in Thoreau’s Journal:    

Everything beautiful impresses us as sufficient to itself. Many men who have had much intercourse with the world, and not borne the trial well, affect me as all resistance, all burr and rind, without any gentle man or tender and innocent core left.

It is surprising how any reminiscence of a different season of the year affects us. When I meet with any such in my journal, it affects me as poetry, and I appreciate that other season and that particular phenomenon more than at the time. The world so seen is all one spring, and full of beauty. You only need to make a faithful record of an average summer day’s experience and mood, and read it in the winter, and it will carry you back to more than that summer day alone could show. Only the rarest flower, the purest melody of the season, thus comes down to us. 

When, after feeling dissatisfied with my life, I aspire to something better, and more scrupulous, more reserved and continent, as if expecting somewhat, suddenly I find myself full of life as a nut of meat, –– am overflowing with a quiet,  genial mirthfulness. I think to myself, I must attend to my diet. I must get up earlier and take a morning walk. I must have done with business, and devote myself to my muse. So I damn up my stream, and my waters gather to a head. I am freighted with thought.

[Photo:  Although October, the world seen as all one spring, and full of beauty.]