Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/85

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
SUMMER.
75

there is more shade in the woods, so there is more shade in the sky, i. e., dark, heavy clouds contrasted with the bright sky; not the gray clouds of spring.

The leaves generally are almost fully expanded, i. e., some of each tree.

June 9-14, 1850. I see the pollen of the pitch-pine now beginning to cover the surface of the pond. Most of the pines at the north-northwest end have none, and in some there is only one pollen-bearing flower.

There are as many strata at different levels of life as there are leaves in a book. Most men have probably lived in two or three. When on the higher levels we can remember the lower, but when on the lower we cannot remember the higher.

My imagination, my love and reverence and admiration, my sense of the miraculous, is not so excited by any event as by the remembrance of my youth. Men talk about Bible miracles because there is no miracle in their lives. Cease to gnaw that crust. There is ripe fruit over your head.

Woe to him who wants a companion, for he is unfit to be the companion even of himself. We inspire friendship in men when we have contracted friendship with the gods.

When we cease to sympathize with and to be