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4 April 1862. Concord, Mass.

Abigail Alcott writes to her brother Samuel May:

  Have you seen his [A. Bronson Alcott’s] “Forrester” in the Atlantic—He thought Thoreau should have one word of wise appreciation before he left for parts unknown—Mr T. fails rapidly—he smiled as Mr Emerson read the “Forrester” to him and said “the Blue birds and Robbins are charming my solitary room bringing their music to my dulled senses—but this, brings light and love, almost renews my life.”
(Concord Saunterer, vol. 14, no. 3 (Fall 1979):3)
4 August 1838. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Whatever of past or present wisdom has published itself to the world, is palpable falsehood till it come and utter itself by In side (Journal, 1:52).
4 August 1840. Concord, Mass.

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes to Margaret Fuller:

  Thoreau was in my house this eve. & when I repeated to him some of your criticisms on his lines, he boggled at Nature “relumes,” and prefers his own honest “doth have,” which I told him should be restored. Othello’s melodious verses “that can thy light relume,” make that word sacred always in my ear. But our tough Yankee must have his tough verse, so I beg you will replace it. You need not print it, if you have anything better. He has left me with a piece of prose for you, which I will send now or presently. I am to read it first.
(The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 2:322)
4 August 1841. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Nawshawtuct.—Far in the east I read Nature’s Corn Law Rhymes. Here, in sight of Wachusett and these rivers and woods, my mind goes singing to itself of other themes than taxation (Journal, 1:265-266).
4 August 1851. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  As my eye rested on the blossom of the meadowsweet in a hedge, I heard the note of an autumnal cricket, and was penetrated with the sense of autumn. Was it sound ? or was it form? or was it scent ? or was it flavor? It is now the royal month of August. When I hear this sound, I am as dry as the rye which is everywhere cut and housed, though I am drunk with the season’s wine.
(Journal, 2:370)
4 August 1852. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  To Walden by poorhouse road.

  Have had a gentle rain, and now with a lowering sky, but still I hear the cricket. He seems to chirp from a new depth toward autumn, new lieferungs of the fall. The singular thought-inducing stillness after a gentle rain like this. It has allayed all excitement. I hear the singular watery twitter of the goldfinch, ter tweeter e et or e ee, as it ricochets over, he and his russet (?) female . . .

  A pleasant time to behold a small lake in the woods is in the intervals of a gentle rain-storm at this season, when the air and water are perfectly still, but the sky still overcast; first, because the lake is very smooth at such a time, second, as the atmosphere is so shallow and contracted, being low-roofed with clouds, the lake as a lower heaven is much larger in proportion to it. With its glassy reflecting surface, it is somewhat more heavenly and more full of light than the regions of the air above it . . .

(Journal, 4:278-280)
4 August 1853. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Symphytum officinale still in bloom in front of C. Stow’s, over the fence . . . (Journal, 5:353).
4 August 1854. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—Via Turnpike to Smith’s Hill.

  A still, cloudy day with from time to time a gentle August rain. Rain and mist contract our horizon and we notice near and small objects. The weeds—fleabane, etc.—begin to stand high in the potato-fields, overtopping the potatoes. This hardhack interests me with its bedewed pyramid . . .

  After sunset, a very low, thick, and flat white fog like a napkin, on the meadows, which ushers in a foggy night . . .

(Journal, 6:419-20)

Dedham, Mass. The Norfolk Democrat prints a notice of Walden.

4 August 1855. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Just after bathing at the rock near the Island this afternoon, after sunset, I saw a flock of thousands of barn swallows and some white-bellied, and perhaps others, for it was too dark to distinguish them . . .
(Journal, 7:448-449)
4 August 1856. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P. M.—Carried party a-berrying to Conantum in boat . . .

  Conantuin hillside is now literally black with berries. What a profusion of this kind of food Nature provides, as if to compensate for the scarcity last year! Fortunate that these cows in their pasture do not love them, but pass them by. The blackberries are already softening, and of all kinds there are many, many more than any or all creatures can gather. Theyare literally five or six species deep . . . You go daintily wading through this thicket, picking, perchance, only the biggest of the blackberries—as big as your thumb—and clutching here and there a handful of huckleberries or blueberries, but never, perchance, suspecting the delicious cool blue-bloomed ones under all. This favorable moist weather has expanded some of the huckleberries to the size of bullets. Each patch, each bush, seems fuller and blacker than the last . . .

(Journal, 8:444-5)

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