What a stern, bleak, inhospitable aspect nature now wears!

January 25.

P. M. —Up river. 

The hardest day to bear that we have had, for, beside being 5° at noon and at 4 P. M., there is a strong northwest wind. It is worse than when the thermometer was at zero all day. 

Pierce says it is the first day that he has not been able to work outdoors in the sun. 

The snow is now very dry and powdery, and, though so hard packed, drifts somewhat. 

The travellers I meet have red faces. Their ears covered. Pity those who have not thick mittens. No man could stand it to travel far toward this wind. It stiffens the whole face, and you feel a tingling sensation in your forehead. Much worse to bear than a still cold. 

I see no life abroad, no bird nor beast. What a stern, bleak, inhospitable aspect nature now wears! (I am off Clamshell Hill.) Where a few months since was a fertilizing river reflecting the sunset, and luxuriant meadows resounding with the hum of insects, is now a uniform crusted snow, with dry powdery snow drifting over it and confounding river and meadow.

I make haste away, covering my ears, before I freeze there. The snow in the road has frozen dry, as dry as bran. 

A closed pitch pine cone gathered January 22d opened last night in my chamber. 

If you would be convinced how differently armed the squirrel is naturally for dealing with pitch pine cones, just try to get one off with your teeth. He who extracts the seeds from a single closed cone with the aid of a knife will be constrained to confess that the squirrel earns his dinner. It is a rugged customer, and will make your fingers bleed. But the squirrel has the key to this conical and spiny chest of many apartments. He sits on a post, vibrating his tail, and twirls it as a plaything. But so is a man commonly a locked-up chest to us, to open whom, unless we have the key of sympathy, will make our hearts bleed. 

The elms, they adjourn not night nor day; they pair not off. They stand for magnificence; they take the brunt of the tempest; they attract the lightning that would smite our roofs, leaving only a few rotten members scattered over the highway. The one by Holbrook’s is particularly regular and lofty for its girth, a perfect sheaf, but thin-leaved, apparently a slow grower. It bore a tavern sign for many a year. Call it the Bond (?) elm.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 25, 1856

The elms ... take the brunt of the tempest; they attract the lightning ... See June 19, 1854 ( “Suddenly comes the gust, and the big drops slanting from the north, and the birds fly as if rudderless, and the trees bow and are wrenched. It rains against the windows like hail and is blown over the roofs like steam or smoke. It runs down the large elm at Holbrook's and shatters the house near by. ”)