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Autumnal Tints

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Published in _Atlantic Monthly_ five months after his death, this essay describes the colors of the New England landscape as Henry David Thoreau saw them in the mid-1800s. His motivation for writing such words seems to have been his neighbors' apathy and indifference toward the natural world, for "A man sees only what concerns him." And so Thoreau speaks of the beauty of purple grasses and of maples, elms, and oaks. He doesn't mind the fallen willow leaves that land in his boat and doesn't clean them out -- he accepts them as extra cushioning for his seat. One wonders what Henry would think now, when tourists are apt to drive to New England on fall weekends, just to see the leaves. There's no earth-shattering revelations in this booklet. It's just an easy read for a crisp and bright October day.

It is a beautiful text that revels in nature's exuberant expression and rescues her vital value to man. To witness Thoreau's love of nature is pure joy. There is no better teacher than he ... to learn Nature's lessons through his eyes.

"Autumnal Tints" is one of Henry David Thoreau's most underrated works. His writings on civil disobedience and Walden Pond are seminal works... yet his praise of the Massachusetts autumn is poetic. It is reverie in the glory of Nature. It is the writing of a Nature mystic, not unlike his Californian equivalent, John Muir (Journeys in the Wilderness) While Muir was in the relative seclusion of the redwoods, the wildness of Yosemite... Thoreau transcended the urbanity of New England in his forest solitude. A true Transcendentalist. He wasn't that far from the metropolis of Boston, or nearby Worcester... yet he found joy in the colors of the fall. Autumn is a time of harvest, contemplation, it is the softening of summer, the mild transition to the cold New England winter. "Autumnal Tints" is ecstatic in its praise of the Bay State. It is poetry transfigured into prose. A harvest of words.