In Thoreau’s Journal:

How grateful to our feelings is the approach of autumn! We have had no serious storm since spring. What a salad to my spirits is this cooler, darker day!

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The year is but a succession of days, and I see that I could assign some office to each day which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Everything is done in season, and there is no time to spare. The bird gets its brood hatched in season and is off.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Walking may be a science, so far as the direction of a walk is concerned. I go again to the Great Meadows, to improve this remarkably dry season and walk where in ordinary times I cannot go.

There is, no doubt, a particular season of the year when each place may be visited with most profit and pleasure, and it may be worth the while to consider what that season is in each case.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

….It is very pleasant to measure the progress of the seasons by this [the blossoming of vervain] & similar clocks— So you get not the absolute time but the true time of the season. 

But I can measure the progress of the seasons only by observing a particular plant, for I notice that they are by no means equally advanced. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

This day, too, has that autumnal character. I am struck by the clearness and stillness of the air, the brightness of the landscape, or, as it were, the reflection of light from the washed earth, the darkness and heaviness of the shade, as I look now up the river at the white maples and bushes, and the smoothness of the stream.

If they are between you and the sun, the trees are more black than green. It must be owing to the clearness of the air since the rains, together with the multiplication of the leaves, whose effect has not been perceived during the mists of the dog-days. But I cannot account for this peculiar smoothness of the dimpled stream – unless the air is stiller than before – nor for the peculiar brightness of the sun’s reflection from its surface. I stand on the south bank, opposite the black willows, looking up the full stream, which, with a smooth, almost oily and sheeny surface, comes welling and dimpling onward, peculiarly smooth and bright now at 4 P. M., while the numerous trees seen up the stream – white maples, oaks, etc. – and the bushes look absolutely black in the clear, bright light.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The seasons do not cease a moment to revolve, and therefore Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other. If you are not out at the right instant, the summer may go by and you not see it. How much of the year is spring and fall! How little can be called summer! The grass is no sooner grown than it begins to wither.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Elizabeth Hoar shows me the following plants which she brought from the Wht Mts the 16th ult.

Chiogenes hispidula creeping snow-berry also called Gaultheria & also vaccinium hispidula–in fruit. –– with a partridge berry scent & taste.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

20 ms’ before 5 Am to Cliffs & Walden.  Dawn….

This mornings red, there being a misty cloud there, is equal to an evening red.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I am surprised to find that whereof late years there have been so many cardinal-flowers, there are now very few. So much does a plant fluctuate from season to season.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

May I love and revere myself above all the gods that men have ever invented. May I never let the vestal fire go out in my recesses.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

How long we may have gazed on a particular scenery and think that we have seen and known it, when, at length, some bird or quadruped comes and takes possession of it before our eyes, and imparts to it a wholly new character. The heron uses these shallows as I cannot. I give them up to him.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

First marked dog-day; sultry and with misty clouds. For ten days or so we have had comparatively cool, fall-like weather.

I remember only with a pang the past spring and summer thus far. I have not been an early riser. Society seems to have invaded and overrun me. I have drank tea and coffee and made myself cheap and vulgar. My days have been all noontides, without sacred mornings and evenings. I desire to rise early henceforth, to associate with those whose influence is elevating, to have such dreams and waking thoughts that my diet may not be indifferent to me.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The smallest of nature’s works fits the farthest and widest view, as if it had been referred in its bearings to every point in space. It harmonizes with the horizon line and the orbits of the planets. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

What shall we name this season–– This very late afternoon––or very early evening?  This severe & placid season of the day most favorable for reflection––after the insufferable heats and the bustle of the day are over––& before the dampness & twilight of the evening! The serene hour––the Muses’ hour––the season of reflection.––  It is commonly desecrated by being made tea-time. It begins perhaps with the very earliest condensation of moisture in the air––when the shadows of hills are first observed.––  & the breezes begin to go down––& birds begin again to sing. The pensive season. It is earlier than the “chaste Eve” of the poet. Bats have not come forth–– It is not twilight–– There is no dew yet on the grass––& still less any early star in the heavens. It is the turning point between afternoon & evening.

The few sounds now heard far or near––are delicious. It is not more dusky & obscure, but clearer than before–– The clearing of the air by condensation of mists more than balances the increase of shadows. Chaste Eve is merely preparing with “dewy fingers” to draw o’re all “the gradual dusky veil.” Not yet “The ploughman homeward plods his weary way” nor owls nor beetles are abroad. It is a season somewhat earlier than is celebrated by the poets–– There is not such a sense of lateness & approaching night as they describe. I mean when the first emissaries of Evening come to smooth the lakes and streams. The poet arouses himself and collects his thoughts. He postpones tea indefinitely. Thought has taken his siesta. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The trillium fruit––(varnished & stained cherry wood) now ripe.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Walden Published. Elder berries.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

This is a day of sunny water. As I walk along the bank of the river I look down a rod & see distinctly the fishes and the bottom. The cardinals are in perfection—standing in dark recesses of the green shore, or in the open meadow.

They are fluviatile & stand along some river or brook—like myself.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Do you not feel the fruit of your spring and summer begin to ripen, to harden its seed within you? Do not your thoughts begin to acquire consistency as well as flavor and ripeness? How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seed-time of character? Already some of my small thoughts — fruit of my spring life — are ripe, like the berries which feed the first broods of birds; and other some are prematurely ripe and bright, like the lower leaves of the herbs which have felt the summer’s drought—

Seasons when our mind is like the strings of a harp which is swept—& we stand and listen. A man may hear strains in his thought far surpassing any oratorio—

How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a seedtime of character?

August 6, 1851 in Thoreau’s Journal:

A man must generally get away some hundreds or thousands of miles from home before he can be said to begin his travels.

Why not begin his travels at home?  …. It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village; to make any progress between his door and his gate.

——————

Traveling at Home

Even in a country that you know by heart

it’s hard to go the same way twice.

The life of the going changes.

The chances change and make a new way.

Any tree or stone or bird

can be the bud of a new direction. 

The natural correction is to make intent of accident. 

To get back before dark is the art of going.

—Wendell Berry