A mild, thawy day.

February 4. 

The needles of the pine are the touchstone for the air; any change is revealed by their livelier green or increased motion.  

Now the white pine are a misty blue; anon a lively, silvery light plays on them, and they seem to erect themselves unusually; while the pitch pines are a brighter yellowish-green than usual. They are the telltales.

The sun loves to nestle in the boughs of the pine and pass rays through them.

11 P. M. — Coming home through the village by this full moonlight, it seems one of the most glorious nights I ever beheld. 

Though the pure snow is so deep around, the air, by contrast perhaps with the recent days, is mild and even balmy to my senses, and the snow is still sticky to my feet and hands . And the sky is the most glorious blue I ever beheld, even a light blue on some sides, as if I actually saw into day, while small white, fleecy clouds, at long intervals, are drifting from west-north west to south-southeast. If you would know the direction of the wind, look not at the clouds, which are such large bodies and confuse you, but consider in what direction the moon appears to be wading through them. The outlines of the elms were never more distinctly seen than now. 

It seems a slighting of the gifts of God to go to sleep now; as if we could better afford to close our eyes to daylight, of which we see so much. 

Has not this blueness of the sky the same cause with the blueness in the holes in the snow, and in some distant shadows on the snow? — if, indeed, it is true that the sky is bluer in winter when the ground is covered with snow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 4, 1852

Now the white pine are a misty blue; anon a lively, silvery light plays on them. See February, 5, 1852 ("The boughs, feathery boughs, of the white pines, tier above tier, reflect a silvery light against the darkness of the grove, as if both the silvery-lighted and greenish bough and the shadowy intervals of the shade behind belong to one tree.”);  April 2 1853 (“I can see far into the pine woods to tree behind tree, and one tower behind another of silvery needles, stage above stage, relieved with shade. ”);  December 3, 1856 ("The silvery needles of the pine straining the light.");  December 8, 1855 (“the sun is reflected from far through the aisles with a silvery light from the needles of the pine.”)

The sky is the most glorious blue I ever beheld, even a light blue on some sides, as if I actually saw into day. See February 3. 1852 ("Is not the sky unusually blue to-night? dark blue? Is it not always bluer when the ground is covered with snow in the winter than in summer?"): February 5, 1852 ("The sky last night was a deeper, more cerulean blue than the far lighter and whiter sky of to-day."). See also May 11, 1853 ("Blue is the color of the day, and the sky is blue by night as well as by day, because it knows no night."); January 21, 1853 ("The blueness of the sky at night — the color it wears by day — is an everlasting surprise to me, suggesting the constant presence and prevalence of light in the firmament, that we see through the veil of night to the constant blue, as by day."); February 12, 1860 ("There is an annual light in the darkness of the winter night. The shadows are blue, as the sky is forever blue.") [According to Wikepedia "Airglow at night was known to the ancient Greeks; it may be bright enough for a ground observer to notice and appears generally bluish. See also Airglow for images.]

Consider in what direction the moon appears to be wading through[the clouds]. See August 12, 1851 ("In the after-midnight hours . . .It is [the traveller's] employment to watch the moon, the companion and guide of his journey, wading through clouds, and calculate what one is destined to shut out her cheering light."); April 3, 1852 ("The sky is two-thirds covered with great four or more sided downy clouds, drifting from the north or northwest, with dark-blue partitions between them. The moon, with a small brassy halo, seems travelling ever through them toward the north."); June 1, 1852 ("The moving clouds are the drama of the moonlight nights"); November 12, 1853 ("The moon is wading slowly through broad squadrons of clouds, with a small coppery halo, and now she comes forth triumphant and burnishes the water far and wide, and makes the reflections more distinct.")

February 4. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 4

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A mild, thawy day

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season, 

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2024