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Colores de otoño
Octubre es el mes de las hojas pintadas. Su opulento resplandor destella alrededor del mundo. Mientras los frutos, las hojas y el día en sí adquieren un matiz brillante justo antes de su caída, el año también está a punto de ponerse. Octubre es el cielo del atardecer; noviembre, la última luz crepuscular.
Recopilación de Walter Harding
Recopilación de Walter Harding
76 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1862
About the author
Henry David Thoreau
2,681 books7,031 followersHenry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, philosopher, and abolitionist who is best known for Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.
Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.
In 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1837, taught briefly, then turned to writing and lecturing. Becoming a Transcendentalist and good friend of Emerson, Thoreau lived the life of simplicity he advocated in his writings. His two-year experience in a hut in Walden, on land owned by Emerson, resulted in the classic, Walden: Life in the Woods (1854). During his sojourn there, Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax in protest of slavery and the Mexican war, for which he was jailed overnight. His activist convictions were expressed in the groundbreaking On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). In a diary he noted his disapproval of attempts to convert the Algonquins "from their own superstitions to new ones." In a journal he noted dryly that it is appropriate for a church to be the ugliest building in a village, "because it is the one in which human nature stoops to the lowest and is the most disgraced." (Cited by James A. Haught in 2000 Years of Disbelief.) When Parker Pillsbury sought to talk about religion with Thoreau as he was dying from tuberculosis, Thoreau replied: "One world at a time."
Thoreau's philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. D. 1862.
More: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tho...
http://thoreau.eserver.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Da...
http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu....
http://www.biography.com/people/henry...
Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.
In 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1837, taught briefly, then turned to writing and lecturing. Becoming a Transcendentalist and good friend of Emerson, Thoreau lived the life of simplicity he advocated in his writings. His two-year experience in a hut in Walden, on land owned by Emerson, resulted in the classic, Walden: Life in the Woods (1854). During his sojourn there, Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax in protest of slavery and the Mexican war, for which he was jailed overnight. His activist convictions were expressed in the groundbreaking On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). In a diary he noted his disapproval of attempts to convert the Algonquins "from their own superstitions to new ones." In a journal he noted dryly that it is appropriate for a church to be the ugliest building in a village, "because it is the one in which human nature stoops to the lowest and is the most disgraced." (Cited by James A. Haught in 2000 Years of Disbelief.) When Parker Pillsbury sought to talk about religion with Thoreau as he was dying from tuberculosis, Thoreau replied: "One world at a time."
Thoreau's philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. D. 1862.
More: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tho...
http://thoreau.eserver.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Da...
http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu....
http://www.biography.com/people/henry...
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October 15, 2017
October would *not* have been a melancholy, grim, death-of-the-year time on the calendar for Henry David Thoreau; the great transcendentalist from Concord, Massachusetts, was having none of that nonsense. Perhaps Thoreau’s celebration of autumn came about in part because Concord, like every other wooded region of New England, is so surpassingly beautiful in the autumn. And yet, beyond that, Thoreau embraced everything about life, including death – even his own death – in a way that harmonized wonderfully with his philosophy. And all of those aspects of Thoreau’s life and work come together quite pleasantly in October, or Autumnal Tints, the last thing Thoreau ever wrote.
By the time Thoreau composed and delivered the 1860 lecture that became October, or Autumnal Tints, he knew how ill he was with the tuberculosis that would take his life within just a couple of years. As Thoreau biographer Robert Richardson explains in a helpful foreword appropriately titled “The Last Leaves of Henry Thoreau,” this last work of Thoreau’s is characteristically counterintuitive, original, and contrarian in its thinking.
Richardson sets forth the “common view”, from Thoreau’s time and ours, “that autumn is the time of dying and decay, the season of endings”, and reveals the daring, original qualities of Thoreau’s perception of the season: “[T]he idea that death is not annihilation and something to be feared but rather a necessary stage in the continuing cycle of nature, and thus something to be welcomed as much as any other aspect of nature, is vintage Thoreau” (pp. 19-20). Vintage Thoreau indeed – and quite characteristic of the serene philosopher who, when asked by a devoutly religious and Puritan-minded relative, “Have you made your peace with God?”, replied, “I was not aware we had quarreled.”
October, or Autumnal Tints is short – really short. The W.W. Norton edition that I have here before me is 127 pages long in toto. Richardson’s introductory essay is just about as long as Thoreau’s essay – a piece that was originally supposed to be part of a much larger work that Thoreau’s failing health prevented him from writing. Much of the rest of the book is taken up by Maine artist Lincoln Perry’s engaging watercolor paintings of autumn leaves and landscapes. It is far too small to be a coffee-table book, but nonetheless it feels rather like one.
Yet don’t let that stop you from enjoying October, or Autumnal Tints. Thoreau’s iconoclastic originality and his poetic gift for language are all very much on display here, as when he describes how the sight of a red maple in autumn affects him:
How beautiful when a whole tree is like one great scarlet fruit, full of ripe juices, every leaf, from lowest limb to topmost spire, all a-glow, especially if you look toward the sun. What more remarkable object can there be in the landscape? Visible for miles, too fair to be believed. If such a phenomenon occurred but once, it would be handed down by tradition, and get into the mythology at last. (p. 74)
It is a lovely, poetic passage, characteristically Thoreauvian in its direct appeal to the senses, and in the musicality of its language. It is also strongly representative of Transcendentalism, a philosophy in which the natural world, like human nature, is intrinsically good. In this philosophical system, the source of corruption can be found in the groups or institutions that human beings form; from political parties to churches, they encourage group-think and conformity.
It follows, then, in Thoreau’s value system, that the way to move closer to some sort of higher truth – the way to get back in touch with the best part of oneself – is, quite literally, to get out of town. Leave the town-hall meeting and the Congregational church, Thoreau would say, and walk in the autumn woods, and you will find truth and inner peace there.
Thoreau returns frequently to such themes throughout October, or Autumnal Tints; and this passage regarding the leaves of the Scarlet Oak tree seems especially representative of his Transcendentalist view of life:
The leaves of very young plants, are, like those of full grown oaks of other species, more entire, simple and lumpish in their outlines, but these, raised high on old trees, have solved the leafy problem. Lifted higher and higher and sublimated more and more, putting off some earthiness and cultivating more intimacy with the light each year, they have at length the least possible amount of earthy matter, and the greatest spread and grasp of skyey influences. There they dance, arm in arm with the light, tripping it on fantastic points, fit partners in those aerial halls. So intimately mingled are they with it, that what with their slenderness and their glossy surfaces, you can hardly tell at last what in the dance is leaf and what is light. (p. 101)
Thoreau is quite clear here in drawing an analogy between autumn leaves and human existence. Like the leaves of the scarlet oak tree, he tells us, we can cast off what is less worthy within us, and can ascend ever closer toward where we are, spiritually speaking, pure light, pure spirit, pure sky.
When Thoreau’s friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, set forth his idea of achieving through nature a pure and complete communion with the natural world – “Standing on the bare ground…all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God” – he was criticized harshly for it. Some accused Emerson of blasphemy; others simply thought he was being pretentious or silly. Thoreau, by contrast, presents his transcendentalist ideas more subtly; he grounds his insights so firmly in the natural world that they seem less transgressive, more reasonable, and are therefore likely to be more persuasive to many readers.
Thoreau’s essay is sublime; Richardson’s scholarly introduction is sound; and Perry’s soft-focus watercolors provide a fine visual complement. Looking out the patio window on this brisk October morning in Northern Virginia, I reflect that Thoreau’s October, or Autumnal Tints can quite effectively place any reader, in any locale, at any time of year, firmly amidst the glories of a New England autumn.
By the time Thoreau composed and delivered the 1860 lecture that became October, or Autumnal Tints, he knew how ill he was with the tuberculosis that would take his life within just a couple of years. As Thoreau biographer Robert Richardson explains in a helpful foreword appropriately titled “The Last Leaves of Henry Thoreau,” this last work of Thoreau’s is characteristically counterintuitive, original, and contrarian in its thinking.
Richardson sets forth the “common view”, from Thoreau’s time and ours, “that autumn is the time of dying and decay, the season of endings”, and reveals the daring, original qualities of Thoreau’s perception of the season: “[T]he idea that death is not annihilation and something to be feared but rather a necessary stage in the continuing cycle of nature, and thus something to be welcomed as much as any other aspect of nature, is vintage Thoreau” (pp. 19-20). Vintage Thoreau indeed – and quite characteristic of the serene philosopher who, when asked by a devoutly religious and Puritan-minded relative, “Have you made your peace with God?”, replied, “I was not aware we had quarreled.”
October, or Autumnal Tints is short – really short. The W.W. Norton edition that I have here before me is 127 pages long in toto. Richardson’s introductory essay is just about as long as Thoreau’s essay – a piece that was originally supposed to be part of a much larger work that Thoreau’s failing health prevented him from writing. Much of the rest of the book is taken up by Maine artist Lincoln Perry’s engaging watercolor paintings of autumn leaves and landscapes. It is far too small to be a coffee-table book, but nonetheless it feels rather like one.
Yet don’t let that stop you from enjoying October, or Autumnal Tints. Thoreau’s iconoclastic originality and his poetic gift for language are all very much on display here, as when he describes how the sight of a red maple in autumn affects him:
How beautiful when a whole tree is like one great scarlet fruit, full of ripe juices, every leaf, from lowest limb to topmost spire, all a-glow, especially if you look toward the sun. What more remarkable object can there be in the landscape? Visible for miles, too fair to be believed. If such a phenomenon occurred but once, it would be handed down by tradition, and get into the mythology at last. (p. 74)
It is a lovely, poetic passage, characteristically Thoreauvian in its direct appeal to the senses, and in the musicality of its language. It is also strongly representative of Transcendentalism, a philosophy in which the natural world, like human nature, is intrinsically good. In this philosophical system, the source of corruption can be found in the groups or institutions that human beings form; from political parties to churches, they encourage group-think and conformity.
It follows, then, in Thoreau’s value system, that the way to move closer to some sort of higher truth – the way to get back in touch with the best part of oneself – is, quite literally, to get out of town. Leave the town-hall meeting and the Congregational church, Thoreau would say, and walk in the autumn woods, and you will find truth and inner peace there.
Thoreau returns frequently to such themes throughout October, or Autumnal Tints; and this passage regarding the leaves of the Scarlet Oak tree seems especially representative of his Transcendentalist view of life:
The leaves of very young plants, are, like those of full grown oaks of other species, more entire, simple and lumpish in their outlines, but these, raised high on old trees, have solved the leafy problem. Lifted higher and higher and sublimated more and more, putting off some earthiness and cultivating more intimacy with the light each year, they have at length the least possible amount of earthy matter, and the greatest spread and grasp of skyey influences. There they dance, arm in arm with the light, tripping it on fantastic points, fit partners in those aerial halls. So intimately mingled are they with it, that what with their slenderness and their glossy surfaces, you can hardly tell at last what in the dance is leaf and what is light. (p. 101)
Thoreau is quite clear here in drawing an analogy between autumn leaves and human existence. Like the leaves of the scarlet oak tree, he tells us, we can cast off what is less worthy within us, and can ascend ever closer toward where we are, spiritually speaking, pure light, pure spirit, pure sky.
When Thoreau’s friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, set forth his idea of achieving through nature a pure and complete communion with the natural world – “Standing on the bare ground…all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God” – he was criticized harshly for it. Some accused Emerson of blasphemy; others simply thought he was being pretentious or silly. Thoreau, by contrast, presents his transcendentalist ideas more subtly; he grounds his insights so firmly in the natural world that they seem less transgressive, more reasonable, and are therefore likely to be more persuasive to many readers.
Thoreau’s essay is sublime; Richardson’s scholarly introduction is sound; and Perry’s soft-focus watercolors provide a fine visual complement. Looking out the patio window on this brisk October morning in Northern Virginia, I reflect that Thoreau’s October, or Autumnal Tints can quite effectively place any reader, in any locale, at any time of year, firmly amidst the glories of a New England autumn.
October 6, 2018
”How beautiful, when a whole tree is like one great scarlet fruit full of ripe juices, every leaf, from lowest limb to topmost spire, all aglow, especially if you look toward the sun! What more remarkable object can there be in a landscape?”
Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden, Civil Disobedience, and many others, wrote this ode to Autumn, to the colours of fall, the red, orange, yellow leaves, to life, to the beauty around us most evident in Nature. As he wrote this, he knew his own death was approaching having been diagnosed with Tuberculosis, and he dedicated himself to writing this devotion to the brilliance and beauty of autumn that he saw in the world around him. In speaking of a Scarlett Oak, Thoreau said:
”This very perfect and vigorous one, about forty feet high, standing in an open pasture, which was quite glossy green on the 12th, is now, the 26th, completely changed to bright dark scarlet, every leaf, between you and the sun as if it had been dipped into a scarlet dye. The whole tree is much like a heart in form, as well as color. Was not this worth waiting for? Little did you think ten days ago, that that cold green tree would assume such color as this. Its leaves are still firmly attached, while those of other trees, are falling around it. It seems to say—I am the last to blush, but I blush deeper than any of ye. I bring up the rear in my red coat. We Scarlet ones, alone of oaks, have not given up the fight.”
"No annual training or muster of soldiery, no celebration with its scarfs and banners, could import into the town a hundredth part of the annual splendor of our October. We have only to set the trees, or let them stand, and Nature will find the colored drapery,—flags of all her nations, some of whose private signals hardly the botanist can read,—while we walk under the triumphal arches of the Elms. Leave it to Nature to appoint the days, whether the same as in neighboring States or not, and let the clergy read her proclamations, if they can understand them. Behold what a brilliant drapery is her Woodbine flag!”
I read this book, which has some lovely illustrations, and I also listened to the audio version as I drove to a few of my favourite spots to sit and ponder Thoreau’s words and the beauty all around, and where my dogs, Halle and Roxy, love to play, especially now that the air has begun to cool. The beginning pages, nearly half the book, consist of an introduction by American historian and biographer, Robert D. Richardson, husband of Annie Dillard. The illustrations, watercolours, are by Lincoln Perry.
”Let us have Willows for spring, Elms for summer, Maples and Walnuts and Tupeloes for autumn, Evergreens for winter, and Oaks for all Seasons."
A lovely reflection on the beauty that surrounds us, and while this is seen through the eyes of a man in New England, it shows us that no matter where we are, there is more to see in our surroundings.
On this contemplation, knowing how many seasons of his life are left, his thoughts lean toward what we may learn from nature about our life, to be glad and grateful of our days “scampering over the earth,” and, at the last to appreciate all the phases of life.
It is pleasant to walk over the beds of these fresh, crisp, and rustling leaves. How beautifully they go to their graves! how gently lay themselves down and turn to mould!—painted of a thousand hues, and fit to make the beds of us living. So they troop to their last resting-place, light and frisky. They put on no weeds, but merrily they go scampering over the earth, selecting the spot, choosing a lot, ordering no iron fence, whispering all through the woods about it,—some choosing the spot where the bodies of men are mouldering beneath, and meeting them half-way. How many flutterings before they rest quietly in their graves! They that soared so loftily, how contentedly they return to dust again, and are laid low, resigned to lie and decay at the foot of the tree, and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind, as well as to flutter on high! They teach us how to die.
November 23, 2019
Una lectura muy poética.
El autor amaba el otoño, y te lo contagia.
Es tan fácil imaginarte los paisajes que describe, que es como si pasearas por esos lugares.
Leyéndolo en la estación mencionada, te dan ganas de salir a la calle y contemplar los árboles, el bosque, la naturaleza.
La lectura ha sido preciosa, pero no es el tipo de libro que me entretenga; no es el tipo de libro para mí. Aún así salgo enamorada (más) del otoño. Qué gran estación.
El autor amaba el otoño, y te lo contagia.
Es tan fácil imaginarte los paisajes que describe, que es como si pasearas por esos lugares.
Leyéndolo en la estación mencionada, te dan ganas de salir a la calle y contemplar los árboles, el bosque, la naturaleza.
La lectura ha sido preciosa, pero no es el tipo de libro que me entretenga; no es el tipo de libro para mí. Aún así salgo enamorada (más) del otoño. Qué gran estación.
November 5, 2017
Is it worth writing an essay just about the shape and colour of autumn? Is it possible to fill 60 pages with that? - Yes, it definitely is. Thoreau made it work.
He was not only an outstanding observer and knew nature, but he also was a man of fine words. I just loved the way he described the autumnal tinted trees and plants. Sometimes he even created poetic scenes and most beautiful autumnal images.
"The whole tree [Scarlet Oak] is much like a heart in form, as well as color. Was not this worth waiting for? Little did you think, ten days ago, that that cold green tree would assume such color as this. Its leaves are still firmly attached, while those of other trees are falling around it. It seems to say, -'I am the last to blush, but I blush deeper than any of ye.'"
"On causeways I go by trees here and there all bare and smoke-like, having lost their brilliant clothing; but there it lies, nearly as bright as ever, on the ground on one side, and making nearly as regular a figure as lately on the tree. (...) A queen might be proud to walk where these gallant trees have spread their bright cloaks in the mud."
It was such a great pleasure to join him on his walk through Concord, Massachusetts, and to watch all the trees changing. Besides I learned the names of all the species there and lots of new old words. His antiquated language meant a huge challenge for me and so were his typical complex sentences with dozens of commas.
All in all it is a fine book about the beauty of autumn and let me finish it with Thoreau's words:
"Let us have Willows for spring, Elms for summer, Maples and Walnuts and Tupeloes for autumn, Evergreens for winter, and Oaks for all Seasons."
He was not only an outstanding observer and knew nature, but he also was a man of fine words. I just loved the way he described the autumnal tinted trees and plants. Sometimes he even created poetic scenes and most beautiful autumnal images.
"The whole tree [Scarlet Oak] is much like a heart in form, as well as color. Was not this worth waiting for? Little did you think, ten days ago, that that cold green tree would assume such color as this. Its leaves are still firmly attached, while those of other trees are falling around it. It seems to say, -'I am the last to blush, but I blush deeper than any of ye.'"
"On causeways I go by trees here and there all bare and smoke-like, having lost their brilliant clothing; but there it lies, nearly as bright as ever, on the ground on one side, and making nearly as regular a figure as lately on the tree. (...) A queen might be proud to walk where these gallant trees have spread their bright cloaks in the mud."
It was such a great pleasure to join him on his walk through Concord, Massachusetts, and to watch all the trees changing. Besides I learned the names of all the species there and lots of new old words. His antiquated language meant a huge challenge for me and so were his typical complex sentences with dozens of commas.
All in all it is a fine book about the beauty of autumn and let me finish it with Thoreau's words:
"Let us have Willows for spring, Elms for summer, Maples and Walnuts and Tupeloes for autumn, Evergreens for winter, and Oaks for all Seasons."
November 4, 2019
Este pequeño libro es poesía en prosa, tan preciosista es su vocabulario y tan cuidado es el detalle que excede los limites de la narrativa. Es el placer de mirar, de observar cómo el otoño transforma el paisaje con los ojos de quien sabe ver.
Una pequeña delicia donde no pasa nada, descripciones de colores, de plantas y de sensaciones con un vocabulario infinito. Un descubrimiento para los que vivimos en la ciudad, una pequeña alegría para los que cogemos a diario el metro y nuestro "paisaje" va del gris sucio al gris decadente.
Muy recomendable.
Una pequeña delicia donde no pasa nada, descripciones de colores, de plantas y de sensaciones con un vocabulario infinito. Un descubrimiento para los que vivimos en la ciudad, una pequeña alegría para los que cogemos a diario el metro y nuestro "paisaje" va del gris sucio al gris decadente.
Muy recomendable.
October 31, 2009
Every fall, my partner and I pick a crisp sunny day to sit in her back yard, a pair of golden maple trees rising above us, the Blue Ridge Mountains visible on the horizon, and read aloud to each to each other from Thoreau's marvelous essay, "Autumnal Tints." I especially like the section "Fallen Leaves": "How many flutterings before they rest quietly in their graves!They that soared so loftily, how contentedly they return to the dust again, and are laid low, resigned to lie and decay at the foot of the tree, and afford nourishment to new generations of their kind, as well as to flutter on high! They teach us how to die. One wonders if the time will ever come when men, with their boasted faith in immortality, will lie down as gracefully and as ripe, -- with such an Indian-summer serenity will shed their bodies, as they do their hair and nails."
November 12, 2019
Ha sido una lectura distinta a mis habituales, una lectura con la que me he desbordado de otoño. El autor es un entusiasta de la naturaleza y así lo evoca en todas y cada una de las líneas de esta obra. Tengo la impresión de que he estado leyendo poesía, algo artístico y personal.
November 18, 2019
"C'è tanta bellezza visibile a noi nel paesaggio quanta siamo pronti ad apprezzarla."
In questo breve saggio (un vero gioiello come altri suoi scritti) Thoreau ci mostra quante sfumature l'autunno possa regalare ad un occhio attento ai dettagli e che sappia andare oltre la malinconia che spesso viene associata a questa stagione.
In questo breve saggio (un vero gioiello come altri suoi scritti) Thoreau ci mostra quante sfumature l'autunno possa regalare ad un occhio attento ai dettagli e che sappia andare oltre la malinconia che spesso viene associata a questa stagione.
November 25, 2019
Pues... me he aburrido mucho leyéndolo, no sé si por ser un ensayo, o por ser lo que sea. No es para mí.
Muy bonitas todas las descripciones que hace del otoño, sus árboles y sus hojas, pero no me he enterado de nada. Me ha dado la sensación de que este hombre tenía un serio problema con los árboles, lo suyo es todo una obsesión.
Muy lírico y poético, pero nunca he entendido la poesía.
Lo bueno es que es corto y se lee de un tirón (sí uno se hace el ánimo).
En fin, 1 estrella sobre 5.
Muy bonitas todas las descripciones que hace del otoño, sus árboles y sus hojas, pero no me he enterado de nada. Me ha dado la sensación de que este hombre tenía un serio problema con los árboles, lo suyo es todo una obsesión.
Muy lírico y poético, pero nunca he entendido la poesía.
Lo bueno es que es corto y se lee de un tirón (sí uno se hace el ánimo).
En fin, 1 estrella sobre 5.
October 13, 2015
“Autumnal Tints” was one of Henry Thoreau’s last pieces of published literature. He finished its writing as he was dying of Tuberculosis. When I learned the context in which this essay had been written, it took on even greater significance for me. “Autumnal Tints” is a great essay, not only because Thoreau so wonderfully captures the beauty and detail of fall, but because he seeks a symbolic meaning in the season. He writes of the autumn leaves, “How beautifully they go to their graves! How gently lay themselves down and turn to mould!—Painted of a thousand hues and fit to make the beds of the living… They that soared so loftily, how contentedly they return to dust again, and are laid low, resigned to lie and decay at the foot of the tree, and afford nourishment to new generations… They teach us how to die” (35). For Thoreau, an autumn leaf is not just an autumn leaf. Rather, it is a symbol that helps him confront the idea of his own death with the hope that he would live on in some way, much as the dying leaves of fall go on to be a part of future forests. One of the reasons I admire Thoreau so much is his ability to notice the beauty of nature and yet also move beyond that physical beauty to meditations of a symbolic, often spiritual import.
In noting the spiritual significance of nature, Thoreau also urges us in “Autumnal Tints” to not merely look, but truly see when we go into the autumn woods. He writes, “We do not realize how far and widely, or how near and narrowly, we are to look. The greater part of the phenomena of Nature are for this reason concealed from us all our lives… The Scarlet Oak must, in a sense, be in your eye when you go forth. We cannot see anything until we are possessed with the idea of it… And so it is with him that shoots at beauty; though he wait til the sky falls, he will not bag any, if he does not already know its seasons and haunts, and the color of its wing” (58-60). For me, Thoreau always serves as a good reminder to try to be truly present in each moment. As he writes, we will not truly see any of the myriad beauties of nature if we are not already aware of them in our minds.
“Autumnal Tints” is not the best-known of Thoreau’s writings, but it is just as powerful and gorgeous as any of his more famous works. Though my heart aches for Henry, who died at age 44 from a disease that is quite preventable today, in reading this I know that he wouldn’t want me to feel that way. In the autumn leaves he finds potential to understand the meaning of human life—and death. Thoreau does not see autumn as merely a time of loss and decay, but rather a season carrying the eventual promise of spring. Though the autumn leaves die, they do so gracefully and without sadness. They provide the rich soil in which to grow new trees. Thoreau’s writing was not particularly well-known during his short life, but I think that he would be quite pleased to know how many people continue to read, admire, and strive to live by his works today, over 150 years after his death. I can only speak for myself, but I know they’ve changed my life. Like his beloved autumn leaves, I think Henry Thoreau has succeeded in providing a rich soil of ideas to grow in future generations.
In noting the spiritual significance of nature, Thoreau also urges us in “Autumnal Tints” to not merely look, but truly see when we go into the autumn woods. He writes, “We do not realize how far and widely, or how near and narrowly, we are to look. The greater part of the phenomena of Nature are for this reason concealed from us all our lives… The Scarlet Oak must, in a sense, be in your eye when you go forth. We cannot see anything until we are possessed with the idea of it… And so it is with him that shoots at beauty; though he wait til the sky falls, he will not bag any, if he does not already know its seasons and haunts, and the color of its wing” (58-60). For me, Thoreau always serves as a good reminder to try to be truly present in each moment. As he writes, we will not truly see any of the myriad beauties of nature if we are not already aware of them in our minds.
“Autumnal Tints” is not the best-known of Thoreau’s writings, but it is just as powerful and gorgeous as any of his more famous works. Though my heart aches for Henry, who died at age 44 from a disease that is quite preventable today, in reading this I know that he wouldn’t want me to feel that way. In the autumn leaves he finds potential to understand the meaning of human life—and death. Thoreau does not see autumn as merely a time of loss and decay, but rather a season carrying the eventual promise of spring. Though the autumn leaves die, they do so gracefully and without sadness. They provide the rich soil in which to grow new trees. Thoreau’s writing was not particularly well-known during his short life, but I think that he would be quite pleased to know how many people continue to read, admire, and strive to live by his works today, over 150 years after his death. I can only speak for myself, but I know they’ve changed my life. Like his beloved autumn leaves, I think Henry Thoreau has succeeded in providing a rich soil of ideas to grow in future generations.
November 15, 2019
<È allora che prendono a brillare
in tutto il mondo del loro sontuoso fulgore.
Come i frutti e le foglie, – anzi come il giorno stesso–,
poco prima di morire, si vestono di colori luminosi,
così fa l'anno prossimo al suo termine:
ottobre è il suo cielo al tramonto;
novembre, il crepuscolo che a quello segue.>>
Un’ode all’autunno di straordinaria bellezza. La penna di Thoreau è tra le più eleganti e poetiche che io abbia mai letto. Tutta la magia di questa stagione è racchiusa in questo libriccino di circa cento pagine, perfetto da leggere durante una giornata di pioggia o all’aperto, circondati dai colori che ogni amante dell’autunno aspetta con trepidazione.
in tutto il mondo del loro sontuoso fulgore.
Come i frutti e le foglie, – anzi come il giorno stesso–,
poco prima di morire, si vestono di colori luminosi,
così fa l'anno prossimo al suo termine:
ottobre è il suo cielo al tramonto;
novembre, il crepuscolo che a quello segue.>>
Un’ode all’autunno di straordinaria bellezza. La penna di Thoreau è tra le più eleganti e poetiche che io abbia mai letto. Tutta la magia di questa stagione è racchiusa in questo libriccino di circa cento pagine, perfetto da leggere durante una giornata di pioggia o all’aperto, circondati dai colori che ogni amante dell’autunno aspetta con trepidazione.
November 18, 2019
Mi sensibilidad no debe ser la adecuada para afrontar este libro de relatos. Aburrido y soporífero no le he encontrado la "magia" a leer sobre la influencia del otoño en árboles, hojas y paisajes. Lo bueno: es corto.
October 4, 2024
Trying some Thoreau today. Really enjoyed the description of all the trees and their autumnal tints. 🍁🍂
October 17, 2021
Lui in questo piccolo volume, come sua consuetudine, ritrae a parole tutti questi trionfi di colore nell’ordine in cui si offrono alla vista.
Partendo dal rosso porpora o cremisi, il colore dei colori, raccontandoci delle piante che se ne tingono e parlano al sangue che ci scorre in corpo.
“Adoro spremerne le bacche tra le dita, e lasciare che la mia mano si tinga del loro succo.”
Un Thoreau immenso e saggio come sempre,
stavolta ancora più distaccato dall’umano e volto al superiore.
Partendo dal rosso porpora o cremisi, il colore dei colori, raccontandoci delle piante che se ne tingono e parlano al sangue che ci scorre in corpo.
“Adoro spremerne le bacche tra le dita, e lasciare che la mia mano si tinga del loro succo.”
Un Thoreau immenso e saggio come sempre,
stavolta ancora più distaccato dall’umano e volto al superiore.
October 13, 2021
Breve saggio di 90 pagine in cui Thoreau non solo descrive la bellezza dei colori autunnali, ma esorta il lettore a osservare di più e apprezzare la natura che ci circonda.
Alcune delle piante su cui si sofferma non sono tipiche dell'Europa/Italia, quindi non è facilissimo immaginarsele, ma anche quelle che ci sono da noi non sono da meno e il concetto di non restare indifferenti a quello che la natura ci offre è applicabile in tutti i contesti.
Io ho iniziato ad apprezzare l'autunno da quando mi sono appassionata di fotografia, ogni anno attendo dunque il mese di ottobre per immortalarne i colori.
Alcune delle piante su cui si sofferma non sono tipiche dell'Europa/Italia, quindi non è facilissimo immaginarsele, ma anche quelle che ci sono da noi non sono da meno e il concetto di non restare indifferenti a quello che la natura ci offre è applicabile in tutti i contesti.
Io ho iniziato ad apprezzare l'autunno da quando mi sono appassionata di fotografia, ogni anno attendo dunque il mese di ottobre per immortalarne i colori.
October 7, 2022
My only praise goes to the watercolors and this sentence: "There is just as much beauty visible to us in the landscape as we are prepared to appreciate,—not a grain more."
The ideas in this are good, but it feels like it would've worked better in verse rather than as an essay. This form stretches it out, and it comes across a little dull. (but this collectible edition by Norton is beautiful)
The ideas in this are good, but it feels like it would've worked better in verse rather than as an essay. This form stretches it out, and it comes across a little dull. (but this collectible edition by Norton is beautiful)
July 11, 2018
It's good if you ever wanted to listen to someone wax sentimental about trees. Maybe I'd give it a 3.5, to be honest..not exactly something I'll probably remember 20 years from now.
October 15, 2025
Thoreau wasn’t a regular settler colonialist, he was a cool settler colonialist.
Also, trees pretty!
Also, trees pretty!
September 24, 2026
I wanted something that felt like autumn without a scrap of Halloween in the title or the text. Back when I was a pretentious book snob, junior year of high school, I developed a surprisingly long-lived fascination with Henry David Thoreau. I wanted to visit Walden Pond. My English teacher, who had been there, assured me I'd hate the place for the tourist circus around it. I read what I could about his life and the work itself. Some of that arrived on open-reel tapes from an agency then called Recording for the Blind, in New Jersey. By senior year the Thoreau phase had burned out, and this is the first book of his I've picked up in the years since.
I've no doubt Concord, Massachusetts, where Thoreau lived and died, still hosts armies of leaf peepers every fall. They idle along in cars, stare through glass, and perfunctorily catalogue whatever jaundiced view they get. Thoreau walked. That difference is the whole argument of the book. When I first spotted this title in the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled audio collection, I figured I'd enjoy his word pictures of fall in and around Concord.
Don't come looking for a fat volume. Autumnal Tints is a short work, one essay cut into headed sections, and Thoreau's preferred title was October, or Autumnal Tints. He last delivered it as a lecture in December 1860. Dying of tuberculosis, he revised it for print in the early months of 1862 and died that May. The Atlantic published it posthumously that October. While he polished the piece he wrote that ripe leaves teach us how to die. The sentence hits differently once you know he was dying as he set it down.
I didn't want an academic preface longer than the essay itself. Fortunately the NLS edition is just Thoreau, no professor type telling you what to think. It's better this way. A volunteer from the Perkins Library for the Blind in Boston narrated it. She had the tiniest hint of a New England accent, which is what I wanted, but she wasn't expressive enough. I used the NLS recording rather than an AI voice from ElevenReader because I couldn't find an AI voice with the right New England accent. Volunteer work or not, the recording sounded professionally done. No artifacts, no level changes, no furnace or air conditioner chewing at the edge of the track. It sounded like a real studio.
The first section pays tribute to the purple grasses he noticed in August, before autumn began in earnest. From there he turns to the red maple and its late-September change of color.
"A small Red Maple has grown, perchance, far away at the head of some retired valley, a mile from any road, unobserved. It has faithfully discharged the duties of a Maple there, all winter and summer, neglected none of its economies, but added to its stature in the virtue which belongs to a Maple, by a steady growth for so many months, never having gone gadding abroad, and is nearer heaven than it was in the spring. It has faithfully husbanded its sap, and afforded a shelter to the wandering bird, has long since ripened its seeds and committed them to the winds, and has the satisfaction of knowing, perhaps, that a thousand little well-behaved Maples are already settled in life somewhere. It deserves well of Mapledom. Its leaves have been asking it from time to time, in a whisper, 'When shall we redden?' And now, in this month of September, this month of traveling, when men are hastening to the sea-side, or the mountains, or the lakes, this modest Maple, still without budging an inch, travels in its reputation,—runs up its scarlet flag on that hill-side, which shows that it has finished its summer’s work before all other trees, and withdraws from the contest."
He goes on through the elm, fallen leaves, the sugar maple, and the scarlet oaks of his neighborhood. Fallen Leaves is the section that kept brushing against my own memory, even when I wasn't looking for it.
Word pictures are the currency this book trades in. If, like me, you've never visually experienced the metamorphosis of fall leaves, you'll still find a great deal to take away, though not the palette itself. My understanding of color remains as woefully nonexistent as it ever was. Scarlet, purple, and that tired gold people call autumn do not resolve into anything I can hold. What survives is the rest of the work: the maple that never went gadding abroad, the crunch underfoot, the moral pressure to look longer than habit allows, the sense that a tree can finish its summer and withdraw from the contest with dignity. Sound, touch, personification, and attention do the job the missing colors can't.
There's something timeless about those leaves. Thoreau filled his ears with the crunch as he stepped on them. He's right to pay them tribute. Many of us, as children, burrowed into a pile of leaves or leapt into one a father had only moments earlier painstakingly raked, just so we could scatter it again. I never heard death in that crunch as I flung myself onto them. They seemed to whisper stories of spring still remembered and summer still celebrated. In their unusual crunch as I rolled among them, I heard instructions: Touch our supple children in the spring when they are new, and wallow in them in a future fall as you do in us today. For there is perennial magic in such things.
Alas, we grow up and stop flying into their crunchy brittleness. With age comes the impulse to buy a leaf blower and move the pesky things. The magic of touching soft leaves in spring and landing in their crunchy repose in fall dies under the leaf blower's cacophony. Those thoughts ran alongside the book as I read, a private commentary track.
Then he gives you the theme that stays months or years after you finish.
"Objects are concealed from our view, not so much because they are out of the course of our visual ray as because we do not bring our minds and eyes to bear on them; for there is no power to see in the eye itself, any more than in any other jelly. We do not realize how far and widely, or how near and narrowly, we are to look. The greater part of the phenomena of Nature are for this reason concealed from us all our lives. The gardener sees only the gardener’s garden. Here, too, as in political economy, the supply answers to the demand. Nature does not cast pearls before swine. There is just as much beauty visible to us in the landscape as we are prepared to appreciate,—not a grain more."
Decades later the British writer Eden Phillpotts put a kindred thought this way: "The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper."
If this sends you back to Thoreau, try Walking or Wild Apples next, or the other late natural-history essays. They're kin to this one: close looking, local ground, and a mind that refuses to treat the year as scenery.
I'm giving this four stars. Some readers will struggle with the often dream-like nature of Thoreau's prose, and I won't pretend the sentences always sit still and behave. The book is public domain, short enough to reread, easy to find from NLS, and easy to find in print without the academic wrapping I was glad to skip.
I won't step into crunchy leaves again without remembering Thoreau's love for them. Because of this book, I've pledged to redouble my efforts at broader, clearer vistas, whatever the circumstance.
I've no doubt Concord, Massachusetts, where Thoreau lived and died, still hosts armies of leaf peepers every fall. They idle along in cars, stare through glass, and perfunctorily catalogue whatever jaundiced view they get. Thoreau walked. That difference is the whole argument of the book. When I first spotted this title in the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled audio collection, I figured I'd enjoy his word pictures of fall in and around Concord.
Don't come looking for a fat volume. Autumnal Tints is a short work, one essay cut into headed sections, and Thoreau's preferred title was October, or Autumnal Tints. He last delivered it as a lecture in December 1860. Dying of tuberculosis, he revised it for print in the early months of 1862 and died that May. The Atlantic published it posthumously that October. While he polished the piece he wrote that ripe leaves teach us how to die. The sentence hits differently once you know he was dying as he set it down.
I didn't want an academic preface longer than the essay itself. Fortunately the NLS edition is just Thoreau, no professor type telling you what to think. It's better this way. A volunteer from the Perkins Library for the Blind in Boston narrated it. She had the tiniest hint of a New England accent, which is what I wanted, but she wasn't expressive enough. I used the NLS recording rather than an AI voice from ElevenReader because I couldn't find an AI voice with the right New England accent. Volunteer work or not, the recording sounded professionally done. No artifacts, no level changes, no furnace or air conditioner chewing at the edge of the track. It sounded like a real studio.
The first section pays tribute to the purple grasses he noticed in August, before autumn began in earnest. From there he turns to the red maple and its late-September change of color.
"A small Red Maple has grown, perchance, far away at the head of some retired valley, a mile from any road, unobserved. It has faithfully discharged the duties of a Maple there, all winter and summer, neglected none of its economies, but added to its stature in the virtue which belongs to a Maple, by a steady growth for so many months, never having gone gadding abroad, and is nearer heaven than it was in the spring. It has faithfully husbanded its sap, and afforded a shelter to the wandering bird, has long since ripened its seeds and committed them to the winds, and has the satisfaction of knowing, perhaps, that a thousand little well-behaved Maples are already settled in life somewhere. It deserves well of Mapledom. Its leaves have been asking it from time to time, in a whisper, 'When shall we redden?' And now, in this month of September, this month of traveling, when men are hastening to the sea-side, or the mountains, or the lakes, this modest Maple, still without budging an inch, travels in its reputation,—runs up its scarlet flag on that hill-side, which shows that it has finished its summer’s work before all other trees, and withdraws from the contest."
He goes on through the elm, fallen leaves, the sugar maple, and the scarlet oaks of his neighborhood. Fallen Leaves is the section that kept brushing against my own memory, even when I wasn't looking for it.
Word pictures are the currency this book trades in. If, like me, you've never visually experienced the metamorphosis of fall leaves, you'll still find a great deal to take away, though not the palette itself. My understanding of color remains as woefully nonexistent as it ever was. Scarlet, purple, and that tired gold people call autumn do not resolve into anything I can hold. What survives is the rest of the work: the maple that never went gadding abroad, the crunch underfoot, the moral pressure to look longer than habit allows, the sense that a tree can finish its summer and withdraw from the contest with dignity. Sound, touch, personification, and attention do the job the missing colors can't.
There's something timeless about those leaves. Thoreau filled his ears with the crunch as he stepped on them. He's right to pay them tribute. Many of us, as children, burrowed into a pile of leaves or leapt into one a father had only moments earlier painstakingly raked, just so we could scatter it again. I never heard death in that crunch as I flung myself onto them. They seemed to whisper stories of spring still remembered and summer still celebrated. In their unusual crunch as I rolled among them, I heard instructions: Touch our supple children in the spring when they are new, and wallow in them in a future fall as you do in us today. For there is perennial magic in such things.
Alas, we grow up and stop flying into their crunchy brittleness. With age comes the impulse to buy a leaf blower and move the pesky things. The magic of touching soft leaves in spring and landing in their crunchy repose in fall dies under the leaf blower's cacophony. Those thoughts ran alongside the book as I read, a private commentary track.
Then he gives you the theme that stays months or years after you finish.
"Objects are concealed from our view, not so much because they are out of the course of our visual ray as because we do not bring our minds and eyes to bear on them; for there is no power to see in the eye itself, any more than in any other jelly. We do not realize how far and widely, or how near and narrowly, we are to look. The greater part of the phenomena of Nature are for this reason concealed from us all our lives. The gardener sees only the gardener’s garden. Here, too, as in political economy, the supply answers to the demand. Nature does not cast pearls before swine. There is just as much beauty visible to us in the landscape as we are prepared to appreciate,—not a grain more."
Decades later the British writer Eden Phillpotts put a kindred thought this way: "The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper."
If this sends you back to Thoreau, try Walking or Wild Apples next, or the other late natural-history essays. They're kin to this one: close looking, local ground, and a mind that refuses to treat the year as scenery.
I'm giving this four stars. Some readers will struggle with the often dream-like nature of Thoreau's prose, and I won't pretend the sentences always sit still and behave. The book is public domain, short enough to reread, easy to find from NLS, and easy to find in print without the academic wrapping I was glad to skip.
I won't step into crunchy leaves again without remembering Thoreau's love for them. Because of this book, I've pledged to redouble my efforts at broader, clearer vistas, whatever the circumstance.
August 13, 2017
Per molte persone l’autunno è una stagione triste, foriera di pensieri negativi, un periodo in cui il sopraggiungere dei primi freddi induce i più a ritirarsi nelle proprie case. I canti degli uccelli cessano, gli alberi perdono le foglie, tutto sembra sopito e pronto per il rigore invernale. Henry Thoreau non provava tutto questo quando passeggiava nei boschi autunnali del Massachusetts; il maestro trascendentalista americano scorgeva la vera essenza di questa stagione suggestiva e magica. Con “Tinte autunnali”, prima traduzione italiana dell’opera “Autumn Tints” pubblicata nell’ottobre del 1862, l’autore offre una sessantina di pagine ricche di riflessioni sulla natura e sull’uomo. La foresta in autunno non viene percepita da Thoreau come una realtà morta e priva di significato ma come l’apice di un processo naturale di maturazione, che tocca il picco proprio nel periodo di ottobre-novembre. “I più sembrano confondere le foglie che hanno cambiato colore con quelle secche, come se confondessero le mele mature con quelle marce” Leggendo tinte autunnali si percepisce il colore mutevole delle foglie, il fruscio delle stesse, la grazia con le quali si staccano dall’albero per depositarsi al suolo, nutrimento per l’albero stesso. La foresta in autunno è pura bellezza, una bellezza che è a nostra disposizione; attende solo di essere percepita, non aspetta altro che il nostro sguardo. “Gli oggetti si nascondono alla nostra vista, non tanto perché sono fuori dalla portata del nostro raggio visivo, quanto perché non portiamo le nostre menti e i nostri occhi a relazionarsi con loro” Per questa ragione, ci ammonisce Thoreau, la maggior parte dei fenomeni della Natura sono a noi nascosti per tutta la vita. Leggete “Tinte autunnali” e vedrete che la vostra percezione cambierà radicalmente durante le vostre passeggiate autunnali nei boschi.
December 25, 2019
I actually started this book in October after a long walk around Walden Pond. Being a fan of Autumn, I was curious to see what Thoreau had to say about the subject. I was not disappointed- this essay is filled with keen observations and poetic comparisons to help the fall foliage mentioned come alive. I only read Thoreau’s essay in October, but today I went back to read the introduction written by Robert D. Richardson and carefully viewed the fall paintings created by Lincoln Perry - and it was a richer experience as a result. It turns out Thoreau wrote this essay on his deathbed, and as a result, he focused on how nature handles death while transitioning from Autumn to Winter. But the language is vivid and exuberant, not maudlin or melancholy. I am sure I will return to this book during future fall seasons to enjoy the stately, lyrical language written about my favorite season.
August 6, 2007
A wonderful meditation on the colors and character of autumnal New England.
December 2, 2009
Remarkably description of fall foliage. Would probably ring more true reading on a porch swing surrounded by trees changing color.
January 11, 2014
A beautifully done edition of one of Thoreau's later natural history essays... in praise and thanks for the phenomenon of New England's forest leaves turning passionate before the Fall.
June 27, 2014
Thoreau's eloquent and evocative elegy to the Autumn of life as it is manifested in a New England Autumn. Stunning and breathtaking. Thoreau at his best.
November 15, 2020
3,5 stelle, in realtà.
A celarci gli oggetti dalla nostra prospettiva, non è tanto l'effettiva assenza all'interno del nostro raggio visivo, quanto perché non rivolgiamo occhi e mente su di essi; ché non esiste nell'occhio umano facoltà visiva superiore a quella che può sussistere all'interno di qualunque altra gelatina. Non ci rendiamo conto di quanto lontano e ampiamente, o di quanto vicino e accuratamente dovremmo guardare. Per questa ragione, la maggior parte dei fenomeni naturali ci rimane celata per tutta la vita. Il giardiniere vede solo il giardino del giardiniere. Anche qui, come nell'economia politica, l'offerta corrisponde alla domanda, e la Natura non getta perle dinanzi ai porci. Nel paesaggio che ci circonda è presente soltanto la quantità di bellezza che siamo in grado di apprezzare, - non un grammo di più.
A celarci gli oggetti dalla nostra prospettiva, non è tanto l'effettiva assenza all'interno del nostro raggio visivo, quanto perché non rivolgiamo occhi e mente su di essi; ché non esiste nell'occhio umano facoltà visiva superiore a quella che può sussistere all'interno di qualunque altra gelatina. Non ci rendiamo conto di quanto lontano e ampiamente, o di quanto vicino e accuratamente dovremmo guardare. Per questa ragione, la maggior parte dei fenomeni naturali ci rimane celata per tutta la vita. Il giardiniere vede solo il giardino del giardiniere. Anche qui, come nell'economia politica, l'offerta corrisponde alla domanda, e la Natura non getta perle dinanzi ai porci. Nel paesaggio che ci circonda è presente soltanto la quantità di bellezza che siamo in grado di apprezzare, - non un grammo di più.
February 11, 2018
Sono felice che Thoreau si divertisse così tanto a guardare ogni singola foglia e me lo immagino mentre vaga per la campagna fermandosi ad osservare in estasi una bacca, e apprezzo che abbia voluto scriverne in proposito... Purtroppo però, per quanto io ami i boschi e la natura in autunno, finire questo libretto di 70 pagine è stata una pena... c'ho impiegato meno tempo per leggere "I pilastri della Terra".
Penso che il problema sia il lessico. Da questi suoi pensieri non trapela alcuna poesia, è pura descrizione... ed è una descrizione ripetitiva fino all'esasperazione.
Avevo iniziato Walden un po' di tempo fa e in futuro lo riprenderò in mano per finirlo: ma ricordo le sensazioni che mi dava... in quel caso Thoreau sembrava molto più ispirato.
Penso che il problema sia il lessico. Da questi suoi pensieri non trapela alcuna poesia, è pura descrizione... ed è una descrizione ripetitiva fino all'esasperazione.
Avevo iniziato Walden un po' di tempo fa e in futuro lo riprenderò in mano per finirlo: ma ricordo le sensazioni che mi dava... in quel caso Thoreau sembrava molto più ispirato.
October 28, 2024
Do yourselves a favour and wait for a moody day in autumn, when the leaves have turned and the skies threaten rain, put on your coat and some headphones, and walk through the trees listening to Autumnal Tints.
That’s what I did, and it was perfect. It also rained which was even more perfect.
I truly do yearn for the picturesque at all cost, and oh boy did this short listen do it for me. I love autumn and I loved listening to this, to the descriptions of the leaves, the colours of the season, and the grandeur of nature. Love.
‘Whenever I walk these afternoons, the purple-fingered grass also stands like a guide board, and points my thoughts to more poetic paths than they have lately travelled’
That’s what I did, and it was perfect. It also rained which was even more perfect.
I truly do yearn for the picturesque at all cost, and oh boy did this short listen do it for me. I love autumn and I loved listening to this, to the descriptions of the leaves, the colours of the season, and the grandeur of nature. Love.
‘Whenever I walk these afternoons, the purple-fingered grass also stands like a guide board, and points my thoughts to more poetic paths than they have lately travelled’
February 20, 2018
I listened to the audio book edition read by Brett Barry. It was a joyful romp through the memories of fall on the East Coast. He posited that until we have the idea of something in our mind we do not see it even though it is often right in front of us. Examples of this that he gave were a sportsman who has the idea of the game in front of him and the sea is it where others do not see it. He spoke of finding rare plants only after he had carefullyheld the idea of that plant in his mind. Only then Among the myriad of other plants could he distinguish the one he was looking for.
February 11, 2021
Este curto e belo livro veio no rastro do Autumn Lights. Vi a referência em alguma parte, parei a leitura e fiz um pequeno desvio. Já havia lido há mais tempo o fantástico Walden, do mesmo autor, o que aumentou a curiosidade. Esta versão ai é interessante, pois tem uma parte inicial com uma bela análise do texto do Thoreau, feita por um dos autores (Robert D. Richardson Jr), o que ajuda muito a entender o pequeno texto e as ilustrações.
Postagem no meu blog sobre Walden,
https://zeluisbraga.wordpress.com/201...
Postagem no meu blog sobre Walden,
https://zeluisbraga.wordpress.com/201...
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