> ----------
> From: 	Jim Tantillo[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Reply To: 	[log in to unmask]
> Sent: 	Tuesday, August 01, 2000 5:12 AM
> To: 	[log in to unmask]
> Subject: 	well, just one more thing . . . Re: Thoreau
> 
> I couldn't resist reading Thoreau's essay from the beginning, which I
> haven't done in quite some time.  I ran across one more passage that,
> well,
> *I* think is delightful, "fwiw" <smile> and that I'd like to share with
> everyone.  When I worked at Walden Pond I used to do (among other things)
> costumed living history portraying Thoreau, and at one time in my life I
> had an enormous store of memorized passages from his writings downloaded
> onto the hard drive between my ears.  :-)   Most of that's gone, now, I'm
> afraid--new operating system. . . .
> 
> It should come as no surprise to anyone that I think Thoreau's essay(s)
> can
> and should be read allegorically; and I think it succeeds on *more* than
> just one or two levels, which is a sign of its genuine greatness.  The
> various plants and leaves that Thoreau speaks of can be thought of as
> standing in for *people*, to cite but one example.  The "leaves" Thoreau
> describes refer not only literally to leaves on trees, but to the fallen
> leaves of his own writings as well.  "When the leaves fall, the whole
> earth
> is a cemetary pleasant to walk in," he writes. "I love to wander and muse
> over them in their graves.  Here are no lying nor vain epitaphs."
> 
> Well, okay.  At any rate, I think "Autumnal Tints" is one of Thoreau's
> more
> underappreciated, even "unknown," essays--so I'd just like to share a bit
> more.  I used to love reciting the following passage from Thoreau's essay,
> especially during programs in the early fall.  (I know, I know: who
> cares.)
> "fwiw." <s>
> jt
> 
> 
> 	"A small Red Maple has grown, perchance, far away at the head of
> some retired valley, a mile from any road, unobserved.  It has faithfully
> discharged the duties of a Maple there, all winter and summer, neglected
> none of its economies, but added to its stature in the virtue which
> belongs
> to a Maple, by a steady growth for so many months, never having gone
> gadding abroad, and is nearer heaven than it was in the spring.  It has
> faithfully husbanded its sap, and afforded a shelter to the wandering
> bird,
> has long since ripened its seeds and committed them to the winds, and has
> the satisfaction of knowing, perhaps, that a thousand little well-behaved
> Maples are already settled in life somewhere.  It deserves well of
> Mapledom.  Its leaves have been asking it from time to time, in a whisper,
> 'When shall we redden?'  And now, in this month of September, this month
> of
> travelling, when men are hastening to the sea-side, or the mountains, or
> the lakes, this modest Maple, still without budging an inch, travels in
> its
> reputation,--runs up its scarlet flag on that hill-side, which shows that
> it has finished its summer's work before all other trees, and withdraws
> from the contest.  At the eleventh hour of the year, the tree which no
> scrutiny could have detected here when it was most industrious is thus, by
> the tint of its maturity, by its very blushes, revealed at last to the
> careless and distant traveller, and leads his thoughts away from the dusty
> road into those brave solitudes which it inhabits.  It flashes out
> conspicuous with all the virtue and beauty of a Maple,--*Acer rubrum*.  We
> may now read its title, or *rubric*, clear.  Its *virtues*, not its sins,
> are as scarlet."
> 
> --Thoreau, "Autumnal Tints"
> 


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%