December 12, 2013
P. M. — To Pine Hill and round Walden.
Seeing a little hole in the side of a dead white birch, about six feet from the ground, I broke it off and found it to be made where a rotten limb had broken off. The hole was about an inch over and was of quite irregular and probably natural outline, and, within, the rotten wood had been removed to the depth of two or three inches, and on one side of this cavity, under the hole, was quite a pile of bird-droppings. The bottom was an irregular surface of the rotten wood, and there was nothing like a nest. The diameter of the birch was little more than two inches, — if at all.
Probably it was the roosting-place of a chickadee.
There is a certain Irish woodchopper who, when I come across him at his work in the woods in the winter, never fails to ask me what time it is, as if he were in haste to take his dinner-pail and go home. This is not as it should be.
Every man, and the woodchopper among the rest, should love his work as much as the poet does his. All good political arrangements proceed on this supposition. If labor mainly, or to any considerable degree, serves the purpose of a police, to keep men out of mischief, it indicates a rotteneness at the foundation of our community.
The night comes on early these days, and I soon see the pine tree tops distinctly outlined against the dun (or amber) but cold western sky.
The snow having come, we see where is the path of the partridge, — his comings and goings from copse to copse, — and now first, as it were, we have the fox for our nightly neighbor, and countless tiny deer mice.
So, perchance, if a still finer substance should fall from heaven (iodine ?), something delicate enough to receive the trace of their footsteps, we should see where unsuspected spirits and faery visitors had hourly crossed our steps, had held conventions and transacted their affairs in our midst. No doubt such subtle spirits transact their affairs in our midst, and we may perhaps in vent some sufficiently delicate surface to catch the impression of them.
If in the winter there are fewer men in the fields and woods, — as in the country generally, — you see the tracks of those who had preceded you, and so are more reminded of them than in summer.
As I talked with the woodchopper who had just cleared the top of Emerson's I got a new view of the mountains over his pile of wood in the foreground. They were very grand in their snowy mantle, which had a slight tinge of purple. But when afterward I looked at them from a higher hill, where there was no wood pile in the foreground, they affected me less. It is now that these mountains, in color as well as form, most resemble the clouds.
I am inclined to think of late that as much depends on the state of the bowels as of the stars. As are your bowels, so are the stars.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 12, 1859
Probably it was the roosting-place of a chickadee. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter
The snow having come, we see where is the path of the partridge, — his comings and goings from copse to copse, — and now first, as it were, we have the fox for our nightly neighbor, and countless tiny deer mice. See November 18, 1855 ("The snow is the great track-revealer."); December 8, 1854 ("Already foxes have left their tracks.!"); December 8, 1855 ("Let a snow come and clothe the ground and trees, and I shall see the tracks of many inhabitants now unsuspected"); December 11, 1854 ("A partridge goes off, and, coming up, I see where she struck the snow first with her wing, making five or six as it were finger-marks."); December 13, 1859 ("I see that the fox too has already taken the same walk before me."); December 14, 1855 ("By the snow I was made aware in this short walk of the recent presence there of squirrels, a fox, and countless mice, whose trail I had crossed, but none of which I saw, or probably should have seen before the snow fell."); December 19, 1850 ("Yesterday I tracked a partridge in the new-fallen snow, till I came to where she took to flight, and I could track her no further. "):December 27, 1853 ("It is surprising what things the snow betrays . . . no sooner does the snow come and spread its mantle over the earth than it is printed with the tracks of countless mice and larger animals.")
Every man, and the woodchopper among the rest, should love his work as much as the poet does his. See Walden, An artist in the city of Kouroo ("in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does not enter, "); November 18 1851 ("The chopper who works in the woods all day is more open in some respects to the impressions they are fitted to make than the naturalist who goes to see them. . . . The man who is bent upon his work is frequently in the best attitude to observe what is irrelevant to his work."); November 20, 1851("Hard and steady and engrossing labor with the hands, especially out of doors, is invaluable to the literary man"); December 13, 1851 ("This varied employment, to which my necessities compel me, serves instead of foreign travel and the lapse of time."); April 8, 1854 ("A day or two surveying is equal to a journey");April 12, 1854 ("I observe that it is when I have been intently, and it may be laboriously, at work, and am somewhat listless or abandoned after it, reposing, that the muse visits me, and I see or hear beauty. It is from out the shadow of my toil that I look into the light."); April 30, 1856 (" You would fain devote yourself to the melody, but you will hear more of it if you devote yourself to your work.")
The night comes on early these days, and I soon see the pine tree tops distinctly outlined against the dun (or amber) but cold western sky. See December 3, 1856 ("For years my appetite was so strong that I fed — I browsed — on the pine forest's edge seen against the winter horizon"); December 9, 1856 ("The worker who would accomplish much these short days must shear a dusky slice off both ends of the night”); December 10, 1856 (“How short the afternoons! I hardly get out a couple of miles before the sun is setting”); December 11, 1854 ("The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely; the morning and the evening twilight make the whole day"); December 25, 1858 ("How full of soft, pure light the western sky now, after sunset! I love to see the outlines of the pines against it . . . In a pensive mood I enjoy the complexion of the winter sky at this hour."); January 9, 1859 ("It is worth the while to stand here at this hour and look into the soft western sky, over the pines whose outlines are so rich and distinct against the clear sky."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky
The night comes on early these days, and I soon see the pine tree tops distinctly outlined against the dun (or amber) but cold western sky. See December 3, 1856 ("For years my appetite was so strong that I fed — I browsed — on the pine forest's edge seen against the winter horizon"); December 9, 1856 ("The worker who would accomplish much these short days must shear a dusky slice off both ends of the night”); December 10, 1856 (“How short the afternoons! I hardly get out a couple of miles before the sun is setting”); December 11, 1854 ("The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely; the morning and the evening twilight make the whole day"); December 25, 1858 ("How full of soft, pure light the western sky now, after sunset! I love to see the outlines of the pines against it . . . In a pensive mood I enjoy the complexion of the winter sky at this hour."); January 9, 1859 ("It is worth the while to stand here at this hour and look into the soft western sky, over the pines whose outlines are so rich and distinct against the clear sky."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky
The snow having come, we see where is the path of the partridge, — his comings and goings from copse to copse, — and now first, as it were, we have the fox for our nightly neighbor, and countless tiny deer mice. See November 18, 1855 ("The snow is the great track-revealer."); December 8, 1854 ("Already foxes have left their tracks.!"); December 8, 1855 ("Let a snow come and clothe the ground and trees, and I shall see the tracks of many inhabitants now unsuspected"); December 11, 1854 ("A partridge goes off, and, coming up, I see where she struck the snow first with her wing, making five or six as it were finger-marks."); December 13, 1859 ("I see that the fox too has already taken the same walk before me."); December 14, 1855 ("By the snow I was made aware in this short walk of the recent presence there of squirrels, a fox, and countless mice, whose trail I had crossed, but none of which I saw, or probably should have seen before the snow fell."); December 19, 1850 ("Yesterday I tracked a partridge in the new-fallen snow, till I came to where she took to flight, and I could track her no further. "):December 27, 1853 ("It is surprising what things the snow betrays . . . no sooner does the snow come and spread its mantle over the earth than it is printed with the tracks of countless mice and larger animals.")
[In the winter] you see the tracks of those who had preceded you, and so are more reminded of them than in summer. See November 15, 1858 ("You are now reminded occasionally in your walks that you have contemporaries, and perchance predecessors. I see the track of a fox . . . and, in the wood-path, of a man and a dog."); November 28, 1858 ("I cannot now walk without leaving a track behind me; that is one peculiarity of winter walking. Anybody may follow my trail. I have walked, perhaps, a particular wild path along some swamp-side all summer, and thought to myself, I am the only villager that ever comes here. But I go out shortly after the first snow has fallen, and lo, here is the track of a sportsman and his dog in my secluded path, and probably he preceded me in the summer as well."); December 7, 1856 ("I see the track of one skater who has preceded me this morning.")
In their snowy mantle, which had a slight tinge of purple . . . It is now that these mountains, in color as well as form, most resemble the clouds. See December 12, 1852 ("From Cliffs I see snow on the mountains. Last night's rain was snow there"); see also October 13, 1852 (" The air is singularly fine-grained; the mountains are more distinct from the rest of the earth and slightly purple."); ); October 20, 1852 (“I see the mountains in sunshine, all the more attractive from the cold I feel here, with a tinge of purple on them”);; November 4, 1857 ("The mountains north . . . stand out grand and distinct, a decided purple."). November 30, 1852 (" the sparkling windows and vanes of the village, seen under and against the faintly purple-tinged, slate-colored mountains ")
December 12. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 12
Night comes on early –
pine tree tops outlined against
the cold western sky.
Now snowy mountains
have a slight tinge of purple –
resembling the clouds.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The night comes on early these days
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 © 2009-2024
https://tinyurl.com/hdt-591212
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