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?  

….All fields lie fallow —  Shall not your mind?  True the freezing ground is being prepared for immeasurable snows.— but there are brave thoughts within you that shall remain to rustle the winter through like white oak leaves upon your bough—or like scrub oaks that remind the traveller of a fire upon the hill sides—or evergreen thoughts cold even in mid summer by their nature shall contrast more fairly with the snow.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

That delicate, waving, feathery dry grass which I saw yesterday is to be remembered with the autumn. The dry grasses are not dead for me. A beautiful form has as much life at one season as at another.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

This morning the ground is once more whitened with snow—but it will apparently be gone in an hour or two. I live where the pinus rigida grows—with its firm cones almost as hard as iron—armed with recurved spines….

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. 

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:

The stillness of the woods and fields is remarkable at this season of the year. There is not even the creak of a cricket to be heard. Of myriads of dry shrub oak leaves, not one rustles. Your own breath can rustle them, yet the breath of heaven does not suffice to.—  The trees have the aspect of waiting for winter. The autumnal leaves have lost their color—they are now truly sere, dead—and the woods wear a sombre color. Summer and harvest are over…

This is a peculiar season—peculiar for its stillness—the crickets have ceased their song. The few birds are well-nigh silent. The tinted and gay leaves are now sere and dead and the woods wear a sombre aspect.  A carpet of snow under the pines & shrub-oaks will make it look more cheerful—Very few plants have now their spring.  But thoughts still spring in man’s brain….

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I find it good to be out this still dark mizzling afternoon– My walk or voyage is more suggestive & profitable than in bright weather. The view is contracted by the misty rain–the water is perfectly smooth & the stillness is favorable to reflection. I am more open to impressions more sensitive–(not callused or indurated by sun & wind) as if in a chamber still. My thoughts are concentrated– I am all compact–  The solitude is real too for the weather keeps other men at home. This mist is like a roof & walls over & around & I walk with a domestic feeling– The sound of a wagon going over an unseen bridge is louder than ever–& so of other sounds.  I am compelled to look at near objects–  All things have a soothing effect–the very clouds & mists brood over me. My power of observation & contemplation is much increased. My attention does not wander. The world & my life are simplified.  – What now of Europe & Asia?

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:

There are very few phenomena which can be described indifferently as occurring at different seasons of the year, for they will occur with some essential difference. 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The beauty of the earth answers exactly to your demand and appreciation.

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:

It costs me nothing for a gardener— The falling leaves all over the forest are protecting the roots of my plants. Only look at what is to be seen & you will have garden enough—without deepening the soil of your yard.

We have only to elevate our view a little to see the whole forest as a garden—

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— This is November— The landscape prepared for winter without snow— When the forest & fields put on their sober winter hue. We begin to look more to the sunset for color & variety.

Now now is the time to look at the buds the swamp pink—some yellowish, some mixed with thin oblong seed-vessels red—&c.  The larger red maple buds have now 2 sets of scales—3 in each. The water Andromeda is still green— Along the Depot Brook the great heads of A. Puniceus stand dry & fuzzy & singularly white (—like the golden rods & other asters—) but some quite low are still green & in flower

The prevalence of this light dry Color perhaps characterizes November—that of whitening withered grass—of the fuzzy gray goldenrods—harmonizing with the cold sunlight—and that of the leaves which still hang on deciduous trees.

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:  

October the month of ripe or painted leaves…

in Thoreau’s Journal:  

The colors of the fields make haste to harmonize with the snowy mantle which is soon to invest them and with the cool, white twilights of that season which is itself the twilight of the year. 

It is impossible to describe the infinite variety of hues, tints, and shades, for the language affords no names for them, and we must apply the same term monotonously to twenty different things…When the tints are the same they differ so much in purity and delicacy that language to describe them truly would not only have to be greatly enriched, but as it were, dyed to the same colors, itself, and speak to the eye as well as the ear. And it is the subtle differences which especially attract and charm our eyes. Where else will you study color under such advantages? To describe these colors you must use colored words…In describing the richly spotted leaves, for instance, we find ourselves using ineffectually words which merely indicate faintly our good intentions, giving them in our despair a terminal twist toward our mark,-–such as reddish, yellowish, purplish, etc. We cannot make a hue of words for they are not to be compounded like colors, and hence we are obliged to use such ineffectual expressions as reddish brown, etc. They need to be ground together.

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.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The road through the woods this side the powder mill was very gorgeous with the sun shining endwise through it—& the red tints of the deciduous trees now somewhat imbrowned—mingled with the liquid green of the pines.

The larches in the swamps are now conspicuously yellow & ready for their fall.