Travelling locally

December 13, 2014

December 13.

While surveying to-day, saw much mountain laurel for this neighborhood in Mason's pasture, just over the line in Carlisle. Its bright yellowish-green shoots are agreeable to my eye.

We had one hour of almost Indian summer weather in the middle of the day. I felt the influence of the sun. It melted my stoniness a little. The pines looked like old friends again. Cutting a path through a swamp where was much brittle dogwood, etc., etc., I wanted to know the name of every shrub.

This varied employment, to which my necessities compel me, serves instead of foreign travel and the lapse of time. If it makes me forget some things which I ought to remember, it no doubt enables me to forget many things which it is well to forget.

By stepping aside from my chosen path so often, I see myself better and am enabled to criticise myself. Of this nature is the only true lapse of time.


It seems an age since I took walks and wrote in my journal, and when shall I revisit the glimpses of the moon? To be able to see ourselves, not merely as others see us, but as we are?


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 13, 1851

This varied employment, to which my necessities compel me, serves instead of foreign travel and the lapse of time. See April 8, 1854 ("A day or two surveying is equal to a journey"); November 18 1851 ("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")