"Think what a change, unperceived by many, has within a month come over the landscape! Then the general, the universal, hue was green. Now see those brilliant scarlet and glowing yellow trees in the low lands a mile off! I see them, too, here and there on the sides of hills, standing out distinct, mere bright [an indecipherable word] and squads perchance, often in long broken lines, and so apparently elevated by their distinct color that they seem arranged like the
remnants of a morning mist just retreating in a broken line along the hillsides. Or see that crowd in the swamp half a mile through, all vying with one another, a blaze of glory. See those crimson patches far away on the hill sides, like dense flocks of crimson sheep, where the huckleberry reminds of recent excursions. See those patches of rich brown in the low grounds, where the ferns stand shrivelled. See the greenish-yellow phalanxes of birches, and the crisped yellowish elm-tops here and there. We are not prepared to believe that the earth is now so parti-colored, and would present to a bird's eye such distinct masses of bright color. A great painter is at work...."

~Henry David Thoreau~ Writings of Henry David Thoreau in Twenty Volumes, Volume XVI