in Thoreau’s Journal

This earth which is spread out like a map around me—is but the lining of my inmost soul exposed—

March 10, 1841
Who looks in the sun will see no light else; but also he will see no shadow. Our life revolves unceasingly, but the centre is ever the same, and the wise will regard only the seasons of the soul.

The citation on the photo graphic (Indian Beach, Grand Manan) is the rubric for my current writing about Thoreau’s Journal. For some time it’s seemed important to me to survey the Journal for Thoreau’s usages of “season”. But 2,000,000 words is a lot to read searching for one term.

It has taken me a while, but I have now assembled the 1906 Edition of the Journal, the only fairly complete version of it available in digital format. It makes a PDF that’s a continuous document about 7,000 pages long. But it’s searchable!! Today I identified more than 1,000 usages of “season/s” and read about half of them, copying out ones that support my thesis (or, if you will, Thoreau’s own ambition to write a book of the seasons).

This is the first substantial indication I’ve had that this project will be possible to actualize. My survey today has provided affirming and fascinating insights into Thoreau’s notion of “seasons.” I feel I have a much more detailed understanding what “seasons” meant to him. Maybe 1/2 of what I read today supported what I’d call the normative calendar versions of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. He did not deny these existed in any way. But the other 1/2 opened up new (suspected) vistas that are much more interesting and obviously were of greater significance to him if judged by how he detailed them. Exciting!

Feeling great!

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is clear June—the first day of summer— The rye which when I last looked was 1 foot high is now 3 feet high & waving & tossing its heads in the wind— ….Why the sickle & cradle will soon be taken up.

Though I walk every day—I am never prepared for this magical growth of the rye. I am advanced by whole months as it were into summer.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The earlier apple trees are in bloom—& resound with the hum of bees of all sizes & other insects. To sit under the 1st apple tree in blossom is to take another step into summer.

The apple blossoms are so abundant & full-white tinged with red—a rich—scented pomona fragrance—telling of heaps of apples in the autumn—perfectly innocent wholesome & delicious—

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Now is the season of the leafing of the trees & of planting. The fields are white with houstonias as they will soon be yellow with buttercups.

Perchance the beginning of summer may be dated from the fully formed leaves—when dense shade? begins—I will see. High blue berries at length. It is unnecessary to speak of them. All flowers are beautiful….A ladies slipper well budded and now white.

in Thoreau’s Journal:
Found the arum triphyllum & the nodding trillium or wake Robin in Conant’s swamp.

An ash also in bloom there—& the sassafras quite striking. — Also the Fringed Polygala by the Conantum wood.

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

The heaven is now broad & open to the earth in these longest days. The world can never be more beautiful than now—for combined with the tender fresh green you have this remarkable clearness of the air. I doubt if the landscape will by any greener… This tender foliage —putting so much light & life into the landscape is the remarkable feature at this date. The week when the deciduous trees are generally and conspicuously expanding their leaves.

———————————

Spring Day

Beautiful is the day that brings us home
From our domain of cold and winter bower,
From iron earth to trees in tassely flower,
And gentle airs, and the soft-springing loam.

Offhand and royal, we are the carefree lords
Of these sumptuous rooms where light flows green
These corridors of air, these feathery swards
Under a sky-blue ceiling, high and clean.

We lie on the enormous grassy bed
Sheltered as princes under mothering air
Where the anemone shines like a star,
And rivers flow through veined leaves overhead;

And hold each other close in the green chance,
Hold each other against time and waste,
Come home here in a spring that is only once
And watch how the birds are swift, yet without haste.

At last we inhabit the dream, are really floating
As princes of the hour, while these green palaces
Glide into summer, where we too are going
With all the birds, and leaves, and all the kisses.

—May Sarton

in Thoreau’s Journal:

So too the green veils, or screens of the birches rapidly thickened….It is the first to clothe large tracts of deciduous woodlands with green-& perchance it marks an epoch in the season. the TRANSITION decidedly and generally from bare twigs to leaves.

When the birches have put on their green sacks then a new season has come.— The light reflected from their tender yellowish green is like sunlight.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is a splendid day—so clear & bright & fresh—the warmth of the air & the bright tender verdure putting forth on all sides make an impression of luxuriance & genialness—so perfectly fresh & uncankered.

A sweet scent fills the air from the expanding leaflets or some other source— The earth is all fragrant as one flower. & bobolinks tinkle in the air Nature now is perfectly genial to man—

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –
I keep it, staying at Home –
With a Bobolink for a Chorister –
And an Orchard, for a Dome

— Emily Dickinson

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Looked off from hill top. Trees generally are now bursting into leaf. The aspect of oak and other woods at a distance is somewhat like that of a very thick & reddish or yellowish mist above the evergreens—

In other directions the light graceful—& more distinct yellowish green forms of birch are seen & in swamps the reddish or brown crescents of the red maple tops—now covered with keys— Oak leaves are as big as a mouses ear….

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The trillium is budded….

a drooping flower with tender stems & leaves; the latter curled so as to show their undersides hanging about the stems—as if shrinking from the cold.

in Thoreau’s Journal

The Viola Pedata and ovata now begin to be abundant on warm, sandy slopes. The leaves of the lupine, six inches high, are handsome, covered with rain-drops.

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

The birches at a distance appear as in a thin green veil—in their expanding leaves.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

If I am overflowing with life—am rich in experience for which I lack expression—then nature will be my language full of poetry—all nature will fable & every natural phenomenon be a myth.

The man of Science who is not seeking for expression but for a fact to be expressed merely—studies nature as a dead language— I pray for such inward experience as will make nature significant.

in Thoreau’s Journal 1852:

The bluet (sometimes at least?) begins with a kind of lilac blue—fading through white delicately tinged with blue-to white.

in Thoreau’s Journal 1858:

A dandelion perfectly gone to seed, a complete globe, a system in itself.

 in Thoreau’s Journal

It is wonderful what a variety of flowers may grow within the range of a walk & how long some very conspicuous ones may escape the most diligent walker—

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If you do not chance to visit their localities the right week or fortnight-when their signs are out. It is a flaming leaf The very leaf has flowered-not the ripe tints of autumn but the rose in the cheek of infancy-a more positive flowering.

 in Thoreau’s Journal:

When I hear a bird singing I cannot think of any words that will imitate it—

What word can stand in place of a bird’s note!

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The Female Maple is more crimson—the male more scarlet. The horse-chestnut buds are so advanced that they are larger than the leaves of any tree.— The elder—the wild cherry thimble-berries—sweet-briars, cultivated cherry & apples &c White birches hazels-aspens-hornbeams-maples &c &c not quite the hickory and alder-are opening their budsThe alders are beginning to. It is pleasant when the road winds along the side of a hill with a thin fringe of wood through which to look into the low land— It furnishes both shade & frame for your pictures…

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Leave the cut. The woods are now dry & the ground feels crisp under my feet…The shade is even agreeable today. I smell the pines lately; is it because they are starting.? O the huckleberry bird! The viola pedata budded, ready to blossom….Every part of the world is beautiful today— — The bright shimmering water—the fresh light-green grass springing up on the hills—tender firm moss-like before it waves.— the very faint blue sky without distinct clouds is least beautiful of all, having yielded its beauty to the earth….the beautiful etherial not misty blue of the horizon—& its mts., as if painted.

Now all buds may swell methinks—now the summer may begin for all creatures. The wind appears to be a little N of W. The waters still high have a shimmering sparkle over a great part of their surface…

As I can throw my voice into my head & sing very loud & clear there, so I can throw my thoughts into a higher chamber, & think louder & clearer above the earth than men will understand.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

The Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum, ap. yesterday. The vacillans, resinosum, (?) and early high blueberry will bloom in a few days.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

How cheering & glorious any landscape viewed from an eminence! for every one has its horizon & sky.

It is so easy to take wide views.