What a revelation the blue and the bright tints in the west again, after the storm and darkness!

February 20. 

Have just read “Counterparts, or The Cross of Love,” by the author of “ Charles Auchester.” It is very interesting — its illustration of Love and Friendship — as showing how much we can know of each other through sympathy merely, without any of the ordinary information. 

You know about a person who deeply interests you more than you can be told. A look, a gesture, an act, which to everybody else is insignificant tells you more about that one than words can. (How language is always found to serve best the highest moods, and expression of the highest truths!) If he wished to conceal something from you it would be apparent. It is as if a bird told you. Something of moment occurs. Your friend designs that it shall be a secret to you. Vain wish! You will know it, and his design. He says consciously nothing about it, yet as he is necessarily affected by it, its effect is visible to you.  From this effect you infer the cause. 

Have you not already anticipated a thousand possible accidents? Can you be surprised? You unconsciously through sympathy make the right supposition. No other will account for precisely this behavior. You are disingenuous, and yet your knowledge exceeds the woodcraft of the cunningest hunter. It is as if you had a sort of trap, knowing the haunts of your game, what lures attract it and its track, etc. You have foreseen how it will behave when it is caught, and now you only behold what you anticipated.  

Sometimes from the altered manner of our friend, which no cloak can possibly conceal, we know that something has happened, and what it was, all the essential particulars, though it would be a long story to tell, — though it may involve the agency of four or five persons who never breathed it to you. Yet you are sure, as if you had detected all their tracks in the wood. You are the more sure because, in the case of love, effects follow their causes more inevitably than usual, this being a controlling power. Why, a friend tells all with a look, a tone, a gesture, a presence, a friendliness. He is present when absent. 

In the composition it is the greatest art to find out as quickly as possible which are the best passages you have written, and tear the rest away to come at them. Even the poorest parts will be most effective when they serve these, as pediments to the column.

How much the writer lives and endures in coming before the public so often! A few years or books are with him equal to a long life of experience, suffering, etc. It is well if he does not become hardened. He learns how to bear contempt and to despise himself. He makes, as it were, post-mortem examinations of himself before he is dead. Such is art. 

P. M. — The rain ceases, and it clears up at 5 P. M. It is a warm west wind and a remarkably soft sky, like plush; perhaps a lingering moisture there. What a revelation the blue and the bright tints in the west again, after the storm and darkness! It is the opening of the windows of heaven after the flood!

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 20, 1859

A friend tells all with a look, a tone, a gesture, a presence. See December 21, 1851 ("Friendship is the unspeakable joy and blessing that results to two or more individuals who from constitution sympathize; and natures are liable to no mistakes, but will know each other through thick and thin."); October 23, 1852 ("My friend is one whom I meet, who takes me for what I am.") ; January 27, 1854 ("I have some good friends who neither care what I think nor mind what I say. The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer."); February 19, 1857 ("A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend."). Compare June 11, 1855 ("What if we feel a yearning to which no breast answers? I walk alone. My heart is full. Feelings impede the current of my thoughts. I knock on the earth but no friend appears, and perhaps none is dreaming of me"); March 28, 1856 ("Farewell, my friends, my path inclines to this side the mountain, yours to that."): February 8, 1857 ("I know that in love there is no mistake, and that every estrangement is well founded.");  November 3, 1858 ("How long we will follow an illusion! On meeting that one whom I call my friend, I find that I had imagined something that was not there.. . . Thus I am taught that my friend is not an actual person. When I have withdrawn and am alone, I forget the actual person and remember only my ideal. Then I have a friend again ");


It is the greatest art to find out as quickly as possible which are the best passages you have written, and tear the rest away. See April 8, 1854 ("I find that I can criticise my composition best when I stand at a little distance from it.") ;See March 1, 1854 (" In correcting my manuscripts, . . . having purified the main body and thus created a distinct standard for comparison, I can review the rejected sentences and easily detect those which deserve to be readmitted."); March 11, 1859 ("Find out as soon as possible what are the best things in your composition, and then shape the rest to fit them.")

How much the writer lives and endures in coming before the public so often! -- On February 22-23 HDT was to deliver two lectures -- "Autumnal Tints" and the "Maine Woods" -- in Blake's parlor in Worcester. See Thoreau's Lectures after Walden.

What a revelation the blue and the bright tints in the west again, after the storm and darkness! See January 7, 1851 ("The life, the joy, that is in blue sky after a storm! There is no account of the blue sky in history. I must live above all in the present.")

Do not tread on the heels your experience.

July 23.

I would fain keep a journal of those thoughts and impressions i am most liable to forget; that have in one sense the greatest remoteness, in another, the greatest nearness to me. Journal, January, 1851 

Do not tread on the heels of your experience. Be impressed without making a minute of it. Put an interval between the impression and the expression, - wait till the seed germinates naturally. Journal, July 23, 1851

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. August 19, 1851

Things must lie a little remote to be described. November 11, 1851

Hard and steady and engrossing labor with the hands, especially out of doors, is invaluable to the literary man and serves him directly. Here I have been for six days surveying in the woods, and yet when I get home at evening, somewhat weary at last, and beginning to feel that I have nerves, I find myself more susceptible than usual to the finest influences, as music and poetry. The very air can intoxicate me, or the least sight or sound, as if my finer senses had acquired an appetite by their fast. November 20, 1851

I wish to be translated to the future to observe what portions of my work have crumbled. January 1, 1852

Perhaps this is the main value of a habit of writing, of keeping a journal, - that so we remember our best hours and stimulate ourselves. To set down such choice experiences that my own writings inspire me and at last may make wholes of parts. Journal, January 22, 1852

I do not know but thoughts written down in a journal might be printed in the same form with greater advantage than if the related ones were brought together into separate essays. Journal, January 27, 1852

The forcible writer does not go far for his themes. His ideas are not far-fetched. January 29, 1852

The forcible writer stands bodily behind his words with his experience. He does not make books out of books, but he has been there in person.  February 3, 1852

Time never passes so rapidly and unaccountably as when I am engaged in recording my thoughts. Journal, February, 5, 1852

Write while the heat is in you. . . . The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts . . .cannot inflame the minds of his audience. Journal, February 10, 1852

I succeed best when I recur to my experience not too late, but within a day or two; when there is some distance, but enough of freshness. Journal, May 5, 1852

You only need to make a faithful record of an average summer day's experience and summer mood, and read it in the winter, and it will carry you back to more than that summer day alone could show. Journal, October 26, 1853

What you can recall of a walk on the second day will differ from what you remember on the first day, ... as any view changes to one who is journeying amid mountains when he has increased the distance.  January 10, 1854

In correcting my manuscripts . . . having purified the main body and thus created a distinct standard for comparison, I can review the rejected sentences and easily detect those which deserve to be readmitted. March 1, 1854

I find that I can criticise my composition best when I stand at a little distance from it. April 8, 1854

I find some advantage in describing the experience of a day on the day following. At this distance it is more ideal, like the landscape seen with the head inverted, or reflections in water. Journal April 20, 1854

In a journal it is important in a few words to describe the weather, or character of the day, as it affects our feelings. That which was so important at the time cannot be unimportant to remember. Journal, February 5, 1855

I find in my Journal that the most important events in my life, if recorded at all, are not dated. Journal, December 26, 1855

A journal is a record of experiences and growth, not a preserve of things well done or said. The charm of the journal must consist in a certain greenness, though freshness, and not in maturity. Here I cannot afford to be remembering what I said or did, but what I am and aspire to become. Journal, January 24, 1856

I do not perceive the poetic and dramatic capabilities of an anecdote or story which is told me, its significance, till some time afterwards. One of the qualities of a pregnant fact is that it does not surprise us, and we only perceive afterward how interesting it is, and then must know all the particulars. We do not enjoy poetry fully unless we know it to be poetry. Journal, October 1, 1856

If you are describing any occurrence, or a man, make two or more distinct reports at different times. Though you may think you have said all, you will to-morrow remember a whole new class of facts which perhaps interested most of all at the time, but did not present themselves to be reported. If we have recently met and talked with a man, and would report our experience, we commonly make a very partial report at first, failing to seize the most significant, picturesque, and dramatic points; we describe only what we have had time to digest and dispose of in our minds, without being conscious that there were other things really more novel and interesting to us, which will not fail to recur to us and impress us suitably at last. How little that occurs to us in any way are we prepared at once to appreciate! We discriminate at first only a few features, and we need to reconsider our experience from many points of view and in various moods, to preserve the whole fruit of it. Journal, March 24, 1857

Often I can give the truest and most interesting account of any adventure I have had after years have elapsed, for then I am not confused, only the most significant facts surviving in my memory. Indeed, all that continues to interest me after such a lapse of time is sure to be pertinent, and I may safely record all that I remember.  March 28, 1857

I would fain make two reports in my Journal, first the incidents and observations of to-day; and by tomorrow I review the same and record what was omitted before, which will often be the most significant and poetic part. I do not know at first what it is that charms me. The men and things of to-day are wont to lie fairer and truer in to-morrow’s memory.  March 27, 1857

Is not the poet bound to write his own biography? Is there any other work for him but a good journal? We do not wish to know how his imaginary hero, but how he, the actual hero, lived from day to day.  October 21, 1857

It is in vain to write on the seasons unless you have the seasons in you.  January 23, 1858

Most that is first written on any subject is a mere groping after it, mere rubble-stone and foundation. It is only when many observations of different periods have been brought together that [the writer] begins to grasp his subject and can make one pertinent and just observation. February 3, 1859

 

A transient acquaintance with any phenomenon is not sufficient to make it completely the subject of your muse. You must be so conversant with it as to remember it and be reminded of it long afterward, while it lies remotely fair and elysian in the horizon, approachable only by the imagination.  February 13, 1859 

In the composition it is the greatest art to find out as quickly as possible which are the best passages you have written, and tear the rest away. February 20, 1859 

Find out as soon as possible what are the best things in your composition, and then shape the rest to fit them. The former will be the midrib and veins of the leaf. March 11, 1859

The more you have thought and written on a given theme, the more you can still write. Thought breeds thought. It grows under your hands. February 13, 1860

In keeping a journal of one's walks and thoughts it seems to be worth the while to record those phenomena which are most interesting to us at the time. Such is the weather. Journal, January 25, 1860

A day or two surveying is equal to a journey.

April 8. 

At the Lyceum the other night I felt that the lecturer had chosen a theme too foreign to himself and so failed to interest me as much as formerly. He described things not in or near to his heart, but toward his extremities and superficies. The poet deals with his privatest experience. There was no central nor centralizing thought in the lecture.

I find that I can criticise my composition best when I stand at a little distance from it, — when I do not see it, for instance. I make a little chapter of contents which enables me to recall it page by page to my mind, and judge it more impartially when my manuscript is out of the way. The distraction of surveying enables me rapidly to take new points of view. A day or two surveying is equal to a journey.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 8, 1854

At the Lyceum... See Life without Principle.

I find that I can criticise my composition best when I stand at a little distance from it. See March 1, 1854 ("In correcting my manuscripts . . . having purified the main body and thus created a distinct standard for comparison, I can review the rejected sentences and easily detect those which deserve to be readmitted.");  February 3, 1859 (“Most that is first written on any subject is a mere groping after it, mere rubble-stone and foundation. It is only when many observations of different periods have been brought together that [the writer] begins to grasp his subject and can make one pertinent and just observation.”); February 20, 1859 ("In the composition it is the greatest art to find out as quickly as possible which are the best passages you have written, and tear the rest away"); March 11, 1859 ("Find out as soon as possible what are the best things in your composition, and then shape the rest to fit them.")  See also Do not tread on the heels your experience.

The distraction of surveying enables me rapidly to take new points of view. See December 13, 1851 ("This varied employment, to which my necessities compel me, serves instead of foreign travel and the lapse of time."); April 12, 1854 ("It is from out the shadow of my toil that I look into the light.")

I can criticise 

my composition best at 

a little distance.

Our first spring morning

March 1. 

Here is our first spring morning according to the almanac. It is remarkable that the spring of the almanac and of nature should correspond so closely.  The morning of the 26th was good winter, but there came a plentiful rain in the afternoon, and yesterday and to-day are quite springlike.


This morning the air is still, and, though clear enough, a yellowish light is widely diffused throughout the east, now just after sunrise. The sunlight looks and feels warm, and a fine vapor fills the lower atmosphere. I hear the phoebe or spring note of the chickadee, and the scream of the jay is perfectly repeated by the echo from a neighboring wood. 

For some days past the surface of the earth, covered with water, or with ice where the snow is washed off, has shone in the sun as it does only at the approach of spring, methinks. 

And are not the frosts in the morning more like the early frosts in the fall, — common white frosts?

As for the birds of the past winter: 

• I have seen but three hawks, — one early in the winter and two lately; have heard the hooting owl pretty often late in the afternoon. 

• Crows have not been numerous, but their cawing was heard chiefly in pleasanter mornings.

• Blue jays have blown the trumpet of winter as usual, but they, as all birds, are most lively in springlike days. 

• The chickadees have been the prevailing bird.

• The partridge common enough. 

• One ditcher tells me that he saw two robins in Moore's Swamp a month ago. 

• I have not seen a quail, though a few have been killed in the thaws. 

• Four or five downy woodpeckers. 

• The white-breasted nuthatch four or five times. 

• Tree sparrows one or more at a time, oftener than any bird that comes to us from the north. 

• Two pigeon wood peckers, I think, lately. 

• One dead shrike, and perhaps one or two live ones. 

• Have heard of two white owls, — one about Thanksgiving time and one in midwinter. 

• One short-eared owl in December. 

• Several flocks of snow buntings for a week in the severest storm, and in December, last part. 

• One grebe in Walden just before it froze completely.

• And two brown creepers once in middle of February.

• Channing says he saw a little olivaceous-green bird lately. 

• I have not seen an F. linaria, nor a pine grosbeak, nor an F. hyemalis this winter, though the first was the prevailing bird last winter.

In correcting my manuscripts, which I do with sufficient phlegm, I find that I invariably turn out much that is good along with the bad, which it is then impossible for me to distinguish — so much for keeping bad company; but after the lapse of time, having purified the main body and thus created a distinct standard for comparison, I can review the rejected sentences and easily detect those which deserve to be readmitted.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 1, 1854

Here is our first spring morning according to the almanac. See March 1, 1856 ("I hear several times the fine-drawn phe-be note of the chickadee. . .Singular that I should hear this on the first spring day.") See also  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Chickadee in Winter

For some days past the surface of the earth, covered with water, or with ice where the snow is washed off, has shone in the sun as it does only at the approach of spring. See March 1, 1855 ("This more dazzling white must be due to the higher sun.")

As for the birds of the past winter. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Winter Birds

Blue jays have blown the trumpet of winter as usual, but they, as all birds, are most lively in springlike days..  February 12, 1854 ("You hear the lisping tinkle of chickadees from time to time and the unrelenting steel-cold scream of a jay, unmelted, that never flows into a song, a sort of wintry trumpet, screaming cold; hard, tense, frozen music, like the winter sky itself; in the blue livery of winter's band. It is like a flourish of trumpets to the winter sky") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau. The Blue Jay

March 1.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,   March 1

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,

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 ©  2009-2025

Editing a life.

It is August. I lie on top of the sheets awakened by an unpleasant dream. I hear the ring of crickets in the dark. An owl calls outside the skylight. Another, closer, at the window returns the call. Hoo. Arrr. Hoo Arrrrrr.

I am thankful to have been awakened and to live here in the woods. I think of Jane. Is she awake in her room over the garage? What about all those in the world who never hear the night?

I find I am on top of a book. I turn on the light; it is the restored edition of A Moveable Feast. The Introduction says it is about damaged memory and lost heart. I read, "How good a book is should be judged by the man who writes it by the excellence of the material that he eliminates."

Zphx, 20130810