A winter eve in memory.

December 15.  

It still blows hard at 2 p. m., but it is not cold.

8 p.m.- To Walden. 

The high northwest wind of this morning, with what of cold we have, has made some of those peculiar rake-toothed icicles on the dead twigs, etc., about the edge of the pond at the east end. To produce this phenomenon is required only open water, a high wind, and sufficiently cold weather to freeze the spray. 

I observe B 's boat left out at the pond, as last winter. When I see that a man neglects his boat thus, I do not wonder that he fails in his business. It is not only shiftlessness or unthrift, but a sort of filthiness to let things go to wrack and ruin thus. 

December 15, 2023

I still recall to mind that characteristic winter eve of December 9th; the cold, dry, and wholesome diet my mind and senses necessarily fed on, —

· oak leaves, bleached and withered weeds that rose above the snow,

· the now dark green of the pines, and

· perchance the faint metallic chip of a single tree sparrow;

· the hushed stillness of the wood at sundown, aye, all the winter day;

· the short boreal twilight;

· the smooth serenity and the reflections of the pond, still alone free from ice;

· the melodious hooting of the owl, heard at the same time with the yet more distant whistle of a locomotive, more aboriginal, and perchance more enduring here than that, heard above the voices of all the wise men of Concord, as if they were not (how little he is Anglicized!);

· the last strokes of the woodchopper, who presently bends his steps homeward;

· the gilded bar of cloud across the apparent outlet of the pond, conducting my thoughts into the eternal west;

· the deepening horizon glow; and

· the hasty walk homeward to enjoy the long winter evening.

The hooting of the owl! That is a sound which my red predecessors heard here more than a thousand years ago. It rings far and wide, occupying the spaces rightfully, — grand, primeval, aboriginal sound. There is no whisper in it of the Buckleys, the Flints, the Hosmers who recently squatted here, nor of the first parish, nor of Concord Fight, nor of the last town meeting. 

Mrs. Moody very properly calls eating nuts "a mouse like employment." It is quite too absorbing; you can't read at the same time, as when you are eating an apple.

H. D.Thoreau, Journal, December 15, 1856

That characteristic winter eve of December 9th. See December 9, 1856 ("Such is a winter's eve.")

I observe B 's boat left out at the pond, as last winter . . . See January 5, 1856 ("Boats . . . half filled with ice and almost completely buried in snow, so neglected by their improvident owners . . .") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out.

The smooth serenity and the reflections of the pond, still alone free from ice. See December 15, 1854 ("How interesting a few clean, dry weeds on the shore a dozen rods off, seen distinctly against the smooth, reflecting water between ice!"). See also December 14, 1854 ("Your eye slides first over a plane surface of smooth ice of one color to a water surface of silvery smoothness, like a gem set in ice, and reflecting the weeds and trees and houses and clouds with singular beauty. The reflections are particularly simple and distinct."); December 20, 1855 ("How placid, like silver or like steel in different lights, the surface of the still, living water between these borders of ice, reflecting the weeds and trees, and now the warm colors of the sunset sky! ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reflections

The hooting of the owl! . . . grand, primeval, aboriginal sound. See. December 9, 1856 ("Every week almost I hear the loud voice of the hooting owl, though I do not see the bird more than once in ten years"); December 19, 1856 ("More than the voice of the owl, the voice of the wood as well . . . It sounds now, hoo | hoo hoo (very fast) | hoo-rer | hoo."); See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Voice of the Barred Owl


December 15. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 15

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 © 2009-2023