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20 September 1855. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—Up main stream . . . (Journal, 7:456).
20 September 1856. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Melvin says that there are many teal about the river now.

  Rain in afternoon. Rain again in the night, hard (Journal, 9:87).

20 September 1857. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Another mizzling day.

  A.M.—To beach plums behind A. Clarke’s.

  We walked in some trodden path on account of the wet grass and leaves, but the fine grass overhanging paths, weighed down with dewy rain, wet our feet nevertheless. We cannot afford to omit seeing the beaded grass and wetting our feet. This is our first fall rain, and makes a dividing line between the summer and fall. Yet there has been no drought the past summer . . .

(Journal, 10:36-37)
20 September 1858. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  The river probably reaches its highest since June to-day . . .

  Miss Pratt shows me a small luminous bug found on the earth floor of their shed (I think a month ago) . . . (Journal, 11:170).

20 September 1859. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—To White Pond.

  The button-hushes by the river are generally overrun with the mikania. This is married to the button-bush as much as the vine to the elm, and more. I suspect that the button-bushes and black willows have been as ripe as ever they get to be . . .

(Journal, 12:336)
20 September 1860. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Cattle-Show. Rainy in afternoon (Journal, 14:90).

Thoreau lectures on “The Succession of Forest Trees” at the Middlesex Cattle Show (“The Succession of Forest Trees)”.

20? July 1841. Nantasket Beach, Mass.

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes to his wife Lidian:

  I have read Henry’s verses thrice over with increasing pleasure they are very good . . . In Boston I visited Mr [George?] Bancrofts library & got Elliotts Poems [The Poetical Works of Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn-law Rhymer] which I am quite sure Henry T. will like.
(The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 2:432-3)

See entry 4 August.

21 April 1835. Cambridge, Mass.

Thoreau checks out The plays of William Shakespeare, volumes 1, 3, and 4 from Harvard College Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 287). While he reads over the next few days, he copies extracts from “Dr. Johnson’s Preface” of volume 1 into a notebook.

(The Transcendentalists and Minerva, 1:130-1)

  At a meeting of the Institute of 1770, Thoreau debates the topic “Ought capital punishment to be abolished?” (The Transcendentalists and Minerva, 1:82).

21 April 1841. Concord, Mass.

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes to his brother William:

  Henry Thoreau will come & live with me & work with me (The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 2:393-4).
21 April 1852. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  The storm still continues . . .

  2 P.M.—Another walk in the rain.

  The river is remarkably high. Nobody remembers when the water came into so many cellars. The water is up to the top of the easternmost end of the easternmost Iron truss on the south side of the stone bridge. It is over the Union Turnpike that was west of the bridge, so that it is impassable to a foot-traveller, and just over the road west of Wood’s Bridge. Of eight carriage roads leading into Concord, the water to my knowledge is now over six . . .

  On the east side of Ponkawtasset I hear a robin singing cheerily from some perch in the wood, in the midst of the rain, where the scenery is now wild and dreary. His song a singular antagonism and offset to the storm. As if Nature said, “Have faith, these two things I can do.” It sings with power, like a bird of great faith that sees the bright future through the dark present, to reassure the race of man, like one to whom many talents were given and who will improve its talents. They are sounds to make a dying man live. They sing not their despair. It is a pure, immortal melody . . .

(Journal, 3:447-454)

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