“Thoreau is . . . rapturous at times about cool blues and azures, but these tints, found predominantly in the sky above and in the waters which reflect it, are often wedded to meditation. These color suggest a limitless space to Thoreau and serve as a stimulus for far-reaching thoughts. For example the sight of his ‘elysian blue’ shadow on snow causes Thoreau to reflect about the nature of his own being: ‘I am turned into a tall blue prussian from my cap to my boots, such as no mortal dye can produce, with an amethystine hatchet in my hand. I am in raptures at my own shadow. What if the substance were of as ethereal a nature?’”