JUNE 



ii 



The pincushion galls on young white oaks are 

 now among the most beautiful objects in the 

 woods, coarse, woolly, white, spotted with bright 

 red or crimson on the exposed side. It is remark- 

 able that a mere gall, which at first we are in- 

 clined to regard as something abnormal, should 

 be made so beautiful, as if it were the flower of the 

 tree ; that a disease, an excrescence, should prove, 

 perchance, the greatest beauty, as the tear of the 

 pearl ; beautiful scarlet sins they may be. Through 

 our temptations, aye, and our falls, our virtues 



appear. 



THOKEAU: Summer. 



12 



The lupine is now in its glory. ... I am quite ex- 

 cited by this prospect of blue flowers in clumps, 

 with narrow intervals, such a profusion of the 

 heavenly, the Elysian color, as if these were the 

 Elysian Fields. . . . That is the value of the lu- 

 pine. The earth is blued with it. Yet a third 

 of a mile distant I do not detect their color on the 

 hillside. Perchance because it is the color of the 

 air. It is not distinct enough. You may have 

 passed along here a fortnight ago, and the hillside 

 was comparatively barren, but now you come, and 

 these glorious redeemers appear to have flashed 

 out here all at once. 



THOREAU: Summer. 



