February 14.
3 P. M. – Walden road to pond, thence to Cliffs.
The slight snow of last night, lodging on the limbs of the oaks, has given them the wintry and cobwebbed appearance which distinguishes them so plainly from the pines. They are great cladonias, perchance.
Met Joshua Brown returning from the pond (Walden) without having caught a fish. Has had no luck there this winter, he thinks because of the woodcutters' falling trees on to the ice.
He, too, tells how many weighed a certain number of pounds. Four pounds and three quarters is the heaviest he ever caught, but the pickerel that ran off with his reel (before he got to it), which he did not see, he set at ten pounds.
I noticed a white pine, rotten within, near the pond, or, rather, eaten out, honeycombed, by the ants, as I think, — and I was struck by the regular cellular character of the cavities they had made, separated by thin partitions, each cell about an inch and a half long, reminding me of Chinese puzzles carved in wood.
The seeds or seed - vessels of wintergreen are conspicuous above the snow.
The winter has had its seasons somewhat in this order, as near as I now remember:
At the Cliffs, the rocks are in some places covered with ice; and the least inclination beyond a perpendicular in their faces is betrayed by the formation of icicles at once, which hang perpendicularly, like organ pipes, in front of the rock.
They are now conducting downward the melting ice and snow, which drips from their points with a slight clinking and lapsing sound, but when the sun has set will freeze there and add to the icicles ' length.
Where the icicles have reached the ground and are like thick pillars, they have a sort of annular appearance, somewhat like the successive swells on the legs of tables and on bed - posts.
There is perhaps a harmony between the turner's taste and the law of nature in this instance.
The shadow of the water flowing or pulsating behind this transparent icy crust or these stalactites in the sun imparts a semblance of life to the whole.
The traveller's is so apt to be a progress more or less rapid toward his home (I have read many a voyage round the world more than half of which, certainly, was taken up with the return voyage; he no sooner is out of sight of his native hills than he begins to tell us how he got home again) that I wonder he did not stay at home in the first place.
The laws of nature always furnish us with the best excuse for going and coming. If we do not go now, we shall find our fire out.
I hate that my motive for visiting a friend should be that I want society; that it should lie in my poverty and weakness, and not in his and my riches and strength. His friendship should make me strong enough to do without him.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 14, 1852
February 14, 2017
The slight snow of last night, lodging on the limbs of the oaks, has given them the wintry and cobwebbed appearance which distinguishes them so plainly from the pines. They are great cladonias, perchance.
Met Joshua Brown returning from the pond (Walden) without having caught a fish. Has had no luck there this winter, he thinks because of the woodcutters' falling trees on to the ice.
He, too, tells how many weighed a certain number of pounds. Four pounds and three quarters is the heaviest he ever caught, but the pickerel that ran off with his reel (before he got to it), which he did not see, he set at ten pounds.
I noticed a white pine, rotten within, near the pond, or, rather, eaten out, honeycombed, by the ants, as I think, — and I was struck by the regular cellular character of the cavities they had made, separated by thin partitions, each cell about an inch and a half long, reminding me of Chinese puzzles carved in wood.
The seeds or seed - vessels of wintergreen are conspicuous above the snow.
The winter has had its seasons somewhat in this order, as near as I now remember:
- First there were a few glowing sunsets after raw and blustering days, setting the pines and oaks on fire with their blaze, when the summer and fall had set, — the afterglow of the year.
- Then, if I remember, came the snows, and true winter began, the snow growing gradually deeper and the cold more intense.
- I think it was before the first thaw, which this winter came before the end of December, that the main attraction in my afternoon walks ( at any rate when the days were shortest and the cold most intense ) was the western sky at and before sunset, when, through the vistas there between the clouds, you saw a singularly crystalline, vitreous sky, which perhaps is not seen at any other season of the year, at least not in such perfection. I will see if we have any more this winter.
- Well, then there was the thaw, January thaw, which this year came in December, for it is the first thaw after long - continued cold weather and snow, when we have fairly forgotten summer.[In the January thaw I should have mentioned the sand foliage in the Cut.]
- This winter was remarkable for the long continuance of severe cold weather after it had once set in.
- Latterly we have had, i.e. within a week, crusted snow, made by thaw and rain, but now I do not see the crystalline sky.
- Now we have the swollen river, and yellow water over the meadow ice to some extent.
At the Cliffs, the rocks are in some places covered with ice; and the least inclination beyond a perpendicular in their faces is betrayed by the formation of icicles at once, which hang perpendicularly, like organ pipes, in front of the rock.
They are now conducting downward the melting ice and snow, which drips from their points with a slight clinking and lapsing sound, but when the sun has set will freeze there and add to the icicles ' length.
Where the icicles have reached the ground and are like thick pillars, they have a sort of annular appearance, somewhat like the successive swells on the legs of tables and on bed - posts.
There is perhaps a harmony between the turner's taste and the law of nature in this instance.
The shadow of the water flowing or pulsating behind this transparent icy crust or these stalactites in the sun imparts a semblance of life to the whole.
The traveller's is so apt to be a progress more or less rapid toward his home (I have read many a voyage round the world more than half of which, certainly, was taken up with the return voyage; he no sooner is out of sight of his native hills than he begins to tell us how he got home again) that I wonder he did not stay at home in the first place.
The laws of nature always furnish us with the best excuse for going and coming. If we do not go now, we shall find our fire out.
I hate that my motive for visiting a friend should be that I want society; that it should lie in my poverty and weakness, and not in his and my riches and strength. His friendship should make me strong enough to do without him.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 14, 1852
See February 14, 1852 (version 1)
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