24 October 1853 – 30 October 1853

Early on Nawshawtuct. Black willows bare. Golden willow with yellow leaves. Larch yellow. Most alders by river bare ex- cept at top. Waxwork shows red. Celtis almost bare, with greenish-yellow leaves at top. Some hickories bare, some with rich golden-brown leaves. Locusts half bare, with greenish-yellow leaves. Catnip fresh and green and in bloom. Barberries green, reddish, or scarlet. Cranberry beds at distance in meadows (from hill) are red, for a week or more. Lombardy poplar yellow. Red maples and elms alone very con- spicuously bare in our landscape. White thorns bare, and berries mostly fallen, reddening the ground. Hedge-mustard still fresh and in bloom. Button- woods half bare. The rock maple leaves a clear yel- low; now and then [one] shows some blood in its veins, and blushes. People are busy raking the leaves before their houses; some put them over their strawberries. It has rained all day, filling the streams. Just after dark, high southerly winds arise, but very warm, blow- ing the rain against the windows and roof and shak- ing the house. It is very dark withal, so that I can hardly find my way to a neighbor’s. We think of vessels on the coast, and shipwrecks, and how this will bring down the remaining leaves and to-morrow morning the street will be strewn with rotten limbs of the elms amid the leaves and puddles, and some loose chimney or crazy building will have fallen. Some fear to go to bed, lest the roof be blown off.

7 a. M. — To Hubbard’s Grove. The rain is over, the ground swept and washed. There is a high and cold west wind. Birds fly with difficulty against it (are they tree sparrows?). ‘The brooks and the river are unexpectedly swelled with yesterday’s rain. The river is a very dark blue. The wind roars in the wood. A maple is blown down. Aster longifolius in low ground (a few). This and the Diplo- pappus linariifolius, and, above all, A. undulatus, the only flowers of the kind seen this week.' P. M. —Sailed down river to the pitch pine hill be- hind Abner Buttrick’s, with a strong northwest wind, and cold. Saw a telltale on Cheney’s shore, close to the water’s edge. I am not quite sure whether it is the greater or lesser, but am inclined to think that all I have seen are the lesser. It was all white below and dark above, with a pure white tail prettily displayed in flying. It kept raising its head with a jerk as if it had the St. Vitus’s dance. It would alight in the water and swim like a little duck. Once, when I went ashore and started it, it flew so as to bring a willow between it and me, and alighted quite near, much nearer than before, to spy me. When it went off, it uttered a sharp te-te-te-te-te, flying with quivering wings, dashing about. I think that the storm of yesterday and last night brought it up. The white maples are completely bare. The tall dry grass along the shore rustles in the cold wind. The shores are very naked now. I am surprised to see how much the river has risen. The swamp white oaks in front of N. Barrett’s — their leafy tops — look quite silvery at a distance in the sun, very different from near to. In some places along the water’s edge the Aster Tradescanti lingers still, some flowers purple, others white. The ground is strewn with pine-needles as sunlight. The iron-wood is nearly bare (on the Flint Bridge Rock). I see one or two specimens of the Poly- gonum hydropiperoides and the smaller, nameless one in flower still. They last thus till the severe frosts. There are masses of the yellow water ranunculus 1853} INNOCENCE AND LIBERTY 453 washed up by the shore after this high wind. This is one of our river weeds. The shepherd’s-purse in bloom.

I well remember the time this year when I first heard the dream of the toads. I was laying out house-lots on Little River in Haverhill. We had hadsome raw, cold and wet weather. But this day was remark- ably warm and pleasant, and I had thrown off my out- side coat. I was going home to dinner, past a shallow pool, which was green with springing grass, and where a new house was about being erected, when it occurred to me that I heard the dream of the toad. It rang through and filled all the air, though I had not heard it once. And I turned my companion’s attention to it, but he did not appear to perceive it as a new sound in the air. Loud and prevailing as it is, most men do not notice it at all. It is to them, perchance, a sort of simmering or seething of all nature. ‘That after- noon the dream of the toads rang through the elms by Little River and affected the thoughts of men, though they were not conscious that they heard it. How watchful we must be to keep the crystal well that we were made, clear! — that it be not made turbid by our contact with the world, so that it will not reflect objects... What other liberty is there worth having, if we have not freedom and peace in our minds, —if our inmost and most private man is but a sour and turbid pool? Often we are so jarred by chagrins in dealing with the world, that we cannot reflect. Everything beautiful impresses us as sufficient to itself. Many men who have had much intercourse with the world and not borne the trial well affect me as all resistance, all bur and rind, without any gentleman, or tender and innocent core left. They have become hedgehogs. Ah! the world is too much with us, and our whole soul is stained by what it works in, like the dyer’s hand. A man had better starve at once than lose his innocence in the process of getting his bread. ‘This is the pool of Bethsaida [sc] which must be stilled and become smooth before we can enter to be healed. If within the old man there is not a young man, — within the sophisticated, one unsophisticated, — then he is but one of the devil’s angels. It is surprising how any reminiscence of a different season of the year affects us. When I meet with any such in my Journal, it affects me as poetry, and I appre- ciate that other season and that particular phenomenon more than at the time. The world so seen is all one spring, and full of beauty. You only need to make a faithful record of an average summer day’s experi- ence and summer mood, and read it in the winter, and it will carry you back to more than that summer day alone could show. Only the rarest flower, the purest melody, of the season thus comes down to us. P. M. — To Cliffs. As I go up the back road, some fresh sprouts in bloom on a tall rough goldenrod. I hear a faint twit- tering of the sparrows in the grass, like crickets. Those flitting sparrows which we have had for some weeks, are they not the sober snowbirds (tree sparrows?) ? They fly in a great drifting flock, wheeling and dash- ing about, as if preluding or acting a snow-storm, with rapid te te te. They are as dry and rustling as the grass. The Aster puniceus, with the longifolius, —a few, — on the sheltered sides of ditches. Checkerberries have now a fine, clear, fresh tint, a peculiar pink (?). Now leaves are off, or chiefly off, I begin to notice the buds of various form-and color and more or less con- spicuous, prepared for another season, — partly, too, perhaps, for food for birds. ‘The tupelo is bare. The smooth speedwell in bloom, the meek-eyed flower, low or flat in the sod. Went through the dense maple swamp against Potter’s pasture. It is completely bare, and the ground is very thickly strewn with leaves, which conceal the wet places. But still the high blueberry bushes in the midst and on the edge retain a few bright-red or scarlet- red leaves. Red circles of the pitcher-plant, in the meadow beyond, are full of water to where cut evenly off by the scythe. Lambkill, being an evergreen, is now more conspicuous. The river has risen still higher than yesterday, and flooded the meadows yet more. How long it continues to rise, before we feel the full influence of the rain that fell on the Worcester hills! The green-briar is bare except a few yellow leaves. Butter-and-eggs just ending in a sheltered place. Some Solidago nemo- ralis show still bright-yellow masses of flowers on bare, dead-looking stalks, the leaves having fallen or being dried up, —a constant lover of the sun. A storm appears to be thickening. The sun has been shorn of his beams all the afternoon. The clouds are not distinct and handsome. It is cool, gray weather. But yet there is a little more adventure in a walk, and it better suits a pensive mood. I see the hole of the great black spider already walled about. Slate-colored ‘snowbirds. This has been the month for acorns, — and the last half of September, — though it is now too late. When, after feeling dissatisfied with my life, I aspire to something better, am more scrupulous, more reserved and continent, as if expecting somewhat, suddenly I find myself full of life as a nut of meat, — am over- flowing with a quiet, genial mirthfulness. I think to myself, I must attend to my diet; I must get up earlier and take a morning walk; I must have done with luxuries and devote myself to my muse. So I dam up my stream, and my waters gather to a head. I am freighted with thought. [At this point and scattered through the pages imme- diately succeeding, the Journal contains further matter relating to the Maine excursion of the previous month. Only the parts not included in ‘‘'The Maine Woods ” are here printed. |] Very small and narrow intervals on the Penobscot. Every lake and stream in the wilderness is soon made to feel the influence of the white man’s dam. At Oldtown I went on board the small river steamers which run to the Five Islands, built propeller-fashion. They lay just opposite Orono Island; had been laid up during the low stage of water, and were to start the next day on their first trip. One was properly named the Governor Neptune. A hand told me that they drew only fourteen inches of water and could run easily in two feet of water, though they did not like to. Why is [it] that we look upon the Indian as the man of the woods? ‘There are races half civilized, and barbarous even, that dwell in towns, but the Indians we associate in our minds with the wilder- ness.

6.30 a. M. — To Island by boat. The river still rises, — more than ever last night, owing to the rain of the 24th (which ceased in the night of the 24th). It is two feet higher than then. I hear a blackbird in the air; and these, methinks, are song sparrows flitting about, with the three spots on breast. Now it is time to look out for walnuts, last and hardest crop of the year? I love to be reminded of that universal and eternal spring when the minute crimson-starred female flowers of the hazel are peeping forth on the hillsides, — when Nature revives in all her pores. Some less obvious and commonly unobserved signs of the progress of the seasons interest me most, like the loose, dangling catkins of the hop-hornbeam or of the black or yellow birch. I can recall distinctly to my mind the image of these things, and that time in which they flourished is glorious as if it were before the fall of man. I see all nature for the time under this aspect. These features are particularly prominent; as if the first object I saw on approaching this planet in the spring was the catkins of the hop-hornbeam on the hillsides: As I sailed by, I saw the yellowish waving sprays. See nowadays concave chocolate-colored fungi \W.2= passing into dust on the edges, close on the "\.“ — ground in pastures.

Rain in the night and this morning, pre- paring for winter. We noticed in a great many places the narrow paths by which the moose came down to the river, and some- times, where the bank was steep and somewhat clayey, they had slid down it. The holes made by their feet in the soft bottom in shallow water are visible for a long time. Joe told me that, though they shed their horns annually, each new pair has an additional prong. They are sometimes used as an ornament in front en- tries, for a hat-tree (to hang hats on). Cedar bark appeared to be their commonest string. These first beginnings of commerce on a lake in the wilderness are very interesting, — these larger white birds that come to keep company with the gulls, —if they only carry a few cords of wood across the lake. Just saw in the garden, in the drizzling rain, little sparrow-sized birds flitting about amid the dry corn- stalks and the weeds, — one, quite slaty with black streaks and a bright-yellow crown and rump, which I think is the yellow-crowned warbler, but most of the others much more brown, with yellowish breasts and no yellow on crown to be observed, which I think the young of the same. One flew up fifteen feet and caught an insect. They uttered a faint chip. Some of the rest were sparrows. I did not get good sight of the last. I suspect the former may be my tull-lulls of the Moosehead Carry. For a year or two past, my publisher, falsely so called, has been writing from time to time to ask what disposition should be made of the copies of “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers” still on hand, and at last suggesting that he had use for the room they occupied in his cellar. So I had them all sent to me here, and they have arrived to-day by express, filling the man’s wagon, — 706 copies out of an edition of 1000 which I bought of Munroe four years ago and have been ever since paying for, and have not quite paid for yet. The wares are sent to me at last, and I have an opportunity to examine my purchase. They are something more substantial than fame, as my back knows, which has borne them up two flights of stairs to a place similar to that to which they trace their origin. Of the remaining two hundred and ninety and odd, seventy-five were given away, the rest sold. I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself. Is it not well that the author should behold the fruits of his labor? My works are piled up on one side of my cham- ber half as high as my head, my opera omnia. This is authorship; these are the work of my brain. There was just one piece of good luck in the venture. The unbound were tied up by the printer four years ago in stout paper wrappers, and inscribed, — H. D. Thoreau’s Concord River 50 cops. So Munroe had only to cross out “River” and write “Mass.” and deliver them to the expressman at once. I can see now what I write for, the result of my labors. Nevertheless, in spite of this result, sitting beside the inert mass of my works, I take up my pen to-night to record what thought or experience I may have had, with as much satisfaction as ever. Indeed, I believe that this result is more inspiring and better for me than if a thousand had bought my wares. It affects my privacy less and leaves me freer.!

Sunday. A white frost this morning, last- ing late into the day. This has settled the accounts of many plants which lingered still. P. M. — To Hubbard’s Meadow Wood. I see tree sparrows in loose flocks, chasing one an- other, on the alders and willows by the brook-side. They keep up a general low and incessant twittering warble, as if suppressed, very sweet at this season, but not heard far. It is, as Wilson says, like a chip-bird, but this has a spot commonly on breast and a bright- chestnut crown. It is quite striped (bay and brown with dark) above and has a forked tail. I am not quite sure that I have seen them before. They are a chubby little bird, and have not the stripes on the breasts which the song sparrow has. The last, more- over, has not that striped bay and blackish and ash above. By the bathing-place, I see a song sparrow with his full striped breast. He drops stealthily behind the wall and skulks amid the bushes ; now sits behind a post, and peeps round at me, ever restless and quirk- ing his tail, and now: and then uttering a faint chip. It is not so light beneath as the last. The muskrat-houses are mostly covered with water now. Saw a Solidago nemoralis in full flower yesterday. Here is the autumnal dandelion and fragrant ever- lasting * to-day. What with the rains and frosts and winds, the leaves have fairly fallen now. You may say the fall has ended. Those which still hang on the trees are withered and 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 leaf-stalk. The woods have for the most part acquired their winter aspect, and coarse, rustling, light-colored withered grasses skirt the river and the wood-side. ‘This is November. ‘The landscape pre- pared for winter, without snow. When the forest and fields put on their sober winter hue, we begin to look more to the sunset for color and variety. Now, now is the time to look at the buds [of] the swamp-pink, —some yellowish, some, mixed with their oblong seed-vessels, red, etc. The larger red maple buds have now two sets of scales, three in each. The water andromeda is still green. Along the Depot Brook, the great heads of Aster puniceus stand dry and fuzzy and singularly white, — like the goldenrods and other asters, — but some quite low are still green and in flower. The prevalence of this light, dry color perhaps char- acterizes November, — that of bleaching withered grass, of the fuzzy gray goldenrods, harmonizing with the cold sunlight, and that of the leaves which still hang on deciduous trees. The dead-looking fruit of the alders is now conspicuous.