in Thoreau’s Journal:

The increasing scarlet & yellow tints around the meadows & river remind me of the opening of a vast flower bud—they are the petals of its corolla—which is of the width of the valleys—

It is the flower of autumn whose expanding bud just begins to blush.  As yet however in the forest there are very few changes of foliage. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The red maple has fairly begun to blush in some places by the river. I see one, by the canal behind Barrett’s mill, all aglow against the sun. These first trees that change are the most interesting, since they are seen against others still freshly green — such brilliant red on green. I go half a mile out of my way to examine such a red banner. A single tree becomes the crowning beauty of some meadowy vale and attracts the attention of the traveller from afar. At the eleventh hour of the year, some tree which has stood mute and inglorious in some distant vale thus proclaims its character as effectually as if it stood by the highway-side, and it leads our thoughts away from the dusty road into those brave solitudes which it inhabits.

The whole tree, thus ripening in advance of its fellows, attains a singular preeminence. I am thrilled at the sight of it, bearing aloft its scarlet standard for its regiment of green-clad foresters around. The forest is the more spirited.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Great works of art have endless leisure for a background, as the universe has space. Time stands still while they are created. The artist cannot be in hurry. The earth moves round the sun with inconceivable rapidity, and yet the surface of the lake is not ruffled by it.

It is not by a compromise, it is not by a timid and feeble repentance, that a man will save his soul and live, at last.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Now look out for redness on the face of the earth–

such as is seen on the cheek of the sweet viburnum–

or as frosty morning walk imparts to a man’s face–

Very brilliant & remarkable now are the prinos berries–

when so brilliant & pert–

when most things

flowers & berries

have withered.

I gather pretty good wild pears near the New Road–

now in prime.

The C. sericea bushes along the edge of the great meadows–

are now turned mulberry–

& here is an end of its berries then.

The hard frosts of the 21st & 22nd have put an end

to several kinds of plants & prob. berries for this year–

This is the crisis

when many kinds

conclude their summer.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

As I look off from the hilltop, I wonder if there are any finer days in the year than these the air is so fine and bracing.

The landscape has acquired some fresh verdure withal. The frosts come to ripen the days like fruits, persimmons.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

3 P. M. – To Cliffs via Bear Hill.

As I go through the fields, endeavoring to recover my tone and sanity and to perceive things truly and simply again, after having been perambulating the bounds of the town all the week, and dealing with the most commonplace and worldly-minded men, and emphatically trivial things, I feel as if I had committed suicide in a sense. I am again forcibly struck with the truth of the fable of Apollo serving King Admetus, its universal applicability. A fatal coarseness is the result of mixing in the trivial affairs of men. Though I have been associating even with the select men of this and the surrounding towns, I feel inexpressibly begrimed. My Pegasus has lost his wings; he has turned a reptile and gone on his belly. Such things are compatible only with a cheap and superficial life. The poet must keep himself unstained and aloof. Let him perambulate the bounds of imagination’s provinces, the realms of faery, and not the insignificant boundaries of towns.

The excursions of the imagination are so boundless, the limits of towns are so petty.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The soapwort gentian cheers & surprises with solid bulbs of blue from the shore—the stale grown purplish. It abounds along the river—after so much has been mown.

in Thoreau’s Journal: 

As we paddle westward, toward College Meadow, I perceive that a new season has come.  The air is incredibly clear.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The goldenrods have generally lost their brightness.  A-barberrying to Flint’s Pond. 

Methinks the asters were in their prime four or five days ago.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The rippled blue surface of Fair Haven from the Cliffs—with its smooth white border where weeds preserve the surface smooth––a placid sliver plated rim–– 

The pond is like the sky with a border of whitish clouds in the horizon.  

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Yesterday was very cold, with northwest wind, and this morning the first frost in the garden, killing some of our vines.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Like the fruits, when cooler weather and frosts arrive, we too are braced and ripened. When we shift from the shady to the sunny side of the house, and sit there in an extra coat for warmth,

our green and leafy and pulpy thoughts acquire color and flavor, and perchance a sweet nuttiness at last, worth your cracking.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I must walk more with free senses–– It is as bad to study stars & clouds as flowers & stones–– I must let my senses wander as my thoughts––my eyes see without looking. Carlyle said that how to observe was to look––but I say that is rather to see––& the more you look the less you will observe––

I have the habit of attention to such excess that my senses get no rest––but suffer from a constant strain.  Be not preoccupied with looking. Go not to the object. Let it come to you….What I need is not to look at all––but a true sauntering of the eye.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The prinos berries are pretty red. Any redness like cardinal-flowers, or poke, or the evening sky, or Cheronaea, excites us as a red flag does cows and turkeys. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:  

This is the season when the prevalence of the goldenrod gives such a ripe and teeming look to the dry fields and to the swamp

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The poke is a very rich and striking plant. Some which stand under the Cliffs quite dazzled me with their now purple stems gracefully drooping each way, their rich, somewhat yellowish, purple-veined leaves, their bright purple racemes, —peduncles, and pedicels, and calyx-like petals from which the birds have picked the berries (these racemes, with their petals now turned to purple, are more brilliant than anything of the kind), — flower-buds, flowers, ripe berries and dark purple ones, and calyx-like petals which have lost their fruit, all on the same plant. I love to see any redness in the vegetation of the temperate zone. It is the richest color. I love to press these berries between my fingers and see their rich purple wine staining my hand.

It asks a bright sun on it to make it show to best advantage, and it must be seen at this season of the year. It speaks to my blood. Every part of it is flower, such is its superfluity of color, —a feast of color. That is the richest flower which most abounds in color. What need to taste the fruit, to drink the wine, to him who can thus taste and drink with his eyes? Its boughs, gracefully drooping, offering repasts to the birds. It is cardinal in its rank, as in its color. Nature here is full of blood and heat and luxuriance. What a triumph it appears in Nature to have produced and perfected such a plant, enough for a summer.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

2 A. M. – The moon not quite full. To Conantum via road. There is a low vapor in the meadows beyond the depot, dense and white, though scarcely higher than a man’s head, concealing the stems of the trees. I see that the oaks, which are so dark and distinctly outlined, are illumined by the moon on the opposite side. This as I go up the back road. A few thin, ineffectual clouds in the sky. I come out thus into the moonlit night, where men are not, as if into a scenery anciently deserted by men.

The life of men is like a dream. It is three thousand years since night has had possession. Go forth and hear the crickets chirp at midnight. Hear if their dynasty is not an ancient one and well founded. I feel the antiquity of the night. She surely repossesses herself of her realms, as if her dynasty were uninterrupted, or she had underlain the day. No sounds but the steady creaking of crickets and the occasional crowing of cocks. I go by the farmer’s houses and barns, standing there in the dim light under the trees, as if they lay at an immense distance or under a veil. The farmer and his oxen now all asleep. Not even a watch-dog awake. The human slumbers. There is less of man in the world. The fog in the lowlands on the Corner road is never still. It now advances and envelops me as I stand to write these words, then clears away, with ever noiseless step. It covers the meadows like a web. I hear the clock strike three.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

There is the hobble-bush with its berries and large roundish leaves, now beginning to turn a deep dull crimson red.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

We are receiving our portion of the infinite. The art of life! Was there ever anything memorable written upon it? By what disciplines to secure the most life, with what care to watch our thoughts. To observe what transpires, not in the street, but in the mind and heart of me! I do not remember any page which will tell me how to spend this afternoon. I do not so much wish to know how to economize time as how to spend it, by what means to grow rich, that the day may not have been in vain.

The scenery, when it is truly seen, reacts on the life of the seer. How to live. How to get the most life. As if you were to teach the young hunter how to entrap his game. How to extract its honey from the flower of the world. That is my every-day business. I am as busy as a bee about it.