A cheering silvery light from the needles of the pine.

December 8.

Saturday. Still no snow, nor ice noticeable. 

December 8, 2015

I might have left my boat out till now. I have not worn gloves yet. 

This afternoon I go to the woods down the railroad, seeking the society of some flock of little birds, or some squirrel, but in vain. I only hear the faint lisp of (probably) a tree sparrow. I go through empty halls, apparently unoccupied by bird or beast. 

Yet it is cheering to walk there while the sun is reflected from far through the aisles with a silvery light from the needles of the pine. The contrast of light or sunshine and shade, though the latter is now so thin, is food enough for me. 

Some scarlet oak leaves on the forest floor, when I stoop low, appear to have a little blood in them still. The shrivelled Solomon’s-seal berries are conspicuously red amid the dry leaves. 

I visit the door of many a squirrel’s burrow, and see his nutshells and cone-scales and tracks in the sand, but a snow would reveal much more. Let a snow come and clothe the ground and trees, and I shall see the tracks of many inhabitants now unsuspected, and the very snow covering up the withered leaves will supply the place of the green ones which are gone. 

In a little busy flock of lisping birds, — chickadees or lesser redpolls, — even in a nuthatch or downy woodpecker, there would have been a sweet society for me, but I did not find it. Yet I had the sun penetrating into the deep hollows through the aisles of the wood, and the silvery sheen of its reflection from masses of white pine needles.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 8, 1855

Yet it is cheering to walk there while the sun is reflected from far through the aisles with a silvery light from the needles of the pine.. See November 11, 1851("There is a cold, silvery light on the white pines as I go through J.P. Brown's field near Jenny Dugan's. . . . The lately dark woods are open and light; the sun shines in upon the stems of trees which it has not shone on since spring."); December 3, 1856 (". . . the pine forest's edge seen against the winter horizon. . . .The silvery needles of the pine straining the light.”); February 4, 1852 ("Now the white pine are a misty blue; anon a lively, silvery light plays on them, and they seem to erect themselves unusually. . . The sun loves to nestle in the boughs of the pine and pass rays through them."); 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."); May 1, 1855 ("Why have the white pines at a distance that silvery look around their edges or thin parts? Is it owing to the wind showing the under sides of the needles? Methinks you do not see it in the winter.")

Let a snow come and clothe the ground and trees, and I shall see the tracks of many inhabitants now unsuspected. See December 8, 1855 ("Already foxes have left their tracks."); December 14, 1855 ("Thus by the snow I was made aware in this short walk of the recent presence there of squirrels, a fox, and countless mice, whose trail I had crossed, but none of which I saw, or probably should have seen before the snow fell.")