Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/53

Rh The first of June, when the lady's slipper and the wild pink have come out in sunny places on the hill-sides, then the summer is begun according to the clock of the seasons.

June 5, 1852. The medeola has blossomed in a tumbler. I seem to perceive a pleasant fugacious fragrance from its rather delicate, but in conspicuous, green flower. Its whorls of leaves of two stages are the most remarkable. I do not perceive the smell of the cucumber in its root.

To Harrington's, The silvery cinquefoil, Potentilla argentea, now. A delicate spring yellow, sunny yellow (before the dog-days) flower. None of the fire of autumnal yellows in it. Its silvery leaf is as good as a flower. White weed.

The constant inquiry which Nature puts is, &quot;Are you virtuous? Then you can behold me.&quot; Beauty, fragrance, music, sweetness, and joy of all kinds are for the virtuous. That I thought when I heard the telegraph harp to-day.

The Viola lanceolata now, instead of the Viola blanda. In some places the leaves of the last are grown quite large. The side-saddle flower. The Thalictrum anemonoides still. The dwarf cornel by Harrington's road looks like large snow-flakes on the hill-side, it is so thick. It is a neat, geometrical flower, of a pure white, some times greenish, or green.