Blue harp

January 18.

January 18, 2012

The pines, some of them, seen through this fine driving snow, have a bluish hue. 

While the snow is falling, the telegraph harp is resounding across the fields. 


To-day, again, I see some of the blue in the crevices of the snow. It is snowing, but not a moist snow. Perhaps the snow in the air, as well as on the ground, takes up the white rays and reflects the blue. There is no blue to be seen overhead, as if it has taken refuge in the chinks and crevices in the snow.


What is like the peep or whistle of a bird in the midst of a winter storm?


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 18, 1852


The pines, some of them, seen through this fine driving snow, have a bluish hue.  See also note to February 7, 1856 ("During the rain the air is thick, the distant woods bluish.")   See also January 11, 1855 ("Air so thick with snowflakes that . . .single pines stand out distinctly against it in the near horizon."); January 21, 1855 ("The snow is turning to rain through a fine hail. Pines and oaks seen at a distance — say two miles off — are considerably blended and make one harmonious impression. The former, if you attend, are seen to be of a blue or misty black. . .");  January 13, 1859 ("I can see about a quarter of a mile through the mist, and when, later, it is somewhat thinner, the woods, the pine woods, at a distance are a dark-blue color."); January 18, 1859 ("When the fog was a little thinner, so that you could see the pine woods a mile or more off, they were a distinct dark blue."); February 7, 1859 ("Evidently the distant woods are more blue in a warm and moist or misty day in winter.").

Perhaps the snow in the air, as well as on the ground, takes up the white rays and reflects the blue. See January 9, 1852 ("Apparently the snow absorbs the other rays and reflects the blue. . . ."); January 14, 1852 ("There is no blueness in the ruts and crevices in the snow to-day. What kind of atmosphere does this require? . . . It is one of the most interesting phenomena of the winter."); January 5, 1854 ("Some blueness now in the snow . . . more distinct after sunset."); January 19, 1855 ("I never saw the blue in snow so bright as this damp, dark, stormy morning ."); January 20, 1856 ("I see the blue between the cakes of snow cast out in making a path, in the triangular recesses, though it is pretty cold, but the sky is completely overcast")