My shadow is blue.

February 10. 

A fine, clear day. There is a glare of light from the fresh surface of the snow, so that it pains the eyes to travel toward the sun. 

I go across Walden. My shadow is very blue. It is especially blue when there is a bright sunlight on pure white snow. It suggests that there may be some thing divine, something celestial, in me. 

In many places the edges of drifts are sharp and curving, almost a complete circle, reflecting a blue color from within like blue-tinted shells. 

I hear the faint metallic chirp of a tree sparrow in the yard from time to time, or perchance the mew of a linaria. It is worth the while to let some pigweed grow in your garden, if only to attract these winter visitors. It would be a pity to have these weeds burned in the fall. Of the former I see in the winter but three or four commonly at a time; of the latter, large flocks. This in and after considerable snow-storms.

Since this deeper snow, the landscape is more wintry than before; the rivers and roads are more concealed than they have been, and billows of snow succeed each other across the fields and roads, like an ocean waste.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 10, 1855

My shadow is blue. It is especially blue when there is a bright sunlight on pure white snow. See February 6, 1854 ("Crossing Walden where the snow has fallen quite level, I perceive that my shadow is a delicate or transparent blue ."); January 15, 1856 ("My shadow is a most celestial blue. This only requires a clear bright day and snow-clad earth, not great cold. ") Also see note to January 6, 1856 ("Now, at 4.15, the blue shadows are very distinct on the snow-banks.”)

It is worth the while to let some pigweed grow in your garden, if only to attract these winter visitors. See February 13, 1853 ("They come with the storm, the falling and driving snow.”)  See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Winter Birds

Since this deeper snow, the landscape is more wintry than before; the rivers and roads are more concealed. See February 1, 1855 ("[The river] is now one uninterrupted level white blanket of snow quite to the shore on every side.").

Billows of snow succeed each other across the fields and roads, like an ocean waste. See December 23, 1850 ("The surface of the snow is wont to be in waves like billows of the ocean")

February 10. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 10

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 © 2009-2022