in Thoreau’s Journal:

I am inclined now for a pensive evening walk. 

Photo: August 2, 2018 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

How much of beauty–of color as well as form–on which our eyes daily rest goes unperceived by us! No one but a botanist is likely to perceive nicely the different shades of green which the open surface of the earth is clothed–not even a landscape painter if he does not know the species of sedges and grasses which paint it.  

August 1, 2009 at Cook Intervale, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

As I look out through the woods westward there, I see, sleeping and gleaming through the stagnant, misty, glaucous dog-day air, i. e. blue mist, the smooth silvery surface of Fair Haven Pond. There is a singular charm about it in this setting. The surface has a dull, gleaming polish on it, though draped in this glaucous mist.

Photo: July 31, 2016: Squam Lake from Eagle Cliff, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

3:30 P.M. ––To Flint’s Pond.

Do not all flowers that blossom after mid-July remind us of the fall? After midsummer we have a belated feeling as if we had all been idlers––& are forward to see in each sight––& hear in each sound some presage of fall.–– just as in mid-age man anticipates the end of life. 

Photo: July 30, 2019 on Montgomery Brook, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

How attractive is color, especially red; kindred this with the color of fruits in the harvest and skies in the evening. The colors which some rather obscure leaves assume in the fall in dark copses or by the roadside, for the most part unobserved, interest me more than their flowers. There is also that plant with a lake or claret under side to its radical leaves in early spring. What is that?

July 29, 2023 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Methinks the season culminated about the middle of this month––That the year was of indefinite promise before––   ––but that after the 1st intense heats we postponed the fulfillment of many of our hopes for this year––& having as it were attained the ridge of the summer––commenced to descend the long slope toward winter––the afternoon & down hill of the year––  Last evening it was much cooler––& I heard a decided fall sound of crickets––

Photo: July 28, 2017 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I should like to ask the assessors what is the value of that blue mountain range in the northwest horizon to Concord, and see if they would laugh or seriously set about calculating it. How poor, comparatively, should we be without it ! It would be descending to the scale of the merchant to say it is worth its weight in gold. The privilege of beholding it, as an ornament, a suggestion, a provocation, a heaven on earth. If I were one of the 5 fathers of the town I would not sell this right which we now enjoy for all the merely material wealth and prosperity conceivable. If need were, we would rather all go down together.

July 27, 2019 on Eagle Cliff, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

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

Photo: July 26, 2016 on the Guinea Pond Trail, White Mountain National Forest, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

This morning is all the more glorious for a white fog, which, though not universal, is still very extensive over all lowlands, some fifty feet high or more, though there was none at ten last night. There are white cobwebs on the grass. The battalions of the fog are continually on the move.

Photo: July 25, 2019 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The mind is subject to moods, as the shadows of the clouds that pass over the earth. Pay not too much heed to them. Let not the traveller stop for them. They consist with the fairest weather. By the mood of my mind, I suddenly felt dissuaded from continuing my walk, but I observed at the same instant that the shadow of a cloud was passing over [the] spot on which I stood, though it was of small extent, which, if it had no connection with my mood, at any rate suggested how transient and little to be regarded that mood was. I kept on, and in a moment the sun shone on my walk within and without.

Photo: July 23, 2015: Looking west from Mt. Israel, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Yesterday having been a rainy day, the air is now remarkably clear and cool and you rarely see the horizon so distinct. The surface of the earth, especially looking westward, —grass grounds, pastures, and meadows, — is remarkably beautiful. I stand in Heywood’s pasture… leaning over the wall, look westward. All things — grass, etc. — are peculiarly fresh this season on account of the copious rains.

Photo: July 22, 2017 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The deliberate pace of a thinker never made a road the worse for travelling on.

There I have freedom in my thought, and in my soul am free.

Photo: July 21, 2019 on Smithville Road, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The gentle susurrus from the leaves of the trees on shore is very enlivening, as if Nature were freshening, awakening to some enterprise. There is but little wind, but its sound, incessantly stirring the leaves at a little distance along the shore, heard not seen, is very inspiriting. It is like an everlasting dawn or awakening of nature to some great purpose.

Photo: July 20, 2017 at Dinsmore Pond, Sandwich, New Hampshire

in Thoreau’s Journal:

My greatest skill has been to want but little….

Photo: July 19, 2019 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Methinks the asters and goldenrods begin, like the early ripening leaves, with midsummer heats. Now look out for these children of the sun, when already the fall of some of the very earliest spring flowers has commenced.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I go to observe the lilies….The pontederia is in its prime alive with butterflies yellow & others––I see its tall blue spikes reflected beneath the edge of the pads on each side––pointing down to a heaven beneath as well as above–

Photo: July 17, 2013 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The milkweeds, or silkweeds, are rich flowers, now in blossom. The Asclepias syriaca, or common milkweed; its buds fly open at a touch. But handsomer much is Asclepias pulchra, or water silkweed. The thin green bark of this last, and indeed of the other, is so strong that a man cannot break a small strip of it by pulling. It contains a mass of fine silken fibres, arranged side by side like the strings of a fiddle-bow, and may be bent short without weakening it.

Photo: July 16, 2016 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Again I am attracted by the Clam shell reach of the river running E & W—as seen from Hubbard’s fields—now beginning to be smoothed as in the fall— First next the meadows is the broad dark green rank of pickerel weeds &c &c (Polygonum &c) then the light reflecting edging of pads—& then the smooth still cloud reflecting water.  My thoughts are driven inward—even as clouds and trees are reflected in the still smooth water— There is an inwardness even in the mosquitoes hum—while I am picking blueberries in the dank wood.

Photo: July 15, 2018 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Awake to a day of gentle rain––very much needed—none to speak of for nearly a month methinks. The cooler & stiller day has a valuable effect on my spirits….It holds up from time & then a fine misty rain falls. It lies on the fine reddish tops of some grasses thick & whitish like morning cobwebs. The stillness is very soothing. This is a summer rain. The earth is being bedewed. There is no storm or violence to it.  Health is a sound relation to nature.

July 14, 2019 at Chicks Corner, Sandwich, NH