Google
This is a digital copy of a book lhal w;ls preserved for general ions on library shelves before il was carefully scanned by Google as pari of a project
to make the world's books discoverable online.
Il has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one thai was never subject
to copy right or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often dillicull lo discover.
Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the
publisher lo a library and linally lo you.
Usage guidelines
Google is proud lo partner with libraries lo digili/e public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order lo keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial panics, including placing Icchnical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:
+ Make n on -commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request thai you use these files for
personal, non -commercial purposes.
+ Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort lo Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
+ Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each lile is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
+ Keep it legal Whatever your use. remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is slill in copyright varies from country lo country, and we can'l offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe.
About Google Book Search
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through I lie lull lexl of 1 1 us book on I lie web
al |_-.:. :.-.-:: / / books . qooqle . com/|
FJSkl_ ~ i
m ^~
| SUMMER
f
f
j THOREAU
%, NEW RIVERSIDE
* EDIT/ON
H:
1
•
1
£ .-■ ;;?' -'rf : ' ■
S- - " ■ # '■"■■ '
1 j
!
i t
)gle
Google
bsted by
Google
Hosted by
Google
-fcr-
Hosted by
Google
Hosted by
Google
Hosted by
Google
#? ?>. JD. spartan
WOff^S. NEW RIVERSIDE EDITION
WALCEN: or, Life in the Woods.
A WEEK ON THE CONCORO AMD MERRIMACK
EXCURSIONS IN FIELD AND FOREST.
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS.
SUMMER. With 3 Map of Concord.
AUTUMN.
WINTER.
MISCELLANIES. With a Biographical Sketch by Raiph
10 volumes, crown 8vo, ti.jv each ; the set, cloth, in bos,
(, 5 .oo; half calf, Js 7 . 5 o.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY,
Hosted by
Google
fcftergibt <£t»ition
THE WRITINGS OF
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
WITH BIBLIOGRAPHIC AL INTRODUCTIONS
AND FULL INDEXES
IN TEN VOLUMES
VOLUME VI
Hosted by
Google
Hosted by
Google
MljP OF T«E TOWN
CONCORD
Middlesex Co., Mass.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER
FROM THE JOURNAL OF
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
H. G. O. BLAKE
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
Hosted by
Google
Hosted by
Google
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
To those who are interested in Thoreau's life
and thoughts — a company already somewhat
large, and which, I trust, is becoming larger —
a second volume of selections from his Journal
is now offered. The same arrangement of dates
has been followed, for the most part, as in
"Early Spring in Massachusetts," in order to
give here a picture of summer as there of spring.
Thoreau seems himself to have contemplated
some work of this kind, as appears on page 99
of this volume, where he speaks of " a book of
the seasons, each page of which should be writ-
ten in its own season and out-of-doors, or in its
own locality, wherever it may be." Had his life
continued, very likely he would have produced
some such work from the materials and sugges-
tions contained in his Journal, and this would
have been doubtless far more complete and
beautiful than anything we can now construct
from fragmentary passage.-;.
Thoreau has been variously criticised as a nat-
uralist, one writer speaking of him as not by
■Hosted by
Google
vi INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
nature an observer, as making no discoveries, as
being surprised by pbenomena familiar to other
people, though he adds that this " is one of his
chief charms as a writer," since "everything
grows fresh under his hand." Another, whose
criticism is generally very favorable, says he was
too much occupied with himself, not simple
enough to be a good observer, that " he did not
love nature for her own sate," " with an un-
mixed, disinterested love, as Gilbert White did,
for instance," even " cannot say that there was
any felicitous " " seeing." This last statement
seems surprising. Still another is puzzled to
explain how a man who was so bent upon self-
improvement, who could so little forget himself
and the conventions of society, could yet study
nature so intelligently. But the very fact that
Thoreau " did not love nature for her own sake "
"with an unmixed, disinterested love," rather
looked beyond and above, whither she points,
to "a far Azore," to
" The cape never ronnded, nor wandered o'er,"
and was not specially bent upon being an intel-
ligent student of nature, an accurate scientific
observer or natural historian, but sometimes la-
mented that his observation was taking too ex-
clusively that turn ; the very fact that he aimed
rather at self-improvement, if one pleases to call
Hosted by
Google
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. vn
it so (though this seems a somewhat prosaic
account of the matter), that he was bent upon
ever exploring his own genius and obeying its
most delicate intimations, and in his love of na-
ture found the purest encouragement in that
direction, this constitutes to me the great charm
of his Journal, as it does of all his writings, —
as it did also of his life and conversation.
I desire to express here my obligations to Mr.
W. E. Channing, and Mr. F. B. Sanborn, of
Concord, both of them friends and biographers
of Thoreau, for indicating to me the position
of places on the accompanying map, most of
which are referred to in the Journal.
THE EDITOR.
Worcester, May, 1884.
Hosted by
Google
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER.
June 1, 1852. 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 night-hawk, crickets, the peet-
weet (it is early), the hum of dor-bugs, and the
whippoorwill. The boys are coming home from
fishing, for the river is down at last.
June 1, 1853. Quite a fog this morning.
Does it not always follow the cooler nights after
the first really warm weather about the end of
May? Saw a water-snake yesterday with its
tail twisted about some dead-weed stubble, and
quite dry and stiff, as if it were preparing to
shed its skin. . . .
Bees are swarming now, and those who keep
them often have to leave their work in haste to
secure them.
p, M. To Walden. Summer begins now,
about a week past, with the expanded leaves,
the shade, and warm weather. Cultivated fields,
too, are leaving out, that is, corn and potatoes
Hosted by
Google
coming up. Most trees have leaved and are now
forming fruit. Young berries, too, are forming,
and birds are being hatched. Dor-bugs and
other insects have come forth the first warm
evening after showers. The birds have now
[all ?] come, and no longer fly in flocks. The
hylodes are no longer heard ; the bull-frogs be-
gin to trump. Thick and extensive fogs in the
morning begin. Plants are rapidly growing,
shooting. Hoeing corn has commenced. The
first bloom of the year is over. It is now the
season of growth. Have not wild animals now
henceforth their young, and fishes, too ?
The pincushion galls on young white oaks are
now among the most beautiful objects in the
woods, — coarse, woolly, white, spotted with
bright red or crimson ou the exposed side. It is
remarkable that a mere gall, which at first we
are inclined to regard as something abnormal,
should be made so beautiful, as if it were the
flower of the tree; that a disease, an excres-
cence, should prove, perchance, the greatest
beauty, as the tear of the pearl ; beautiful scar-
let sins they may be. Through our temptations,
aye, and our falls, our virtues appear. As in
many a character, many a poet, we see that
beauty exhibited in a gall which was meant to
have bloomed in a flower, unchecked. Such,
however, is the. accomplishment of the world.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 3
The poet cherishes his chagrin and sets his sighs
to music. This gall is the tree's " Ode to Dejec-
tion." How oft it chances that the apparent
fruit of a shrub, its apple, is merely a gall or
blight! How many men, meeting with some
blast in the moist, growing days of their youth,
so that what should have been a sweet and pala-
table fruit in them becomes a mere puff and
excrescence, say that they have experienced re-
ligion ! Their fruit is a gall, a puff, an excre-
scence, for want of moderation and continence.
So many plants never ripen their fruit. . . ■
The news of the explosion of the powder mills
was not only carried seaward by the cloud which
its smoke made, but more effectually, though
more slowly, by the fragments which were floated
thither by the river. M yesterday showed
me quite a pile of fragments and short pieces of
large timber, still black with powder, which he
had saved as they were drifting by. . . . Some,
no doubt, were carried down to the Merrimack,
and by the Merrimack to the ocean, till, per-
chance, they got into the Gulf Stream and were
cast upon the coast of Norway, covered with bar-
nacles, — or who can tell on what more distant
strand ? — still bearing traces of burnt powder,
still capable of telling how and where they were
launched, to those who can read their signs.
Mingling with wrecks of vessels, which told a
Hosted by
Google
4 SUMMER.
different tale, this wreck of a powder-mill was
east up on some outlandish strand, and went to
swell the pile of drift-wood — collected by some
native — shouldered by whales, alighted on at
first by the musk -rat and the peet-weet, and
finally, perhaps, by the stormy petrel and other
beach birds. It is long before nature forgets it-
How slowly the ruins are being dispersed. . . .
I am as white as a miller — a rye-miller, at
least — with the lint from the young leaves and
twigs. The tufts of pinks on the side of the
peak by the pond grow raying out from a centre,
somewhat like a cyme, on the warm, dry side hill,
— some a lighter, some a richer and darker
shade of pink. With what a variety of colors
we are entertained ! Yet most colors are rare
or in small doses, presented to us as a condi-
ment or spice; much of green, blue, black, and
white, but of yellow and the different shades of
red, far less. The eyes feast on the colors of
flowers as on tidbits.
I hear now, at five o'clock, a farmer's born
calling the hands in from the field to an early
tea. Heard afar by the walker, over the woods,
at this hour, or at noon, bursting upon the still-
ness of the air, putting life into some portion of
the horizon, this is one of the most suggestive
and pleasing of the country sounds produced by
man. I know not how far it is peculiar to New
Hosted by
Google
England or the United States. I hear two or
three prolonged blasts, as I am walking along,
some sultry noon, in the midst of the still woods,
— a sound which I know to be produced by hu-
man breath, the most sonorous parte of which
alone reach me ; and I see in my mind's eye the
hired men and master dropping the implements
of their labor in the field, and wending their
way with a sober satisfaction toward the house.
I see the well-sweep rise and fall. I see the pre-
paratory ablutions, and the table laden with the
smoking meal. It is a significant hum in a dis-
tant part of the hive. . . .
How much lupine is now in full bloom on
bare sandy brows or promontories, running into
meadows where the sod is half worn away and
the sand exposed ! The geraniums are now get-
ting to be common. Uieracium venosum just
out on this peak, and the snapdragon catchfly is
here, abundantly in blossom a little after five
P. M., — a pretty little flower, the petals dull crim-
son beneath or varnished mahogany color, and
rose-tinted white within or above. It closed on
my way home, but opened again in water in the
evening. Its opening in the night chiefly is a
fact which interests and piques me. Do any in-
sects visit it then ? — Lambkill just beginning,
— the very earliest. . . . New, bright, glossy,
light-green leaves of the umbelled wintergreen
Hosted by
Google
are shooting on this hill-side, but the old leaves
are particularly glossy and shining, as if var-
nished and not yet dry, or most highly polished.
Did they look thus in the winter? I do not
know any leaf so wet-glossy.
While walking up this hill-side I disturbed a
night-hawk eight or ten feet from me, which
went half fluttering, half hopping, the mottled
creature, like a winged toad (as Nuttall says the
French of Louisiana call it) down the hill as
far as I could see. Without moving I looked
about and saw its two eggs on the bare ground
on a slight shelf of the bill, on the dead pine
needles and sand, without any cavity or nest
whatever ; very obvious when once you had de-
tected them, but not easily detected from their
color, a coarse gray, formed of white spotted
with bluish or slaty brown or amber, — a stone-
granite color, like the places it selects. I ad-
vanced and put my hand on them, and while I
stooped, seeing a shadow on the ground, looked
up and saw the bird, which had fluttered down
the hill so blind and helpless, circling low and
swiftly past over my bead, showing the white
spot on each wing in true night-hawk fash-
ion. When I had gone a dozen rods it appeared
again, higher iu the air, with its peculiar limp-
ing kind of flight, all the while noiseless, and
suddenly descending it dashed at me within ten
Hosted by
Google
feet of my head, like an imp of darkness ; then
swept away high over the pond, dashing now to
this side, now to that, on different tracks, as if,
in pursuit of its prey, it had already forgotten
its eggs on the earth. I can see how it might
easily come to be regarded with superstitious
awe. — A cuckoo very plainly heard.
Within little more than a fortnight the woods,
from bare twigs, have become a sea of verdure,
and young shoots have contended with one an-
other in the race. The leaves are unfurled all
over the country. Shade is produced, the birds
are concealed, their economies go forward un-
interruptedly, and a covert is afforded to ani-
mals generally. But thousands of worms and
insects are preying on the leaves while they
are young and tender. Myriads of little para-
sols are suddenly spread all the country over to
shield the earth and the roots of the trees from
the parching heat, and they begin to flutter and
to rustle in the breeze.
From Bare Hill there is a mist on the land-
scape, giving it a glaucous appearance. Now I
see gentlemen and ladies sitting in boats at
anchor on the lakes, in the calm afternoons,
under parasols, making use of nature. The
farmer, hoeing, is wont to look with scorn and
pride on a man sitting in a motionless boat a
whole half day, but he does not realize that the
Hosted by
Google
8 SUMMER.
object of his own labor is perhaps merely to add
another dollar to his heap, nor through what
coarseness and inhumanity to his family and ser-
vants he often accomplishes this. He has an
Irishman or a Canadian working for him by the
month, and what, probably, is the lesson he is
teaching him by precept and example ? Will it
make that laborer more of a man? this earth
more like heaven?
A redwing's neat, four eggs, low in a tuft of
sedge in an open meadow. What Champollion
can translate the hieroglyphics on these eggs ?
It is always writing of the same character,
though much diversified. While the bird picks
up the material and lays this egg, who deter-
mines the style of the marking? When you
approach, away dashes the dark mother, betray-
ing her nest, and then chatters her anxiety from
a neighboring bush, where she is soon joined by
the red-shouldered male, who comes scolding over
your head, chattering and uttering a sharp " phe
phee-e."
I hear the note of a bobolink concealed in the
top of an apple-tree behind me. Though this
bird's full strain is ordinarily somewhat trivial,
this one appears to be meditating a strain as yet
unheard in meadow or orchard. Paulo majora
canamus. He is just touching the strings of
his theorbo, his glaasichord, his water organ,
Hosted by
Google
and one or two notes globe themselves and fall
in liquid bubbles from his tuning throat. It is
as if he touched his harp within a vase of liquid
melody, and when he lifted it out the notes fell
like bubbles from the trembling strings. Me-
thinks they are the most liquidly sweet and
melodious sounds I ever heard. They are as
refreshing to my ear as the first distant tinkling
and gurgling of a rill to a thirsty man. Oh,
never advance farther in your art ; never let us
hear your full strain, sir ! But away he launches,
and the meadow is all bespattered with melody.
Its notes fall with the apple blossoms in the
orchard. The very divinest part of his strain
drops from his overflowing breast svngultim, in
globes of melody. It is the foretaste of such
strains as never fell on mortal ears, to hear which
we should rush to our doors and contribute all
that we possess and are. Or it seemed as if
in that vase full of melody some notes sphered
themselves, and from time to time bubbled up
to the surface, and were with difficulty re-
June 2, 1853. Half past three a. m. When
I awake I hear the low, universal chirping or
twittering of the chip-birds, like the bursting
head on the surface of the uncorked day. First
come, first served. You must taste the first
glass of the day's nectar if you would get all
Hosted by
Google
10 SUMMER.
the spirit of it. Its fixed air begins to stir and
escape. Also the robin's morning song is heard,
as in the spring, — earlier than the notes of
most other birds, thus bringing back the spring;
now rarely heard or noticed in the course of the
day.
Four a. m. To Nashawtuck. I go to the
river in a fog — through which I cannot see
more than a dozen rods — three or four times
as deep as the houses. As I row down the
stream, the dark, dim outlines of the trees on
the banks appear coming to meet me on the one
hand, while they retreat and are soon concealed
in it on the other. My strokes soon bring them
behind me. The birds are wide awake, as if
knowing that tills fog presages a fair day. I
ascend Nashawtuck from the north side. I am
aware that I yield to the same influence which
inspires the birds and the cockerels whose hoarse
courage I hear now vaunted. I would crow like
chanticleer in the morning, with all the lustiness
that the new day imparts, without thinking of
the evening, when I and all of us shall go faj
roost ; with all the humility of the cock that
takes his perch upon the highest rail and wakes
the country with his clarion brag. Shall not
men be inspired as much a's cockerels? My
feet are soon wet with fog. It is indeed a vast
dew. Are not the clouds another kind of dew ?
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 11
Cool nights produce them. Now I have reached
the hill-top above the fog at a quarter to five,
about sunrise, and all around me is a sea of fog,
level and white, reaching nearly to the top of
this hill, only the tops of a few high hills ap-
pearing as distant islands in the main. Wa-
chusett is a more distant aud larger island, an
Atlantis in the west; there is hardly one to
touch at between me and it. It is just like
the clouds beneath you as seen from a moun-
tain. It is a perfect level in some directions,
cutting the hills near their summits with a geo-
metrical line, but puffed up here and there, and
more and more toward the east, by the influence
of the sun. An early freight train is heard, not
seen, rushing through the town beneath it. You
can get here the impression which the ocean
makes, without ever going to the shore. The
sea-shore exhibits nothing more grand, or on a
larger scale. How grand where it rolls off over
Ball's Hill, like a glorious ocean after a storm,
just lit by the rising sun. It is as boundless
as the view from the highlands of Cape Cod.
These are exaggerated billows, the ocean on a
larger scale, the sea after some tremendous and
unheard-of storm, for the actual sea never ap-
pears so tossed up and universally white with
foam and spray as this, now, far in the north-
eastern horizon, where mountain billows are
Hosted by
Google
12 SUMMER.
breaking on some hidden reef or bank. It is
tossed up toward the sun and by it into the
most boisterous of seas, which no craft, no ocean
steamer, is vast enough to sail on. Meanwhile,
my hands are numb with cold, and my feet ache
with it. Now, at quarter past five, before this
southwest wind, it is already grown thin as
gossamer in that direction, and woods and
houses are seen through it, while it is heaped
up toward the sun, and finally becomes so thick
there that for a short time it appears in one
place a dark, low cloud, such as else can only be
seen from mountains ; and now long, dark ridges
of wood appear through it, and now the sun
reflected from the river makes a bright glow in
the fog, and now, at half past five, I see the
green surface of the meadows, and the water
through the trees sparkling with bright reflec-
tions. Men will go further and pay more to
see a tawdry picture on canvas, a poor, painted
scene, than to behold the fairest or grandest
scene that nature ever displays in their imme-
diate vicinity, although they may never have
seen it in their lives. . . .
Cherry birds are the only ones I see in flocks
now. I can tell them afar by their peculiar fine
Spring-y note. . . .
Four P. M. To Conantum. . . . Arethusas
are abundant in what I may call Arethusa
Hosted by
Google
Meadow. They are the more striking for grow-
ing in such green localities in meadows where
the brilliant purple, more or less red, contrasts
with the green grass. Found four perfect ar-
rowheads, and one imperfect, in the potato field
just plowed up for the first time that I remem-
ber, at the Hubbard bathing place. . . .
Clintonia borealis a day or two. Its beauty
at present consists chiefly in its commonly three
very handsome, rich, clear, dark-green leaves,
which Bigelow describes truly as " more than
half a foot long, oblanceolate, smooth, and shin-
ing." They are perfect in form and color,
broadly oblanceolate, with a deep channel down
the middle, uninjured by insects, arching over
from a centre at the ground; and from their
midst rises the scape, a foot high, with one or
more umbels of " green, bell-shaped flowers," —
yellowish-green, nodding or bent downward, but
without fragrance. In fact, the plant is all
green, both leaves and corolla. The leaves
alone — and many have no scape — would detain
the walker. Its berries are its flower. A single
plant is a great ornament in a vase, from the
beauty of its form and the rich, unspotted green
of its leaves.
The sorrel now reddens the fields far and
wide. As I look over the fields thus reddened
in extensive patches, now deeper, v now passing
Hosted by
Google
14 SUMMER.
into green, and think of the season now in its
prime and heyday, it looks as if it were the
blood mantling in the cheek of the beautiful
year, — the rosy cheek of its health, its rude
June health. The medeola has been out a day
or two, apparently, — another green flower. . . .
June 2, 1854. p. m. Up Assabet to Castil-
leja and Anursnaek. While waiting for
and S I look now from the yard to the wav-
ing and slightly glaucous-tinged June meadows,
edged by the cool shade of shrubs and trees, —
a waving shore of shady bays and promontories,
yet different from the August shades. It is
beautiful and Elysian. The air has now begun
to be filled with a bluish haze. These virgin
shades of the year, when everything is tender,
fresh, and green, how full of promise ! — prom-
ising bowers of shade in which heroes niay re-
pose themselves. 1 would fain be present at the
birth of shadow. It takes plaee with the first
expansion of the leaves. . . . The black wil-
lows are already beautiful, and the hemlocks
with their bead-work of new green. Are these
not king-bird-days, — these clearer first June
days, full of light, when this aerial, twittering
bird flutters from willow to willow, and swings
on the twigs, showing his white-edged tail? The
Azalea nudiflora is about done, or there was
apparently little of it. — I see some breams'
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 15
nests near my old bathing place above the stone
heaps, with sharp, yellow, sandy edges, like a
milk pan from within. . . . Also there are
three or four small stone heaps formed. . . .
The painted-cup meadow is all lit up with
ferns on its springy slopes. The handsome flow-
ering fern, now rapidly expanding and fruiting
at the same time, colors these moist slopes afar
with its now commonly reddish fronds; and then
there are the interrupted and the cinnamon ferns
in very handsome and regular tufts, and the
brakes standing singly, and more backward. . . .
June. 2, 1855. From that cocoon of the Atta-
cus cecropia which I found — I think it was on
the 24th of May — came out this forenoon a
splendid moth. I had pinned the cocoon to the
sash at the upper part of my window, and quite
forgotten it. About the middle of the forenoon
S came in, and exclaimed that there was a
moth on my window. My Attacus cecropia bad
come out and dropped down to the window-sill,
where it hung on the side of a slipper, to let its
wings hang down and develop themselves. At
first the wings were not only not unfolded later-
ally, but not longitudinally, the thinner ends of
the foremost ones for perhaps three fourths of
an inch being very feeble, and occupying very
little space. It was surprising to see the crea-
ture unfold and expand before our eyes, the
Hosted by
Google
16 SUMMER.
wings gradually elongating, as it were, by their
own gravity, and from time to time the insect
assisting this operation by a slight shake. It
was wonderful how it waxed and grew, revealing
some new beauty every fifteen minutes, which I
called S to see, but never losing its hold on
the shoe. It looked like a young emperor just
donning the most splendid ermine robes, the
wings every moment acquiring greater expan-
sion, and their at first wrinkled edge becoming
more tense. At first, they appeared double, one
within the other. But at last it advanced so far
as to spread its wings completely, but feebly,
when we approached. This process occupied
several hours. It continued to hang to the shoe,
with its wings ordinarily closed erect behind its
back, the rest of the day, and at dusk, when ap-
parently it was waving them preparatory to its
evening flight, I gave it ether, and so saved it in
a perfect state. As it lies, not outspread to the
utmost, it is five and nine tenths inches by two
and one fourth. . . .
The Azalea nudiflora now in its prime.
"What splendid masses of pink, with a few glau-
cous green leaves sprinkled here and there, —
just enough for contrast !
June 2, 1858. Half past eight a. m. Start
for Monadnock. Between Shirley Village and
Lunenburg I notice, in a meadow on the right
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 17
hand, close to the railroad, the Kalmia glauca
in bloom, as we are whirled past. Arrived at
Troy station at five minutes past eleven, and
shouldered our knapsacks, steering northeast to
the mountain, its top some four miles off. It is
a pleasant, hilly road, leading past a few farm-
houses, where you already begin to sniff the
mountain or at least up-country air. Almost
without interruption we had the mountain in
sight before us, its sublime gray mass, that an-
tique, brownish-gray, Ararat color. Probably
these crests of the earth are for the most part of
one color in all lands, — that gray color of an-
tiquity which nature loves, the color of unpainted
wood, weather stain, time stain ; not glaring nor
gaudy ; the color of all roofs, the color of all
things that endure, the color that wears well ;
color of Egyptian ruins, of mummies, and all
antiquity, baked in the sun, done brown, — not
scarlet, like the crest of the bragging cock, but
that hard, enduring gray, a terrene sky color,
solidified air with a tinge of earth.
We left the road at a school-house, and, cross-
ing a meadow, began to ascend gently through
very rocky pastures. . . . The neighboring hills
began to sink, and entering the wood we soon
passed Fassett's shanty, he so busily at work in-
side that he did not see us, and we took our din-
ner by the rooky brookside in the woods just
Hosted by
Google
18 SUMMER.
above. A dozen people passed us early in the
afternoon while we sat there, — men and women
on their way down from the summit, this sud-
denly very pleasant day after a lowering one,
having attracted them. . . .
Having risen above the dwarfish woods (in
which mountain ash was very common) which
reached higher up along the ravine we had tra-
versed than elsewhere, and nearly all the visitors
having descended, we proceeded to find a place
for and to prepare our camp at mid P. M. We
wished it to be near water, out of the way of the
wind — which was northwest — and of the path,
and also near to spruce-trees, for a bed. There
is a good place, if you would be near the top,
within a stone's-throw of it, on the north side,
under some spruce-trees. We chose a sunken
yard in a rocky plateau on the southeast side
of the mountain, perhaps half a mile from the
summit by the path, a rod and a half wide by
many more in length, with a mossy and bushy
floor about five or six feet beneath the general
level, where a dozen black spruce-trees grew,
though the surrounding rock was generally bare.
There was a pretty good spring within a dozen
rods, and the western wall shelved over a foot or
two. We slanted two scraggy spruce-trees, long
since bleached, from the western wall, and, cut-
ting many spruce boughs with our knives, made
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 19
a thick bed and wails on the two sides, to keep
out the wind. Then, putting several poles trans-
versely across our two rafters, we covered them
with a thick roof of spruce twigs, like shingles.
The spruce, though harsh for a bed, was close at
hand, we cutting away one tree to make room.
We crawled under the low eaves of this roof,
about eighteen inches high, and our extremities
projected about a foot.
Having left our packs here, and made all
ready for the night, we went up to the summit
to see the sun set. Our path lay through a cou-
ple of small swamps, and then up the rocks.
Forty or fifty rods below the very apex, or quite
on the top of the mountain, I saw a little bird
flit from beneath a rock close by the path, where
there were only a very few scattered dwarf black
spruces about, and looking I found a nest with
three eggs. It was the Fringilla hiemalis, which
soon disappeared around a projecting rock. The
nest was sunk in the ground by the side of a tuft
of grass, and was pretty deep, made of much fine,
dry grass or [sedge?]. The eggs were three, of
a regular oval form, faint bluish-white, sprinkled
with fine pale-brown dots, in two of the three
condensed into a ring about the larger end.
They had just begun to develop. The nest and
tuft were covered by a projecting rock. Brewer
says that only one nest is known to naturalists.
Hosted by
Google
We saw many of these birds flitting; about the
summit, perched on the rocks and the dwarf
spruces, and disappearing behind the rocks. It
is the prevailing bird now on the summit. They
are commonly said to go to the fur countries to
breed, though Wilsou says that some breed in
the Alleghanies. The New York Reports make
them breed in the Catskills and some other moun-
tains of that State. This was a quite interesting
discovery. They probably are never seen in the
surrounding low grounds at this season. The
ancestors of this bird had evidently perceived
in their flight northward that here was a small
piece of arctic region containing all the condi-
tions they require, coolness and suitable food,
etc., etc., and so for how long have builded here.
For ages they have made their home here with
the Armaria Groenlandica and Potentilla tri-
dentata. They discerned arctic isles sprinkled
in our southern sky. I did not see any of them
below the rocky and generally bare portion of the
mountain. It finds here the same conditions as
in the north of Maine and in the far countries,
Labrador mosses, etc. . . . Now that the season
is advanced, migrating birds have gone to the
extreme north or to the mountain tops. By its
color it harmonized with the gray and brownish-
gray rocks. We felt that we were so much
nearer to perennial spring and winter. . . .
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 21
We heard the hylodes peeping from a rain-
water pool, a little below the summit, toward
night. As it was quite hazy we could not see
the shadow of the mountain well, and so returned
just before sunset to our camp. We lost the
path coming down, for nothing is easier than to
lose your way here, where so little trail is left
upon the rocks, and the different rocks and ra-
vines are so much alike. Perhaps no other equal
area is so bewildering in this respect as a rocky
mountain summit, though it has so conspicuous
a central point. Notwithstanding the newspaper
and egg-shell left by visitors, these parts of
nature are still peculiarly unhandseled and un-
tracked. The natural terraces of rock are the
steps of this temple, and it is the same whether
it rises above the desert or a New England vil-
lage. Even the inscribed rocks are as solemn as
most ancient grave-stones, and nature reclaims
them with bog and lichen. These sculptors
seemed to me to court such alliance with the
grave as they who put their names over tomb-
stones along the highway. One, who was prob-
ably a blacksmith, had sculptured the emblems
of his craft, an anvil and hammer, beneath his
name. Apparently, a part of the regular outfit
of mountain climbers is a hammer and cold
chisel, and perhaps they allow themselves a sup-
ply of garlic also. But no Old Mortality will
Hosted by
Google
22 SUMMER
ever be caught renewing their epitaphs. It re-
minds one what kind of steep do climb the false
pretenders to fame, whose chief exploit is the
carriage of the tools with which to inscribe their
names. For speaking epitaphs they are, and the
mere name is a sufficient revelation of the char-
acter. They are all of one trade, — stone-cutters,
defacers of mountain tops. " Charles and Liz-
zie ! " Charles earned the sledge-hammer, and
Lizzie the cold chisel. Some have carried up a
paint pot, and painted their names on the rocks.
We returned to our camp, and got our tea in
our sunken yard. While one went for water to
the spring, the other kindled a fire. The whole
rocky part of the mountain, except the extreme
summit, is strewn with the relics of spruce-trees
a dozen or fifteen feet long, and long since dead
and bleached, so that there is plenty of dry fuel
at hand. We sat out on the brink of the rocky
plateau, near our camp, taking our tea in the
twilight, and found it quite dry and warm there,
though you would not have thought of sitting
out at evening in the surrounding valleys. I
have often perceived the warm air high on the
sides of hills, while the valleys were filled with a
cold, damp night-air, as with water, and here the
air was warmer and drier the greater part of the
night. We perceived no dew there this or the
nest night. Tlua was our parlor and supper-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 28
room ; in another direction was our wash-room.
The chewink sang before night, and this, as I
have before observed, is a very common bird on
mountain tops ; the wood-thrush sang, too, indef-
initely far or near, a little more distant and un-
seen, as great poets are. It seems to love a cool
atmosphere, and sometimes lingers quite late
with us. Early in the evening the night-hawks
were heard to squeak and boom over these bare
gray rocks, and such was our serenade at first as
we lay on our spruce bed. We were left alone
with the night-hawks. These withdrawn, bare
rocks must be a very suitable place for them to
lay their eggs, and their dry and unmusical, yet
supra-mundane and spirit-like, voices and sounds
gave fit expression to the rocky mountain soli-
tude. It struck the very key-note of that stern,
gray, and barren region. It was a thrumming
of the mountain's rooky chords ; strains from the
music of chaos, such as were heard when the
earth was rent and these rocks heaved up. Thus
thej went squeaking and booming while we were
courting the first access of sleep, and I could
imagine their dainty, limping flight, inclining
over the kindred rocks with a spot of white
quartz in their wings. No sound could be more
in harmony with that scenery. Though common
below, it seemed peculiarly proper here. But
ere long the night-hawks are stilled, and we hear
Hosted by
Google
24 SUMMER.
only the sound of our companion's breathing, or
of a bug in our spruce roof. I thought I heard
once, faintly, the barking of a dog far down un-
der the mountain,
A little after one A. M. 1 woke and found that
the moon had risen, and heard some little bird
near by sing a short strain of welcome to it,
song-sparrow-like. Before dawn the night-hawks
commenced their sounds again, which were as
good as a clock to us, telling how the night got
on. At length, by three o'clock, June 3d, the
signs of dawn appear, and soon we hear the
robin and the Fringilla hiemalis (its prolonged
jingle as it sat on the top of a spruce), the
ehewink, and the wood-thrush. Whether you
have slept soundly or not^ it is not easy to lie
abed under these circumstances, and we rose at
half past three, in order to see the sun rise from
the top and get our breakfast there. It was
still hazy, and we did not see the shadow of the
mountain until it was comparatively short, nor
did we get the most distant views, as of the
Green and White mountains, while we were
there. . . .
We concluded to explore the whole rocky part
of the mountain in this wise : to saunter slowly
around it at about the height and distance from
the summit, of our camp, or say half a mile,
more or less, first going north, and returning by
Hosted by
Google
the western semicircle, and then exploring the
east side, completing the circle, and returning
over the summit at night. . . .
During this walk, in looking toward the sum-
mit, I first observed that its steep, angular pro-
jections and the brows of the rocks were the
parts chiefly covered with dark brown lichens,
umbUicaria, etc., as if they were to grow ou the
ridge and slopes of a man'3 nose only. It was
the steepest and most exposed parts of the high
rocks alone on which they grew, where you
would think it most difficult for them to cling.
They also covered the more rounded brows on
the sides of the mountain, especially on the east
side, where they were very dense, fine, crisp, and
firm, like a sort of shagreen, giving a firm hold
to the feet where it was needed. It was these
that gave that Ararat brown color of antiquity
to these portions of the mountain, which a few
miles distant could not be accounted for, com-
pared with the more prevalent gray. From the
sky blue you pass through the misty gray of the
rocks to this darker and more terrene color.
The temples of the mountain are covered with
lichens, which color it for miles. . . .
We had thus made a pretty complete survey
of the top of the mountain. It is a very unique
walk, and would be almost equally interesting to
take if it were not elevated above the surround-
Hosted by
Google
26 SUMMER.
ing valleys. It often reminded me of my walks
on the beach, and suggested how much both de-
pend for their sublimity on solitude and dreari-
ness. In both cases we feel the presence of
some vast, titanic power. The rocks and valleys
and bogs and rain pools of the mountain are so
wild and unfamiliar still that you do not rec-
ognize the one you left fifteen minutes before.
This rocky region, forming what you may call
the top of the mountain, must be more than two
miles long by one wide in the middle, and you
would need to ramble round it many times be-
fore it would begin to be familiar. . . .
We proceeded to get our tea on the summit,
in the very place where I had made my bed for
a night some fifteen years before. ... It was
interesting to watch from that height the shad-
ows of fair-weather clouds passing over the land-
scape. You could hardly distinguish them from
forests. It reminded me of similar shadows seen
on the sea from the high bank of Cape Cod
beach. There the perfect equality of the sea
atoned for the comparatively slight elevation o£
the bank. ... In the valley or on the plain
you do not commonly notice the shadow of a
cloud unless you are in it, but on a mountain top
or on a lower elevation in a plane country, or by
the sea-side, the shadows of clouds flitting over
the landscape are a never - failing source of
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 27
amusement. It is commonly easy enough to re-
fer a shadow to its cloud, since in one direction
its form is perceived with sufficient accuracy.
Yet I was surprised to observe that a long, strag-
gling, downy cumulus, extending north and south
a few miles east of us, when the sun was perhaps
an hour high, cast its shadow along the base of
the Peterhoro hills, and did not fall on the other
side, as I should have expected. It proved the
clouds not so high as I had supposed. ... It
was pleasant enough to see one man's farm in
the shadow of a cloud, which perhaps he thought
covered all the Northern States, while his neigh-
bor's farm was in sunshine.
June 4th. At six a. m. we began to descend.
As you are leaving a mountain and looking back
at it from time to time, it is interesting to see
how it gradually gathers up its slopes and spurs
to itself into a regular whole, and makes a new
and total impression.
June 2, 1859. Found, within three rods of
Flint's Pond, a rose-breasted grossbeak's nest,
and one fresh egg (three on the 4th). It was
in a thicket where there was much catbriar, in
a high blueberry bush, some five feet from the
ground, in the forks of the bush, and of very
loose construction, being made of the dead gray
extremities of the catbriar with its tendrils (and
Hosted by
Google
28 SUMMER.
some of them had dropped on the ground be-
neath), and this was lined, lined merely, with fine
brown stems of weeds, like pinweeds, without any
leaves or anything else, a slight nest on the whole.
Saw the birds. The male uttered a very peculiar
sharp clicking or squeaking note of alarm while
I was near the nest. The egg is thickly spot-
ted with reddish brown on a pale blue ground
(not white ground, as Buonaparte and the New
York ornithologist says), like a hermit thrush's,
but rounder, very delicate.
June 2, 1860. A boy brought me yesterday
a nest with two Maryland yellow-throat's eggs
and two cow-bird's eggs in it, and said that they
were all found together.
You see now in suitable shallow and warm
places, where there is a sandy bottom, the nests
of the bream begun, circular hollows recently
excavated, weeds, confervce, and other rubbish
neatly removed, and many whitish root fibres of
weeds left bare and exposed.
8 p. m. Up Assabet. Bats go over, and a
king-bird very late. . . . Ever and anon we hear
the stake-driver from a distance. There is a more
distinct sound from animals than by day, and
an occasional bull-frog's trump is heard. Turn-
ing the island, I hear a very faint and slight
screwing or working sound once, and suspect a
screech owl, which I afterwards see on an oak. 1
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 29
soon tear its mournful acream, probably to its
mate ; not loud now, but though within thirty or
thirty-two rods, sounding a mile off. I hear it
louder from my bed at night.
June 3, 1838. Walden.
" True, our converse a stranger is to speech ;
Only the practised ear can catch the surging words
That break and die upon thy pebbled lips.
Thy flow of thought is noiseless as the lapse of thy own
waj ms,
Wafted as is the morning mist up from thy surface,
So that the passive sou] doth breathe it in,
And is infected with the truth thou wouldst express."
June 8, 1853, P. m. To Anursnack. By
way of the Linna^a, which I find is not yet out.
That thick pine wood is full of birds. . . . The
painted cup is in its prime. It reddens the
meadow, Painted Cup Meadow. It is a splen-
did show of brilliant scarlet, the color of the car-
dinal flower and surpassing it in mass and pro-
fusion. They first appear on the side of the hill,
on dryer ground, half a dozen inches high, and
the color is most striking then, when it is most
rare and precious ; but they now cover the
meadow mingled with buttercups, etc., and many
are more than eight inches high. I do not like
the name. It does not remind me of a cup,
rather of a flame when it first appears. It
might be called flame flower, or scarlet tip.
Here is a large meadow full of it, and yet very
Hosted by
Google
30 SUMMER.
few in the town have 3ver seen it. It is start-
ling to see a leaf thus brilliantly painted, as if
its tip were dipped into some scarlet tincture,
surpassing most flowers in intensity of eolor.
Seen from Anursnaek the woods now appear
full-leafed, smooth green, no longer hoary, and
the pines a dark mulberry, not green. But you
are still covered with lint as you go through the
copses. Summer begins when the hoariness dis-
appears from the forest as you look down on it,
and gives place thus to smooth green, full and
universal.
The song of the robin and the chirp (?) of the
chip-bird now begin prominently to usher in and
to conclude the day. The robin's song seems
not so loud as in the early spring, perhaps be-
cause there are so many other sounds at present.
June 3, 1854. 9 a. m. To Fair Haven. Go-
ing up Fair Haven Hill, the blossoms of the
huckleberries and blueberries imparted a sweet
scent to the whole hillside. . . . On the pond
played a long time with the bubbles which we
made with our paddles on the smooth, perhaps
unctuous surface, in which little hemispherical
cases we saw ourselves and boat, small, black, and
distinct, with a fainter reflection on the opposite
side of the bubble (head to head). These lasted
sometimes a minute before they burst. They re-
minded me more of Italy than of New Eng-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 31
land. . . . Thought how many times other sim-
ilar bubbles, which had now burst, had reflected
here the Indian, his canoe and paddle, with the
same faithfulness that they now image me and
my boat.
June 3, 1856. While running a line in the
woods close to the water on the southwest side of
Loring's Pond, I observed a chickadee sitting
quietly within a few feet. Suspecting a nest, I
looked and found it in a small, hollow maple
stump, which was about five inehe3 in diameter
and two feet high. I looked down about a foot,
and could just discern the eggs. Breaking off
a little, I managed to get my hand in and took
out some eggs. There were seven, making by
their number an unusual figure, as they lay in
the nest, a sort of egg rosette, a circle around,
with one or more in the middle. In the mean-
while the bird sat silent, though rather restless,
within three feet. The nest was very thick and
warm, of average depth, and made of the bluish
slate rabbit's (?) fur. The eggs were a perfect
ovaL five-eighths of an inch long, white, with
small reddish-brown or rusty spots, especially
about larger end, partly developed. The bird sat
on the remaining eggs next day. I called off the
boy in another direction that he might not
find it.
Picked up a young wood tortoise about an
Hosted by
Google
inch and a half long, but very orbicular. Its
scales very distinct, and, as usual, very finely and
distinctly sculptured ; but there was no orange
on it, only buff or leather color on the sides be-
neath. So the one of similar rounded form and
size, and with distinct scales, but faint yellow
spots on back, must have been a young spotted
turtle, I think, after all.
June 3, 1857. p. m. To White Cedar Swamp.
... I see a branch of Salix luctda which has
been broken off, probably by the ice in the win-
ter, and come down from far up stream, and
lodged, butt downward, amid some bushes, where
it has put forth pink fibres from the butt end in
the water, and is growing vigorously, though
not rooted in the bottom. Thus detained, it be-
gins to sprout and send its pink fibres down to
the mud, and finally the water, getting down
to the summer level, leaves it rooted in the
bank. . . .
The pitch pine at Hemlocks is in bloom. The
sterile flowers are yellowish, while those of the
Pinus resinosa are dark purple. As usual, when
I jar them, the pollen rises in a little cloud
about the pistillate flowers and the tops of the
twigs, there being a little wind. . . ■
I have several friends and acquaintances who
are very good companions in the house, or for
an afternoon walk, but whom I cannot make up
Hosted by
Google
my mind to make a longer excursion with, for I
discover all at once that they are too gentle-
manly in manners, dress, and all their habits.
I see in my mind's eye that they wear black
coats, considerable starched linen, glossy boots
and shoes, and it is out of the question. It is a
great disadvantage for a traveler to be a gentle-
man of this kind, he is so ill-treated, only a prey
to landlords. It would be too much of a circum-
stance to enter a strange town or bouse with
such a companion. You could not travel incog-
nito. You might get into the papers. You
should travel as a common man. If such a one
were to set out to make a walking journey, he
would betray himself at every step. Every one
would see that he was trying an experiment, as
plainly as they see that a lame man is lame by
his limping. The natives would bow to him,
other gentlemen would invite him to ride, con-
ductors would warn him that this was the second-
class car, and many would take him for a clergy-
man, and so he would be continually pestered
and balked and run upon. He could not see the
natives at all. Instead of going in quietly and
sitting by the kitchen fire, he would be shown
into a cold parlor, there to confront a fire-board
and excite a commotion in a whole family. The
women would scatter at bis approach, and the
husbands and sons would go right off to hunt up
Hosted by
Google
34 SUMMER.
their black coats, for they all tare them. They
are as cheap as dirt. He would go trailing his
limbs along the highways, mere bait for corpu-
lent innholders, as a frog's leg is trolled along a
stream to catch pickerel, and his part of the
profits would be the frog's. No, you must be a
common man, or at least travel as one, and then
nobody will know you are there or have been
there. I could not undertake a simple pedes-
trian excursion with one of these, because to en-
ter a village or a hotel or a private house with
such a one would be too great a circumstance,
would create too great a stir. You would not
go half as far with the same means, for the price
of board and lodging would rise everywhere ; so
much you have to pay for wearing that kind of
coat. Not that the difference is in the coat at
all, for the character of the scurf is determined
by that of the true liber beneath. Innkeepers,
stablers, conductors, clergymen, know a true way-
faring man at first sight, and let him alone. It
is of no use to shove your gaiter shoes a mile fur-
ther than usual. Sometimes it is mere shiftless-
ness or want of originality; the clothes wear
them. Sometimes it is egoism that cannot afford
to be treated like a common man ; they wear
the clothes. They wish to be at least fully ap-
preciated by every stage-driver and school-boy.
They would like well enough to see a new place,
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 35
perhaps, but then they would like to be regarded
as important public personages. They would
consider it a misfortune if their names were left
out of the published list of passengers, because
they came in the steerage, an obscurity from
which they might never emerge.
June 3, 1860. These are the clear breezy
days of early June, when the leaves are young
and few, and the sorrel not yet in its prime.
Perceive the meadow fragrance. . . . The roads
are strewn with red maple seed. The pine
shoots have grown generally from three to six
inches, and begin to make a distinct impression,
even at some distance, of white and brown above
their dark green. The foliage of deciduous
trees is still rather yellow-green than green.
Tree -toads heard. There are various sweet
scents in the air now. Especially as I go along
an arbor-vitae hedge, I perceive a very distinct
fragrance like strawberries from it.
June 4, 1852. 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 ushering in
the day. They appear comparatively silent an
hour or two later.
The dandelions are almost all gone to seed,
and children may now see if "your mother
wants yon." . . . Lupines in prime. The Can-
Hosted by
Google
86 SUMMER.
ada snapdragon, that little blue flower that lasts
so long, grows with the lupines under Fair
Haven. The early chickweed? with the star-
shaped flower, cerastium? is common in fields
June 4, 1853. The date of the introduction
of the Rhododendron maximum into Concord
is worth preserving, May 16, 1853. They were
small plants one to four feet high, some with
large flower buds, twenty-ftve cents apiece, and
I noticed the next day one or more in every
front yard on each side of the street, and the in-
habitants out watering them. Said to be the
most splendid native flower in Massachusetts.
In a swamp in Medfield. I hear to-day that
one in town has blossomed. . . . The clintonia
is abundant in Hubbard's shady swamp, along
by the foot of the hill, and in its prime. Look
there for its berries. Commonly four leaves
there with an obtuse point. — The lady's slipper
leaf out, so rich, dark green and smooth, having
several channels. The bull-frog now begins to
be heard at night regularly, has taken the place
of the hylodes.
Looked over the earliest town records at the
clerk's office this evening, the old book contain-
ing grants of land. Am surprised to find such
names as " Wallden Pond " and " Fair Haven "
as early as 1653, and apparently '52 ; also under
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 37
the first date, at least, " 2d Division," the rivers
as " North and South " rivers (not Assabet at
that date), " Swamp Bridge," apparently on Back
road, " Goose Pond," " Mr. Flint's Pond,"
" Nutt Meadow," " Willow Swamp," " Spruce
Swamp," etc., etc. ... It is pleasing to read
these evergreen wilderness names, now, per-
chance, cleared fields and meadows, said to be
redeemed. The 2d Division appears to have
been a very large tract between the two rivers.
June 4, 1854. 8 a. m. Up Assabet with
These warm and dry days which put Spring
far behind, the sound of the crickets at noon has
a new value and significance, so severe and cool.
It is the iced cream of song. It is modulated
shade.
1 see now, here and there, deep furrows in the
sandy bottom, two or three inches wide, leading
from the middle of the river toward the side,
and a clam on its edge at the end of each.
There are distinct white lines. Plainly, then,
about these times the clams are coming up to
the shore, and I have caught them in the act.
p. M. To Walden. Now is the time to ob-
serve the leaves, so fair in color and so perfect
in form. I stood over a sprig of chokeberry
with fair and perfect glossy, green, obovate and
serrate leaves in the woods this p. m., as if it
Hosted by
Google
were a rare flower. Now the various forms of
oak leaves in sproutlands, wet-glossy, as if newly
painted green and varnished, attract me. The
chinquapin and black shrub oaks have such
leaves as I fancy crowns were made of. And
in the washing breeze the lighter under-sides be-
gin to show, and a new light is flashed upon the
year, lighting up and enlivening the landscape.
Perhaps, on the whole, as most of the undersides
are of a glaucous hue, they add to the glaucous
mistiness of the atmosphere which now has be-
gun to prevail- The mountains are hidden. The
first drought may be beginning. The dust is
powdery in the street, and we do not always
have dew in the night.
In some cases Fame is perpetually false and
unjust. Or rather I should say that she never
recognizes the simple heroism of an action, but
only as connected with its apparent consequence.
She praises the interested energy of the Boston
Tea Party, but will be comparatively silent
about the more bloody and disinterestedly heroic
attack on the Boston Court House, simply be-
cause the latter was unsuccessful. Fame is not
just. She never finely or discriminatingly
praises, but coarsely hurrahs. The truest acts
of heroism never reach her ear, are never pub-
lished by her trumpet.
June 4, 1855. P. M. To Hubbard's Close.
Hosted by
Google
White clover out probably some days ; also red,
as long. ... It has just cleared off after this
first rain of consequence for a long time, and
now I observe the shadows of massive clouds
still floating here and there in the peculiarly
blue sky. These dark shadows on field and
wood are the more remarkable by contrast to
the light, yellow-green foliage, and where they
rest on evergreens, they are doubly dark, like
dark rings about the eyes of June. Great white-
bosomed clouds, darker beneath, float through
the clearest sky, and are seen against its deli-
cious blue, such a sky as we have not had before.
This is after the first important rain at this
season. The song of birds is more lively and
seems to have a new character ; a new season has
commenced. In the woods I hear the tanager,
the chewink, and the redeye. It is fairly sum-
mer, and mosquitoes begin to sting in earnest.
. . . There are now many potentillas ascendant,
and the Mrigeron bdlidifol'mm, I see sixteen
inches high and quite handsome. . . . Now
the crimson velvety leaves of the black oak,
showing also a crimson edge on the downy
undersides, are beautiful as a flower, and the
more salmon-colored white oak.
The lAnnma borealis has grown an* inch, but
are not the flowers winter-killed? I see dead
and blackened flower-bnds. Perhaps it should
have opened before.
Hosted by
Google
40 SUMMER.
June 4, 185T. p. m. To Bare Hill. . . .
One thing that chiefly distinguishes this season
from three weeks ago is that fine serene under-
tone or earth-song, as we go by sunny brooks
and hillsides, the creak of crickets, which affects
our thoughts so favorably, imparting its own
serenity. It is time now to bring our philosophy
out of doors. Our thoughts pillow themselves
unconsciously in the trough of this serene rip-
pling sea of sound. Now first we begin to be
peripatetics. No longer our ears can be content
with the bald echoing earth, but everywhere
recline on the spring-cushion of a cricket's
chirp. These rills that ripple from every hill-
side become at length a universal sea of sound,
nourishing our ears when we are most uncon-
scious. ... In the high pasture behind Jacob
Baker's, soon after coming out of the wood, I
scare up a baywing. She runs several rods
close to the ground through the thin grass, and
then lurks behind tussocks, etc. The nest has
four eggs, dull pinkish white with brown spots-
It is low in the ground, made of stubble lined
with white horse-hair.
June 4, 1860. The foliage of the elms over
the street is dense and heavy already, compara-
tively. The blaek-poll warblers appear to have
left, and some others, if not the warblers gen-
erally, with this first clear, bright, and warm
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 41
peculiarly June weather, immediately after the
May rain. About a month ago, after the
stormy and cold winds of March and April, and
the (in common years) rain and high water,
the ducks, etc., left us for the north. Now there
is a similar departure of the warblers, on the
expansion of the leaves and advent of yet
warmer weather. Their season with us, i. e.,
the season of those that go further, is wheu
the buds are bursting, till the leaves are about
expanded, and probably they follow these phe-
nomena northward till they get to their breeding
places, flying from tree to tree, i. e., to the next
tree north which contains their insect prey. . . .
The clear brightness of June was well repre-
sented yesterday by the buttercups (Ranunculus
bulho&us) along the roadside. Their yellow cups
are glossy and varnished within, but not without.
Surely there is no reason why the new butter
should not be yellow now.
The time has now come when the laborers,
having washed and put on their best suits, walk
into the fields on the Sabbath, and lie on the
ground at rest.
A cat-bird has her nest in our grove. We
cast out strips of white cotton cloth, all of which
she picked up and used, I saw a bird flying
across the street with so long a strip of cloth, or
the like, the other day, and so slowly, that at
Hosted by
Google
42 SUMMER.
first I thought it was a tittle boy's kite, with a
long tail. The cat-bird sings less now while its
mate is sitting, or may be taking care of her
young, and probably this ia the case with robins
and birds generally.
At the west spring of Fair Haven Hill I cast
a bit of wood against a pitch-pine in bloom (per-
haps not yet in bloom generally), and I see the
yellow pollen dust blown away from it in a faint
cloud, distinctly for three rods at least, and
gradually rising all the while (rising five or six
feet perhaps).
You may say that now, when most trees have
fully expanded leaves, and the blaek ash fairly
shows green, that the leafy season has com-
menced. (I see that I so called it May 27 and
31, 1853.)
June 5, 1850. To-night, after a hot day, I hear
the first peculiar summer breathing of the frogs.
The other day, when I walked to Goodman's
Hill, it seemed to me that the atmosphere was
never so full of fragrance and spicy odors.
There is a great variety in the fragrance of the
apple blossoms as well as in their tints. Some
are quite spicy. The air seemed filled with the
odor of ripe strawberries, though it is quite too
early for them. The earth was not only fra-
grant, but sweet and spicy, reminding us of
Arabian gales, and what mariners tell of the
Spice Islands.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 43
The first o£ June, when the lady's slipper and
the wild pink have come out in sunny places on
the hill-sides, then the summer is begun accord-
ing to the clock of the seasons.
June 5, 1852. The medeola has blossomed in
a tumbler. I seem to perceive a pleasant fuga-
cious fragrance from its rather delicate, but in-
conspicuous, green flower. Its whorls of leaves
of two stages are the most remarkable. I do
not perceive the smell of the cucumber in its
root.
To Harrington's, p. M. The silvery cinque-
foil, Potentilla argentea, now. A delicate spring
yellow, sunny yellow (before the dog-days)
flower. None of the fire of autumnal yellows
in it. Its silvery leaf is as good as a flower.
White weed.
The constant inquiry which Nature puts is,
" Are you virtuous ? Then you can behold me."
Beauty, fragrance, music, sweetness, and joy of
all kinds are for the virtuous. That I thought
when I heard the telegraph harp to-day.
The Viola lanceolata now, instead of the Viola
blanda. In some places the leaves of the last
are grown quite large. The side-saddle flower.
The Thalictrum anemonoides still. The dwarf
cornel by Harrington's road looks like large
snow-flakes on the hill-side, it is so thick. It is
a neat, geometrical flower, of a pure white, some-
times greenish, or green.
Hosted by
Google
44 SUMMER.
Some poet must sing in praise of the bulbous
Arrt'fiuxa.
The lupine is now in its glory. It is the more
important, because it occurs in such extensive
patches, even an acre or more together, and of
such a pleasing variety of colors, purple, pink or
lilac, and white, especially with the sun on it,
when the transparency of the flower makes its
color changeable. It paints a whole hill-side
with its blue, making such a field (if not mead-
ow) as Proserpine might have wandered in. Its
leaf was made to be covered with dew-drops. I
am quite excited by this prospect of blue flowers
in clumps, with narrow intervals, such a profu-
sion of the heavenly, the Elysian color, as if
these were the Elysian Fields. . . . That is the
value of the lupine. The earth is blued with it.
Yet a third of a mile distant I do not detect
their color on the hill-side. Perchance because
it is the color of the air. It is not distinct
enough. You may have passed along here a fort-
night ago, and the hill-side was comparatively
barren, but now you come, and these glorious re-
deemers appear to have flashed out here all at
once. "Who plants the seeds of lupines in the bar-
rensoil? Who watereth the lupines in the fields?
De Kay of the New York Report says the
bream " is of no value as an article of food, but
is often caught for amusement." I think it Ja
the sweetest fish in our river.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 45
June 5, 1853. 5 a. m. By river to Nashaw-
tuck. For the most part we are inclined to
doubt the prevalence of gross superstition among
the civilized ancients ; whether the Greeks, for
instance, accepted literally the mythology which
we accept as matchless poetry. But we have ■>
only to be reminded of the kind of respect paid to J
the Sabbath as a holy day here in New England,
and the fears which haunt those who break it, to •
see that our neighbors are the creatures of an
equally gross superstition with the ancients. I t
am convinced that there is no very important
difference between a New Englander's religion
and a Roman's. We both worship in the shadow
of our sins. They erect the temples for us. Je-
hovah has no superiority to Jupiter. The New
Englander is " a pagan suckled in a creed out-
worn." Superstition has always reigned. It is '
absurd to think that these farmers, dressed in
their Sunday clothes, proceeding to church, differ
essentially in this respect from the Roman peas-
antry. They have merely changed the name and
number of their gods. Men were as good then
as they are now, and loved one another as much
or as little. . . .
p. M. To Mason's Pasture.
The world is now full of verdure and fra-
grance, and the air comparatively clear (not yet
the constant haze of the dog-days), through
Hosted by
Google
46 SUMMER.
which the distant fields are seen, reddened with
sorrel, the meadows wet -green, full of fresh
grass, and the trees in their first beautiful, bright,
untarnished, and unspotted green. May is the
bursting into leaf and early flowering with much
coolness and wet, and a few decidedly warm
days ushering in summer; June, verdure and
growth, with not intolerable, but agreeable heat.
The young pitch pines in Mason's Pasture are
a glorious sight now, most of the shoots grown
six inches, so soft and blue-green, nearly as wide
as high. It is Nature's front yard. The moun-
tain laurel shows its red flower buds, but many
shoots have been killed by frost.
There is a 'tract of pasture and wood land,
orchard, and swamp in the north part of the
town through which the old Carlisle road runs,
which is nearly two miles square, without a
single house, and with scarcely any cultivated
land, four square miles. . . ■
I perceive some black birch leaves with a
beautiful crimson kind of sugaring along the
furrows of the nerves, giving them a bright
crimson color, either a fungus or the deposit of
an insect. Seen through a microscope it sparkles
like a ruby.
Nature is fair in proportion as the youth is
pure. The heavens and the earth are one flower.
The earth is the calyx ; the heavens, the corolla,
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 47
June 5, 1854. 6 p. m. To Cliffs. Now, just
before sundown, a night-hawk is circling imp-
like with undulating, irregular flight over the
sproutland on the Cliff Hill with an occasional
squeak, and showing the spot on hissings. He
does not circle away from this place, and I asso-
ciate him with two gray eggs somewhere on the
ground beneath, and a mate there sitting. This
squeak and occasional booming is heard in the
evening air, while the stillness on the side of the
village makes more distinct the increased hum
of insects. —
I see at a distance a king-bird, or blackbird,
pursuing a crow lower down the hill, like a satel-
lite revolving about a black planet. I have come
to the hill to see the sun go down, to recover san-
ity, and put myself again in relation with Nature.
I would fain drink a draught of Nature's seren-
ity. Let deep answer to deep. Already I see
reddening clouds reflected in the smooth mirror
of the river, a delicate tint, far off and elysian,
unlike anything in the sky as yet. The ever-
greens now look even black by contrast with the
sea of fresh and light green foliage which sur-
rounds them. Children have been to the cliffs
and woven wreaths or chaplets of oak leaves
which they have left, unconsciously attracted by
the beauty of the leaves now. The sun goes
down red and shorn of his beams, a sign of hot
Hosted by
Google
48 SUMMER.
weather, as if the western horizon or the lower
stratum of the air were filled with the hot dust
of the day. The dust of his chariot eclipses his
beams. I love to sit here and look off into the
broad deep vale in which the shades of night are
beginning to prevail. When the sun has set,
the river becomes more white and distinct in the
landscape. ... I return by moonlight.
June 5, 1855. p. m. To Clam Shell by river.
... I am much interested to see how Nature
proceeds to heal the wounds where the turf
was stripped off this meadow. There are large
patches where nothing remained but pure black
mud, nearly level, or with slight hollows like a
plate in it. This the sun and air had cracked
into irregular polygonal figures, a foot, more or
lessj in diameter. The whole surface of these
patches is now covered with a short, soft, and
pretty dense moss-like vegetation springing up
and clothing it. The little hollows and the
cracks are filled with a very dense growth of
reddish grass or sedge, about an inch high, the
growth in the cracks making pretty regular
figures as in a carpet, while the intermediate
spaces are very evenly, but much more thinly
covered with minute sarothra and whitish Gna-
pkalivm uliginomm. Thus the wound is at
once scarred over. Apparently the seeds of that
grass were heavier and were washed into the hol-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 49
lows and craeks. It is not likely that the owner
has sprinkled seed here.
June 5, 1856. Everywhere now in dry pitch-
pine woods stand the red lady's slippers over the
red pine leaves on the forest floor, rejoicing in
June, with their two broad, curving green leaves
(some even in swamps), upholding their rich,
striped, drooping sack.
A cuckoo's nest with three light bluish-green
eggs, partly developed, short, with rounded ends,
nearly of a size ; in a black cherry-tree that had
been lopped three feet from the ground, amid the
thick sprouts ; of twigs, lined with green leaves,
pine needles, etc., and edged with some dry,
branchy weeds. The bird stole off silently at
first.
[June 10. The cuckoo of June 5 has deserted
her nest, and I find the fragments of eggshells in
it ; probably because I found it.]
June 5, 1857. I am interested in each con-
temporary plant in my vicinity, and have at-
tained to a certain acquaintance with the larger
ones. They are cohabitants with me of this part
of the planet, and they bear familiar names.
Yet how essentially wild they are, as wild really
as those strange fossil plants whose impression I
see on my coal. Yet I cau imagine that some
race gathered those too with as much admira-
tion and knew them as intimately as I do these,
Hosted by
Google
50 SUMMER.
that even they served for a language of the sen-
timents. Stigmarise stood for a human senti-
ment in that race's flower language. Chickweed
or a pine-tree is but little less wild. I assume
to be acquainted with these, but what ages be-
tween me anil the tree whose shade I enjoy. It
is as if it stood substantially in a remote geo-
logical period.
June 5, 1860. . . . "When I open my window
at night, I hear the peeping of the hylodes dis-
tinctly through the rather cool rain (as also
some the next A. M.), but not of toads; more
hylodes than in the late very warm evenings
when the toads were heard most numerously.
The hylodes evidently love the cooler nights of
spring. The toads, the warm days and nights of
May. Now it requires a cool (and better if wet)
night, which will silence the toads, to make the
hylodes distinct.
June 6, 1852. First devil's needles in the
air, and some smaller bright green ones on flow-
ers. The earliest blueberries are now forming
as green berries. The wind already injures the
just expanded leaves, tearing them and making
them turn black. . . . The side-flowering sand-
wort, an inconspicuous white flower like a chick-
weed.
June 6, 1853, 4.30 a. m. To Linna;a Woods.
The Linnasa just out.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 51
Corydalis glauca, a delicate glaucous plant
rarely met with, with delicate flesh-colored and
yellow flowers, covered with a glaucous bloom,
on dry rocky hills. Perhaps it suggests gentility.
Set it down as early as middle of May or ear-
lier. . . .
This morning I hear the note of young blue-
birds in the air, which have recently taken wing,
and the old birds keep up such a warbling and
twittering as remind me of spring.
According to S 's account, she must have
seen an emperor moth, " pea-green with some-
thing like maple keys for tail," in a lady's hand
in Cambridge to-day. So one may have come
out of the chrysalid seen May 23d.
p. M. To Conantum by boat. . . . Blue-
eyed grass now begins to give that slaty blue
tint to meadows.
The deep shadow of Conantum Cliff and of
mere prominences in the hills, now at mid-after-
noon as we row by, is very interesting. It is
the most pleasing contrast of light and shade
that I notice. Methinks that in winter a shadow
is not attractive. The air is very clear, at least
as we look from the river valley, and the land-
scape all swept and brushed. We seem to see
to some depth into the side of Fair Haven Hill.
The side-saddle flowers are now in their
prime. There are some very large ones here-
Hosted by
Google
52 SUMMER.
abouts, five inches in diameter when you flatten
out their petals, like great dull-red roses. Their
petals are of a peculiar red, and the upper sides
of their calyx leaves, of a shiny leather red or
brown red, are agreeable.
A slippery elm, Ulmus fulva, on Lee's Cliff,
red elm. Put it with the common. It has
large rough leaves and straggling branches, a
rather small, much-spreading tree, with an ap-
pearance between the common elm and iron-
wood.
The aspect of the dry rocky hills already indi-
cates the rapid revolution of the seasons. The
spring, that early age of the world, following
hard on the reign of winter, and the barren rocks
yet dripping with it, is past. How many plants
have already dried up, lichens and algse, which
we can still remember as if belonging to a for-
mer epoch, saxifrage, crowfoot, anemone, colum-
bine for the most part, etc. It is Lee's Cliff I
am on. There is a growth confined to the damp
aud early spring. How dry and crisp the turf
feels there now, not moist with melted snows,
remembering, as it were, when it was the bottom
of the sea. How wet-glossy the leaves of the
red oak uow, fully expanded. They shine as
when the sun comes out after rain.
I find on a shelf of the rock the Tarritia
striata, now gone to seed, two feet two inches
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 53
high, . . . pods upright and nearly three inches
long, linear and flat, leaves decidedly lanceolate
or linear. Some minute, imperfect, unexpanded
flowers, still on it, appear as if they would have
been yellowish.
In the very open park in rear of the rocks on
the hill-top, where lambkill and huckleberries
and grass alternate, came to one of those hand-
some, round, mirror-like pools, a rod or two in
diameter, and surrounded with a border of fine
weeds, such as you frequently meet with on the
top of springy hills. Though warm and muddy
at bottom, they are very beautiful and glassy,
and look as if they were cool springs, so high,
exposed to the light, yet so wild and fertile ; as
if the fertility of the lowlands was transferred
to the summit of the hills. They are the kind
of mirrors at which the huntresses in the golden
age arranged their toilets, which the deer fre-
quented and contemplated their branching horns
June 6, 1854. I perceive the sweetness of
the locust blossoms fifteen or twenty rods off, as
I go down the street. P. M. To Assabet bath-
ing place and return by Stone Bridge. . . . The
painted tortoises are now-a-days laying their
eggs. I see where they have just been digging
in the sand or gravel in a hundred places on the
southerly sides of hills and banks near the river,
Hosted by
Google
54 SUMMER.
but they have laid their eggs in very few. I
find none whole. Here is one which has made
its hole with the hind part of its shell and its
tail, apparently. . . . They are remarkably cir-
cumspect, and it is difficult to see one working.
They stop instantly and draw in their heads,
and do not move till you are out of sight, and
then probably try a new place. They have dab-
bled in the sand and left the marks of their tails
all around.
The black oaks, birches, etc., are covered with
ephemerse of various sizes and colors, with one,
two, or three, or no streamers, ready to take wing
at evening, i. e., about seven. I am covered with
them and much incommoded.
The air over the river meadows is saturated
with sweetness, but I look round in vain for the
source, on the yellowish sensitive fern and the
reddish eupatorium springing up.
From time to time at mid-afternoon, is heard
the trump of a bull-frog, like a triton's horn.
I am struck now by the large, light-purple,
Viola palmatas rising above the grass near the
river.
Of oak leaves, there is the small, firm, few-
lobed, wholesome, dark-greeu shrub oak leaf,
light beneath.
The more or less deeply cut, and more or less
dark green, or sometimes reddish, black oak,
not light beneath. These two, bristle-pointed.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 55
The very wet-glossy, obovatish, sinuate-edged
swamp white oak, light beneath.
The small narrower, sinuated, and still more
chestnut-like chinquapin, a little lighter beneath.
All these, more or less glossy, especially the
swamp-white and shrub.
Then the dull green, sometimes reddish, more
or less deeply cut or fingered, unarmed, round-
lobed white oak, not light beneath.
The last three without bristles.
I remember best the sort of rosettes made by
the wet-glossy leaves at the ends of some swamp
white oak twigs ; also the wholesome and firm
dark green shrub oak leaves, and some glossy
and finely cut light green, black ? or red ? or
scarlet ? oak leaves.
I see some devil's needles, a brilliant green
with white and black, or open work and black
wings, some with clear black wings, some with
white bodies and black wings, etc.
6.30 a. m. Up Assabet. . . . Beautiful the
hemlock fans now, broad at the ends of the
lower branches which slant down, seen in the
shade against the dark hillside ; such is the con-
trast of the very light green just put forth on
their edges, with the old, very dark. I feast my
eyes on it.
Sphynx moths about the flowers at evening, a
night or two,
Hosted by
Google
56 SUMMER.
June Qth, 1855. You see the dark eye and
shade of June on the river as well as on land,
and a dust-like lint on river, apparently from
the young leaves and hud scales, covering the
waters which begin to be smooth, and imparting
a sense of depth.
Blue-eyed grass, may be several days, in some
places.
White weed, two or three days.
June 6, 1856. p. m. To Andromeda Ponds.
Cold, mizzling weather. In the large circular
hole or cellar at the turn-table on the railroad,
which they are repairing, I see a star-nosed mole
endeavoring in vain to bury himself in the sandy
and gravelly bottom. Some inhuman fellow has
cut off his tail. He is blue-black, with much
fur, a very thick, plump animal, apparently some
four inches long, hut he occasionally shortens
himself one third or more ; looks as fat as a fat
hog. His fore-feet are large, and set side-wise,
or on their edges, and with these he shovels the
earth aside, while his large, long, starred snout
is feeling the way and breaking ground. I see
deep indentations in his fur, where his eyes are
situated, and once I saw distinctly his eye open,
a dull, blue?-blaek bead, not very small; and he
very plainly noticed my movements two feet off.
He was using his eye as plainly as any creature
that I ever saw. Yet it is said to be a question
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 57
whether their eyes are not merely rudimentary.
... 1 carried him along to plowed ground where
he buried himself in a minute or two.
How well-suited the lining of a bird's nest not
only to the comfort of the young, but to keep
the eggs from breaking, fine elastic grass stems
or root fibres, pine needles, hair, or the like.
These tender and brittle things, which you can
hardly carry in cotton, lie there without harm.
June 6, 1857. 8 a. m. To Lee's Cliff by
river. . . . This is June, the month of grass
and leaves. Already the aspens are trembling
again, and a new summer is offered me. I feel
a little fluttered in my thoughts, as if I might
be too late. Each season is but an infinitesimal
point. It no sooner comes than it is gone. It
has no duration. It simply gives a tone and hue
to my thought. Each annual phenomenon is a
reminiscence and prompting. Our thoughts and
sentiments answer to the revolutions of the sea-
sons as two cog-wheels fit into each other. We
are conversant with only one point of contact
at a time, from which we receive a prompting
and impulse, and instantly pass to a new season
or point of contact. A year is made up of a
certain series and number of sensations and
thoughts, which have their language in nature.
Now I am ice, now I am sorrel. Each experi-
ence reduces itself to a mood of the mind. I see
Hosted by
Google
58 SUMMER,
a man grafting, for instance. What this imports
chiefly is not apples to the owner or bread to the
grafter, hut a certain mood or train of thought
to my mind. That is what the grafting is to me.
Whether it is anything at all, even apples or
bread, to anybody else, I cannot swear, for it
would he worse than swearing through glass. I
only see those other facts as through a glass,
darkly. . . .
Krigias, with their somewhat orange yellow,
spot the dry hills all the forenoon, and are very
common, but as they are closed in the afternoon,
they are but rarely noticed by walkers.
June 6, 1860. . . . 6.30 P. m. Up Assabet.
. . . Not only the foliage begins to look dark
and dense, but many ferns are fully grown, as
the cinnamon and interrupted, and being curved
over the bank and shore, add to the leafy im-
pression of the season. . The Osmunda regalis
looks later and more tender, reddish brown still.
It preserves its habit of growing in circles,
though it may be on a steep bank, and one half
the circle in the water. . . .
The trees commonly are not yet so densely
leaved but that I can see through them, e. g.,
I see through the red oak and the bass (below
Dome Rock), looking toward the sky. They
are a mere network of light and shade af-
ter all. The oak may be a little the thicker.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 59
The white ash is considerably thinner than
either. . . .
How full is the air of sound at sunset and
just after! Especially at the end of a rain
storm. Every bird seems to be singing in the
wood across the stream, and there are the hy-
lodes and the sounds of the village. Beside,
sounds are more distinctly heard. Ever and
anon we hear a few sucks or strokes from the
bittern or stake driver, whenever we lie to, as if
he had taken the job of extending all the fences
up the river, to keep the cows from straying.
"We hear but three or four toads in all, to-night,
but as many hylodes as ever. It is too cool,
both water and air (especially the first), after
the rain, for the toads. . . .
As the light is obscured after sunset, the
birds rapidly cease their songs, and the swal-
lows cease to flit over the river. Soon the bats
are seen taking the places of the swallows, and
flying back and forth like them, and commonly
a late king-bird will be heard twittering still in
the air. After the bats, or half an hour after
sunset, the water bugs begin to spread them-
selves over the stream (though fifteen minutes
earlier not one was seen without the pads), now
when it is difficult to see them or the dimples
they make, except you look toward the reflected
western sky. It is evident that they dare not
Hosted by
Google
come out thus by day for fear of fishes, and
probably the nocturnal or vespertinal fishes, as
eels and pouts, do not touch them. I think I
see them all over Waldcn by day, and if so, it
may be because there is not much danger from
fishes in that very deep water,
June 7, 1841. . . . We are accustomed to
exaggerate the immobility and stagnation of
those eras [the early Oriental], as of the waters
which leveled the steppes ; but those slow re-
volving "years of the gods" were as rapid to
all the needs of virtue as these bustling and
hasty seasons. Man stands to revere, he kneels
to pray. Methinks history will have to be tried
by new tests to show what centuries were rapid
and what slow. Corn grows in the night. Will
this bustling era detain the future reader longer ?
Will the earth seem to have conversed more
with the heavens during these times ? Who is
writing better Vedas ? How science and art
spread and flourished, how trivial conveniences
were multiplied, that which is the gossip of the
world is not recorded in them, and if they are
left out of our scriptures, too, what will re-
main '!
Since the battle of Bunker Hill we think the
world has not been at a stand-still.
June J, 1851. My practicalness is not to be
trusted to the last. To be sure, I go upon my
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 61
legs for the most part, but being bard pushed
and dogged by a superficial common sense which
is bound to near objects by beaten paths, I am
off the handle, as the phrase is ; I begin to be
transcendental and show where my heart is. I
am like those Guinea fowl which Charles Dar-
win saw at the Cape de Verde Islands. He
says : " They avoided us like partridges on a
rainy day in September, running with their
heads cocked up, and if pursued they readily
took to the wing." Keep your distance, do not
impinge on the interval between us, and I will
pick up lime and lay real terrestrial eggs for you,
and let you know by cackling when I have done
it. When I have been asked to speak at a tem-
perance meeting, my answer lias been, I am too
transcendental to serve you in your way. They
would fain confine me to the rum-sellers and
rum-drinkers, of whom I am not one, and whom
I know little about. . . . There are few so tem-
perate that they can afford to remind us even at
table that they have a palate and a stomach.
We believe that the possibility of the future (
far exceeds the accomplishments of the past. ]
We review the past with the common sense, but
we anticipate the future with transcendental
senses. In any sanest moments we find our-
selves naturally expecting or prepared for far
greater changes than any which we have experi-
Hosted by
Google
enced within the period of distinct memory, only
to be paralleled by experiences which are for-
gotten. Perchance there are revolutions which
create an interval impossible to the memory.
One of those gentle, straight-down rainy days,
when the rain begins by spotting the cultivated
fields, as if shaken down from a pepper-box ; a
fishing day, when I see one neighbor after an-
other, having donned his oil-cloth suit, walking
or riding past with a fish-pole, having struck
work, a day and an employment to make phi-
losophers of them all.
June 7, 185S. p.m. To Walden. Clover be-
gins to redden the fields generally. The quail is
heard at a distance. Buttercups of various kinds
mingled, yellow the meadows, the tall, the bulb-
ous, the repens. The cinquefoil, in its ascend-
ing state, keeping pace with the grass, is now
abundant in the fields. Saw it one or two weeks
ago. This is a feature of June. Still both
high and low blueberry and huckleberry blos-
soms abound. The hemlock woods, their fan-
like sprays edged or spotted with short, yellowish-
green shoots, tier above tier, shelf above shelf,
look like a cool bazaar of rich embroidered
goods. How dense their shade, dark and cool
beneath them, as in a cellar. No plants grow
there, but the ground is covered with fine red
leaves. It is oftenest on a side hill they grow.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 63
The oven-bird runs from her covered nest, so
close to the ground, under the lowest twigs and
leaves, even the loose leaves on the ground, like
a mouse, that I cannot get a fair view o£ her.
She does not fly at all. Is it to attract me, or
partly to protect herself ?
Visited my night-hawk on her nest. Could
hardly believe my eyes when I stood within
seven feet and beheld her sitting on her eggs, her
head towards me ; she looked so Saturnian, so
one with the earth, so sphynx-like, a relic of the
reign of Saturn which Jupiter did not destroy,
a riddle that might well cause a man to go dash
his head against a stone. It was not an actual
living creature, far less a winged creature of
the air, but a figure in stone or bronze, a fanciful
production of art, like the gryphon or ph<enix.
In fact, with its breast toward me, and, owing to
its color or size, no bill perceptible, it looked like
the end of a brand, such as are common in a
clearing, its breast mottled, or alternately waved
with dark brown and gray, its flat, grayish,
weather-beaten crown, its eyes nearly closed,
purposely, lest these bright beads should betray
it, with the stony cunning of the sphynx. A
fanciful work in bronze to ornament a mantel.
It was enough to fill one with awe. The sight
of this creature sitting on its eggs impressed me
with the venerableness of the globe. There was
Hosted by
Google
64 SUMMER.
nothing novel about it. All the while this seem-
ingly sleeping bronze sphynx, as motionless as
the earth, was watching me with intense anxiety
through those narrow slits in its eyelids. An-
other step, and it fluttered down the hill, close
to the ground, with a wabbling motion, as if
touching the ground now with the tip of one
wing, now with the other, so ten rods to the
water, which it skimmed close over a few rods,
and then rose and soared in the air above me.
Wonderful creature, which sits motionless on its
eggs, on the barest, most exposed hills, with its
eyes shut and its wings folded ; and after the
two days' storm, when you think it has become
a fit symbol of the rheumatism, it suddenly rises
into the air, a bird, one of the most aerial, sup-
ple, and graceful of creatures, without stiffness
in its wings or joints. It was a fit prelude
to meeting Prometheus bound to his rock on
Caucasus.
June 7, 1854. . . . p. m. To Dugan Desert
via Linnasa Hills. Linnsea abundantly out some
days, say three or four.
The locusts so full of pendulous white racemes
five inches long, filling the air with their sweet-
ness, and resounding with the hum of bumble
and honey-bees, are very interesting. These ra-
cemes are strewn along the path by children.
I am struck by the rank, dog-like scent of the
rue budded to blossom.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 65
I am surprised at the size of green berries,
shad-bush, low blueberries, choke-cherries, etc.,
etc. It is but a step from ftower to fruit.
As I expected, I find the desert scored by the
tracks of turtles, made evidently last night,
though the rain of this morning has obliterated
the marks of tbeir tails. The tracks are about
seven eighths of an inch in diameter, half an
inch deep, two inches apart (from centre to
centre) in each row, and the rows four or five
inches apart. They have dabbled in the sand
in many places, and made some small holes.
Yesterday it was hot and dusty, and this morn-
ing it rained. Did they choose such a time?
Yesterday I saw the painted and the wood tor-
toise out. Now I see a snapping turtle, its shell
about a foot long, out here on the damp sand,
with its head out, disturbed by me. It had just
been excavating, and its shell, especially the fore
part and sides, and still more its snout, were
deeply covered with earth. It appears to use its
shell as a kind of spade, whose handle is within,
tilting it now this way, now that, and perhaps
using its head and claws as a pick. It was in a
little cloud of mosquitoes, which were contin-
ually settling on its head and flippers, but which
it did not mind. Its sternum was slightly de-
pressed. It seems that they are frequently found
Hosted by
Google
GG SUMMER.
fighting in the water, and sometimes dead in the
spring, perhaps killed by the ice.
Common iris some days, one withered.
Saw again what I have pronounced the yellow-
winged sparrow,i<W«'/<7/</ ■/'■■./.-■xcrina, with white
line down head, and yellow over eyes, and my
seringo note. But tliis time the yellow of wings
is not apparent ; ochreous throat and breast.
Quite different from the bay-wing and smaller.
This muggy evening I see fire-Hies, the first I
have seen or heard of this year.
June 7, 1855. ... I have heard no musical
gurgle-ee from blackbirds for a fortnight. They
are now busy breeding.
June 7, 1858. p. M. To Walden. Warm
weather has suddenly come, beginning yester-
day. To-day it is yet warmer, 87° at 3 p. M.,
compelling me to put on a thin coat, and I see
that a new season has arrived. June shadows
are movingover waving <;t.iws lipids, the crickets
chirp uninterruptedly, and 1 perceive the agreea-
ble acid scent of high blueberry bushes in bloom.
The trees having leaved out, you notice their
rounded tops suggesting shade. The night-hawk
booms over arid hill-sides and sproutlauds.
It is evidence enough against crows, hawks,
and owls, proving their propensity to rob birds'
nests of eggs and young, rluit smaller birds pur-
sue them so often. You do not need the testi-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 67
mony of so many farmers' boys when yon can
see and hear the small birds daily crying " Thief
and murder" after these spoilers. What does it
signify, the kingbird, blackbird, swallow, etc.,
pursuing a crow. They say plainly enough, " I
know you of old, you villain ; you want to de-
vour my eggs or young. I have often caught
you at it, and I '11 publish you now." And
probably the crow, pursuing the fish-hawk and
eagle, proves that the latter sometimes devour
their young.
As I was wading in this "Wyman meadow, look-
ing for bull-frog spawn, I saw a hole at the bot-
tom where it was six or eight inches deep, by the
side of a mass of mud and weeds, which rose
just to the surface three or four feet from the
shore. It was about five inches in diameter, with
some sand at the mouth, just like a musquash's
hole. As I stood there within two feet, a pout
put her head out, as if to see who was there, and
directly came forth, and disappeared under the
target weed ; but as I stood perfectly still, wait-
ing for the water which I had disturbed to settle
about the hole, she circled round and round sev-
eral times between me and the hole cautiously,
stealthily approaching the entrance, but as often
withdrawing, and at last mustered courage to
enter it. I then noticed another similar hole in
the same mass, two or three feet from this. I
Hosted by
Google
thrust my arm into the first, running' it down about
fifteen inches. It was a little more than a foot
long, and enlarged somewhat at the end, the bot-
tom also being about a foot beneath the surface,
for it slanted downward. But I felt nothing
within. I only felt a pretty regular and rounded
apartment with firm walls of weedy or fibrous
mud. I then thrust my arm into the other hole,
which was longer and deeper, at first discovering
nothing. But, trying again, I found that I had
not reached the end, for it turned a little and
descended more than I supposed. Here I felt
a similar apartment or enlargement some six
inches in diameter horizontally, but not quite so
high, nor nearly so wide at its throat. Here, to
my surprise, I felt something soft like a gelati-
nous mass of spawn, but, feeling a little further,
felt the horns of a pout. I deliberately took
hold of her by the head, and lifted her out of
the hole and the water, having run my arm in
two thirds of its length. She offered not the
slightest resistance from first to last, even when
I held her out of water before my face, and only
darted away suddenly when I dropped her into
the water. The entrance to the apartment was so
narrow that she could hardly have escaped, if
I had tried to prevent her. Putting in my
arm again, I felt under where she had been, a
flattish mass of ova, several inches in diameter,
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 69
resting on the mud, and took out some. Feeling
again in the first hole, I found as much more
there. Though I had been stepping round and
over the second nest for several minutes, I had
not seared the pout. The ova of the first nest
already contained white wiggling young. I saw
no motion in the others. The ova in each case
were dull yellowish, and the size of small buek-
shot. These nests did not communicate with
each other, and had no other outlet.
Pouts then make their nests in shallow mud-
holes or bays in masses of weedy mud, or prob-
ably in the muddy bank, and the old pout hovers
over the spawn or keeps guard at the entrance.
Where do the Walden pouts breed when they
have not access to the meadow ? The first pout,
whose eggs were most developed, was the largest,
and had some slight wounds on the back. The
other may have been the male, in the act of fer-
tilizing the ova.
I sit in my boat in the twilight, by the edge
of the river. Bull-frogs now are in full blast.
I do not hear other frogs. Their notes are prob-
ably drowned. . . . Some of these great males
are yellow, or quite yellowish over the whole
back. Are not the females oftenest white-
throated ? What lungs, what health, what ter-
renity (if not serenity) their note suggests ! At
length I hear the faint stertoration of a Sana
palustris (if not halecina?)
Hosted by
Google
70 SUMMER,
Seeing a large head with its prominent eyes
projecting above the middle of the river, I found
it was a bull-frog coming across. It swam under
water a rod or two, and then came up to see
where it was, on its way. It is thus they cross
when sounds or sights attract them to more de-
sirable shores. Probably they prefer the night
for such excursions, for fear of large pickerel,
etc.
June 7, 1860. White clover already whitens
some fields, and resounds with bees.
June 8, 1850. Not till June can the grass be
said to be waving in the fields. When the frogs
dream and the grass waves, and the buttercups
toss their heads, and the heat disposes one to
bathe in the ponds and streams, then is summer
begun.
June 8, 1851. I found the white pine top
fuil of staminate blossom buds, not yet fully
grown or expanded, with a rich red tint, like a
tree full of fruit, but I could find no pistillate
blossom.
June 8, 1853. p. m. To Well Meadow
As I stood by the last small pond near Well
Meadow, I heard a hawk scream, and looking
up, saw a pretty large one circling not far off,
and incessantly screaming, as I at first supposed
to scare and so discover its prey. But its
screaming was so incessant, and it circled from
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 71
time to time so near me as I moved southward,
that I began to think it had a nest near by, and
was angry at my intrusion into its domains. As
I moved, the bird still followed and screamed,
coming sometimes quite near, or within gunshot,
then circling far off or high into the sky. At
length, as I was looking up at it, thinking it the
only living creature within view, I was singu-
larly startled to behold, as my eye by chance
penetrated deeper into the blue, — the abyss of
blue above which I had taken for a solitude, —
its mate silently soaring at an immense height,
and seemingly indifferent to me. We are sur-
prised to discover that there can be an eye on us
on that side, and so little suspected, that the
heavens are so full of eyes, though they look so
blue and spotless. Then I knew that it was the
female that circled and screamed below. At last
the latter rose gradually to meet her mate, and
they circled together there, as if they could not
possibly feel any anxiety on my account. When
I drew nearer to the tall trees where I suspected
the nest to he, the female descended again, swept
by screaming, still nearer to me, just over the
tree tops, and finally, while I was looking for
the orchis in the swamp, alighted on a white
pine twenty or thirty rods off. (The great
fringed orchis just open.) At length I detected
the nest about eighty feet from the ground, in a
Hosted by
Google
72 SUMMER.
very large white pine by the edge of the s
It was about three feet in diameter, of dry sticks,
and a young hawk, apparently as big as its
mother, stood on the edge looking down at me,
and only moving its head when I moved.
In its imperfect plumage, and the slow motion
of its head, it reminded me strongly of a vulture,
so large and gaunt. It appeared a tawny brown
on its neck and breast, and dark brown or black-
ish on wings. The mother was light beneath,
and apparently lighter still on the rump.
White pine in flower. All the female flowers
on the veiy top of the tree, a small crimson cone
upright on the ends of its peduncles, while the
last year's, now three or four inches long, and
green, are curved downward like scythes. Best
seen looking down on the tops of lower pines
from the top of a higher one. Apparently just
beginning.
June 8, 1854. The Rosa nitida bud, which I
plucked yesterday, has blossomed to-day, so that
notwithstanding the rain, I will put it down for
to-day. Eritjvron strUjosum slowly opening,
perhaps to-morrow.
Meadow rue, with its rank, dog-like scent.
Ribwort plantain is abundantly in bloom, fifteen
or sixteen inches high. How long '!
Herndon in his "Exploration of the Amazon,"
says that " There is wanting an industrious and
Hpsted by
Google
active population, who know what the comforts
of life are, and who have artificial wants, to draw
out the great resources of the country." But
what are the " artificial wants " to be encouraged,
and the " great resources " of a country? surely
not the love of luxuries, like the tobacco and
slaves of his native (?) Virginia, or that fertility
of soil which produces these. The chief want is
ever a life of deep experiences, i. e., character,
which alone draws out " the great resources " of
Nature. When our wants cease to be chiefly
superficial and trivial, which is commonly meant
by artificial, and begin to be wants of character,
then the great resources of a country are taxed
and drawn out, and the result, the staple pro-
duction, is poetry. Have the great resources of
Virginia been drawn out by such artificial wants
as there exist? Was that country really designed
by its maker to produce slaves and tobacco ? or
something more than freemen, and food for free-
men ? Wants of character, aspirations, this is
what is wanted, but what is called civilization
does not always substitute this for the barren
simplicity of the savage.
June 8, 1860. 2 p. m. To Well Meadow
via Walden. Within a day or two has begun
that season of summer when you see afternoon
showers — perhaps with thunder — or the threat
of them dark in the horizon, and are uncertain
Hosted by
Google
74 SUMMER.
whether to venture far away or without an um-
brella. I noticed the very first such cloud on
the 25th of May ; the dark iris of June. When
you go forth to walk at 2 p. M. you see per-
haps, in the southwest or west, or may be eastern
horizon, a dark and threatening mass of cloud,
showing itself just over the woods, its base hori-
zontal and dark, with lighter edges where it is
rolled up to the light, while all beneath is a dark
skirt of falling rain. These are summer showers,
come with the heat of summer.
What delicate fans are the great red -oak
leaves, now just developed, so thin, and of so
tender a green. They hang loosely, flaccidly
down, at the mercy of the wind, like a new-horn
butterfly or dragon fly. A strong, cold wind
would blacken and tear them now. They re-
mind me of the frailest stuffs hung around a dry-
goods shop. They have not been hardened by
exposure yet, these raw and tender lungs of the
tree. The white-oak leaves are especially downy
and lint your clothes.
This is truly June when you begin to see
brakes (dark green) fully expanded in the wood
paths.
In early June, methinks, as now, we have
clearer days, less haze, more or less breeze, es-
pecially after rain, and more sparkling water,
than before. I look from Fair Haven Hill. Aa
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 75
there is more shade in the woods, so there is
more shade in the sky, i. e., dark, heavy cloud3
contrasted with the bright sky ; not the gray
clouds of spring.
The leaves generally are almost fully ex-
panded, i. e., some of each tree.
June 9-14, 1850. I see the pollen of the
pitch-pine now beginning to cover the surface
of the pond. Most of the pines at the north-
northwest end have none, and in some there is
only one pollen-bearing flower.
There are as many strata at different levels of
life as there are leaves in a book. Most men
have probably lived in two or three. When on
the higher levels we can remember the lower,
but when on the lower we cannot remember the
higher.
My imagination, my love and reverence and
admiration, my sense of the miraculous, is not
so excited by any event as by the remembrance
of my youth. Men talk about Bible miracles
because there is no miracle in their lives. Cease
to gnaw that crust. There is ripe fruit over
your head.
Woe to him who wants a companion, for he
is unfit to be the companion even of himself.
We inspire friendship in men when we have
contracted friendship with the gods.
When we cease to sympathize with and to be f
Hosted by
Google
76 SUMMER.
Vpersonally related to men, and begin to be uni-
Iversally related, then we are capable of inspir-
ing others with the sentiment of love for us.
We hug the earth. How rarely we mount I
How rarely we climb a tree ! We might elevate
ourselves. That pine would make us dizzy.
You can see the mountains from it as you
never did before.
Shall not a man have his spring as well as
the plants ?
Any reverence even for a material thing pro-
ceeds from an elevation of character. Layard,
speaking of the reverence for the sun exhibited
by the Yezidis, or Worshipers of the Devil,
says, " Tbey are accustomed to kiss the object
on which the sun's first beams fall; and I have
frequently, when traveling in their company at
sunrise, observed them perform this ceremony.
For fire, as symbolic, they have nearly the same
reverence ; they never spit into it, but frequently
pass their hands through the flame, kiss them,
and pass them over their right eyebrow, or some-
times over the whole face.' :
Who taught the oven-bird to conceal her nest ?
It is on the ground, yet out of sight. What
cunning there is in Nature! No man could
have arranged it more artfully for the purpose
of concealment. Only the escape of the bird
betrays it.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 77
June 9, 1851. Gathered the Linnw.ahore.alis.
June 9, 1852. 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, whose
flower does not yet appear. 1 perceive that
their petals, washed ashore, line the sand con*
spicuously.
For a week past we have had washing days.
The grass is waving, and the trees having leaved
out, their boughs feel the effect of the breeze.
Thus new life and motion is imparted to the
trees. The season of waving boughs, and the
lighter under-sides of the new leaves are ex-
posed. This is the first half of June. Already
the grass is not so fresh and liquid velvety a
green, having much of it blossomed, and some
even gone to seed, and it is mixed with reddish
ferns and other plants, but the general leanness,
shadiness, and waving of grass and boughs
characterize the season. The wind is not quite
agreeable, because it prevents your hearing the
birds sing. Meanwhile the crickets are strength-
ening their choir. The weather is very clear,
and the sky bright. The river shines like silver.
Methinks this is a traveler's month. The locust
in bloom. The undulating rye. The deciduous
trees have filled up the intervals between the
evergreens, and the woods are bosky now.
Hosted by
Google
78 SUMMER.
The priests of the Germans and Britons were
Druids. They had their sacred oaken groves.
Such were their steeple-houses. Nature was to
some extent a fane to them. There was fine
religion in that form of worship, and Stonehenge
remains are evidence of some vigor in the wor-
shipers, as the pyramids perchance of the vigor
of the Egyptians, derived from the slime of the
Nile. Evelyn says of the oaks, which he calls
"these robust sons of the earth," "'Tis re-
ported that the very shade of this tree is so
wholesome that the sleeping or lying under it
becomes a present remedy to paralytics, and
recovers those whom the mistaken malign influ-
ence of the walnut-tree has smitten." Which
we may take for a metaphorical expression of
the invigorating influence of rude, wild, robust
nature compared with the effeminating luxury of
civilized life. Evelyn has collected the fine
exaggerations of antiquity respecting the vir-
tues and habits of trees, and added some him-
self. He says, " X am told that those small
young acorns which we find in the stock-doves'
craws are a delicious fare, as well as those in-
comparable salads of young herb3 taken out of
the maws of partridges at a certain season of the
year, which gives them a preparation far exceed-
ing all the art of cookery." His oft-repeated
glorification of the forest from age to age, smacks
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 79
of religion, is even Droidical. Evelyn is as
good as several old Druids, and his " Sylva," is
a new kind of prayer-book, a glorifying of the
trees and enjoying them forever, which was the
chief end of his life.
A child loves to strike on a tin pan or other
ringing vessel with a stick, because its ears being
fresh, attentive, and percipient, it detects the fin-
est music in the sound at which all Nature as-
sists. Is not the very cope of the heavens the
sounding-board of the infant drummer? So,
clear and unprejudiced ears hear the sweetest
and most soul-stirring melody in tinkling cow-
bells and the like (dogs baying the moon), not
to be referred to association, but intrinsic in the
sound itself; those cheap and simple sounds
which men despise because their ears are dull
and debauched. Ah, that I were so much a
child that I could unfailingly draw music from
a quart pot. Its little ears tingle with the mel-
ody. To it there is music in sound alone.
Evelyn speaks of mel-dews attracting bees.
Can mildew be corrupted from this? He says
that the alder laid under water " will harden like
a very stone," and speaks of alders being used
" for the draining of grounds by placing them
in the trenches," whieh I have just seen done
here under Clamshell Hill.
Peaches are the principal crop in Lincoln, and
Hosted by
Google
80 SUMMER
cherries a very important one, yet Evelyn says,
" We may read that the peach was at first ac-
counted so tender and delicate a tree as that it
was believed to thrive only in Persia ; and even
in the days of Galen it grew no nearer than
Egypt of all the Roman provinces, but was not
seen in the city till about thirty years before
Pliny's time ; " but now it is the principal crop
cultivated in Lincoln in New England, and it is
also cultivated extensively in the West, and on
lands not half a dozen years vacated by the In-
dians. Also, " It was six hundred and eighty
years after the foundation of Rome ere Italy
had tasted a cherry of their own, which, beiug
then brought thither out of Pontus, did after
one hundred and twenty years travel ad ultimos
Britannos" and, I may add, Lincolnos. As
Evelyn says, " Methinks this should be a won-
derful incitement."
He well says, " a sobbing rain." Evelyn's
love of his subject teaches him to use many ex-
pressive words. ... He speaks of pines " pearl-
ing out into gums." He talks of modifying the
air as well as the soil about plants, making " the
remedy as well regional as topical." This sug-
gests the propriety of Shakespeare's expression,
" the region cloud," region meaning thus upper
regions relatively to the earth. He speaks of a
" dewie sperge or brush " to be used instead of
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 81
a watering-pot which " gluts " the earth. He
calls the kitchen-garden the " Olitory garden."
In a dedication of his " Kalendarium Hortense "
to Cowley, he inserts two or three good sen-
tences or quotations, viz., "as the philosopher in
Seneca desired only bread and herbs to dispute
felicity with Jupiter." So of Cowley's simple,
retired life. " Who would not, like you, cacker
aa vie?" "delivered from the gilded imperti-
nences of life."
June 9, 1853. 4.15 a. m. To Nashawtuck
by boat. A prevalent fog, though not quite so
thick as the last described. . . . Here and there
deep valleys are excavated in it, as painters im-
agine the Red Sea for the passage of Pharaoh's
host, wherein trees and houses appear, as it were,
at the bottom of the sea. It is interesting to see
the tops of the trees first and most distinctly be-
fore you see their trunks or where they stand on
earth. Far in the northeast there is, as before,
apparently a tremendous surf breaking on a
distant shoal. It is either a real shoal, that is,
a hill over which the fog breaks, or the effect of
the sun's rays on it.
The first white lily bud. White clover is
abundant and very sweet, on the common, filling
the air, but not yet elsewhere as last year.
8 A. M. To Orchis Swamp. Well Meadow.
Hear a goldfinch. This the second or third only
Hosted by
Google
that I have heard. White-weed now whitens the
fields. There are many star flowers. I remem-
ber the anemone especially. The rue anemone
is not yet all gone, lasting longer than the true
one ; above all, the trientalis, and of late the
yellow Bethlehem star, and perhaps others.
I have come with a spy-glass to look at the
hawks. They have detected me, and are already
screaming over my head more than half a mile
from the nest. I find no difficulty in looking at
the young hawk (there appears to be one only
standing on the edge of the nest) ; resting the
glass in the crotch of a young oak, I can see
every wink and the color of its iris. It watches
me more steadily than I it, now looking straight
down at me with both eyes and outstretched neck,
now turning its head and looking with one eye.
How its eye and its whole head express anger.
Its anger is more in its eye than in its beak. It is
quite hoary over the eye and under the chin. The
mother meanwhile is incessantly circling about,
and above its charge and me, farther or nearer,
sometimes withdrawing a quarter of a mile, but
occasionally coming to alight for a moment, al-
most within gun-shot, on the top of a tall white
pine ; but I hardly bring my glass fairly to bear
on her, and get sight of her angry eye through
the pine needles, before she cireles away again.
Thus for an hour that I lay there, screaming
Hosted by
Google
every minute, or oftener, with open bill, now and
then pursued by a kingbird or a blackbird, who
appear merely to annoy her by dashing down at
her back. Meanwhile the male is soaring quite
undisturbed at a great height above, evidently
not hunting, but amusing or recreating himself
in the thinner and cooler air, as if pleased with
his own circles like a geometer, and enjoying the
sublime scene. I doubt if he has his eye fixed
on any prey on the earth. He probably descends
to hunt.
Got two or three handfuls of strawberries on
Fair Haven. They are already drying up. . . ,
It is natural that the first fruit which the earth
bears should emit, and be, as it were, an embodi-
ment of, that vernal fragrance with which the
air has teemed. Strawberries are its manna,
found ere long where that fragrance has filled
the air. Little natural beds or patches on the
sides of dry hills where the fruit sometimes red-
dens the ground. But it soon dries up, uidess
there is a great deal of rain. Well, are not the
juices of early fruit distilled from the air? Pru-
nella out. The meadows are now yellow with
the golden senecio, a more orange-yellow min-
gled with the light, glossy yellow of the butter-
cup. The green fruit of the sweet fern now.
The juniper repens appears (though now dry
and effete) to have blossomed recently. The
Hosted by
Google
34 SUMMER.
tall, white erigeron just out. I think it is strigo-
sum, but tinged with purple sometimes.
The hull-frogs are in full blast to-night. I
do not hear a toad from my window, only the
crickets beside. The toads I have but rarely
heard of late. So there is an evening for the
toads, and another for the bull-frogs.
June 9, 1854. p. m. To Well Meadow. The
summer aspect of the river begins, perhaps, when
the utricular! a vidr/arix is lirst seen on the sur-
As I go along the railroad causeway I see, in
the cultivated ground, a lark flashing his white
tail, and showing his liandsome yellow breast
with its black crescent, like an Indian locket.
For a day or two I have heard the fine seringo
note of the cherry birds, and seen them flying
past, the only? birds, methinks, that I see in
small flocks now, except swallows.
Find the great fringed orchis out apparently
two or three days, two are almost fully out, two
or three only budded; a large spike of peculiarly
delicate, pale purple flowers growing in the lux-
uriant and shady swamp, amid hellebores, ferns,
golden senecio, etc. It is remarkable that this,
one of the fairest of all our flowers, should also
be one of the rarest, for the most part, not seen
at all. . . . The village belle never sees this
more delicate belle of the swamp. How little
Hosted by
Google
relation between our life and its ! ■ . . The sea-
sons go by, to us, as if it were not. A beauty-
reared in the shade of a convent, who has never
strayed beyond the convent bell. Only the skunk
or owl, or other inhabitant of the swamp, be-
holds it. It does not pine because man does
not admire it. I am inclined to think of it as
a relic of the past, as much as the arrowhead
or the tomahawk.
The air is now pretty full of shad flies, and
there is an incessant sound made by the fishes
leaping for such as are struggling on the surface.
It sounds like the lapsing of a swift stream suck-
ing amid rooks. The fishes make a business of
thus getting their evening meal, dimpling the
river like large drops, as far as I can see, some-
times making a loud plashing. Meanwhile, the
kingfishers are on the lookout for the fishes as
they rise, and I saw one dive in the twilight and
go off uttering his cr-r-ack-cr-r-rack.
Covered with disgrace, this State has sat down .
coolly, to try for their lives the men who at-
tempted to do its duty for it, and this is called '
justice ! They who have shown that they can
behave particularly well, they alone are put un-t
der bonds for their good behavior I It behoves
every man to see that his influence is on the side ,
of justice, and let the courts make their own
characters. What is any political organization «
Hosted by
Google
% worth, when it is in the service of the Devil ?
While the whole military force of the State, if
need be, is at the service of a slaveholder, to en-
able him to carry back a slave, not a soldier is
offered to save a citizen of Massachusetts from
( being kidnapped. Is this what all these arms,
all this " training " has been for, these seventy-
eight years past ? . . . The marines and the mil-
itia, whose bodies were used lately, were not men
of sense nor of principle ; in a high moral sense,
they were not men at all.
June 9, 1856. p. m. To Corner Spring.
Without an umbrella, thinking the weather set-
tled at last. There are some large cumuli with
glowing, downy cheeks, floating about. Now I
notice where an elm is in the shadow of a cloud,
the black elm tops and shadows of June. It is
a dark eyelash, which suggests a flashing eye be-
neath. It suggests houses that lie under the
shade, the repose and siesta of summer noons,
the thunder cloud, bathing, and all that belongs
to summer. These veils are now spread here
and there over the village. They suggest also
the creak of crickets, a June sound now fairly
begun, inducing contemplation and philosophic
thought.
June 9, 1857. p. m. To Violet, Sorrel, and
Calla Swamp. In the sproutland beyond the
red huckleberry, an indigo bird, which chirps
Hosted by
Google
SUMMEU. 87
about me, as if it had a nest there. This is a
splendid and marked bird, high-colored as is the
tanager, looking strange in this latitude. Glow-
ing indigo. It flits from the top of one bush to
another, chirping as if anxious. Wilson says it
sings, not like most other birds, in the morning
and evening chiefly, but also in the middle of
the day. In this I notice it is like the tanager,
the other fiery-plumaged bird. They seem to
love the heat- It probably had its nest in one
of these bushes.
I had said to P " It will be worth the
while to look for other rare plants in Calla
Swamp, for I have observed that where one rare
plant grows, there will commonly be others."
Carrying out that thought this p. M., I had
not taken three steps at this swamp bare-legged,
before I found the Naumburgia thyrsiflora in
sphagnum and water, which I had not seen
growing before. (C brought one to me
from Hubbard's Great Meadow once.) It is
hardly beginning yet. (In prime June 24th.)
June. 9, 1860. 6 P. m. Paddle to Flint's
Bridge. The water bugs begin to venture out
on to the stream from the shadow of a dark
wood, as at the Islaud. So soon as the dusk
begins to settle on the river, they begin to steal
out, and to extend their circling far amid the
bushes and reeds over the channel of the river.
Hosted by
Google
They do not simply then, if ever, venture forth,
but then invariably and at once, the whole length
of the river, they one and all rally out, and be-
gin to dimple its broad surface, as if it were a
jiL'ivwity so to do.
June 10, 1853. p. m. To Mason's Pasture,
in Carlisle. Haying begins in front yards.
Cool, but agreeable easterly winds. The streets
now beautiful with verdure and the shade of
elms, under which you look through an air,
clear for summer, to the woods in the horizon.
... As C and I go through the town,
we hear the cool peep of the robin calling to its
young now learning to fly. The locust bloom is
now perfect, filling the street with its sweetness,
but it is more agreeable to my eye than my nose.
. . . The fuzzy seeds or down of the black wil-
low is filling the air over the river, and, falling
on the water, covers its surface. By the 30th
of May, at least, white maple keys were falling.
How early then they had matured their seed.
The mountain laurel will begin to bloom to-
morrow. The frost some weeks since killed
most of the buds and shoots, except where they
were protected by the trees or by themselves,
and now new shoots have put forth, and grow
four or five inches from the sides of what were
the leading ones- It is a plant which plainly
requires the protection of the wood. It is
stunted in the open pasture.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 89
What shall this great wild tract over which
we strolled be called ? Many farmers have
pastures there, and wood -lots and orchards.
It consists mainly of rocky pastures. It con-
tains what I call the Boulder Field, the Yellow
Birch Swamp, the Black Birch Hill, the Laurel
Pasture, the Hog Pasture, the White Pine
Grove, the Easterbrook Place, the Old Lime
Kiln, the Lime Quarries, Spruce Swamp, the
Ermine Weasel Woods ; also, the Oak Meadows,
the Cedar Swamp, the Kibbe Place, and the old
place northwest of Brooks Clark's. Ponkaw-
tasset bounds it on the south. There are a few
frog-ponds and an old mill-pond within it, and
Bateman's Pond on its edge. What shall the
whole be called ? The old Carlisle road which
runs through the middle of it is bordered on
each side with wild apple pastures, where the
trees stand without order, having, many or most
of them, sprung up by accident or from pomace
sown at random, and are, for the most part,
concealed by birches and pines. These orchards
are very extensive, and yet many of these apple
trees, growing as forest trees, bear good crops of
apples. It is a paradise for walkers in the fall.
There are also boundless huckleberry pastures,
as well as many blueberry swamps. Shall we
call it the Easterbrook Country ? It would make
a princely estate in Europe. Yet it is owned
Hosted by
Google
by farmers who live by the labor of their hands
and do not esteem it much. Plenty of huckle-
berries and barberries here.
A second great uninhabited tract is that on
the Marlboro' road, stretching westerly from
Francis Wheeler's to the river, and beyond
about three miles, and from Harrington's, on
the north, to Dakin's, on the south, more than a
mile in width.
A third, the Walden Woods.
A fourth, the Great Fields. These four are
all in Concord.
There are one or two in the town who proba-
bly have Indian blood in their veins, and when
they exhibit any unusual irascibility, the neigh-
bors say they have got their Indian blood roused.
Now methinks the birds begin to sing less
tumultuously, as the weather grows more con-
stantly warm, with morning, noon, and evening
songs, and suitable recesses in the concert.
High blackberries are conspicuously in bloom,
whitening the sides of lanes.
Mention is made in the Town Records, as
quoted by Shattuck, p. 33, under date of 1654,
of " the Hogepen-walke about Annursnake," and
reference is at the same time made to " the old
hogepen." . . . There is some propriety in call-
ing such a tract a walk, metbinks, from the
habit which hogs have of walking about with
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 91
an independent air, and pausing from time to
time to look about from under their flapping
ears and snuff the air. The hogs I saw this
afternoon, all busily rooting without holding up
their heads to look at us, the whole field appear-
ing as if it had been most miserably ploughed
or scarified with a harrow, with their shed to
retreat to in rainy weather, affected me as more
human than other quadrupeds. They are com-
paratively clean about their lodgings.
June 10, 1856. p. m. To Dugan Desert. —
I hear the huckleberry bird now add to its
usual strain a-tea tea tea tea tea.
A painted tortoise laying her eggs ten feet
from the wheel track on the Marlboro' road.
She paused at first, but I sat down within two
feet, and she soon resumed her work, had exca-
vated a hollow about five inches wide and six
long in the moistened sand, and cautiously, with
long intervals, she continued her work, resting
always her fore feet on the same spot, and never
looking round, her eye shut all but a narrow slit.
Whenever I moved, perhaps to brush off a
mosquito, she paused. A wagon approached,
rumbling afar off, aud then there was a pause
till it had passed, and long after, a tedious,
naturlangsam pause of the slow-blooded crea-
ture, a sacrifice of time such as those animals
are up to which slumber half a year and live for
Hosted by
Google
centuries. It was twenty minutes before I dis-
covered that she was not making the hole, but
filling it up slowly, having laid her eggs. She
drew the moistened sand under herself, scraping
it along from behind with both feet brought
together. The claws turned inward. In the
long pauses the ants troubled her, as the mos-
quitoes, me, by running over her eyes, which
made her snap or dart out her head suddenly,
striking the shell. She did not dance on the
sand, nor finish covering the hollow quite so
carefully as the one observed last year. She
went off suddenly, and quickly at first, with a
slow but sure instinct through the wood toward
the swamp.
In a hollow apple tree, hole eighteen inches
deep, young pigeon woodpeckers, large and well
feathered. They utter their squeaking hiss
whenever I cover the hole with my hand, ap-
parently taking it for the approach of the
mother.
June, 10, 1857. ... A striped snake (so-
called) was running about in a yard this fore-
noon, and in the afternoon it was found to have
shed its slough, leaving it half way out of a hole
which probably it used to confine it in. It was
about in its new skin. Many creatures, devil's
needles, etc., cast their sloughs now. Can't I?
F tells me to-day, that he has seen a reg-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. i!3
ular barn swallow, with forked tail, about bis
barn, which was black, not rufous.
June 10, 1858. ... As we entered a rye
field, I saw what I took to be a hawk fly up
from the other end, though it may have been a
erow. It was soon pursued by small birds.
When I got there, I found an Emys insculpta
on its back, with its head and feet drawn in and
motionless, and what looked like the track of a
ef ow on the sand. Undoubtedly the bird which
I saw had been pecking at it, and perhaps they
get many of their eggs.
June 10, 1859. Surveying. . . .
June 10, 1860. 2 p. m. To Anursoack.
. . , There is much handsome interrupted fern
in the Painted Cup Meadow, and near the top
of one of the clumps we noticed something like
a large cocoon, the color of the rusty cinnamon
fern wool. It was a red bat, the New York bat,
so-called. It hung suspended, head directly
downward, with its little sharp claws or hooks
caught through one of the divisions at the base
of one of the pinna;, above the fructification. It
was a delicate rusty brown, in color very like the
wool of the cinnamon fern, with the whiter bare
spaces, seen through it early in the season. I
thought at first glance it was a broad cocoon, then
that it was the plump body of a monstrous em-
peror moth. It was rusty or reddish brown,
Hosted by
Google
94 SUMMER
white or hoary within, with a white, apparently
triangular spot beneath, about the insertion of
the wings. Its wings were very compactly folded
up, the principal bones (dark or reddish) lying
flat along the under side of its body, and a hook
on each, meeting its opposite under the chin of
the creature. It did not look like fur, but was
like the plush of the ripe cat-tail head, though
more loose, all trembling in the wind and with
the pulsations of the animal. I broke off the
top of the fern, and let the bat lie on its back in
my hand. I held it and turned it about for ten
or fifteen minutes, but it did not awake. Onee
or twice it opened its eyes a little, and even
raised its old, baggish head, and opened its
mouth, but soon drowsily dropped the head and
fell asleep again. Its ears were nearly bare. It
was more attentive to sounds than to motions.
Finally by shaking it, and especially by hissing
or whistling, I thoroughly awakened it, and it
fluttered off twenty or thirty rods to the woods.
I cannot but think that its instinct taught it
to cling to the interrupted fern, since it might
readily be mistaken for a mass of its fruit. . . .
Unless it moved its head wide awake, it looked
like a tender infant.
June 11, 1851. Last night, a beautiful sum-
mer night, not too warm, moon not quite full,
after two or three rainy days. Walked to Fair
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 96
Haven by railroad, returning by Potter's pasture
and Sudbury road. I feared at first that there
would be too much white light, like the pale re-
mains of daylight, and not a yellow, gloomy,
dreamier light ; that it would be like a candle-
light by day ; but when I got away from the
town and deeper into the night, it was better. I
saw by the shadows cast by the inequalities of
the clayey sand-bank in the Deep Cut, that it
was necessary to see objects by moonlight as well
as sunlight, to get a complete notion of them.
This bank had looked much more flat by day,
when the light was stronger, but now the heavy
shadows revealed its prominences. The promi-
nences are light, made more remarkable by the
dark shadows they cast. ... I hear the night-
hawks uttering their squeaking notes high in the
air, now at nine o'clock, P. M., and occasionally,
what I do not remember to have heard so late,
their booming note. It sounds more as if under
a cope than by day. The sound is not so fuga-
cious, going off to be lost amid the spheres, but
is echoed hollowly to earth, making the low roof
of heaven vibrate. Such a sound is more con-
fused and dissipated by day.
The whippoorwill suggests how wide asunder
are the woods aud the town. Its note is very
rarely heard by those who live on the street, and
then it is thought to be of ill-omen. Only the
Hosted by
Google
dwellers on the outskirts of the village hear it
occasionally. It sometimes comes into their
yards. But go into the woods in a warm night
at this season, and it is the prevailing sound. I
hear now five or six at once. It is no more of
ill-omen, therefore, here, than the night and the
moonlight are. It is a bird not only of the
woods, but of the night side of the woods. I
hear some whippoorwills on hills, others in thick
wooded vales, which ring hollow and cavernous,
like an apartment or cellar, with their note, as
when I hear the working of some artisan within
an apartment. New beings have usurped the
air we breathe, rounding nature, filling her crev-
ices with sound. To sleep where you may hear
the whippoorwill in your dreams.
I hear from this upland, whence I see Wachu-
sett by day, a wagon crossing one of the bridges.
I have no doubt that in some places to-night I
should be sure to hear every carriage which
crossed a bridge over the river, within the limits
of Concord, for in such an hour and atmosphere
the sense of hearing is wonderfully assisted, and
asserts a new dignity. We become the Hearalls
of the story. . . . The planks of a bridge, struck
like a bell swung near the earth, emit a very res-
onant and penetrating sound. And then it is
to be considered that the bell is in this instance
hung over water, and that the night air, not only
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 97
on account of its stillness, but perhaps on ac-
count of its density, is more favorable to the
transmission of sound. If the whole town were
a raised plank floor, what a din there would be !
I now descend round the corner of the grain
field, through the pitch-pine wood, into a lower
field, more inclosed by woods, and find myself
in a colder, damp, and misty atmosphere, with
much dew on the grass. I seem to be nearer to
the origin of things. There is something crea-
tive and primal in the cool mist. This dewy
mist does not fail to suggest music to me, unac-
countably, fertility, the origin of things. An
atmosphere which has forgotten the sun, where
the ancient principle of moisture prevails. It is
laden with the condensed fragrance of plants, as
it were, distilled dews.
The woodland paths are never seen to such
advantage as in a moonlight night, so embow-
ered, still opening before you almost against ex-
pectation as you walk. You are so completely
in the woods, and yet your feet meet no obsta-
cles. It is as if it were not a path, but an open,
winding passage through the bushes, which your
feet find. Now I go by the spring, and when I
have risen to the same level as before, find my-
self in the warmer stratum again. These warmer
veins, in a cool evening like this, do not fail to
Hosted by
Google
The woods are about as destitute of inhabi-
tants at night as the streets. In both there will
be some night walkers. There are but few wild
creatures to seek their prey. The greater part
of its inhabitants have retired to rest.
Ab, that life that I have known ! How bard
it is to remember what is most memorable. We
remember how we itched, not how our hearts
beat. I can sometimes recall to mind the qual-
ity, the immortality of my youthful life, but in
memory is the only relation to it.
I bear the night-warbler breaking out as in
his dreams, made so from the first for some mys-
terious reason.
Our spiritual side takes a more distinct form
now, like our shadow which we see accompany-
ing us.
I do not know but I feel less vigor at night, —
my legs will not carry me so far, as if the night
were less favorable to muscular exertion, weak-
ened us somewhat, as darkness turns plants pale,
— but perhaps my experience is to be referred to
* my being already exhausted by the day ; yet some-
times, after a hard day's work, I have found my-
self unexpectedly vigorous. I have never tried
the experiment fairly.
Only the harvest and hunter's moons are fa-
mous, but I think that each full moon deserves
to be, and has its own character, well-marked.
One might be called the midsummer night moon.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 99
So still and moderate is the night. No scream
is heard, whether of fear or joy. No great com-
edy, no tragedy is being enacted. The chirping
of crickets is the most universal, if not the loud-
est sound. There is no French revolution in
Nature, no excess. She is warmer or colder by
a degree or two.
My shadow has the distinctness of a second
person, a certain black companion bordering on
the imp, and I ask who is this that I see dodg-
ing behind me as I am about to sit down on a
rock. The rocks do not feel warm to-night, for
the air is warmest, nor does the sand particu-
krlv.
No one, to my knowledge, has observed the
minute differences in the seasons. Hardly two
nights are alike.
A book of the seasons, each page of which
should be written in its own season and out of
doors, or in its own locality, wherever it may be.
When you get into the road, though far from
the town, and feel the sand under your feet, it is
as if you had reached your own gravel walk.
You no longer hear the whippoorwill nor regard
your own shadow, for here you expect a fellow
traveler. You catch yourself walking merely.
The road leads your steps and thoughts alike to
the town. You see only the path, and your
thoughts wander from the objects that are pre-
Hosted by
Google
100 SUMMER
sented to your senses. You are no longer in
place. It is like conformity, walking in the ways
of men.
June 11, 1852. — It commonly happens that
a flower is considered more beautiful that is not
followed by fruit. It must culminate in the
flower.
The red-eye sings now in the woods perhaps
more than any other bird.
As I climbed the cliffs, when I jarred the foli-
age, I perceived an exquisite perfume which I
could not trace to its source. Ah, those fuga-
cious, universal fragrances of the meadows and
woods ! odors rightly mingled !
The shrub oaks on the plain are so covered
with foliage that, when I look down on them from
the cliffs, I am impressed as if I looked down on
a forest of oaks.
The oven-bird and the thrasher sing. The
last has a sort of chuckle. The crickets begin
to sing in warm, dry places.
Lupines, their pods and seeds. First, the
profusion of color, spikes of flowers rising above
and prevailing over the leaves ; then the variety
in different clumps, rose? purple, blue, and
white ; then the handsome palmate leaf, made
to hold dew. Gray says the name is from lupus,
wolf, because they " were thought to devour the
fertility of the soil." This is scurrilous.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 101
Under Fair Haven. First grew the Viola
pedata here ; then lupines, mixed with the
delicate snapdragon. This soil must abound
with the blue principle.
Utrimlaria vidgtms, common bladderwort, a
dirty-conditioned flower, like a sluttish woman
with a gaudy yellow bonnet.
Those spotted maple leaves, what mean then-
bright colors? Yellow, with a greenish centre
and crimson border, on the green leaves, as if
the great chemist had dropped some strong acid,
by chance, from a phial designed for autumnal
juice !■ Very handsome. Decay and disease
are often beautiful, like the pearly tear of the
shell-fish and the hectic glow of consumption.
June 11, 185S. The upland fields are already
less green where the June grass is ripening its
seed. They are greenest when only its blade is
seen. In the sorrel fields, also, what lately was
the ruddy, rosy cheek of health, now that the
sorrel is ripening and dying, has become the
tanned and imbrowned cheek of manhood.
Probably blackbirds were never less numerous
along our river than in these years. They do
not depend on the clearing of the woods and the
cultivation of the orchards, etc. The streams
and meadows in which they delight always exist-
ed. Most of the towna, soon after they were set-
tled, were obliged to set a price upon their heads.
Hosted by
Google
102 SUMMER.
In 1672, according to the town records of Con-
cord, instruction was given to the selectmen,
" That encouragement be given for the destroying
of blackbirds and jaies." Shattuck, p. 45.
I remember Helen's telling me that John Mars-
ton, of Taunton, told her that he was aboard a
vessel, during the Revolution, which met another
vessel, and, as I think, one hailed the other. A
French name being given could not be under-
stood ; whereupon a sailor, probably aboard his
vessel, ran out on the bowsprit and shouted, " La
Terrible " (the vessel in which John Adams was
being brought back or carried out to France),
and that sailor's name was Thoreau.
My father has an idea that he stood on the
wharf and cried this to the bystanders. He tells
me that when the war came on, my grandfather,
being thrown out of business and being a young
man, went a-privateering. I find from his Diary
that John Adams set sail from Port Louis at
L'Orient in the French frigate Terrible, Cap-
tain Chavagnes, June 17, 1779, the JBonhomme
Richard, Captain Jones, and four other vessels,
being in company at first, and the Terrible ar-
rived at Boston the 2d of August. On the 13th
of November following he set out for France
again in the same frigate from Boston, and he
says that a few days before the 24th, being at
the last date on the Grand Bank of Newfound-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 103
land, we spoke an American privateer, the Gen-
eral Lincoln, Captain Barnes. If the above-men-
tioned incident occurred at sea, it was probably
on this occasion.
June 11, 1855. When I would go a-visiting,
I find that I go off the fashionable street (not
being inclined to change my dress) to where man
meets man, and not polished shoe meets shoe.
What if we feel a yearning to which no breast
answers, I walk alone. My heart is full. Feel-
ings impede the current of my thoughts. I
knock on the earth for my friend. I expect to
meet him at every turn, but no friend appears,
and perhaps none is dreaming of me. I am
tired of frivolous society in which silence is for-
ever the most natural and the best manners. I
would fain walk on the deep waters, but my
companions will only walk on shallows and
puddles. I am naturally silent in the midst of
twenty persons, from day to day, from year to
year. I am rarely reminded of their presence.
. . . One complains that 1 do not take his jokes.
I took them before he had done uttering them,
and went my way. One talks to me of his
apples and pears, and I depart with my secret
untold. His are not the apples that tempt me.
June 11, 1856. p. m. To Flint's Pond. It
is very hot this p. m., and that peculiar stillness
which belongs to summer noons now reigns in
Hosted by
Google
104 SUMMER.
the woods. I observe and appreciate the shade,
as it were the shadow of each particular leaf
on the ground. I think that this peculiar dark-
ness o£ the shade, of the foliage as seen between
you and the sky, is not accounted for merely by
saying that we liave not yet got accustomed to
clothed trees, but the leaves are rapidly acquir-
ing a darker green, are more and more opaque,
and, beside, the sky is lit with the intensest light.
It reminds me of the thundercloud and the dark
eyelash of summer. Great cumuli are slowly
drifting in the intensest blue sky, with glowing
white borders. The red-eye sings incessant, and
the more indolent yellow-throated vireo, and the
creeper, and perhaps the redstart ? or else it is
the parti-colored warbler.
I perceive that scent from the young, sweet
fern shoots and withered blossoms, which made
the first settlers of Concord to faint on their
journey.
See a bream's nest, two and one fourth feet in
diameter, laboriously scooped out, and the sur-
rounding bottom for a diameter of eight feet !
comparatively white and clean, while all beyond
is mud, leaves, etc., and a very large, green, and
cupreous bream, with a red spot on the opercu-
lum, is poised over the centre, while half a
dozen shiners are hovering about, apparently
watching a chance to steal the spawn.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 105
A partridge with young in the saw-mill brook
path. Could hardly tell what kind of a creature
it was at first, it made such a noise and flutter-
ing amid the weeds and bushes. Finally ran
off, with its body flat and wings somewhat
spread.
June 11, 1858. p. m. To Assabet Bath. . . .
Saw a painted turtle on the gravelly bank, . . .
and suspected that she had just been laying (it
was mid P. M.), so, examining the ground, I found
the surface covered with loose lichens, etc., about
one foot behind her, and, digging, found five eggs
just laid, one and one-half or two inches deep,
under one side. It is remarkable how firmly
they are packed in the soil, rather hard to ex-
tract, though but just laid. . . .
Saw half a dozen of the insculptse prepar-
ing to dig now at mid p. m. (one or two had be-
gun), at the most gravelly spot there, but they
would not proceed while I watched, though I
waited nearly half an hour, but either rested
perfectly still, with their beads drawn partly in,
or when a little further off, stood warily looking
about, with their necks stretched out, turning
their anxious-looking heads about. It seems a
very earnest and pressing' business they are upon.
They have but a short season to do it in, and
they run many risks.
Having succeeded in finding the Emys picta's
Hosted by
Google
106 SUMMER.
eggs, I thought I would look for the Etnys in-
smlptd's at Abel Hosmer's rye field ; so, looking
carefully to see where the ground had been re-
cently disturbed, I dug with my hand, and could
directly feel the passage to the eggs. So I dis-
covered two or three nests with their large and
long eggs, five in one of them. It seems then,
that if you look carefully soon after the eggs are
laid in such a place, you can find the nests,
though rain or even a dewy night might conceal
the spot.
June 11, 1860. 10.30 a. m. Sail on the
river. . , . The evergreens are now invested by
the deciduous trees, and you get the full effect
of their dark-green contrasting with the yellow-
ish-green of the deciduous trees. . . .
I see from time to time a fish, scared by our
sail, leap four to six feet through the air above
the waves. . . .
Just within the edge of the wood, ... I see
a small painted turtle on its back, with its head
stretched out as if to turn over. Surprised by
the sight, I stooped to investigate the case. It
drew in its head at once, but I noticed that its
shell was partially empty. I could see through
it from side to side, as it lay, its entrails having
been extracted through large openings just be-
fore the hind legs. The dead leaves were flat-
tened for a foot around where it had been oper-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 107
ated on, and were a little bloody. Its paunch
lay on the leaves, and contained much vegetable
matter, old cranberry leaves, etc. Judging by
the striae, it was not more than five or six years
old (or four or five). Its fore-parts were quite
alive, its hind legs apparently dead, its inwards
gone, apparently its spine perfect. The flies
had entered it in numbers. What creature had
done this which it would be difficult for a man
to do ? I thought of a skunk, weasel, mink, but
I do not believe they could have got their snouts
into so small a space as that in front of the hind
legs, between the shells. The hind legs them-
selves had not been injured, nor the shell
scratched. 1 thought it likely that this was done
by some bird of the heron kind which has a long
and powerful bill. This may account for the
many dead turtles which I have found, and
thought died from disease. Such is Nature, who
gave one creature a taste or yearning for anoth-
er's entrails as its favorite tid-bit ! I thought
the more of a bird, for just as we were shoving
away from this isle, I heard a sound just like a
small dog barking hoarsely, and looking up saw
it was made by a bittern (Ardea minor'), a pair
of which were flapping over the meadows, and
probably had a nest in some tussock thereabouts.
No wonder the turtle is wary, for notwithstand-
ing its horny shell, when it comes forth to lay its
Hosted by
Google
eggs, it rima the risk of having its entrails
plucked out. That is the reason that the box
turtle, which lives entirely on the land, is made
to shut itself up entirely within its shell, and I
suspect that the mud tortoise only comes forth
by night. What need the turtle has of some
horny shield over those weaker parts, avenues to
its entrails. I saw several of these painted tur-
tles dead on the bottom.
Already I see those handsome fungi on the
red maple leaves, yellow within, with a green
centre, then the light red ring deepening to crim-
On our way up, we eat our dinner at Rice's
shore, and looked over the meadows covered
there with waving sedge, light glaucous as it is
bent by the wind, reflecting a grayish or light
glaucous light from its under-side.
Looking at a hill-side of young trees, what va-
rious shades of green. The oaks generally are
a light, tender, and yellowish-green. The white
birches dark green now. The maples dark and
silvery.
The white lily-pads, reddish, and showing their
crimson undcr-sides from time to time, when the
wind blows hardest.
June 12, 1851. Listen to music religiously,
as if it were the last strain you might hear.
There would be this advantage in traveling in
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 109
your own country, even in your own neighbor-
hood, that you would be so thoroughly prepared
to understand what you saw. You would make
fewer traveler's mistakes.
Is not he hospitable who entertains thoughts ?
June 12, 1852. p. m. To Lupine Hill via
Depot Field Brook. The meadows are yellow
with golden senecio. Marsh speedwell, Veronica
scwteW«ta,lilactinted,ratherpretty. The mouse-
ear forget-me-not, Myosotis laxa, has now ex-
tended its racemes (?) very much, and hangs
over the edge of the brook. It is one of the most
interesting minute flowers. It is the more beau-
tiful for being small and unpretending; even
flowers must be modest. The blue flag, Iris
versicolor. Its buds are a dark, indigo-blue tip
beyond the green calyx. It is rich, but hardly
delicate and simple enough. A very hand-
some, sword-shaped leaf. The blue-eyed grass
is one of the most beautiful of flowers. It might
have been famous from Proserpine down. It
will bear to be praised by poets.
The blue flag, notwithstanding its rich furni-
ture, its fringed, re-curved parasols over its an-
thers, and its variously streaked and colored
petals, is loose and coarse in its habit. How
completely all character is expressed by flowers.
This is a little too showy and gaudy, like some
women's bonnets. Yet it belongs to the meadow
Hosted by
Google
110 SUMMER.
and ornaments it much. Ever it will be some
obscure, small, and modest flower that will most
How difficult, if not impossible, to do the
things we have done, as fishing' and camping out.
They seem to me a little fabulous now. Boys
are bathing at Hubbard's Bend, playing with a
boat, I at the willows. The color of their bodies
in the sun at a distance is pleasing, the not often
seen flesh color. I hear the sound of their sport
borne over the water. As yet we have not man
in Nature. What a singular fact for an angel
visitant to this earth to carry back in his note-
book, that men were forbidden to expose their
bodies under the severest penalties ! A pale
pink which the sun would soon tan. White
man ! There are no white men to contrast with
the red and the black. They are of such colors
as the weaver gives them. I wonder that the
dog knows his master when he goes in to bathe,
and does not stay by his clothes.
Small white-bellied (?) swallows in a row (a
dozen) on the telegraph wire over the water by
the bridge. This perch is little enough depar-
ture from unobstructed air to suit them. Plum-
ing themselves. If you could furnish a perch
aerial enough, even birds of paradise would
alight. They do not alight on trees, methinks,
unless on dead and bare boughs, but stretch a
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER 111
wire over water, and they perch on it. This is
among the phenomena that cluster about the tel-
egraph. The swallow has a forked tail, and
wings and tail are of about the same length, . . .
Some fields are almost wholly covered with
sheep's sorrel, now turned red, its valves (?). It
helps thus agreeably to paint the earth, contrast-
ing even at a distance with the greener fields,
blue sky, and dark or downy clouds. It is red,
marbled, watered, mottled, or waved with green-
ish, like waving grain, three or four acres of it.
To the farmer or grazier it is a troublesome
weed, but to the landscape viewer, an agreeable
red tinge laid on by the painter. I feel well
into summer when I see this red tinge. It ap-
pears to be avoided by the cows. The petals
of the side-saddle flower, fully expanded, hang
down. How complex it is, what with flowers
and leaves ! It is a wholesome and interesting
plant to me, the leaf especially.
. . . The glory of Dennis's lupines is de-
parted, and the white now shows in abundance
beneath them. So I cannot walk longer in those
fields of Enna in which Proserpine amused her-
self gathering flowers.
The steam whistle at a distance sounds even
like the hum of a bee in a flower. So man's
works fall into Nature. The flies hum at mid-
afternoon, as if peevish and weary at the length
Hosted by
Google
112 SUMMER.
of the days. The river is shrunk to summer
width, on the sides smooth, whitish water, or
rather it is the light from the pads ; in the mid-
dle, dark blue or slate, rippled. The color of
the earth at a distance where a wood lias been
cut off is a reddish brown. . . .
It is day, and we have more of that same light
that the moon sent us, not reflected now, but
shining directly. The sun is a fuller moon.
Who knows how much lighter day there may be !
June 12, 1853. p. m. To Bear Hill. . . .
The laurel probably by day after to-morrow.
The note of the wood-thrush answers to some
cool, unexhausted morning vigor in the hearer.
The leaf of the rattlesnake plantain now sur-
prises the walker amid the dry leaves on cool
hill-sides in the woods ; of very simple form, but
richly veined with longitudinal and transverse
white veins. It looks like art.
Going up Pine Hill, disturbed a partridge and
her brood. She ran in dishabille directly to me,
within four feet, while her young, not larger
than chickens just hatched, dispersed, flying
along a foot or two from the ground, just over
the bushes, for a rod or more. The mother kept
close at hand to attract my attention, and mewed
and clucked, and made a noise as when a hawk
is in sight. She stepped about and held her
head above the bushes, and clucked just like a
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 113
hen. What a remarkable instinct, that which
keeps the young so silent, and prevents their
peeping and betraying themselves ! This wild
bird will run almost any risk to save her young.
The young, I believe, make a fine sound at first,
in dispersing, something like a cherry-bird.
Visited the great orchis which I am waiting
to have open completely. It is emphatically a
flower (within gunshot of the hawk's nest) ; its
great spike, six inches by two, of delicate, pale
purple flowers which begin to expand at bottom,
rises above and contrasts with the green leaves
of the hellebore, skunk-cabbage, and ferns (by
which its own leaves are concealed), in the cool
shade of an alder swamp. It is the more inter-
esting for its variety and the secluded situations
in which it grows, owing to which it is seldom
seen, not thrusting itself upon the observation
of men. It is a pale purple, as if from growing
in the shade. It is not remarkable in its stalk
and leaves, which, indeed, are commonly concealed
by other plants.
A wild moss rose in Arethusa Meadow where
are arethusas lingering still.. The side-saddle
flowers are partly turned up now, and make a
great show with their broad red petals flapping
like saddle ears (?). ... I visited my hawk's
nest, and the young hawk was perched now four
or rive feet above the nest, still in the shade. It
Hosted by
Google
114 SUMMER.
will soon fly. So now in secluded pine woods
the young hawks sit high on the edges of their
nests, or on the twigs near by, in the shade, wait-
ing for their pinions to grow, while their parents
bring to them their prey. Their silence also is
remarkable, not to betray themselves, nor will
the old bird go to the nest while you are in
sight. She pursues me half a mile when I with-
draw.
The buds of young white oaks which have
been frost-bitten are just pushing forth again.
Are these such as were intended for next year, at
the base of the leaf stalk ?
June 12, 1854. p. M. To Walden. Clover
now reddens the fields, grass in its prime. . . ■
With the roses now fairly begun, I associate
Hear the evergreen forest note, and see the
bird on the top of a white pine, somewhat
creeper-like along the boughs. A golden head,
except a black streak from eyes, black throat,
slate-colored back, forked tail, white beneath,
er te, ter ter te. Another bird with yellow
throat, near by, may have been of the other sex.
Scared a kingfisher on a bough over Walden.
As he flew off, he hovered two or three times
thirty or forty feet above the pond, and at last
dove and apparently caught a fish with which he
flew off low over the water to a tree.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 116
Mountain laurel at the pond.
June 12, 1855. Down river to swamp east of
Poplar Hill. I hear the toad still, which I have
called spray frog falsely. He sits close to the
edge of the water, and is hard to find. Hard to
tell the direction though you may be within three
feet. I detect him chiefly by the motion of the
great swelling bubble on his throat. A pecu-
liarly rich sprayey dreamer now at 2 p. M. How
serenely it ripples over the water \ What a lux-
ury life is to him ! 1 have to use a little geome-
try to detect him. Am surprised at my discov-
ery at last, while C. sits by incredulous. Had
turned our prow to shore to search. This rich
sprayey note possesses all the shore. It diffuses
itself far and wide over the water, and enters
into every crevice of the noon, and you cannot
tell whence it proceeds.
Young redwings now begin to fly feebly amid
the button bushes, and the old ones chatter their
anxiety.
In the thick swamp behind the hill I look at
the vireo's nest which C. found. ... He took
one cow-bird's egg from it, and I now take the
other which he left. There is no vireo's egg, and
it is said they always desert their nest when
there are two cow-bird's eggs laid in it.
Nuttall says of the cow-bird's egg : " If the
egg be deposited in the nest alone, it is uniformly
Hosted by
Google
116 SUMMER.
forsaken ; " — has seen " sometimes two of these
eggs in the same nest, hut in this case one of
them commonly proves abortive," — " is almost
oval, scarcely larger than that of the bluebird."
He says it is "thickly sprinkled with points and
confluent touches of olive brown, of two shades,
somewhat more numerous at the greater end, on
a white ground tinged with green. But in some
of these eggs the ground is almost pure white,
and the spots nearly black."
June 12, 1859. P. M. To Gowing's Swamp.
I am struck with the beauty of the sorrel now.
What a wholesome red ! It is densest in par-
allel lines, according to the plowing or cultiva-
tion. There is hardly a more agreeable sight at
this season.
June 12, 1860. p. M. Up Assabet. I find
several Emys insculpta nests and eggs, and see
two painted turtles going inland to lay, at 2 P. M,
At this moment these turtles are on their way
inland, to lay their eggs, all over the State, wa-
rily drawing in their heads and waiting when yon
come by. Here is a painted turtle just a rod
inland, its back all covered with the fragments
of green leaves blown off and washed up yester-
day, which now line the shore. It has come out
through this wrack. As the river has gone
down, these green leaves mark the bank in lines,
like saw-dust.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 117
June 13, 1851. "Walked to Walden last night
(moon not quite full). I noticed night before
last from Fair Haven how valuable was some
water by moonlight, like the river and Pair
Haven, though far away, reflecting the light
with a faint glimmering sheen, as in the spring
of the year. The water shines with an inward
light, like a heaven on earth. The silent depth
and serenity and majesty of water! Strange
that men should distinguish gold and diamonds,
when these precious elements are so common. I
saw a distant river by moonlight, making no
noise, yet flowing, as by day, still to the sea, like
melted silver, reflecting the moonlight. Far
away it lay encircling the earth. How far away
it may look in the night ! Even from a low hill,
miles away down in the valley ! As far off as
Paradise and the delectable country I There is
a certain glory attends on water by night. By
it the heavens are related to the earth, undistin-
guishable from a sky beneath you. After I
reached the road, I saw the moon suddenly re-
flected from a pool, the earth, as it were, dis-
solved beneath my feet. The magical moon,
with attendant stars, suddenly looking up with
mild lustre from a window in the dark earth. I
observed also, the same night, a halo about my
shadow in the moonlight, which I referred to
the accidentally lighter color of the surrounding
Hosted by
Google
118 SUMMER.
surface, but on transferring it to the darkest
patches I saw the halo there equally. It serves
to make the outline of the shadow more distinct.
But now for last night. A few fire-flies in
the meadow. Do they shine, though invisibly,
by day ? Is their candle lighted by day ? — It
is not night-fall till the whippoor wills begin to
sing.
As I entered the Deep Cut, I was affected by
beholding the first faint reflection of genuine,
unmixed moonlight on the eastern sand-bank,
while the horizon, yet red with day, was tinging
the western side. What an interval between
these two lights ! The light of the moon, in
what age of the world does that fall upon the
earth? The moonlight was as the earliest and
dewy morning light, and the daylight tinge re-
minded me much more of the night. There
were the old and new dynasties contrasted, and
an interval between, not recognized in history,
which time could not span. Nations have flour-
ished in that light.
When I had climbed the sand-bank on the
left, I felt the warmer current or stratum of air
on my cheek, like a blast from a furnace.
The white stems of the pines which reflected
the weak light, standing thick and close together,
while their lower branches were gone, reminded
me that the pines are only longer grasses, which
Hosted by
Google
rise to a chaffy head, and we the insects that
crawl between them. They are particularly
I heard the partridge drumming to-night as
late as nine o'clock. What a singularly space-
penetrating and filling sound! Why am I never
nearer to its source ?
We do not commonly live our life out and
full ; we do not fill all our extremities with our i
blood ; we do not inspire and expire fully and
entirely enough, so that the wave, the comber of
each inspiration, shall break upon our extremest
shores, rolling till it meets the sand which
bounds us, and the sound of the surf come back
to us. Might not a bellows assist us to breathe ?
. . . Why do we not let on the flood, raise the
gates, and set all our wheels in motion ? He
that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Employ
your senses.
The newspapers tell us of news not to be
named even with that in its own kind, which an
observing man can pick up in a solitary walk,
as if it gained some importance and dignity by
its publicness. Do we need to be advertised
each day that such is still the routine of life?
The tree-toad's, too, is a summer-sound. I
hear, just as the night sets in, faint notes from
time to time, from some sparrow (?) falling
asleep, a vesper hymn ; and later, in the woods,
Hosted by
Google
120 SUMMER.
the chuckling, rattling sound of some unseen
bird on the near trees. — The night-hawk booms
wide awake.
As I approached the pond down Hubbard's
path, after coming out of tlie woods into a
warmer air, I saw the shimmering of the moon
on its surface ; and in the near, now flooded
cove, the water bugs, now darting, circling about,
made streaks or curves of light. The moon's
inverted pyramid of shimmering light com-
menced about twenty rods off, like so much mi-
caceous sand. But I was startled to see midway
in the dark water, a bright flame like more than
phosphorescent light, crowning the crests of the
wavelets, which at first I mistook for fire-flies.
... It had the appearance of a pure smokeless
flame, half a dozen inches long, rising from the
water and bending flickeringly along its surface.
I thought of St. Elmo's lights and the like. But
coming near to the shore of the pond itself, these
flames increased, and I saw that even this was
so many broken reflections of the moon's disk,
though one would have said they were of an in-
tenser light than the moon herself. From con-
trast with the surrounding water they were.
Standing up close to the shore and nearer the
rippled surface, I saw the reflections of the moon
sliding down the watery concave, like so many
lustrous burnished coins poured from a bag with
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 121
inexhaustible lavishness, and the lambent flames
on the surface were much multiplied, seeming to
slide along a few inches with each wave before
they were extinguished ; and I saw from farther
and farther off, they gradually merged in the
general sheen, which in fact was made up of a
myriad little mirrors reflecting the disk of the
moon with equal brightness to an eye rightly
placed. The pyramid or sheaf of light which
we see springing from near where we stand is in
fact only that portion of the shimmering surface
which our eye takes in. To a myriad eyes suit-
ably placed, the whole surface of the pond would
be seen to shimmer, or rather it would be seen,
as the waves turned up their mirrors, to be cov-
ered with those bright flame-like reflections of
the moon's disk, like a myriad candles every-
where arising from the waves. . . .
As I climbed the hill again toward my old
bean-field, I listened to the ancient, familiar, im-
mortal, cricket sound under all others, hearing
at first some distinct chirps. But when these
ceased, I was aware of the general earth song
which I had not before perceived, and amid
which these were only taller flowers in a bed,
and I wondered if behind or beneath this there
was not some other chant yet more, universal.
Why do we not hear when this begins in the
spring ? and when it ceases in the fall ? or is it
Hosted by
Google
too gradual 1 — After getting into the road t
have no thought ■ to record. All the way home
the walk is comparatively barren.
June 13, 1852. 3 p. m. To Conantum. . . .
The river has a summer mid-day look, smooth,
with green shores, and shade from the trees on
its banks.
What a sweetness fills the air now in low
grounds or meadows, reminding me of times
when I went strawberrying years ago. It is as
if all meadows were filled with some sweet mint.
The Dracaena hor<:<ilh (liigelow), Vlintonia
borealis (Gray), amid the Solomon' s-seals in
Hubbard's Grove Swamp, a very neat and hand-
some liliaceous flower, with three large, regular,
spotless green convallaria leaves, making a tri-
angle from the root, and sometimes a fourth from
the scape, linear, with four drooping, greenish-
yellow, bell-shaped (?) flowers. It is a hand-
some and perfect flower, though not high-colored.
I prefer it to some more famous. But Gray
should not have named it from the Governor of
New York. What is he to the lovers of flowers
in Massachusetts ? If named after a man, it
must be a man of flowers. Khode Island may
as well name the flowers after her governors as
New York. Name your canals and railroads
after Clinton, if you please, but his name is not
associated with flowers.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 123
The buckbean grows in Conant's meadow.
Lambkill is out. I remember with what delight
I used to discover this flower in dewy mornings.
All things in this world must be seen with the
morning dew on them, must be seen with youth-
ful, early opened, hopeful eyes.
Saw four cunning little woodehueks, about
one-third grown, that live under Conant's old
house, nibbling the short grass. Mistook one
for a piece of rusty iron.
The Smilax herhacea, carrion flower, a rank
green vine, with long peduncled umbels, small
greenish or yellowish flowers, and tendrils, just
opening, at the Miles swamp. It smells exactly
like a dead rat in the wall, and apparently at-
tracts flies like carrion. I find small gnats in
it. A very remarkable odor. A single minute
flower, in an umbel, open, will scent a whole
room. Nature imitates all things in flowers.
They are at once the most beautiful and the
ugliest objects, the most fragrant, and the most
offensive to the nostrils.
The great leaves of the bass attract one now,
six inches in diameter.
The delicate maiden-hair fern forms a cup or
dish, very delicate and graceful. Beautiful, too,
its glossy black stem and its wave-edged, fruited
I hear the feeble, plaintive note of young
Hosted by
Google
124 SUMMER
bluebirds, just trying their wings or getting
used to them. Young robins peep.
I think I know four kinds of cornel beside
the dogwood and bunchberry. One now in
bloom, with rather small leaves, which have a
smooth, silky feeling beneath, and a greenish
gray spotted stem, old stocks all gray ( Cornus
alternifolia? or sericeaf). The broad-leaved
cornel in Laurel Glen, yet green in the bud
(Cornus circinata T). The small-leaved cornel,
with a small cyme or corymb as late as the last
(Cornus paniculata), and the red osier by the
river (Cornus stolonif era), which I have not
seen this year.
June 13, 1853. 9 a. m. To Orchis Swamp.
— I find that there are two young hawks. One
has left the nest, and is perched on a small
maple seven or eight rods distant. It appears
much smaller than the former one. I am struck
by its large naked head, so vulture-like, and
large eyes, as if the vulture's were an inferior
stage through which the hawk passed. Its feet,
too, are large, remarkably developed, by which
it holds to its perch securely, like an old bird,
before its wings can perform their office. It
has a buff breast, striped with dark brown,
P , when I told him of this nest, said he
would like to carry one of his rifles down there.
But I told him that I should be sorry to have
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 125
them killed, I would rather save one of these
hawks than have a hundred hens and chickens.
It was worth more to see them soar, especially
now that they are so rare in the landscape. It
is easy to buy eggs, but not to buy hen-hawks.
My neighbors would not hesitate to shoot the
last pair of hen-hawks in the town to save a few
of their chickens ! But such economy is narrow
and groveling. I would rather never taste
chickens' meat nor hens' eggs than never to see
a hawk sailing through the upper air again.
The sight is worth incomparably more than a
chicken soup or boiled egg. So we exterminate
the deer and substitute the hog. It was amusing
to observe the swaying to and fro of the young
hawk's head to counterbalance the gentle action
of the bough in the wind.
Violets appear to be about done generally.
Four-leaved loosestrife just out; also, the
smooth wild rose yesterday. The pogonia at
Forget-me-not Brook.
What was that rare and beautiful bird in the
dark woods under the Cliffs, with blaek above
and white spots and hars, a large triangular
blood-red spot on breast, and sides of breast
and beneath, white ? Note, a warble, like the
oriole, but softer and sweeter. It was quite
tame. Probably a rose-breasted grossbeak. At
first I thought it was a chewink, as it sat side-
Hosted by
Google
126 SUMMER.
ways to me, and was going to call Sophia to
look at it, but then it turned its breast full
toward me, and I saw the large, triangular,
blood-red spot occupying the greater part of it.
... It is a memorable event to meet with so
rare a bird. Birds answer to flowers, both in
their abundance and their rareness. The meet-
ing with a rare and beautiful bird like this is
like meeting with some rare and beautiful
flower, which yon may never find again per-
chance, like the great purple-fringed orchis, at
least. How much it enhances the wildness and
the richness of the forest.
June 13, 1854. 2 p. m. By boat to Bittern
Cliff, and so to Lee's Cliff. I hear the mutter-
ing of thunder and see a dark eloud in the
horizon ; am uncertain how far up stream I
shall get.
Now in shallow places near the bends the large
and conspicuous spikes of the broad-leaved pota-
mogeton rise thickly above the water. . . .
I see the yellow water ranunculus in dense
fields now in some places on the side of the
stream, two or three inches above water, and
many gone to seed.
The flowering fern is reddish and yellowish-
green on the meadows.
It is so warm that I stop to drink wherever
there is a spring.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 127
The little globular, drooping, reddish buds of
the ChimaphUa umhellata (jtipsissewa) are now
very pretty.
How beautiful the solid cylinders of the lamb-
kill now just before sunset, small ten-sided rosy-
crimson basins, about two inches above the re-
curved, drooping, dry capsules of last year, and
sometimes those of the year before, two inches
lower.
When I have stayed out thus till late, many
miles from home, and have heard a cricket be-
ginning to chirp louder near me in the grass, I
have felt that I was not far from home after all.
Began to be weaned from my village home.
I see over the bream nests little schools of
countless minute minnows (can they be young
breams?), the breams being still in their nests.
It is surprising how thickly- strewn our soil is
with arrow heads. I never see the surface
broken in sandy places but I think of them. I
find them on all sides, not only in corn, grain,
potato, and bean fields, but in pastures and
woods, by woodchucks' holes and pigeon beds,
and, as to-night, in a pasture where a restless
cow had pawed the ground.
Is not the Rosa lucida paler than the nitida?
June 13, 1860. 2 p. m. To Martial Miles's
via Clamshell. I see at Martial Miles's two
young woodchucks taken sixteen days ago, when
Hosted by
Google
128 SUMMER.
they were perhaps a fortnight old. There were
four in all, and they were dug out by the aid of
a dog. The mother successively pushed out her
little ones to the dog to save herself, and one
was at once hilled by the dog. These two are
now nearly one third grown. They have found
a hole within the house, into which they run, and
whither they have carried shavings, etc., and
made a nest. Thence they run out doors and
feed close about the house, lurking behind bar-
rels, etc. They eat yarrow, clover, catnip, etc.,
and are fed with milk and bread. They do not
drink the milk like a dog or a eat, but simply
suck it, taking the sharp edge of the shallow tin
dish in their mouths. They are said to spit like
a cat. They eat bread sitting upright on their
haunches, and holding it in their forepaws just
like a squirrel. That is their common and
natural mode of eating. They are as gray
(hoary) as the old, or grayer. Mrs. Miles says
they sleep on their heads, i. e., curling their
heads under them ; also, that they can back as
straight into their hole as if they went head
foremost. I saw a full-grown one this P. M.
which stood so erect and still (its paws hanging
down and inobvious as its ears) that it might be
mistaken for a short and very stout stake.
This p. M. the streets are strewn with the
leaves of the button-wood, which are still fall-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 129
mg. Looking up, I see many more half-formed
leaves hanging wilted or withered. I think that
the leaves of these trees were especially injured
by the cold wind of the 10th, and are just now
falling in consequence. I can tell when I am
under a button-wood by the number of leaves on
the ground. With the other trees it was mainly
a mechanical injury, done rather by the wind
than the cold, but the tender shoots of this tree
were killed.
June 14, 1840.
" In glory and in joy,
Behind his plough, upon the mountain Bide."
(Wordsworth.)
I seemed to see the woods wave ou a hundred
mountains, as I read these lines, and the distant
rustling of their leaves reached my ear.
June 14, 1851. Full moon last night. Set
out on a walk to Conantum at 7 p.m. A se-
rene evening, the sun going down behind clouds.
A few white or slightly- shaded piles of clouds
floating in the eastern sky, but a broad, clear,
mellow cope left for the moon to rise into. An
evening for poets to describe. As 1 proceed
along the back road I bear the lark still singing
iu the meadow, and the bobolink, the golden
robin on the elms, and the swallows twittering
about the barns. All Nature is in an expectant
attitude. Before Goodwin's house at the open-
Hosted by
Google
ISO SUMMER.
ing of the Sudbury road, the swallows are diving
at a tortoise-shell cat who cavorts rather awk-
wardly as if she did not know whether to be
scared or not. And now, the sun having buried
himself in the low cloud in the west and hung
out his crimson curtain, I hear, while sitting by
the wall, the sound of the stake-driver at a dis-
tance, like that made by a man pumping in a
neighboring farm-yard, watering his cattle, or
like chopping wood before his door on a frosty
morning, and I can imagine it like driving a
stake in a meadow. The pumper. I imme-
diately went in search of the bird, but after go-
ing one third of a mile, it did not sound much
nearer, and the two parts of the sound did not
appear to proceed from the same place. What
is the peculiarity of these sounds which pene-
trate so far on the key-note of Nature ? At last
I got near to the brook in the meadow behind
Hubbard's wood, but I could not tell if it were
farther or nearer than that. When I got within
half a dozen rods of the brook, it ceased, and I
heard it no more. I suppose that I seared it
As before I was farther off than I thought, so
now I was nearer than I thought. It is not
easy to understand how so small a creature can
make so loud a sound by merely sucking or throw-
ing out water with pump-like lunga. It was a
sound as of gulping water.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 131
Where my path crosses the brook in the
meadow there is a singularly sweet scent in the
heavy air where the brakes grow, the fragrance
of the earth, as if the dew were a distillation of
the fragrant essences of Nature.
And now, as I enter the embowered willow
causeway, my senses are captivated again by a
sweet fragrance. I know not if it be from a
particular plant, or all together, sweet-scented
vernal grass, or sweet briar. Now the sun is
fairly gone, I hear the dreaming toad (?), and the
whippoorwill from some darker wood, and the
cuckoo. It is not far from eight. The song-
sparrows sing quite briskly among the willows as
if it were spring again, the blackbird's harsher
note resounds over the meadow, and the veery's
comes up from the wood. Fishes are dimpling
the surface of the river, seizing the insects which
alight. A solitary fisherman in his hoat inhab-
its the scene. As I ascended the hill, I fonnd
myself in a cool, fragrant, dewy, up-country,
mountain, morning air. The moon- was now
seen rising over lair Haven, and at the same
time reflected in the river, pale and white, like a
silvery cloud barred with a cloud. In Conant's
orchard I hear the faint cricket-like song of a
sparrow, saying its vespers, as if it were a link
between the cricket and the bird. The robin
sings now, though the moon shines silvery, and
the veery jingles its trill.
Hosted by
Google
132 SUMMER.
I hear the fresh and refreshing sound of fall-
ing water aa I have heard it in New Hampshire.
It is a sound we do not commonly hear.
How moderate, deliberate is Nature, how grad-
ually the sliades of night gather and deepen,
giving man ample leisure to bid farewell to day,
conclude his day's affairs, and prepare for slum*
ber. The twilight seems out of proportion to the
length of the day.
I see, indistinctly, oxen asleep in the fields,
silent, in majestic slumber, reclining statuesque,
Egyptian, like the Sphinx. What solid rest!
How their heads are supported \
From Conaut's summit I hear as many as fif-
teen whippoorwills, or whip-or-I -wills, at once,
the succeeding cluck sounding strangely foreign,
like a hewer at work elsewhere.
How sweet and encouraging it is to hear the
sound of some artificial music from the midst of
woods or from the top of a hill at night, borne
on the breeze from some distant farm-house, the
human voice, or a flute. That is a civilization
one can endure, worth having. I could go
about the world listening for the strains of mu-
sio. Men use this gift but sparingly, neverthe-
less. What should we think of a bird which
had the gift of song, but used it only once in a
dozen years ! like the plant which blossoms only
once in a century.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 183
Peabody says that the night-hawk retires to
rest about the time the whippoorwill begins its
song. The whippoorwill begins now at half-past
seven. I bear the night-hawk after nine o'clock.
He says the latter flies low in the evening, but
it also flies high, as it must needs do to make the
booming sound.
Not much before ten o'clock does the moon-
light night begin, when man is asleep and day
fairly forgotten. Then is the beauty of moon-
light seen upon lonely pastures where cattle are
silently feeding. Then let me walk in a diversi-
fied country of hill and dale, with heavy woods on
one side, and copses and scattered trees enough
to give me shadows. As I return, a mist is on
the river, which is thus taken into the bosom of
Nature again.
,/une 14, 1852. Saw a wild rose from the
cars in Weston. The early red roses are out in
gardens at home.
June 14, 1853. p. m. To White's Pond.
Heard the first locust from amid the shrubs by
the roadside. He comes with heat.
Snake sloughs are found nowadays, bleached
and whitish.
I observed the cotton of aphides on the alders
yesterday and to-day. How regularly these phe-
nomena appear, even the stains or spots or galls
on leaves, as that bright yellow on blackberry
Hosted by
Google
134 SUMMER.
leaves and those ring spots on maple leaves I see
to-day, exactly the same pattern with last year's,
and the crimson frosting on the black birch
leaves I saw the other day. Then there are
the huckleberry apples and the large green
puffs on the panicled andromeda, and also I see
now the very light or whitish solid and juicy
apples on the swamp pink with a fungus-like
smell when broken.
L'riijcroji Htrigoavm. Some white, some pur-
plish, common now, and daisy-like. I put it
rather early on the 9th.
Instead of the white lily which requires mud
or the sweet flag, here grows the blue flag in
the water, thinly about the shore. The color
of the flower harmonizes singularly with the
water. With our boat's prow to the shore, we
sat half an hour this evening, listening to the
bull-frogs. What imperturbable fellows ! One
sits perfectly still behind some blades of grass
while the dog is chasing others within two
feet. Some are quite handsome, large, and
spotted. We see here and there light - col-
ored, greenish, or white spots on the bottom,
where a fish — a bream, perhaps — has picked
away all the dead wood and leaves for her
nest over a space of eighteen inches or more.
Young bream, from one to three inches long,
light - colored and transparent, are swimming
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 135
about, and here and there a leech in the shal-
low water, moving as serpents are represented
to do. Large devil's needles are buzzing back
and forth. They skim along the edge of the
blue flags, apparently quite round this cove or
further, like hen-harriers beating the bush for
game. And now comes a humming-bird, hum-
ming from the woods, and alights on the blossom
of a blue flag. The bull-frogs begin with one
or two notes, and with each peal add another
trill to their trump, er roonh — er-er-roonk —
er-er-er-roonk, ete. I am amused to hear one
after another, and then an unexpectedly deep
and confident bass, as if he had charged himself
with more wind than the rest. And now, as if
by a general agreement, they all trump together,
making a deafening noise. Sometimes one
jumps up a foot out of water in the midst of
these concerts. What are they about ? Sud-
denly a tree-toad in the overhanging woods be-
gins, and another answers, and another, with
loud ranging notes, such as I never heard be-
fore, and in three minutes they are all silent
again. A red-eye sings on a tree top, and a
cuckoo is heard from the wood. These are the
evening sounds.
As we look over the water now, the opposite
woods are seen dimly through what appears not
so much the condensing dew and mist as the dry
Hosted by
Google
136 SUMMER.
haziness of the afternoon now settled and con-
densed. The woods on the opposite shore have
not the distinctness they had an hour before, but
perhaps a more agreeable dimness, a sort of
gloaming, or settling and thickening of the baze
over the water, whieh melts tree into tree, they
being no longer bright and distinct, and masses
them agreeably, a bluish mistiness. Tins appears
to be an earlier gloaming before sunset. . . .
This seems the true hour to be abroad, saun-
tering far from borne. Your thoughts being
already turned toward home, your walk in one
sense ended, you are in that favorable frame of
mind described by De Quincey, open to great
impressions, and you see those rare sights with
the unconscious side of the eye, whieh you could
not see by a direct gaze before. Then the dews
begin to descend in your mind, and its atmos-
phere is strained of all impurities. Home is far-
ther away than ever ; here is home. The beauty
of the world impresses you. There is a coolness
in your mind as in a well. Life is too grand
for ripples. The wood-thrush launches forth his
evening strains from the midst of the pines. I
admire the moderation of this master. There is
nothing tumultuous in his song. He launches
forth one strain of pure, unmatchable melody,
and then he pauses and gives the hearer and
himself time to digest this, and then another and
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 187
another at suitable intervals. Men talk of the
rich song of other birds, the thrasher, mocking-
bird, nightingale. But I doubt, I doubt. They
know not what they say. There is as great an
interval between the thrasher and the wood-
thrush as between Thompson's " Seasons " and
Homer. The sweetness of the day crystallizes
in this morning coolness.
June 14, 1854. Caught a locust, properly
harvest fly, drumming on a birch, which
and-r think like the s&ptendecim, except that
ours has not red eyes, but black ones. Harris
says of the other kind, the dog-day cicada (canic~
ularis) or harvest fly, that it begins to be heard
invariably at the beginning of dog days ; that he
has heard it for many years in succession, with
few exceptions, on the 25th of July.
June 14, 1857. [Plymouth.] B. M. "W
tells me that he learns from pretty good author-
ity that Webster once saw the sea serpent. It
seems it was first seen in the bay between Ma-
nomet and Plymouth Beach by a perfectly reli-
able witness (many years ago) who was accus-
tomed to look out on the sea with his glass every
morning the first thing, as regularly as he ate
his breakfast. One morning he saw this mon-
ster, with a head somewhat like a horse's, raised
some six feet above the water, aud his body, the
size of a cask, trailing behind. He was career-
Hosted by
Google
138 SUMMER.
ing over the bay, chasing the mackerel, which
ran ashore in their fright, and were washed up
and died in great numbers. The story is that
Webster had appointed to meet some Plymouth
gentlemen at Manomet and spend the day fish-
ing with them. After the fishing was over he set
out to return to Duxbury in his sail-boat with
Peterson, as he had come, and on the way they
saw the sea serpent, which answered to the com-
mon account of this creature. It passed directly
across the bows only six or seven rods off, and
then disappeared. On the sail homeward, Web-
ster, having bad time to reflect on what had oc-
curred, at length said to Peterson, " For God's
sake never say a word about this to any one, for
if it should be known that I have seen the sea
serpent, I should never hear the last of it, but,
wherever I went, should have to tell the story to
every one I met." So it has not leaked out till
now.
W also tells me (and E. W confirms
it, his father having probably been of the party)
that many years ago a party of Plymouth gentle-
men rode round by the shore to the Gurnet, and
there had a high time. When they set out to
return, they left one of their number, a General
Winslow, asleep, and, as they rode along home-
ward, amused themselves with conjecturing what
he would think when he waked up and found
Hosted by
Google
himself alone. When at length he awoke, he
comprehended his situation at once, and, being
somewhat excited by the wine he had drunk, he
mounted his horse and rode along the shore to
Saquish Head in the opposite direction. From
here to Plymouth Beach is about a mile and a
quarter, but, it being low tide, he waded his horse
as far as the Beacon, north of the channel at the
entrance to Plymouth Harbor, about three quar-
ters of a mile, and then boldly swam him across
to the end of Plymouth Beach, about half a mile
further, notwithstanding a strong current. Hav-
ing landed safely, he whipped up and soon
reached the town, having come only about eight
miles, and having ample time to warm and dry
himself at the tavern before his companions
arrived, who had at least twenty miles to ride
about through Marshfield and Duxbury. When
they found him sitting by the tavern fire, they
at first thought it was his ghost.
June 14, 1859. p. m. To Flint's Pond.—
Pout's nest with a straight entrance some twenty
inches long and a simple round nest at end.
The young, just hatched, all head, light colored,
under a mass of weedy hummocks which is all
under water.
The rose-breasted grossbeak is common now
in the Flint's Pond woods. It is not at all shy,
and our richest singer, perhaps, after the wood-
Hosted by
Google
140 SUMMER.
thrush. The rhythm is very like that of the tan-
ager, hut the strain is perfectly clear and sweet.
One sits on the bare dead twig of a chestnut
high over the road at Gourgas wood, and over
my head, and sings clear and loud at regular in-
tervals, the strain about ten or fifteen seconds
long, rising and swelling to the end with various
modulations. Another, singing in emulation,
regularly answers it, alternating with it, from
a distance, at least a quarter of a mile off. It
sings thus long at a time, and I leave it singing
there, regardless of me.
June 14, 1860. p. m. To 2d Division. . . .
The white water ranunculus is abundant in the
brook, out, say a week, and well open in the sun-
shine. It is a pretty white flower, with yellow
centre, seen above the dark-brown green leaves
in the rapid water, its peduncle recurved so as to
present the flower erect half an inch to an inch
above the surface, while the buds are submerged.
June 15, 1840. I stood by the river to-day,
considering the forms of the elms reflected in
the water. For every oak and birch, too, grow-
ing on the hill-top, as well as for these elms and
willows, there is a graceful, ethereal, and ideal
tree mating down from the roots, and sometimes
Nature in high tides brings her mirror to its foot
and makes it visible. Anxious Nature sometimes
reflects from pools and puddles the objects which
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 141
our groveling senses may fail to see relieved
against the sky, with the pure ether for back-
ground.
It would be well if we saw ourselves as in per-
spective always, impressed with distinct outline
on the sky, side by side with the shrubs on the
river's brim. So let our life stand to heaven as
some fair sun-lit tree against the western horizon,
and by sunrise be planted on some eastern hill
to glisten in the first rays of the dawn.
June 15, 1851. Saw the first wild rose to-day.
The white weed has suddenly appeared, the clo-
ver gives whole fields a rich and florid appear-
ance. The rich red and the sweet-scented white.
The fields are blushing with the red as the west-
ern sky at evening.
The blue-eyed grass, well-named, looks up to
heaven, and the yarrow, with its persistent dry
stalks and heads, is now ready to blossom again.
The dry stems and heads of last year's tansy
stand high above the new green leaves.
I sit in the shade of the pines to hear a wood-
thrush at noon ; the ground smells of dry leaves ;
the heat is oppressive. The bird begins in a low
strain, i. e., it first delivers a strain on a lower
key, then, a moment after, another a little higher,
then another still varied from the others, no two
successive strains alike, but either ascending or
descending. He confines himself to his few
Hosted by
Google
142 SUMMER.
notes in which he is unrivaled, as if his kind
had learned this and no more, anciently.
I perceive, as formerly, a white froth dripping
from the pitch pines just at the base of the new
shoots. It has no taste.
The pollywogs in the pond are now full-tailed.
The hickory leaves are blackened by a recent
frost, which reminds me that this is near their
northern limit.
The rapidity with which the grass grows is
remarkable. The 25th of May I walked to the
hills in Wayland, and when I returned across
lots do not remember that I had much occasion
to think of the grass, or to go round any fields
to avoid treading on it. But just a week after-
ward, at Worcester, it was high and waving in
the fields, and I was to some extent confined to
the road, and the same was the case here. Ap-
parently in a month you get from fields which
you can cross without hesitation, to haying time-
It has grown you hardly know when, be the
weather what it may, sunshine or storm.
I start up a solitary woodcock in the shade of
some copse ; it goes off with a startled, rattling,
hurried note.
After walking by night several times, I now
walk by day, but I am not aware of any crown-
ing advantage in it. I see small objects better,
but it does not enlighten me any. The day is
more trivial.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 143
What a careful gardener Nature is ! She
does not let the sun come out suddenly with all
his intensity after rain and cloudy weather, but
graduates the change to suit the tenderness of
plants.
1 see the tall crowfoot now in the meadows,
Ranunculus acris, with a smooth stem. I do
not notice the bulbo&us which was so common a
fortnight ago. The rose-colored flowers of the
Kalmia angustifolia, lambkill, just opened and
opening. The Convallaria hifolia growing stale
in the woods. The ffieracium venosum, veiny-
leaved hawk-weed, with its yellow blossoms, in
the woodland path. The Hypoxys erecta, yellow
Bethlehem star, where there is a thick wiry grass
in open paths, might well be called yellow-eyed
grass. The Pyrola asarifolia, with its pagoda-
like stem of flowers, i. e., broad-leaved winter-
green. The TYientalh Americano., like last, in
the woods, with its star-like white flower and
pointed, whorled leaves. The prunella, too, is
in blossom, and the rather delicate Thesium urn-
bellatum, a white flower. The Solomon 's-seal,
with a greenish, drooping raceme of flowers at
the top, I do not identify.
I find I postpone all actual intercourse with
my friends to a certain real intercourse which
takes place commonly when we are actually at a
distance from one another.
Hosted by
Google
144 SUMMER
June 15, 1852. Yesterday we smelt the sea
strongly. The sea breeze alone made the day
tolerable. This morning, a shower. The robin
only sings the louder for it. He is inclined to
sing in foul weather.
To Clematis Brook. 1.30 p. m.
Very warm. This melting weather makes a
stage in the year. The crickets creak louder
and more steadily. The bull-frogs croak in ear-
nest. The dry z-ing of the locust is heard. The
drouth begins. Bathing cannot be omitted. The
conversation of all boys in the streets is whether
they will or will not, or who will, go in a-swim-
ming. . . . You lie with open windows and hear
the sounds in the streets. The seringo sings now
at noon on a post, has a light streak over eye.
The autumnal dandelion. Leontodon or Apar-
gia. Erigeron integri, folium or Mtrigosum, i. e.,
narrow-leaved daisy fleabane of Gray, very com-
mon, like a white aster.
Men are inclined to be amphibious, to sympa-
thize with fishes now. I desire to get wet, satu-
rated with water. The North River, Assabet, by
the old stone bridge, affords the best bathing-
place I think of, — a pure, sandy, uneven bottom,
with a swift current, a grassy bank, and over-
hanging maples, transparent water, deep enough,
where you can see every fish in it. Though you
stand still, you feel the rippling current about
you.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 145
Young robins, dark-speckled, and the pigeon
woodpecker flies up from the ground and darts
away.
The farm-houses under their shady trees look
as if their inhabitants were taking their siesta at
this hour. I pass Baker's in the rear through
the open pitch-pine wood. . . . No scouring of
tubs or cans now. They eat and all are gone to
sleep preparing for an early tea, excepting the in-
defatigable, never-resting hoers in the cornfield,
who have carried a jug of molasses and water to
the field, and will wring their shirts to-night. I
shall ere long hear the horn blow for their early
tea. The wife or the hired Irish woman steps
to the door and blows the long tin horn, a cheer-
ing sound to the laborers in the field.
The motive of the laborer should be not to get I
his living, to get a good job, but to perform well
a certain work. A town must pay its engineers !
so well that they shall not feel they are working
for low ends, as for a livelihood mainly, but for
scientific ends. Do not hire a man who does
your work for money, but him who does it for /
love, and pay him welL
On Mount Misery, panting with heat, looking
down the river. The haze an hour ago reached
to Wachusett ; now it obscures it.
Methinks there is a male and female shore to
the river, one abrupt, the other flat and inead-
Hosted by
Google
146 SUMMER
owy. Have not all streams this contrast more
or less, — on the one hand eating into the bank,
on the other depositing their sediment ?
The year is in its manhood now. The very
river looks warm, and there is none of that light
celestial blue seen in far reaches in the spring.
I see fields a mile distant reddened with
sorrel.
The very sight of distant water is refreshing,
though a bluish steam appears to rise on it.
How refreshing the sound of the smallest wa-
terfall in hot weather. I sit by that on Clematis
Brook, and listen to its music. The very sight
of this half stagnant pond-hole drying up and
leaving bare mud, with the pollywogs and tur-
tles making off in it, is agreeable and encourag-
ing to behold, as if it contained the very seeds
of life, the liquor, rather, boiled down. The
foulest water will bubble purely. They speak
to our blood, even these stagnant, slimy pools.
Even this water has, no doubt, its falls nobler
than Montmorenci, grander than Niagara, in the
course of its circulations.
Cattle walk along now in a brook or ditch
for coolness, lashing their tails, and browse the
edges ; or they stand concealed for shade amid
thick bushes. How perfectly acquainted they
are with man.
I hear the scream of a great hawk sailing
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 147
with a ragged wing against the high wood side,
apparently to scare his prey, and so detect it,
shrill, harsh, fitted to excite terror in sparrows,
aiid to issue from his split and curved bill, spit
with force from his mouth with an undulatory
quaver imparted to it from his wings or motion
as he flies. I see his open bill the while against
the sky. A hawk's ragged wing will grow whole
again, but so will not a poet's.
Here at Well Meadow head I see the fringed
purple orchis, unexpectedly beautiful, though a
pale lilac purple, a large spike of purple flowers.
I find two [of the same species], the grandiflora
of Bigelow and fimbriata of Gray. Bigelow
thinks it the most beautiful of all the orchises.
. . . Why does it grow there only, far in a
swamp, remote from public view ? It is some-
what fragrant, reminding me of the lady's slip-
per. Is it not significant that some rare and del-
icate and beautiful flowers should be found only
in unfrequented wild swamps ? . . . Yet I am
not sure but this is a fault in the flower. It is
not quite perfect in all its parts. A beautiful
flower must be simple, not spiked. It must
have a fair stem and leaves. The stem is rather
naked, and the leaves are for shade and mois-
ture. It is fairest seen rising from amid brakes
and hellebore, its lower part, or rather naked
stem, concealed. Where the most beautiful wild
Hosted by
Google
148 SUMMER.
flowers grow, there man's spirit is fed and poets
grow. It cannot be high-colored, growing in the
shade. Nature has taken no pains to exhibit it,
and few that bloom are ever seen by mortal eyes.
There are few really cold springs. How few
men can be believed when they say one is cold.
I go out of my way to the Boiling Spring. It
is as cold as the coldest well water. "What a
treasure is such a spring ! Who divined it ?
8 P. M. On river. No moon. A deafening
sound from toads, and intermittingly from bull-
frogs. What 1 have thought to bo frogs prove
to be toads, sitting by thousands along the shore,
and trilling short and loud, not so long a quaver
as in the spring. And I have not heard them
in those pools, now indeed mostly dried up,
where I heard them in the spring. (I do not
know what to think of my midsummer frog
now.) The bull-frogs are very loud, of various
degrees of baseness and sonorousness, answering
each other across the river with two or three
grunting croaks. They are not now so numer-
ous as the toads. It is candle light. The fishes
leap. The meadows sparkle with the coppery
light of fire-flies. The evening star, multiplied
by undulating water, is like bright sparks of
fire continually ascending. The reflections of
the trees are generally indistinct. There is a
low mist slightly enlarging the river, through
Hosted by
Google
SVMMER. 149
which the arches of the stone bridge are just
visible, as in a vision. The mist is singularly
bounded, collected here while there is none there,
elose up to the bridge on one side and none on
the other, depending apparently on currents of
air. . . ■ There is a low crescent of northern
light, and shooting stars from time to time. . . .
I paddle with a bough, the Nile boatman's oar,
which is rightly pliant, and you do not labor
much.
June 15, 1853. p. m. To Trillium "Woods.
Clover now in its prime. What more luxuri-
ant than a clover field. The poorest soil that
is covered with it looks incomparably fertile.
This is perhaps the most characteristic feature
of June, resounding with the hum of insects,
such a blush on the fields. The rude health of
the sorrel cheek has given place to the blush
of clover. Painters are wont, in their pictures
of Paradise, to strew the field too thickly with
flowers. There should be moderation in all
things. Though we love flowers we do not
want them so thick under our feet that we
cannot walk without treading on them. But
a, clover field in bloom is some excuse for
them. . . .
Here are many wild roses northeast of Tril-
lium Woods. We are liable to underrate this
flower, on account of its commonness. Is it not
Hosted by
Google
the queen of our flowers ? How ample and high-
colored its petals, glancing half concealed from
its own green bowers. There is a certain noble
and delicate civility about it, not wildness. It
is properly the type of the rosacese, or flowers,
among others, of most wholesome fruits. It is
at home in the garden, as readily cultivated as
apples. It is the pride of June. In summing
up its attractions I should mention its rich color,
size, and form, the rare beauty of its bud, its
fine fragrance and the beauty of the entire
shrub, not to mention the almost innumerable
varieties it runs into. I bring home the buds
ready to expand, put them into a pitoher of
water, and the next morning they open, and fill
my chamber with fragrance. This found in the
wilderness must have reminded the Pilgrim of
home.
For a week past I have heard the cool, watery
note of the goldfinch, from time to time, as it
twittered past
June 15, 1854. I think the birds sing some-
what feebler now-a-days. The note of the bobo-
link begins to sound somewhat rare.
June 15, 1858. That coarse grass in the
Island Meadow which grows in full circles, as
in the Great Meadows, is wool grass. Some
is now fairly in bloom. Many plants have a
similar habit of growth. The Osmwnda rega-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 151
lis growing in very handsome hollow circles, or
sometimes only crescents, or ares of circles, is
now generally of a peculiarly tender green, but
some has begun to go to seed and look brown ;
hollow circles one or two feet to a rod in diam-
eter. These two are more obvious when, as
now, all the rest of the meadow is covered with
water.
June 16, 1852. 4.30 a. m. A low fog on
the meadows. The scattered cloud wisps in the
sky, like a squadron thrown into disorder, at the
approach of the sun. The sun now gilds an
eastern cloud, giving it a broad, bright, coppery-
golden edge, fiery bright, notwithstanding which
the protuberances of the cloud cast dark shad-
ows ray-like up into the day. The earth looks
like a debauchee after the sultry night. Birds
sing at this hour as in the spring. The white
lily is budded. Paddle down from the ash tree
to the swimraiug-place. The farther shore is
crowded with polygonum and pontederia leaves.
There seems to have intervened no night. The
heat of the day is unabated. You perspire be-
fore sunrise. The bull-frogs boom still. No
toads now. The river appears covered with an
almost imperceptible blue film. The sun is not
yet over the hank. What wealth in a stagnant
river ! There is music in every sound in the
morning atmosphere. As I look up over the
Hosted by
Google
152 SUMMER.
bay I see the reflection of the meadow, woods,
and Hosmer Hill, at a distance, the tops of the
trees cut off by a slight ripple. Even the pine
groves on the near bank are distinctly reflected.
Owing to the reflections of the distant woods
and hills you seem to be paddling into a vast
hollow country, doubly novel and interesting.
Thus the voyageur is lured onward to fresh
pastures. The melting heat begins again as
soon as the sun gets up. The bull-frog lies on
the very surface of the pads, showing his great
yellow throat {color of the yellow breeches of
the old school), and protuberant eyes, his whole
back out, revealing a vast expanse of belly, his
eyes like ranunculus, or yellow lily buds, wink-
ing from time to time, and showing his large,
dark-bordered tympanum, imperturbable look-
ing. His yellow throat swells up like a small
moon at a distance over the pads when he croaks.
The floating pond-weed, Potamogeton nutans,
with the oblong oval leaf floating on the sur-
face, now in bloom. The yellow water ranun-
culus still yellows the river in the middle where
shallow, in beds many rods long. It is one of
the capillary leaved plants.
By and by the Bidens (marigold) will stand
in the river as now the ranunculus. The spring
yellows are faint, cool, innocent as the saffron
morning compared with the blaze of noon. The
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 153
autumnal, methinks, are the fruit of the dog
days, heats of manhood or age, not youth. The
former are pure, transparent, crystalline, viz., the
willow catkins and the early einqnefoils. This
ranunculus, too, standing two or three inches
above the water, is of a light yellow, especially
at a distance. This I think is the rule with re-
spect to spring flowers, though there are excep-
tions.
9 P. M. Down railroad. Heat lightning in the
distance ; a sultry night. The sound of a flute
from some villager. How' rare among men so
fit a thing as the sound of a flute at evening ! —
Have not the fire-flies in the meadow relation to
the stars above, itincelant. When the darkness
comes we see stars beneath also. — -The sonorous
note of the bull-frog is heard a mile off in the
river, the loudest sound this evening. Ever and
anon the sound of his trombone comes over the
meadows and fields.
Do not the stars, too, show their light for love,
like the fire-flies? There are northern lights,
shooting high up, withal.
June 16, 1853. 4 a. m. To Nashawtuck, by
boat. Before 4 A. M. or sunrise, the sound of
chip-birds, robins, blue-birds, etc., is incessant.
It is a crowing on the roost, I fancy, as the cock
crows before he goes abroad. They do not sing
deliberately as at evening, but greet the morning
Hosted by
Google
154 SUMMER.
with an incessant twitter. Even the crickets
seem to join the concert. Yet I think it is not
the same every morning, though it may be fair.
An hour or two later there is comparative si-
lence. The awaking of the birds, a tumultuous
twittering.
At sunrise a slight mist curls along the sur-
face of the water. When the sun falls on this,
it looks like a red dust.
As seen from the top of the hill, the sun just
above the horizon, red and shorn of beams, is
somewhat pear-shaped, owing to some irregular-
ity in the refraction of the lower strata of the
air, produced, as it were, by the dragging of the
lower part, and then it becomes a broad ellipse,
the lower half a dun red, owing to the greater
grossness of the air there.
The distant river is like molten silver at this
hour. It reflects merely the light, not the bine.
What shall I name that small cloud that at-
tends the sun's rising, that hangs over the por-
tals of the day, like an embroidered banner, and
heralds his coining, though sometimes it proves
a portcullis which falls and cuts off the new day
in its birth.
Found four tortoises' nests on the high bank
just robbed, and the eggs devoured, one not
emptied of its yolk. Others had been robbed
some days. Apparently about three eggs to
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER.
155
each. Presently I saw a skunk making off with
an undulating motion, a white streak above and
a parallel and broader black one below ; un-
doubtedly the robber.
A sweet brier, apparently yesterday.
Coming along I heard a singular sound as of
a bird in distress amid the bushes, and turned to
relieve it. Next thought of a squirrel in an
apple-tree barking at me. Then found that it
came from a hole in the ground under my feet,
a loud sound between a grunting and a wheez-
ing, yet not unlike the sound a red squirrel
sometimes makes, though louder. Looking down
the hole, I saw the tail and hind quarters of a
wood-chuck which seemed to be contending with
another farther in. Reaching down carefully I
took hold of the tail, and though I had to pull
very hard indeed, I drew him out between the
rocks, a bouncing, great fat fellow, and tossed
hjm a little way down the hill. As soon as he
recovered from his bewilderment he made for
the hole again, but I barring the way, he ran
elsewhere.
p. M. To Baker Farm by boat.
Was that a smaller bittern or a meadow-hen
that we started from out the button-bushes ?
What places for the mud-hen beneath the stems
of the button-bushes along the shore, all shaggy
with rootlets, as if all the weeds the river pro-
Hosted by
Google
156 SUMMER.
teeted, all the ranunculus at least, had drifted
and lodged against them. Their stems are so
nearly horizontal near the mud and water that
you can clamber along on them over the water
many rods. It is one of the wildest features in
our scenery. There is scarcely any firm footing
on the ground except where a musk-rat has made
a heap of clam shells. Picture the river at a
low stage of the water, the pads, shriveled in the
sun, hanging from the dark brown stems of the
button-bushes which are all shaggy with masses
of dark rootlets, au impenetrable thicket, and a
stake-driver or Arde.a minor sluggishly winging
his way up the stream.
The breams' nests, like large, deep milk pans,
are left high and dry on the shore. They are
not only deepened within, but have raised edges,
In some places they are as close together as they
can be, with each a great bream in it whose
waving fins and tail are tipped with a sort of
phosphorescent luminousness.
We sailed all the way back from Baker Farm,
though the wind blew very nearly at right angles
with the river much of the way. By sitting on
one side of the boat we made its edge serve for
a keel, so that it would mind the helm. The
dog swam for long distances behind us. Each
time we passed under the lee of a wood, we were
becalmed, and then met with contrary and flawy
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 157
winds till we got fairly beyond its influence.
But you can always sail either up or down the
river, for the wind inclines to blow along the
channel, especially where the banks are high.
We taste at each cool spring with which we are
acquainted in the bank, making haste to reach it
before the dog, who otherwise is sure to be found
cooling himself in it. We sometimes use him
to sit in the stern and trim the boat while we
both row, for he is heavy, and otherwise we sink
the bow too much in the water. But he has a
habit of standing too near the rower, and at each
otroke receiving a fillip from the rower's fists ;
so at last he tumbles himself overboard and takes
a riparian excursion. We are amused to see how
judiciously he selects his points for crossing the
river from time to time, in order to avoid long
circuits made necessary on land by bays and
meadows, and keep as near us as possible.
Found at Bittern Cliff the Potentilla arguta,
crowded cinquefoil, our only white one, stem and
leaves somewhat like the Norvegiea, but more
woolly ; a yellowish white.
June 16, 1854. 5 a. m. Up railroad. As the
sun went down last night round and red in a
damp, misty atmosphere, so now it rises in the
same manner, though there is no dense fog.
Observed yesterday the erigeron with a purple
tinge. I cannot tell whether this which seems in
Hosted by
Google
158 SUMMER.
other respects the same with the white is the stri'
gosum or the aim num.
Nymphma odorata. Again I scent the white
lily, and a season I had waited for has arrived.
How indispensable all these experiences to make
up the summer. It is the emblem of purity, and
its seent suggests it. Growing in stagnant and
muddy water, it bursts up so pure and fair to the
eye and so sweet to the scent, as if to show us
what purity and sweetness reside in and can be
extracted from the slime and muck of earth.
It is the resurrection of virtue. It is these
sights and sounds and fragrances that convince
us of our immortality. No man believes against
all evidence. Our external senses consent with
our internal. This fragrance assures me that
though all other men fall, one shall stand fast,
though a pestilence sweep over the earth, it shall
at least spare one man. The Genius of Nature
is unimpaired. Her flowers are as fair and as
fragrant as ever.
As for birds, I think that their choir begins
to be decidedly less full and loud. . . . The
bobolink, full strains, but farther between.
The Ti'osii nit.lda grows along the edge of the
ditches, the half open flowers showing the deep-
est rosy tints, so glowing that they make an
evening or twilight of the surrounding after-
noon, seeming to stand in the shade or twilight.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 159
Already the bright petals of yesterday's flowers
are thickly strewn along on the black sand at the
bottom of the ditch.
The Rosa niiAda, the curlier (?), with its nar-
row, shiny leaves and prickly stem, and its mod-
erate-sized rose-pink petals.
The Rosa lucida, with its broader and duller
leaves, but larger and perhaps deeper-colored
and more purple petals, perhaps yet higher
scented, and its great yellow centre of stamens,
The smaller, lighter, but perhaps more deli-
cately tinted Rosa rubigino&a. One and all
drop their petals the second day. I bring home
the buds of the three ready to expand at night,
and the next day they perfume my chamber.
Add to these the white lily just begun, also the
swamp pink, and the great orchis, and mountain
laurel, now in prime, and perhaps we must say
that the fairest flowers are now to be found, or
say a few days later. The arethusa is disap-
pearing.
It is eight days since I plucked the great or-
chis. One is perfectly fresh still in my pitcher.
It may be plucked when the spike is only half
opened, and will open completely and keep per-
fectly fresh in a pitcher more than a week. Do
I not live in a garden, in Paradise ? I can go
out each morning before breakfast, — I do, —
and gather these flowers with which to perfume
my chamber where I read and write all day.
Hosted by
Google
160 SUMMER.
The note of the cherry-bird is fine and ring-
ing, but peculiar and very noticeable. With
its crest it is a resolute and combative looking
bird.
Meadow-sweet to-morrow.
June 16, 1855. See young and weak striped
squirrels now-a-days with slender tails, asleep on
horizontal boughs above their holes, or moving
feebly about. Might catch them.
June 16, 1858. How agreeable and whole-
some the fragrance of the low blackberry blos-
soms, reminding one o£ all the rosaceous, fruit-
bearing plants, so near and dear to our humanity.
It is one of the most deliriously fragrant flowers,
reminding of wholesome fruits.
June 16, 1860. ... It appears to me that the
following phenomena occur simultaneously, say
June 12, viz. : Heat about 85° at 2 p. M. True
summer.
Hy lodes cease to peep.
Purring frogs {liana palu&trig) cease.
Lightning bugs first seen.
Bull-frogs trump generally.
Afternoon showers almost regular.
Turtles fairly and generally begin to lay.
June 17, 1840. Our lives will not attain to
be spherical by lying on one or the other side
forever, but only so far as we resign ourselves to
the law of gravity in us, will our axis become
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 161
coincident with the celestial axis, and. by revolv-
ing incessantly through all circles, shall we ac-
quire a perfect sphericity. . . .
Even the motto " business before friends " ad-
mits of a high interpretation. No interval of
time can avail to defer friendship. The con-
cerns of time must be attended to in time. I
need not make haste to explore the whole secret
of a star. If it were vanished quite out of the
firmament so that no telescope could longer
discover it, I should not despair of knowing it
entirely one day.
We meet our friend with a certain awe, as if
he had just lighted on the earth, and yet as if we
had some title to be acquainted with him by our
old familiarity with sun and moon.
June 17, 1852. 4 a. m. To Cliffs. No fog
this morning. At early dawn, the windows be-
ing open, I hear a steady, breathing, cricket-like
sound from the chip-bird (?) ushering in the day.
Perhaps these mornings are the most memorable
in the year, after a sultry night and before a
sultry day, when especially the morning is the
most glorious season of the day, when its cool-
ness is most refreshing and you enjoy the glory
of the summer, gilded or silvered with dews,
without the torrid summer's sun or the obscuring
haae. The sound of the crickets at dawn after
these first sultry nights seems like the dreaming
Hosted by
Google
of the earth still continued into the day-light
I love that early twilight hour when the crickets
still creak right on with such dewy faith and
promise, as if it were still night, expressing the
innocence of morning, when the creak of the
cricket is fresh and bedewed. While it has that
ambrosial sound, no crime can be committed. It
buries Greece and Rome past resurrection. The
earth song of the cricket ! Before Christianity
was, it is. Health ! health ' health I is the bur-
den of its song. It is, of course, that man re-
freshed with sleep is thus innocent and healthy
and hopeful. When we hear that sound of the
crickets in the sod, the world is not so much
with us.
I hear the universal cock-crowing with sur-
prise and pleasure, as if I never heard it before.*
What a tough fellow ! How native to the earth !
Neither wet nor dry, cold nor warm kills him.
The prudent farmer improves the early morn-
ing to do some of his work before the heat be-
comes too oppressive, while he can use his oxen.
As yet no whetting of the scythe. . . . Ah, the
refreshing coolness of the morning, full of all
kinds of fragrance ! — What is that little oliva-
ceous, yellowish bird, whitish beneath, that fol-
lowed me cheeping under the bushes ? The birds
sing well this morning, well as ever. The brown
thrasher drowns the rest. The lark, and in the
Hosted by
Google
woods, the red-eye, veery, chewink, oven-bird,
wood-thrush.
The cistus is well open now, with its broad
cup-like flower, one of the most delicate yellow
flowers, with large spring-yellow petals, and its
stamens laid oue way. It is hard to get home
fresh; caducous and inclined to droop. The yel-
low Bethlehem-star is o£ a deeper yellow than
the cistus, a very neat flower, grass-like.
p. M. On the river, by Hubbard's Meadow.
Looking at a clump of trees and bushes on the
meadow, which is commonly flooded in the spring,
I saw a middling-sized rock concealed by the
leaves, lying in the midst, and perceived that
this had obtained a place, had made good the lo-
cality for the maples and shrubs which had found
a foothold about it. Here the weeds and tender
plants were detained and protected. The bowlder
dropped once on a meadow makes at length a
clump of trees there, and is concealed by the
beneficiaries it had protected.
June 17, 1853. The pogonias, adder's tongue
arethnsas 1 see now-a-days, are getting to be nu-
merous ; they are far too pale to compete with
the Arethusa bulbosa, and then their snake-like
odor is much against them.
There have been three ultra reformers, lectur-
ers on slavery, temperance, the church, etc., in \J
and about our house and Mrs. E 's, the last
Hosted by
Google
164 SUMMER.
three or four days. Though one of them was a
stranger to the others, you would have thought
them old and familiar cronies. They happened
* here together by accident. They addressed each
other constantly by their Christian names, and
i rubbed you continually with the greasy cheek of
their kindness. I was awfully pestered with the
benignity of one of them, feared I should get
greased all over with it past restoration, tried to
keep some starch in my clothes. He wrote a
book called " A Kiss for a Blow," and he be-
haved as if I had given him a blow, was bent on
J giving me the kiss when there was neither quar-
rel nor agreement between us. I wanted that he
should straighten his back, smooth out those
ogling wrinkles of benignity about his eyes, and
I with a healthy reserve pronounce something in a
downright manner. ... He addressed me as
" Henry " within one minute from the time I
first laid eyes on him ; and when I spoke, he
■ said with drawling, sultry sympathy, " Henry, I
know all you would say, I understand you per-
fectly, you need not explain anything to me,"
I and to another, " 1 am going to dive into Henry's
[ inmost depths." I said, " I trust you will not
strike your head against the bottom," He could
tell in a dark room, with his eyes blinded, and
in perfect stillness, if there was one there whom
he loved. One of the most attractive things
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 165
about the flowers is their beautiful reserve. The \
truly beautiful and noble puts its lover, as it '
were, at an infinite distance, while it attracts
him more strongly than ever. . . . What a
relief to have heard the ring of one healthy,
reserved tone.
The dense fields of blue-eyed grass now blue
the meadows, as if, in this fair season of the
year, the clouds that envelope the earth were
dispersing, and blue patches begin to appear an-
swering to the blue sky. The eyes pass from
these blue patches into the surrounding green as
from the patches of clear sky into the clouds.
One of the night-hawk's eggs is hatched. The
young is unlike any that I have seen, exactly
like a pinch of rabbit's fur, or down of that
color, dropped on the ground, not two inches
long, with a dimpling, somewhat regular ar-
rangement of minute feathers in the middle,
destined to become the wings and tail. Yet it
even half opened its eye, and peeped, if I mis-
take not. Was ever bird more completely pro-
tected, both by the color of its eggs, and of its
own body that sits on them, and of the young
bird just hatched ? Accordingly the eggs and
young are rarely discovered. There was one
egg still, and by the side of it this little pinch
of down flattened out and not observed at first.
A foot down the hill had rolled half the egg
Hosted by
Google
166 SUMMER.
it came out of. There was no callowness as in
the young of most birds. It seemed a singular
place for a bird to begin its life, this little pinch
of down, and lie still on the exact spot where
the egg lay, a flat exposed shelf on the side of a
bare hill, with nothing but the whole heavens,
the broad universe above, to brood it when its
mother was away.
The huckleberry apple is sometimes a red
shoot, with tender and thick red leaves and
branchlets, in all three inches long. It is, as it
were, a monstrous precocity, and what should
have waited to become fruit is a merely bloated
or purred up flower, a child with a great dropsi-
cal head, and prematurely bright, in a huckle-
berry apple. The really sweet and palateable
huckleberry is not matured before July, and
runs the risk of drying up in drouth, and never
attaining its proper size.
There are some fine large clusters of lambkill
close to the shore of Walden, under the Peak,
fronting the south. They are early, too, and
large, apparently, both on account of the warmth
and the vicinity of the water. These flowers
are in perfect cylinders, sometimes six inches
long by two wide, and three such raying out or
upward from one centre, that is, three branches
clustered together. Examined close by, I think
tins handsomer than the mountain laurel. The
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 167
color is richer, but it does not show so well at a
little distance, and the corymbs are somewhat
concealed by the green shoot and leaves rising
above them, and also by the dry remains of last
year's flowers.
The mountain laurel by Walden in its prime-
It is a splendid flower, and more red than that
in Mason's pasture. Its dry, dead-looking, brit-
tle stems lean, as it were, over other bushes or
each other, bearing at the ends great dense co-
rymbs five inches in diameter, of rose or pink (?)
tinged flowers, without an interstice between
them, overlapping each other, each of more than
an inch in diameter. A single flower would
he esteemed very beautiful. It is a highlander
wandered down into the plain.
June 17, 1854. 5 a. m. To Hill. A cold
fog. These mornings those who walk in grass
are thoroughly wet above mid-leg. All the earth
is dripping wet. I am surprised to feel how
warm the water is by contrast with the cold,
^°S»y ^ir* • ■ ■ The dewy cobwebs are very
thick this morning, little napkins of the fairies
spread on the grass. . . .
From the Hill I am reminded of more youth-
ful mornings, seeing the dark forms of the trees
eastward in the low grounds, partly within and
against the shining white fog, the sun just risen
over it. The mist fast rolls away eastward from
Hosted by
Google
168 SUMMER.
them, their tops at last streaking it and dividing
it into vales, all beyond a submerged and un-
known country, as if they grew on the sea-shore.
Why does the fog go off always towards the sun,
seen in the east when it has disappeared in the
west ? The waves of the foggy ocean divide and
flow back for us Israelites of a day to march
through.
Saw the sun reflected up from the Assabet to
the hill-top through the dispersing fog, giving
to the water a peculiarly rippled, pale golden
hue, " gilding pale streams with heavenly al-
chemy."
p. M. To Walden and Cliffs. ... It is dry,
hazy June weather. We are more of the earth,
farther from heaven these days. We live in a
grosser element, getting deeper into the mists of
earth. Even the birds sing with less vigor and
vivacity. The season of hope and promise is
past. Already the season of small fruits has
arrived. The Indian marked the midsummer as
the season when berries were ripe. We are a
little saddened because we begin to see the inter-
val between our hopes and their fulfillment. The
prospect of the heavens is taken away, and we
are presented only with a few small berries.
Before sundown I reached Fair Haven Hill
and gathered strawberries. I find beds of large
and lusty strawberry plants in sproutlands, but
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 169
they appear to run to leaves and bear very little
fruit, having spent themselves in leaves by the
time the dry weather arrives. It is those still
earlier and more stinted plants which grow on
dry uplands that bear the early fruit, formed
before the droughts. But the meadows produce
both leaves and fruit.
I begin to see the flowering fern at a distance
in the river meadows.
The sun goes down red again, like a high-col-
ored flower of summer ; as the white and yellow
flowers of spring are giving place to the rose,
and will soon to the red lily, etc., so the yellow
sun of spring has become a red sun of June
drought, round and red like a midsummer flower,
production of torrid heats.
June 18, 1840. I am startled when I con-
sider how little I am actually concerned about
the things I write in my journal
A fair land, indeed, do books spread open to
us, from the Genesis down, — but, alas ! men do
not take them up kindly into their own being,
and breathe into them a fresh beauty, knowing
that the grimmest of them belongs to such warm
sunshine and still moonlight as the present.
June 18, 1852. The hornet's nest is built
with many thin layers of his paper, with an
interval of about one eighth of an inch between
them, so that his wall is one or two inches thick.
Hosted by
Google
170 SUMMER.
This probably for warmth, dryness, and light-
ness. So the carpenter has learned to some-
times build double walls.
7 P. M. To Cliffs. . . . Pyrolas are begin-
ning to blossom. The four-leaved loosestrife.
The longest days in the year have now come,
The sun goes down now (this moment) behind
Watatic, from the Cliffs. St. John's-wort is
beginning to blossom.
I hear a man playing a clarionet far off,
Apollo tending the herds of Admetus. How
cultivated, how sweet and glorious is music !
Men have brought this art to great perfection,
the art of modulating sound, by long practice,
since the world began. What superiority over
the rude harmony of savages ! There is some-
thing glorious and flower-like in it. What a
contrast this evening melody with the occupa-
tions of the day. It is perhaps the most admir-
able accomplishment of man,
June 18, 1853. 4 a, m. By boat to Nashaw-
tnck, to Azalea or Pinxter Spring. . . . Al-
most all birds appear to join the early morning
chorus before sunrise on the roost, the matin
hymn. I hear now the robin, the chip-bird, the
blackbird, the martin, ete., but I see none fly-
ing, or at least only one wing in the air not yet
illumined by the sun. As I was going up the
hill, I was surprised to see rising above the June
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 171
grass, near a walnut, a whitish object, like a
stone with a white top, or a skunk erect, for it
was black below. It was an enormous toadstool,
or fungus, a sharply conical parasol in the form
of a sugar loaf, slightly turned up at the edges,
which were rent half an inch for every inch or
two. The whole length was sixteen inches.
The pileus, or cap, was six inches long by seven
in width at the rim, though it appeared longer
than wide. . . . The stem was about one inch
in diameter and naked. The top of the cap
was quite white within and without, not smooth,
but with a stringy kind of scales turned upward
at the edge. These declined downward into a
coarse hoariness, as if the compact white fibres
had been burst by the spreading gills. It looked
much like an old felt hat pushed up into a cone,
its rim all ragged, with some meal shaken upon
it. It was almost big enough for a child's head.
It was so delicate and fragile that its whole cap
trembled at the least touch, and as I could not
lay it down without injuring it, I was obliged to
carry it home all the way in my hand, erect,
while I paddled my boat with one hand. It was
a wonder how its soft cone ever broke through
the earth. Such growths ally our age to those
earlier periods which geology reveals. I won-
dered if it had not some relation to the skunk,
though not in odor, yet in its color and the gen-
Hosted by
Google
172 SUMMER.
era] impression it made. It suggests a vegeta-
tive force which may almost make man tremble
for his dominion. It carries me back to the era
of the formation of the coal measures, the age
of the Saurus and the Pliosaurus, and when
bull-frogs were as big as bulls. Its stem had
something massy about it, like an oak, large
in proportion to the weight it had to support
(though not perhaps to the size of the cap), like
the vast hollow columns under some piazzas,
whose caps have hardly weight enough to hold
their tops together. It made you think of pic-
tures of parasols of Chinese mandarins, or it
might have been used by the great fossil bull-
frog in his walks. What part does it play in
the economy of the world ? . . . I have just been
out (7.30 a. M.) to show my fungus. ... It is
so fragile I was obliged to walk at a funereal
pace for fear of jarring it. It is so delicately
balanced that it falls to one side on the least
inclination. It is rapidly curling up on the
edge, and the rents increasing, until it is com-
pletely fringed, and is an inch wider there. It
is melting in the sun and light, black drops and
streams falling on my band, and fragments of
the black-fringed rim falling on the sidewalk.
Evidently such a plant can only be seen in per-
fection in the early morning. It is a creature
of the night, like the great moth. . . , It ifl
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 173
to be remarked that this grew not in low and
damp soil, but high up on the open side of a dry
hill ... in the midst of, and rising above, the
thin June grass. The last night was warm, the
earth was very dry, and there was a slight sprink-
ling of rain.
I think the blossom of the sweetbrier, eglan-
tine (now in prime), is more delicate and inter-
esting than that of the common wild roses,
though smaller and paler, and without their
spicy fragrance. But its fragrance is in its
leaves all summer, and the form of the bush is
handsomer, curving over from a considerable
height in wreaths sprinkled with numerous
flowers. They open out flat soon after sunrise.
Flowers whitish in middle, then pinkish rose,
inclining to purple toward the edges.
How far from our minds now the early blos-
soms of the spring, the willow catkins, for ex-
ample.
I put the parasol fungus in the cellar to pre-
serve it, but it went on rapidly melting and
wasting away from the edges upward, spreading
as it dissolved, till it was shaped like a dish-
cover. By night, though left in the cellar all
the day, there was not more than two of the
six inches of the height of the cap left, and the
barrel-head beneath it and its own stem looked
as if a large bottle of ink had been broken
Hosted by
Google
174 SUMMER.
there. It defiled all it touched. The next
morning the hollow stem was left perfectly
bare, and only the hoary apex of the cone,
spreading about two inches in diameter, lay on
the ground beneath. Probably one night pro-
duced it, and in one day, with all our pains, it
wasted away. Is it not a giant mildew or mould ?
In the warm, muggy night the surface of the
earth is mildewed. The mould which is the
flower of humid darkness and ignorance. The
pyramids and other monuments of Egypt are a
vast mildew or toad-stool which have met with
no light of day sufficient to waste them away.
Slavery is such a mould and superstition which
are most rank in the warm and humid portions
of the globe. Luxor sprang up one night out
of the slime of the Nile. The humblest, puniest
weed that can endure the sun is thus superior to
the largest fungus, as is the peasant's cabin to
those foul temples. . . . All things flower, both
vices and virtues, but one is essentially foul, an-
other fair. In hell, toad-stools should be repre-
sented as overshadowing men.. The priest is the
fungus of the graveyard, of the tomb. In the
animal world there are toads and lizards,
P. M. To Island by boat.
The first white lily to-day perhaps. It is the
only bud I have seen. The river has gone down
and left it nearly dry. On the Island, where a
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 175
month ago plants were so fresh and early, it is
now parched and crisp under my feet. I feel
the heat reflected from the ground and perceive
the diy scent of grass and leaves. So univer-
sally on dry and rocky hills, where the spring
was earliest, the autumn has already com-
menced. . . .
At the Flower Exhibition saw the rhododen-
dron plucked yesterday in Fitzwilliam, N. H.
It was the earliest to be found there, and only
one bud was fully open. They say it is in per-
fection there the 4th of July, nearer Monadnock
than the town.
The unexpected display of flowers culled from
the gardens of the village suggests how many
virtues also are cultivated by the villagers more
than meet the eye.
Saw to-night 's horse, which works on the
sawing-machine at the depot, now let out to
graze along the road. At each step he lifts his
hind legs convulsively from the ground, as if the
whole earth were a treadmill continually slipping
away from under him while he climbed its con-
vex surface. It was painful to witness, but it
was symbolical of the moral condition of his
master and of all artisans in contradistinction
from artists, all who are engaged in any routine,
for to them also the whole earth is a treadmill,
and the routine results instantly in a similar
Hosted by
Google
176 SUMMER.
painful deformity. The horse may bear the
mark of his servitude in the muscles of his legs,
the man on his brow.
8.30 p. M. To Cliffs. Moon not quite full.
There is no wind. The greenish fires of light-
ning bugs are already seen in the meadow. I
almost lay my hand on one amid the leaves as I
get over the fence at the brook. I hear the
whippoorwills on different sides. White flowers
alone show much at night, as white clover and
white weed. The day has gone by with its wind
like the wind of a cannon ball, and now far in
the west it blows. By that dun-colored sky you
may track it. There is no motion nor sound in
the woods (Hubbard's Grove) along which I am
walking. The trees stand like great screens
against the sky. The distant village sounds are
the barking of dogs, that animal with which man
has allied himself, and the rattling of wagons,
for the farmers have gone into town a shopping
this Saturday night. The dog is the tamed wolf,
as the villager is the tamed savage. Near at
hand the crickets are heard in the grass chirping
from everlasting to evtsrksting. The humming
of a dor-bug drowns all the noise of the village,
so roomy is the universe. The moon comes out
of the mackerel cloud, and the traveler rejoices.
How can a man write the same thoughts by the
light of the moon, resting his book on a rail by
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 177
the side of a remote potato field, that he does by
the light of the sun at his study table. The
light is but a luminousness. My pencil seems to
move through a creamy, mystic medium. The
moonlight is rich and somewhat opaque, like
cream, but the daylight is 'thin and blue, like
skimmed milk. I am less conscious than in
the presence of the sun, my instincts have more
influence.
The farmer has improved the dry weather to
burn his meadow. I love the smell of that burn-
ing, as a man may his pipe. It reminds me of
a new country offering sites for the hearths of
men. It is cheering as the scent of the peat fire
of the first settler.
At Potter's sand bank, the sand, though cold
on the surface, begins to be warm two inches be-
neath, and the warmth reaches at least six inches
deeper. The tortoise buries her eggs just deep
enough to secure this greatest constant warmth.
I passed into and along the bottom of a lake
of cold and dewy evening air. Anon, as I rise
higher, here comes a puff of warm air, trivially
warm, a straggler from the sun's retinue, now
buffeted about by the vanguard night breezes.
Before me, southward toward the moon, on
higher land than I, but springy, I saw a low film
of fog, like a veil, reflecting the moonlight,
though none on lower ground which was not
Hosted by
Google
178 SUMMER.
springy, and up the river beyond, a battalion of
fog rising white in the moonlight in ghost-like
wisps, or like a flock of scared covenanters in a
recess amid the hills. . . .
It is worth while to walk thus in the night
after a warm or sultry day, to enjoy the fresh,
up-country, brake-like, spring-like scent in low
grounds. At night the surface of the earth is a
cellar, a refrigerator, no doubt wholesomer than
those made with ice by day. Got home at 11.
June 18, 1854. p. m. To Climbing Fern.
The meadows, like this Nut Meadow, are now
full of the latter grasses just beginning to flower,
and the graceful columns of the rue (thalictrum)
not yet generally in flower, and the large tree
or shrub-like Archangelica with its great um-
bels now fairly in bloom along the edge of the
brook. . . .
I discover that Dugan found the eggs of my
snapping turtle of June 7th, apparently the same
day. It is perhaps five or six rods from the
brook, in the sand near its edge. The surface
had been disturbed over a foot and a half in di-
ameter, and was slightly concave. The nest eom-
menced five inches beneath, and at its neck was
two and a half inches across, and from this
nearly four inches deep, and swelled out below
to four inches in width, shaped like a short,
rounded bottle with a broad mouth, and the sur-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 179
rounding sand was quite firm. I took out forty-
two eggs closely packed, and Dugan says he had
previously taken one. They are dirty, white
and spherical, a little more than one and a six-
teenth of an inch in diameter, soft-shelled so that
my finger left a permanent dimple in them. It
was now ten days since they had been laid, and
a little more than half of each was darker col-
ored (probably the lower half) and the other,
white and dry-looking. I opened one, but could
detect no organization with the unarmed eye.
The halves of the shell, as soon as emptied,
curled up as we see them where the £kunks have
sucked them. They must all have been laid at
one time. If it were not for the skunks and
probably other animals, we should be overrun
with them. Who can tell how many tortoise /
eggs are buried in this small desert. '
Often certain words or syllables which have
suggested themselves remind one better of a
bird's strain than the most elaborate and closest
imitation.
June 18, 1855. To Hemlocks. ... At 3 p.
M., as I walked up the bank by the Hemlocks, I
saw a painted tortoise just beginning its hole.
Then another a dozen rods from the river on the
bare, barren field near some pitch pines, where
the earth was covered with cladonias, cinquefoil,
sorrel, etc. Its hole was about two thirds done.
Hosted by
Google
180 SUMMER.
I stooped down over it, and to my surprise, after
a slight pause, it proceeded in its work directly
under and within eighteen inches of my face. I
retained a constrained position for three quarters
of an hour or more, for fear of alarming it. It
rested on its fore-legs, the front part of its shell
about an inch higher than the rear, and this po-
sition was not changed, essentially, to the last.
The hole was oval, broadest behind, about an
inch wide and one and three quarters long, and
the dirt already removed was quite wet or moist-
ened. It made the hole and removed the dirt
with its hind legs only, not using its tail or shell,
which last, of course, could not enter the hole,
though there was some dirt on it. It first
scratched two or three times with one hind foot,
then took up a pinch of -the loose sand and de-
posited it directly behind that leg, pushing it
backward to its full length, and then deliberately
opening it and letting the dirt fall. Then the
same with the other hind foot. This it did rap-
idly, using each leg alternately with perfect reg-
ularity, standing on the other one the while, and
thus tilting up its shell each time, now to this
side, then to that. There was half a minute or
a minute between each change. The hole was
made as deep as the feet could reach, or about
two inches. It was very neat about its work, not
scattering the dirt about more than was neces-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 181
sary. The completing of the hole occupied per-
haps five minutes. It then, without any pause,
drew its head completely into its shell, raised the
rear a little, and protruded and dropped a wet,
flesh-colored egg into the hole, one end foremost.
Then it put out its head again a little slowly,
and placed the egg one side with one hind foot.
After a delay of about two minutes it again drew
in its head and dropped another, and so on to the
fifth, drawing in its head each time, and pausing
somewhat longer between the last. The eggs
were placed in the hole without any particular
eare, only well down flat, and each out of the
way of the next. I could plainly see them from
above.
After ten minutes or more, without pause or
turning, it began to scrape the moist earth into
the hole with its hind legs, and, when it had half
filled it, carefully pressed the earth down with
the edges of its hind feet, dancing on these al-
ternately for some time, as on its knees, tilting
from side to side, pressing by the whole weight
of the rear of its shell. When it had drawn in
thus all the earth that had been moistened, it
stretched its hind legs further back and to each
side, and drew in the dry and lichen-clad crust,
and then danced upon and pressed that down,
still not moving the rear of its shell more than
one inch to right or left all the while, or chang-
Hosted by
Google
ing the position of the forward part at all. The
thoroughness with which the covering was done
was remarkable. It persevered in drawing in
and dancing on the dry surface which had never
been disturbed, long after you thought it had
done its duty, but it never moved its fore-feet,
nor once looked round, nor saw the eggs it had
laid. There were frequent pauses throughout
the whole, when it rested, or ran out its head
and looked about circumspectly at any noise or
motion. These pauses were especially long dur-
ing the covering of its eggs, which occupied
more than half an hour. Perhaps it was hard
When it had done, it immediately started for
the river at a pretty rapid rate (the suddenness
with which it made these transitions was amus-
ing), pausing from time to time, and I judged
it would reach it in fifteen minutes. It was not
easy to detect that the ground had been dis-
turbed there. An Indian could not have made
his cache more skillfully. In a few minutes all
traces of it would be lost to the eye.
The object of moistening the earth was per-
haps to enable it to take it up in its hands (?),
and also to prevent its falling back into the hole.
Perhaps it also helped to make the ground more
compact and harder when it was pressed down.
[September 10. I can find no trace of the tor-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 183
toise eggs of June 18th, though there is no trace
of their having been disturbed by skunks. They
must have been hatched earlier.]
June 18, 1859. p. m. Sail up river. Rain
again, and we take shelter under a bridge, and
again under our boat, and again under a pine-
tree. It is worth while to sit or lie through a
shower thus under a bridge, or under a boat on
the bank, because the rain is a much more inter-
esting and remarkable phenomenon under these
circumstances. The surface of the stream be-
trays every drop from the first to the last, and
all the variations of the storm, so much more
expressive is the water than the comparatively
brutish face of earth. We no doubt often walk
between drops of rain falling thinly, without
knowing it, though if on the water we should
have been advertised of it. At last the whole
surface is nicked with the abounding drops, as
if it rose in little cones to accompany or meet
the drops, till it looks like the back of some
spiny fruit or animal, and yet the differently
colored currents, light and dark, are seen through
it all. Then, when it clears up, how gradually
the surface of the water becomes more placid
and bright, the dimples becoming fewer and
finer till the prolonged reflections of trees are
seen in it, and the water is lit up with a joy in
sympathy with our own, while the earth is com-
paratively dead.
Hosted by
Google
184 SUMMER.
I saw swarms of little gnats, light-winged,
dancing over the water in the midst of the rain,
though you would say any drop might end one's
days.
June 19, 1852. 8.30 A. M. To Flag Hill, on
which Stow, Acton, and Boxboro corner, with
C . A fine, clear June morning, comfortable
and breezy, no dust, a journey day. . . . The trav-
eler now has the creak of the cricket to encour-
age him on all country routes, out of the fresh
sod, still fresh as in the dawn, not interrupting
his thoughts. Very cheering and refreshing to
hear, so late in the day, this morning sound. The
white-weed colors some meadows as completely
as the frosting does a cake. The waving June
grass shows watered colors like grain. No mow-
er's scythe is heard. The farmers are hoeing
their corn and potatoes. . . . The clover is now
in its glory, whole fields are rosed with it, mixed
with sorrel, and looking deeper than it is. It
makes fields look luxuriant which are really
thinly clad. The air is full of its fragrance. I
cannot find the Linna?a at Loring's, perhaps be-
cause the woods are cut down. Perhaps I am
too late. The robins sing more than usual, may
be because of the coolness. Buttercups and ge-
raniums cover the meadows, the latter appearing
to float on the grass, of various tints. It has
lasted long, this rather tender flower. . . . The
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 185
light of June is not golden but silvery, not tor-
rid, but somewhat temperate. I see it reflected
from the bent grass and the under- sides of
leaves. Also I perceive faint, silvery, gleam-
ing ripples where there is a rapid in the river
(from railroad bridge at D 's) without sun
on it.
The mullein out with a disagreeable scent, and
the dogsbane with a quite handsome, hell-shaped
flower, beautifully striped with red (rose red ?)
within.
Facts collected by a poet are set down at last
as winged seeds of truth, samarce, tinged with
his expectation. O may my words be verdurous
and sempiternal as the hills. Facts fall from the
poetic observer as ripe seeds.
The river has a June look; dark, smooth,
reflecting surfaces in shade. The sight of the
water is refreshing, suggesting coolness. The
shadows in and under elms and other trees have
not been so rich hitherto. It is grateful to look
forward half a mile into some dark, umbrageous
elm or ash.
The grape in bloom, an agreeable perfume to
many ; not so to me. This is not the meadow
fragrance then which I have perceived.
May be the huckleberry bird best expresses
the season, or the red-eye. What subtile differ-
ences between one season and another.
Hosted by
Google
186 SUMMER.
The veiny-leaved hawk-weed out. A large
swelling pasture hill with hickories left for shade,
and cattle now under them. The bark is rubbed
smooth and red with their hides. Pleasant to
go over the hills, for there most air is stirring,
but you must look out for bulls in the pastures.
Saw one here reclining in the shade amid the
cows. His short sanguineous horns betrayed him,
and we gave him a wide berth, for they are not
to be reasoned with. On our right is Acton, on
our left is Stow, and forward, Boxboro. Thus
King Richard sailed the JEgean, and passed king-
doms on his right and left. We are on one of
the breezy hills that make the western horizon
from Concord, from which we see our familiar
Concord hills much changed and reduced in
height and breadth. We are in a country very
different from Concord, of swelling hills and
long vales on the bounds o£ these three towns,
more up-countryish. It requires considerable
skill in crossing a country to avoid the houses
and too cultivated parts, somewhat of the en-
gineer's or gunner's skill so to pass a house (if
you must go near it through high grass), pass
the enemy's lines where houses are thick, as to
make a hill or wood screen you, to shut every
window with an apple-tree, for that route which
most avoids the houses is not only the one in
which you will be least molested, but it is by far
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 187
the most agreeable. It is rare that you cannot
avoid a grain-field or piece of English mowing
by skirting a corn-field or nursery near by, but
if you must go through high grass, then step
lightly and in each other's tracks.
We soon fell into a dry swamp filled with
high bushes and trees, and beneath, tall ferns,
one with a large pinnate leaf five or six feet high
and one foot broad, making a dense undergrowth
in tufts at bottom, spreading every way. There
were two species of this size, one more com-
pound than the other. These we opened with
our hands, making a path through, completely
in the cool shade. I steered by the sun, though
it was so high now at noon that I observed
which way my short shadow fell before I entered
the swamp (for in it we could see nothing of the
country around), and then by keeping it on a
particular side of me, I steered surely, standing
still sometimes till the sun came out of a cloud,
to be sure of our course. Came out at length
on a side hill very near the South Acton line or
Stow. ...
The orchis keeps well. One put in my hat
this morning and carried all day will last fresh
a day or two at home. These are peculiar days
when you find the purple orchis and the arethusa,
too, in the meadows.
The fields a walker loves best to strike into
Hosted by
Google
188 SUMMER.
are bare, extended, rolling, bordered by copses,
with brooks and meadows in sight, sandy be-
neath the thin sod where now blackberries and
pinks grow, erst rye or oats, perchance these and
stony pastures where is no high grass, nor grain,
nor cultivated ground, nor houses near.
Flag Hill is about eight miles by the road
from Concord. We went much farther both
going and returning. But by a how much no-
bler road ! Suppose you were to drive to Box-
boro, what then? You pass a few teams with
their dust, drive past many farmers' barn-yards,
see where Squire Tuttle lives and barrels his ap-
ples, bait your horse at White's tavern, and so
return with your hands smelling of greasy leather
and horse hair, and the squeak of a chaise body
in your ears, with no new flower nor agreeable
experience. But going as we did, before you
got to Boxboro line, you often went much far-
ther, many times ascended New Hampshire hills,
taking the noble road from hill to hill across
swamps and valleys, not regarding political
courses and boundaries, many times far west
in your thoughts. It is a journey of a day and
a picture of human life,
June 19, 1853. p. m. To Flint's Pond. I
see large patches of blue -eyed grass in the
meadow across the river from my window. The
pine woods at Thrush Alley emit that hot, dry
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 189
scent, reminding me even of days when I used
to go a blackberrying. . . . The wood -thrush
sings as usual far in the wood. A blue jay and
a tanager come dashing into the pine under
which I stand. The first flies directly away
screaming with suspicion or disgust, but the
latter, more innocent, remains. The cuckoo is
heard, too, in the depths of the wood. Heard
my night warbler on a solitary white pine in the
Heywood clearing by the Peak. Discovered it
at last looking like a small piece of black bark
curving partly over the limb. No fork to its
tail. It appeared black beneath ; was very shy,
not bigger than a yellow bird and more slen-
der. . . .
The strain of the bobolink now sounds a little
rare. It never again fills the air as in the first
week after its arrival.
June 19, 1854. p. m. Up Assabet. A thun-
der shower in the north. Will it strike us?
How impressive this artillery of the heavens I
It rises higher and higher. At length the thun-
der seems to roll quite across the sky and all
round the horizon, even where there are no
clouds, and I row homeward in haste. How by
magic the skirts of the cloud are gathered about
us, and it shoots forward over our head, and the
rain comes at a time and place which baffles all
our calculations. Just before it the swamp
Hosted by
Google
190 SUMMER.
white oak in Merrick's pasture was a very beau-
tiful sight, with its rich shade of green, its top,
as it were, incrusted with light. Suddenly comes
the gust, and the big drops slanting from the
north. The birds fly as if rudderless, and the
trees bow and are wrenched. It comes against
the windows like hail, and is blown over the
roofs like steam or smoke. The lightning runs
down the large elm at Holbrook's and shatters
the house near by. Soon the sun shines in silver
puddles in the streets.
Men may talk about measures till all is blue
and smells of brimstone, and then go home and
sit down and expect their measures to do their
duty for them. The only measure is integrity
and manhood.
June 19, 1859. To Heywood Meadow and
Well Meadow. A flying squirrel's nest ... in a
covered hollow in a small old stump . . . covered
with fallen leaves and a portion of the stamp.
Nest apparently of dry grass. Saw three young
run out after the mother, aud up a slender oak.
The young half grown, very tender looking and
weak-tailed. Yet one climbed quite to the top
of an oak twenty-five feet high, though feebly.
Their claws must be very sharp and early devel-
oped. The mother rested quite near on a small
projecting stub, big as a pipe stem, curled cross-
wise on it. They have a more rounded head and
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 191
snout than our other squirrels. The young in
danger of being picked off by hawks.
Scare up young partridges the size of chick-
ens ; just hatched, yet they fly. The old one in
the woods near makes a chuckling sound just
like a red squirrel's bark, also mewing.
June 19, 1860. Let an oak be hewed and
put into the frame of a house where it is shel-
tered, and it will last several centuries. Even
as a sill it may last one hundred and fifty years.
But let it be simply cut down and lie, though in
an open pasture, and it will probably be thor-
oughly rotten in twenty-five years. There is the
oak cut down at Clam Shell some twenty years
ago, the butt left on the ground. It has about
two thirds wasted away, and is hardly fit for
fuel.
I follow a distinct fox path amid the grass and
bushes for some forty rods, beyond Brittan's
Hollow, leading from the great fox hole. It
branches on reaching the peach orchard. No
doubt by these routes they oftenest go and re-
turn. As broad as a cart wheel, and at last best
seen when you do not look too hard for it.
June 20, 1840. Perfect sincerity and trans-
parency make a great part of beauty, as in dew
drops, lakes, and diamonds. A spring is a cyno-
sure in the fields. All Muscovy glitters in the
minute particles of mica at its bottom^ and the
Hosted by
Google
ripples cast their shadows flickeringly on the
white sand as the clouds which flit across the
• like tlie woodland sounds will be
heard to echo through the leaves of a good book.
Sometimes I hear the fresh, emphatic note of the
oven-bird, and am tempted to turn many pages ;
sometimes the hurried chuckling sound of the
squirrel, when he dives into the wall.
If we only see clearly enough bow mean our
\ lives are, they will be splendid enough. Let us
remember not to strive upwards too long, but
sometimes drop plumb down the other way.
From the deepest pit we may see the stars. Let
us have presence of mind enough to sink when
we can't swim. At any rate, a carcass had bet-
ter lie on the bottom than float an offense to all
nostrils. It will not be falling, for we shall ride
wide of the earth's gravity as a star, and always
be drawn upward still (semper cadendo nwnr
quam cadit), and so, by yielding to universal
gravity, at length become fixed stars.
Praise begins when things are seen partially,
or when we begin to feel a thing needs our assis-
tiuice.
When the heavens are obscured to us, and
nothing noble or heroic appears, but we are op-
pressed by imperfection and shortcoming on all
hands, we are apt to suck our thumbs and desry
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 193
our fates, as if nothing were to be done in cloudy
weather. If you cannot travel the upper road,
then go by the lower ; you will find that they
equally lead to heaven. Sometimes I feel so
cheap that I am inspired, and could write a poem
about it, but straightway I cannot, for I am no
longer mean. Let me know that I am ailing
and I am well. We should not always beat off
the impression of trivialness, but make haste to
welcome and cherish it. Water the weed till it
blossoms ; with cultivation it will bear fruit.
There are two ways to victory, to strive bravely,
or to yield. How much pains the last will save,
we have not yet learned.
June 20, 1852. 7 p. m. To Hubbard bath-
ing-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
Iris prismatica, Boston iris, with linear leaves
and round stem.
The stake driver is at it in his favorite mead-
ow. I followed the sound, and at last got with-
in two rods, it seeming always to recede, and
drawing you, like a will-o'-the-wisp, farther away
into the meadows. When thus near, I heard
some lower sounds at the beginning like striking
on a stump or a stake, a dry, hard sound, and
then followed the gurgling, pumping notes fit to
come from a meadow. This was just within the
Hosted by
Google
194 SUMMER
blueberry and other bushes, and when the bird
flew up alarmed, I went to the place, but could
see no water, which makes me doubt if water is
necessary to it in making the sound. Perhaps it
thrusts its bill so deep as to reach water where
it is dry on the surface. It sounds more like
wood chopping or pumping because yon seem to
hear the echo of the stroke or the reverse motion
of the pump handle. After the warm weather
has come, both morning and evening you hear
the bittern pumping in the fens. It does not
sound loud near at hand, and it is remarkable
that it should be heard so far. Perhaps it is
pitched on a favorable key. Is it not a call to
its mate ? Methinks that in the resemblance of
this note to rural sounds, to sounds made by far-
mers, the security of the bird is designed.
Dry fields have now a reddish tinge from the
seeds of the grass. Lying with my window
open these warm, even sultry nights, I hear the
sonorously musical trump of the bull-frogs from
time to time from, some distant shore of the
river, as if the world were given up to them. . . .
When I wake thus at midnight, and hear this
sonorous trump from far in the horizon, I need
not go to Dante for an idea of the infernal re-
gions. ... I do not know for a time in what world
I am. It affects my morals, and all questions
take a new aspect from this sound. It is the
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 195
snoring music of nature at night. How allied to
the pad in place and color is this creature ! His
greenish back is the leaf, and his yellow throat,
the flower, even in form, with his sesquipedality
of belly. Through the summer lie lies on the
pads or with his head out, and in the winter bur-
ies himself at their roots (?). The bull paddock!
His eyes like the buds of the Nuphar Kalmiana.
I fancy his skin would stand water, without
shrinking, forever. Gloves made of it for rainy
weather, for trout fishers !
Frogs appear slow to make up their minds,
but then they act precipitately. As long as they
are here, they are here, and express no intention
of removing. But the idea of removing fills
them instantaneously, as Nature, abhorring, fills
a vacuum. Now they are fixed and imperturba-
ble like the sphinx, and now they go off with
short, squatty leaps over the spatterdock on the
irruption of the least idea.
June 20, 1853. . . . Meadow-sweet out proba-
bly yesterday. It is an agreeable, unpretending
flower. . . . The bosky bank shows bright roses
from its green recesses. . . . Found two lilies
open in the very shallow inlet of the meadow.
Exquisitely beautiful, and unlike anything we
have, is the first white lily just expanded in some
shallow lagoon where the water is leaving it,
perfectly fresh and pure before the insects have
Hosted by
Google
196 SUMMER,
discovered it. How admirable its purity ' How
innocently sweet its fragrance ! How significant
that the rich black mud of oiir dead stream pro-
duces the water lily ! Out of that fertile slime
springs this spotless purity. It is remarkable
that those flowers which arc most emblematic of
purity should grow in the mud. There is also
the exquisite beauty of the small sagittaria which
I find out, maybe a day or two. Three transpar-
ent crystalline white petals with a yellow eye, and
as many small purplish calyx leaves, four or five
inches above the same mud. Coming home at
twelve I see that the white lilies are nearly shut.
8 P. M. Up North River to Nashawtuck.
The moon full. Perhaps there is no more
beautiful scene than that on the North River seen
from the rock this side the hemlocks. As we
look up stream we see a crescent-shaped lake
completely embowered in the forest. There is
nothing to be seen but the smooth black mirror
of the water on which there is now the slightest
discernible bluish mist a foot high, and thickset
alders and willows and the green woods without
an interstice, sloping steeply upward from its
very surface, like the sides of a bowl. The river
is here for half a, mile completely shut in by the
forest.
Saw a little skunk coming up the river bank
in the woods at the white oak, a funny little fel-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 197
low, about six inches long and nearly as broad.
It faced me and actually compelled me to retreat
before it for five minutes. Perhaps I was be-
tween it and its bole. Its broad black tail, tipped
with white, was erect like a kitten's. It had
what looked like a broad white band drawn tight
across its forehead or top-head, from which two
lines of white ran down one on each side of its
back, and there was a narrow white line down
its snout. It raised its back, sometimes ran a
few feet forward, sometimes backward, and re-
peatedly turned its tail to me, prepared to dis-
charge its fluid, like the old ones. Such was its
instinct, and all the while it kept up a fine
grunting like a little pig or a squirrel. It re-
minded me that the red squirrel, the woodchuck,
and the skunk all make a similar sound.
The leafy columned elms planted by the river
at foot of P 's field are exceedingly beautiful,
the moon being behind them. . . . Their trunks
look like columns of a portico wreathed with
evergreens on the evening of an illumination for
some great festival. They are the more rich be-
cause in this creamy light you cannot distinguish
the trunk from the verdure that drapes it.
June 21, 1840. A man is never inspired un-f*
less his body is also. It, too, spurns a tame and i
commonplace life. They are fatally mistaken \
who think while they strive with their minds )
Hosted by
Google
198 SUMMER.
that they may suffer their bodies to stagnate in
s luxury or sloth. The body is the first proselvte
I the soul make's. Our life is but the soul made
! known by its fruits, the body. The whole duty
i of man may be expressed in one line. Make to
yourself a perfect body.
June 21, 1852. 7 p. m. To Cliffs via Hub-
bard bathing-place. Cherry birds I have not
seen, though I think I have heard them before,
their fine seringo note, like a vibrating spring in
the air. They are a handsome bird' with their
crest and chestnut breasts. There is no keeping
the run of their comings and goings, but they
will be ready for the cherries when they shall be
ripn.
The adderVtimgue aretlmsa smells exactly
>like a snake. How singular that in Nature,
too, beauty and offensiveness should be thus
^combined. In flowers as well as persons we
demand a beauty pure and fragrant which per-
fumes the air. The flower which is showy but
lias no odor, or an offensive one, expresses the
character of too many mortals.
Nature has looked uncommonly hare and dry
to me for a day or two. With our senses ap-
plied to the surrounding world we are reading
our physical and corresponding moral revolu-
tions. Nature was shallow all at once. I did
not know what had attracted me all rny life. I
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 199
was therefore encouraged when, going through a
field this evening, I was unexpectedly struck
with the beauty of an apple-tree. The percepA
tion of beauty is a moral test. \
I see the tephrosia out through the dusk, a
handsome flower. What rich crops this dry hill-
side has yielded ! First I saw the Viola pedata
here. Then thelupines, and then the snapdragon
covered it, and now that the lupines are done,
and their pods are left, the tephrosia has taken
their place. This small, dry hillside is thus a
natural garden. I omit other flowers which
grow here, and name only those which, to some
extent, cover or possess it. No eighth of an
acre in a cultivated garden could be better
clothed or with a more pleasing variety from
month to month, and while one flower is in
bloom you little suspect that which is to succeed
and perchance eclipse it. It is a warmly placed,
dry hillside beneath a wall, very thinly clad with
grass, a natural flower-garden. Of this suc-
cession I hardly know which to admire most.
It would be pleasant to write the history of
such a hillside for one year. First and last
you have the colors of the rainbow and more,
and the various fragrances which it has not.
The blackberry, rose, and dogsbane, also, are
now in bloom here.
I hear the sound of distant thunder, though
Hosted by
Google
no cloud is obvious, muttering like the roar of
artillery. . . . Thunder and lightning are re-
markable accompaniments to our life, as if to
remind us that there always is or should be a
kind of battle raging. They are signal guns
to us.
June 21, 1853. 4.30 a. M. Up river for
lilies. . . .
The few lilies begin to open about five.
The morning-glory still fresh at 3 p. m. A
fine, large, delicate bell, with waved border,
some pure white, some reddened. The buds
open perfectly in a vase. I find them open
when I wake at 4 A, I. . , ,
For the last two or three days it has taken ine
all the forenoon to wake up.
June 21, 1854. p. m. To Walden, etc.
Mitchella in Deep Cut Woods probably a day
or two. Its scent is agreeable and refreshing,
between the may-flower and rum-cherry bark, or
like peach-stone meats. . . .
When I see the dense, shady masses of weeds
about water, already an unexplorable maze, I
am struck with the contrast between this and
the spring when I wandered about in search of
the first faint greenness along the borders of
the brooks. Then an inch or two of green was
something remarkable and obvious afar. Now
there is a dense mass of weeds along the water-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 201
side, where the muskrats bask, and overhead a
canopy of leaves conceals the birds and shuts
out the sun. It is hard to realize that the
seeds o£ all this growth were buried in that
bare, frozen earth. . . .
In the little meadow pool or bog in Hubbard's
shore I see two old pouts tending their countless
young close to the shore. The former are slate-
colored, the latter are about half an inch long,
and very black, forming a dark mass from eight
to twelve inches in diameter. The old one con-
stantly circles around them, over, and under,
and through, as if anxiously endeavoring to keep
them together, from time to time moving off
five or six feet to reconnoitre. The whole mass
of the young, and there must be a thousand of
them at least, is incessantly moving, pushing
forward and stretching out. They are often in
the form of a great pout, apparently keeping
together by their own instinct chiefly, now on
the bottom, now rising to the top. The old, at
any rate, do not appear to be very successful in
their apparent efforts to communicate with and
direct them. Alone they might be mistaken
for pollywogs. At length they break into four
parts.
The Indians say this fish hatches its young
in a hole in the mud, and that they accompany
her for some time afterwards. Yet in Ware's
Hosted by
Google
Smellie it is said that fishes take no care of
their young. I think also that I see the young
breams in schools hovering over their nests
while the old ones are still protecting them.
Rambled up the grassy hollows in the sprout-
lands north (?) of Goose Pond. I felt a pleas-
ing sense of strangeness and distance. Here in
the midst of extensive sproutlands are numerous
open hollows, more or less connected, where, for
some reason, perhaps frosts, the wood does not
spring up, and I was glad of it, filled with a
fine, wiry grass, with the panicled andromeda,
which loves dry places, now in blossom round
the edges, and small black cherries and sand
cherries struggling down into them. The wood-
chuck loves such places, and now wabbles off
with a peculiar loud squeak like the sharp bark
of a red squirrel, then stands erect at the en-
trance of his hole, ready to dive into it as soon
as you approach. As wild and strange a place
as you might find in the unexplored west or
east. The quarter of a mile of sproutlanda
which separates it from the highway seems as
complete a barrier as a thousand miles of earth.
Your horizon is there all your own. . . .
Again I am attracted by the deep searlet of
the wild moss rose, half open in the grass, all
glowing with rosy light.
June 21, 1856. A very hot day, as was
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 203
yesterday, 99° at 3 P. M. . . . Saw the night-
hawks fly low and touch the water like swallows,
at Walden.
June 21, 1860. Having noticed the pine
pollen washed up on the shore of three or four
ponds in the woods lately, at Ripple Lake, a
dozen rods from the nearest pine, also having
seen the pollen carried off visibly half a dozen
rods from a pitch pine which I had jarred, and
rising all the while when there was very little
wind, it occurred to me that the air must be full
of this fine dust at this season, that it must at
times be carried to great distances, and that its
presence might be detected remote from pines
by examining the edges of pretty large bodies
of water where it would be collected on one side
by winds and waves from a large area. So I
thought over all the small ponds in the township
in order to select one or more most remote from
the woods or pines, whose shores I might ex-
amine and thus test my theory. I could think
of none more favorable than this little pond,
only four rods in diameter, ... in John
Brown's pasture, which has but few pads in it.
It is a small round pond at the bottom of a
hollow in the 1 midst of a perfectly bare, dry
pasture. The nearest wood of any kind is just
thirty-nine rods distant northward, and across a
road from the edge of a pond. Any other wood
Hosted by
Google
204 SUMMER.
in other directions is five or six times as far. I
knew it was a bad time to try my experiment
just after such heavy rains and when the pines
are effete, — a little too late. The wind was now
blowing quite strong from the northeast, whereas
all the pollen I had seen hitherto had been col-
lected on the northeast sides of ponds by a
southwest wind. I approached the pond from
the northeast, and looking over it, and carefully
along the shore there, could detect no pollen.
I then proceeded to walk round it, but still
could detect none. I then said to myself, if
there was any here before the rain and northeast
wind, it must have been on the northeast side,
and then have been washed over quite to or on
the shore. I looked there carefully, stooping
down, and was gratified to find after all a dis-
tinct yellow line of pollen dust, about half an
inch wide, or washing off to two or three times
that width, quite on the edge, and some dead
twigs which I took up from the wet shore were
completely coated with it as with sulphur. This
yellow line reached half a rod along the south-
west side, and T then detected a little of the
dust slightly graying the surface for two or three
feet out there. ~W r hen I thought I had failed,
I was much pleased to detect after all this dis-
tinct yellow line revealing unmistakably the
presence of pines in the neighborhood, and thus
Hosted by
Google
confirming my theory. As chemists detect the
presence of ozone in the atmosphere by exposing
to it a delicately prepared paper, so the lakes
detect for us thus the presence of the pine pollen
in the atmosphere. They are our pollenometers.
How much of this invisible dust must be floating
in the atmosphere, and be inhaled and drunk by
us at this season ! Who knows but the pollen
of some plants may be unwholesome to inhale,
and produce the diseases of the season, and but
it may be the source of some of the peculiar
fragrances in the atmosphere which we cannot
otherwise account for.
Of course a large pond will collect the most,
and you will find most at the bottom of very
deep bays into which the wind blows. I do not
believe there is any part of this town into which
the pollen of the pine may not fall. The time
to examine the ponds this year was, I should
say, from the 15th to the 20th of this month. I
find that the pines are now effete, especially the
pitch-pine. The sterile flowers are turned red-
dish. ' The flower of the white pine is lighter
colored, and all but a very little indeed is effete.
In the white pine there is a dense cluster of
twenty or thirty little flowers about the base o£
this year's shoot. I did not expect to find any
pollen, the pond was so small and distant from
any wood, but thought I would examine.
Hosted by
Google
206 SUMMER.
June 22, 1839. I have within the last few
days come into contact with a pure, uncompro-
mising spirit that is somewhere wandering in the
atmosphere, but settles not positively anywhere-
Some persons carry about them the air and con-
viction of virtue, though they themselves are un-
conscious of it, and are even backward to ap-
preciate it in others. Such it is impossible not
to love. Still is their loveliness, as it were,
independent of them, so that you seem not to
lose it when they are absent, for when they are
near, it is like an invisible presence which at-
tends you.
That virtue we appreciate is as much ours
as another's. We see so much only as we pos-
\ sess.
June 22, 1840. When we are shocked at
vice we express a lingering sympathy with it.
Have no affinity for what is shocking.
Do not present a gleaming edge to ward off
harm, for that will oftenest attract the lightning,
but rather be the all-pervading ether which the
lightning does not strike, hut purify. Then will
the rudeness or profanity of your companion be
like a flash across the face of your sky, lighting
up and revealing its serene depths. Earth can-
not shock the heavens ; but its dull vapor and
foul smoke make a blight cloud-spot in the ether,
and anon the sun, like a cunning artificer, will
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 207
cut and paint it, and set it for a jewel in the
breast of the sky.
June 22, 1851. The birch is the surveyor's
tree. It makes the best stake to look at through
the sights of a compass, except when there is
snow on the ground. Its white bark was not
made in .vain. In surveying wood-lots I have
frequent occasion to say this is what it was
made for.
We are enabled to criticise others only when
we are different from, and, in a given particular,
superior to, them ourselves. By our aloofness
from men and their affairs we are enabled to
overlook and criticise them. There are but few
men who stand on the hills by the roadside. I
am sure only when I have risen above my com-
mon sense, when I do not take the foolish view
of things which is commonly taken, when I do
not live for the low ends for which men com-
monly live. Wisdom is not common. To what
purpose have I senses if I am thus absorbed in
affairs. My pulse must beat with Nature. After
a hard day's work without a thought, turning
my very brain into a mere tool, only in the quiet
of evening do I so far recover my senses as to
hear the cricket which in fact has been chirping
all day. In my better hours I am conscious of
the influx of a serene and unquestionable wis-
dom which partly unfits — and, if I yielded to it
Hosted by
Google
more rememberingly, would wholly unfit — me
for what is called the active business of life, for
that furnishes nothing on which the eye of rea-
son can rest What is that other kind of life
to which I am continually allured ? which alone
I We? Is it a life for this world? Can a man
feed and clothe himself gloriously who keeps only
the truth steadily before him ? who calls in no
evil to his aid ? Are there duties which necessa-
rily interfere with the serene perception of truth?
Are our serene moments mere foretastes of heav-
enly joys gratuitously vouchsafed to us as a con-
solation? or simply a transient realization of
what might be the whole tenor of our lives ? —
There is the calmness of the lake when there is
not a breath of wind ; there is the calmness of a
stagnant ditch- So is it with us. Sometimes
we are clarified and calmed healthily, . . . not by
an opiate, but by some unconscious obedience to
the all-just laws, so that we become like a still
lake of purest crystal, and, without an effort, our
depths are revealed to ourselves. All the world
goes by us and is reflected in our deeps. Such
clarity ! obtained by such pure means, by sim-
ple living, by honest purpose. "We live and re-
joice. I awoke to a music which no one about
me heard. Whom shall I thank for it ? The
luxury of wisdom I the luxury of virtue ! Are
there any intemperate in these things ? I feel
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 209
my Maker blessing me. To the sane man the
world is a musical instrument. The very touch
affords an exquisite pleasure. ... It is hot noon,
... I am threading an open pitch and white pine
wood, easily traversed where the pine needles
redden all the ground, which is as smooth as a
carpet. Still the blackberries love to creep over
this floor, for it is not many years since it was a
blackberry field. I hear around me, but never
in sight, the many wood-thrushes whetting their
steel-like notes. Such keen singers ! It takes
a fiery heat, the dry pine needles adding to the
furnace of the sun, to temper their strain. After
what a moderate pause they deliver themselves
again, saying ever a new thing, avoiding repeti-
tion, methinks answering one another. While
most other birds take their siesta, the wood-
thrush discharges his song. It is delivered like
a piece of jingling steel.
The domestic ox has his horns tipped with
brass. This and his shoes are the badges of
servitude which he wears, as if be would soon
get to jacket and trowsers. I am singularly
affected when I look over a herd of reclining
oxen in their pasture, and find that every one
has these brazen balls on his horns. They are
partly humanized so. It is not pure brute.
There is art added. . . . The bull has a ring in
his nose.
Hosted by
Google
^-y
210 SUMMER.
The Lysimachia quudrifolia exhibits its small
yellow blossoms now in the wood path.
The CTtncularia vulgar is or bladder-wort, a
yellow pea-like flower, has blossomed in stagnant
pools.
June 22, 1852. 8 p. m. Up the Union turn-
pike. We have had a succession of thundei
(showers to-day, and at sunset, a rainbow. How
"* [moral the world is made I This bow is not utili-
tarian. (J\len, I think, are great in proportion
/ as they are moraL/ After the rain he sets his
bow in the heavens' The world is not destitute
of beauty. Ask the skeptic who inquires " Cui
bono ? " why the rainbow was made. While
men cultivate flowers below, God cultivates
flowers above, he takes charge of the pastures
in the heavens. Is not the rainbow a faint vis-
ion of God's face ? How glorious should be
'the life of man passed under this arch !
Near the river thus late I hear the peet-weet
with white barred wings. The scent of the Balm
of Gilead leaves fills the road after the rain.
There are the amber skies of evening, the col-
ored skies of both morning and evening. Nature
adorns these seasons.
Unquestionable truth is sweet, though it were
the announcement of our dissolution.
The fire-flies in the inotulows are very numer-
ous, as if they had replenished their lights from
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 211
the lightning. The far-retreated thnnder-elouds
low in the south-east horizon and in the north,
emitting low flashes which reveal their forms,
appear to lift their wings like fire-flies, or it is a
steady glare like the glow-worm. Wherever they
go, they make a meadow.
June 22, 1853. I do not remember a warmer
night than the last. In my attic under the roof,
with all windows and doors open, there was still
not a puff of the usual coolness of the night.
It seemed as if the heat which the roof had ab-
sorbed during the day were being brought down
upon me. It was far more intolerable than by
day. All windows being open I heard the
sounds made by pigs and horses in the neigh-
borhood, and of children who were partially suf-
focated by the heat. It seemed as if it would
be something to tell of, the experience of that
night, as of the Black Hole of Calcutta in a
degree, if one survived it.
The sun down, and I am crossing Fair Haven
Hill, sky overcast, landscape dark and still. I
see the smooth river in the north reflecting two
shades of light, one from the water, another from
the surface of the pads which broadly border it
on both sides, and the very irregular waving or
winding edge of the pads, especially perceptible
in this light, makes a very agreeable border, the
edge of the film which seeks to bridge over and
Hosted by
Google
212 SUMMER.
inclose the river wholly. These pads are to the
smooth water between like a calyx to its flower.
The river at such an hour, seen half a mile away,
perfectly smooth and lighter than the sky^ re-
flecting the clouds, is a paradisaical scene. What
are the rivers around Damascus to this river sleep-
ing around Concord? Are not the Musketaquid
and the Assabet, rivers of Concord, fairer than
the rivers of the plain ? And then the rich
warble of the blackbird may occasionally be
heard. As I come over the hill, I hear the wood-
thrush singing his evening lay. This is the only
bird whose note affects me like music, affects the
flow and tenor of my thought, my fancy, and
imagination. It lifts and exhilarates me. . . .
It is a medicative draught to my soul, an elixir
to my eyes, and a fountain of youth to all my
senses. It changes all hours to an eternal morn-
ing. It banishes all trivialness. It reinstates
me in my dominion, makes me the lord of crea-
tion. This bird is chief musician of my court.
He sings in a time, a heroic age with which no
event in the village can be contemporary. How
can they be contemporary when only the latter
is temporary at all. So there is some tiling in
the music of the cow-bell sweeter and more nu-
tritious than the milk which the farmers drink.
The thrush's song is a rant des vdches to me.
I long for wildness, a nature which I cannot put
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 213
my foot through, woods where the wood-thrush
forever sings, where the hours are early morning
ones, and there is dew on the grass, and the day
is forever unproved, where I might have a fertile
unknown for a soil about me. I would go after
the cows, I would watch the flocks of Admetus
there forever, only for my board and clothes, a
New Hampshire everlasting and unfallen. All
that was ripest and fairest in the wilderness and
the wild man is preserved and transmitted to ns
in the strain of the wood-thrush. It is the me-
diator between barbarism and civilization. It is
unrepentant as Greece.
The strawberries may perhaps be considered
a fruit of the spring, for they have depended
chiefly on the freshness and moisture of spring,
and on high lands are already dried up ; a soft
fruit, a sort of manna which falls in June, and.
in the meadows they lurk at the shady roots of
the grass. Now the blueberry, a somewhat
firmer fruit, is beginning. Nuts, the firmest,
will be the last.
Is not June the month in which all trees and
shrubs do the greatest part of their growing?
"Will the shoots add much to their length in
July?
June 22, 1856. R. W. E. imitates the wood-
thrush by "He willy willy — ha willy willy —
willy O."
Hosted by
Google
214 SUMMER.
The song sparrow is said to be imitated in
New Bedford thus: "Maids, maids, maids —
hang on your tea kettle — ettle, ettle, ettle, ettle."
June 22, 1860. . . . K tells me that he
saw, in a mud-hole near the river in Sudbury,
about a fortnight ago, a pout protecting her ova.
They were in a ball about as big as an apple,
under which she swam, all exposed, not at all
hatched, I think he said on a stick.
Hear the peculiar peep of young golden rob-
ins on the elms this morning.
June 23, 1840. We Yankees arc not so far
from right, who answer one question by asking
another. Yes and No are lies. A true answer
will not aim to establish anything, but rather to
set all well afloat. All answers are in the future,
and day answereth to day. Do we think we can
anticipate them ? In Latin, to respond is to
pledge one's self before the gods to do faithfully
and honorably, as a man should, in any case.
This is good.
How can the language of the poet be more ex-
pressive than Nature ? He is content that what
he has already read in simple characters or in-
differently in all be translated into the same
again.
He is the true artist whose life is his material.
Every stroke of the chisel must enter his own
flesh and bones, and not grate dully on marble.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 215
What is any man's discourse to me, if I am
not sensible of something in it as steady and
cheery as the creak of the crickets ? In it the
woods must be relieved against the sky. Men
tire me when I am not constantly greeted and
cheered in their discourse as it were by the flux
of sparkling streams.
I cannot see the bottom of the sky, because
I cannot see to the bottom of myself. It is
the symbol of my own infinity. My eye pene-
trates as far into the ether as that depth is
inward from which my contemporary thought
springs.
Not by constraint or severity shall you have
access to true wisdom, but by abandonment and
childlike mirthfulness. If you would know
aught, be gay before it,
June 23, 1851. It is a pleasant sound to me,
the squeaking and booming of the night-hawks
flying over high, open fields in the woods. They
fly like butterflies, not to avoid birds of prey,
but apparently to secure their own insect prey.
. . . Often you must look a long while before
you can detect the mote in the sky from which
the note proceeds.
The common cinquefoil, Potentilla simplex,
greets me with its simple and unobtrusive yellow
flower in the grass. The Potentilla argentea,
hoary cinquefoil, also is now in blossom. Poten-
Hosted by
Google
216 SUMMER.
tilla sarmentosa, running cinquefoil, we had
common enough in the spring.
June 23, 1852. 5 a.m. To Laurel Glen. The
bobolink still sings, though not as in May. . . .
The pretty little Mitchdla repens, with its
twin flowers, spots the ground under the pines,
its downy-petaled, cross-shaped flowers, and its
purplish buds.
The grass is not nearly so wet after thunder
showers in the night as after an ordinary dew.
Apparently the rain falls so swiftly and hard
that it does not rest on the leaves, and then
there is no more moisture to be deposited in
dew.
The mountain laurel in bloom in cool and
shady woods reminds one of the vigor of Na-
ture. It is perhaps a first-rate flower, consid-
ering its size and its evergreen leaves. The
flower, curiously folded in a ten-angled, pyra-
midal form, is remarkable. A profusion of flow-
ers with an innocent fragrance. It reminds me
of shady mountain-sides where it forms the un-
derwood.
I hear my old Walden owl. Its first note is
almost like the somewhat peevish scream or
squeal of a child shrugging its shoulders. Then
succeed two more moderate and musical ones. —
The wood-thrush sings at all hours. I associate
it with the cool morning, the sultry noon, and
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 217
the serene evening. At this hour it suggests a
cool vigor !
p. M. To the mountain laurel in Mason's
pasture. It is what I call a washing day, such
as we sometimes have when buttercups first ap-
pear in the spring, an agreeably cool, clear, and
breezy day, when aE things appear as if washed
bright, and shine, and at this season especially
the sound of the wind rustling the leaves is like
the rippling of a stream. You see the light-col-
ored under-side of the still fresh foliage, and a
sheeny light is reflected from the bent grass in
the meadow. Haze and sultriness are far off.
The air is cleared and cooled by yesterday's
thunder-storms. The river, too, has a fine, cool,
silvery sparkle or sheen on it. You can see far
into the horizon, and you hear the sound of the
crickets with such feelings as in the cool morn-
ing.
These are very agreeable pastures to me, no
house in sight, no cultivation. I sit under a
large white oak upon its swelling instep, which
makes an admirable seat, and look forth over
these pleasant rocky and bushy pastures, where
for the most part there are not even cattle graz-
ing, but patehes of huckleberry bushes, birches,
pitch-pines, barberry bushes, creeping juniper in
great circles, its edges curving upward, wild
roses spotting the green with red, numerous tufts
Hosted by
Google
218 SUMMER.
of indigo weed, and above all, great gray boul-
ders lyiug about, far and near, with some bar-
berry bush perchance growing half way up theni,
and, between all, the short sod of the pasture
here and there appears.
The beauty and fragrance of the wild rose are
wholly agreeable and wholesome, and wear well.
I do not wonder much that men have given the
preference to this family of flowers notwith-
standing their thorns. It is hardy and more
complete in its parts than most flowers, its color,
buds, fragrance, leaves, the whole bush, fre-
quently its stem in particular, and finally its red
or scarlet hips. Here is the sweet briar in blos-
som, which to a fragrant flower adds more fra-
grant leaves. . . .
As I walk through these old deserted wild or-
chards, half pasture, half huckleberry field, the
air is filled with fragrance from I know not what
SOIO'CC.
I sit on one of these boulders and look south
to Ponkawtasset. Looking west, whence the
wind comes, you do not see the under-sides of
the leaves, but looking east, every bough shows
its under-side. Those of the maples are partic-
ularly white. All leaves tremble like aspen
10:.IVC.-J.
Two or three large boulders, fifteen or twenty
feet square, make a good foreground in the land-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 219
scape, for the gray color of the rock contrasts
well with the green of the surrounding and more
distant hills and woods and fields. They serve
instead of cottages for a wild landscape, as
perches or points d'appui for the eye.
The red color of cattle also is agreeable in a
landscape, or let them be what color they may,
red, black, white, mouse -color, or spotted, all
which I have seen this afternoon. The cows
which, confined to the barn or barnyard all win-
ter, were covered with filth, after roaming in
flowery pastures possess now clean and shining
coats, and the cowy odor is without alloy. . . .
It seems natural that rocks which have lain
under the heavens so long should be gray, as it
were an intermediate color between the heavens
and the earth. The air is the thin paint in
which they have been dipped and brushed with
the wind. "Water, which is more fluid and like
the sky in its nature, is still more like it in color.
Time will make the most discordant materials
harmonize. . . .
This grassy road now dives into the wood, as
if it were entering a cellar or bulkhead, the
shadow is so deep. . . . And now I scent the
pines. I plucked a blue geranium near the
Kibbe place, which appeared to me remarkably
fragrant, like lilies and strawberries combined.
. . . The sweet fragrance of the swamp pink
Hosted by
Google
220 SUMMER.
fills all the swamps, and when I look down, I
see commonly the leaf of the gold-thread. . . .
June 23, 1853. . . . p. m. To White Pond.
. . . After bathing, I paddled to the middle in
the leaky boat. The heart-leaf, which grows
thinly here, is an interesting plant, sometimes
floating at the end of a solitary, almost invisible,
thread-like stem, more than six feet long, and
again many purplish stems intertwined into loose
ropes, or like large skeins of silk, abruptly
spreading at top, of course, into a perfectly
flat shield, a foot or more in diameter, of
small heart-shaped leaves, which rise or fall on
their stems as the water is higher or lower.
This perfectly horizontal disposition of the
leaves in a single plane is an interesting and
peculiar feature in water plants of this kind.
Leaves and flowers made to float on the di-
viding line between two elements. . . .
In the warm noons now-a-days 1 see the spot-
ted, small, yellow eyes of the four-leaved loose-
strife looking at me from under the birches and
pines springing up in sandy, upland fields. . . .
The other day I saw what I took to be a scare-
crow in a cultivated field, and noting how un-
naturally it was stuffed out here and there, and
how ungainly its arms and legs were, I thought
to myself, " Well, it is thus they make these
things, they do not stand much about it," but
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 221
looking round again, after I had gone by, I
saw my scarecrow walking off with a real live
man in it.
I was just roused from my writing by the
engine's whistle, and, looking out, saw shoot-
ing through the town two enormous pine sticks,
stripped of their bark, just from the northwest,
and going to Portsmouth Navy Yard, they say.
. . . Not a tree grows now in Concord to com-
pare with them. They suggest what a country
we have to back us up that way. A hundred
years ago or more perchance the wind wafted
a little winged seed out of its cone to some
favorable spot, and this is the result. In tea
minutes they were through the township, and
perhaps not half a dozen Concord eyes rested
on them during their transit.
June 23, 1854. . . . Disturbed three differ-
ent broods of partridges in my walk this P. M.
in different places. In one, they were as big as
chickens ten days old, and went flying in various
directions a rod or two into the hillside.
In another, the young were two and a half
inches long only, not long hatched, making a
fine peep. Held one in my hand, where it
squatted without winking. . . . Thus we are
now in the very midst of them. The young
broods are being led forth. The old bird will
return mewing, and walk past within ten feet
Hosted by
Google
222 SUMMER,
June 23, 1856. To New Bedford with It .
. . . Baywings sang morning and evening about
K 's house, often resting on a bean-pole,
and dropping down and running and singing on
the bare ground amid the potatoes. Their note
somewhat like — " Come, here-kere, there-there,
— [then three rapid notes] quick-quich^uick, —
or I 'm gone."
June 24, 1840. When I read Cudworth I
find I can tolerate all, atoroists, pneumatologists,
atheists, and theists, Plato, Aristotle, Leucippus,
Democritus, and Pythagoras. It is the attitude
of these men, more than any communication,
which charms me. It is so rare to find a man
musing. But between them and their commen-
tators there is an endless dispute. If it come
to that, that you compare notes, then you are
all wrong. As it is, each takes me up into the
serene heavens, and paints earth and sky. Any
sincere thought is irresistible. It lifts us to the
zenith, whither the smallest bubble rises as surely
as the largest.
Dr. Cudworth does not consider that the belief
in a deity is as great a heresy as exists. Epi-
curus held that the gods were " of human form,
yet were so thin and subtile as that, compara-
tively with our terrestrial bodies, they might be
called incorporeal; they having not so much
carnem as quani-carnem, nor sanguinem as
Hosted by
Google
qvasi-sanguinem, a certain kind of aerial or
ethereal flesh and blood." This, which Cud-
worth pronounces " romantical," is plainly as
good doctrine as his own, as if any sincere
thought were not the hest sort of truth.
There is no doubt but the highest morality in
the books is rhymed or measured, is in form, as
well as substance, poetry. Such is the scripture
of all nations. If I were to compile a volume
to contain the condensed wisdom of mankind, I
should quote no rhythmless line.
Not all the wit of a college can avail to make
one harmonious line. It never happens. It
may get so as to jingle. But a jingle is akin
to a jar — jars regularly recurring.
So delicious is plain speech to my ears, as if I
were to be more delighted by the whistling of
the shot than frightened by the flying of the
splinters. I am content, I fear, to be quite
battered down and made a ruin of. I out-
general myself when I direct my enemy to my
vulnerable points.
Sympathy with what is sound makes sport of
what is unsound. The loftiest utterance of love
is perhaps sublimely satirical.
Cliffs. Evening. Though the sun set a
quarter of an hour ago, his rays are still vis-
ible, darting half way to the zenith. That
glowing morrow in the west flashes on me like
Hosted by
Google
224 SUMMER,
a faint presentiment of morning when I am fall-
ing asleep. A dull mist comes rolling from the
west, as if it were the dust which day has raised.
A column of snioke is rising from the woods
yonder to uphold heaven's roof till the light
comes again. The landscape, by its patient
resting there, teaches me that all good remains
with him that waiteth, and that I shall sooner
overtake the dawn by remaining here than by
hurrying over the hills of the west.
Morning and evening are as like as brother
and sister. The sparrow and thrush sing, and
the frogs peep, for both.
The woods breathe louder and louder behind
me. With what hurry-scurry night takes place !
The wagon rattling over yonder bridge is the
messenger which day sends back to night, but
the despatches are sealed. In its rattle, the
village seems to say, " This one sound and I
have done."
Red, then, is day's color ; at least, it is the
color of his heel. He is " stepping westward."
We only notice him when he comes and goes.
With noble perseverance the dog bays the
stars yonder. I, too, like thee, walk alone in
this strange, familiar night, my voice, like thine,
beating against its friendly concave, and bark-
ing. I hear only my own voice ; 10 o'clock.
June 24, 1852. p. m. To White Pond.—
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 225
The drifting, white downy clouds are to tbe
landsman what sails on the sea are to him who
dwells by the shore, objects of a large, diffusive
interest. When the laborer lies on the grass or
in the shade for rest, they do not too much tax
or weary his attention. They are unobtrusive.
I have not heard that white clouds, like white
houses, made any one's eyes ache. They are the
flitting sails in that ocean whose bounds no man
has visited. They are like all great themes, al-
ways at hand to be considered, or they float over
ns unregarded. Far away they float in the se-
Tene sky, the most inoffensive of objects, or near
and low they smite us with their lightnings and
deafen us with their thunder. We- know no
Ternate or Tidore grand enough whither we can
imagine them bound. There are many mares'-
tails to-day, if that is the name. What could a
man learn by watching the clouds? These ob-
jects which go over our heads unobserved are
vast and indefinite. Those clouds which have
the most distinct and interesting outlines are
commonly below the zenith, somewhat low in
the heavens, seen on one side. They are among
the most glorious objects in Nature. A sky
without clouds is a meadow without flowers, a
sea without sails. Some days we have the mack-
erel fleet. But our devilishly industrious labor-
ers rarely lie in the shade. How much better if
is
Hosted by
Google
they were to take their nooning like the Italians,
relax and expand and never do any work in the
middle of the day, — enjoy a little sabbath then.
I still perceive that wonderful fragrance from
the meadow (?) on the Corner causeway, intense
as ever. It is one of those effects whose cause
it is best not to know perchance.
White Pond very handsome to-day. The
shore alive with pollywogs of large size, which
ripple the water on our approach. There is a
fine sparkle on the water, though not equal to
the fall one quite. The water is very high, so
that you cannot walk round it, but it is the more
pleasant while you are swimming to see how the
trees actually rise out of it on all sides. It
bathes their feet. The dog worried a wood-
chuck half-grown, which did not turn its back
and run into its hole, but backed into it, and
faced him and us, gritting its teeth and prepared
to die. Even this little fellow was able to de-
fend himself against the dog with his sharp
teeth. That fierce gritting of their teeth is a re-
markable habit with these animals.
The Linnaza borealis just going out of bloom.
I should have found it long ago. Its leaves
densely cover the ground.
June 24, 1853. ... It is surprising that so
many birds find hair enough to line their nests
with. If 1 wish for a horse-hair for my compass
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 227
sights, I must go to the stable ; but the hair-
bird, with her sharp eyes, goes to the road.
June 24, 1856. [New Bedford.] To Sassa-
cowen Pond and to Long Pond. Lunched by
the spring on the Brady Farm in Freetown, and
there it occurred to me how to get clear water
from a spring when the surface is covered with
dust or insects. Thrust your dipper down deep
in the middle of the spring, and lift it up quickly,
straight and square. This will heap up the wa-
ter in the middle so that the scum will run off.
June 24, 1857. . . . Went to Farmer's Swamp
to look for the screech-owl's nest which he had
found. ... I found it at last near the top of a mid-
dling-sized white pine, about thirty feet from the
ground. As I stood by the tree, the old bird
dashed by within a couple of rods, uttering a
peculiar mewing sound which she kept up amid
the bushes, a blackbird in close pursuit of her.
I found the nest empty on one side of the main
stem, but close to it, resting on some limbs. It
was made of twigs rather less than an eighth of
an inch thick, and was almost flat above, only
an inch lower in the middle than at the edge,
about sixteen inches in diameter and six or eight
inches thick. With the twigs in the midst and
beneath was mixed sphagnum and sedge from
the swamp beneath, and the lining or flooring
was coarse strips of grape-vine bark. The whole
Hosted by
Google
228 SUMMER.
pretty firmly matted together. How common
and important a material is grape-vine bark for
birds' nests ! Nature wastes nothing. There
were white droppings of the young on the nest,
and one large pellet of fur and small bones two
and a half inches long. In the meanwhile the
old bird was uttering that hoarse, worried note
from time to time, somewhat like a partridge's,
flying past from side to side, and alighting amid
the trees or bushes. When I had descended, I
detected one young one, two thirds grown,
perched on a branch of the next tree about fif-
teen feet from the ground, which was all the
while staring at me with its great yellow eyes.
It was gray, with gray horns and a dark beak.
As I walked past near it, it turned its head
steadily, always facing me, without moving its
body, till it looked directly the opposite way over
its back, but never offered to fly. Just then, I
thought siirely that I heard a puppy faintly
barking at me four or five rods distant amid the
bushes, having tracked me into the swamp, what-
what, what-whatwhat. It was exactly such a
noise as the barking of a very small dog or per-
haps a fox. But it was the old owl, for I pres-
ently saw her making it. . . . She was generally
reddish brown or partridge-colored, the breast
mottled with dark brown and fawn color . . .
and had plain fawn-colored thighs.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 229
June 24, 1860. . . . Saw young blue-birds
fully grown yesterday, but with, a feeble note and
dull colors.
June 25, 1840. Let me see no other conflict
but with, prosperity. If my path run on before
me level and smooth, it is all a mirage. In real-
ity it is steep and arduous as a chamois pass. I
will not let the years roll over me like a Jugger-
naut car.
We will warm us at each other's fire. Friend-
ship is not such a cold refining process as a
double sieve, but a glowing furnace in which all
impurities are consumed. Men have learned to
touch before they scrutinize, to shake hands and
not to stare.
June 25, 1852. Just as the sun was rising
this morning under clouds, I saw a rainbow in
the western horizon, the lower parts quite bright.
" Rainbow in the morning
Sailors take warning,
Rainbow at night
Sailors' delight."
A few moments after, it rained heavily and
continued to do so for half an hour, and it has
continued cloudy as well as cool most of the day.
I observe that young birds are usually of a
duller color and more speckled than old ones, as
if for their protection in their tender state.
They have not yet the markings and the beauty
Hosted by
Google
which distinguish their species, and which betray
it often, but by their color are merged in the
variety of colors of the season.
To Cliffs. 4 p.m. It is cool and cloudy weather
in which the crickets still heard remind you of
the fall, a clearer ring to their creak. Also the
prunella, cool in the grass, and the Johnswort
make you think it late in the year. Maruta
cotida or Mayweed. "Why so named? Just
begins, with its strong-scented leaf. It has taken
up its position by the roadside close to the ruts
— in bad taste. . . .
The bobolink and golden robin are occasion-
ally heard now-a-days.
The Cot'volvvlua sppium, bind-weed. Morn-
ing glory is the best now. It always refreshes
me to see it. . . . " In the morning and cloudy
weather," says Gray. I associate it with holiest
morning hours. It may preside over my morn-
ing walks and thoughts. There is a flower for
every mood of the mind.
Methinks roses oftenest display their bright
colors which invariably attract all eyes and be-
tray them, against a dark ground, as the dark
green or the shady recesses of other bushes and
copses, where they show to best advantage.
Their enemies do not spare the open flower for
an hour. Hence, if for no other reason, their
buds are most beautiful. Their promise of per-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 231
feet and dazzling beauty, when their buds are
just beginning to expand, beauty which they can
hardly contain, as in most youths, commonly sur-
passes the fulfillment of their expanded flowers.
The color shows fairest and brightest in the bud.
The expanded flower has no higher or deeper
tint than the swelling bud exposed. This raised
a dangerous expectation. The season when wild
roses are in bloom should have some preemi-
nence, I think,
Linaria vulgaris, butter-and-eggs, toad-flax,
on Fair Haven. Was seen the 19th. It is rather
rich colored, with a not disagreeable scent. It is
called a troublesome weed. Flowers must not
be too profuse and obtrusive, else they acquire
the reputation of weeds. It grows almost like
a cotton-grass so above and distinct from its
leaves, in wandering patches higher and higher
up the side of the hill.
One man lies in his words and gets a bad rep-
utation, another in his manners, and enjoys a
good one.
The air is clear as if a cool, dewy brush had
swept the meadows of all haze. A liquid cool-
ness invests them, as if their midnight aspect
were suddenly revealed to midday. The moun-
tain outline is remarkably distinct and the inter-
mediate earth appears more than usually scooped
out like a vast saucer sloping upward to its sharp
Hosted by
Google
232 SUMMER.
mountain rim. The mountains are washed in
air. The sunshine now seen far away on fields
and hills in the northwest looks eool and whole-
some like the yellow grass in the meadows. I
am too late for the white-pine flowers. The cones
are half an inch long and green, and the male
flowers effete. The sun now comes out hrigbt,
though westering, and shines on Fair Haven,
which, rippled by the wind, is of an unusual
clay-muddy color. . . . There are little recesses
a rod or two square in bosky woods which have
not grown fast, where a fine wiry grass invites to
lie down in the shade, under the shrub-oaks on
the edge of the well-meadow-head field.
8.30 p. M. To Conantum. Moon half full.
Fields dusky. The evening star and one other
bright one near the moon. It is a cool, but pretty
still night. Methinks I am less thoughtful than
I was last year at this time. The flute I now
hear from the Depot field does not find such cav-
erns to echo and resound in within me, no such
answering depths. Our minds should echo at
least as many times as a mammoth cave to every
musical sound. It should awaken reflections
in us.
Now his day's work is done, the laborer plays
his flute, only possible at this hour. Contrasted
with his work, what an accomplishment ! Some
drink and gamble. He plays some well-known
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 233
march. But the music is not in the tune ; it is
in the sound. It does not proceed from the
trading nor the political world. He practices
this ancient art, . . .
I hear the bull-frog's trump from far. Now
I turn down the Corner road. At this quiet
hour the evening wind is heard to moan in the
hollows of your face, mysterious, spirit-like, con-
versing with you, . . . The whippoorwill sings.
I hear a laborer going home coarsely singing to
himself. Though he has scarcely had a thought
all day, killing weeds, at this hour he sings or
talks to himself. His humble, earthly content-
ment gets expression. It is kindred in its origin
with the notes or music of many creatures. A
more fit and natural expression of his mood this
humming than conversation is wont to be. — The
fire-flies appear to be flying, though they may be
stationary on the grass stems, for their perch
and the nearness of the ground are obscured by
the darkness, and now you see one here and then
another there, as if it were one in motion. Their
light is singularly bright and glowing to proceed
from a living creature. Nature loves variety in
all things, and so she adds glow-worms to fire-
flies, though I have not noticed any this year. —
The great story of the night is the moon's ad-
ventures with the clouds. What innumerable
encounters she has had with them I When I
Hosted by
Google
234 SUMMER.
enter on the moonlit causeway where the light
is reflected from the glistening alder leaves, and
their deep, dark, liquid shade beneath strictly
bounds the firm, damp road and narrows it, it
seems like autumn. The rows of willows com-
pletely fence the way, and appear to converge in
perspective as I had not noticed by day. — The
bull-frogs are of various tones. Some horse in
a distant pasture whinnies. Dogs bark. There
is that dull dumping sound of frogs, as if a bub-
ble containing the lifeless, sultry air of day
burst on the surface, a belching sound. When
two or more bull-frogs trump together, it is a ten-
pound-ten note. — In Oonant's meadow I hear
the gurgling of unwearied water, the trill of a
toad, and go through the cool, primordial, liquid
air that has settled there. As I sit on the
great door step, the loose clapboards on the old
house rattle in the wind weirdly, and I seem to
hear some wild mice running about on the floor,
sometimes a loud crack from some weary timber
trying to change its position. How distant day
and its associations ! The night wind comes cold
and whispering, murmuring weirdly from distant
mountain tops. No need to climb the Andes
or Himalayas; for brows of lowest hills are
highest mountain tops in cool, moonlight nights.
Is it a cuckoo's chuckling note I heard ? Oc-
casionally there is something enormous and mon-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 285
strous in the size and distance of objects. A
rock is it, or an elephant asleep? Are these
trees on an upland or a lowland, or do they skirt
a sea beach ? When I get there, shall I look off
on the sea ? — The white weed is the only obvi-
ous flower. I see the tops of the rye wave, and
grain fields are more interesting than by day.
The water is dull-colored, hardly more light than
a rye field.
You may not suspect that the milk of the
cocoanut, which is imported from the other side
of the world, is mixed. So pure do some truths
come to us, I trust.
What a mean and wretched creature is man.
By and by some Dr. Morton may be filling your
cranium with white mustard-seed to learn its in-
ternal capacity. Of all ways invented to come
at a knowledge of a living man, this seems to me
the worst, as it is the most belated. You- would
learn more by onee paring the nails of the liv-
ing subject. There is nothing out of which the
spirit has more completely departed, and in
which it has left fewer significant traces.
June 25, 1853. p. m. To Assabet bathing-
place. Found an unusual quantity of Amelan-
chier berries. I think of the two common kinds,
one a taller bush twice as high as my head, with
thinner and lighter colored leaves, and larger,
or at least somewhat softer, fruit, the other, a
Hosted by
Google
286 SUMMER
shorter bush, with more rigid and darker leaves,
and dark, blue berries, with often a sort of wool-
iness on them. Both these are now in their
prime. These are the first berries after straw-
berries, or the first and, I think, the sweetest
bush berries, somewhat like high blueberries, but
not so hard. Much eaten by insects, worms,
etc., as big as the largest blueberries or peas.
These are the " service berries " which the In-
dians of the north and the Canadians use, " la
poire " of the latter. They, by a little, precede
the early blueberry (though II brought two
quarts of the last, day before yesterday), being
now in their prime, while blueberries are but just
beginning. I never saw nearly so many before.
It is a very agreeable surprise. I hear the cher-
ry-birds and others about me, no doubt attracted
by this fruit. It is owing to some peculiarity of
the season that they bear fruit. I have picked
a quart of them for a pudding. I felt all the
while I was picking them, in the low, light, wav-
ing, shrubby wood they make, as if I were in a
foreign country. Several old fanners say, " Well,
though I have lived seventy years, I never saw
nor heard of them." I think them a delicious
berry. No doubt they require only to be more
abundant every year to be appreciated.
I think it must be the purple finch with the
ei'imson head and shoulders which I see and
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 237
hear singing bo sweetly and variedly in the
garden once or twice to-day. It sits on a bean
pole or fence pick. It has a little of the martin
warble and of the canary bird.
June 25, 1854. A green bittern apparently,
awkwardly alighting on the trees, and uttering
its hoarse xarry note, zskeow — xskeow —
xskeow.
Through June the song of the birds is gradu-
ally growing fainter.
June 25, 1858. p. m. To Conantum. — Sit-
ting on the Conantum House sill still left, I see
two and perhaps three young striped squirrels,
two thirds grown, within fifteen or twenty feet,
one or more on the wall, another on the ground.
Their tails are rather imperfect as well as their
bodies. They are running about, yet rather fee-
bly, nibbling the grass, etc., or sitting upright,
looking very cunning. The broad, white line
above and below the eye make it look very long
as well as large, and the black and white stripe
on its sides, curved as it sits, are very conspicu-
ous and pretty. Who striped the squirrel's
side ? Several times I saw two approach each
other, and playfully, and as it were affection-
ately, put their paws and noses to each other's
faces. This was done very deliberately. There
was no rudeness nor excessive activity in the
sport. At length the old one appears, larger
Hosted by
Google
and much more bluish. She is shy, and with a
sharp cluck or chip calls the others gradually to
her, and draws them off along the wall, they
from time to time frisking ahead of her, then
she ahead of them. The hawks must get many
of these inexperienced creatures.
June 26, 1840. The best poetry has never
been written, for when it might have been, the
poet forgot it, and when it was too late, remem-
bered it.
The highest condition of art is artlessness.
Truth is always paradoxical.
He will get to the goal first who stands still-
est.
By sufferance you may escape suffering.
He who resists not at all will never surren-
der.
When a dog runs at you, whistle for him.
Say "Not so," and you will outeircle the phi-
losophers.
Stand outside the wall, and no harm can reach
you; the danger is that you be walled in with
it.
June 26, 1851. — Visited a menagerie this af-
ternoon, I am always surprised to see the same
spots and stripes on wild beasts from Africa and
Asia, and also from South America, on the Bra-
zilian tiger and the African leopard, and their
general similarity. All these wild animals, lions,
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 239
tigers, chetas, leopards, etc., have one hue, tawny
commonly, and spotted or striped, what you may
call pard color, a color and marking which I had
not associated with America. These are wild
animals (beasts). What constitutes the differ-
ence between a wild beast and a tame one?
How much more human the one than the other !
Growling, scratching, roaring, with whatever
beauty and gracefulness, still untamable, this
royal Bengal tiger or the leopard. They have
the character and the importance of another
order of men. The majestic lion, the king of
beasts, he must retain his title.
I was struck by the gem-like, changeable,
greenish reflections from the eyes of the grizzly
bear, so glassy that you never saw the surface of
the eye. They are quite demonic. Its claws,
though extremely large and long, look weak and
made for digging or pawing the earth and leaves.
It is unavoidable, the idea of transmigration ;
not merely a fancy of the poets, but an instinct
of the race.
June 26, 1852. I have not put darkness,
duskiness enough into my night and moonlight
walks. Every sentence should contain some twi-
light or night. At least the light in it should
be the yellow or creamy light of the moon, or
the fine beams of stars, and not the white light
of day. The peculiar dusky serenity of the sen-
Hosted by
Google
240 SUMMER.
fences must not allow the reader to forget that
it is evening or night, without my saying that it
is dark. Otherwise he will, of course, presume
a daylight atmosphere.
The earliest water surfaces, as I remember, as
soon as the ice is melted, present as fair and
matured scenes, as soft and warm, reflecting the
sky through the clear atmosphere, as in midsum-
mer, far in advance of the earth. The earliest
promise of the summer, is it not in the smooth
reflecting surface of woodland lakes in which the
ice is just melted? Those liquid eyes of Nature,
blue, or black, or even hazel, deep or shallow,
clear or turbid, green next the shore, the color
of their iris.
p. m. By boat up the Assabet.
The Nymphaia odorata, sweet water lily,
pond lily, in bloom. A superb flower, our lotus,
queen of the waters. Now is the solstice in still
waters. How sweet, innocent, wholesome its
fragrance, how pure its white petals, though its
root is in the mud. It must answer in my mind
for what the orientals say of the lotus flower.
Probably the first a day or two since. To-mor-
row, then, will be the first Sabbath when the
young men, having bathed, will walk slowly and
soberly to church, in their best clothes, each
with a lily in bis hand or bosom, with as long a
stem as he could get. At least I used to see
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER.
241
them go by and come into church, when I used
to go myself, smelling a pond lily, so that the
flower is to some extent associated with bathing
on Sabbath mornings and going to church, its
odor contrasting with and atoning for that of
the sermon. We have roses on the land and
lilies on the water. Both land and water have
done their best, now just after the longest day.
Nature says, Yon behold the utmost I can do.
And the young women carry their finest roses
on the other hand. Roses and lilies. The flo-
ral days. The red rose, with the intense color
of many suns concentrated, spreads its tender
petals perfectly fair, its flower not to be over-
looked, modest, yet queenly, on the edges of
shady copses and meadows, against its green
leaves, surrounded by blushing buds, of perfect
form, not only beautiful, but rightfully com-
manding attention, unspoiled by the admiration
of gazers. And the water lily floats on the sur-
face of slow waters, amid rounded shields of
leaves, bucklers red beneath, which simulate a
green field, perfuming the air. Each instantly
the prey of the spoiler, the rose-bug and water
insects. How transitory the perfect beauty of
the rose and the lily. The highest, intensest
color belongs to the land ; the purest, perchance,
to the water. The lily is perhaps the only flower
which all are eager to pluck. It may be partly
Hosted by
Google
242 SUMMER.
because of its inaccessibility to most. The farm-
ers' sons will frequently collect every bud that
shows itself above the surface within half a mile.
They are so infested by insects, and it is so rare
you get a perfect one which lias opened itself
(though these only are perfect), that the buds
are commonly plucked and opened by hand. I
have a faint recollection of pleasure derived from
smoking dried lily stems, before I was a man.
I had commonly a supply of these. I have never
smoked anything more noxious. I used to
amuse myself with making the yellow, drooping
stamens rise and fall by blowing through the
pores of the long stem.
I see the nests of the bream, each with its
occupant, scooped out in the sunny water, and
partly shaded by the leaves of the limnanthemum
or floating heart now in blossom and the Pota-
mogeton nutans, or pondweed. — Under the cool,
glossy green leaves of small swamp white oaks,
and leaning against their scaly bark near the
water, you see the wild roses five or six feet high
looking forth from the shade, but almost every
bush and copse near the river or in low land
which you approach these days, emits the noi-
some odor of the carrion-flower, so that you
would think that all the dead dogs had drifted
to that shore. All things, both beautiful and
ugly, agreeable and offensive, are expressed in
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 243
flowers, all kinds and degrees of beauty, and all
kinds of foulness. For what purpose has Nature
made a flower to fill the low lands with the odor
of carrion. Just so much beauty and virtue as
there is in the world, and just so much ugliness
and vice, you see expressed in flowers. Each
human being has his flower which expresses his
character. In them nothing is concealed, but
everything published. Many a villager whose
garden bounds on the river, when he approaches
the willows and eornels by the river's edge,
thinks that some carriou has lodged on his shore,
when it is only the carrion-flower he smells. . . .
All shadows or shadowlets on the sandy bot-
tom of the river are interesting. All are circu-
lar, almost lenticular, for they appear to have
thickness. Even the shadows of grass blades
are broken into several separate circles of shade.
Such is the fabulous or Protean character of the
water light. A skater insect casts seven flat or len-
ticular shades, four smaller in front, two larger be-
hind, and the smallest of all in the centre. From
the shadow on the bottom you cannot guess the
form on the surface. Everything is transmuted
by the water. The shadow, however small, is
black within, edged with a sunny halo, correspond-
ing to the day's twilight, aud a certain liquidness
is imparted to the whole by the incessant motion
from the undulation of the surface. The oblong
Hosted by
Google
244 SUMMER.
leaves of the Potamogeton hybridus (?) now in
seed, make a circular shadow also, somewhat
coin-like, a halo produced by the thick atmos-
phere which the water is. These bright, spark-
ling brook and river bottoms are the true gold
washings, where the stream has washed the peb-
bly earth so long.
It is pleasant to walk in sproutlands now in
June ; there is so much light reflected from the
underside of the new foliage. The rich mead-
ows, too, reflect much of the bluish light from
the bent grass. We land on the south side op-
posite Barrett's. — There are some interesting,
retired natural meadows here, concealed by the
woods near the river bank, which are never cut,
long, narrow, and winding, full of a kind of stiff,
dry, cut grass and tender meadow-sweet and oc-
casional cranberry patches now in bloom, with a
high border, almost as high as the meadows are
wide, of maples, birches, swamp white oaks, al-
ders, etc. The flashing, silvery light from the un-
der-sides of the maple leaves, high, rippling, wash-
ing towers far and near, — this cool, refreshing,
breezy, flashing light is very memorable. When
you think you have reached the end of such a
winding meadow, you pass between two alders
where the copses meet, and emerge into another
meadow beyond. I suppose that these meadows
are as nearly in their primitive state as any that
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 245
we see. So this country looked, in one of its
aspects, a thousand years ago. What difference
to the meadow-sweet, or the swamp white oak,
or to the silver flashing maple leaves a thousand
years ago or to-day ! . . . The prevalence of the
meadow-sweet at least distinguishes these mead-
ows from the ordinary ones.
Forded the river with our clothes on our
heads. The rounded heaps of stones, whether
made by the suckers or lamprey-eels, are among
the curiosities of the - river. From the sand-
bank we looked at the arched bridge while a
traveler, in a simple carriage with a single pair
of wheels, went over it. It interested me be-
cause the stratum of earth beneath him was so
thin that he appeared quite in the air. While
he sat with his elbows on his knees entertaining
all earthly thoughts, or thoughtless, we looked di-
rectly beneath him through much air to a fair and
distant landscape beyond. C says that is
what men go to Italy to see. I love to see the
firm earth mingled with the sky, like the spray of
the sea tossed up. Is there not always, wherever
an arch is constructed, a latent reference to its
beauty. The arch supports itself like the stars,
by gravity. " Semper cadendo nunquam cadit."
By always falling it never falls.
June 26, 1853. At Cliffs. The air warmer,
but wonderfully clear after the hail-storm. I do
Hosted by
Google
not remember when I have seen it more cleat.
The mountains and horizon outlines on all sides
are distinct and near. Nobscot has lost all its
blue, is only a more distant hill-pasture, and the
northwest mountains are too terrestrial a blue
and too firmly defined to be mistaken for clouds.
Billerica is as near as Bedford commonly. I see
new spires far in the south, and on every side the
horizon is extended many miles. It expands me
to look so much farther over the rolling surface
of the earth. Where I had seen or fancied only
a hazy forest outline, I see successive swelling
hills and remote towns. So often to the luxuri-
ous and hazy summer in our minds, when, like
Fletcher's " Martyrs in Heaven," we,
"estranged from all misery
As far as Heaven and Earth discoasted lie,
Swelter in quiet waves of immortality,"
some great chagTin succeeds, some chilling cloud
comes over. But when it is gone, we are sur-
prised to find that it has cleared the air, sum-
mer returns without its haze, we see infinitely
farther into the horizon on every side, and the
boundaries of the world are enlarged.
A beautiful sunset about half-past seven ; just
clouds enough in the west (we are on Fair Ha-
ven bill) ; they arrange themselves about the
western gate. And now the sun sinks out of
sight just on the north side of Watatic, and the
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 247
mountains north and south are at once a dark
indigo blue, for they had been darkening an
hour or more. Two small clouds are left on the
horizon between Watatie and Monadnock, their
sierra edges all on fire. Three minutes after the
sun is gone, there is a bright and memorable
afterglow in his path, and a brighter and more
glorious light falls on the clouds above the por-
tal. His car borne farther round brings us into
the augle of excidence. Those little sierra clouds
look like two castles on fire, and I see the fire
through the windows. The low western horizon
glows now, five or six minutes after sunset, with
a delicate salmon color tinged with rose, deepest
where the sun disappeared, and fading off up-
ward. North and south are deep blue cloud
islands in it. When I invert my head those deli-
cate salmon-colored clouds look like a celestial
Sahara, sloping gently upward, a plane inclined
upward, to be traveled by caravans bound heav-
enward, with blue oases in it.
June 26, 1856. [New Bedford.] Rode to
Sconticut Neck or Point, in Fair Haven, five or
six miles. . . . Heard of and sought out the hut
of Martha Simons, the only pure-blooded Indian
left about New Bedford. She lives alone on the
narrowest part of the Neek, near the shore, in
sight of New Bedford. Her hut stands some
twenty-five rods from the road on a small tract
Hosted by
Google
248 SUMMER.
of Indian land, now wholly hers. It was for-
merly exchanged by a white man for some better
land, then occupied by Indians at Westport,
which he wanted. So said a Quaker minister,
her neighbor. The squaw was not at home when
we first called. It was a little hut, not so big as
mine. No garden, only some lettuce amid the
thin grass in front, and a great pile of clam and
quahog shells one side. Ere long she came from
the seaside and we called again. We knocked
and walked in, and she asked us to sit down.
She had half an acre of the real tawny Indian
face, broad with high cheek bones, black eyes,
and straight hair, originally black, but now a
little gray, parted in the middle. Her hands
were several shades darker than her face. She
had a peculiarly vacant expression, perhaps char-
acteristic of the Indian, and answered our ques-
tions listlessly, without being interested or impli-
cated, mostly in monosyllables, as if hardly
present there. To judge from her physiognomy,
she might have been King Philip's own daugh-
ter. Yet she could not speak a word of Indian,
and knew nothing of her race, said she had lived
with the whites, gone out to service to them
when seven years old. Had lived part of her
life at Squaw Betty's Neck, Assawampsett Pond.
. . . She said she was sixty years old, but was
probably nearer seventy. She sat with her
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 249
elbows on her knees and her face in her hands,
and that peculiar vacant stare, perhaps looking
out the window between us, not repelling us in
the least, but perfectly indifferent to our pres-
ence. She was born on that spot. Her grand-
father also lived on the same spot, though not in
the same house. He was the last of her race
who could speak Indian. She had heard him
pray in Indian, but could only understand "Je-
sus Christ." Her only companion was a miser-
able tortoise-shell kitten, which took no notice
of us. She had a stone chimney, a small cook-
ing stove without fore-legs and set up on bricks,
within it, and a bed covered with dirty bed-
clothes. Said she hired out her field as pasture ;
better for her than to cultivate it. . . . The ques-
tion she answered with most interest was, " What
do you call that plant ? " and I reached her the
aletris from my hat. She took it, looked at it
a moment, and said, " That 's husk-root. It 's
good to put into bitters for a weak stomach."
The last year's light-colored and withered leaves
surround the present green star like a husk.
This must be the origin of the name. Its root
is described as intensely bitter. I ought to have
had my hat full of plants.
June 27, 1856. [New Bedford.] p.m. Went
with R and his boys in the steamer Eagle's
Wing, with a crowd and band of music, to the
Hosted by
Google
250 SUMMER.
northeast end of Naushon . . . some fifteen
miles from New Bedford. About two Lours
going. Saw all the Elizabeth Isles, going and
coming. They are mostly bare, except the east
end of Naushon. This island is some seven
miles long by one to two wide. I had some two
and a half hours there. I was surprised to find
such a noble, primitive wood, chiefly beech, such
as the English poets celebrate, and oak (black
oak, I think), large and spreading, like pasture
oaks with us, though in a wood. The ground
under the beeches was covered with the withered
leaves, and peculiarly free from vegetation. On
the edge of a swamp I saw great tupelos running
up particularly tall, without lower branches, two
or three feet in diameter, with a rough, light-
colored bark. Saw a common wild grape-vine
running over a beech which was apparently flat-
tened out by it, which vine measured at six feet
from the ground twenty-three inches in circum-
ference. It was larger below where it had al-
ready forked. At five feet from the ground it
divided into three great branches. It did not
rise directly, but with a great half spiral sweep.
. . . No sight could be more primeval. It was
partly or chiefly dead. This was in the midst
of the woods by a path side. Just beyond we
started up two deer.
June 27, 1840. ... A dull, cloudy day; no
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 251
sun shining. The clink of the smith's hammer
sounds feebly over the roofs, and the wind ia
sighing gently as if dreaming of cheerf uller days.
The farmer is ploughing in yonder field, crafts-
men are busy in the shops, the trader stands
behind the counter, and all works go steadily
forward. But 'I will have nothing to do, will
tell Fortune that I play no game with her, and
she may reach me in my Asia of serenity and
indolence, if she can.
For an impenetrable shield stand inside your-
self.
He was no artist, but an artisan, who first
made shields of brass.
Unless we meet religiously, we profane one
another. What was the consecrated ground
around the temple we have used aa no better
than a domestic court. Our friend's is as holy
a shrine as any God's, to be approached with
sacred love and awe. Veneration is the measure
of love. Our friend answers ambiguously, and
sometimes before the question is propounded,
like the oracle of Delphi. He forbears to ask
explanation, but doubts and surmises darkly
with full faith, as we silently ponder our fates.
In no presence are we so susceptible to shame.
Our hour is a sabbath ; our abode, a temple ; our
gifts, peace offerings ; our conversation, a com-
or silence, a prayer. In profanity we
Hosted by
Google
252 SUMMER.
are absent ; in holiness, near ; in sin, estranged ;
in innocence, reconciled.
June 27, 1852. p. m. To Bear Hill, Lincoln.
The epilotium, spiked willow herb, shows its
pale purple spikes (pinkish?). I will set it
down to the 20th. Epilobium angustifolium,
one of the most conspicuous flowers at this
season, on dry, open hillsides in the woods,
sproutlands. ... I still perceive that ambro-
sial sweetness from the meadows in some places.
Give me the strong, rank scent of ferns in the
spring for vigor, just blossoming late in the
spring. A healthy and refined nature would
always derive pleasure from the landscape. As
long as the bodily vigor lasts, man sympathizes
with Nature.
Looking from Bear Hill I am struck by the
yellowish green of meadows, almost like an
ingrained sunlight. Perhaps they have that
appearance, because the fields generally incline
now to a reddish-brown green. The freshness
of the year in most fields is already past. The
tops of the early grass are white, billed by the
worms.
It is somewhat hazy, yet I can just distinguish
Monadnock. It is a good way to describe the
density of a haze to say how distant a mountain
can be distinguished through it, or how near a
hill is obscured by it.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 253
Saw a very large white-ash tree, three and a
half feet in diameter, . . . which was struck by
lightning the 22d. The lightning apparently
struck the top of the tree and scorched the bark
and leaves for ten or fifteen feet downward, then
began to strip off the bark and enter the wood,
making a ragged, narrow furrow or crack, till
reaching one of the upper limbs it apparently
divided, descending on both sides and entering
deeper and deeper into the wood. At the first
general branching it had got full possession of
the tree in its centre, and tossed off the main
limbs, butt foremost, making holes in the ground
where they struck, and so it went down in the
midst of the trunk to the earth, where it appar-
ently exploded, rending the trunk into six seg-
ments, whose tops, ten or twenty feet long, were
rayed out on every side at an angle of about
30° from a perpendicular, leaving the ground
bare directly under where the tree ' had stood,
though they were still fastened to the earth by
their roots. The lightning appeared to have
gone off through the roots, furrowing them as
it had furrowed the branches, and through the
earth, making a furrow like a plow, four or five
rods in one direction, and in another passing
through the cellar of the neighboring house,
about thirty feet distant, scorching the tin
milk-pans, and throwing dirt into the milk,
Hosted by
Google
254 SUMMER
and coming out the back side of the house in
a furrow, splitting some planks there. The
main body of the tree was completely stripped
of bark, which was cast in every direction, two
hundred feet, and large pieces of the inside of
the tree were hurled, with tremendous force, in
various directions, — one into the side of a shed,
smashing it, another burying itself in a wood-
pile. The heart of the tree lay by itself. Prob-
ably a piece as large as a man's leg could not
have been sawed out of the trunk, which would
not have had a crack in it, and much of it was
very finely splintered. The windows in the
house were broken and the inhabitants knocked
down by the concussion. All this was accom-
plished in an instant by a kind of fire out of
the heavens called lightning or a thunderbolt,
accompanied by a crashing sound. For what
purpose? The ancients called it Jove's bolt,
with which he punished the guilty, and we
moderns understand it no better. There was
displayed a Titanic force, some of that force
which made and can unmake the world. The
brute forces are not yet wholly tamed. Is this
of the character of a wild beast ? or is it guided
by intelligence and mercy? If we trust our
natural impressions, it is a manifestation of
brutish force, or vengeance more or less tem-
pered with justice. Yet it is our consciousness
Hosted by
Google
of sin probably which suggests the idea of ven-
geance, and to a righteous man it would be
merely sublime without being awful. This is
one of those cases in which a man hesitates to
refer his safety to his prudence, as the putting
up of a lightning-rod. There is no lightning-
rod by which the sinner can avert the avenging
Nemesis. Though I should put up a rod, if its
utility were satisfactorily demonstrated to me,
yet, so mixed are we, I should feel myself safe
or in danger quite independently of the senseless
rod. There is a degree of faith and righteous-
ness in putting up a rod as well as in trusting
without one, though the latter, which is the rarer,
I feel to be the more effectual rod of the two.
It only suggests that impunity in respect to all
forms of death or disease, whether sickness or
casualty, is only to be attained by moral in-
tegrity. It is the faith with which we take
medicine that cures us. Otherwise we may be
cured into greater disease. In a violent tempest
we both fear and trust. We are ashamed of
our fear, for we know that a righteous man
would not suspect clanger, nor incur any. Wher-
ever a man feels fear, there is an avenger. The
savage's and the civilized man's instincts are
right. Science affirms too much. Science as-
sumes to show why the lightning strikes a tree,
but it does not show us the moral why any better
Hosted by
Google
256 SUMMER.
than our instincts did. It is full of presump-
tion. Why should trees be struck ? It is not
enough to say, Because they are in the way.
Science answers, "Non scio, I am ignorant."
All the phenomena of Nature need to be seen
from the point of view of wonder and awe, like
lightning ; and, on the other hand, the lightning
itself needs to be regarded with serenity, as are
the most innocent and familiar phenomena.
There runs through the righteous man's spinal
column a rod with burnished points to heaven,
which conducts safely away into the earth the
flashing wrath of Nemesis so that it merely
clarifies the air. This moment the confidence
of the righteous man erects a sure conductor
within him ; the next, perchance, a timid staple
diverts the fluid to his vitals. If a mortal be
struck with a thunderbolt codo sereno, it is
naturally felt to be more awful and vengeful.
Men are probably nearer to the essential truth
in their superstitions than in their science.
Some places are thought to be particularly
exposed to lightning, some oaks on hill tops,
for in stance.
I meet the partridge with her brood in the
woods, a perfect little hen. She spreads her
tail into a fan and heats the ground with her
wings fearlessly, within a few feet of me, to
attract my attention while her young disperse.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 257
But they keep up a faint, wiry kind of peep
which betrays them, while she mews and squeaks
as if giving them directions. — Chestnut trees
are budded. — - 1 picked a handful or two of
blueberries. These and huckleberries deserve to
be celebrated, such simple, wholesome, univer-
sal fruits, food for the gods and for aboriginal
men. They are so abundant that they concern
our race much. Tournefort called some of this
genus at least, Vitis-Idtea, which apparently
means the vine of Mount Ida. I cannot imagine
any country without this kind of berry. Berry
of berries, on which men live like birds, still
covering our hills as when the red men lived
here. Are they not the principal wild fruit ?
June 27, 1853. 4.30 a. m. To Island by
river. , . . Saw a little pickerel with a minnow
in its mouth. It was a beautiful little silver-
colored minnow, two inches long, with a broad
stripe down the middle. The pickerel held it
crosswise near the tail, as he had seized it, and
as I looked down on him, he worked the min-
now along in his mouth toward the head, and
then swallowed it head foremost. Was this in-
stinct '.'
June 27, 1859. . . . p. m. To "Walden. . . .
I find an Attacus Luna half hidden under a
skunk cabbage leaf, with its back to the ground
and motionless, on the edge of a swamp. The
Hosted by
Google
258 SUMMER
underside is a particularly pale, hoary green.
It is somewhat greener above, with a slightly
purplish brown border on the front edge of its
front wings, and a brown, yellowish, and whitish
eye-spot in the middle of each wing. It is very
sluggish, and allows me to turn it over and cover
it up with another leaf, sleeping till the night
comes. It has more relation to the moon by its
pale, hoary green color, and its sluggishness by
day, than by the form of its tail.
June 28, 1840. The profane never hear
music ; the holy ever hear it. It is God's voice,
the divine breath audible. Where it is heard,
there is a Sabbath. It is omnipotent. All things
obey it, as they obey virtue. It is the herald of
virtue. It passes by sorrow, for grief hangs its
harp on the willows.
June 28, 1854. Tall anemone. Pontederia
to-morrow.
June 28, 1857. ... I hear on all hands
these days, from the elms and other trees, the
twittering peep of young golden robins which
have recently left their nests, and apparently
indicate their locality to their parents by thus
i/ii.!<!wsMiitly peeping all day long.
June 28, 1860. ... I meet to-day with a
wood-tortoise which is eating the leaves of the
early potentillas, and soon after another . . .
deliberately eating sorrel. It was evidently
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 259
quite an old one, its back being worn quite
smooth, and its motions peculiarly sluggish. It
continued to eat when I was within a few feet,
holding its head high and biting down at it,
each time bringing away a piece of the leaf:
It made you think of an old and sick tortoise
eating some salutary herb to cure itself with,
and reminded me of the stories of the ancients,
who, I think, made the tortoises thus cure them-
selves with dittany or origanum when bitten by
a venomous snake. It impressed me as if it
must know the virtues of herbs well, and could
select the one best suited to the condition of its
body. When I came nearer, it at once drew in
its head. Its back was smooth and yellowish, a
venerable tortoise. When I moved off, it at
once withdrew into the woods.
June 29, 1840. Of all phenomena my own
race are the most mysterious and undiscover-
able. For how many years have I striven to
meet one, even on common, manly ground, and
have not succeeded !
June 29, 1851. There is a great deal of white
clover this year. In many fields where there has
been no clover seed sown, for many years at
least, it is more abundant than the red, and the
heads are nearly as large. Also pastures which
are close cropped, and where I think there was
little or no clover last year, are spotted white
Hosted by
Google
with an humbler growth. And everywhere by
roadsides, garden borders, etc., even where the
sward is trodden hard, the small white heada on
short stems are sprinkled. As this is the season
for the swarming of bees, and this clover is very
attractive to them, it is probably the more diffi-
cult to secure them ; at any rate it is more im-
portant, now that they can make honey so fast.
It is an interesting inquiry why this year is so
favorable to the growth of clover.
Swamp pink I see for the first time this sea-
son.
How different is day from day! Yesioi'day
the air was filled with a thick, fog-Jike haze, so
that the sun did not once shine with ardor, and
everything was so tempered under this thin veil
that it was a luxury merely to be out doors.
You were the less out for it. The shadows of
the apple trees even early in the afternoon were
remarkably distinct. The landscape wore a
classical smoothness. Every object was as in
picture with a glass over it. I saw some hills
on this side the river looking from Conantum,
on which the grass being of a yellow tinge,
though the sun did not shine out on them, they
had the appearance of being shone upon pecu-
liarly. It was merely an unusual yellow tint of
the grass. The mere surface of the water waa
an object for the eye to linger on.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 261
I thought that one peculiarity of my "Week"
was its hypcethral character, to use an epithet
applied to those Egyptian temples which are
open to the heavens above, under the ether. I
thought that it had little of the atmosphere of
the house about it, but might have been written
wholly, as in fact it was to a great extent, out of
doors. It was only at a late period in writing
it, as it happened, that I \ised any phrases im-
plying that I lived in a house or led a domestic
life. I trust it does not smell so much of the
study and library, even of the poet's attic, as of
the fields and woods, that it is a hypsethral or
unroofed book, lying open under the ether, and
permeated by it, open to all weathers, not easy
to be kept on a shelf.
At a distance in the meadow I hear still, at
long intervals, the hurried commencement of the
bobolink's strain, the bird just dashing into
song, which is as suddenly checked, as it were,
by the warder of the seasons, and the strain is
left incomplete forever. [P. S.] I have since
heard some complete strains.
The voice of the crickets, heard at noon from
deep in the grass, allies day to night. It is
unaffected by sun and moon. It is a midnight
sound heard at noon, a midday sound heard at
midnight.
I observed some mulleins growing on the west-
Hosted by
Google
era slope of the sandy railroad embankment, in
as warm a place as can easily be found, where
the heat was reflected oppressively from the sand
at three o'clock p. M. this hot day. Yet the
green and living leaves felt rather cool than
otherwise to the hand, but the dead ones at the
root were quite warm. The living plant thus
preserves a cool temperature in the hottest ex-
posure, as if it kept a cellar below from which
cooling liquors were drawn up.
How awful is the least unquestionable mean-
ness, when we cannot deny that we have been
guilty of it. There seem to be no bounds to our
unworthiness.
June 29, 1852. p. m. On the North River.
. . . The Rana ha/.ecina ? shad-frog is our hand-
somest; bronze, striped with brown spots edged
and intermixed with bright green. . . . The
frogs and tortoises striped and spotted for con-
cealment. The painted tortoise's throat held up
above the pads, streaked with yellowish, makes
it the less obvious. The mud turtle is the color
of the mud ; the wood frog and the hylodes, of
the dead leaves; the bull-frog, of the pads; the
toad, of the earth, etc. ; the tree-toad, of the
biu-li.
In my experience nothing is so opposed to
poetry, not crime, as business. It is a negation
of life.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 263
The wind exposes the red wider-sides of the
white lily pads. This is one of the aspects of
the river now. The bud-hearing stem of this
plant is a little larger, hut otherwise like the
leaf stem, and coming like it from the long,
large root. It is interesting to pull up the lily
roots with flowers and leaves attached, and see
how it sends its buds upward to the light and
air to expand and flower in another element.
How interesting the bud's progress from the
water to the air ! So many of these stems are
leaf-bearing, and so many, flower-bearing. Then
consider how defended these plants against
drought, at the bottom of the water, at most
their leaves and flowers floating on its surface.
How much mud and water are required to sup-
port their vitality ! It is pleasant to remember
those quiet Sabbath mornings by remote stag-
nant rivers and ponds where pure white water
lilies just expanded, not yet infested by insects,
float on the waveless water and perfume the at-
mosphere. Nature never appears more serene
and innocent and fragrant. A hundred white
lilies open to the sun rest on the surface smooth
as oil amid their pads, while devil's needles are
glancing over them. It requires some skill so to
pull a lily as to get a long stem.
The great yellow lily, the spatterdock, ex-
presses well the fertility of the river.
Hosted by
Google
264 SUMMER.
One flower on a spike of the Pontederia cor-
d'.tta jusl: ready to expand.
Children bring you the early blueberry to sell
now. It is considerably earlier on the tops of
hills which have been recently cut off than in
the plains or in vales. The girl that has Indian
blood in her veins and picks berries for a living
will find them out as soon as they turn.
The Anemone, virgin Ulna, tall anemone, look-
ing like a wliite buttercup, on Egg Rock, cannot
have been long in bloom.
I see the columbine lingering still.
June 29, 1859. I see two chestnut-sided war-
blers hopping and chipping a long time, as if
they had a nest within six feet of me. No doubt
they are breeding near. Yellow crown with a
fine, dark, longitudinal line, reddish chestnut
sides, black triangle on side of head. White
beneath.
June 30, 1840. I sailed from Fair Haven
last evening as gently and steadily as the clouds
sail through the atmosphere. The wind came
blowing blithely from the southwest fields, and
stepped into the folds of our sails like a winged
horse, pulling with a strong and steady impulse.
The sail bends gently to the breeze as swells
some generous impulse of the heart, and anon
flutters and flaps with a kind of human suspense.
I could watch the motions of a sail forever, they
Hosted by
Google
are so rich and full of meaning. I watch the
play of its pulse as if it were my own blood beat-
ing there. The varying temperature of different
atmospheres is graduated on its scale. It is a
free, buoyant creature, the bauble of the heavens
and the earth. A gay pastime the air plays with
it. If it swells and tugs, it is because the sun
lays his windy ringer on it. The breeze it plays
with has been out doors so long, so thin is it, and
yet so full of life, so noiseless when it labors
hardest, so noisy and impatient when least ser-
viceable. So am I blown by God's breath, so
flutter and flap, and fill gently out with the
breeze.
In this fresh evening, each blade and leaf
looks as if it had been dipped in an icy liquid
greenness. Let eyes that ache come here and
look, the sight will be a sovereign eye-water, or
else wait and bathe them in the dark.
We go forth into the fields, and there the
wind blows freshly onward, and still on, and we
must make new efforts not to be left behind.
What does the dogged wind intend, that like a
wilful cur it will not let me to turn aside to rest
or content? Must it always reprove and provoke
me, and never welcome me as an equal?
The truth shall prevail and falsehood discover \
i itself as long as the wind blows on the hills. \
A man's life should be a stately march to a *
Hosted by
Google
266 SUMMER.
sweet but unheard music, and when to his fel-
lows it shall seem irregular and inharmonious,
he will only be stepping to a livelier measure, or
his nicer ear hurry him into a thousand sympho-
nies and concordant variations. There will be
no halt ever, but at most a marching on his post,
or such a pause a* is richer than any sound, when
the melody runs into such depth and wildness as
to be no longer heard, but implicitly consented
to with the whole life and being. He will take
a false step never, even in the most arduous
times, for the music will not fail to swell into
greater sweetness and volume, and itself rule the
movement it inspired.
Value and effort are as much coincident as
weight and a tendency to fall. In a very wide
but true sense, effort is the deed itself, and it is
only when these sensible stuffs intervene, that
our attention is distracted from the deed to the
accident. It is never the deed men praise, but
some marble or canvas which are only a staging
to the real work.
June 30, 1851. Haying has commenced. I
see the farmers in distant fields cocking their
hay now at six o'clock. The day has been so
oppressively warm, that some workmen have lain
by at noon, and the haymakers are mowing now
at early twilight. The blue flag, Iris versicolor,
enlivens the meadow, and the lark sings there at
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 267
sundown afar off. It is a note which belongs to
a New England summer evening. Though so late
I hear the summer hum of a bee in the grass, as
I am on my way to the river ... to bathe.
After hoeing in a dusty garden all this warm
afternoon, so warm that the baker says he never
knew the like, and expects to find his horses
dead in the stable when he gets home, it is very
grateful to wend one's way at evening to some
pure and cool stream, and bathe there, . . .
What I suppose is the Aster miser, small-flow-
ered aster, like a small many-headed white-weed,
has now for a week been in bloom, a humble
weed, but one of the earliest of the asters.
I first observed about ten days ago that the
fresh shoots of the fir-balsam, Abies balsamifera,
found under the tree wilted, or plucked and kept
in the pocket or in the house a few days, emit
the fragrance of strawberries, only it is some-
what more aromatic and spicy. It was to me a
very remarkable fragrance to be emitted by a
pine, a very rich, delicious, aromatic, spicy fra-
grance, which, if the fresh and living shoots
emitted, they would be still more to be sought
after.
June 30, 1852. Nature must be viewed hu-
manly to be viewed at all, that is, her scenes
must be associated with humane affections, such
as are associated with one's native place, for in-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER.
stance. She is most significant to a lover. If I
have no friend, what is Nature to me? She
ases to be morally significant. . . .
Is not this period more than any other dis-
tinguished for flowers when roses, swamp pinks,
morning glories, arcthusas, orchises, bine-flags,
epilobiums, mountain laurel, and white lilies are
all in blossom at once.
June 30, 1860. Try the temperature of the
springs and pond. At 2.15 p. m., the atmosphere
north of house is 83° above zero.
The same afternoon, the water of the boiling
spring, 45°.
Our well, after pumping, 49°.
Brister's spring, 49°.
Walden Pond at bottom, in four feet of wa-
ter, 71".
River at one rod from shore, 77°.
(2 p. m,, July 1, the air is 77° and the river
75°.)
I see that the temperature of the boiling
spring, on the 6th of March, 1846, was also 45°,
and I suspect it varies very little throughout the
year.
In sand, both by day and night, you find the
heat to be permanently greatest some three
inches below the surface. It is so to-day, and
this is about the depth at which the tortoises
place their eggs, where the temperature is high-
Hosted by
Google
est permanently and changes least between night
and day.
Generally speaking, the fields are not im-
browned yet, but the freshness of the year is
preserved. As I stand on the side of Fair Ha-
ven Hill, the verdure generally appears at its
height, the air clear, and the water sparkling
after the rain of yesterday. It is a world of
glossy leaves, and grassy fields and meads. The
foliage of deciduous trees is now so nearly as
dark as evergreens that I am not struck by
the contrast. I think that the shadows under
the edge of woods are less noticed now be-
cause the woods themselves are darker ; so, too,
with the darkness and shadows of elms.
Seen through this clear, sparkling, breezy air,
the fields, woods, and meadows are very brilliant
and fair. The leaves are now hard and glossy
(the oldest), yet still comparatively fresh, and I
do not see a single acre of grass that has been
cut. The river meadows on each side the stream,
looking toward the light, have %n elysian beauty.
. . . They are by far the most bright and sunny
looking spots, such is the color of the sedges
which grow there, while the pastures and hill-
sides are dark green, and the grain fields glau-
cous green. It is remarkable that the meadows
which are the lowest part should have the light-
est, sunniest, yellowest look.
Hosted by
Google
270 SUMMER.
I hear scarcely any toads of late, except a few
at evening. See in the garden, on the side of a
corn-hill, the hole in which one sits by day. It
ia round, and about the width of his body across,
extending one side underneath about the length
of my little finger. It is shaped in the main
like a turtle's nest, but not so broad beneath,
and not quite so deep. There sits the toad in
the shade and concealed completely under the
ground, with its head toward the entrance, wait-
ing for evening.
July 1, 1840. To be a man is to do a man's
work. Always our resource is to endeavor. We
may well say, Success to our endeavors. Effort
is the prerogative of virtue.
The true laborer is recompensed by his labor
not by his employer. Industry is its own wages.
Let us not suffer our hands to lose one jot of their
handiness by looking behind to a mere recom-
pense, knowing that our true endeavor cannot be
thwarted, nor we be cheated of our earnings un-
less by not earning them. Some symbol of value
may shape itself to the senses in wood or marble
or verse, but this is fluctuating as the laborer's
hire, which may or may not be withheld. Per-
haps the hugest and most effective deed may
have no sensible result at all on earth, but paint
itself in the heavens in new stars and constella-
tions. Its very material lies out of Nature,
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 271
When in rare moments we strive wholly with
one consent, which we call a yearning, we may
not hope that our work will stand in any artist's
gallery.
July 1, 1852. 9.30 a. m. To Sherman's
Bridge by land and water. One object, to see
the white lilies in bloom. The Trifolium arvense,
or rabbit's foot clover, is just beginning to show
its color. ■ . . The mulleins generally now begin
to show their pure yellow in roadside fields, and
the white cymes of the elder are conspicuous on
the edges of the copses. ■ I perceive the meadow
fragrance still. . . . Roses are in their prime
now, growing amid huckleberry bushes, ferns,
and sweet ferns, especially about some dry pond
hole, some paler, some more red. It would seem
they must have bloomed in vain while only wild
men roamed, yet now they adorn only the pas-
ture of these cows. — How well-behaved are
cows ! When they approach me reclining in the
shade, from curiosity, or to receive a wisp of
grass, or to share the shade, or to lick the dog
held up, like a calf, though just now they ran at
him to toss him, they do not obtrude ; their com-
pany is acceptable, for they can endure the long-
est pause. They have not to be entertained,
They occupy the most eligible lots in the town.
I love to see some pure white about them. It
suggests the more neatness.
Hosted by
Google
272 SUMMER.
Borrowed his boat of B , the wheelwright,
at the Corner bridge. He was quite ready to lend
it, and took pains to shave down the handle of a
paddle for me, conversing the while on the sub-
ject of spiritual knocking which he asked if I
had looked into. Our conversation made him
the slower. An obliging man who understands
that I am abroad viewing the works of Nature
and not loafing, though he makes the pursuit a
semi-religious one, as are all more serious ones
to most men. All that is not sporting in the
field, as hunting and fishing, is of a religious or
else love -crack I'd ch:ir;u'tei-.
The white lilies were in all their splendor,
fully open, sometimes their lower petals lying
flat on the surface. The largest appeared to
grow in the shallower water, where some stood
five or six inches out of water, and were five
inches in diameter. Two which I examined had
twenty-nine petals each. . . . Perhaps there was
not one open which had not an insect in it, and
most had some hundreds of small gnats. We
shook them out, however, without much trouble,
instead of drowning them out, which makes the
petals close. The freshly opened lilies were a
pearly white, and though the water amid the
pads was quite unrippled, the passing air gave a
slight oscillating, boatlike motion to and fro to
the flowers, like boats held fast by their cables.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 273
Some of the lilies had a beautiful rosaceous tinge,
most conspicuous in the half -opened flower, ex-
tending through the calyx to the second row of
petals, or those parts of the petals between the
calyx leaves which were most exposed to the
light. It seemed to be owing to the same color-
ing principle which is seen in the under-sides of
the pads as well as in the calyx leaves. Yet the
rosaceous ones are chiefly interesting to me for
variety, and I am contented that lilies should be
white, and leave these higher colors to the land.
I wished to breathe the atmosphere of lilies, and
get the full impression which they are fitted to
make. The form of this flower is very perfect,
the petals are so distinctly arranged at equal in-
tervals and at all angles from nearly a vertical
to horizontal about the centre. Buds that were
half expanded were interesting, showing the reg-
ularly notched outline of the points of the petals
above the erect green calyx leaves. Some of the
bays we entered contained a quarter of an acre,
through which we with difficulty forced our boat.
First there is the low, smooth, green surface of
the pads, some of the Kalmianas purplish, then
the higher level of the pickerel weed just begin-
ning to blossom, and rising a little higher in the
rear, often extensive fields of pipes (Equi&etuTn)
making a very level appearance. Mingled with
the white lilies were the large yellow ones, and
Hosted by
Google
274 SUMMER.
the smaller, and here at least much more com-
mon, Nuphar lutea (var. Kalmiana), and the
floating heart also still in blossom, and the Bra-
senia peltata, water target or shield, not yet in
bloom, the petiole attached to its leaf, like a
boy's string to his sucking leather. The rich
violet purple of the pontederias was the more
striking as the blossoms were still rare. Nature
will soon be very lavish of this blue along the
river sides. It is a rich spike of blue flowers
with yellowish spots. Over all these flowers
hover devil's needles in their zigzag flight. On
the edge of the meadow I see blushing roses and
cornels (probably the panicled). The woods
ring with the veery this cloudy day, and I also
hear the red-eye, oven-bird, Maryland yellow-
throat, etc. — After eating our luncheon . . .
we observed that every white lily in the river
was shut, and they remained so all the afternoon
(though it was no more sunny nor cloudy than
the forenoon), except some which I had plucked
before noon and cast into the river. These had
not power to close their petals. It would be
interesting to observe how instantaneously these
lilies close at noon. I only noticed that though
there were myriads fully open before I ate my
luncheon at noon, after it, I could not find one
open anywhere for the rest of the day. . . .
Counted twenty-one fishes' nests by the shal-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 275
low store just beyond Sherman's bridge, within
less than half a rod, edge to edge, with each a
bream poised in it. In some eases the fish had
just cleared away the mud or frog spittle, expos-
ing the yellow sand or pebbles (sixteen to twen-
ty-four inches in diameter).
July 1, 1854. p. m. To Cliffs. . . . From
the hill I perceive that the air is beautifully
clear after the rain of yesterday, and not hot ;
fine grained. The landscape is fine as behind
a glass, the horizon edge distinct. The distant
vales toward the northwest mountains lie up
open and clear and elysian, like so many
Tempes. The shadows of trees are dark and
distinct. On the river I see the two broad bor-
ders of pads reflecting the light, the dividing
line between them and the water, their irregular
edge, perfectly distinct. The clouds are sepa-
rate glowing masses or blocks floating in the
sky, not threatening rain. I see from this hill
their great shadows pass slowly here and there
over the top of the green forest.
July 1, 1859. p. m. To 2d Division Brook.
. . . White water ranunculus in fresh bloom,
at least a week, ... in the shade of the bank,
a clear day. Its leaves and stems waving in the
brook are interesting, much cut and green.
July 2, 1840. I am not taken up, like Moses,
upon a mountain, to learn the law, but lifted up
Hosted by
Google
276 SUMMER.
in my seat here in the warm sunshine and genial
light.
Neither men nor things have any true mode
of invitation but to be inviting. They who are
ready to go are already invited.
Can that be a task which all things abet, and
to postpone which is to strive against Nature? .
July 2, 1851. It is a fresh, cool summer
morning. From the road here, at N. Barrett's,
at 8.30 a. m., the Great Meadows have a slight
bluish, misty tinge in part, elsewhere a sort of
hoary sheen, like a fine downiness, inconceivably
fine and silvery far away, the light reflected from
the grass blades, a sea of grass hoary with light,
the counterpart of the frost in spring. As yet
no mower has profaned it, scarcely a footstep
since the waters left ; miles of waving grass
adorning the surface of the earth.
Last night, a sultry night which compelled
one to leave all windows open, T heard two trav-
elers talking aloud, was roused out of my sleep
by their loud, day-like and somewhat unearthly
discourse, at perchance one o'clock ; from the
country, whiling away the night with loud dis-
course. I heard the words Theodore Parker and
Wendell Phillips loudly spoken, and so did half
a dozen of my neighbors who also were awak-
ened. Such is fame. It affected me like Dante
talking of the men of this world in the infernal
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 277
regions. If the travelers had called my own
name, I should equally have thought it an un-
earthly personage which it would have taken me
some hours into daylight to realize. O traveler,
have not you got any further than that ? My
genius hinted hefore I fairly awoke, " Improve
your time." What is the night that a traveler's
voice should sound so hollow in it ? that a man,
speaking aloud in it, speaking in the regions
under the earth, should utter the words Theo-
dore Parker?
A traveler ! I love his title. A traveler is
to be reverenced as such. His profession is the
best symbol of our life. Going from
toward — ; it is the history of everyone of us.
I am interested in those that travel in the
night.
It takes but little distance to make the hills
and even the meadows look blue to-day. That
principle which gives the air an azure color is
more abundant.
To-day the milk-weed is blossoming. Some of
the raspberries are ripe, the most innocent and
simple of fruits, the purest and most ethereal.
Cherries, too, are ripe.
Many large trees, especially elms, about a
house, are a sure indication of old family dis-
tinction and worth. . . . Any evidence of care
bestowed on these trees receives the traveler's
Hosted by
Google
278 SUMMER.
respect as for a nobler husbandry than the rais-
ing of corn and potatoes.
July 2, 1852. . . . Last night, as I lay awake,
I dreamed of the muddy and weedy river on
which I had been paddling, and I seemed to de-
rive some vigor from my day's experience, like
the lilies which have their roots at the bottom.
I plucked a white lily bud just ready to ex-
pand, and after keeping it in water for two days
(till July 3d), as I set about opening it, touch-
ing the lapped points of its petals, they sprang
open and rapidly expanded in my hand into a
perfect blossom with the petals as perfectly dis-
posed at equal intervals as on their native lake,
and in this case, of course, untouched by an
insect. I cut its stem short and placed it in a
broad dish of water, where it sailed about under
the breath of the beholder with a slight undulat-
ory motion. The breeze of his half -suppressed
admiration it was that filled its sail, a kind of
popular aura that may he trusted, methinks. It
was a rose-tinted one. Men will travel to the
Nile to see the lotus flower, who have never seen
in their glory the lotuses of their native streams.
The spikes of the pale lobelia, some blue, some
white, passing insensibly from one to the other,
and especially hard to distinguish in the twilight,
are quite handsome now in moist ground, rising
above the grass. The prunella has various tints
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 279
in various lights, now blue, now lilac. As the
twilight deepens into night, its color changes.
It always suggests freshness and coolness from
the places where it grows. I see the downy
heads of the senecio gone to seed, thistle-like,
but small. The gnaphaliums and this are among
the earliest to present this appearance. . . .
At the bathing- place there is a hummock
which was floated on to the meadow some springs
ago, now densely covered with the handsome
red -stemmed wild rose, — a full but irregular
clump, showing no bare stems below, but a dense
mass of shining leaves, and small, red stems above
in their midst, and on every side countless roses ;
now in the twilight more than usually beautiful
they appear, hardly closed, of a very deep rich
color, as if the rays of the departed sun still
shone through them; a more spiritual rose at
this hour, beautifully blushing ; and then the
unspeakable beauty and promise of those fair
swollen buds that spot the mass and will blossom
to-morrow, and the more distant promise of the
handsomely formed green ones which yet show
no red ; for few things are handsomer than a rose-
bud in any stage. These are mingled with a few
pure white elder blossoms and some rosaceous
or pinkish meadow-sweet. I am confident that
there can be nothing so beautiful in any culti-
vated garden with all its varieties as this wild
swamp. . . .
Hosted by
Google
Nature is reported not by him who goes forth
consciously as an observer, but in the fullness of
life. To such a one she rushes to make her re-
port. To the full heart she is all but a figure
of speeeh. This is my year of observation, and
I fancy that my friends are also more devoted to
outward observation than ever before, as if it
were an epidemic.
I cross the brook by Hubbard's little bridge.
Now nothing but the cool, invigorating scent
which is perceived at night in these low mead-
owy places where the alders and ferns grow can
restore my spirits. . . .
At this season I think we do not regard the
larger features of the landscape as In the spring,
but are absorbed in details. Then, when the
meadows were flooded, I looked far over them to
the distant woods and the outlines of the hills
which were more distinct. I should not have so
much to say of extensive water or landscapes at
this season. One is a little bewildered by the
variety of objects. There must be a certain
meagreness of details and nakedness, for wide
views.
Nine o'clock. The full moon rising (or full
last night) is revealed first by some slight clouds
above the eastern horizon looking white, the first
indication that she is about to rise, the traces of
day not yet gone in the west. There, similar
Hosted by
Google
clouds seen against a lighter sky look dark and
Leavy. Now a lower cloud in the east reflects a
more yellowish light. The moon, far over the
round globe, traveling this way, sends her light
forward to yonder cloud from which the news of
her coming is reflected to us. The moon's au-
rora ! it is without redness . . . like the dawn
of philosophy and its noon, too. At her dawn-
ing no cocks crow. How few creatures to hail
her rising, only some belated travelers that may
be abroad this night. What graduated infor-
mation of her coming ! More and more yellow
glows the low cloud with concentrating light, and
now the moon's edge suddenly appears above a
low hank of cloud not seen before, and she seems
to come forward apace without introduction,
after all. The steadiness with which she rises
with undisturbed serenity, like a queen who has
learned to walk before her court, is glorious, and
she soon reaches the open sea of the heavens.
She seems to advance (so perchance flows the
blood in the veins of the beholder) by grace-
ful, sallying essays, trailing her garment up the
sky.
July 2, 1854. 4 a. m. To HiU. Hear the
chip-bird and robin very lively at dawn. From
the hill, as the sun rises, I see a fine river-fog
wreathing the trees, elms and maples, by the
shore. ... It is clear summer now. The cocks
Hosted by
Google
282 SUMMER.
crow hoarsely, ushering in the long-drawn, sum-
mer-day.
p. M. An abundance of red lilies in an up-
land dry meadow, from one to two feet high,
upright-flowered, more or less dark shade of red,
freckled and sometimes wrinkle-edged petals.
Must have been out some days. This has come
with the intense summer heat, a torrid July heat.
. . . The spring now seems far behind, yet I do
not remember the interval ; I feel as if some
broad, invisible, Lethean gulf lay between this
and spring.
July 2, 1855. Young bobolinks are now flut-
tering over the meadow, but I nave not been
able to find a nest, so concealed are they in the
meadow grass.
At 2 p. M. Thermometer north side of house,
93°.
Air over river at Hubbard's bathing- place,
88°.
Water six feet from shore and one foot deep,
84J°.
Water near surfaee in middle when up to
neck, 834°.
Water at bottom in same place, pulling [ther-
mometer] up quickly, 83j°.
Yet the air on the wet body, there being a
strong southwest wind, feels colder than the
water.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 283
July 2, 1857. Calla palu&tris with its con-
volute point, like the cultivated, at the south end
of Gowing's swamp. Having found this in one
place, I now find it in another. Many an object
is not seen, though it falls within the range of
our visual ray, because it does not come within
the range of our intellectual ray. So in the
largest sense we find only the world we look for.
July 2, 1860. Yesterday I detected the small-
est grass that I know, apparently Festuca tenella f
It seemed to be out of bloom. In a dry path,
two to four inches high, like a moss.
July 2, 1858. a. m. Start for the White
Mountains in a private carriage with E
H . Spent the noon close by the old Dun-
stable graveyard, by a small stream north of it.
. . . Walked to and along the river, and bathed
in it. ... What a relief and expansion of my
thoughts when I came out from that inland posi-
tion by the graveyard to this broad river's shore.
This vista was incredible there. Suddenly I see
a broad reach of blue beneath, with its curves
and headlands, liberating me from the more ter-
rene earth. What a difference it makes whether
I spend my four hours nooning between the hills
by yonder roadside, or on the brink of this fair
river, within a quarter of a mile of that ! Here
the earth is fluid to my thought, the sky is re-
flected from beneath, and around yonder cape is
Hosted by
Google
284 SUMMER.
the highway to other continents. This current
allies me with the world. Be careful to sit in
an elevating and inspiring place. There my
thoughts were confined and trivial, and I hid
myself from the gaze of travelers. Here they
are expanded and elevated, and I am charmed
by the beautiful river reach. It is equal to a
different season and country, and creates a dif-
ferent mood. . . . This channel conducts our
thoughts as well as our bodies to classic and fa-
mous ports, and allies us to all that is fair and
great. I like to remember that at the end of
half a day's walk I can stand on the bank of the
Merrimaek. It is just wide enough to interrupt
the land, and leads my eye and thought down
its channel to the sea. A river is superior to a
lake in its liberating influence. It has motion
and indefinite length. A river touching the
back of a town is like a wing, unused it may be
as yet, but ready to waft it over the world.
With its rapid current, it is a slightly fluttering
The wood-thrush sings almost wherever I go,
eternally recommending the world morning and
evening for us. Again it seems habitable and
more than habitable to us.
July 4, 1858. ... It is far more independent
to travel on foot, you have to sacrifice so much
to the horse. You cannot choose the most agree-
Hosted by
Google
able places in which to spend the noon, com-
manding the finest views, because commonly
there is no water there, or you cannot get there
with your horse. New Hampshire being a more
hilly and newer State than Massachusetts, it is
very difficult to find a suitable place to camp in
near the road, affording water, a good prospect,
and retirement. Several times we rode on, as
much as ten miles, with a tired horse, looking
in vain for such a place, and then almost invari-
ably camped in some low and unpleasant spot.
There are very few, scarcely any, lanes, or even
paths and bars along the road. As we are be-
yond the range of the chestnut, the few bars that
might be taken down are long and heavy planks
or slabs intended to confine sheep, and there is
no passable road behind. Besides, when you
have chosen your place, one must stay behind to
watch your effects, while the other looks about.
I frequently envied the independence of the
walker who can spend the midday hours and
take his lunch in the most agreeable spot on his
route. The only alternative is to spend your
noon at some trivial inn, pestered by flies and
tavern loungers.
Camped within a mile south of Senter Harbor,
in a birch wood on the right, near the lake.
Heard in the night a loon, screech-owl, and
cuekoo ; and our horse, tied to a slender birch
Hosted by
Google
close by, restlessly pawing the ground all night,
and whinnying to us whenever we showed our-
selves, asking for something more than meal to
fill his belly with.
July 5, 1858. Go on through Senter Harbor,
and ascend Red Hill in Moultonboro. Dr.
Jackson says it is so called from the Uva ursi
on it turning red in the fall. On the top we
boil a dipper of tea for our dinner, spend some
hours, having carried up water for the last half
mile. Enjoyed the famous view of Winnepiseo-
gee and its islands south-easterly, and Squaui
Lake on the west, but I was as much attracted
at this hour by the wild mountain view on the
northward. Chocorua and the Sandwich Moun-
tains a dozen miles off seemed the boundary of
cultivation on that side, as indeed they are.
They are, as it were, the impassable southern
barrier of the mountain region, themselves lofty
and bare, and filling the whole northerly hori-
zon, with the broad valley of Sandwich between
you and them. Over their ridges, in one or two
places, you detect a narrow blue edging or a
peak of the loftier White Mountains, strictly so
called. . . . Chocorua (which the inhabitants
pronounce Shecorway, or Corway) is in some re-
spects the wildest and most imposing of all the
~\X hite Mountain peaks. . . . Descended and
rode along the west and northwest side of Ossi-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 287
pee Mountain. Sandwich, in a large, level spate
surrounded by mountains, lay on our left. Here
first in Moultonboro I heard the tea-lee of the
white-throated sparrow. We were all the after-
noon riding along under Ossipee Mountain,
which would not be left behind, unexpectedly
large, still lowering over our path. Have new
and memorable views of Chocorua as we get
round it eastward. Stop at Tamworth village
for the night. We are now near the edge of
a wild and unsettleable mountain region lying
northwest, apparently including parts of Albany
and Waterville. The landlord said that bears
were plenty in it, that there was a little interval
on Swift River that might be occupied, and that
was all.
July 6, 1858. 5.30 a. m. Keep on through
North Tamworth, and breakfast by shore of one
of the Ossipee Lakes. Chocorua north-north-
west. Here I see loons. . . . Chocorua is as
interesting a peak as any to remember. You
may be jogging along steadily for a day before
you get round it and leave it behind, first seeing
it on the north, then northwest, then west, and
at last southwesterly, ever stern, rugged, [appar-
ently] inaccessible, and omnipresent. . . . The
scenery in Conway and onward to North Conway
is surprisingly grand. You are steadily advanc-
ing into an amphitheatre of mountains. I do
Hosted by
Google
288 SUMMER.
not know exactly how long we had seen one of
the highest peaks before us in the extreme north-
west, with snow on its side just below the sum-
mit, when a hoy, a little beyond Conway, called
it Mount Washington. If it were that, the snow
must have been in Tuckerman's Ravine, which,
methinks, is rather too low. Perhaps it was that
we afterwards saw on Mount Adams. . . . The
road, which is for the most part level, winds
along the Saco through groves of maples, etc.,
on the intervals, with little of rugged New
Hampshire under your feet, often a soft and
sandy road. The scenery is remarkable for this
contrast of level interval having soft and shady
groves with mountain grandeur and ruggedness.
Often from the midst of level maple groves
which remind you only of classic lowlands, you
look out through a vista of the most rugged scen-
ery of New England. It is quite unlike New
Hampshire generally, quite unexpected by me,
and suggests a superior culture. . . . After leav-
ing North Conway, the higher White Mountains
were less seen, if at all. They had not appeared
in pinnacles as sometimes described, but broad
and massive. Only one of the higher summits,
called by the boy Mount Washington, was con-
spicuous. ... At Bartlett Corner we turned up
the Ellis River and took our nooning on its bank,
by the bridge just this side of Jackson Centre,
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 289
in a rock-maple grove. . ■ . There are but few
narrow intervals on the road, two or three only
after passing Jackson, and each is improved by
a settler. . . . Hear the night-warbler all along
thus far. Saw the bones of a bear at the house
[of one Wentworth, afterwards their attendant]
and camped rather late, on right-hand side of
road just beyond, a little more than four miles
from Jackson. . . . Heard at evening the wood-
thrush, veery, white-throated sparrow, etc. . . .
"Wentworth said he was much' troubled by the
bears. They killed his sheep and calves, and
destroyed his corn when in the milk, close by
his house. He has trapped and killed many of
them, and brought home and reared the young.
July 7, 1858. Having engaged the services
of Wentworth to carry up some of our baggage,
and to keep our camp, we rode onward to the
Glen House, eight miles further, sending back
our horse and wagon to his house. He has lived
here thirty years, and is a native. . . . Began
the ascent of the mountain road at 11.30 a.m.
Near the foot of the ledge and limit of trees,
only their dead trunks standing, probably fir and
spruce, a merry collier and his assistant, who had
been making coal for the summit, and were pre-
paring to leave the next morning, made us wel-
come to their shanty, where we spent the night,
and entertained us with their talk. We here
Hosted by
Google
290 SUMMER.
boiled some of our beef tongues, a very strong
wind pouring in gusts down the funnel, and scat-
tering the fire about through the cracked stove.
This man . . . had imported goats on to the
mountain, and milked them to supply us with
milk for our coffee. . . . The wind blowing down
the funnel set fire to a pile of dirty bed-quilts
while I was out, and came near burning up the
building. There were many barrels of spoiled
beef in the cellar, and the collier said that a
person coming down the mountain, some time
ago, looked into the cellar and saw five wild
cats (loups cerviers) there. He had heard two
fighting like cats near by a few nights before.
July 8, 1858. Though a fair day, the sun
did not rise clear. I started before my com-
panions, wishing to secure a clear view from
the summit, while they accompanied the collier,
who, with his assistant, was conducting his goats
up to the summit for the first time. He led the
old one, and the rest followed.
I reached the summit about half an hour
before my party, and enjoyed a good view,
though it was hazy. By the time the rest ar-
rived, a cloud invested us all, a cool, driving
mist, which wet one considerably. As I looked
downward over the rocky surface I saw tinges
of blue sky and a light as of breaking away
close to the rocky edge of the mountain, far
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 29t
below me, instead of above, showing that there
was the edge of the cloud. It was surprising
to look down thus under the cloud, at an angle
of thirty or forty degrees, for the only evidences
of a clear sky and breaking away. There was
a ring of light encircling the summit thus close
to the rocks under the thick cloud, and the
evidences of a blue sky in that direction were
just as strong as ordinarily when you look up-
ward. . . .
I observed that the enduring snow-drifts were
such as had lodged under the southeast cliffs,
having been blown over the summit by the
northwest wind. They lie up under such cliffs,
and at the head of the ravines on the southeast
slopes. . . .
About 8.15 a. m., being still in a dense fog,
we started direct for Tuckerman's Ravine, I hav-
ing taken the bearing of it before the fog, but
Spaulding [one of " the landlords of the Tip-
Top and Summit Houses "], also went some ten
rods with us, and pointed toward the head of
the Ravine, which was about S. 15° W. ■ . .
The landlords were rather anxious about us. I
looked at my compass every four or five rods,
and then walked toward some rock in our
course, but frequently, after taking three or four
steps, though the fog was no more dense, I would
lose the rock I steered for. The fog was very
Hosted by
Google
292 SUMMER
bewildering. You would think the rock you
steered for was some large boulder twenty rods
off, or perchance it looked like the brow of a dis-
tant spur, but a dozen steps would take you to
it, and it would suddenly have sunk into the
ground. Discovering this illusion, I said to my
companions, " You see that boulder of a peculiar
form, slanting over another. Well, that is in
our course. How large do you think it is ? and
how far ? " To my surprise, one answered, three
rods, but the other said nine. I guessed four,
and we all thought it about eight feet high. We
could not see beyond it, and it looked like the
highest point of a ridge before us. At the end
of twenty-one paces, or three and a half rods, I
stepped upon it less than two feet high, and I
could not have distinguished it from the hundred
similar ones around it, if I had not kept my
eye on it all the while. It is unsafe for one to
ramble over these mountains at any time, unless
he is prepared to move with as much certainty
as if he were solving a geometrical problem. A
cloud may at any moment settle around him, and
unless he has a compass and knows which way
to go, he will be lost at once. One lost on the
summit of these mountains should remember
that if he will travel due east or west eight or
nine miles, or commonly much less, he will strike
a public road ; or whatever direction he might
Hosted by
Google
take, the average distance would not be more
than eight miles, and the extreme distance
twenty. Follow some watercourse running
easterly or westerly. If the weather were
severe on the summit, so as to prevent search-
ing for the summit houses or the path, I should
at once take a westward course from the southern
part of the range, and an eastward one from the
northern part. To travel then with security, a
person must know his bearings at every step, be
it fair weather or foul. An ordinary rock in a
fog, being in the apparent horizon, is exagger-
ated to perhaps ten times its size and distance.
You will think you have gone further than you
have, to get to it. Descending straight by com-
pass through the cloud toward the head of Tuck-
erman's Ravine, we found it an easy descent
over, for the most part, bare roeks, not very
large, with at length moist, springy places, green
with sedge, etc., between little sloping shelves of
green meadow, where the hellebore grew within
half a mile of the top, and the Oldenlandia ccerw-
lea was abundantly out, very large and fresh,
surpassing ours in the spring. . . . We crossed
a narrow portion of the snow, but found it un-
expectedly hard and dangerous to traverse. I
tore up my nails in efforts to save myself from
sliding down its steep surface. The snow field
now formed an irregular crescent on the steep
Hosted by
Google
294 SUMMER.
slope at the head of the ravine, some sixty rods
wide horizontally, or from north to south, and
twenty-five rods wide from upper to lower side.
It may have been a half dozen feet thick in some
places, but it diminished sensibly in the rain
while we were there ; said to be all gone com-
monly by the end of August. The surface was
hard, difficult to work your heels into, a per-
fectly regular steep slope, steeper than an ordi-
nary roof from top to bottom. A considerable
stream, a source of the Saco, was flowing out
from beneath it, where it had worn a low arch
a rod or more wide. Here were the phenomena of
winter and earliest spring contrasted with sum-
mer. On the edge of and beneath the over-
arching snow, many plants were just pushing up
as in spring. The great plaited elliptical buds
of the hellebore had just pushed up there, even
under the edge of the snow, and also bluets.
Also, close to the edge of the snow, the bare, up-
right twigs of a willow, with small, silvery buds,
not yet expanded, of a satiny lustre, one to two
feet high (apparently Saf.ix re])ens~), but not, as
I noticed, procumbent, while a rod off, on each
side, where it had been melted some time, it
was going to seed, and fully leaved out. Saw
also what was apparently the Salix phi/liclfiiliii.
The surface of the snow was dirty, being cov-
ered with cinder-like rubbish of vegetation which
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 295
had blown on to it. Yet from the camp it looked
quite white and pure. For thirty or forty rods,
at least, down the stream, you could see the
print where the snow-field had recently melted.
It was a dirty brown flattened stubble, not yet
at all greened, covered with a blackish, shining
dirt, the dust of the snow-crust. Looking closely
I saw that it was composed, in great part, of
golden-rods (if not asters), now quite flattened,
with other plants. I should have said that from
the edge of the ravine, having reached the lower
edge of the cloud, we came out into the sun
again, much to our satisfaction, and discovered
a little lake called Hermit Lake, about a mile
off, at the bottom of the ravine, just within the
limit of the trees. For this we steered, in order
to camp by it, for the sake of the protection of
the wood. But following down the edge of the
stream, the source of Ellis River, which was
quite a brook within a stone's throw of its head,
we soon found it very bad walking in the scrubby
fir and spruce, and therefore, when we had gone
about two thirds of the way to the lake, decided
to camp in the midst of the dwarf firs, clearing
away a space with onr hatchet. Having cleared
a space with some difficulty where the trees were
seven or eight feet high, Wentworth kindled a
fire on the lee side, without, against my advice,
removing the moss, which was especially dry on
Hosted by
Google
the rocks, and directly ignited and set fire to
the fir leaves, spreading off with great violence
and crackling over the mountain, and making
us jump for our haggage. Fortunately, it did
not burn a foot toward us, for we could not have
run in that thicket. It spread particularly fast
in the procumbent creeping spruce, scarcely a
foot deep, and made a few acres of deers' horns,
thus leaving our mark on the mountain side.
We thought at first it would run for miles, and
Wentworth said it would do no harm, — the
more there was burned the better ; but such was
the direction of the wind that it soon reached
the brow of a ridge east of us, and then burned
very slowly down its east side. Yet Willey
says, p. 23 [of his "Incidents of White Moun-
tain History"], speaking of the dead trees,
"bucks' horns," "Fire could not have caused
the death of these trees ; for fire will not spread
here in consequence of the humidity of the whole
region at this elevation," and he attributes their
death to the cold of 1816. Yet fire did spread
above the limit of trees in this ravine. — Finally,
we kept on, leaving the fire raging, down to the
first little lake, walking in the stream, jumping
from rock to rock with it. It may have fallen a
thousand feet, within a mile below the snow.
We camped on a slightly rising ground between
that first little lake and the stream, in a dense
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 297
fir and spruce wood, thirty feet high, though it
was but the limit of trees there. On our way
we found the Arnica mollis (recently begun to
bloom), a very fragrant yellow-rayed flower by
the side of the brook, also half way up the
ravine. The Alnus viridis was a prevailing
shrub all along this stream, seven or eight feet
high near our camp. Near the snow it was
dwarfish, and still in flower, but in fruit only
below ; had a glossy, roundish, wrinkled, green,
sticky leaf. Also a little Ranunculus abortivus
by the brook, in bloom. . . . Our camp was op-
posite a great slide on the south, apparently a
quarter of a mile wide, with the stream between
us and it, and I resolved, if a great storm should
occur, that we would flee to higher ground north-
east. The little pond by our side was perfectly
clear and cool, without weeds, and the meadow
by it was dry enough to sit down in. When I
looked up casually toward the crescent of snow,
I would mistake it for the sky, a white glowing
sky or cloud, it was so high, while the dark earth
or mountain side above it passed for a dark
cloud.
In the course of the afternoon, we heard, as
we thought, a faint shout, and it occurred to me
that E , for whom I had left a note at the
Glen House, might possibly be looking for me,
but soon Wentworth decided that it must he a
Hosted by
Google
298 SUMMER.
"bear, for they make a noise like a woman in dis-
tress. He has caught many of them. Never-
theless we shouted in return, and waved a light
coat on the meadow. After an hour or two had
elapsed, we heard the voice again nearer, and
saw two men. I went up the stream to meet
B and B — — , wet, ragged, and bloody from
black flies. I had told B to look out for a
smoke and a white tent. We had made a smoke
sure enough. They were on the edge of the
ravine when they shouted, and heard us answer,
about a mile distant, over all the roar of the
stream. They also saw our coat waved and our-
selves. We slept five in the tent that night, and
found it quite warm. It rained in the night,
putting out the fire we had set. The wood-
thrush, wliick Weutwoi tli called the nightingale,
sang at evening and in the morning, and the
same bird which I heard on Monadnock, I think,
and then thought might be the Blackbumian
warbler ; also the veery.
July 9, 1858. Walked to Hermit Lake some
forty rods northeast. Jt was clear and cold, with
scarcely a plant in it, of perhaps half an acre.
H tried in vain for trout here. From a low
ridge east of it was a fine view of the ravine.
Heard a bull-frog in the lake, and afterwards saw
a large toad part way up the ravine. Our camp
was about on the limit of trees, and may have
Hosted by
Google
been from twenty-five hundred to three thousand
feet below the summit. I was here surprised to
discover, looking down through the fir-tops, a
large, bright, downy, fair weather cloud, cover-
ing the lower world far beneath us, and there it
was the greater part of the time we were there,
like a lake, while the snow and alpine summit
were to be seen above us on the other side at
about the same angle. The pure white crescent
of snow was our sky, and the dark mountain side
above, our permanent cloud. — We had the JFrin-
gitta hiemalis with its usual note about our camp.
"Wentworth said it was common, and bred about
his house. I afterwards saw it in the valleys about
the mountains. I had seen the white-throated
sparrow near his house. This also, he said, com-
monly bred there on the ground. — The wood we
were in was fir and spruce. Along the brook
grew the Alnus virUlix. Salkc Torreyana(T),
canoe birch, red cherry, mountain ash, etc. . . .
I ascended the stream in the afternoon and got
out of the ravine at its head, after dining on chi-
ogenes tea, which plant I could gather without
moving from my log seat. We liked it so well
that B gathered a parcel to carry home. In
most places it was scarcely practicable to get out
of the ravine on either side on account of the
precipices. I judged it to be one thousand or.
fifteen hundred feet deep. With care you could
Hosted by
Google
300 SUMMER.
ascend by some slides. I found we might have
camped in the scrub firs above the edge of the
ravine, though it would have been cold and
windy and comparatively unpleasant there, for
we should have been most of the time in a
cloud. The dense patches of dwarf fir and
spruce scarcely rose above the rocks which they
concealed. At a glance, looking over, or even
walking over this dense shrubbery, you would
think it nowhere more than a foot or two deep,
and the trees at most only an inch or two in
diameter, but by searching you would find hol-
low places in it six or eight feet deep, where the
firs were from six to ten inches in diameter.
By clearing a space here with your hatchet you
could find a shelter for your tent, and also fuel,
and water was close by above the head of the
ravine. The strong wind and the snow are said
to flatten these trees down thus. I noticed that
this shrubbery just above the ravine as well as
in it was principally fir, while the yet more
dwarfish and prostrate portion on the edge was
spruce.
Returning I sprained my ankle in jumping
down the brook, so that I could not sleep that
night, nor walk the next day. — We had com-
monly clouds above and below us, though it was
clear where we were. They commonly reached
about down to the edge of the ravine. — The
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 301
black flies which pestered us till into evening
were of various sizes, the largest more than one
eighth of an inch long. There were scarcely
any mosquitoes, it was so cool.
A small owl came in the evening and sat
within twelve feet of us, turning its head this
way and that, and peering at 113 inquisitively.
July 10, 1858. . . . When I tasted the water
under the snow arch ... I was disappointed
at its warmth, though it was in part melted snow,
but half a mile lower down it tasted colder.
Probably the air being cooled by the neigh-
borhood of the snow, it seemed thus warmer by
contrast. . . . The most peculiar and memorable
songster was the one with a note like that I heard
on Monadnock, keeping up an exceedingly brisk
and lively strain. It was remarkable for its in-
cessant twittering flow. Yet we never got sight
of the bird, at least while singing, so that I could
not identify it, and my lameness prevented my
pursuing it. I heard it afterwards even in the
Franconia Notch. It was surprising from its
steady, uninterrupted flow, for, when one stopped,
another appeared to take up the strain. It re-
minded me of a fine corkscrew stream issuing
with incessant tinkle from a cork, flowing rapidly,
and I said he had pulled out the spile and left
it running. That was the rhythm, but with a
sharper tinkle of course. It had no more variety
Hosted by
Google
302 SUMMER.
than that, and was more remarkable for its con-
tinuance and monotony than any other bird's note
I ever heard. It evidently belongs only to cool
mountain sides high up amid the fir and spruce.
I saw ever flitting through the fir tops restlessly
a small white and dark bird, sylvia-like, which
may have been it. Sometimes they appeared to
be attracted by our smoke. The note was so in-
cessant that at length you only noticed when it
ceased.
The black flies were of various sizes, much
larger tlian I noticed in Maine. They compelled
me most of the time to sit in the smoke, which
I preferred to wealing a veil. They lie along
your forehead in a line where your hat touches
it, or behind your ears, or about your throat if
not protected by a heard, or get into the rims of
the eyes or between the lingers, and there suck
till they are crushed. But fortunately they do
not last far into the evening, and a wind or a fog
disperses them. I did not mind them much, hut
I noticed that men working on the highway made
a fire to keep them off. Anything but mosqui-
toes by night. I find many black flies accident-
ally pressed in my botany and plant books. A
botanist's books, if he has ever visited the prim-
itive northern woods, will be pretty sure to con-
tain such specimens.
H found, near the edge of the ravine
Hosted by
Google
above, Rhododendron lapponicum, some time
out of bloom, in the midst of empetmm and
moss, according to Durand, at 68° in Greenland,
Arctostaphylos alpina going to seed, Polygo-
num viviparum, in prime according to Durand,
at all Kane's stations, and Salfa; herbacea, ac-
cording to Durand, at 73° in Greenland, a pretty,
trailing, roundish-leaved willow going to seed,
but apparently not as early as the Salix uva
ursi.
July 11, 1858. . . . One of the slender spruce
trees by our camp, which we cut down, twenty-
eight feet high, and only six and a half inches
in diameter, though it looked young and thrifty,
had about 80 rings, and the firs were at least as
old. ...
After some observation I concluded that it
was true, as Wentworth had intimated, that the
lower limbs of the spruce slanted downward more
generally than those of the fir.
July 12, 1858. It having cleared up, we
shouldered our packs and commenced our de-
scent by a path two and a half or three miles to
carriage road, not descending a great deal. ■ . .
Trees at first, fir and spruce, then canoe birches
increased, and, after two miles, yellow birch be-
gan.
I had noticed that the trees of the ravine
camp, fir and spruce, did not stand firmly. Two
Hosted by
Google
or three of us eould have pulled down one thirty
feet high and six or seven inches thick. They
were easily rocked, lifting their horizontal roots
each time, which reminded me of what is said
about the Indians, that they sometimes bend
over a young tree, burying a chief under its
roots and letting it spring hack, for his monu-
ment and protection. — In the afternoon, we rode
along, three of us, northward and northwestward
on our way round the mountains, going through
Gorham. We camped one and a half miles west
of Gorham by the roadside on the bank of Moose
River.
July 13, 1858. This morning it rained, keep-
ing us in camp till near noon, for we did not
wish to lose the view of the mountains as we rode
along. . . .
I noticed, as we were on our way in the after-
noon, that when finally it began to rain hard,
the clouds settling down, we had our first dis-
tinct view of the mountain outline for a short
time. ... It rained steadily and soakingly the
rest of the afternoon as we kept on through Ran-
dolph and Kilkenny to Jefferson Hill, so that
we had no clear view of the mountains. We
put up at a store just opposite the town hall on
Jefferson Hill. It cleared up at sunset after
two days' rain, and we had a fine view, repaying
us for our journey and wetting. . . . When the
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 306
gun set to us, the bare summits were of a deli-
cate rosaceous color, passing through violet into
the deep, dark-blue or purple of the night, which
already invested the lower parts. This night-
shadow was wonderfully blue, reminding me of
the blue shadows on snow. There was an after-
glow in which these tints and variations were
repeated. It was the grandest mountain view I
ever got. In the meanwhile, white clouds were
gathering again about the summits, first about
the highest, appearing to form there, but some-
times to send off an emissary to initiate a cloud
upon a lower neighboring peak. You could tell
little about the comparative distance of a cloud
and a peak till you saw that the former actually
impinged on the latter.
July 14, 1858. This forenoon we rode on
through Whitefield to Bethlehem, clouds for
the most part concealing the higher mountains.
. . . Camped half a mile up the side of Lafay-
ette.
July 15. Continued the ascent of Lafayette.
It is perhaps three and a half miles from the
road to the top by path along a winding ridge.
... At about one mile or three quarters below
the summit, just above the limit of trees, we
came to a little pond, may be of a quarter of an
acre (with a yet smaller one near by), one of
the sources of the Pemigewasset. . . . The out-
Hosted by
Google
306 SUMMER.
let of this pond was considerable, but soon lost
beneath the rocks.
In the dwarf fir thickets above and below this
pond were the most beautiful linnajas I ever
saw. They grew quite densely, full of rose pur-
ple flowers (deeper reddish- purple than ours,
which are pale), perhaps nodding over the brink
of a spring. Altogether the finest mountain
flowers I saw, lining the side of the narrow horse
track through the fir scrub. Just below the top,
reclined on a dense bed of Salix uva ttrsi, five
feet in diameter by four or five inches deep, a
good spot to sit on, mixed with a rush, amid
rocks. This willow was generally showing its
down. — We had fine weather on the mountain,
and from the summit a good view of Mount
Washington and the rest, though it was a little
hazy in the horizon. It was a wild mountain
and forest scene from south- southeast round
eastwardly to north-northeast. On the north-
west and down as far as Jlonadnoek, the countiy
was half cleared, the "leopard "-spotted land.
Boiled tea for our dinner by the little pond,
the head of the Pemigewasset. . . . We made
our fire on the moss and lichens by a rock amid
the shallow fir and spruce, burning the dead fir
twigs, or " deer's horns." I cut off a flourishing
fir three feet high and not flattened at the top
yet. This was one and a quarter inches in di-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 307
ameter, and bad thirty-four rings. Another
flourishing one fifteen inches high had twelve
rings at ground. . . . Another, three feet high,
fresh and vigorous, without a flat top as yet, had
its woody part one and an eighth inches in diam-
eter, the bark being one eighth inch thick, and
sixty-one rings. There were no signs of decay,
though it was, as usual, mossy or covered with
licheus. . . .
When half way down the mountain amid the
spruce, we saw two pine grossbeaks, male and
female, and looked for a nest, but in vain. They
were remarkably tame. . . . The male flew near
inquisitively, uttering a low twitter, and perched
fearlessly within four feet of us, eyeing us and
pluming himself, and plucking and eating the
leaves of the Amelanchi.cr nllgocarpa ou which
he sat for several minutes. The female, mean-
time, was a rod off. They were evidently breed-
ing there, yet neither Wilson nor Nuttall speak
of their breeding iu the United States.
At the base of the mountain over the road
heard singing, and saw at the same place where
I heard him the evening before, a splendid rose-
breasted grossbeak. I had before mistaken him
at first for a tanager, then for a red-eye, but was
not satisfied. Now with ray glass t distinguished
him sitting quite still high above the road at
the entrance of the mountain path, in the deep
Hosted by
Google
woods, and singing steadily for twenty minutes.
Its note was much more powerful than that of
the tanager or red-eye. It had not the hoarse-
ness of the tanager's, and more sweetness and
fullness than that of the red-eye. . . . Rode on
and stopped at Morrison's (once Tilton's) Inn
in West Thornton.
July 16, 1858. Continue on through Thorn-
ton and Campion. The butternut is first noticed
in these towns, a common tree.
About the mountains were wilder and rarer
birds, more or less arctic, like the vegetation. I
did not even hear the robin in them, and when
I had left them a few miles behind, it was a
great change and surprise to hear the lark, the
wood-pewee, the robin, and the bobolink (for the
last had not done singing). On the mountains,
especially at Tuckerman's Ravine, the notes of
even familiar birds sounded strange to me. I
hardly knew the wood-thrush and veery and
oven-bird at first. They sing differently there.
. . . "We were not troubled at all by black flies
after leaving the Franconia Notch. It is only
apparently in primitive woods that they work.
Saw chestnuts first and frequently in Franklin
and Boscawen, about 43&° north, or half a degree
higher than Emerson puts it. . . . Of oaks I
saw and heard only of the red in northern New
Hampshire. The witch-hazel was very abundant
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 309
and large there and about the mountains.
Lodged at tavern in Franklin, west side of
river.
July 17, 1858. Passed by Webster's place,
three miles this side of the village ; some half
dozen houses there, no store, nor public build-
ings. Very quiet; road lined with elms and
maples. Railroad between house and barn. The
farm apparently a level and rather sandy intei>
val. Nothing particularly attractive about it,
A plain, public grave-yard within its limits.
Saw the grave of Ebenezer Webster, Esq., who
died 1806, aged sixty-seven, and of Abigail, bis
wife, who died 1816, aged seventy-six, probably
Webster's father and mother. . . . Webster was
born two or more miles northwest, house now
gone. . . . Reached Weare, and put up at a
quiet and agreeable house, without any sign or
bar-room. Many Friends in this town. Pills-
bury and Rogers known here. The former lived
in Henniker, the next town.
July 18, 1858. Keep on through New Bos-
ton, etc., to Hollis, . . . and at evening to Pep-
perell. A marked difference when we enter
Massachusetts in roads, farms, houses, trees,
fences, etc. ; a great improvement, showing an
older settled country. In New Hampshire there
is a great want of shade trees ; the roads bleak
or sunny, from which there is no escape. What
Hosted by
Google
310 SUMMER
barbarians we are ! The convenience of the
traveler is very little consulted. He merely has
the privilege of crossing somebody's farm by a
particular narrow and may be unpleasant path.
The individual retains all the rights as to trees,
fruit, wash of the road, etc. On the other hand,
these should belong to mankind inalienably.
The road should be of ample width and adorned
with trees expressly for the use of the traveler.
There should be broad recesses in it, especially
at springs and watering-places, where he can
turn out, and rest or camp, if he will. I feel
commonly as if I were condemned to drive
through somebody's cow -yard or huckleberry
pasture by a narrow lane, and if I make a fire
by the roadside to boil my hasty pudding, the
farmer comes running over to see if I am not
burning up his stuff,
July 19, 1858. Got home at noon. . . . We
might easily have built us a shed of spruce bark
at the foot of Tuckerman's Ravine. I thought
that I might in a few moments strip off the bark
of a spruce a little bigger than myself and seven
feet long, letting it curl, as it naturally would.
then crawl into it and be protected from any
rain. Wentworth said that he had sometimes
stripped off birch bark two feet wide, and put
his head through a slit in the middle, letting the
ends fall down before and behind as he walked
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 311
— The slides in Tuckerman's Ravine appeared
to be a series of deep gullies side by side, where
sometimes it appeared as if a very large rock
had slid down without turning over, plowing this
deep furrow all the way, only a few rods wide.
Some of the slides were streams of rocks a rod
or more in diameter each. In some cases which
I noticed, the ravine side had evidently been
undermined by water on the lower side.
It is surprising how much more bewildering
is a mountain top than a level area of the same
extent. Its ridges and shelves and ravines add
greatly to its apparent extent and diversity.
You may be separated from your party by step-
ping only a rod or two out of the path. We
turned off three or four rods to the pond on our
way up Lafayette, knowing that H was be-
hind, and so we lost him for three quarters of
an hour, and did not see him again till we
reached the summit. One walking a few rods
more to the right or left is not seen over the
ridge of the summit, and, other things being
equal, this is truer the nearer you are to the
apex. If you take one side of a rock, and your
companion another, it is enough to separate you
sometimes for the rest of the ascent.
On these mountain summits or near them, you
find small and almost uninhabited ponds, appar-
ently without fish, sources of rivers, still and
Hosted by
Google
312 SUMMER.
cold, strange and weird as condensed clouds, of
which, nevertheless, you make tea ! surrounded
by dryish bogs in which, perchance, you may de-
tect traces of the bear or loup cervier.
We got the best views of the mountains from
Conway, Jefferson, Bethlehem, and Campton.
Conway combines the Italian (?) level, and soft-
ness with Alpine peaks around. — Jefferson
offers the eompletest view of the range a dozen
or more miles distant, the place from which to
behold the manifold varying lights of departing
day on the summits. — Bethlehem also afforded
a complete but generally more distant view of
the range, and, with respect to the highest sum-
mits, more diagonal,
Campton afforded a fine distant view of the
pyramidal Franconia Mountains, with the lump-
ish Profile Mountain. The last view, with its
smaller intervals and partial view of the great
range far in the north, was somewhat like that
from Conway. ...
It is remarkable -that what you may call trees
on the White Mountains (i. e., the forest), cease
abruptly, with those about a dozen or more feet
high, and then succeeds a distinct kind of
growth, quite dwarfish and flattened, and con-
fined almost entirely to fir and spruce, as if it
marked the limit of almost perpetual snow, as if
it indicated a zone where the trees were peculi-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 313
arly oppressed by the snow, cold, wind, etc. The
transition from these flattened firs and spruces
to shrubless rocks is not nearly so abrupt as
from upright or slender trees to these dwarfed
thickets.
July 3, 1840. When Alexander appears, the
Hereynian and Dodonean woods seem to wave a
welcome to him. Do not thoughts and men's
lives enrich the earth and change the aspect of
things as much as a new growth of wood ?
What are Godfrey and Gonsalve unless we
breathe a life into them, and reenact their ex-
ploits as a prelude to our own ? The past is
only so heroic as we see it ; it is the canvas on
which our conception of heroism is painted, the
dim prospectus of our future field. We are
dreaming of what we are to do.
The last sunrise I witnessed seemed to out-
shine the splendor of all preceding ones, and I
was convinced it behoved man to dawn as
freshly, and with (equal promise and steadiness
advance into the career of ]i£o, with as lofty and
serene a countenance to move onward, through
his midday, to a yet fairer and more promising
setting. Has the day grown old when it sets ?
and shall man wear out sooner than the sun ?
In the crimson colors of the west I discern the
budding lines of dawn. To my western brother
it is rising pure and bright as it did to me, but
S»*
Hosted by
Google
314 SUMMER.
the evening exhibits in the still rear of day the
beauty which through morning and noon escaped
me. When we are oppressed by the heat and
turmoil of the noon, let us remember that the
sun which scorches us with brazen beams is gild-
ing the hills of morning, and. awaking the wood-
land choirs for other men.
We will have a dawn and noon and serene
sunset in ourselves.
What we call the gross atmosphere of evening
is the accumulated deed of the day, which ab-
sorbs the rays of beauty, and shows more richly
than the naked promise of the dawn. By ear-
nest toil in the heat of the noon, let us get ready
a rich western blaze against the evening of our
lives.
. . . The sky is delighted with strains [of
music] which the connoisseur rejects. It seems
to say " Now is this my own earth." In music
are the centripetal and centrifugal forces. The
universe only needed to hear a divine harmony
that every star might fall into its proper place
and assume a true sphericity.
July 3, 1852. . . . The Chimaphila umbellata,
winter-green, must have been in blossom some
time. The back side of its petals, " cream-col-
ored, tinged with purple," which is turned to-
ward the beholder, while the face is toward the
earth, is the handsomer. It is a very pretty
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER 315
little chandelier of a flower, fit to adorn the for-
est floor. Its buds are nearly as handsome.
They appear to be long in unfolding.
The pickers have quite thinned the crop of
early blueberries where Stow cut off the trees
winter before last. When the woods on some
hill-side are cut off, the Vaceinium Pennsylvati-
icum springs up or grows more luxuriantly, being
exposed to light and air, and by the second year
its steins are weighed to the ground with clusters
of blueberries covered with bloom, and much
larger than they commonly grow, also with a
livelier taste than usual, as if remembering some
primitive mountain side given up to them an-
ciently. Such places supply the villagers with
the earliest berries for two or three years, or
Until the rising wood overgrows them, and they
withdraw into the bosom of Nature again. They
flourish during the few years between one for-
est's fall and another's rise. Before you had
prepared your mind or made up your mouth for
the berries, thinking only of small green ones,
earlier by ten days than you had expected, some
child of the woods is at your door with ripe blue-
berries, for did not you know that Mr. Stow cut
off his wood-lot winter before last. It is an ill
wind that blows nobody any good, and thus it
happens that when the owner lays bare and de-
forms a hill-side, and alone appears to reap any
Hosted by
Google
316 SUMMER
advantage from it by a crop of wood, all the vil-
lagers and the inhabitants of distant cities ob-
tain some compensation in the crop of berries
that it yields. They glean after the woodchop-
per, not faggots, but full baskets of blueber-
ries. . . . Bathed beneath Fair Haven. How
much food the muskrats have at hand ! They
may well be numerous. At this place the bot-
tom in shallow water at a little distance from
the shore is thickly covered with clams, half
buried and on their ends, generally a little
aslant. Sometimes there are a dozen or more
side by side within a square foot, and I think
that over a space twenty rods long and one wide
(I know not how much farther they reach into
the river), they would average three to a square
foot. This would give 16,335 clams to twenty
rods of shore, on one side of the river, and I
suspect there are many more. No wonder that
muskrats multiply, and that the shores are cov-
ered with the shells left by them. In bathing
here I can hardly step without treading on them,
sometimes half a dozen at once, and often I cut
my feet prettv severely on their shells. They
are partly covered with mud and the short weeds
at the bottom, and they are of the same color
themselves, but stooping down over them where
the soil has subsided, T can see them now at 5.30
P. m. with their months (?) open, an inch long
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 317
and quarter of an inch wide, with a waving
fringe about it, and another smaller opening
close to it without any fringe, through both of
which I see distinctly into the white interior of
the fish. When I touch one, he instantly closes
his shell, and, if taken out quickly, spurts water
like a salt-water clam. Evidently taking in their
food and straining it with short waving motion
of the cilise, there they lie both under the pads
and in the sun. . . . The common carrot by the
roadside, Daticus carota, is in some respects an
interesting plant. Its umbel, as Bigelow says,
is shaped like a bird's nest, and its large pin-
natifid involucre, interlacing by its fine seg-
ments, resembles a fanciful ladies' work-basket.
July 3, 1853. The oven-bird's nest in Laurel
Glen is near the edge of an open pine wood
under a fallen pine twig and a heap of dry oak
leaves. Within these on the ground is the nest
with a dome-like top and an arched entrance of
the whole height and width on one side. Lined
within with dry pine needles. . . . The chest-
nut behind my old house site is fully out, and
apparently has been partly so for several days.
Black huckleberries. — Tansy on the cause-
way.
July 3, 1854 I hear the purple finch these
days about the houses, d twitter witter weetet
wee, d witter witter wee.
Hosted by
Google
318 SUMMER.
P. M. To Hubbard's Bridge by boat. . . .
The river and shores with their pads and weeds
are now in their midsummer and hot weather
condition, now when the pontederias have just
begun to bloom. The seething river is confined
within two burnished borders of pads, gleaming
in the sun for a mile, and a sharp snap is heard
from them from time to time. Next stands the
upright phalanx of dark - green pontederias. —
When T have left the boat for a short time, the
seats become intolerably hot. What a luxury to
bathe now. It is gloriously hot, the first of this
weather, I cannot get wet enough. I must let
the water soak into me. When you come out,
it is rapidly dried on you, or absorbed into your
body, and you want to go in again. I begin to
inhabit the planet, and see how I may be natu-
ralized at last. — As I return from the river, the
sun westering, I admire the «ilvery light on the
tops and extremities of the now densely-leaved
golden willows, and swamp white oaks and ma-
ples, from the under-side of the leaves. They
have so multiplied that you cannot see through
the trees ; these are solid depths of shade on
the surface of which the light is variously re-
flected.
July 3, 1856. p. m. To Assabet River. In
the main stream at the Rock I am surprised to
see flags and pads laying the foundation of an
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 819
islet in, the middle where I had thought it deep
before. Apparently a hummock, lifted by ice,
Bunk there in the spring, and this may be the
way in which many an island has been formed
in the river.
July 3, 1859 p. m. To Hubbard's Grove.
. . . The Mitclislla re-pens, so abundantly in
bloom now in the northwest part of this grove,
emits a strong, astringent, cherry-like scent as
I walk over it, which is agreeable to me, spot-
ting the ground with its downy-looking white
flowers.
July 3, 1860. . . . Looked at the marsh-
hawk's nest (of June 16) in the Great Meadows.
It was in the very midst of the sweet gale (which
is three feet high) occupying an opening only a
foot or two across. We had much difficulty in
finding it again, but at last nearly stumbled upon
a young hawk. There was one as big as my
fist resting on the bare flat nest in the sun, with
a great head, staring eyes, and open, gaping, or
pouting mouth, yet mere down, grayish-white
down as yet ; but I detected another which had
crawled a foot one side amid the bushes for shade
or safety, more than half as large again, with
small feathers, and a yet more angry, hawk-like
look. How naturally anger sits on the young
hawk's head. It was 3.30 r. m., and the old
birds were gone and saw us not. Meanwhile
Hosted by
Google
S20 SUMMER.
their callow young lie panting under the sweet
gale and rose-bushes in the swamp, waiting for
their parents to fetch them food.
June is an up-country month when our air
and landscape is most like that of a mountain-
ous region, full of freshness, with the scent of
fern by the wayside.
July 4, 1840. 4 a. m. The Townsend Light
Infantry encamped last night in my neighbor's
enclosure. — The night still breathes slumberously
over field and wood when a few soldiers gather
about one tent in the twilight, and their band
plays an old Scotch air with bugle and drum
and fife attempered to the season. It seems like
the morning hymn of creation. The first sounds
of the awakening camp mingled with the chas-
tened strains which so sweetly salute the dawn,
impress me as the morning prayer of an army.
And now the morning gun fires. ... I am sure
none are cowards now. These strains are the
roving dreams which steal from tent to tent, and
break forth into distinct melody. They are the
soldier's morning thought. Each man awakes
himself with lofty emotions, and would do some
heroic deed. You need preach no homily to him.
He is the stuff they are made of.
We may well neglect many things, provided
we overlook them.
When to-day I saw the " Great Ball " rolled
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 321
majestically along, it seemed a shame that man
could not move like it. All dignity and gran-
deur has something of the uudulatoriness of the
sphere. It is the secret of majesty in the roll-
ing gait of the elephant, and of all grace in ac-
tion and in art. The line of beauty is a curve. ■
Each man seems striving to imitate its gait,
and keep pace with it, but it moves on regard-
less, and conquers the multitude with its majes-
ty. "What shame that our lives which should be
the source of planetary motion, and sanction the
order of the spheres, are full of abruptness and
angularity, so as not to roll nor move majesti-
cally.
July 4, 1852. 3 a. m. To Conantum, to see
the lilies open. I hear an occasional crowing of
cocks in distant barns, as has been their habit
for bow many thousand years. It was so when
I was young, and it will be so when I am old. I
hear the croak of a tree-toad as I am crossing
the yard. I am surprised to find the dawn so
far advanced. There is a yellowish segment of
light in the east, paling a star, and adding sensi-
bly to the light of the waning and now declining
moon. ... I hear a little twittering and some
clear singing from the seringo and the song-spar-
row as I go along the back road, and now and
then the note of a bull-frog from the river. The
light in the east has acquired a reddish tinge
Hosted by
Google
near the horizon. Small wisps of cloud are al-
ready fuscous and dark, seen against the light, as
in the west at evening, Tt being Sunday morn-
ing I hear no early stirring farmer driving over
a bridge. . . . The sound of a whippoorwill is
wafted from the woods. Now in the Corner road
the hedges are alive with twittering sparrows, a
blue-bird or two, etc. The daylight now balances
the moonlight. How short the nights ! The
last traces of day have not disappeared much
before 10 o'clock, or percliauue 9.30, and before
3 A. M. you see them again in the east (proba-
bly 2.30), leaving about five hours of solid night,
the sun so soon coming round again. The robins
sing, but not so long and loud as in the spring.
I have not been awakened by them latterly in
the mornings. Is it my fault ? Ah, those morn-
ings when you are awakened by the singing, the
matins of the birds ! . . . Methinks I saw the
not yet extinguished lights of one or two fire-
flies in the darker ruts in the grass in Conant's
meadow. The moon yields to the sun, she pales
even in the presence of the dawn. It is chiefly
the spring birds that I hear at this hour, and in
each dawn the spring is thus revived. The notes
of the sparrows, and the blue-birds and the robin,
have a prominence now which they have not
by day. The light is more and more :
and some low bars begin to look bluish i
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 323
as reddish. Elsewhere the sky is wholly clear
of clouds. The dawn is at this stage far lighter
than the brightest moonlight ; I write by it. Yet
the sun will not rise for some time. Those bars
are reddening more above one spot. They grow
purplish, or lilac rather.
White and whiter grows the light in the east-
em sky. And now descending to the Cliff by
the river side, I cannot see the low horizon and
its phenomena,
I love to go through these old apple orchards
so irregularly set out, sometimes two trees stand-
ing close together. The rows of grafted fruit
will never tempt me to wander amid them like
these. A bittern leaves the shore at my ap-
proach. A night-hawk squeaks and booms be-
fore sunrise. ... I hear the blackbird's coji-
c/ueree, and the kingfisher darts away with his
alarum and outstretched neck. Every lily is
shut. Sunrise. I see it gilding the top of the
hill behind me, but the sun itself is concealed
by the hills and woods on the east shore. A
very alight fog begins to rise now in one place
on the river. There is something serenely glori-
ous and memorable to me in the sight of the
first cool sunlight now gilding the eastern ex-
tremity of the bushy island in Fair Haven, that
wild kike. The subdued light and the repose
remind me of Hades. In such sunlight there
Hosted by
Google
324 SUMMER.
is no fever. It is such an innocent pale yellow
as the spring flowers. It is the pollen of the
sun fertilizing plants. The color of the earliest
spring flowers is as cool and innocent as the first
rays of the sun in the morning, falling on woods
and hills. The fog not only rises upward about
two feet, but at onee there is a motion from the
sun over the surface. . . .
And now I see an army of skaters advancing
in loose array, chusstuirrt or scouts, as Indian
allies are drawn in old books. Now the rays of
the sun have reached my seat, a few feet above
the water. Mies begin to buzz, mosquitoes to
be less troublesome. A humming-bird hums by
over the pads up the river, as if looking, like
myself, to see if lilies have blossomed. The
birds begin to sing generally, and if not loudest,
at least most noticeably on account of the quiet-
ness of the hour, a few minutes before sunrise.
They do not sing so incessantly and earnestly,
as a regular thing, half an hour later. — Care-
fully looking both up and down the river, I
could perceive that the lilies began to open
about fifteen minutes after the sun from over
the opposite bank fell on them, perhaps three-
quarters of an hour after sunrise, which is about
4.30, and one was fully expanded about twenty
minutes later. When I returned over the bridge
about 6.15, there were perhaps a dozen open
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 325
ones in sight. It was very difficult to find one
not injured by insects. Even the buds which
were just about to expand were frequently bored
quite through, and the water had rotted them.
You must be On hand early to anticipate insects.
I bring home a dozen perfect lily buds, all I can
find within many rods, which have never yet
opened. I prepare a large pan of water, and
cutting their stems quite short, I turn back their
calyx leaves with my fingers, so that they may
float upright; then, touching the points of their
petals, and breathing or blowing on them, I toss
them in. They spring open rapidly, or gradu-
ally expand in the course of an hour, all but
one or two. — At 12.30 p. m. I perceive that
the lilies in the river have begun to shut up.
... I go again at 2.30 p. m. and every lily is
shut.
I will here tell the history of my rosaceous
lilies, plucked the 1st o£ July. They were buds
at the bottom of a pitcher of water all the 2d,
having been kept in my hat part of the day
before. On the morning of the 3d I assisted
their opening, and put them in water, as I have
described. They did not shut up at noon, like
those on the river, but at dark, their petals, at
least, quite close. They all opened again in the
course of the forenoon of the 4th, but had not
shut up at 10 o'clock p. m., though I found them
Hosted by
Google
326 SUMMER.
shut on the morning of the 5th. May it he that
they can bear only a certain amount of light,
and so, being in the shade, remained open longer
(I think not, for they shut up on the river that
quite cloudy day, July 1), or is their vitality too
little to allow them to perform their regular
functions ?
Can that meadow fiMgrance come from the
purple summits of the eupatorium ?
July 4, 1860. Standing on J. P. Brown's
land, south side, I observed his rich and luxuri-
ant uncut grass lands northward, now waving
under the easterly wind. It is a beautiful
Camilla, sweeping like.' waves of light and shade
over the whole breadth of his land, like a low
steam curling over it, imparting wonderful life
to the landscape, like the light and shade of a
ohitiigouble garment. ... It is an interesting
feature, very easily overlooked, and suggests
that we are wading and navigating at present
in a sort of sea of grass which yields and un-
dulates under the wind like water, and so per-
chance the forest is seen to do from a favorable
position. . . . Early there was that flashing
light of waving pines in the horizon, now the
Camilla on grass and grain.
July 5, 1840. Go where we will, we discover
infinite change in particulars only, not in gen-
erals.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 327
You cannot rob a man of anything which he
will miss.
July 5, 1852. 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 character of
that man's love? It is ever the subject of a
stale jest, though his health or his dinner can
be seriously considered. The glory of the world/
is seen only by a chaste mind. To whomsoever
this fact is not an awful, but beautiful mystery,
there are no flowers in Nature.
White lilies continue to open in the house in
the morning and shut in the night, for five or
six days, until their stamens have shed their
pollen, and they turn rusty, and begin to decay.
Then the beauty of the flower is gone, and its
vitality, so that it no longer expands with the
light.
How perfect an invention is glass ! There is
a fitness in glass windows which reflect the sun
morning and evening ; windows the doorways of
light thus reflecting its rays with a splendor
only second to itself. . . . The sun rises with a
salute, and leaves the world with a farewell to
our windows. To have, instead of opaque shut-
ters, or dull horn or paper, a material like solidi-
fied air, which reflects the sun thus brightly. It
is inseparable from our civilization and enlight-
V
Hosted by
Google
328 SUMMER,
enment. It is encouraging that this intelligence
and brilliancy or splendor should belong to the
dwellings of men, and not to the cliffs and
micaceous rocks and lakes exclusively. . . .
p. M. To Second Division Brook.
There is a meadow on the Assabet, just above
Derby's bridge (it may contain an acre, bounded
on one side by the river, on the other by alders
and a hill), completely covered with small hum-
mocks which have lodged on it in the winter,
covering it like the mounds in a graveyard,
at pretty regular intervals. Their edges are
rounded, and they and the paths between them
are covered with a firm, short, green sward, with
here and there hard-hacks springing out of them,
so that they make excellent seats, especially in
the shade of an elm that grows there. They
are completely united with the meadow, forming
little oblong hillocks from one to ten feet long.
... I love to ponder the natural history thus
written on the banks of the stream ; for every
higher freshet and intenser frost is recorded by
it. The stream keeps a faithful journal of every
event in its experience, whatever race may settle
on its banks. It purls past this natural grave-
yard with a storied murmur, and no doubt it
could find endless employment for an Old Mor-
tality in renewing its epitaphs.
The progress of the season is indescribable.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 829
It is growing warm again, but the warmth is
different from that we have had. We lie in the
shade of a locust-tree. Haymakers go by in a
hay-rigging. I am reminded of berrying. I
seent the sweet fern and the dead or dry pine
leaves. Cherry-birds alight on a neighboring
tree. The warmth is something more normal
and steady. Nature offers fruits now as well
as flowers. We have become accustomed to the
summer. It has acquired a certain eternity.
The earth is dry. Perhaps the sound of the
locust expresses the season as well as anything,
I might make a separate season of those days
when the locust is heard. That is our torrid
zone. This dryness and heat are necessary for
the maturing of fruits.
How cheering it is to behold a full spring
bursting forth directly from the earth, like this
of Tarbell's, from clean gravel, copiously in a
thin sheet ; for it descends at once, where yon
see no opening, cool from the caverns of the
earth, and making a considerable stream. . . .
I lie almost flat, resting my hands on what
offers, to drink at this water where it bubbles,
at the very udders of Nature, for man is never
weaned from her breast while life lasts.
We are favored in having two rivers flowing
into one, whose banks afford different kinds o£
scenery, the streams being of different charae-
Hosted by
Google
330 SUMMER.
ters, one a dark, muddy, dead stream, full of
animal and vegetable life, with broad meadows,
and black, dwarf willows and weeds, the other
comparatively pebbly and swift, with more abrupt
banks and narrower meadows. To the latter I
go to see the ripple and the varied bottom with
its stones and sands and shadows; to the former
for the influence of its dark water resting on
invisible mud, and for its reflections. It is a
factory of soil, depositing sediment. . , .
Some birds are poets and sing all summer.
They are the true singers. Any man can write
verses in the love season. I am reminded of this
while we rest in the shade . . . and listen to a
wood-thrush now just before sunset. We are
most interested in those birds that sing for the
love of the music and not of their mates ; who
meditate their strains and amuse themselves with
singing; the birds whose strains are of deeper
sentiment,— -not bobolinks that lose their bright
colors and their song so early, — the robin, the
led-eye, the veery, the wood-thrush, etc. The
wood-thrush's is no opera music, it is not so
much the composition as the strain, the tone that
interests us, cool bars of melody from the at-
mosphere of everlasting morning or evening.
It is the quality of the sound, not the sequence.
In the pewee's note there is some sultriness, but
in the thrush's, though heard at noon, there ia
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER, 331
the liquid coolness of things drawn from the bot-
tom of springs. The thrush's alone declares the
immortal wealth and vigor that is in the forest.
Here is a bird in whose strain the story is told.
Whenever a man hears it, he is young, and
Nature is in her spring. Wherever he hears it,
there is a new world and a free country, and the
gates of heaven are not shut against him. Most
other birds sing, from the level of my ordinary
cheerful hours, a carol, but this bird never fails
to speak to me out of an ether purer than that
I breathe, of immortal vigor and beauty. He
deepens the significance of all things seen in the
light of his strain. He sings to make men take
higher and truer views. . . . He sings to amend
their institutions, to relieve the slave on the
plantation and the prisoner in his dungeon, the
slave in the house of luxury and the prisoner of
his own low thoughts.
How fitting to have every day, in a vase of
water on your table, the wild flowers of the sea-
son which are just blossoming. Can any house
be said to be furnished without them ? Shall
we be so forward to pluck the fruits of Nature
and neglect her flowers ? These are surely her
finest influences. So may the season suggest the
thoughts it is fitted to suggest. . . . Let me
know what picture Nature is painting, what
poetry she is writing, what ode composing now.
Hosted by
Google
832 SUMMER.
The sun has set. . . . The dew is falling fast.
Some fine clouds, which have just escaped being
condensed in dew, hang on the skirts of day, and
make the attraction in our western sky, that part
of day's gross atmosphere which has escaped the
clutches of the night, and is not enough con-
densed to fall to earth, soon to be gilded by the
sun's parting rays ; remarkably finely divided
clouds, a very fine mackerel sky, or rather as if
one had sprinkled that part of the sky with a
brush, the outline of the whole being that of sev-
eral large sprigs of fan coral. They grow darker
and darker, and now are reddened, while dark-
blue bars of cloud of a wholly different character
lie along the northwest horizon.
July 5, 1854. . . . p. M. To "White Pond.
. . . The blue curls and fragrant life-everlasting
with their refreshing aroma show themselves
now pushing up in dry fields, bracing to the
thought. — On Lupine Knoll picked up a dark-
colored spear-head three and a half inches long,
lying on the bare sand, so hot that I could not
long hold it tight in my hand. Now the earth
begins to be parched, the corn curls, and the
four-leaved loosestrife, etc., wilt and wither.
July 5, 1856. The large evening primrose
below the foot of our garden does not open till
sometime between 6.30 and 8 p. M., or sundown.
It was not open when I went to bathe, but
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 333
freshly out in the cool of the evening at sun-
down, as if enjoying the serenity of the hour.
July 6, 1840, All this worldly wisdom was
once the unamiable heresy of some wise man. —
I observe a truly wise practice on every hand, in
education, in religion, and the morals of society,
enough embodied wisdom to have set up many
an ancient philosopher. This society, if it were
a person to be met face to face, would not only
be tolerated bat courted, with its so impressive
experience and admirable acquaintance with
things. — Consider society at any epoch, and
who does not see that heresy has already pre-
vailed in it ?
Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every
hour, and accept what it brings. The reality
will make any sincere record respectable. No
day will have been wholly misspent, if any sin-
cere, thoughtful page has been written. Let the
daily tide leave some deposit on these pages, as
it leaves sand and shells on the shore, so much
increase of terra firma. This may be a calendar
of the ebbs and flows of the soul, and on these
sheets, as a beach, the waves may cast up pearls
and seaweed.
July 6, 1851. I walked by night last moon,
and saw its disk reflected in "VValden Pond, the
broken disk, now here, now there, a pure and
memorable flame, unearthly bright. ... Ah f
Hosted by
Google
834 SUMMER.
but that first faint tinge of moonlight on the
gap seen some time ago, a silvery light from the
east before day had departed in the west. What
an immeasurable interval there is between the
first tinge of moonlight which wo detect, lighting
with mysterious, silvery, poetic light the western
slopes, like a paler grass, and the last wave of
daylight on the eastern slopes. It is wonderful
how our senses ever span so vast an interval ;
how, from being aware of the one, we become
aware of the other. ... It suggests an interval
equal to that between the most distant periods
recorded in history. The silver age is not more
distant from the golden than moonlight is from
sunlight. I am looking into the west where the
red clouds still indicate the course of departing
day. I turn and see the silent, spiritual, con-
y Aemplative moonlight shedding the softest imag-
^/inable lighlTon the western slopes, ... as if,
after a thousand years of polishing, their surfaces
were just beginning to be bright, a pale, whitish
lustre. Already the rriekete chirp to the moon
a different strain, and the night wind rustles the
leaves of the wood. . . . Ah, there is the myste-
rious light which for some hours has illustrated
Asia and the scene of Alexander's victories, now
at length, after two or three hours spent in sur-
mounting the billows of the Atlantic, come to
shine on America. There on that illustrated
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 335
sand bank was revealed an antiquity beside
which Nineveh is young, such a light as sufficed
for the earliest ages. . . . Even at midday I see
the full moon shining in the sky. What if in
some vales only its light is reflected ! What if
there are some spirits which walk in its light
alone still ! . . . I passed from dynasty to dy-
nasty, from one age of the world to another, . . .
from Jove, perchance, back to Saturn. What
river of Lethe was there to run between ! I
bade farewell to that light setting in the west,
and turned to salute the new light rising in the
e:isl:.
There is some advantage in being the hum-
blest, cheapest, least dignified man in the vil-
lage, so that the very stable boys shall damn you.
Me think a I enjoy that advantage to an unusual
extent. There is many a coarsely well-meaning
fellow, who knows only the skin of me, who ad-
dresses me familiarly by my Christian name. I
get the whole good of him, and lose nothing my-
self. There is " Sam," the jailer (whom I never
call " Sam," however), who exclaimed last even-
ing, " Thoreau, are you going up the street pretty
soon? Well, just take a couple of these hand-
bills along, and drop one on H 's piazza, and
one at H 's, and I '11 do as much for you
another time." I am not above being abused
sometimes.
Hosted by
Google
July 6, 1852. 2.30 p. m. To Beck Stow's,
thence to Sawmill Brook, and return by Walden.
— Now for the shade of oaks in pastures. The
witnesses attending court sit on the benches in
the shade of the great elm. The cattle gather
under the trees. The pewee is heard in the heat
of the day, and the red-eye (?). The pure white
cymes (?) of the elder are very conspicuous
along the edges of meadows, contrasting with the
green above and around. . . . From the lane in
front of Hawthorne's, I see dense beds of tufted
vetch, Vicia cracca, for some time, taking the
place of the grass in the low grounds, blue in-
clining in spots to lilac like the lupines. This,
too, was one of the flowers that Proserpine was
gathering ; yellow lilies, also. It is affecting to
see such an abundance of blueness in the grass.
It affects the eyes, this celestial color. I see it
afar ... in masses on the hill-sides near the
meadow, so much blue, laid on with so heavy a
hand I — In selecting a site in the country, let a
lane near your house, grass-grown, cross a siz-
able brook where is a watering-place. — I see a
pickerel in the brook showing his whitish, greedy
upper lips projecting over the lower. How well
concealed he is. He is generally of the color of
the muddy bottom, or the decayed leaves and
wood that compose it, and the longitudinal light
stripe on his back, and the transverse ones on his
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. '837
sides are the color of the yellowish sand here and
there exposed. He heads up stream and keeps
his body perfectly motionless, however rapid the
current, chiefly by the motion of his narrow pec-
toral fins, though also by the waving of his other
fins and tail as much as is necessary, a motion
which a frog might mistake for that of weeds.
Thus concealed by his color and stillness, like a
stake, he lies in wait for frogs and minnows. Now
a frog leaps in, and he darts forward three or f our
feet.
Pastinaca sativa, parsnip. How wholesome
and edible smells its sweet root. — Tansy, Tana-
cetum, vulgare, just begins.
H is haying, but inclined to talk as usual.
... I am disappointed that he, the most intelli-
gent farmer in Concord, and perchance in Mid-
dlesex, who admits that he has property enough
for his use without accumulating more, and talks
of leaving off hard work, letting his farm, and
spending the rest of his days easier and better,
cannot yet think of any method of employing
himself except in work for his hands. Only he
would have a little less of it. Much as he is
inclined to speculate in conversation, giving up
any work to it for the time, and long-headed as
he is, he talks of working for a neighbor for a
day now and then, and taking his dollar. " He
would not like to spend his time sitting on the
Hosted by
Google
Mill Dam " [i..e., in the village]. He lias not
even planned an essentially better life. . . .
Sometime.* the swampy vigor in large doses
proves rank poison to the sensitively bred man,
as where dogwood grows. How far he has de-
parted from the rude vigor of Nature, that he
cannot assimilate and transmute her elements.
The morning air may make a debauchee sick.
No herb is friendly to him. All at last are poi-
sons, and yet none are medicines to him, and so
he dies ; the air kills him. . . .
I heard a solitary duck on Goose Pond mak-
ing a doleful cry, though its ordinary one, just
before sundown, as if caught in a trap or by a
fox, and creeping silently through the bushes, I
saw it, probably a wood duck, sailing rapidly
away. But it still repeated its cry as if calling
for a mate. When the hen hatches ducks, they
do not mind her clucking. They lead the hen.
— Chickens and ducks are well set on the earth.
What great legs they have ! This part is early
developed. A perfect Antseus is a young duck
in this respect, deriving a steady stream of health
and strength from the earth, for he rarely gets
off it, ready either for land or water. Nature
is not on her last legs yet. A chick's stout legs!
If they were a little larger, they would injure the
globe's tender organization with their scratch-
ing. Then, for digestion, consider their crops
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 839
and what they put into them in the course of a
day. Consider how well fitted to endure the
fatigue of a day's excursion. A young chick
will run all day in pursuit of grasshoppers, and
occasionally vary its exercise by scratching, go
to bed at night with protuberant crop, and get
up early in the morning ready for a new start.
July 6, 1856. p. m. To Assabet bath. . . .
I hear the distressed or anxious peet of a peet-
weet, and see it hovering over its young, half-
grown, which runs beneath, and suddenly hides
securely in the grass when but a few feet from
G. Emerson says the sweetbrier was doubt-
less introduced, yet according to Bancroft, Gos-
nnld found it on the Elizabeth Isles.
July 6, 1859. . . . p. m. To Lee's Cliff
The heart-leaf flower is now very conspicuous
and pretty in that pool westerly of the old Co-
nantum house. Its little, white, five-petalled
flower, about the size of a five-cent piece, looks
like a little white lily. Its perfectly heart-shaped
floating leaf, an inch or more long, is the small-
est kind of pad. There is a single pad to each
slender stem which is from one to several feet
long in proportion to the depth of the water, and
these padlets cover sometimes, like an imbrica-
tion, the whole surface of a pool. Close under-
neath each leaf or pad is concealed an umbel of
Hosted by
Google
340 SUMMER.
from ten to fifteen flower buds of various sizes,
and of these, one at a time (and sometimes
more) curls upward between the lobes of the
base and expands its corolla to the light and air,
about half an inch above the water, and so on
successively till all have flowered. Over the
whole surface of the shallow pool you see thus
each little pad with its pretty lily between its
lobes turned toward the sun. It is simply leaf
and flower.
July 7, 1840. I have experienced such sim-
ple joy in the trivial matters of fishing and sport-
ing formerly as might inspire the muse of Homer
or Shakespeare. And now when I turn over the
pages and ponder the plates of the " Angler's
Souvenir," I exclaim with the poet,
slike
When I hear a sudden burst from a horn, I
am startled, as if one had provoked such wild-
ness as he could not rule nor tame. He dares
make the echoes which he cannot put to rest.
July 7, 1851. The intimations of the^ight
I are divine, methinks. Men might meet in the
\morning and report the news of the night, what
divine suggestions have been made to them. I
find that I carry with me into the day often some
such bint derived from the gods, such impulses
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 341
to purity, to heroism, to literary effort, even, as
are never day-bom.
One of those mornings which usher in no day.
but rather an endless morning, a protracted au-
roral season, for clouds prolong the twilight the
livelong day.
Now that there is an interregnum in the blos-
soming of the flowers, so is there in the singing
of the birds. The golden robin, the bobolink,
etc., are rarely heard.
I rejoice when in a dream I have loved virtue
and nobleness.
Where is Grecian History? Is it when in
the morning I recall the intimations of the
night ?
The moon is now more than half full. When
I come through the village at ten o'clock this
cold night, cold as in May, the heavy shadows
of the elms, covering tbe ground with their rich
tracery, impress me as if men had got so much
more than they bargained for, — not only trees
to stand in the air, but to checker the ground
with their shadows. At night they lie along the
earth. They tower, they arch, they droop over
the streets like chandeliers of darkness.
With a certain wariness, but not without a
slight shudder at the danger oftentimes, I per-
ceive how near I had come to admitting into my
mind the details of some trivial affair, as a case
Hosted by
Google
342 SUMMER.
at court, and I am astonished to observe how
willing men are to lumber their minds with
such rubbish, to permit idle rumors, tales, inci-
dents, even of an insignificant kind, to intrude
upon what should be the sacred ground of the
thoughts. Shall the temple of our thoughts be
a public arena where the most trivial affair of
the market and the gossip of the tea-table is dis-
cussed, a dusty, noisy, trivial place? or shall it
be a quarter of the heavens itself, consecrated
to the service of the gods, a hypajthral temple ?
I find it so difficult to dispose of the few facts
which to me are significant, that I hesitate to
burden my mind with the most insignificant,
which only a divine mind can illustrate. Such
is, for the most part, the news in newspapers
and conversation. It is important to preserve
the mind's chastity in this respect. Think of
admitting the details of a single case at the
criminal court into the mind to stalk profanely
through its very sanctum sanctorum for an hour,
—aye, for many hours ; to make a very bar-room
of your mind's inmost apartment, as if for a mo-
ment the dust of the street had occupied you, —
aye, the very street itself, with all its travel, had
poured through your very mind of minds, your
thought's shrine, with all its filth and bustle.
Would it not be an intellectual suicide ? By all
manner of boards and traps threatening the ex-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 343
treme penalty o£ the divine law, excluding tres-
passers from these grounds, it behoves us to pre-
serve the purity and sanctity of the mind. It is
so hard to forget what it is worse than useless to
remember. If I am to be a channel or thor-
oughfare, I prefer that it be of the mountain
brooks, the Parnassian streams, and not of the
city sewers. There is inspiration, the divine
gossip which comes to the attentive mind from
the Courts of Heaven, there is the profane and
stale revelation of the bar-room and the police
court. The same ear is fitted to receive both
communications. Only the character of the in-
dividual determines to which source chiefly it
shall be open, and to which closed. I believe
that the mind can be profaned by the habit of
attending to trivial things, so that all our
thoughts shall be tinged with triviality. They
shall be dusty as stones in the street. Our very
minds shall be paved and macadamized, their
foundation broken into fragments for the wheels
of travel to roll over. If you would know what
will make the most durable pavements, surpassing
rolled stones, spruce blocks, and asphaltum, you
have only to look into some mens' minds. If we
have thus desecrated ourselves, the remedy will
be by circumspection and wariness, by aspiration
and devotion to consecrate ourselves, to make a
fane of the mind. I think we should treat our
Hosted by
Google
844 SUMMER.
minds as innocent and ingenuous children whose
guardians we are, be careful what objects and
what subjects are thrust on their attention. I
think even the facts of science may dust them
by their dryness, unless they are in a sense ef-
faced each morning, or rather rendered fertile
by the dews of fresh and living truth. Every
thought which passes through the mind helps to
wear and tear it, and to deepen the ruts, which,
as in the streets of Pompeii, evince how much it
has been used. How many things there are con-
cerning which we might well deliberate whether
we had better know them. Routine, convention-
ality, manners, etc. ; how insensibly an undue
attention to these dissipates and impoverishes
the mind, robs it of its simplicity and strength,
(jit. 'isc ulates it.
Knowledge does not come to us by details, but
by liefcrungs from the gods.
Only thought which is expressed by the mind
in repose, or, as it were, lying on its back and
contemplating the heavens, is adequately and
fully expressed. What are sidelong, transient,
passing half views ? The writer expressing his .
thoughts must be as well seated as the astrono-
mer contemplating the heavens. He must not
occupy a constrained position. The facts, the
experience we are well poised upon ! which secure
our whole attention !
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 345
The senses of children are unprof aned. Their
whole body is one sense, they take a physical
pleasure in riding on a rail. So does the unvio-
lated, the unsophisticated mind derive an inex-
pressible pleasure from the simplest exercise of
thought.
I can express adequately only the thought
which I love to express.
Ail the faculties in repose but the one you are
using, the whole energy concentrated in that.
Be so little distracted, your thoughts so little
confused, your engagements so few, your atten-
tion so free, your existence so mundane, that in
all places and in all hours you can hear the
sound of crickets in those seasons when they are
to be heard. It is a mark of serenity and health
of mind when a person hears this sound much iu
streets of cities as well as in fields. Some ears
can never hear this sound ; are called deaf. Is
it not because they have so long attended to
other sounds ?
July 7, 1852. 4 a. M. The first (?) really
foggy morning. Yet before I rise, I hear the
song of birds from out it like the bursting of its
bubbles with music. . . . Their song gilds thus
the frostwork of the morning. ... I came near
waking this morning. I am older than last year.
The mornings are further between. The days
are fewer. Any excess, to have drunk too much
Hosted by
Google
water even the day before, is fatal to the morn-
ing's clarity. But in health, the sound of a cow
bell is celestial music. O might I always wake
to thought and poetry, regenerated ! Can it be
called a morning, if our senses are not clarified
so that we perceive more clearly ? if we do not
rise with elastic vigor ?
How wholesome these fogs which some fear.
They are cool, medicated vapor baths mingled
by Nature, which briDg to our senses all the
medical properties of the meadows ; the touch-
stones of health. Sleep with all your windows
open, and let the mist embrace you.
To the Cliffs. The fog condenses into foun-
tains and streams of music, as in the strain of
the bobolink which I hear, and runs off so. The
music of the birds is the tinkling of the rills
that flow from it. I cannot see twenty rods. . . .
There is everywhere dew on the cobwebs, little
gossamer veils or scarfs as big as your hand
dropped from the shoulders of fairies that danced
on the grass the past night. . . . The to me
beautiful rose-colored spikes of the hardhack,
Spirce.a tomentosa ; one is out. — - I think it was
this thin vapor that produced a kind of mirage
when I looked over the meadow from the rail-
road last night toward Trillium wood, giving to
the level meadow a certain liquid, sea-like look.
Now the heads of herd's grass, seen through the
dispersing fog, look like an ocean of grass.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 347
6 p. M. To Hubbard's Bathing Place. Po-
gonias are still abundant in the. meadows, but
aretimsas I Lave not lately seen. . . . The blue-
eyed grass shuts up before sunset. . . . The very
handsome "pink-purple" flowers of the Calo-
pogon,/ pulchellus enrich the grass all around
the edge of Hubbard's blueberry swamp, and
are now in their prime. The Arethusa bulbosa,
" crystalline purple," Pogonia ophioglossoides,
snake-mouthed [tongued] arethusa, " pale pur-
ple," and the Calopogon pulchellus, grass pink,
"pink-purple," make one family in my mind
(next to the purple orchis, or with it), being
flowers par excellence, all flower, naked flowers,
and difficult, at least the calopogon, to preserve.
But they are flowers, excepting the first, at least,
without a name. Pogonia I Calopogon ! ! They
would blush still deeper if they knew what
names man had given them. The first and the
last interest me most, for the pogonia has a
strong, snaky odor. The first may perhaps
retain its name, arethusa, from the places in
which it grows, and the other two deserve the
names of nymphs, perhaps of the class called
Naiades. How would the Naiad JEgle do for
one ? ... To be sure, in a perfect flower, there
will be proportion between the flowers and leaves,
but these are fair and delicate, nymph-like. . . .
"When the yellow lily flowers in the meadows,
and the red in dry lands and by wood-paths, then,
Hosted by
Google
methinks, the flowering season has reached its
height. They surprise me as perhaps no more
can. Now I am prepared for anything.
July 7, 1857. . . . Some of the inhabitants
of the Cape think that the Cape is theirs, and all
occupied by them, but, in my eyes, it is no more
theirs than it is the blackbirds', and in visiting
the Cape there is hardly more need of my regard-
ing or going through the Tillages than of going
through the blackbirds' nests. I leave them
both on one side, or perchance I just glance
into them to see how they are built and what
they contain. I know that they have spoken for
the whole Cape, and lines are drawn on the
maps accordingly, but I know that these are
imaginary, having perambulated many such, and
they would have to get me or one of my craft
to find them for them. For the most part,
indeed with very trifling exceptions, there were
no human beings there, only a few imaginary
line.-; on a map.
July 8, 1838.
CLIFFS.
The loudest sound that burdens here the breeze
Is the wood's whisper ; 't is when we choose to list,
Audible sound, and when we list not,
It is calm profound. Tongues were provided
But to "res the ear with siipevlicial thoughts.
When deeper thoughts up swell, the jarring discord
Of harsh speech is bushed, aud senses seem
As little as may be to share the ecstasy.
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER, 349
July 8, 1840. Doubt and falsehood are yet
good preachers. They affirm soundly while
they deny partially.
I am pleased to learn that Thales was up and
stirring by night not un frequently, as his as-
tronomical discoveries prove.
It was a saying of Solon that "it is neces-
sary to observe a medium in all things." The
golden mean in ethics as in physics is the centre
of the system, that about which all revolve, and
though to a distant and plodding planet it is
the uttermost extreme, yet when that planet's
year is complete, it will he found central. They
who are alarmed lest virtue run into extreme
good have not yet wholly embraced her, but
described only a small arc about her, and from
so small a curvature you can calculate no cen-
tre whatever. Their mean is no better than
meanness, nor their medium than mediocrity.
If a brave man observes strictly this golden
mean, he may run through all extremes with
impunity, like the sun which now appears in
the zenith, now in the horizon, and again is
faintly reflected from the moon's disk, and has
the credit of describing an entire great circle,
crossing the equinoctial and solstitial colures,
without detriment to his steadfastness.
Every planet asserts its own to be the centre
of the system.
Hosted by
Google
350 SUMMER.
Only meanness is mediocre, moderate ; the
true medium is not contained within any bounds,
but is as wide as the ends it connects.
When Solon endeavored to prove that Salamis
had formerly, belonged to the Athenians, and
not to the Megarians, he caused the tombs to
be opened, and showed that the inhabitants
of Salamis turned the faces of their dead to
the same side with the Athenians, but the Me-
garians to the opposite side. So does each
fact bear witness to all, and the history of all
the past may be read in a single grain of its
ashes.
July 8, 1851. ... I am struck by the cool,
juicy, pickled-cucumber green of the potato-fields
now. How lusty these vines look. The pasture
naturally exhibits at this season no such living
green as the cultivated fields. . . . Here are
mulleins covering a field where three years ago
none were noticeable, but a smooth, uninter-
rupted pasture sod. Two years ago it was
ploughed for the first time for many years, and
millet and corn and potatoes planted, Now,
where the millet grew, these mulleins have
sprang up. Who can write the history of these
fields? The millet does not perpetuate itself,
but the few seeds of the mullein which per-
chance were brought here with it are still mul-
tiplying the race. . . .
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 351
Here are some rich rye-fields waving over all
the land, their heads nodding in the evening
breeze, with an apparently alternating motion,
i. e., they do not all bend at once, by ranks, but
separately, and hence this agreeable alterna-
tion. How rich a sight this cereal fruit, now
yellow for the cradle, flaws. It is an impene-
trable phalanx. I walk for half a mile, looking
in vain for an opening. . . . This is food for
man. The earth labors not in vain. It is bear-
ing its burden. The yellow, waving, rustling
rye extends far up and over the hills on either
side, a kind of pinafore to Nature, leaving only
a narrow and dark passage at the bottom of a
deep ravine. How rankly it has grown I How
it hastes to maturity \ I discover that there is
such a goddess as Ceres, . . . The small trees
and shrubs seen dimly in its midst are over-
whelmed by the grain as by an inundation.
Tbey are seen only as indistinct forms of bushes
and green leaves, mixed with the yellow stalks.
There are certain crops which give me the idea
of bounty, of the Alma JUatura. They are the
grains. Potatoes do not so fill the lap of earth.
This rye excludes everything else, and takes
possession of the soil. The farmer says, next
year I will raise a crop of rye, and he proceeds
to clear away the brush, and either ploughs it,
or, if it is too uneven or stony, burns and harrows
Hosted by
Google
352 SUMMER.
it only and scatters the seed with faith. And
all winter the earth keeps his secret, unless it
did leak out somewhat in the fall, and in the
spring this early green on the hillsides betrays
him. When I see this luxuriant crop spreading
far and wide, in spite of rock and bushes and
nnevenness of ground, I cannot help thinking
that it must have been unexpected by the farmer
himself, and regarded by him as a lucky accident
for which to thank fortune. This to reward a
transient faith the gods had given,
July 8, 1852. p. m. Down river in boat to
the Holt. ... It is perhaps the warmest day
yet. Wo held on to the abutments under the
Red Bridge to cool ourselves in the shade. No
better place in hot weather, the river rippling
away beneath you, and the air rippling through
between the abutments, if only in sympathy with
the river, while the planks afford a shade, and
you hear all the travel and the travelers' talk
without being seen or suspected. . , . There is
generally a current of air circulating over water,
always, methinks, if the water runs swiftly, as if
it put the air in motion. There is quite a breeze
here this sultry day. Commend me to the sub-
pontean, the under-bridge life.
I am inclined to think bathing almost one of
the necessaries of life, but it is surprising how
indifferent some are to it. What a coarse, foul,
Hosted by
Google
busy life we lead compared even with the South
Sea Islanders in some respects. Truant boys
steal away to bathe, but the farmers, who most
need it, rarely dip their bodies into the streams
or ponds. M was telling me last night that
he had thought of bathing when he had done his
hoeing, of taking some soap and going down to
Walden, and giving himself a good scrubbing,
but something had occurred to prevent, and now
he will go unwashed to the harvesting, aye, even
till the next hoeing is over. Better the faith
and practice of the Hindoos, who worship the
sacred Ganges. We have not faith enough in
the Musketaquid to wash in it even after hoeing.
Men stay on shore, keep themselves dry, and
drink rum. Pray what were rivers made for '!
One farmer, who came to bathe in Walden one
Sunday while I lived there, told me it was the
first bath he had had for fifteen years. Now
what kind of religion could his be ? or was it
any better than a Hindoo's ?
July 8, 1853. . . . Toads are still heard occa-
sionally at evening. To-day I heard a hylodea
peep (perhaps a young one), which have so long
been silent.
July 8, 1854. Full moon. By boat to Hub-
bard's Bend. There is wind, making it cooler
and keeping off fog. Delicious on water. The
moon reflected from the rippled 'surface like a
Hosted by
Google
354 SUMMER.
stream of dollars. I hear a few toads still. . . .
The bull-frogs trump from time to time. . . .
The whippoor wills are heard, and the baying of
dogs.
The Mosa nitida,! think, has some time done;
lucida generally now ceasing, and the Caro-
lina (?) just begun.
July 8, 1857. . . . Counted the rings of a
white-pine stump sawed off last winter at Laurel
Glen. It is three and a half feet in diameter
and has one hundred and twenty-six rings.
July 9, 1840. In most men's religion the lig-
ature which should be the umbilical cord con-
necting them with the source of life is rather
like that thread which the accomplices of Cylon
held in their hands when they went abroad from
the temple of Minerva, the other end being at-
tached to the statue of the goddess. Frequently,
as in their case, the thread breaks, being
stretched, and they are left without an asylum.
The value of many traits in Grecian history
depends not so much on their importance as his-
tory, as on the readiness with which they accept
a wide interpretation, and illustrate the poetry
and ethics of mankind. When they announce
no particular truth, they are yet central to all
truth. . . . Even the isolated and unexplained
facts are like the ruins of the temples which in
imagination we restore, and ascribe to some
Phidias or other i
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 855
The Greeks were boys in the sunshine; the
Romans were men in the field ; the Persians,
women in the house ; the Egyptians, old men in
the dark.
He who
the wrong-doer.
July 9, 1851.
Porter's, Cambi
s an injury is an accomplice of
When I got out of the cars at
■idge, this morning, I was pleased
to see the handsome blue flowers of the succory
or endive, Cichorium intybus, which reminded
me that within the hour I had been whirled into
a new botanical region. They must be extremely
rare, if they occur at all in Concord. This weed
is handsomer than most garden flowers. . . .
Coming out of town willingly as usual, when
I saw that reach of Charles River just above the
Depot, the fair, still water this cloudy evening
suggesting the way to eternal peace and beauty,
whence it flows, the placid, lake-like fresh water
so unlike the salt brine, affected me not a little.
I was reminded of the way in which Wordsworth
so coldly speaks of some natural visions or scenes
"giving him pleasure." This is perhaps the first
vision of elysium on the route from Boston,
And just then I saw an encampment of Penob-
scots, their wigwams appearing above the rail-
road fence, they, too, looking up the river as
they sat on the ground, and enjoying the scene.
What can be more impressive than to look up a
Hosted by
Google
noble river just at evening, — one, perchance,
which you have never explored, — and behold its
placid waters, reflecting the woods and sky, laps-
ing inaudibly toward the ocean, to behold it as
a lake, but know it as a river, tempting the be-
holder to explore it and his own destiny at once,
haunt of water-fowl. This was above the fac-
tories, all that I saw. That water could never
have flowed under a factory. How then could
it have reflected the sky?
July 9, 1852. 4 a. m. To Cliffs. ... An
aurora fading into a general saffron color. At
length the redness travels over partly from east
to west, before sunrise, and there is little color
in the east. The birds all unite to make the
morning choir, sing rather faintly, not prolong-
ing their strains. The crickets appear to have
received a reinforcement during the sultry night.
There is no name for the evening red corre-
sponding to aurora. It is the blushing foam
about the prow of the sun's boat, and at eve, the
game in its wake. — I do not often hear the blue-
bird now except at dawn. — I think we have had
no clear winter skies, no skies the color of a
robin's egg and pure amber . . . for some
months. — These blueberries on Fair Haven have
a very innocent, ambrosial taste, as if made of
the ether itself, as they plainly are colored with
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 857
How handsome the leaves of the shrub oak, so
clear and unspotted a green, so firm and endur-
ing, glossy, uninjured by the wind, meed for
mighty conquerors, lighter on the under-side,
which contrast is important. ... It must be
the cuckoo that makes that half-throttled sound
at night, for I saw one while he made it this
morning, as he flew from an apple-tree when I
disturbed him. — Those white water-lilies, what
boats ! I toss one into the pan half unfolded,
and it floats upright like a boat. It is beautiful
when half open, and also when fully expanded.
Morton, in his "Crania Americana," says,
referring to Wilkinson as his authority, that ves-
sels of porcelain of Chinese manufacture have
of late been repeatedly found in the catacombs
of Thebes in Egypt, some as old as the Phara-
onic period, and the inscriptions on them " have
been read with ease by Chinese scholars, and in
three instances record the following legend,
'The flower opens, and lo ! another year."
There is something sublime in the fact that some
of the oldest written sentences should thus cel-
ebrate the coming in of spring. How many
times have the flowers opened and a new yoar
begun ! Hardly a more cheering sentence could
have come down to us. How old is spring, a
phenomenon still so fresh ! Do we perceive any
decay in Nature ? How much evidence is eon-
Hosted by
Google
858 SUMMER.
tained in this short and simple sentence respect-
ing the former inhabitants of this globe ! It is
a sentence to be inscribed on vessels of porcelain,
suggesting that so many years had gone before,
an observation as fit then as now.
3 p. M. To Clematis Brook. Tlie beat of to-
day, as yesterday, is furnace-like. It produces a
thickness almost amounting to vapor in the near
horizon. The railroad men cannot work in the
Deep Cut, but have come out on to the cause-
way, where there is a circulation of air. They
tell, with a shudder, of the heat reflected from
the rails, yet a breezy wind, as if it were born of
the heat, rustles all leaves. — Those piles of
clouds in the north, assuming interesting forms
of unmeasured rocky mountains or unfathomed
precipices, light-colored and even downy above,
but with watery bases, portend a thunder-shower
before night. Well, I can take shelter in some
barn or under a bridge. It shall not spoil my
afternoon. — I have scarcely heard one strain
from the telegraph harp this season. Its string
is rusted and slackeued, relaxed, and now no
more it encourages the walker. So is it with all
sublunary things. Every poet's lyre loses its
tension. It cannot bear the alternate contrac-
tion and expansion of the seasons. — How in-
tense and suffocating the heat under some sunny
woodsides where no breeze circulates !
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 359
The red lily with its torrid color and sun-
freckled spots, dispensing, too, with the outer
garment of a calyx, its petals so open and wide
apart that you can see through it in every direc-
tion, tells of hot weather. It is of a handsome
bell shape, so upright, and the flower prevails
over every other part. It belongs not to spring.
It is refreshing to see the surface of Fair
Haven rippled with wind. The waves break
here quite as on the sea shore, and with like ef-
fects. This little brook makes great sands com-
paratively at its mouth, which the waves of the
pond wash up and break upon like a sea.
Bathing is an undescribed luxury. To feel
the wind blow on your body, and the water flow
upon you and lave you, is a rare physical enjoy-
ment this hot day. . . .
Low hills or even hillocks which are stone-
capped (have rocky summits), as this near James
Baker's, remind me of mountains, which in fact
they are on a small scale, — the brows of earth,
round which the trees and bushes trail like the
hair of eyebrows, outside bald places, templa,
primitive places where lichens grow. I have
some of the same sensations as if I sat on the
top of the Rocky Mountains, . Some low places
thus give a sense of elevation.
July 9, 1854. . . . Examined a lanceolate
thistle which has been pressed and has lain by a
Hosted by
Google
year. The papers being taken off, its head
sprang up more than an inch, and the downy
seeds began to fly off.
July 9, 1857. . . . p. m. Up Assabet with
S . There is now but little black willow
down left on the trees. I think I see how this
tree is propagated by its seeds. Its countless,
minute, brown seeds, just perceptible to the
naked eye in the midst of their cotton, are
wafted with the cotton to the water (most abun-
dantly about a fortnight ago), and then they
drift and form a thick white scum together with
other matter, especially against some alder or
other fallen or drooping shrub where there is less
current than usual. There within two or three
days a great many germinate and show their two
little roundish leaves, more or less tinging with
green the surface of the scum, somewhat like
grass seed in a tumbler of cotton. Many of
these are drifted in amid the button-hushes, wil-
lows, and other shrubs, and the sedge along the
river side, and the water falling just at this time
when they have put forth little fibres, they are
deposited on the mud jnst left bare in the shade,
and thus probably a great many of them have a
chance to become perfect plants. But if they do
not drift into sufficiently shallow water, and are
not left on the mud just at the right time, prob-
ably they perish. The mud in many such places
Hosted by
Google
is now green with them, though perhaps the seed
has often blown thither directly through the air.
— I am surprised to see dense groves of young
maples an inch or more high from seed of this
year. They have sprung in pure sand where tlie
seed has been drifted and moisture enough sup-
plied, at the water's edge. The seed, now effete,
commonly lies on the surface, having sent down
its rootlet into the sand.
July 10, 1840. To myself I am as pliant as
an osier, and my courses seem not so easy to be
calculated as that of Encke's comet, but I am
powerless to bend the character of another. He
is like iron in my hands. I could tame a hyena
more easily than my friend. He is material
which no tool of mine will work. A naked sav-
age will fell an oak with a firebrand, and wear
a hatchet out of the rock, but I cannot hew the
smallest ehip out of the character of my fellow
to beautify or deform it.
Nothing was ever so unfamiliar and startling
to me as my own thoughts.
We know men through their eyes. Yor might
say that the eye was always original and unlike
another. It is the feature of the individual, and
not of the family ; in twins, still different. All
a man's privacy is in his eye, and its expression
he cannot alter more than he can alter his char-
acter. So long as we look a man in the eye, it
Hosted by
Google
seems to rule the other features, and make them,
too, original. When I have mistaken one person
for another, observing only his form and car-
riage and inferior features, the unlikeness seemed
of the least consequence, but when I caught his
eye and my doubts were removed, it seemed to
pervade every feature. The eye revolves on an
independent pivot which we can no more control
than our own will. Its axle is the axle of the
soul, as the axis of the earth is coincident with
the axis of the heavens.
July 10-12, 1841. ... A slight sound at
evening lifts me up by the ears, and makes life
seem inexpressibly serene and grand. It may
be in Uranus, or it may be in the shutter. It is
the original sound of which all literature is the
echo. It makes all fear superfluous. Bravery
comes from further than the sources of fear.
July 10, 1851. A gorgeous sunset after rain,
with horizontal bars of cloud, red sashes to the
western window, barry clouds hanging like a cur-
tain over the window of the west, damask. First
there is a low arch of the storm clouds, under
which is seen the clearer, fairer, serener sky and
more distant sunset clouds, and under all, on the
horizon's edge, heavier, massive dark clouds not
to be distinguished from the mountains. How
many times I have seen this kind of sunset, the
most gorgeous sight in Nature. From the hill
Hosted by
Google
behind Mtaot's I sec the hirds flying against this
red sky ; one looks like a bat. Now between
two stupendous mountains of the low stratum
under the evening red, clothed in slightly rosa-
ceous, amber light, through a magnificent gorge,
far, far away, as perchance may occur in pic-
tures of the Spanish coast viewed from the Med-
iterranean, I see a city, the eternal city of the
West, the phantom city, in whose streets no trav-
eler has trod, over whose pavement the horses of
the sun have already hurried, some Salamanca
of the imagination. But it lasts only for a mo-
ment, for now the changing light has wrought
such changes in it that I see the resemblance no
longer. A softer amber sky than in any picture.
The swallows are improving this short day, twit.
tering as they fly, the huckleberry-bird repeats
his jingling strain, and I hear the notes of the
song-3parrow more honest-sounding than most.
— I am always struck by the centrality of the
observer's position. He always stands fronting
the middle of the arch, and does not suspect at
first that a thousand observers from a thousand
hills behold the sunset sky from equally favor-
able positions.
And now I turn and observe the dark masses
of the trees in the east, not green, but black.
While the sun was setting in the west, the trees
were rising in the east.
Hosted by
Google
364 SUMMER.
1 perceive that the low stratum of dark clouds
under the red sky all dips one way, and to a re-
markable degree presents the appearance of the
butt ends of cannons slanted towards the sky.
Such uniformity on a large scale is unexpected,
and pleasant to detect, evincing the simplicity of
the laws of their formation. Uniformity in the
shapes of clouds of a single stratum is always to
be detected, the same wind shaping clouds of the
same consistency and in like positions. No
doubt an experienced observer could discover the
states of the upper atmosphere by studying the
forms and characters of the clouds. I traced
the distinct form of the cannon in seven in-
stances, stretching over the whole length of the
cloud many a mile in the horizon.
July 10, 1852. 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 dusty as an ash-heap
for a foot in depth, and the young trees are suf-
fering and dying.
2 p. M. To the North River, in front of
Major Bassctt's. It is with a suffocating sensa-
tion, and a slight pain in the head, that I walk
the Union Turnpike where the heat is reflected
from the road. The leaves of the elms on the
dry highways begin to roll up. I have to lift my
hat to let the air cool my head. But I find a re-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 365
freshing breeze from over the river and meadow.
In the hottest day you can be comfortable in
the 3hade on the open shore of a pond or river,
where a zephyr comes over the water sensibly
cooled by it ; that is, if the water is deep enough
to cool it. I find the white melilot, MelUotua
leveantka, a fragrant clover, in blossom by the
roadside. We turn aside by a large rye-field
near the old Lee place. The rye-fields are now
quite yellow and ready for the sickle. Already
there are many fiavous colors in the landscape,
much maturity of small seeds. The nodding
heads of the rye make an agreeable maze to the
eye. I hear now the huckleberry bird, the red-
eye, and the oven-bird. The robin, methinks,
is oftener heard of late, even at noon. . . .
The long, narrow, open intervals in the woods
near the Assabet are quite dry now, in some
parts yellow with the upright loosestrife. One
of these meadows, a quarter of a mile long,
by a few rods wide, narrow and winding, and
bounded on all sides by maples showing the
under-sides of their leaves, swamp white-oaks,
with their glossy dark-green leaves, birches,
etc., and full of meadow-sweet just coming into
bloom, and cranberry vines, and a dry kind of
grass, is a very attractive place to walk in.
We undressed on this side, carried our clothes
down in the stream a considerable distance, and
Hosted by
Google
finally bathed in earnest from the opposite side.
The heat tempted us to prolong this luxury.
... I made quite an excursion up and down
the river in the water, a fluvial . , . walk. It
seemed the properest highway for this weather,
now in water a foot or two deep, now suddenly
descending through valleys up to my neck, but
all alike agreeable. Sometimes the bottom
looked as if covered with large, flat, sharp-edged
rocks. I could break oft cakes three or four
inches thick, and a foot or two square. It was
a conglomeration ... of sand and pebbles, as
it were cemented with oxide of iron (?), quite
red with it, iron colored to the depth of an inch
on the upper-side, a liard kind of pan covering
or forming the bottom in many places, . . .
There are many interesting objects of study, as
you walk up and down a clear river like this in
the water, where you can see every inequality in
the bottom, and every object on it. The breams'
nests are interesting and even handsome, and
the shallow water in them over the sand is so
warm to my hand that I think their ova will
soon be hatched ; also, the numerous heaps of
stones, made I know not certainly by what fish,
many of them rising above the surface. There
are weeds on the bottom which remind you of
the sea; the radical leaves of the floating heart
which I have never seen mentioned, very large,
Hosted by
Google
five inches long and four wide, dull claret (and
green when freshest), pellucid, with waved edges,
in large tufts or dimples on the bottom, oftenest
without the floating leaves, like lettuce, or some
kelps, or carrageen moss (_?). The bottom is
also scored with furrows made by the clams
moving about, sometimes a rod long, and always
the clam lies at one end. So this fish can change
its position, and get into deeper and cooler water.
I was in doubt before whether the clam made
these furrows ; for one, apparently fresh, that I
examined, had a " mud clam " at the end, but
these, which were very numerous, had living
clams. — There are but few fishes to be seen.
They have, no doubt, retreated to the deepest
water. In one somewhat muddier place close
to the shore I came upon an old pout cruising
with her young. She dashed away at my ap-
proach, but the fry remained. They were of
various sizes, from one third of an inch to one
and a half inches, quite black and pout-shaped,
except that the head was most developed in the
smallest. They were constantly moving about
in a somewhat circular or rather lenticular
school, about fifteen or eighteen inches in di-
ameter, and I estimated that there were at least
one thousand of them. Presently the old pout
came back and took the lead of her brood, which
followed her, or rather gathered about her, like
Hosted by
Google
chickens about a hen; but this mother had so
many children she did n't know what to do.
Her maternal yearnings must be on a great
scale. When one half of the divided school
found her out they came down upon her and
completely invested her like a small cloud. She
was soon joined by another smaller pout, appar-
ently her mate, and all, both old and young,
began to be very familiar with me. They came
round my legs and felt them with their feelers,
and the old pouts nibbled my toes, while the
fry half concealed my feet. Probably if I had
been standing on the bank, with my clothes on,
they would have been more shy. Ever and
anon the old pouts dashed aside to drive away
a passing bream or perch. The larger one kept
circling about her charge as if to keep them
together within a certain compass. If any of
her flock were lost or drowned she would hardly
have missed them. I wondered if there was
any calling of the roll at night ; whether she,
like a faithful shepherdess, ever told her tale
under some hawthorn in the river dales. Ever
ready to do battle with the wolves that might
break into her fold. The young pouts are pro-
tected then for a season by the old. Some had
evidently been hatched before the others. One
of these large pouts had a large velvet black
spot which included the right pectoral fin, — a
Hosted by
Google
8VMMER. 369
kind of disease which I have often observed on
them. — I wonder if any Roman emperor ever
indulged in such a luxury as this — of walking
up and down a river in torrid weather with only
a hat to shade the head. What were the baths
of Caraealla to this ? Now we traverse a long
watery plain some two feet deep ; now we descend
into a dark river valley, where the bottom is lost
sight of and the water rises to our armpits ; now
we go over a bard iron pan ; now we stoop and
go under a low bough of the Salisc nigra ; now
we slump into soft mud, amid the pads of the
Nymphcea odorata, at this hour shut. On this
road there is no other traveler to turn out for.
We finally return to the dry land and recline in
the shade of an apple-tree on a bank overlook-
ing the meadow. When I first came out of the
water the short, wiry grass was burning hot to
my feet, and my skin was soon parched and dry
in the sun. — I still hear the bobolink. . . .
The stones lying in the sun on this hillside, where
the grass has been cut, are as hot to the hand as
an egg just boiled, and very uncomfortable to
hold ; so do they absorb the heat. Every hour
do we expect a thunder-shower to cool the air,
but none comes. We say they are gone down
the river.
... St. John's-wort is perhaps the prevailing
flower now. Many fields are very yellow with
Hosted by
Google
870 SUMMER
it. In one such I was surprised to see rutabaga
turnips growing well and showing no effects of
drouth, and still more surprised when the farmer
. . . showed me, with his hoe, that the earth was
quite fresh and moist there only an inch beneath
the surface. This he thought was the result of
keeping the earth loose by cultivation.
July 10, 1853. . . . The bream poised over
its sandy nest on waving fin — how aboriginal !
So it was poised here and watched its ova before
the new world was known to the old. Still I
see the little cavities of their nests along th?
shore.
July 10, 1854. . . . The singing birds at pres-
ent are (villageous) robin, chip-bird, warbling
vireo, swallows ; (rural) song-sparrow, seringo,
flicker, king-bird, goldfinch, link of bobolink;
cherry-bird ; (sylvan) red-eye, tanager, wood-
thrush, chewink, veery, oven-bird, all even at
mid-day, cat-bird (full strain), whippoorwill,
crows.
July 10, 1856. ... 5 p. m. Up Assabet.
As I was bathing under the swamp white-oaks at
6 p. M. heard a suppressed sound, often repeated,
like perhaps the working of beer through a bung-
hole, which I already suspected to be produced
by owls. I was uncertain whether it was far or
near. Proceeding a dozen rods up stream on
the southside, toward where a cat-bird was inees-
Hosted by
Google
SUMMER. 871
santly mewing, I found myself suddenly within
a rod of a gray screech-owl, sitting on an alder
bough, with horns erect, turning its head from
side to side, and up and down, and peering at
me in that same ludicrously solemn and com-
placent way that I had noticed in one in cap-
tivity. Another, more red, also horned, repeated
the same warning sound, an apparent call to its
young, about the same distance off, in another
direction, on an alder. When they took to
flight, they made some noise with their wings.
With their short tails and squat figures they
looked very clumsy, all head and shoulders.
Hearing a fluttering under the alders, 1 drew
near and found a young owl, a third smaller
than the red, all gray, without obvious horns,
only four or five feet distant. It flitted along
two rods, and I followed it. I saw at least two
or more young. ■ . . These birds kept opening
their eyes when I moved, as if to get a clearer
sight of me. The young were very quick to
notice any motion of the old, and so betrayed
their return by looking in that direction when
they returned, though I had not heard it.
Though they permitted me to come near with
so much noise, as if bereft of half their senses,
they at once noticed the coming and going of
the old birds, even when I did not. There were
four or five owls in all. I have heard a some-
Hosted by
Google
372 SUMMER.
what similar note further off, and louder, in the
night.
July 10, 1860. . . . This cloudy, cool after-
noon I was exhilarated by the mass of cheerful,
bright yellowish light reflected from the sedge,
Carex Pennsylvanica growing densely on hill-
sides laid bare within a year or two. It is of
a distinct, cheerful, yellow color, even this over-
cast day, as if it were reflecting a bright sun-
light, though no sun is visible. It is surprising
how much this will light up a hillside, or upland
hollow or plateau, and when, in a clear day, you
look toward the sun over it late in the afternoon,
the scene is incredibly bright and elysian.
Hosted by
Google
INDEX.
»,»,»,
Hosted by GOOgk
irds, songs of, 33, ::»:. r::i.."i|.:
All, Air,. Ste under names
>, 194, "287.
s, It, h
Blacfc flies, 301, S
Blue flag, :
BLuejays, H
Boulder Field, 99.
l(=iki^,'l.-.,'',4. ]:;l. ,-■■■ I-. -n.
:,:,. peltila, S74.
[1 14 1 I J 1
SOV
: a:+: 3-.:-: : ., y f u '
log, 119.
lupalast*. 2S3.
la Swamp, 80, 97.
jpogonpukbsllus, 347.
SS.-
l'atl..:nU,
Ca Li.-ii(?r, i , . o«« funiiai.
Catehalei, 6.
Cat., 130.
IMll'i'. l:«. Mil, 1W, 2fi!l, L'1;>,1>71.
ivjiin^H, i/'luImju, 102.
-,],:,, SO, JK : -Jii<l.
auta, 267,308,317
inks, 23,24,39, IE
CMuispfiilft umbellflt*, IS
Chinquapins, 38, 66.
Chiownes tea, 299.
ChtAirdE, B, 31X153, 161
36, 54, 67, 69, 70,
11 11 1 1 1 1
cadi Bcptandecim, 137.
:,.!u'j!'i'ls'iili"' '153,157,216. £
Crowfoot, Ranunculus.
Butternuts, 3US.
Button Hushes, 116, 156.
Button-wood, 123.
itoola HorealiB, 13, 122.
the:-, 34.
■.iii». m, 74.*;. mi, £ij. 3.10. 3.
i5S. '114 ; ^liidows of, 20, 39, 2
Hosted by
Google
<.\«-£ quiJK, !'!. li!L', :iil.
Cockerels, ltt
C'".''ju-, hi.
111, 219, 2
Columbines, 62, 264.
i;.i.mj>;..iii™?', ;.",. s™ l'vk:m!s
Bomniajn, 13.61' 133. 139, a
fJmcord, lV). liii, )>■■'■. 'H'i.
Convsji»ria bifoiia. i a Su]
Convolvulus seph™, 230.
Conwa,y, 287, 312.
Corn, 1, 2.
Cornel, 43, 124, 243, 274. 5ft
nun, Dogwood.
Corner Spring, 86.
Coruus sltemif olfa, i24.
il'mii! i-iM-.ieiilata, 124.
Coram serieea, 124.
Comns stoloniiers, 124.
Corjualis glancs., BL
Cow-birds, 28, 115.
Cowley, Abraham, 91.
11 Crania Americana," 3S7.
Creepers, 101.
<Ji iAi'ta.'l, 3T, (58, 7?, 86, 39, 10c
127,14Ui;i,!7ii.l84,2L»,:!6:
Criticism, 207.
Crows. 47, fS, 67, 93.
'■v™-t,„,r. ;,■!, 113. See BntU
Cuckoos, 7, 46, 131, 13.1, 139, i
Cuiworto, Ralph, 222.
Ditto's, 90.
Deep Cut, 118,200.
DeXav, J. E., 44.
Depot Field Brook, 109.
Be auinosy, Thomas, 136
Devil, worabipera of the,
TUll*. 11„ I/. El "si
1,2, 176.
).
"I'M Lis, 122. Su Clinto-
Brifn™<l, 4.
'trivia*. hS.'Sl.
Drnldfl, 78, 7».
1*78,179.
Iffojt. 2">'}
KL-'itiMu.,,
Ljyrii;,.,:;,
Eniy.- pJL'.i,
Ku;.iis^v,t,i_, ■:•;:.!.
Erieeron anmmm,
itrifioaum, 7^, 84
Ermine Teasel Woods, 89
Evelyn, John, 78-80.'
Evenlng.1,148. SmNigl
Twilight
Evergreens, 47, 106. S
t-'\A :■! Tl. .1
Eyes, 361.
^of the Am.™," 72.
369. '
30, S6, S3, 94, 101, 117,
Hosted by
Google
INDEX.
Gaiety, 216.
Fm-n.\ ■',-. 'm.
Familiarity, 1«-
J'-^ftU.--, 17.
Fcnis, lb, 04, OS, 77, S3. 84, 93, 104,
nu. isi, i:iLi. l.-iu, i-7. 202. «■■
Brakes, OsnninV, noftllg,
F6Bto™ieneU»,2S3.
™ ' !, purple, 236, 31T.
<:,:, ir.i:., \m. :«;;. w*;. ,v ( ,
as of species.
i ; i,- 177, .■..
Firs, '.WT, L
i 118, 1
t, aw,
Fij-ll-hawks, C7. -V(f Harts.
I , L.-! 1 Lkl',ij'J.']H.i,:Hii.
Flsgu. Sm Blue flag, Iria.
Plug Hill, 184, 188.
r'iuaHiiw, 141. .-;,( KrLjf.'vi-.u..
Fletcher, Giles, 246.
Flies, 111. Se.i Black flies.
Flint's Bridge, 87.
Hint's I>.:iul. 27. ;'7. I'-:,. i;ii>.
Il.-nii^ i.i-i, -'52, 271, U'JU-
sJT-^,:i:!l,S41. S'.'c n'.iddr
of ipecios.
Blower Eihibltion, 175.
Grape-Tinee, 2B0.
Or.i.-s. «. IV.'. 7", 77, Idl. Ill,
H: ; , 17.-, 1«4, 194, 202, 232,
(;r-iy,'A-™,'l'-' v U--'-' 147, m
llaraWk, 34'
hi/. 177. 201. ll-rviiurniV.
Forget-menota,109.
Forget-me-not Brook, 126.
93, 113, 124,
.'.I. rV i" v. in-n
Franklin, 309.
Friends, S3, 103, 143, 161, 251. S«
Friendship.
±~rknl~:ii|\ 75. 229. Set Friends.
Loto, Visiting.
FrinziUa. See Finch.
I'riniri la 1 1 i . " i ■ m ■ - - . I!'. 21, •*);).
I'lilLsiiln |.-,-s.:iii:i, I'.'j.
Frogs, 1, 42, 116, 148, 160, 234, 263.
Su Bnll-frois.
I-niit., '!, 100, 188- &< undername!
[■ m'isvk 108,134, 171, 173.
Hosted by
Google
HogBnsn-walke, 90.
Hoes, 90.
Horns, 4,145, 340.
INDEX.
Kii'W Hit:,
Kidnap
Hubbard's Bridge, 3 IS.
Enbbud'i Clow, 36.
lUuHv.jM-.iilvi-.ai-.i
Hubbard's Mwiow, 77, 87, 16.
Hubbard's Swarap. ill;, 122.
Huckleberries, 30, 53, SI, SB. lfifi.
217, 257, 317.
Hucklebsrry ipple, 134, 163.
Iii^-ii<:l>r.-r-vbirds, SI, 165.
Humility, 335,
Humming birds, 135.
Hummocks, 318, 325.
Husk-root, 249.
Hylodes, 2, 21, 36, BO, 59, 16<
Hypericum. See St, John's
Imli «.,,«,' Ml. 24';, 353.
i,i,ii™i.,iidH..-i:-.
■.■.v,:,ii|nii,.', •!■- .See Slavery,
i — i.L,- ;. I.i ■)* 47 .".;, li; •:
Jones, Uaptain, 102.
Lunbfeill, 6, 53, 123, 127, 163. Su
LindBMpet'iMs' 269, 1 276, 280, 286.
Language, 90.
Urkt, S'4. ISO. IKi.u'.'l.
Lsurel, 46,88, 1)2, 116, 167,216. &*
Kami', ;-:']ii.;[. Khi>l'iiifi:drun.
!,i,;r».l lilc'n. r.'S. -I-
lAvard, A. n.,'76.
Leaves, 37, 76, 77, 104, 21R S<i*
life; 7«. ;."=. ii]
-= 313.3 : il,.'i
■„ l.i-vllifT.
Lightning bugs, 160, 176 Sec Bire-
-uS! 77, 8J, 108, 134, 151, 158,169,
174. 1.-5. 'j,:.', 2iv &'.<!. 27::. 274,
278, 283, 324, 325, ;!27, i!T, tf>7.
Sit Convallaria.
lies, red, 282, 347. SM.
me Quarries, 89,
mnanthciuum, 242. Sk Floating
nariaVulgBils, 231.
neoln, 79.
times., 29, 60, 64 184, 306.
4,77,88,133,187.144,
Hosted by
Google
ie. :,, ■;,-. ■!■!. 1M, 101, 111,199.
i s.e^ : i- i ii ■ , VLUiutaurgifl.
t WaaliQiBton, a
taints:!, I.-. ML
taiiid, 27 : 311.
" Martyrs in Heaven," 246.
Maruts cotula, 23D.
Masiun'a Puai.ur*. 4-!i. b^.
Mii**chuBetts, I-W1. I!.".- -JT2.
Monking-birda, 13
M(.,lt>-1.. LU3.
Molr-a, a'!.
iiU-r;:..!-J. ::l
283,259,268,314. .'
Naahaiturk,W.4j.si.]:S. 1711.
11!
Saumburgia. ttiyrii:
flew Hampshire, 17-
$:e Evening. \1<jli
IK.
OldeiLlarulia cgerulea.
i 132,2*
'. Pa Haling, 14
Hosted by
Google
INDEX,
L':,ir,l,:.,li.-iir
Pointed Cui
Paralytica, '.-
J 'a rsi.lv. 337-
Partridges, 78, 106, 113, IIS, 19
Fust, W, 60.
Pastinsca sati™, 337.
i'.'.,.r«(t-H, 1SS, 217. S«Me»doi(8.
p«boaj, w. - - -■-
Peac hea, 79.
vmnn'h, ....
Pivmonto h™,.!i, 137,
Poetry, 223, 238.
Potts, 2, 3, 186, 214.
PogorJ* (adder's tongue arethuM),
Poison, 833.
Pollen, 42, 75, 203.
Pollywogj, 142, 146, 226.
Polygonum, 161.
l'ii!v^',.;!:[u livipatom, 303.
Pood,, !2i>, a- '■ ■ -
Pond-weed, 152.' Sie Podimoietoo
PookawtMBet, 89.
Ponte*™, 161, 258, 274, 318. Si
Potamogeton, 126. Set Poud-w
Potimogetoii bvbijdii-.. 2 it.
Potamogeton nalaus, 152, 242,
Potatoes, 1, 360.
I'.jwiiiila. «s* Cinquefoil.
PoiiTjlUl.i :il^-Tir -j:|, v 10 .
!'■■ ■ ■■■!. r;.
Potentjlla sarmentoea, 216.
i',:,!-,.. 1^.
PmmetbtueV
JY.i-:.,;ii.;. . 2:
0, 1M, 135, 16S, 1SS,
, 240. See Thought.
176, See Laurel,
SlTBTl
iioo
i. I-. i,
: . Nor'tlt, S
99.
in. 'Ji. :».
1S5. 2;1,
aoo, South
= . 12!. 131
144,
I ■■,]:,.
'i". ,■,■■■■■
ii.i-.s™, 21
oi, i;, 2&
ta-
Roojans, 365-
Hosted by
Google
■:■, [«,■!,]>■, 1ST, 159, 854.
■a iiifji,,.; VU. 1ST. 158,153,361.
i» ruticluom, 159.
<es, 113, Hi, 155, l:Si, lit. !■*■
5,'i?i
cents, 64, 66, 73, 1(
Sedge, &, 1
Skunks, 166, 196.
Skunk-cabbagea, I
SlareiJ, 86, R4.
Lipvcrj-o-.i.i.iS.
milax herbacea, 128. &e Cirri™
SoInmon ; B-H«.l, 123, 14a
,, iv . r. ■:.. ■■:, Iiil.ll"ll6, 146.
299, 863.
spstterdorks. aa
Speed (MIL fa
;-L.i- -.H.I-. IBS, 202.
fpnu-ps, Sln'i, OKI.
Spruce Swamp, 37, 89.
&iuam Lake, 286.
Kquim-ls, L-Sj, -237.
Squirrels, fljin*, 190.
^f.i.-li-i-.or-. 28, 69,130, 198.
Stwm-IYlli^L'.:, 111.'
Stonehenge, 78.
Slursris. Sen Clouds, Rsiu, Thun
dershowers.
Simla, 76.
Strawberries, 42, 83, 168, 21&
Sudbury road , 95, 130.
Bus, the, 169.
Sun, steering bj, 187.
- -sBMftlf
;, 84, 93, 110, lift.
a rubiglnoea), 131,
Hosted by
Google
Tansy, 141, 317, W
Telegraph, the, 110.
Teuipsranee, 6L
Terrible, I*, lis.
ThsJiBtriira, 178. Set R uc , R He .
Thesium umbsllitnm, 148.
Thistles, 359.
Thorem (a Bailor), 102,
Thou(ht, 67, 109, 136, 215, Ml, 345,
Ttira-hr:]'--. liirj, 137, 162,
Thrash Alley, 183.
Thrushes, 23, 24, 112. »1, ijc. 14-I .
Storms.
Toad-flai, 231.
Toads, 50 69, 84, 115, 181, 148, 151,
A/'. 2.0,;Ja,3.T4. Si. Ires-toads.
Toads, willed, 6,
Toadstools. 4 t m l-'iif,.".
T(u i ; i- s 31. 53, 65,91, 108, 164,
1 1 1 , 1 .■■■),"■;;,:«:._>, '«5. .S'rEDiv,,
inan!ilp! i; , i-: uif a |.icf :L . T-.irt.lfis."
Toiirnefqrt, Jowpli i'in.-i li- ■',;,;
Town records, 36, 90.
■1 l.i.Rht Irii.uitrv. 321.1.
(ration, 239.
'fvar.-liT.ff. 3:j, H.1H, 254, 310.
Treadmill 176.
Tr.HH, :>, ©:.:,. -JT7.37-2. :.1L1.
Tree-toads, 55, 119, 135, 262. See
Trientalis, 82.
Trfeutalis Americana, 148
'I'l'ii'.iiuEU ai-VHiiTi. 2\\ ,<■;•■•. ri-.vra
■|'L',.i:i:r:L M-.«,| f 149.
Truth, 210,
Tuclterma.n's Raring, 291, 310.
Tupelo, 250.
Turnips, 870.
turtles. 3i 66, 105, 108, US, 116,
381
« Evening, Night,
enosylvaoioura, 815v
Viola, pedata., 101,199.
Violets, 125.
Vireos, 104, if 6.
Virtues, 2, 43, 174, 176
Temptations.
VMHug, 103. See Frien
Vitis.Idga., 267, See Ore
Warblers, 40, 41, 104, 264.
Ware, John, 201.
"U-nsliiin- days," 217.
Mer-snakes, i.
ater target, 274.
'rosier, Abfcajl, 309.
w.n.ai,:
lyk.th.-.iffi
ni,90.
Whlpnoorwills,
178.
White Cedar Swamp,
White Mountains, SB
White Pine draw, 89
White's Pond, 133, 22
White weed, 43, 56, 8
Hosted by
Google
WiilovFs, _1-1 : irt, 131, Ii3, 294, 31 S,
Willow Uerb" 353.'
\Vi, ',!<,' -.'iK.
Winged toad, 6.
Winalow, General, 13S.
WintetgrecQ, 5, 127, 143, 170, 31*-
,S'« TrLenWia,
WiHdom, 207, 215, 333.
INDEX.
FbodiMckers, 62, 145.
Yellcm !!"■■
yii.i.lini. ri
Hosted by
Google
Hosted by
Google
Id by Google
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11