BIB_ID
232737
Accession number
MA 5070
Creator
Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862.
Display Date
[ca. 1854-1858].
Credit line
Gift; Mr. and Mrs. Donald Hewat; 2001.
Description
1 item (2 p.) ; 24.6 cm.
Notes
The leaf was apparently part of a draft of a planned book-length project, The Fall of the Leaf, which Thoreau was working on toward the end of his life.
Removed from reference book 769\T48, a copy of the 1906 Houghton Mifflin "manuscript edition" of Thoreau's works.
Transcription and identification supplied by Dr. Bradley Dean, 2000.
Removed from reference book 769\T48, a copy of the 1906 Houghton Mifflin "manuscript edition" of Thoreau's works.
Transcription and identification supplied by Dr. Bradley Dean, 2000.
Provenance
Mr. and Mrs. Donald Hewitt.
Summary
The leaf reads, in part: "The first fall is now over. In the dry year 1854--I noticed that all these leaves which had changed the latter part of August, had by this time fall & many tree tops--maple & chestnut were bare. As I was going through the Deep Cut I saw, what I thought at first was a rare high-colored flower on the sandy bank, but returning & ascending to it, I found that it was a trifolium arvense whose narrow leaves were turned a bright crimson enhanced by the sun shining through it, & lighting it up...Thus gradually & successively each plant lends its richest color to the general effect, & in the fittest place, & passes away."
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