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Thoreau writes in his journal:

Rowed and sailed to Concord-about 50 miles (Journal, 1:92).

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes to Margaret Fuller:

Send Thoreau’s poem since he promised to mend it . . . H. T. is full of noble madness lately, and I hope more highly of him than ever. I know that nearly all the fine souls have a flaw which defeats every expectation they excite but I must trust these large frames as of less fragility—than the others. Besides to have awakened a great hope in another, is already some fruit is it not?

(The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1939), 2:447)

Around this time, Emerson writes:

[ . . .] astonished one morning by tidings that genius had appeared in a youth who sat near me at table. He had left his work, he had gone rambling none knew whither, he had written hundreds of lines, but he could not tell whether that which was in him was therein told, he could tell nothing but that all was changed, man, beast, heaven, earth, & sea. How gladly we listened! how credulous! Society seemed to be compromised.

(The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 8:83)

13 September 1849.

Concord, Mass. A. Bronson Alcott writes in his journal:

Afternoon, came Thoreau, and I read from my Journal of ’47 a criticism on his book on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers—also notes on himself, Emerson, and Channing; and we walked afterwards to the Hallowell Place and along the riverside.

(The Journals of Bronson Alcott, 211-213).

Cambridge, Mass. Jared Sparks, president of Harvard, writes:

Please let Mr. Thoreau take books from the library according to the rules in similar cases (The Transcendentalists and Minerva, 2:476).

13 September 1851. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

Railroad causeway, before sunrise . . . The Bedford sunrise bell rings sweetly and musically at this hour, when there is no bustle in the village to drown it (Journal, 2:502-503).

13 September 1852. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

Yesterday, it rained all day, with considerable wind, which has strewn the ground with apples and peaches, and, all the country over, people are busy picking up the windfalls. More leaves also have fallen. Rain has as much to do with it as wind. Rode round through Lincoln and a part of Weston and Wayland . . .

In my ride I experienced the pleasure of coming into a landscape where there was more distance and a bluish tinge in the horizon. I am not contented long with such narrow valleys that all is greenness in them. I wish to see the earth translated, the green passing into blue. How this heaven intervenes and tinges our more distant prospects! The farther off the mountain which is the goal of our enterprise, the more of heaven’s tint it wears . . .

(Journal, 4:349-351)

13 September 1853. Boston, Mass. to Maine.

Thoreau leaves Boston for Bangor on his second trip to Maine, where he meets his cousin George Thatcher who has already hired an Indian guide, Joe Aitteon, for a trip to Chesuncook Lake. In “Chesuncook,” Thoreau writes:

At five P.M., September 13, 1853, I left Boston, in the steamer, for Bangor, by the outside course. It was a warm and still night,—warmer, probably, on the water than on the land,—and the sea was as smooth as a small lake in summer, merely rippled. The passengers went singing on the deck, as in a parlor, till ten o’clock. We passed a vessel on her beam-ends on a rock just outside the islands . . .

(The Maine Woods, 112-213)

13 September 1854. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

P.M.—To Great Meadows . . . (Journal, 7:37).

13 September 1856. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

At Concord.—After all I am struck by the greater luxuriance of the same species of plants here than up country though our soil is considered leaner. Also I think that no view I have had of the Connecticut Valley at Brattleboro or Walpole is equal to that of the Concord from Nawshawtuct. Here is a more interesting horizon more variety & richness. Our river is much the most fertile in every sense. Up there it is nothing but river-valley & hills. Here there is so much more that we have forgotten that we live in a valley.

8 A.M.—Up Assabet.

Gathered quite
a parcel of grapes, quite ripe. Difficult; to break off the large bunches without some dropping off. Yet the best are more admirable for fragrance than for flavor. Depositing them in the bows of the boat, they filled all the air with their fragrance, as we rowed along against the wind, as if we were rowing through an endless vineyard in its matuity.

The Aster Tradescanti now sugars the banks densely, since I left, a week ago. Nature improves this her last opportunity to empty her lap of flowers . . .

(Journal, 9:80-81)

13 September 1857. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

Nabaluls Fraseri, top of Cliffs,—a new plant,—yet in prime and not long out. The nabalus family generally, apparently now in prime (Journal, 10:32).

13 September 1858. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

P.M.—To Annursnack . . .

A. Hosmer is pleased because from the cupola of his new barn he can see a new round-topped mountain in the northwest . . .

Fringed gentian out well, on easternmost edge of the Painted-Cup Meadows, by wall . . .

The squirrels know better than to open unsound hazelnuts. At most they only peep into them . . .

(Journal, 11:157-159)

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