December snowfalls

December 30.

I awake to find it snowing fast, but it slackens in a few hours. Perhaps seven or eight inches have fallen, — the deepest snow yet, and almost quite level. 

At first the flakes (this forenoon) were of middling size. At noon, when it was leaving off, they were of a different character. I observed them on my sleeve, — little slender spiculae about one tenth of an inch long, little dry splinters, sometimes two forking, united at one end, or two or three lying across one another, quite dry and fine; and so it concluded. 

P. M. — Going by Dodd's, I see a shrike perched on the tip-top of the topmost upright twig of an English cherry tree before his house, standing square on the topmost bud, balancing himself by a slight motion of his tail from time to time. I have noticed this habit of the bird before. You would suppose it inconvenient for so large a bird to maintain its footing there. Scared by my passing [?] in the road, it flew off, and I thought I would see if it alighted on a similar place. It flew toward a young elm, whose higher twigs were much more slender, though not quite so upright as those of the cherry, and I thought he might be excused if he alighted on the side of one; but no, to my surprise, he alighted without any trouble upon the very top of one of the highest of all, and looked around as before. 

I spoke to the barber to-day about that whirl of hair on the occiput of most (if not all) men's heads. He said it was called the crown, and was of a spiral form, a beginning spiral, when cut short; that some had two, one on the right, the other on the left, close together. I said that they were in a sense double-headed. He said that it was an old saying that such were bred under two crowns. 

I noticed the other day that even the golden-crested wren was one of the winter birds which have a black head, — in this case divided by yellow. 

Those who depend on skylights found theirs but a dim, religious light this forenoon and hitherto, owing to the thickness of snow resting on them. Also cellar windows are covered, and cellars are accordingly darkened. 

What a different phenomenon a musquash now from what it is in summer! Now if one floats, or swims, its whole back out, or crawls out upon the ice at one of those narrow oval water spaces in the river, some twenty rods long (in calm weather, smooth mirrors), in a broad frame of white ice or yet whiter snow, it is seen at once, as conspicuous (or more so) as a fly on a window-pane or a mirror. 

But in summer, how many hundreds crawl along the weedy shore or plunge in the long river unsuspected by the boatman! 

Even if the musquash is not there I often see the open clam shell on the edge of the ice, perfectly distinct a long way off, and he is betrayed. 


However, the edges of these silver lakes, — winter lakes, late freezers, swift-waters, musquash mirrors, breathing-holes, — to-day, after the morning's snow, are, by the water flowing back over the thin edges and staining the snow, a distinct yellow (brown-yellow) tinge for a rod or two on every side. This shows what and how much coloring matter there is in the river water. I doubt if it would be so at Walden. No doubt, however, we here get the impurer parts of the river, the scum as it were, repeatedly washed over at these places.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 30, 1859


Going by Dodd's, I see a shrike perched on the tip-top of the topmost upright twig of an English cherry tree before his house, standing square on the topmost bud, balancing himself by a slight motion of his tail from time to time. See note to December 24, 1858 ("See another shrike this afternoon, — the fourth this winter!")

I noticed the other day that even the golden-crested wren was one of the winter birds which have a black head, — in this case divided by yellow. See December 25, 1859 ("I can see a brilliant crown . . .the golden-crested wren, which I have not made out before . . .This little creature is contentedly seeking its food here alone this cold winter day on the shore of our frozen river.")

Those who depend on skylights found theirs but a light this forenoon, owing to the thickness of snow resting on them. See December 27, 1853 ("High wind with more snow in the night. The snow is damp and covers the panes, darkening the room.")

I awake to find it snowing fast. Perhaps seven or eight inches have fallen, — the deepest snow yet. See December 30, 1853 (“I carried a two-foot rule and measured the snow of yesterday. . . it varied from fourteen to twenty-four inches.”); December 30, 1855 ("The snow which began last night has continued to fall very silently but steadily, and now it is not far from a foot deep, much the most we have had yet; a dry, light, powdery snow")

December 1859  snowfalls:

Awake to winter, and snow two or three inches deep, the first of any consequence. December 4, 1859

At 2 p. m. begins to snow, and snows till night. Still, normal storm, large flakes, warm enough, lodging. December 11, 1859

Snow-storms might be classified. This is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally from the north, so that it is quite blinding to face, almost as much so as sand. It is cold also. It is drifting but not accumulating fast. I can see the woods about a quarter of a mile distant through it. That of the 11th was a still storm, of large flakes falling gently in the quiet air, like so many white feathers descending in different directions when seen against a wood-side, — the regular snow-storm such as is painted. A myriad falling flakes weaving a coarse garment by which the eye is amused. The snow was a little moist and the weather rather mild. Also I remember the perfectly crystalline or star snows, when each flake is a perfect six(?)-rayed wheel. This must be the chef-d'oeuvre of the Genius of the storm. Also there is the pellet or shot snow, which consists of little dry spherical pellets the size of robin-shot. This, I think, belongs to cold weather. Probably never have much of it. Also there is sleet, which is half snow, half rain. December 14, 1859

The first kind of snow-storm, or that of yesterday, which ceased in the night after some three inches had fallen, was that kind that makes handsome drifts behind the walls. There are no drifts equal to these behind loosely built stone walls, the wind passing between the stones. Slight as this snow was, these drifts now extend back four or five feet and as high as the wall, on the north side of the Corner Bridge road. December 15, 1859

Snows very fast, large flakes, a very lodging snow, quite moist; turns to rain in afternoon. If we leave the sleigh for a moment, it whitens the seat, which must be turned over. We are soon thickly covered, and it lodges on the twigs of the trees and bushes, — there being but little wind, — giving them a very white and soft, spiritual look. Gives them a still, soft, and light look. When the flakes fall thus large and fast and are so moist and melting, we think it will not last long, and this turned to rain in a few hours, after three or four inches had fallen. To omit the first mere whitening, — There was the snow of the 4th. December. 11th was a lodging snow, it being mild and still, like to-day (only it was not so moist). Was succeeded next day noon by a strong and cold northwest wind. 14th, a fine, dry, cold, driving and drifting storm. 20th (to-day's), a very lodging, moist, and large-flaked snow, turning to rain. To be classed with the 11th in the main. This wets the woodchopper about as much as rain. December 20, 1859

The snow of yesterday having turned to rain in the afternoon, the snow is no longer (now that it is frozen) a uniformly level white, as when it had just fallen, but on all declivities you see it, even from a great distance, strongly marked with countless furrows or channels. These are about three inches deep, more or less parallel where the rain ran down. On hillsides these reach from top to bottom and give them a peculiar combed appearance. Hillsides around a hollow are thus very regularly marked by lines converging toward the centre at the bottom. In level fields the snow is not thus furrowed, but dimpled with a myriad little hollows where the water settled, and perhaps answering slightly to the inequalities of the ground. In level woods I do not see this regular dimpling — the rain being probably conducted down the trunks — nor the furrows on hillsides; the rain has been differently distributed by the trees. This makes a different impression from the fresh and uniformly level white surface of recently fallen snow. It is now, as it were, wrinkled with age. The incipient slosh of yesterday is now frozen, and makes good sleighing and a foundation for more. December 21, 1859

After being uniformly overcast all the forenoon, still and moderate weather, it begins to snow very gradually, at first imperceptibly, this afternoon, — at first I thought I imagined it, — and at length begins to snow in earnest about 6 p. m., but lasts only a few minutes. December 26, 1859

I awake to find it snowing fast, but it slackens in a few hours. Perhaps seven or eight inches have fallen, — the deepest snow yet, and almost quite level. At first the flakes (this forenoon) were of middling size. At noon, when it was leaving off, they were of a different character. I observed them on my sleeve, — little slender spiculae about one tenth of an inch long, little dry splinters, sometimes two forking, united at one end, or two or three lying across one another, quite dry and fine; and so it concluded. December 30, 1859  See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Snow-storms might be classified.

At Eleazer Davis's Hill -- a note of recognition meant for me.

December 25.

Standing by the side of the river at Eleazer Davis's Hill, -- prepared to pace across it, -- I hear a sharp fine screep from some bird, which at length I detect amid the button-bushes and willows. The screep is a note of recognition meant for me.

The bird is so very active that I can not get a steady view of it. Yet I can see a brilliant crown, even between the twigs of the button-bush and through the withered grass, when I can detect no other part. It is evidently the golden-crested wren, which I have not made out before.

This little creature is contentedly seeking its food here alone this cold winter day on the shore of our frozen river. If it does not visit us often it is strange that it should chose such a season.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 25, 1859

The screep is a note of recognition meant for me. See  JJ Audubon ("This active little bird breeds in Labrador... It enters the United States late in September, and continues its journey beyond their limits,... remain[ing] in all the Southern and Western States the whole of that season, and leave them again about the beginning of March. They generally associate in groups, composed each of a whole family, and feed in company with the Titmice, Nuthatches, and Brown Creepers, perambulating the tops of trees and bushes, sometimes in the very depth of the forests or the most dismal swamps, while at other times they approach the plantations, and enter the gardens and yards. Their movements are always extremely lively and playful ..., and are unceasingly occupied. They have no song at this season, but merely emit now and then a low screep.”)

I can see a brilliant crown, evidently the golden-crested wren, which I have not made out before. See also December 30, 1859 ("I noticed the other day that even the golden-crested wren was one of the winter birds which have a black head, — in this case divided by yellow.") [Apparently this is Thoreau’s first true sighting of the golden-crested wren, having misidentified  the ruby-crested as it until he saw its ruby crest and then waivers in his naming.]  See May 7, 1854 ("A ruby-crested wren. . .Saw its ruby crest and heard its harsh note. (This was the same I have called golden-crowned ; and so described by W[ilson], I should say, except that I saw its ruby crest. . . ..Have I seen the two?)”);  May 11, 1854 (“I am in a little doubt about the wrens (I do not refer to the snuff -colored one), whether I have seen more than one. All that makes me doubt is that I saw a ruby, or perhaps it might be called fiery, crest on the last — not golden.”); April 24, 1855 ("I see on the pitch pines at Thrush Alley that golden crested wren or the other, ashy-olive above and whitish beneath, with a white bar on wings, restlessly darting at insects like a flycatcher, —into the air after them. It is quite tame. A very neat bird, but does not sing now.”); April 26, 1855 (“Going over Ponkawtasset, hear a golden-crested wren, — the robin’s note, etc., —in the tops of the high wood”); April 27, 1855 (“ Few birds are heard this cold and windy morning. Hear a partridge drum before 6 A. M., also a golden-crested wren.”); May 6, 1855 ("Hear at a distance a ruby(?)-crowned wren, . . . I think this the only Regulus I have ever seen.”)

To Flint's Pond Island.

DECEMBER 24

December 24.

P. M. — To Flint's Pond. 

A strong and very cold northwest wind. I think that the cold winds are oftenest not northwest, but northwest by west. 

There is, in all, an acre or two in Walden not yet frozen, though half of it has been frozen more than a week. 

I measure the blueberry bushes on Flint's Pond Island.The five stems are united at the ground, so as to make one round and solid trunk thirty-one inches in circumference, but probably they have grown together there, for they become separate at about six inches above. They may have sprung from different seeds of one berry. At three feet from the ground they measure eleven inches, eleven, eleven and a half, eight, and six and a half, or, on an average, nine and a half. 


I climbed up and found a comfortable seat with my feet four feet above the ground, and there was room for three or four more there, but unfortunately this was not the season for berries. 

There were several other clumps of large ones there. One clump close by the former contained twenty-three stems within a diameter of three feet, and their aver age diameter at three feet from the ground was about two inches. These had not been cut, because they stood on this small island which has little wood beside, and therefore had grown the larger. 

The two prevailing lichens on them were Parmelia caperata and saxatilis, extending quite around their trunks; also a little of a parmelia more glaucous than the last one, and a little green usnea and a little ramalina.

This island appears to be a mere stony ridge three or four feet high, with a very low wet shore on each side, even as if the water and ice had shoved it up, as at the other end of the pond. 

I saw the tracks of a partridge more than half an inch deep in the ice, extending from this island to the shore, she having walked there in the slosh. They were quite perfect and reminded me of bird-tracks in stone. She may have gone there to bud on these blueberry trees. I saw where she spent the night at the bottom of that largest clump, in the snow.

This blueberry grove must be well known to the partridges; no doubt they distinguish their tops from afar.  

Perhaps yet larger ones were seen here before we came to cut off the trees.

Judging from those whose rings I have counted, the largest of those stems must be about sixty years old. The stems rise up in a winding and zigzag manner, one sometimes resting in the forks of its neighbor. There were many more clumps of large ones there.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 24, 1859

There is, in all, an acre or two in Walden not yet frozen, though half of it has been frozen more than a week. See December 24, 1856 ("Am surprised to find Walden still open in the middle. When I push aside the snow with my feet, the ice appears quite black by contrast.”); December 24, 1858 ("Those two places in middle of Walden not frozen over yet, though it was quite cold last night! “)


I measure the blueberry bushes on Flint's Pond Island. See December 22, 1859 ("On what I will call Sassafras Island, in this pond, I notice the largest and handsomest high blueberry at the ground into four stems, all very large and the largest three inches in diameter (one way) at three feet high, and at the ground, where they seem to form one trunk (at least grown together), nine inches in diameter. ")

To Cambridge, where I read in Gerard's Herbal.

December 16.

His descriptions are greatly superior to the modern scientific ones. He describes according to his natural delight in the plants. It is a man's knowledge added to a child's keen joy who has just seen a flower for the first time and comes running in with it to its friends.

He brings them vividly before you. It is almost as good as to see the plants themselves. His leaves are leaves; his flowers, flowers; his fruit, fruit. They are green and colored and fragrant. He has really seen, and smelt, and tasted, and reports his sensations.

How much better to describe your object in fresh English words rather than in conventional Latinisms!

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, December 16, 1859


Dec. 16. A.M. — To Cambridge, where I read in Gerard's Herbal. His admirable though quaint de scriptions are, to my mind, greatly superior to the modern more scientific ones. He describes not accord ing 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 suggests that we can not too often get rid of the barren assumption that is in our science. His leaves are leaves; his flowers, flowers; his fruit, fruit. They are green and colored and fragrant. It is a man's knowledge added to a child's delight. Modern botanical descriptions approach ever nearer to the dryness of an algebraic formula, as if x + y were = to a love-letter. 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. How much better to describe your object in fresh English words rather than in these conventional Latinisms! He has really seen, and smelt, and tasted, and reports his sensations.

Bought a book at Little & Brown's, paying a nine- pence more on a volume than it was offered me for elsewhere. The customer thus pays for the more elegant style of the store.

His leaves are leaves; his flowers, flowers; his fruit, fruit. . . . He has really seen, and smelt, and tasted, and reports his sensations. See September 4-7, 1851 (I feel that the juices of the fruits which I have eaten, the melons and apples, have ascended to my brain and are stimulating it. They give me a heady force. Now I can write.”); September 2, 1851 ("A writer, a man writing, is the scribe of all nature; he is the corn and the grass and the atmosphere writing. It is always essential that we love to do what we are doing, do it with a heart.”); January 27, 1857 ("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.")

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.  See February 5, 1852 ("I suspect that the child plucks its first flower with an insight into its beauty and significance which the subsequent botanist never retains.")

December 16. See A Book of the Seasons, By Henry Thoreau, December 16 

On River to Fair Haven Pond.

December 13.

My first true winter walk is perhaps that which I take on the river, or where I cannot go in the summer.

It is the walk peculiar to winter, and now first i take it.

I see that the fox too has already taken the same walk before me, just along the edge of the button-bushes, where not even he can go in the summer. We both turn our steps hither at the same time.

Going over black ice three or four inches thick, only reassured by seeing the thickness at the cracks, I see it richly marked internally with large whitish figures. The work of crystallization.

Now that the river is frozen we have a sky under our feet also.

I see, in the Pleasant Meadow field near the pond, some little masses of snow, such as I noticed yesterday in the open land by the railroad causeway at the Cut. I could not account for them then, for I did not go to them, but thought they might be the remainders of drifts which had been blown away, leaving little perpendicular masses six inches or a foot higher than the surrounding snow in the midst of the fields. Now I detect the cause. 

These (which I see to-day) are the remains of snowballs which the wind of yesterday rolled up in the moist snow. The morning was mild, and the snow accordingly soft and moist yet light, but in the middle of the day a strong northwest wind arose, and before night it became quite hard to bear. 

These masses which I examined in the Pleasant Meadow field were generally six or eight inches high — though they must have wasted and settled considerably — and a little longer than high, presenting a more or less fluted appearance externally. They were hollow cylinders about two inches in diameter within, like muffs. Here were a dozen within two rods square, and I saw them in three or four localities miles apart, in almost any place exposed to the sweep of the northwest wind. There was plainly to be seen the furrow in the snow produced when they were rolled up, in the form of a very narrow pyramid, commencing perhaps two inches wide, and in the course of ten feet (sometimes of four or five only) becoming six or eight inches wide, when the mass was too heavy to be moved further. 

The snow had been thus rolled up even, like a carpet. This occurred on perfectly level ground and also where the ground rose gently to the southeast. The ground was not laid bare. That wind must have rolled up masses thus till they were a foot in diameter. 

It is certain, then, that a sudden strong wind when the snow is moist but light (it had fallen the afternoon previous) will catch and roll it up as a boy rolls up his ball. These white balls are seen far off over the fields.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 13, 1859


I see that the fox too has already taken the same walk before me. See December 8, 1854 (" Go over the fields on the crust to Walden, over side of Bear Garden. Already foxes have left their tracks. How the crust shines afar, the sun now setting!");  December 12, 1855 ("The snow having come, we see where is the path of the partridge . . . and now first, as it were, we have the fox for our nightly neighbor, and countless tiny deer mice.  "); December 14, 1855 ("Then I came upon a fox-track made last night, leading toward a farmhouse . . . Thus 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 20, 1855 ("I see . . .in now hard, dark ice, the tracks apparently of a fox, made when it was saturated snow."); December 24, 1856 (". It is very pleasant walking thus before the storm is over, in the soft, subdued light. . . .Do not see a track of any animal till returning near the Well Meadow Field, where many foxes, one of whom I have a glimpse of, had been coursing back and forth in the path and near it for three quarters of a mile. They had made quite a path"); December 25, 1858 (“I notice that a fox has taken pretty much my own course along the Andromeda Ponds.”); December 31, 1854 (" I see mice and rabbit and fox tracks on the meadow.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Fox

December 13. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 13

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 © 2009-2023

tinyurl.com/HDT591213

Suddenly cold last night.

December 9.

The river and Fair Haven Pond froze over generally last night, though they were only frozen along the edges yesterday. This is unusually sudden.

The air being very quiet and serene, I observe at mid-afternoon that peculiarly softened western sky, which perhaps is seen commonly after the first snow has covered the earth. 

There is just enough invisible vapor, perhaps from the snow, to soften the blue, giving it a slight greenish tinge.

Methinks it often happens that as the weather is harder the sky seems softer.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, December 9, 1859

The river and Fair Haven Pond froze over generally last night, . . .. This is unusually sudden. See November 21, 1852  ("I am surprised this afternoon to find the river skimmed over in some places, and Fair Haven Pond one-third frozen or skimmed over”); November 23, 1852("I am surprised to see Fair Haven entirely skimmed over”): November 30, 1855 (“Got in my boat. River remained iced over all day. ”); December 5, 1853("The river frozen over thinly in most places . . . Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over."); December 5, 1856 ('The river is well skimmed over in most places, though it will not bear, — wherever there is least current, as in broad places, or where there is least wind, . .  “);   December 7, 1856 ("The pond must have been frozen by the 4th at least. . . .The ice appears to be but three or four inches thick); December 11, 1854 ("C. says he found Fair Haven frozen over last Friday, i. e. the 8th.");  December 13, 1850 ("The river froze over last night, — skimmed over. “); December 13, 1859 (“Now that the river is frozen we have a sky under our feet also. ”); December 19, 1856 (“Last night was so cold that the river closed up almost everywhere, and made good skating where there had been no ice to catch the snow of the night before.”); December 20, 1854 (“All of the river that was not frozen before, and therefore not covered with snow on the 18th, is now frozen quite smoothly;”); December 21, 1855 ("I here take to the riverside. The broader places are frozen over, but I do not trust them yet. Fair Haven is entirely frozen over, probably some days"); December 21, 1857 (" Walden and Fair Haven,. . .have only frozen just enough to bear me, “)  See also A Book of Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, First Ice

I observe at mid-afternoon that peculiarly softened western sky, . . .giving it a slight greenish tinge. See December 11, 1854 ("It is but mid-afternoon when I see the sun setting far through the woods, and there is that peculiar clear vitreous greenish sky in the west, as it were a molten gem."); December 20, 1854 ("The sky in the eastern horizon has that same greenish-vitreous, gem-like appearance which it has at sundown, . . ."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky

Dec. 9. Suddenly cold last night. The river and Fair Haven Pond froze over generally (I see no opening as I walk) last night, though they were only frozen along the edges yesterday. This is unusually sudden. 

How prominent the late or fall flowers are, now withered above the snow, — the goldenrods and asters, Roman wormwood, etc., etc.! These late ones have a sort of life extended into winter, hung with icy jewelry.

 I observe at mid-afternoon, the air being very quiet and serene, that peculiarly softened western sky, which perhaps is seen commonly after the first snow has covered the earth. There are many whitish filmy clouds a third of the way to the zenith, generally long and narrow, parallel with the horizon, with indistinct edges, alternating with the blue. And there is just enough invisible vapor, perhaps from the snow, to soften the blue, giving it a slight greenish tinge. Thus, methinks, it often happens that as the weather is harder the sky seems softer. It is not a cold, hard, glittering sky, but a warm, soft, filmy one.

The blue enamel of the present - the reality that surrounds us

December 8.

It snowed and rained in the night. The wind has risen and the trees are stiffly waving with a brattling sound.

The birches, seen half a mile off toward the sun, are the purest dazzling white of any tree.

We believe in beauty, but not now and here. Let it be past or to come, and a thing is at once idealized. The imagination takes cognizance of it. It becomes a deed ripe and with the bloom on it.

But what is actually present and transpiring is commonly perceived without halo or the blue enamel of intervening air.

Only the poet has the faculty to see present things as if also past and future, as if universally significant.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 8, 1859

We believe in beauty, but not now and here. Only the poet has the faculty to see present things as if also past and future, as if universally significant. See Walden Where I lived and what i lived for ("Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind the farthest star, before Adam and after the last man. In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God Himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. “)


Only the poet has the faculty to see present things as if also past and future, as if universally significant. See November 9, 1851 (“Observing me still scribbling, [Channing] will say that he confines himself to the ideal. . . he leaves the facts to me. Sometimes, too, he will say a little petulantly, "I am universal; I have nothing to do with the particular and definite.”)

***

Dec. 8. Here is a better glaze than we have yet had, for it snowed and rained in the night. I go to Pleasant Meadow, — or rather toward the sun, for the glaze shows best so. The wind has risen and the trees are stiffly waving with a brattling sound. The birches, seen half a mile off toward the sun, are the purest dazzling white of any tree, probably because their stems are not seen at all. It is only those seen at a particular angle between us and the sun that appear thus. Day before yesterday the ice which had fallen from the twigs covered the snow beneath in oblong pieces one or two inches long, which C. well called lemon-drops.
***
How is it that what is actually present and transpiring is commonly perceived by the common sense and understanding only, is bare and bald, without halo or the blue enamel of intervening air ? But let it be past or to come, and it is at once idealized. As the man dead is spiritualized, so the fact remembered is idealized. It is a deed ripe and with the bloom on it. It is not simply the understanding now, but the imagination, that takes cognizance of it.

The imagination requires a long range. It is the faculty of the poet to see present things as if, in this sense, also past and future, as if distant or universally significant. We do not know poets, heroes, and saints for our contemporaries, but we locate them in some far-off vale, and, the greater and better, the further off we [are] accustomed to consider them. We believe in spirits, we believe in beauty, but not now and here. They have their abode in the remote past or in the future.

To Smith's Hill. P.M.

December 5.

There is a slight mist in the air and accordingly some glaze on the twigs and leaves.

Thus suddenly we have passed from Indian summer to winter. The perfect silence -- the stillness and motionless of the twigs and of the very weeds and withered grasses; it is as if the whispering and creaking earth were muffled on her axle.

Rather hard walking in the snow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 5, 1859

It is as if the whispering and creaking earth were muffled on her axle. See December 24, 1854 ("a slight glaze, the first of the winter. This gives the woods a hoary aspect and increases the stillness by making the leaves immovable even in considerable wind.")



Dec. 5. P. M. — Down Turnpike to Smith's Hill. Rather hard walking in the snow. There is a slight mist in the air and accordingly some glaze on the twigs and leaves, and thus suddenly we have passed from Indian summer to winter. The perfect silence, as if the whispering and creaking earth were muffled (her axle), and the stillness (motionlessness) of the twigs and of the very weeds and withered grasses, as if they were sculptured out of marble, are striking. It is as if you had stepped from a withered garden into the yard of a sculptor or worker in marble, crowded with delicate works, rich and rare. 

I remark, half a mile off, a tall and slender pitch pine against the dull-gray mist, peculiarly monumental. I noticed also several small white oak trees full of leaves by the roadside, strangely interesting and beautiful. Their stiffened leaves were very long and deeply cut, and the lighter and glazed under sides being almost uniformly turned vertically toward the northwest, as a traveller turns his back to the storm, though enough of the redder and warmer sides were seen to contrast with them, it looked like an artificial tree hung with many-fingered gauntlets. Such was the disposition of the leaves, often nearly in the same plane, that it looked like a brown arbor-vitae. 

See four quails running across the Turnpike. How they must be affected by this change from warm weather and bare ground to cold and universal snow!

 Returning from the post-office at early candle-light, I noticed for the first time this season the peculiar streets, suggesting how withdrawn and inward the life in the former, how exposed and outward in the latter. [and more on John Brown]

December 5, 2021. After dark I take the dogs for a short walk up the driveway. They all show up and I head into the woods to the west down over the little ledge and start walking out the thrush trail. Acorn and Buda are running ahead. Presently Loki comes rushing by me at full gallop; it was a thrill to see him exercising so vigorously. All dogs go right into the garage and into the house and I shut the garage door and go in. They are all wearing their red winter jackets

Love's season

Awakening with love for you
before first thought,
fresh snow on new-mown grass.

Zphx, 12/5/09