THOREAU'S WALDEN 63 



you both with the same sudden sweep of its Au- 

 gust fire. In the same sense you are the pond's 

 ear and hear as it does. The morning rustle of 

 the trees, shaking the dusk from their boughs, 

 comes to you as a clear ecstasy, and you think 

 you can hear the wan tinkling of the invisible 

 feet of fairy mists as they leap sunward from 

 the surface and vanish in the day. Over the wood 

 comes the intermittent pulse of Concord waking, 

 and by fainter reverberations the pond knows 

 that Lincoln and more distant villages are astir. 

 Then the first train of the day crashes by the 

 southern margin and stuns the tympanum with a 

 vast avalanche of uproar. 



To plunge beneath the surface and escape this 

 is to learn the real color of the pond. From with- 

 out, on the banks, this varies. Oftenest it is a 

 dull, clear green like that of alexandrite, a chry- 

 soberyl gem from the mines of Ceylon and the 

 Ural mountains. You see this best from the 

 higher points of the hills along the borders and at 

 certain angles of the sun the green shows red 

 reflections and tints of blue as does the gem. If, 

 swimming in the center, you will tip up as a duck 



