A very cold day.
Thermometer at 7.30 a. m., -14° (Smith's hanging on same nail -20°); at 1.15 p. m., -3°; 2.15 p. m., -4°; 3.45 p. m., 0°.
It is cloudy and no sun all day, and considerable wind also. There was no Sabbath-school on account of the cold; could not warm the room.
We sometimes think that the inferior animals act foolishly, but are there any greater fools than mankind ? Consider how so many, perhaps most, races — Chinese, Japanese, Arabs, Mussulmans generally, Russians — treat the traveller; what fears and prejudices he has to contend with. So many millions believing that he has come [to] do them some harm.
Let a traveller set out to go round the world, visiting every race, and he shall meet with such treatment at their hands that he will be obliged to pronounce them incorrigible fools.
Even in Virginia a naturalist who was seen crawling through a meadow catching frogs, etc., was seized and carried before the authorities.
Three little pigs were frozen to death in an Irish man's pen last night at the Green Store.
Began to snow in the evening, the thermometer at zero.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 18, 1857
Thermometer at 7.30 a. m., -14° (Smith's hanging on same nail -20°); at 1.15 p. m., -3°; 2.15 p. m., -4°; 3.45 p. m., 0°. See January 23, 1857 ("Thermometer at 6.45 a.m., -18°; at 10.30, -14° (Smith's, -20°. . .)"); January 9, 1856 ("Smith’s thermometer - 16°; ours - 14° at breakfast time, - 6° at 9 A. M. . . . When I return at 4.30, it is at - 2°."); January 7, 1856 ("At breakfast time the thermometer stood at - 12°. Earlier it was probably much lower. Smith’s was at -24° early this morning."); February 11, 1855 ("Smith’s thermometer early this morning at -22°; ours at 8 A. M. -10°.") and note to January 23, 1857 ("The coldest day that I remember recording")
Thermometer at 7.30 a. m., -14° (Smith's hanging on same nail -20°); at 1.15 p. m., -3°; 2.15 p. m., -4°; 3.45 p. m., 0°. See January 23, 1857 ("Thermometer at 6.45 a.m., -18°; at 10.30, -14° (Smith's, -20°. . .)"); January 9, 1856 ("Smith’s thermometer - 16°; ours - 14° at breakfast time, - 6° at 9 A. M. . . . When I return at 4.30, it is at - 2°."); January 7, 1856 ("At breakfast time the thermometer stood at - 12°. Earlier it was probably much lower. Smith’s was at -24° early this morning."); February 11, 1855 ("Smith’s thermometer early this morning at -22°; ours at 8 A. M. -10°.") and note to January 23, 1857 ("The coldest day that I remember recording")
January 18. A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 18
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
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