…

Linnzeus, speaking of the necessity of pre- cise and adequate terms in any science, after naming some which he invented for botany, says, “Termini praeservarunt…

Wednesday. Moore’s larch trees beyond Sleepy Hollow cut this winter. They were much de- cayed. The woodpeckers had stripped many of bark in pursuit of grubs. When…

The gold-digger in the ravines of the mountains is as much a gambler as his fellow in the saloons of San Francisco. What difference does it make whether you shake…

It is encouraging to know that, though every kernel of truth has been carefully swept out of our churches, there yet remains the dust of truth on their walls, so…

La Hontan, hunting moose (orgnal) in Canada in 1686, says, facing a cruel north wind in winter, “One of my soldiers told me that it was neces- sary to have blood of…

Sunday. A very pleasant, spring-promis- ing day. Yet I walked up the river on the ice to Fair Haven Pond. As I cross the snow (2 Pp. M.) where it lies deepest in…

A warm spring rain in the night. 3 p. M. — Down the railroad.

I was reminded, this morning before I rose, of those undescribed ambrosial mornings of sum- mer which I can remember, when a thousand birds were heard gently…

2p. m.—To White Pond to sound it. That dull-gray-barked willow shows the silvery down of its forthcoming catkins. I believe that I saw blackbirds yesterday. The ice…

According to Linnzus, very many plants become perennial and arborescent in warm regions which with us are annual, as Trope@olum, Beta, Majo- rana,’ Malva arborea,…

Sunday. Rain, rain, rain; but even this is fair weather after so much snow. The ice on Walden has now for some days looked white like snow, the sur- face being…

This afternoon I throw off my outside coat. A mild spring day. I must hie to the Great Mead- ows. The air is full of bluebirds. The ground almost entirely bare. The…

Before sunrise. With what infinite and unwearied expectation and proclamation the cocks usher in every dawn, as if there had never been one before! And the dogs…

I catch myself philosophizing most ab- stractly when first returning to consciousness in the night or morning. I make the truest observations and distinctions then,…

This morning the ground is again covered with snow, and the storm still continues. That is a pretty good story told of a London citizen just retired to country life…

Observed as I stood with Channing on the brink of the rill on Conantum, where, falling a few inches, it produced bubbles, our images, three quarters of an inch long…

As to the winter birds, — those which came here in the winter, — I saw first that rusty sparrow-like bird flying in flocks with the smaller sparrows early in the…

Railroad causeway at Heywood’s meadow. The ice no sooner melts than you see the now red and yellow pads of the yellow lily beginning to shoot up from the bottom of…

I heard, this forenoon, a pleasant jin- gling note from the slate-colored snowbird on the oaks in the sun on Minott’s hillside. Apparently they sing with us in the…

‘The night of the 24th, quite a deep snow covered the ground.

Walden not melted about shore.

Sunday. A pleasant afternoon; cool wind but warm sun. Snow almost all gone. The yellow lily leaves are pushing up in the ditch beyond Hubbard’s Grove (this is not…

An Eskimo, one of a littoral people, in- quired with surprise of Sir John Richardson, ‘“ Are not all lands islands ?” Observed yesterday that Fair Haven Pond was…

Dug some parsnips this morning. They break off about ten inches from the surface, the ground being frozen there. The Greek word éep runs in my head in connec- tion…

Intended to get up early this morning and commence a series of spring walks, but clouds and drowsiness prevented. Early, however, I saw the clouds in the west, —…

Gilpin says well that the object of a light mist is a “nearer distance.” Among winter plants, regarded as component parts of the forest, he thinks the fern the most…

6 a. M.— To the riverside and Merrick’s pasture. The sun is up. The water on the meadows is per- fectly smooth and placid, reflecting the hills and clouds and…

They call that northernmost sea, thought to be free from ice, “Polina,’” — whither the musk oxen migrate. The coldest natures, persevere with them, go far enough,…

Last night a snow-storm, and this morning we find the ground covered again six or eight inches deep —and drifted pretty badly beside. The con- ductor in the cars,…

'To-day I hear the croak of frogs in small pond-holes in the woods, and see dimples on the sur- face, which I suppose that they make, for when I ap- proach they are…

I frequently detect the Canadian in New England by his coarse. gray homespun capote, with a picturesque red sash round his waist, and his well- furred cap made to…

8 a. Mm. — Down river to half a mile below Carlisle Bridge, the river being high, yet not high for the spring. Saw and heard the white-bellied swallows this morn-…

2.30 p. m. — To Second Division Brook. The ground is now for the most part bare, though I went through drifts three feet deep in some places. I hear that Simmonds…

Tuesday. A driving snow-storm in the night and still raging; five or six inches deep on a level at 7 A.M. All birds are turned into snowbirds. ‘Trees and houses…

Going down the railroad at 9 a. m., I hear the lark singing from over the snow. This for steady singing comes next to the robin now. It will come up very sweet from…

My face still burns with yesterday’s sun- ning. It rains this morning, as if the vapor from the melting snow were falling again. ‘There is so much sun and light…

‘That large early swamp (?) willow catkin (the sterile blossom) opens on one side like a tinge of golden sunlight, the yellow anthers bursting through the down that…

The ground is now generally bare of snow, though it lies along walls and on the north sides of valleys in the woods pretty deep. We have had a great deal of foul…

6 a.m.— Rain siill, a fine rain. The robin sang early this morning over the bare ground, an hour ago, nevertheless, ushering in the day. Then the guns were fired…

Morning. —Storms still. The robin sings unfailingly each morning at the time the sun should rise, in spite of dreary rain. Some storms have much more wet in them…

The storm still continues. When I walked in the storm day before yesterday, I felt very cold when my clothes were first wet through, but at last they, being…

It still rains. The water is over the road at Flint’s Bridge, and, as I am told, has been for some time over the J. Miles road in the Corner, and near the further…

The water has risen one and a half inches at six this morning since last night. It is now, then, eight and a half inches above the iron truss, 2. e. the horizontal…

6 a. M.— Water has fallen an inch and a half since last night, — which is at a regular rate. I know two species of men. The vast majority are men of society. They…

Itis related that Giorgio Barbarelli, Titian’s friend, defending painting against the charge of being an incomplete art because it could exhibit but one side of a…

Chickweed (Séellaria media), naturalized, shows its humble star-like white flowers now on rather dirty weather-worn branches in low, damp gardens. Also the smaller…

Heard the field or rush sparrow this morn- ing (Fringila juncorum), George Minott’s “ huckle- berry-bird.” It sits on a birch and sings at short intervals,…

I scarcely know why I am excited when, in M. Huc’s book, I read of the country of the Mongol Tartars as the “ Land of Grass,” but I am, as much as if I were a cow.’…

Observed a fire yesterday on the railroad, —— Emerson’s Island that was. The leaves are dry enough to burn; and I see a smoke this afternoon in the west horizon.…

2p. mM.— Down the Boston road and across to Turnpike, etc., etc. The elms are now generally in blossom and Cheney’s elm still also. The last has leaf-buds which…

5 a. m.— To Cliffs. A smart frost in the night, the plowed ground and platforms white with it. I hear the little forked-tail chipping sparrow (Fringilla socialis)…

6 a. M.—Is not the chipping sparrow the commonest heard in the village streets in the mornings now, sitting on an elm or apple tree? Was it the black and white…

5 a. M.—To Cliffs. A great brassy moon going down in the west. A flock of neat sparrows, small, striped-throated, whitish over eye, on an apple tree by J. Potter’s.…

R. W. E. tells me he does not like Haynes as well as I do. I tell him that he makes better manure than most men. : This excitement about Kossuth is not interesting…

5 a. mM. — Frost in night; hence the grass is wet. Hear the seringo-bird on an apple tree. I think it must be one of the species of song sparrow. Hear on the elms…

3 ep. ma. —To Conantum. Heard the first warbling vireo this morning on the elms. This almost makes a summer. Heard also, as 1 sat at my desk, the unusual low of…

Friday. 4.30 a. m.—To Cliffs. Has been a dew, which wets the feet, and I see a very thin fog over the low ground, the first fog, which must be owing to the warm…

4.30.— The robin and the bluebird have sung for some time. The haziness is now like a sea- turn, through which the sun, shorn of beams, looks claret, and at length,…

Sunday Morning. — To Trillium Woods. Apples and cherry trees begin to look green at a dis- tance. I see the catkin of afemale Populus tremuloides far advanced, 7.…

'This Monday the streets are full of catile being driven up-country, — cows and calves and colts. The rain is making the grass grow apace. It appears to stand…

Sunrise, — merely a segment of a circle of rich amber in the east, growing brighter and brighter at one point. There is no rosy color at this moment and not a speck…

Morning.— Swallows (I suppose barn) flying low over the Depot Field, a barren field, and sitting on the mulleins. Bobolinks. Currants and gooseberries are in bloom…

The best men that I know are not serene, a world in themselves. They dwell in form. They flat- ter and study effect, only more finely than the rest. The world to me…

Hastily reviewing this Journal, I find the flowers to have appeared in this order since the 28th of April (perhaps some note in my Journal has escaped me) :1— Acer…

The last four days have been a May storm, and this day is not quite fair yet. As I remember, there was the long storm and freshet near the end of April, then the…

My seringo-bird is reddish-brown with a spot on the breast and other marks, two whitish lines on back, and some white in tail; runs in the grass, so that you see…

The rhodora in blossom, a delicate-colored flower. P. M.— To Cliffs. Frog or toad spawn in a pool in long worm-like or bowel-like strings, sometimes coiled up…

Up to about the 14th of May I watched the progress of the season very closely, — though not so carefully the earliest birds, — but since that date, both from poor…

P. M.— To Corner Spring. So many birds that I have not attended much to any of late. A barn swallow accompanied me across the Depot Field, methinks attracted by the…

Morning by river. A song sparrow’s nest and eggs so placed in a bank that none could tread on it; bluish-white, speckled. Also a robin’s nest and eggs in the crotch…

Saturday. On my way to Plymouth, looked at Audubon in the State-House. Saw painted the red berries of the Arum triphyllum. The pigeon is more red on the breast and…

To Billington Sea at sunrise. The purple finch sings like a canary and like a robin. Huckleberry leaves here, too, are sticky, and yellow my fingers. Pyrus…

The cooing of a dove reminded me of an owl this morning. Counted just fifty violets (pedata) in a little bunch, three and a half by five inches, and as many buds,…

Tuesday. P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook and Flint’s Pond. The Rhodora Canadensis is not yet out of blossom, and its leaves are not expanded. It is important for its…

Wednesday. Surveying the Brooks farm. The early thalictrum has been in bloom some time. Perceive the rank smell of brakes. Observe the yellow bark of the barberry.…

At Corner Spring. A wet day. The veery sings nevertheless. The road is white with the apple blossoms fallen off, as with snowflakes. ‘The dogwood is coming out.…

White thorn and yellow Bethlehem-star ([ypoxis erecta).

Fogs this and yesterday morning. I hear the quails nowadays while surveying. Barberry in bloom, wild pinks, and blue-eyed grass.

Sunday. Now is the summer come. A breezy, washing day. A day for shadows, even of mov- ing clouds, over fields in which the grass is beginning to wave. Senecio in…

Evening. —To the Lee place, the moon about full. The sounds I hear by the bridge: the midsummer frog (I think it is not the toad), the nighthawk, crickets, the…

Wednesday. Measured C. Davis’s elm at the top of his fence, just built, five feet from the ground. It is fifteen and two twelfths feet in circumference and much…

'The nepeta by Deacon Brown’s, a pretty blue flower. It has been a sultry day, and a slight thunder-shower, and now I see fireflies in the meadows at evening.

Friday. The birds sing at dawn. What sounds to be awakened by! If only our sleep, our dreams, are such as to harmonize with the song, the warbling of the birds,…

The medeola has blossomed in a tumbler. I seem to perceive a pleasant fugacious fragrance from its rather delicate but inconspicuous green flower. Its whorls of…

Sunday. First devil’s-needles in the air, and some smaller, bright-green ones on flowers. The earliest blueberries are now forming as greenberries. The wind already…

Surveying for Sam. Pierce. Found piece of an Indian soapstone pot.

The buck-bean in Hubbard’s meadow just going out of blossom. The yellow water ranunculus is an important flower in the river now, rising above the white lily pads,…

Friday. 3 p.m. — Down railroad. I hear the bobolink, though he does not sing so much as he did, and the lark and my seringo, as I go down the railroad causeway. The…

Saturday. P. M.—To Lupine Hill via Depot Field Brook. For some time I have noticed the grass whitish and killed at top by worms (?). The meadows are yellow with…

Sunday. 3 p. M.— To Conantum. A warm day. It has been cold, and we have had fires the past week sometimes. Clover begins to show red in the fields, and the wild…

There are various new reflections now of the light, viz. from the under sides of leaves (fresh and white) turned up by the wind, and also from the bent blades…

Tuesday. Silene Antirrhina, sleepy catch-fly, or snapdragon catch-fly, the ordinarily curled-up petals scarcely noticeable at the end of the large oval calyx. Gray…

Wednesday. 4.30 a. M.—A low fog on the meadows, but not so much as last night, — a low incense frosting them. The clouds scattered wisps in the sky, like a squadron…

Thursday. 4 a.m. —To Cliffs. No fog this morning. At early dawn, the windows being open, I hear a steady, breathing, cricket-like sound from the chip-bird (?),…

The hornet’s nest is built with many thin layers of his paper, with an interval of about an eighth of an inch between them, so that his wall is one or two inches…

Saturday. 8.30 a.m.—To Flag Hill —on which Stow, Acton, and Boxboro corner —with C., with bread and butter and cheese in pocket. A comfortable breezy June morning.…

7 p. Ms —'To Hubbard Bathing-Place. The blue-eyed grass is shut up. When does it open? Some blue flags are quite a red purple, — dark wine- color. Identified the…

Monday. 7 p.m.— To Cliffs via Hubbard Bathing-Place. Cherry-birds. I have not seen, though I think I have heard them before,—their fine seringo note, like a…

8 p. M.— Up the Union Turnpike. We have had a succession of thunder-showers to- day and at sunset a rainbow. How moral the world is made! This bow is not…

5 A. M.—To Laurel Glen. The bobolink still sings, though not as in May. The tall buttercups do not make so much show in the meadows, methinks, as the others did. Or…

P. M.— To White Pond. The keys of the white ash cover the trees profusely, a sort of mulberry brown, an inch and a half long, handsome. The Vaccinium macrocarpon,…

Just as the sun was rising this morning, under clouds, I saw a rainbow in the west horizon, the lower parts quite bright. *“‘ Rainbow in the morning, Sailors take…

I have not put darkness, duskiness, enough into my night and moonlight walks. Every sentence should contain some twilight or night. At least the hight in it should…

Sunday. P. M.— To Bear Hill, Lincoln. The epilobium, spiked willow herb, shows its showy pale-purple spikes (pinkish?). It showed some color the 15th. I will set it…

Cnothera biennis, evening-primrose, with its conspicuous flowers but rather unsightly stem and leaves. The Rubus odorata, purple flowering raspberry, in gardens.…

P. M.—On North River. Leonurus Cardiaca, motherwort, a nettle-like plant by the street-side.

Nature must be viewed humanly to be viewed at all; that is, her scenes must be associated with humane affections, such as are associated with one’s native place,…

Thursday. 9.80 a. M.— To Sherman’s Bridge by land and water.

Bigelow tells me that saddlers sometimes use the excrescence, the whitish fungus, on the birch to stick their awls in. Men find a use for everything at last. I saw…

From Deep Cut over Fair Haven; back by Potter’s path; 5 p. M. The yellow lily (Lilium Canadense) is out, rising above the meadow-grass, sometimes one, sometimes…

Sunday. 3 a. Mm. —To Conantum, to see the lilies open.

I know a man who never speaks of the sexual relation but jestingly, though it is a subject to be approached only with reverence and affection. What can be the…

2.30 p. m.— To Beck Stow’s, thence to Saw Mill Brook, and return by Walden. Now for the shade of oaks in pastures. The wit- nesses attending court sit on the…

P. M.— Down river in boat to the Holt. The small globose white flower in muddy places by river and elsewhere. The bass on Egg Rock is just ready to expand. It is…

Friday. 4 a. M.— To Cliffs. No dew; no dewy cobwebs. The sky looks mist-like, not clear blue. An aurora fading into a general saffron color. At length the redness…

Saturday. Another day, if possible still hotter than the last. We have already had three or four such, and still no rain. The soil under the sward in the yard is…

4.80 a4. m.— To the river. The shore is strewn with quite a long grove of young red maples two inches high, with the samaree attached. So they are dispersed. The…

I observed this morning a row of several dozen swallows perched on the telegraph-wire by the bridge, and ever and anon a part of them would launch forth as with one…

A journal, a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy. 4 p.mM.— To R. W. E.’s wood-lot south of Walden.

A writer who does not speak out of a full experience uses torpid words, wooden or lifeless words, such words as ‘‘ humanitary,” which have a paralysis in their…

Chenopodium album, pigweed. The com- mon form of the arrowhead, with larger, clear- white flowers. Also an- other arrowhead, with a leaf shaped f -\ not Zp not in…

Saturday. Cooler weather; a gentle steady rain, not shower; such coolness as rain makes; not sharp and invigorating, exhilarating, as in the spring, but thoughtful,…

Sunday. 8.30 a. mM. —To the Sudbury meadows in boat. Peter Robbins says that the rain of yesterday has not reached the potatoes, after all. Exorbitant pota- toes!…

P. M.—R. W. E.’s cliff.

To Assabet behind Lee Place. Perceived a small weed, coming up all over the fields, which has an aromatic scent. . Did not at first discover that it was blue-curls.…

4 A. M.— Robins sing as loud as in spring, and the chip-bird breathes in the dawn. The eastern waters reflect the morning redness, and now it fades into saffron.…

This morning, though perfectly fair except a haziness in the east, which prevented any splendor, the birds do not sing as yesterday. They appear to make…

P. M.—To Annursnack. Herbage is drying up; even weeds are wilted, and the corn rolls. Agriculture is a good school in which to drill a man. Successful farming…

The cardinal-flower probably open to-day. The quails are heard whistling this morning near the village. It would be well if the false preacher of Christianity were…

44.mM.— To Cliffs. This early twitter or breathing of chip-birds in the dawn sounds like something organic in the earth. This is a morning celebrated by birds. Our…

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

Tuesday. 4 P.M.— To Assabet behind Lee place. It is pleasing to behold at this season contrasted shade and sunshine on the side of neighboring hills. They are not…

P. M.—To Yellow Pine Lake. Epilobium coloratum, roadside just this side of Den- nis’s. Water lobelia, is it, that C. shows me? There is a yellowish light now from a…

P. M.—To Burnt Plain.

The fore part of this month was the warm- est weather we have had; the last part, sloping toward autumn, has reflected some of its coolness, for we are very forward…

P. M.— To Assabet over Nawshawtuct. There is more shadow under the edges of woods and copses now. ‘The foliage appears to have increased so that the shadows are…

P. M.—To Conantum. Is not that the small-flowered hypericum? The ber- ries of what I have called the alternate-leaved cornel are now ripe, a very dark blue —…

At 5.30 this morning, saw from Nawshaw- tuct the trees on the Great Meadows against and rising out of the dispersing wreaths of fog, on which the sun was shining.

The Hypericum Sarothra appears to be out. 12 m. At the east window. —A temperate noon. I hear a cricket creak in the shade; also the sound of a distant piano.…

'To Walden by poorhouse road. Have had a gentle rain, and now with a lowering sky, but still I hear the cricket. He seems to chirp from a new depth toward autumn,…

I can tell the extent to which a man has heard music by the faith he retains in the trivial and mean, even by the importance he attaches to what is called the…

5 a. mM.—I do not hear this morning the breathing of chip-birds nor the song of robins. Are the mornings now thus ushered in? Are they as spring- like? Has not the…

5 a. M.—Awoke into a rosy fog. I was enveloped by the skirts of Aurora. To the Cliffs. The. small dewdrops rest on the Asclepias pulchra by the roadside like gems,…

Wednesday. Alcott here the 9th and 10th. He, the spiritual philosopher, is, and has been for some months, devoted to the study of his own genealogy, — he whom only…

Walked to Walden and Fair Haven Hill with Mrs. Wilson and son, of Cincinnati. ‘They tell me that the only men of thought in that part of the world are one young…

Viburnum dentatum berries blue. Saw a rose still. There is such a haze that I cannot see the mountains.

Some birds fly in flocks. I see a dense, compact flock of bobolinks going off in the air over a field. They cover the rails and alders, and go rustling off with a…

P. M. — Down river in boat with George Bradford. Zizania aquatica, Indian or Canadian rice, or water oats, like slender corn. How long?

Twenty minutes before 5 a. m. — To Cliffs and Walden. | Dawn. No breathing of chip-birds nor singing of robins as in spring, but still the cock crows lustily. The…

3 Pp. M.— To Joe Clark’s and Hibiscus Bank.

2 vp. m.— To Corner Spring, Burnt Plain, and Brister Hill.

Weeds in potato-fields are now very rank. What should we come to if the season were longer, and the reins were given to vegetation? ‘Those savages that do not…

3 p. M.— To Assabet. The river is eight and one twelfth feet below top of truss.! Add eight and a half inches for its greatest height this year, and you have eight…

Cape Wrath, the northwest cape of Scot- land. What a good name for a cape lying far away, dark, over the water, under a lowering sky ! P. M.— To Conantum. The…

Rain. Rain.

It still rains. I am struck by the ease and simplicity with which an Englishman expresses a senti- ment of reverence for the Author and Ruler of the Uni- verse. It…

Sicyos angulatus, one-seeded star-cucum- ber in Aunt’s garden, probably in July. Nepeta Gle- choma, ground ivy, or gill, probably May, now out of bloom. Bidens…

A warm rain-storm in the night, with wind, and to-day it continues. The first leaves begin to fall; a few yellow ones lie in the road this morning, loosened by the…

A cold storm still, —this the third day, — and a fire to keep warm by. This, methinks, is the most serious storm since spring. Polygonum amphibium var. aquaticum,…

Tuesday. 9 a.m.— Up river in boat to the bend above the Pantry. It is pleasant to embark on a voyage, if only for a short river excursion, the boat to be your home…

Wednesday. Some tragedy, at least some dwelling on, or even exaggeration of, the tragic side of life is necessary for contrast or relief to the picture. The genius…

P. M..—To Walden. The seringo, too, has long been silent like other birds. The red prinos berries ripe in sunny places. Rose hips begin to be handsome. Small flocks…

1 A. M., moon waning, to Conantum. A warm night. A thin coat sufficient. I hear an ap- ple fall, as I go along the road. Meet a man going to market thus early.…

P. M. — To Cliffs.

Monday. To Peterboro. Railroad to Mason Village. Observed from cars at 7.30 a. Mm. the dew, or fog rather, on the fine grass in meadows, —a dirty white, which, one…

Tuesday, Went, across lots still, to Monad- nock, the base some half-dozen miles in a straight line from Peterboro,— six or seven miles. (It had been eleven miles…

Grapes ripe on the Assabet for some days. Gentiana saponaria out. Carrion-flower berries ripe for some days. Polygala verticillata still, on left side of road…

There are enough who will flatter me with sweet words, and anon use bitter ones to balance them, but they are not my friends. Simple sincerity and truth are rare…

Genius is like the snapping-turtle born with a great developed head. They say our brain at birth is one sixth the weight of the body. Cranberries are being raked…

Yesterday it rained all day, with consider- able wind, which has strewn the ground with apples and peaches, and, all the country over, people are busy picking up…

Ithink it must be the Cornus sericea which I have called the stolonijera. Vide that red stem on the Bear Hill road. The poor student begins now to seek the sun. In…

P. M.— To Great Meadows. The red capsules of the sarothra. Many large crickets about on the sand. Observe the effects of frost in par- ticular places. Some…

The smooth sumachs are turning conspic- uously and generally red, apparently from frost, and here and there is a whole maple tree red, about water. In some hollows…

P. M.— To Conantum. The small skull-cap and cress and the mullein still in bloom. I see pigeon woodpeckers oftener now, with their light rears. Birches and elms…

Sophia has in her herbarium and has found in Concord these which I have not seen this summer: — Pogonia verticillata, Hubbard’s Second Wood. Big- elow says July.…

P. M.— Round by Clematis Brook. The forget-me-not still. I observe the rounded tops of the dogwood bushes, scarlet in the distance, on the edge of the meadow…

According to Emerson, Lonicera hirsuta, hairy honeysuckle, grows in Sudbury. Some hickories are yellow. Hazel bushes a brownish red. Most grapes are shrivelled.…

Polygonum dumetorum, climbing false-buck- wheat, still; also dodder. The fall dandelions are a prevailing flower on low turfy grounds, especially near the river.…

Dreamed of purity last night. The thoughts seemed not to originate with me, but I was invested, my thought was tinged, by another’s thought. It was not I that…

Monday. P. M.—To C. Smith’s Hill. The flashing clearness of the atmosphere. More light appears to be reflected from the earth, less absorbed. Green lice are still…

P. M.— To the Boulder Field. I find the hood-leaved violet quite abundant in a meadow, and the pedata in the Boulder Field. I have now seen all but the blanda,…

Thursday. 10 a.m.—'To Fair Haven Pond, bee-hunting, — Pratt, Rice, Hastings, and myself, in a wagon. A fine, clear day after the coolest night and severest frost we…

Friday. Surveying in Lincoln. A severer frost last night. The young and tender trees begin to assume the autumnal tints more generally, plainly in consequence of…

P. M.— To Cliffs. The beggar-ticks (Bidens) now adhere to my clothes. I also find the desmodium sooner thus — as a magnet discovers the steel filings mm a heap of…

P. M.— To Flint’s Pond. I hear a hylodes (?) from time to time. Shrub oaks are red, some of them. Hear the loud laughing of a Joon on Flint’s, apparently alone in…

Was told at Bunker Hill Monument to-day that Mr. Savage saw the White Mountains several times while working on the monument. It required very clear weather in the…

P. M.— To Great Meadows. I find no fringed gentian. Perhaps the autumnal tints are as bright and interesting now as they will be. Now is the time to behold the…

P. M.— Walden. Canada snapdragon, a few flowers at top. Everlast- ings, field trefoil, shepherd’s-purse, door-grass, white goldenrod, fresh tansy, veiny-leaved…

'Touch-me-not, self-heal, Bidens cernua, ladies’-tresses, cerastium, dwarf tree-primrose, butter- and-eggs (abundant), prenanthes, sium, silvery cinque- foil,…

Burdock, Ranunculus acris, rough hawk- weed. A drizzling rain to-day. The air is full of fall- ing leaves. The streets are strewn with elm leaves. The trees begin…

Monday. Most leaves are already somewhat faded and withered. Their tints are not so bright. The chestnut leaves already rustle with a great noise as you walk…

I amstruck by the superfluity of light in the atmosphere in the autumn, as if the earth absorbed none, and out of this profusion of dazzling light came the autumnal…

That coarse yellowish fungus is very com- mon in the paths in woods of late, for a month, often picked by birds, often decayed, often mashed by the foot like a…

9 a. M.— The first snow is falling (after not very cool weather), in large flakes, filling the air and obscuring the distant woods and houses, as if the inhabitants…

Saturday. 'The sidewalks are covered with the impressions of leaves which fell yesterday and were pressed into the soil by the feet of the passers, leaving a myriad…

Up river to Bittern Cliff. A mild, still, but cloudy, or rather misty, afternoon. The water is at present perfectly smooth and calm, but covered with a kind of…

I see the dandelion blossoms in the path. The buds of the skunk-cabbage already show themselves in the meadow, the pointed involucres (?). At 5 p. m. I found the…

Canada snapdragon, tansy, white golden- rod, blue-stemmed ditto. Aster undulatus, autumnal dandelion, tall buttercup, yarrow, mayweed. Picking chestnuts on Pine…

Thursday. P. M.—To Second Division Brook and Ministerial Swamp. Cerastium. Apparently some flowers yield to the frosts; others linger here and there till the snow…

'To Walden. Ebby Hubbard’s oaks, now turned a sober and warm ted and yellow, have a very rich crisp and curled look, especially against the green pines. This is…

P. M. — To Conantum. This may be called an Indian-summer day. It is quite hazy withal, and the mountains invisible. I see a horehound turned lake or steel-claret…

Another Indian-summer day. P. M.— Rode to Stow via powder-mills with W. E. C., returning va the fir tree house, Vose’s Hill, and Corner. The road through the woods…

Monday. P. M.— Down river to Ball’s Hill in boat. Another perfect Indian-summer day. One of my oars makes a creaking sound like a block in a harbor, such a sound as…

P. M.— Walden and Cliffs. There are no skaters on the pond now. It is cool to- day and windier. The water is rippled considerably. As I stand in the boat, the…

Sunset from the Poplar Hill. A warm, moist afternoon. The clouds lift in the west, — indeed the horizon is now clear all around, —and suddenly the light of the…

A warm, mizzling kind of rain for two days past and still. Stedlarta media in Cheney’s gar- den, as last spring, butter-and-eggs, that small white aster (A. dumosus…

Tall buttercups, red clover, houstonias, Polygonum aviculare, still. Those handsome red buds on often red-barked twigs, with some red leaves still left, appear to…

Shepherd’s-purse abundant still in gardens. 3 p.m. — To Cliffs and Andromeda Ponds. In the Heywood Brooks, many young pollywogs two inches long and more; also…

Autumnal dandelion and yarrow. Must be out-of-doors enough to get experience of wholesome reality, as a ballast to thought and senti- ment. Health requires this…

Tuesday. Ranunculus repens, Bidens con- nata (flat in a brook), yarrow, dandelion, autumnal dandelion, tansy, Aster undulatus, etc. A late three- ribbed goldenrod,…

Did Harris call the water-bug Gyrinus to-day ?

4 p. Mm. — To Cliffs. It clears up. A very bright rainbow. Three reds and greens. I see its foot within half a mile in the southeast, heightening the green of the…

Saturday. 'To Andromeda Ponds. Andro- meda is a dull reddish brown, like oak leaves. Saw a flock of little passenger birds! by Walden, busily peck- ing at the white…

Still yarrow, tall buttercup, and tansy.

9 a. M.—Sail up river to Lee’s Bridge. Colder weather and very windy, but still no snow. A very little ice along the edges of the river, which does not all melt…

Measured a stick of round timber, prob- ably white pine, on the cars this afternoon, — ninety- five feet long, nine and ten twelfths in circumference at butt, and…

I was surprised this afternoon to find the river skimmed over in some places, and Fair Haven Pond one-third frozen or skimmed over, though com- monly there is…

This morning the ground is white with snow, and it still snows. This is the first time it has been fairly white this season, though once before, many weeks ago, it…

At this time last year the andromeda in the Ministerial Swamp was red. Now it has not turned from brown.

At Walden. —I hear at sundown what I mistake for the squawking of a hen,—for they are firing at chickens hereabouts, — but it proved to be a flock of wild geese…

Almost an Indian-summer day. The shrub oaks and the sprouts make woods you can look down on. They are now our rustling gardens. The leaves of the former are now a…

To Pine Hill. The buds of the Populus tremuloides show their down as in early spring, and the early willows. Wood- choppers have commenced some time since. ‘This is…

To Cliffs. The snow keeps off unusually. The landscape is the color of a russet apple which has no golden cheek. The sunset sky supplies that. But though it be…

The pleasantest day of all. Started in boat before 9 A. M. down river to Billerica with W. E. C.

P. M.— Perhaps the warmest day yet. True Indian summer. The walker perspires. The shep- herd’s-purse is in full bloom; the andromeda not turned red. Sawa pile of…

Another Indian-summer day. Saw some puffballs in the woods, wonderfully full of sulphur-lke dust, which yellowed my shoes, greenish-yellow. The recent water-line at…

P. M.— To C. Smith’s Hill. Those little ruby-crowned wrens (?)? still about. They suddenly dash away from this side to that in flocks, with a tumultuous note, half…

Cold at last. Saw a violet on the C. Miles road where the bank had been burned in the fall. Baomyces roseus also. ‘Tansy still fresh yellow by the Corner Bridge.…

Walk early through the woods to Lincoln to survey. Winter weather may be said to have begun yesterday. River and ponds all open. Goose Pond skimmed over. Why have I…

Tuesday. P. M.— To Assabet Stone Bridge. We have now the scenery of winter, though the snow is but an inch or two deep. The dried chalices of the Rhexia Virginica…

Saw a small flock of geese go over. One’s life, the enterprise he is here upon, should certainly be a grand fact to consider, not a mean or insignificant one. A man…

Observed the reflection of the snow on Pine Hill from Walden, extending far beyond the true limits of a reflection, quite across the pond; ] > g Grane e gdm PLEZ…

P. M.—To Annursnack. Sedum Telephium, garden orpine or live-for-ever; I think this is the plant with a sort of pineapple-leaved and sheathed bulbs, on a rock…

Wednesday. Surveying the Hunt Farm this and the 20th.

Monday. Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. Paddled across it. I took my new boat out. A black and white duck on it, Flint’s and Fair Haven being frozen up.…

Brought my boat from Walden in rain. No snow on ground. Grass in the churchyard and elsewhere green as in the spring. I omitted some observations apparently between…

In Audubon’s Animals: — Sigmodon hispidum, Say and Ord. Marsh-Rat of Lawson’s Carolina. Wood-Rat, Bartram’s Travels in Florida. Arvicola hispidus, Godman. Arvicola…

I was this afternoon gathering chestnuts at Saw Mill Brook. I have within a few weeks spent some hours thus, scraping away the leaves with my hands and feet over…