Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/177

Rh color is richer, but it does not show so well at a little distance, and the corymbs are somewhat concealed by the green shoot and leaves rising above them, and also by the dry remains of last year's flowers.

The mountain laurel by Walden in its prime. It is a splendid flower, and more red than that in Mason's pasture. Its dry, dead-looking, brittle stems lean, as it were, over other bushes or each other, bearing at the ends great dense corymbs five inches in diameter, of rose or pink (?) tinged flowers, without an interstice between them, overlapping each other, each of more than an inch in diameter. A single flower would be esteemed very beautiful. It is a highlander wandered down into the plain.

June 17, 1854. 5 To Hill. A cold fog. These mornings those who walk in grass are thoroughly wet above mid-leg. All the earth is dripping wet. I am surprised to feel how warm the water is by contrast with the cold, foggy air. The dewy cobwebs are very thick this morning, little napkins of the fairies spread on the grass.

From the Hill I am reminded of more youthful mornings, seeing the dark forms of the trees eastward in the low grounds, partly within and against the shining white fog, the sun just risen over it. The mist fast rolls away eastward from