Log Search Results

  Pyrus arbutifolia melanocarpa fruit begins to be black. Cephalanthus occidentalis, button-bush.

  The bass on Conantum is a very rich sight now, tlxnlgh the flowers are somewhat stale . . . The tree resounds with the hum of bees,—bumblebees and honey-bees; rose-bugs and butterflies, also, are here—a perfect susurrus, a sound, as C. says, unlike any other in nature,—not like the wind, as that is like the sea. The bees abound on the flowers of the smooth sumach now. The branches of this tree touch the ground, and it has somewhat the appearance of being weighed down with flowers. The air is full of sweetness. The tree is full of poetry . . .

  P.M.—Via railroad and pond to Saw Mill Brook. Many yellow butterflies and red on clover and yarrow. Is it the yellow-winged or Savannah sparrow with yellow alternating with dark streaks on throat, as well as yellow over eye, reddish flesh-colored legs, and two light bars on wings? . . . Woodcock by side of Walden in woods . . .

  Geum album, apparently well out.

  As I walked through the pasture side of the hill, saw a mouse or two glance before me faint galleries in the grass. They are seldom seen, for these small deer. like the larger, disappear suddenly, as if they exploded before your eyes . . .

  About the mountains were wilder and rarer birds, more or less arctic, like the vegetation. I did not even hear the robin on them, and when I had left them a few miles behind, it was a great change and surprise to hear the lark, the wood pewee, the robin, and the bobolink (for the last had not done singing) . . .

  Lodged at tavern in Franklin, west side of river . . .

  Standing amid the pipes of the Great Meadow, I hear a very sharp creaking peep, no doubt from a rail quite near me, calling to or directing her young . . . (Journal, 13:404-306).

Dear Sir

  I shall be very happy to read to your association three lectures on the evenings named, but the question is about their character. They will not be scientific in the common, nor, perhaps, in any sense. They will be such as you might infer from reading my books. As I have just told Mr. Morse, they will be transcendental, that is, to the mass of bearers, probably moonshine. Do you think that this will do? Or does your audience prefer lamplight, or total darkness these nights? I dare say, however, that they would interest those who are most interested in what is called nature.

  Mr Morse named no evenings & I have not had time to hear from, or make any arrangement with him.

Yrs respectfully

Henry D. Thoreau

Dear Sir,
  Allow me to thank you for your two speeches on the Hyatt case, & for two Patent Office Reports on Agriculture

  Especially, I wish to thank you for your speech on the Barbarism of Slavery, which, I hope and suspect, commences a new era in the history of our Congress; when questions of national importance have come to be considered occasionally from a broadly ethical, and not from a narrowly political point of view alone.

  It is refreshing to hear some naked truth, moral or otherwise, uttered there – which can always take care of itself when uttered, and of course belongs to no party. (That was the whole value of Gerrit Smith’s presence there, methinks, though be did go to bed early.) Whereas this has only been employed occasionally to perfume the wheel-grease of party or national politics.

  The Patent Office Reports on Agriculture contain much that concerns me, & I am very glad to possess now a pretty complete series of them.

Yrs truly
Henry D. Thoreau