A fine, clear winter day.
P. M. —To Hemlocks on the crust, slumping in every now and then.
A bright day, not cold. I can comfortably walk without gloves, yet my shadow is a most celestial blue. This only requires a clear bright day and snow-clad earth, not great cold.
I cross the river on the crust with some hesitation. The snow appears considerably deeper than the 12th, maybe four or five inches deeper, and the river is indicated by a mere depression in it.
In the street not only fences but trees are obviously shortened, as by a flood. You are sensible that you are walking at a level a foot or more above the usual one.
Seeing the tracks where a leaf had blown along and then tacked and finally doubled and returned on its trail, I think it must be the tracks of some creature new to me.
I find under the hemlocks, in and upon the snow, apparently brought down by the storm, an abundance of those little dead hemlock twigs described on the 13th. They are remarkably slender, and without stiffness like the fir (and I think spruce) twigs, and this gives the hemlock its peculiar grace.
These are not yet curved much, and perhaps they got that form from being placed in the nest.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 15, 1856
A bright day not cold
yet my shadow is a most
celestial blue.
My shadow is a most celestial blue. This only requires a clear bright day and snow-clad earth, not great cold. See February 10, 1855 (“My shadow is 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.”) Also see note to January 6, 1856 ("Now, at 4.15, the blue shadows are very distinct on the snow-banks.”)
Seeing the tracks where a leaf had blown along and then tacked and finally doubled and returned on its trail, I think it must be the tracks of some creature new to me. See January 7, 1857 ("Some might not suspect the cause of these fine and delicate traces, for the cause is no longer obvious.”)
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