Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/109

Rh So still and moderate is the night. No scream is heard, whether of fear or joy. No great comedy, no tragedy is being enacted. The chirping of crickets is the most universal, if not the loudest sound. There is no French revolution in Nature, no excess. She is warmer or colder by a degree or two.

My shadow has the distinctness of a second person, a certain black companion bordering on the imp, and I ask who is this that I see dodging behind me as I am about to sit down on a rock. The rocks do not feel warm to-night, for the air is warmest, nor does the sand particularly.

No one, to my knowledge, has observed the minute differences in the seasons. Hardly two nights are alike.

A book of the seasons, each page of which should be written in its own season and out of doors, or in its own locality, wherever it may be.

When you get into the road, though far from the town, and feel the sand under your feet, it is as if you had reached your own gravel walk. You no longer hear the whippoorwill nor regard your own shadow, for here you expect a fellow traveler. You catch yourself walking merely. The road leads your steps and thoughts alike to the town. You see only the path, and your thoughts wander from the objects that are