in Thoreau’s Journal:

After having some business dealings with men—I am occasionally chagrined—& feel as if I had done some wrong—& it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance— I see that such intercourse long continued would make me thoroughly prosaic hard & coarse— But the longest intercourse with Nature though in her rudest moods does not thus harden & make coarse— A hard insensible man whom we liken to a rock—is indeed much harder than a rock—

From hard coarse insensible men with whom I have no sympathy—I go to commune with the rocks whose hearts are comparatively soft—

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

Probably the witch hazel and many other flowers lingered till the eleventh, when it was colder.

The last leaves and flowers (?) may be said to fall about the middle of November.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

….cold and dark….the landscape is barren of objects, the trees being leafless… Truly hard times, these! Not a mosquito left, not an insect to hum. Crickets gone into winter quarters. Friends long since gone there, and 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? ….Nothing but the echo of your steps on the frozen ground, which, it is true, is being prepared for immeasurable snows.

Still there are brave thoughts within you that shall remain to rustle the winter through, like white-oak leaves upon your boughs, or like shrub oaks that remind the traveler of a fire upon the hillsides, or evergreen thoughts, cold even in the midsummer by their nature. These shall contrast the more fairly with the snow….

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

Who hears the rippling of the rivers will not utterly despair of anything.

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.

Photo:  November 10, 2016

in Thoreau’s Journal:

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:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

in Thoreau’s Journal:

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:

I find it good to be out in this still, dark, mizzling afternoon. My walk or voyage is more suggestive and profitable than in bright weather. The view is contracted by misty rain. The water is perfectly smooth, and the stillness is favorable to reflection. I am more open to impressions, more sensitive, not calloused or indurated by sun and wind, as if in a chamber still. My thoughts are concentrated. I am all compact. The solitude is real too, for this weather keeps other men at home. This mist is like a roof and walls over and around, and I walk with a domestic feeling.

The sound of a wagon going over an unseen bridge is louder than ever, and so of other sounds. I am compelled to look at near objects. All things have a soothing effect The very clouds and mists brood over me. My power of observation and contemplation is much increased. My attention does not wander. The world and my life are simplified. What now are Europe and 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 seen 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 shores or isles— It is the most perfect & beautiful of all frames which yet the sketcher is commonly careful to brush aside.

I mean a pretty thick 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:

Do you imagine its fruit to stick to the back of the leaf all winter? At this season polypody is in the air….

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

Autumnal dandelion and yarrow.

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 out-doors….

My thought is part of the meaning of the world, and hence I use a part of the world as a symbol to express my thought.

November 1, 2016 Photos

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Our woods and fields are the perfection of parks and groves, and gardens and grottoes and arbors, and paths and parterres, and vistas and landscapes.

They are the natural consequence of what art and refinement we as a people have. They are the common which each village possesses, the true paradise, in comparison with which all elaborately and willfully wealth-constructed parks and gardens are paltry imitations. No other creature effects such changes in nature as man.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is only a reflecting mind that sees reflections.

 in Thoreau’s Journal 

It is not true–as I noticed today, that squirrels never gnaw an imperfect & worthless nut–

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is a beautiful, warm, and calm Indian-summer afternoon….the water so smooth and glassy….

The coarse withered grass, and the willows and button-bushes with their myriad balls, and whatever else stands on the brink is reflected with wonderful distinctness….

in Thoreau’s Journal:

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….the autumnal tints are gone….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—

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:

Four months of the green leaf make all our summer, if I reckon from June 1st to October 1st, the growing season, and methinks there are about four months when the ground is white with snow. That would leave two months for spring and two for autumn. October the month of ripe or painted leaves; November the month of withered leaves and bare twigs and limbs.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 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.