Thoreau writes in his journal:
This is the end of the sixth day of glorious weather, which I am tempted to call the finest in the years, so bright and serene the air and such a sheen from the earth, so brilliant the foliage, so pleasantly warm (except, perhaps, this day, which is cooler), too warm for a thick coat,—yet not sultry nor oppressive,—so ripe the season and our thoughts. Certainly these are the most brilliant days in the year, ushered in perhaps, by a frosty morning, as this. As a dewy morning in the summer compared with a parched and sultry, languid one, so a frosty morning at this season compared with a merely dry or foggy one. These days you may say the year has ripened like a fruit by frost, and puts on brilliant tints of maturity but not yet of decay . . .
