A glorious winter day.

December 20.

7 A. M. —To Hill. 

The coldest morning as yet. The river appears to be frozen everywhere. Where was water last night is a firm bridge of ice this morning. The snow which has blown on to the ice has taken the form of regular star-shaped crystals, an inch in diameter. 

I see the mother-o’-pearl tints now, at sunrise, on the clouds high over the eastern horizon before the sun has risen above the low bank in the east. The sky in the eastern horizon has that same greenish-vitreous, gem-like appearance which it has at sundown, as if it were of perfectly clear glass, —with the green tint of a large mass of glass. 

Here are some crows already seeking their breakfast in the orchard, and I hear a red squirrel’s reproof. The woodchoppers are making haste to their work far off, walking fast to keep warm, before the sun has risen, their ears and hands well covered, the dry, cold snow squeaking under their feet.

P. M. — Skate to Fair Haven. C.’s skates are not the best, and beside he is far from an easy skater, so that, as he said, it was killing work for him. Time and again the perspiration actually dropped from his forehead on to the ice, and it froze in long icicles on his beard. 

It has been a glorious winter day, its elements so simple, —the sharp clear air, the white snow everywhere covering the earth, and the polished ice. Cold as it is, the sun seems warmer on my back even than in summer, as if its rays met with less obstruction. And then the air is so beautifully still; there is not an insect in the air, and hardly a leaf to rustle. If there is a grub out, you are sure to detect it on the snow or ice. 

The shadows of the Clamshell Hills are beautifully blue as I look back half a mile at them, and, in some places, where the sun falls on it, the snow has a pinkish tinge. 

I am surprised to find how fast the dog can run in a straight line on the ice. I am not sure that I can beat him on skates, but I can turn much shorter. 

It is very fine skating for the most part. All of the river that was not frozen before, and therefore not covered with snow on the 18th, is now frozen quite smoothly; but in some places for a quarter of a mile it is uneven like frozen suds, in rounded pan cakes, as when bread spews out in baking. 

At sun down or before, it begins to belch. It is so cold that only in one place did I see a drop of water flowing out on the ice.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 20, 1854

The sky in the eastern horizon has that same greenish-vitreous, gem-like appearance which it has at sundown. . . See December 11, 1854 ("That peculiar clear vitreous greenish sky in the west, as it were a molten gem.”); December 9, 1859 (“I observe at mid-afternoon that peculiarly softened western sky, . . .giving it a slight greenish tinge.”)

It has been a glorious winter day, its elements so simple, —the sharp clear air, the white snow everywhere covering the earth, and the polished ice. See December 11, 1855 ("The winter, with its snow and ice, is as it was designed and made to be.”); December 21, 1854 ("We are tempted to call these the finest days of the year.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

If there is a grub out, you are sure to detect it on the snow or ice. See December 15, 1854 ("I see on the ice, half a dozen rods from shore, a small brown striped grub, and again a black one . . .. How came they there?”);

The shadows of the Clamshell Hills are beautifully blue . . . and, in some places. . .the snow has a pinkish tinge. See January 1, 1855 ("We see the pink light on the snow within a rod of us. The shadow of the bridges on the snow is a dark indigo blue.") and note to January 31, 1859 ("Pink light reflected from the low, flat snowy surfaces amid the ice on the meadows, just before sunset, is a constant phenomenon these clear winter days")