in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is very cold and windy— Thermometer 26+.  I walk to Walden & andromeda ponds— It is all at once perfect winter. I walk on frozen ground 2/3 covered with a sugaring of dry snow—& this strong & cutting NW wind makes the oak leaves rustle drily enough to set your heart on edge—

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Truly a hard day—hard Times these.  Not a mosquito left. Not an insect to hum. Crickets gone into winter quarters— Friends long since gone there—& you left to walk on frozen ground—with your hands in your pockets. 

Ah but is not this a glorious time for your deep inward fires?— & will not your green hickory & white oak burn clean—in this frosty air?  

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The first sprinkling of snow, which for a short time whitens the ground in spots.

I do not know how to distinguish between our waking life and a dream. Are we not always living the life that we imagine we are?

Fear creates danger, and courage dispels it.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I am glad of the shelter of the thick pine wood on the Marlboro’ road—on the plain. The roar of the wind over the pines sounds like the surf on countless beaches—an endless shore—& at intervals it sounds like a gong resounding through the halls & entries. How the wind roars among the shrouds of the wood  i.e. there is a certain resounding woodiness in the tone— The sky looks mild & fair enough from this shelter.— every withered blade of grass & every dry weed—as well as pine needle—reflects light—  The lately dark woods are open & light—the sun shines in upon the stems of trees which it has not shone on since spring — Around the edges of ponds the weeds are dead and there too the light penetrates— The atmosphere is less moist & gross & light is universally dispersed. We are greatly indebted to these transition seasons or states of the atmosphere—which show us thus phenomena which belong not to the summer or the winter of any climate. The brilliancy of the autumn is wonderful—this flashing brilliancy—as if the atmosphere were phosphoric…

in Thoreau’s Journal:

This morning the ground is once more whitened with snow—

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Thus steadily but unobserved the winter steals down from the north–till from our highest hills we can discern its vanguard….Little did we think how near the winter was. 

It is as if a scout had brought in word that an enemy was approaching in force only a day’s march distant….We had not thought seriously of winter–we dwelt in fancied security yet.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I too have my spring thoughts even in November.

Photo: November 8, 2022

Each phase of nature, while not invisible, is yet not too distinct and obtrusive. It is there to be found when we look for it, but not demanding our attention. It is like a silent but sympathizing companion in whose company we retain most of the advantages of solitude, with whom we can walk and talk, or be silent, naturally, without the necessity of talking in a strain foreign to the place.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The sun now rises far southward.  I see westward the earliest sunlight on the reddish oak leaves & the pines—the former appear to get more than their share—  How soon the sun gets above the hills—as if he would accomplish his whole diurnal journey in a few hours at this rate—but it is a long way around & these are nothing to the hill of heaven.

Whether we are idle or industrious the sun is constantly traveling through the sky—consuming arc after arc of this great circle at this same rapid pace.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Climbed the wooded hill by Holden’s spruce swamp—& got a novel View of the river & Fair Haven Bay—through the almost leafless woods. How much handsomer a river or lake such as ours seems thus through a foreground of scattered or else partially leafless trees though at a considerable distance this side of it—especially if the water is open without wooded shore or isles—

It is the most perfect & beautiful of all frames which yet the sketcher is commonly careful to brush aside. I mean a foreground—a view of the distant water through the near forest—through a thousand little vistas—as we are rushing toward the former—that intimate mingling of wood & water which excites an expectation which the near & open view rarely realizes. We prefer that some part be concealed—which our imagination may navigate.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think the same is true of human beings. We do not wish to see children precocious, making great strides in their early years like sprouts, producing a soft and perishable timber, but better if they expand slowly at first, as if contending with difficulties, and so are solidified and perfected.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Must be out-of-doors enough to get experience of wholesome reality—as a ballast to thought and sentiment. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life. This life in the present.

Let a man have thought what he will of Nature in the house—she will still be novel outdoors. I keep out of doors for the sake of the mineral, vegetable, and animal in me….My thought is a part of the meaning of the world, and hence I use a part of the world as a symbol to express my thought.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

By fall I mean literally the falling of the leaves, though some mean by it the changing or the acquisition of a brighter color. 

This I call the autumnal tint, the ripening to the fall.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

What is Nature unless there is an eventful human life passing within her?

Many joys and many sorrows are the lights and shadows in which she shows most beautiful.

in Thoreau’s Journal:  

 It is a bright, clear, warm November day. I feel blessed. I love my life. I warm toward all nature.

The woods are now much more open than when I last observed them; the leaves have fallen, and they let in light, and I see the sky through them as through a crow’s wing in every direction. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The wild apples are now getting palatable. I find a few left on distant trees—which the farmer thinks it not worth his while to gather—he thinks that he has better in his barrels, but he is mistaken unless he has a walker’s appetite & imagination—neither of which can he have. These apples cannot be too gnurly & rusty & crabbed (to look at)— The gnurliest will have some redeeming traits even to the eyes— You will discover some evening redness dashed or sprinkled—on some protuberance or in some cavity— It is rare that the summer lets an apple go without streaking or spotting it on some part of its sphere—though perchance one side may only seem to betray that it has once fallen in a brick yard—and the other have been bespattered from a roily ink bottle.

The saunterer’s apple, not even the saunterer can eat in the house.— Some red stains it will have commemorating the mornings & evenings it has witnessed—some dark & rusty blotches in memory of the clouds, & foggy mildewy days that have passed over it—and a spacious field of green reflecting the general face of nature—green even as the fields— Or yellow its ground if it has a sunny flavor—yellow as the harvests—or russet as the hills. The noblest of fruits is the apple. Let the most beautiful or swiftest have it.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

A white frost this morning, lasting late into the day. This has settled the accounts of many plants which lingered still.

What with the rains & frosts & winds the leaves have fairly fallen now— You may say the fall has ended. Those which still hang on the trees are withered & dry —  I am surprised at the change since last Sunday — Looking at the distant woods I perceive that there is no yellow nor scarlet there now— They are (except the evergreens) a mere dull dry red— The autumnal tints are gone.   What life remains is merely at the foot of the leafstalk.  The woods have for the most part acquired their winter aspect— And coarse rustling light colored withered grasses skirt the river & the woodside— 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love to wander and muse over them in their graves, returning to dust again. Here are no lying or vain epitaphs. The scent of their decay is pleasant to me. I buy no lot in the cemetery which my townsmen have just consecrated with a poem and an auction, paying so much for a choice. Here is room enough for me.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Some afternoons when the lower strata of the atmosphere is filled with a haze like mist the hills in the horizon seem from an eminence are visibly divided into distinct ranges—& it is easy to refer each to its own chain to tops of the chain rising above the mists which fill the vallies.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

This morning I awoke and found it snowing and the ground covered with snow….

Winter, with its inwardness, is upon us. A man is constrained to sit down, and to think.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

This is the season of the fall when the leaves are whirled through the air like flocks of birds,

the season of birch spangles,

when you see afar a few clear-yellow leaves left on the tops of the birches.