Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/336

326 shut on the morning of the 5th. May it be that they can bear only a certain amount of light, and so, being in the shade, remained open longer (I think not, for they shut up on the river that quite cloudy day, July 1), or is their vitality too little to allow them to perform their regular functions?

Can that meadow fragrance come from the purple summits of the eupatorium?

July 4, 1860. Standing on J. P. B's land, south side, I observed his rich and luxuriant uncut grass lands northward, now waving under the easterly wind. It is a beautiful Camilla, sweeping like waves of light and shade over the whole breadth of his land, like a low steam curling over it, imparting wonderful life to the landscape, like the light and shade of a changeable garment. It is an interesting feature, very easily overlooked, and suggests that we are wading and navigating at present in a sort of sea of grass which yields and undulates under the wind like water, and so perchance the forest is seen to do from a favorable position. Early there was that flashing light of waving pines in the horizon, now the Camilla on grass and grain.

July 5, 1840. Go where we will, we discover infinite change in particulars only, not in generals.