Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/107

Rh on account of its stillness, but perhaps on account of its density, is more favorable to the transmission of sound. If the whole town were a raised plank floor, what a din there would be!

I now descend round the corner of the grain field, through the pitch-pine wood, into a lower field, more inclosed by woods, and find myself in a colder, damp, and misty atmosphere, with much dew on the grass. I seem to be nearer to the origin of things. There is something creative and primal in the cool mist. This dewy mist does not fail to suggest music to me, unaccountably, fertility, the origin of things. An atmosphere which has forgotten the sun, where the ancient principle of moisture prevails. It is laden with the condensed fragrance of plants, as it were, distilled dews.

The woodland paths are never seen to such advantage as in a moonlight night, so embowered, still opening before you almost against expectation as you walk. You are so completely in the woods, and yet your feet meet no obstacles. It is as if it were not a path, but an open, winding passage through the bushes, which your feet find. Now I go by the spring, and when I have risen to the same level as before, find myself in the warmer stratum again. These warmer veins, in a cool evening like this, do not fail to be agreeable.