Not only many in our towns have never witnessed it, but it is
scarcely remembered by the majority from year to year.
scarcely remembered by the majority from year to year.
Thoreau - Excursions and Poems
I was walking in a
meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before
setting, after a cold, gray day, reached a clear stratum in the
horizon, and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry
grass and on the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon and on the
leaves of the shrub oaks on the hillside, while our shadows stretched
long over the meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its
beams. It was such a light as we could not have imagined a moment
before, and the air also was so warm and serene that nothing was
wanting to make a paradise of that meadow. When we reflected that this
was not a solitary phenomenon, never to happen again, but that it
would happen forever and ever, an infinite number of evenings, and
cheer and reassure the latest child that walked there, it was more
glorious still.
The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with
all the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and perchance
as it has never set before,--where there is but a solitary marsh hawk
to have his wings gilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his
cabin, and there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the
marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying
stump. We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered
grass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never
bathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The
west side of every wood and rising ground gleamed like the boundary of
Elysium, and the sun on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman
driving us home at evening.
So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine
more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our
minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening
light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bankside in autumn.
AUTUMNAL TINTS
Europeans coming to America are surprised by the brilliancy of our
autumnal foliage. There is no account of such a phenomenon in English
poetry, because the trees acquire but few bright colors there. The
most that Thomson says on this subject in his "Autumn" is contained in
the lines,--
"But see the fading many-colored woods
Shade deepening over shade, the country round
Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun,
Of every hue, from wan declining green
To sooty dark;"
and in the line in which he speaks of
"Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods. "
The autumnal change of our woods has not made a deep impression on our
own literature yet. October has hardly tinged our poetry.
A great many, who have spent their lives in cities, and have never
chanced to come into the country at this season, have never seen this,
the flower, or rather the ripe fruit, of the year. I remember riding
with one such citizen, who, though a fortnight too late for the most
brilliant tints, was taken by surprise, and would not believe that
there had been any brighter. He had never heard of this phenomenon
before.
Not only many in our towns have never witnessed it, but it is
scarcely remembered by the majority from year to year.
Most appear to confound changed leaves with withered ones, as if they
were to confound ripe apples with rotten ones. I think that the change
to some higher color in a leaf is an evidence that it has arrived at a
late and perfect maturity, answering to the maturity of fruits. It is
generally the lowest and oldest leaves which change first. But as the
perfect-winged and usually bright-colored insect is short-lived, so
the leaves ripen but to fall.
Generally, every fruit, on ripening, and just before it falls, when it
commences a more independent and individual existence, requiring less
nourishment from any source, and that not so much from the earth
through its stem as from the sun and air, acquires a bright tint. So
do leaves. The physiologist says it is "due to an increased absorption
of oxygen. " That is the scientific account of the matter,--only a
reassertion of the fact. But I am more interested in the rosy cheek
than I am to know what particular diet the maiden fed on. The very
forest and herbage, the pellicle of the earth, must acquire a bright
color, an evidence of its ripeness,--as if the globe itself were a
fruit on its stem, with ever a cheek toward the sun.
Flowers are but colored leaves, fruits but ripe ones. The edible part
of most fruits is, as the physiologist says, "the parenchyma or fleshy
tissue of the leaf," of which they are formed.
Our appetites have commonly confined our views of ripeness and its
phenomena, color, mellowness, and perfectness, to the fruits which we
eat, and we are wont to forget that an immense harvest which we do not
eat, hardly use at all, is annually ripened by Nature. At our annual
cattle-shows and horticultural exhibitions, we make, as we think, a
great show of fair fruits, destined, however, to a rather ignoble end,
fruits not valued for their beauty chiefly. But round about and within
our towns there is annually another show of fruits, on an infinitely
grander scale, fruits which address our taste for beauty alone.
meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before
setting, after a cold, gray day, reached a clear stratum in the
horizon, and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry
grass and on the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon and on the
leaves of the shrub oaks on the hillside, while our shadows stretched
long over the meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its
beams. It was such a light as we could not have imagined a moment
before, and the air also was so warm and serene that nothing was
wanting to make a paradise of that meadow. When we reflected that this
was not a solitary phenomenon, never to happen again, but that it
would happen forever and ever, an infinite number of evenings, and
cheer and reassure the latest child that walked there, it was more
glorious still.
The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with
all the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and perchance
as it has never set before,--where there is but a solitary marsh hawk
to have his wings gilded by it, or only a musquash looks out from his
cabin, and there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the
marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying
stump. We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered
grass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never
bathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it. The
west side of every wood and rising ground gleamed like the boundary of
Elysium, and the sun on our backs seemed like a gentle herdsman
driving us home at evening.
So we saunter toward the Holy Land, till one day the sun shall shine
more brightly than ever he has done, shall perchance shine into our
minds and hearts, and light up our whole lives with a great awakening
light, as warm and serene and golden as on a bankside in autumn.
AUTUMNAL TINTS
Europeans coming to America are surprised by the brilliancy of our
autumnal foliage. There is no account of such a phenomenon in English
poetry, because the trees acquire but few bright colors there. The
most that Thomson says on this subject in his "Autumn" is contained in
the lines,--
"But see the fading many-colored woods
Shade deepening over shade, the country round
Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun,
Of every hue, from wan declining green
To sooty dark;"
and in the line in which he speaks of
"Autumn beaming o'er the yellow woods. "
The autumnal change of our woods has not made a deep impression on our
own literature yet. October has hardly tinged our poetry.
A great many, who have spent their lives in cities, and have never
chanced to come into the country at this season, have never seen this,
the flower, or rather the ripe fruit, of the year. I remember riding
with one such citizen, who, though a fortnight too late for the most
brilliant tints, was taken by surprise, and would not believe that
there had been any brighter. He had never heard of this phenomenon
before.
Not only many in our towns have never witnessed it, but it is
scarcely remembered by the majority from year to year.
Most appear to confound changed leaves with withered ones, as if they
were to confound ripe apples with rotten ones. I think that the change
to some higher color in a leaf is an evidence that it has arrived at a
late and perfect maturity, answering to the maturity of fruits. It is
generally the lowest and oldest leaves which change first. But as the
perfect-winged and usually bright-colored insect is short-lived, so
the leaves ripen but to fall.
Generally, every fruit, on ripening, and just before it falls, when it
commences a more independent and individual existence, requiring less
nourishment from any source, and that not so much from the earth
through its stem as from the sun and air, acquires a bright tint. So
do leaves. The physiologist says it is "due to an increased absorption
of oxygen. " That is the scientific account of the matter,--only a
reassertion of the fact. But I am more interested in the rosy cheek
than I am to know what particular diet the maiden fed on. The very
forest and herbage, the pellicle of the earth, must acquire a bright
color, an evidence of its ripeness,--as if the globe itself were a
fruit on its stem, with ever a cheek toward the sun.
Flowers are but colored leaves, fruits but ripe ones. The edible part
of most fruits is, as the physiologist says, "the parenchyma or fleshy
tissue of the leaf," of which they are formed.
Our appetites have commonly confined our views of ripeness and its
phenomena, color, mellowness, and perfectness, to the fruits which we
eat, and we are wont to forget that an immense harvest which we do not
eat, hardly use at all, is annually ripened by Nature. At our annual
cattle-shows and horticultural exhibitions, we make, as we think, a
great show of fair fruits, destined, however, to a rather ignoble end,
fruits not valued for their beauty chiefly. But round about and within
our towns there is annually another show of fruits, on an infinitely
grander scale, fruits which address our taste for beauty alone.
