This afternoon I throw off my outside coat. A mild spring day. The air is full of bluebirds. The ground almost entirely bare. The villagers are out in the sun, and every man is happy whose work takes him outdoors. I go by Sleepy Hollow toward the Great Fields. I lean over a rail to hear what is in the air, liquid with the bluebirds' warble. My life partakes of infinity.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 15, 1852
My life partakes of infinity. See September 7, 1851 ("We are receiving our portion of the infinite. We are surrounded by a rich and fertile mystery. May we not probe it, pry into it, employ ourselves about it, a little?")
March 15.
This afternoon I throw off my outside coat.
A mild spring day.
I must hie to the Great Meadows.
The air is full of bluebirds.
The ground almost entirely bare.
The villagers are out in the sun, and every man is happy whose work takes him outdoors.
I go by Sleepy Hollow toward the Great Fields.
I lean over a rail to hear what is in the air, liquid with the blue birds ' warble.
My life partakes of infinity.
The air is as deep as our natures.
Is the drawing in of this vital air attended with no more glorious results than I witness?
The air is a velvet cushion against which I press my ear.
I go forth to make new demands on life.
I wish to begin this summer well;
- to do something in it worthy of it and of me;
- to transcend my daily routine and that of my townsmen;
- to have my immortality now, that it be in the quality of my daily life;
- to pay the greatest price, the greatest tax, of any man in Concord, and enjoy the most!!
I will pay all my days for my success.
I pray that the life of this spring and summer may ever lie fair in my memory.
May I dare as I have never done!
May I persevere as I have never done!
May I purify myself anew as with fire and water, soul and body!
May my melody not be wanting to the season!
May I gird myself to be a hunter of the beautiful, that naught escape me!
May I attain to a youth never attained!
I am eager to report the glory of the universe; may I be worthy to do it; to have got through with regarding human values, so as not to be distracted from regarding divine values.
It is reasonable that a man should be something worthier at the end of the year than he was at the beginning.
Yesterday's rain, in which I was glad to be drenched, has advanced the spring, settled the ways, and the old footpath and the brook and the plank bridge behind the hill are suddenly uncovered, which have [ been ] buried so long; as if we had returned to our earth after an absence, and took pleasure in finding things so nearly in the state in which we left them.
We go out without our coats, saunter along the street, look at the aments of the willow beginning to appear and the swelling buds of the maple and the elm.
The Great Meadows are water instead of ice.
I see the ice on the bottom in white sheets.
And now one great cake rises amid the bushes (behind Peter's).
I see no ducks.
Most men find farming unprofitable; but there are some who can get their living anywhere.
If you set them down on a bare rock they will thrive there.
The true farmer is to those who come after him and take the benefit of his improvements, like the lichen which plants itself on the bare rock, and grows and thrives and cracks it and makes a vegetable mould, to the garden vegetable which grows in it.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 15, 1852
It is reasonable that a man should be something worthier at the end of the year than he was at the beginning.
Yesterday's rain, in which I was glad to be drenched, has advanced the spring, settled the ways, and the old footpath and the brook and the plank bridge behind the hill are suddenly uncovered, which have [ been ] buried so long; as if we had returned to our earth after an absence, and took pleasure in finding things so nearly in the state in which we left them.
We go out without our coats, saunter along the street, look at the aments of the willow beginning to appear and the swelling buds of the maple and the elm.
The Great Meadows are water instead of ice.
I see the ice on the bottom in white sheets.
And now one great cake rises amid the bushes (behind Peter's).
I see no ducks.
Most men find farming unprofitable; but there are some who can get their living anywhere.
If you set them down on a bare rock they will thrive there.
The true farmer is to those who come after him and take the benefit of his improvements, like the lichen which plants itself on the bare rock, and grows and thrives and cracks it and makes a vegetable mould, to the garden vegetable which grows in it.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 15, 1852
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