The most poetic and truest account of objects is generally by those who first observe them.

January 27. 

Thawing a little at last. Thermometer 35°. 

JANUARY 27, 2017

The most poetic and truest account of objects is generally by those who first observe them, or the discoverers of them, whether a sharper perception and curiosity in them led to the discovery or the greater novelty more inspired their report.

Accordingly I love most to read the accounts of a country, its natural productions and curiosities, by those who first settled it, and also the earliest, though often unscientific, writers on natural science.

Hear the unusual sound of pattering rain this after noon, though it is not yet in earnest.

Thermometer to-day commonly at 38°. 

Wood in the stove is slow to burn; often goes out with this dull atmosphere. But it is less needed. 

10 p. m. — Hear music below. It washes the dust off my life and everything I look at. 

Was struck to-day with the admirable simplicity of Pratt. He told me not only of the discovery of the tower of Babel, which, from the measures given, he had calculated could not stand between the roads at the Mill Pond, but of the skeleton of a man twenty feet long. 

Also of an eyestone which he has, bought of Betty Nutting, about as big as half a pea. Just lay it in your eye, bind up your eye with a handkerchief, and go to bed. It will not pain you, but you will feel it moving about, and when it has gathered all the dirt in the eye to itself, it will always come out, and you will probably find it in the handkerchief. It is a little thing and you must look sharp for it. He often lends his.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 27, 1857

The most poetic and truest account of objects is generally by those who first observe them,. . .Accordingly I love most to read. . . the earliest, though often unscientific, writers on natural science. See February 16, 1852 ("Linnæus says elements are simple, naturalia composed by divine art. And these two embrace all things on earth. Physics treats of the properties of elementa, natural science of naturalia. . . .By the artificial system we learn the names of plants, by the natural their relations to one another; but still it remains to learn their relation to man. The poet does more for us in this department."); February 17, 1852 ("If you would read books on botany, go to the fathers of the science. Read Linnaeus at once"); December 16, 1859 ("To Cambridge, where I read in Gerard's Herbal. His . . descriptions are, to my mind, greatly superior to the modern more scientific ones. He describes not according to rule but to his natural delight in the plants. He brings them vividly before you, as one who has seen and delighted in them. It is almost as good as to see the plants themselves. . . .It is the keen joy and discrimination of the child who has just seen a flower for the first time and comes running in with it to its friends. . . . He has really seen, and smelt, and tasted, and reports his sensations.")

Hear music below. It washes the dust off my life and everything I look at. See January 13, 1857 (“I hear one thrumming a guitar below stairs. It reminds me of moments that I have lived.”)