4 October 1858 – 10 October 1858

Going by Dr. Barrett’s, just at the edge of evening, I saw on the sidewalk something bright like fire, as if molten lead were scattered along, and then I wondered if a drunkard’s spittle were luminous, and pro- ceeded to poke it on to a leaf with a stick. It was rotten wood. I found that it came from the bottom of some old fence-posts which had just been dug up near by and there glowed for a foot or two, being quite rotten and soft, and it suggested that a lamp-post might be more luminous at bottom than at top. I cut out a handful and carried it about. It was quite soft and spongy and a very pale brown — some almost white — in the light, quite soft and flaky; and as I withdrew it gradually from the light, it began to glow with a distinctly blue fire in its recesses, becoming more universal and whiter as the darkness increased. Carried toward a candle, it is quite a, blue light. One man whom I met in the street was able to tell the time by his watch, holding it over what was in my hand. The posts were oak, probably white. Mr. Melvin, the mason, told me that he heard his dog bark- ing the other night, and, going out, found that it was at the bottom of an old post he had dug up during the day, which was all aglow. P.M. (before the above). — Paddled up the Assa- bet. Strong north wind, bringing down leaves. Many white and red maple, bass, elm, and black wil- low leaves are strewn over the surface of the water, light, crisp colored skiffs. ‘he bass is in the prime of its change, a mass of yellow. See B a-fishing notwithstanding the wind. A man runs down, fails, loses self-respect, and goes a-fish- ing, though he were never seen on the river before. Yet methinks his “misfortune” is good for him, and he is the more mellow and humane. Perhaps he begins to perceive more clearly that the object of life is something else than acquiring property, and he really stands in a truer relation to his fellow-men than when he commanded a false respect of them. There he stands at length, per- chance better employed than ever, holding communion with nature and himself and coming to understand his real position and relation to men in this world. It is better than a poor debtors’ prison, better than most suc- cessful money-getting. I see some rich-weed in the shade of the Hemlocks, for some time a clear, almost ivory, white, and the boehme- ria is also whitish. Rhus Toxicodendron in the shade is a pure yellow; in the sun, more scarlet or reddish. Grape leaves apparently as yellow as ever. Witch-hazel apparently at height of change, yellow below, green above, the yellow leaves by their color concealing the flowers. The flowers, too, are apparently in prime. The leaves are often richly spotted reddish and greenish brown. The white maples that changed first are about bare. ‘The brownish-yellow clethra leaves thickly paint the bank. Salzx lucida leaves are one third clear yellow. The Osmunda regalis is yellowed and partly crisp and withered, but a little later than the cinnamon, etc. Scare up two ducks, which go off with a sharp creak- ing ar-r-week, ar-r-week, ar-r-week. Is not this the note of the wood duck ? Hornets are still at work in their nests. Ascend the hill. The cranberry meadows are a dull red. See crickets eating the election-cake toadstools. The Great Meadows, where not mown, have long been brown with wool-grass. The hickories on the northwest side of this hill are in the prime of their color, of a rich orange; some intimately mixed with green, handsomer than those that are wholly changed. The outmost parts and edges of the foliage are orange, the recesses green, as if the outmost parts, being turned toward the sunny fire, were first baked by it.

I still see large flocks, apparently of chip- birds, on the weeds and ground in the yard; without very distinct chestnut crowns, and they are divided by a light line. They are eating seeds of the Amaranthus hybridus, etc. 8 a.m. —I go to Hubbard’s Close to see when the fringed gentians open. They begin to open in the sun about 8.30 A. M., or say 9. Chewink note still. Grackles in flocks. Phebe note of chickadee often these days. Much green is indispensable for maples, hickories, birches, etc., to contrast with, as of pines, oaks, alders, etc. The former are fairest when seen against these. The maples, being in their prime, say yesterday, before the pines, are conspicuously parti-colored. P. M. — To Easterbrooks Country. White pines in low ground and swamps are the first to change. Some of these have lost many needles. Some on dry ground have so far changed as to be quite hand- some, but most only so far as to make the misty glaucous (green) leaves more soft and indefinite. The fever-bush is in the height of its change and is a showy clear lemon- yellow, contrasting with its scarlet berries. The yellow birch is apparently at the height of its change, clear yel- low like the black. I think I saw a white ash which was all turned clear yellowish, and no mulberry, in the Botrychium Swamp. Looking on the Great Meadows from beyond Nathan Barrett’s, the wool-grass, where uncut, is very rich brown, contrasting with the clear green of the portions which are mown; all rectangular. The staghorn sumach apparently in the prime’ of its change. In the evening I am glad to find that my phosphores- cent wood of last night still glows somewhat, but I im- | 1 (Queried in pencil.] prove it much by putting it in water. The little chips which remain in the water or sink to the bottom are like so many stars in the sky. The comet makes a great show these nights. Its tail is at least as long as the whole of the Great Dipper, to whose handle, till within a night or two, it reached, in a great curve, and we plainly see stars through it. Huckleberry bushes generally red, but dull Indian- red, not scarlet. The red maples are generally past their prime (of color). They are duller or faded. Their first fires, like those of genius, are brightest. In some places on the edges of swamps many of their tops are bare and smoky. The dicksonia fern is for the most part quite crisp and brown along the walls.

P.M.—To Saw Mill Brook and Fiint’s Pond. Now, methinks, the autumnal tints are brightest in our streets and in the woods generally. In the streets, the young sugar maples make the most show. The street is never more splendid. As I look up the street from the Mill-Dam, they look like painted screens standing before the houses to celebrate a gala-day.” One half of each tree glows with a delicate scarlet. But only one of the large maples on the Common is yet on fire. The butternuts on the street are with, or a little later than, the walnuts. . The three-thorned acacias have turned (one half) a pe- culiarly clear bright and delicate yellow, peculiar also for the smallness of the leaf. Asparagus-beds are a soft mass of yellow and green. Buttonwoods have no bright colors, but are a brownish and yellowish green, some- what curled and crisp and looking the worse for the wear. Stand where half a dozen large elms droop over a house. It is as if you stood within a ripe pumpkin rind, and you feel as mellow as if you were the pulp.’ In Saw Mill Brook Path, and in most wood-paths, the Aster undulatus is now very fair and interesting. Gen- erally a tall and slender plant with a very long panicle of middle-sized lilac or paler purple flowers, bent over to ° one side the path. The Rhus Toxicoden- dron leaves are completely changed and of a very various colors, pale yellow to deep scar- ~< Y let and delicate. The leaf-stalks are com- Ov monly drooping, being bent short downward near the base in a peculiar manner. Several species of ferns are faded quite white in the swamp, — dicksonia and another, and some brakes, — for in moist woods and swamps they are preserved longer than in dry places. Solidago latifolia in bloom still, but always sparingly. Cinnamon ferns are generally crisped, but in the swamp I saw some handsomely spotted green and yellowish, and one clump, the handsomest I ever saw, perfect in out- line, falling over each way from the centre, of a very neat drab color, quaker-like, fit to adorn an Oriental drawing-room. The evergreens seem positively greener, owing to the browning of other leaves. I should not sus- pect that the white birches had changed so much and lost so many leaves, if I did not see them against the unchanged pitch pines on the hillside. I notice Hvera- cium paniculatum and scabrum in dark, low wood-paths, turned a hoary white. The medeola leaves are a pale straw-color with a crimson centre; perhaps getting stale now. The tupelo at Wharf Rock is completely scarlet, with blue berries amid its leaves. Leaves now have fairly begun to rustle under foot in wood-paths, especially in chestnut woods, scaring the ducks as you approach the ponds. And what is that common scent there so much like fragrant everlasting ? The smooth sumachs, which are in their prime, or perhaps a little past, are, methinks, the most uniform and intense scarlet of any shrub or tree. They stand perfectly distinct amid the pines, with slender spreading arms, their leafets drooping and somewhat curled though fresh. Yet, high-colored as they are, from their attitude and drooping, like scarfs, on rather bare and dark stems, they have a funereal effect, as if you were walking in the cemetery of a people who mourned in scarlet. Most S. nemoralis, and most other goldenrods, now look hoary, killed by frost. The corn stands bleached and faded — quite white in the twilight — in the fields. No greenness there has the frost and sun left. Seen against the dark earth. My phosphorescent wood still glows a little, though it has lain on my stove all day, and, being wet, it is much improved still.

Fine pasture grass, seen in the sun, begins to look faded and bleached like the corn. Strong northwest wind. ‘The button-bushes and black willows are rapidly losing leaves, and the shore begins to look Novemberish. Mulberry leaves of ash are apparently dulled.

Cold and northwest wind still. The maple swamps begin to look smoky, they are already so bare. Their fires, so faded, are pale-scarlet or pinkish. Some Cornus sericea looks quite greenish yet. Huckleberry leaves falling fast. I go to the Cliffs. The air is clear, with a cold north- west wind, and the trees beginning to be bare. The mountains are darker and distincter, and Walden, seen from this hill, darker blue. It 1s quite Novemberish. People are making haste to gather the remaining apples this cool evening.’ Bay-wings flit along road. Crows fly over and caw at you now. Methinks hawks are more commonly seen now, — the slender marsh hawk for one. I see four or five in differ- ent places. I watch two marsh hawks which rise from the woods before me as I sit on the Cliff, at first plun- ging at each other, gradually lifting themselves as they come round in their gyrations, higher and higher, and floating toward the southeast. Slender dark motes they are at last, almost lost to sight, but every time they come round eastward I see the light of the westering sun re- flected from the under sides of their wings. Those little bits of phosphorescent wood which I picked up on the 4th have glowed each evening since, but required wetting to get the most light out of them. This evening only one, about two inches long, shows any light. ‘This was wet last evening, but is now apparently quite dry. If I should wet it again, it would, no doubt, glow again considerably.

Sunday. P. M.— To Annursnack. November has already come to the river with the fall of the black willow and the button-bush, and the fall and blackening of the pontederia. The leaves of the two former are the greater part fallen, letting in the autumn light to the water, and the ducks have less shelter and concealment. As I go along the Groton road, I see afar, in the mid- dle of E. Wood’s field, what looks like a stone jug or post, but my glass reveals it a woodchuck, a great, plump gray fellow, and when I am nearly half a mile off, I can still see him nibbling the grass there, and from time to time, when he hears, perchance, a wagon on the road, sitting erect and looking warily around for approach- ing foes. I am glad to see the woodchuck so fat in the orchard. It proves that is the same nature that was of yore. The autumnal brightness of the foliage generally is less, or faded, since the fading of the maples and hicko- nies, which began about the 5th." Oak leaves generally (perhaps except scarlet ?) begin to wither soon after they begin to turn, and large trees (except the scarlet) do not generally attain to brilliancy.? Apparently Fringilla pusilla yet. The Salix humilis leaves are falling fast in Wood Turtle Path (A. Hosmer’s), a dry wood-path, looking curled and slaty-colored about the half-bare stems. Thus each humble shrub is contributing its mite to the fertility of the globe. I find the under sides of the election-cake fungi there covered with pink-colored fleas, apparently poduras, skipping about when it is turned up to the hight. The simplest and most lumpish fungus has a peculiar interest to us, compared with a mere mass of earth, be- cause it is so obviously organic and related to ourselves, however mute. It is the expression of an idea; growth: according to a law; matter not dormant, not raw, but inspired, appropriated by spirit. If I take up a handful of earth, however separately interesting the particles may be, their relation to one another appears to be that of mere juxtaposition generally. I might have thrown them together thus. But the humblest fungus betrays a life akin to my own. It is a successful poem in its kind. There is suggested something superior to any particle of matter, in the idea or mind which uses and arranges the particles. Genius is inspired by its own works; it 1s hermaphro- ditic. I find the fringed gentian abundantly open at 3 and at 4p. M., — in fact, it must be all the afternoon, — open to catch the cool October sun and air in its low position. Such a dark blue! surpassing that of the male bluebird’s back, who must be encouraged by its presence.” The indigo-weed, now partly turned black and broken off, blows about the pastures like the flyaway grass. I find some of those little rooty tubers (? ), now woody, in the turtle field of A. Hosmer’s by Eddy Bridge. Pulling up some Diplopappus linariifolius, now done, I find many bright-purple shoots, a half to three quarters of an inch long, freshly put forth underground and ready to turn upward and form new plants in the spring.