A Canadian Winter thaw. The fine tops of the trees relieved against the sky.

January 25.

The snow has been for some time more than a foot deep on a level, and some roads drifted quite full; and the cold for some weeks has been intense, as low as twenty and twenty-one degrees in the early morning.

A Canadian winter. Some say that we have not had so long a spell of cold weather since '31, when they say it was not seen to thaw for six weeks.

But last night and to-day the weather has moderated. It is glorious to be abroad this afternoon. The snow melts on the surface. The warmth of the sun reminds me of summer. 

The dog runs before us on the railroad causeway, and appears to enjoy it as much as ourselves.

. . .

Ah, then, the brook beyond, its rippling waters and its sunny sands! They made me forget that it was winter. Where springs oozed out of the soft bank over the dead leaves and the green sphagnum, they had melted the snow, or the snow had melted as it fell perchance, and the rabbits had sprinkled the mud about on the snow. The sun reflected from the sandy, gravelly bottom sometimes a bright sunny streak no bigger than your finger, reflected from a ripple as from a prism, and the sunlight, reflected from a hundred points of the surface of the rippling brook, enabled me to realize summer. 

But the dog partly spoiled the transparency of the water by running in the brook. A pup that had never seen a summer brook. 

I am struck and attracted by the parallelism of the twigs of the hornbeam, fine parallelism. 

Having gone a quarter of a mile beyond the bridge, where C. calls this his Spanish Brook, I looked back from the top of the hill on the south into this deep dell . . . I was on the verge of seeing something , but I did not . If I had been alone and had had more leisure  I might have seen something to report. 

Now we are on Fair Haven, still but a snow plain. Far down the river the shadows on Conantum are bluish. The sun is half an hour high, perhaps.



Standing near the outlet of the pond, I look up and down the river. It is so warm and the air is so clear, when I invert my head and look at the woods down the stream, I seem to see every stem and twig with beautiful distinctness, the fine tops of the trees relieved against the sky.  It is the same when I look up the stream. A bare hickory under Lee's Cliff, seen against the sky, becomes an interesting, even beautiful, object to behold. 

I think where have I been staying all these days . I will surely come here again 

When I first paddled a boat on Walden, it was completely surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak woods, and in some of its coves grape-vines had run over the trees and formed bowers under which a boat could pass. 

The hills which form its shores are so steep, and the woods on them were then so high, that, as you looked down the pond from east to west, it looked like an amphitheatre for some kind of sylvan spectacle. 

I have spent many an hour, when I was younger, floating over its surface as the zephyr willed, having paddled to the middle, lying on my back across the seats of my boat, in a summer forenoon, and looking into the sky above, dreaming awake, until I was aroused by my boat touching the sand, and I arose to see what shore my fates had impelled me to; when idleness was the most attractive and productive industry. 

Many a forenoon have I stolen away thus, preferring thus to spend the most valued part of the day. For I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent them lavishly. Nor do I regret that I did not spend more of them behind a counter or in the workshop or the teacher's desk, in which last two places I have spent so many of them.

 where have I been stay- ing all these days . I will surely come here again . 

When I first paddled a boat on Walden , it was com- pletely surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak woods , and in some of its coves grape - vines had run over the trees and formed bowers under which a boat could pass . The hills which form its shores are so steep , and the woods on them were then so high , that , as you 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 25, 1852

It is glorious to be abroad this afternoon . . . The warmth of the sun reminds me of summer. See January 25, 1853("There is something springlike in this afternoon . . .The earth and sun appear to have approached some degrees."); January 25, 1855 ("It is a rare day for winter, clear and bright, yet warm . . . You dispense with gloves. "); January 25, 1858 ("A warm, moist day. Thermometer at 6.30 P.M. at 49°.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: the Warmth of the Sun;'; Compare January 25, 1854 ("A very cold day. Saw a man in Worcester this morning who took a pride in never wearing gloves or mittens But this morning he had to give up. The 22d, 23d, 24th, and 25th of this month have been the coldest spell of weather this winter. Clear and cold and windy. "); January 25, 1856 ("The hardest day to bear that we have had, for, beside being 5° at noon and at 4 P. M., there is a strong northwest wind. It is worse than when the thermometer was at zero all day. "); January 25, 1857 ("Still another very cold morning. Smith's thermometer over ours at -29°, ours in bulb; but about seven, ours was at -8° and Smith's at -24; ours therefore at first about -23°.")

When I invert my head and look at the woods down the stream. . . See February 9, 1852 ("A man goes to the end of his garden, inverts his head, and does not know his own cottage. The novelty is in us, and it is also in nature. The mirage is constant. . . ."); March 4, 1852 ("I look between my legs up the river across Fair Haven. The landscape thus at this season is a plain white field hence to the horizon.:"); December 11, 1853 ("The landscape look[s] fairer when we turned our heads[because] we see . . . the sky or heavens for a background or field."); April 20, 1854 ("I find some advantage in describing the experience of a day on the day following. At this distance it is more ideal, like the landscape seen with the head inverted, or reflections in water.");see also December 13, 1859 ("Now that the river is frozen we have a sky under our feet also.”) See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Inverted Head experiment.

The fine tops of the trees relieved against the sky. See January 26, 1852 ("A tree seen against other trees is a mere dark mass, but against the sky it has parts, has symmetry and expression."); August 2, 1854 ("The western sky is suddenly suffused with a pure white light, against which the hickories further east on the hill show black with beautiful distinctness. ") See also January 11, 1855 ("This air, thick with snowflakes, making a background, enables me to detect a very picturesque clump of trees on an islet"); February 16, 1860 ("I see how the trees, especially apple trees, are suddenly brought out relieved against the snow, black on white, every twig as distinct as if it were a pen-and-ink drawing the size of nature. The snow being spread for a background, while the storm still raging confines your view to near objects, each apple tree is distinctly outlined against it.") Compare February 3, 1852 (" The shadows of the trees on the snow are more minutely distinct than at any other season, finely reticulated, each limb and twig represented, as cannot be in summer")

When I first paddled a boat on Walden, it was completely surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak woods. See WALDEN ("But since I left those shores the woodchoppers have still further laid them waste, and now for many a year there will be no more rambling through the aisles of the wood, with occasional vistas through which you see the water. My Muse may be excused if she is silent henceforth. How can you expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down?"); March 11, 1852 (The woods I walked in in my youth are cut off. Is it not time that I ceased to sing?").