A winter's ecstasy

December 31.

Down railroad to Walden and circle round to right, through Wheeler's woods out to railroad again.  

Four more inches of snow fell last night, making in all now two feet on a level. 

Walden froze completely over last night. It is, however, all snow ice, as it froze while it was snowing hard, and it looks like frozen yeast somewhat.

I wade about in the woods through the snow, which certainly averages considerably more than two feet deep where I go. It is a remarkable sight, this snow-clad landscape, with the fences and bushes half buried and the warm sun on it.  

The town and country are now so still, there being no rattle of wagons nor even jingle of sleigh-bells, every tread being as with woolen feet, I hear very distinctly from the railroad causeway the whistle of the locomotive on the Lowell road. 

I hear it, and I realize and see clearly what at other times I only dimly remember. I get the value of the earth's extent and the sky's depth. It, as it were, takes me out of my body and gives me the freedom of all bodies and all nature. I leave my body in a trance and accompany the zephyr and the fragrance.

He that hath ears, let him hear.  Sugar is not so sweet to the palate, as sound to the healthy ear.  The contact of sound with a human ear whose hearing is pure and unimpaired is coincident with an ecstasy. 

Saw probably an otter's track, very broad and deep, as if a log had been drawn along. It was nearly as obvious as a man's track . It was made before last night's snow fell. The creature from time to time went beneath the snow for a few feet, to the leaves. This animal probably I should never see the least trace of, were it not for the snow, the great revealer.

The birds I saw were a partridge, perched on an evergreen, apparently on account of the deep snow, heard a jay, and heard and saw together white-bellied nuthatches and chickadees, the former uttering a faint quank quank and making a loud tapping, and the latter its usual lisping note.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 31, 1853

Four more inches of snow fell last night, making in all now two feet on a level. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The weather, New Year's Eve

Walden froze completely over last night. See December 22, 1853 ("Walden skimmed over in the widest part, but some acres still open; will probably freeze entirely to-night if this weather holds.”); December 26, 1853 ("Walden still open.. . . the only pond hereabouts that is open.”); December 30, 1853 ("The pond not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open, the wind blew so hard last night.“) See also
December 31, 1850 ("Walden pond has frozen over since I was there last. ") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Annual ice-in at Walden

The whistle of the locomotive on the Lowell road. See August 15, 1854 ("The locomotive whistle, far southwest, sounds like a bell.”); May 1, 1857 ("The bell was ringing for town meeting, and every one heard it, but It is a sound from amid the waves of the aerial sea, that breaks on our ears with the surf of the air, a sound that is almost breathed with the wind.");   March 22, 1856 ("I thought I heard the hum of a bee, but perhaps it was a railroad whistle on the Lowell Railroad. "); November 21, 1857 ("Paddling along, a little above the Hemlocks, I hear, I think, a boy whistling upon the bank above me, but immediately perceive that it is the whistle of the locomotive a mile off in that direction.. . . the moment that the key was changed from a very high to a low one.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Bells and Whistles

I realize and see clearly what at other times I only dimly remember. . . I leave my body in a trance . . .The contact of sound with a human ear whose hearing is pure and unimpaired is coincident with an ecstasy. See March 3, 1841 ("Nature always possesses a certain sonorousness, as in the hum of insects, the booming of ice, the crowing of cocks in the morning, and the barking of dogs in the nigh, which indicates her sound state. God's voice is but a clear bell sound. I drink in a wonderful health, a cordial, in sound.")  September 12, 1851 ("I heard the telegraph-wire vibrating . . .. It told me by the faintest imaginable strain, it told me by the finest strain that a human ear can hear, yet conclusively and past all refutation, that there were higher, infinitely higher, planes of life which it behooved me never to forget."); March 17, 1852 ("By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe, I am fitted to hear, my being moves in a sphere of melody, my fancy and imagination are excited to an inconceivable degree.”); May 23, 1854 ("Think of going abroad out of one's self to hear music . . .There was a time when the beauty and the music were all within, and I sat and listened to my thoughts, and there was a song in them. I sat for hours on rocks and wrestled with the melody which possessed me. I sat and listened by the hour to a positive though faint and distant music."); January 12, 1855 (" What a delicious sound! It is not merely crow calling to crow, for it speaks to me too. I am part of one great creature with him; if he has voice, I have ears. I can hear when he calls.”); February 20, 1857 ("What is the relation between a bird and the ear that appreciates its melody, to whom, perchance, it is more charming and significant than to any else? Certainly they are intimately related, and the one was made for the other. . . . I see that one could not be completely described without describing the other. “);  April 15, 1859 ("We are provided with singing birds and with ears to hear them. . . . Whether a man's work be hard or easy, whether he be happy or unhappy, a bird is appointed to sing to a man while he is at his work. ")

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Measuring snow at every ten paces for two hundred paces.

December 30.

The pond not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open, the wind blew so hard last night. 

I carried a two-foot rule and measured the snow of yesterday in Abiel Wheeler's wood by the railroad, near the pond. In going a quarter of a mile it varied from fourteen to twenty-four inches. Then went to Potter's wood, by Lincoln road, near Lincoln line, and paced straight through a level wood where there was no drift perceptible, measuring at every ten paces for two hundred paces, and the average was twenty and one half inches. 

I see the tracks of mice, and squirrels, probably gray ones, leading straight to or from the feet of the largest pines and oaks, which they had plainly ascended.

In winter even man is to a slight extent dormant, just as some animals are but partially awake, though not commonly classed with those that hibernate. The summer circulations are to some extent stopped; the range of his afternoon walk is somewhat narrower; he is more or less confined to the highway and wood-path; the weather oftener shuts him up in his burrow; he begins to feel the access of dormancy and to assume the spherical form of the marmot; the nights are longest; he is often satisfied if he only gets out to the post-office in the course of the day.  Most men do not now extend their walks beyond the village street. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 30, 1853

The pond not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open. See December 31, 1853 ("Walden froze completely over last night. It is, however, all snow ice, as it froze while it was snowing hard, and it looks like frozen yeast somewhat.”) See also December 30, 1855 ("There was yesterday eight or ten acres of open water at the west end of Walden, where is depth and breadth combined.”),December 31, 1850 ("Walden pond has frozen over since I was there last.”); January 1, 1856 (“Walden is covered with white snow ice six inches thick, for it froze while it was snowing, though commonly there is a thin dark beneath.  . . . A very small patch of Walden, frozen since the snow, looks at a little distance exactly like open water by contrast with the snow ice, the trees being reflected in it, and indeed I am not certain but a very small part of this patch was water.”)See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Annual ice-in at Walden

I carried a two-foot rule and measured the snow of yesterday. . . it varied from fourteen to twenty-four inches.. See 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"): December 30, 1859 ("I awake to find it snowing fast. Perhaps seven or eight inches have fallen, - the deepest snow yet.”); and note to January 16, 1856 ("With this snow the fences are scarcely an obstruction to the traveller; he easily steps over them. Often they are buried. I suspect it is two and a half feet deep in Andromeda Swamps now.")

I see the tracks of mice, and squirrels See December 30, 1855 ("The track of a squirrel on the Island Neck. Tracks are altered by the depth of the snow . . .The snow is too deep and soft yet for many tracks. No doubt the mice have been out beneath it.") See also December 22, 1852 ("The squirrel, rabbit, fox tracks, etc., attract the attention in the new-fallen snow . . . You cannot go out so early but you will find the track of some wild creature."): ); December 27, 1853 (“ I had not seen a meadow mouse all summer, but no sooner does the snow come and spread its mantle over the earth than it is printed with the tracks of countless mice"); December 27, 1857 ("Mice have been abroad in the night. We are almost ready to believe that they have been shut up in the earth all the rest of the year because we have not seen their tracks."); December 31, 1853 ("This animal probably I should never see the least trace of, were it not for the snow, the great revealer."); January 4, 1860 ("Again see what the snow reveals.. . . that the woods are nightly thronged with little creatures which most have never seen"); January 5, 1860 ("How much the snow reveals! "); January 7, 1858 ("I notice only one squirrel, and a fox, and perhaps partridge track, into which the snow has blown. . . .The mice have not been forth since the snow, or perhaps in some places where they have, their tracks are obliterated.")

In winter even man is to a slight extent dormant, just as some animals are but partially awake.See January 14, 1852 ("We are related to all nature, animate and inanimate, and accordingly we share to some extent the nature of the dormant creatures. We all feel somewhat confined by the winter. The nights are longer, and we sleep more.")

tree sparrows

December 28.

Perhaps the coldest night. The pump is slightly frozen.

I hear and see tree sparrows about the weeds in the garden. They seem to visit the gardens with the earliest snow; or is it that they are more obvious against the white ground? 

By their sharp silvery chip, perchance, they inform each other of their whereabouts and keep together.

I noticed the other day that the ice on the river and pond was cracked very coarsely, and lay in different planes a rod or two in diameter. It being very smooth and the light differently reflected from the different surfaces, this arrangement was very obvious. 

In one place where the river was open yesterday, the water  tossed into waves, looked exceedingly dark and angry.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 28, 1853

By their sharp silvery chip, perchance, they inform each other of their whereabouts and keep together. See December 17, 1856 ("That feeble cheep of the tree sparrow, like the tinkling of an icicle. . ., is probably a call to their mates, by which they keep together. "); December 26, 1853 ("Their metallic chip is much like the lisp of the chickadee. ") See also  December 4, 1856 ("Saw and heard cheep faintly one little tree sparrow, the neat chestnut crowned and winged and white-barred bird, perched on a large and solitary white birch. So clean and tough, made to withstand the winter.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

The water tossed into waves looked exceedingly dark and angry. See March 29, 1852 (“There is more water and it is more ruffled at this season than at any other, and the waves look quite angry and black.”)

Trackless snow

December 26.

This forenoon it snows pretty hard for some hours, the first snow of any consequence thus far. It is about three inches deep. I go out at 2.30, just as it ceases. Now is the time, before the wind rises or the sun has shone, to go forth and see the snow on the trees. 

It has fallen so gently that it forms an upright wall on the slenderest twig. And every twig thus laden is as still as the hillside itself. 

December 26, 2013

The sight of the pure and trackless road up Brister's Hill, with branches and trees supporting snowy burdens bending over it on each side, would tempt us to begin life again. 

The ice is covered up, and skating gone. The bare hills are so white that I cannot see their outlines against the misty sky. The snow lies handsomely on the shrub oaks, like a coarse braiding in the air. They have so many small and zigzag twigs that it comes near to filling up with a light snow to that depth. 

The hunters are already out with dogs to follow the first beast that makes a track. 

Saw a small flock of tree sparrows in the sprout- lands under Bartlett's Cliff. Their metallic chip is much like the lisp of the chickadee. 

All weeds, with their seeds, rising dark above the snow, are now remarkably conspicuous, which before were not observed against the dark earth. 

I passed by the pitch pine that was struck by lightning. I was impressed with awe on looking up and seeing that broad, distinct spiral mark, more distinct even than when made eight years ago, as one might groove a walking-stick, — mark of an invisible and in tangible power, a thunderbolt, mark where a terrific and resistless bolt came down from heaven, out of the harmless sky, eight years ago. It seemed a sacred spot. 

I felt that we had not learned much since the days of Tullus Hostilius. It at length shows the effect of the shock, and the woodpeckers have begun to bore it on one side. 

Walden still open. Saw in it a small diver, probably a grebe or dobchick, dipper, or what-not, with the markings, as far as I saw, of the crested grebe, but smaller. It had a black head, a white ring about its neck, a white breast, black back, and apparently no tail. It dove and swam a few rods under water, and, when on the surface, kept turning round and round warily and nodding its head the while. This being the only pond hereabouts that is open.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 26, 1853

The first snow of any consequence thus far. It is about three inches deep. See December 26, 1857 ("Snows all day, — first snow of any consequence, three or four inches in all.").See also note to November 29, 1856 ("This is the first snow.”)

It has fallen so gently that it forms an upright wall on the slenderest twig. See November 24, 1858 (“Being very moist, it had lodged on every twig, and every one had its counterpart in a light downy white one, twice or thrice its own depth, resting on it."): December 24, 1856 ("The snow collects and is piled up in little columns like down about every twig and stem, and this is only seen in perfection, complete to the last flake, while it is snowing, as now.”); February 21, 1854 ("You cannot walk too early in new-fallen snow to get the sense of purity, novelty, and unexploredness.”); January 14, 1853 ("White walls of snow rest on the boughs of trees, in height two or three times their thickness.”)

Begin life again: See January 23, 1860 ("Walking on the ice by the side of the river this very pleasant morning, I recommence life.”)

All weeds, with their seeds, rising dark above the snow, are now remarkably conspicuous, which before were not observed against the dark earth.  See December 26, 1855 ("But the low and spreading weeds in the fields and the wood-paths are the most interesting.”); See also November 18, 1855 ("Now first mark the stubble and numerous withered weeds rising above the snow. They have suddenly acquired a new character. “)

Walden still open. Saw in it a small diver, probably a grebe or dobchick, dipper, or what-not, ... It had a black head, a white ring about its neck, a white breast, black back, and apparently no tail....This being the only pond hereabouts that is open. See December 27, 1852 (“Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. ... A black and white duck on it, Flint's and Fair Haven being frozen up.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Little Dipper and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Annual ice-in at Walden

It has snowed for hours

and, as it ceases, we go out

to see the new snow.

Gently fallen snow

has formed an upright wall on

the slenderest twig.

And every twig

thus laden is as still as

the hillside itself.

All weeds with their seeds,

rising dark above the snow,

now conspicuous.

The branches and trees

supporting snowy burdens

bend over the road.

This pure and trackless

road up Brister's Hill  tempts us

to start life again.

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A lecturer surveys

December 22.

Surveying the last three days. --when I would fain be employed on higher subjects. 

I have offered myself much more earnestly as a lecturer than a surveyor. Yet I do not get any employment as a lecturer; was not invited to lecture once last winter, and only once (without pay) this winter. 

But I can get surveying enough, - which a hundred others in this county can do as well as I, though it is not boasting much to say that a hundred others in New England cannot lecture as well as I on my themes.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 22, 1853

The second whitening of the winter.

December 22.

A slight whitening of snow last evening, the second whitening of the winter, just enough to spoil the skating, now ten days old, on the ponds. 

Walden skimmed over in the widest part, but some acres still open; will probably freeze entirely to-night if this weather holds. ...

P. M. - Got a white spruce for a Christmas-tree for the town out of the spruce swamp opposite J. Farmer's. It is remarkable how few inhabitants of Concord can těll a spruce from a fir, and probably not two a white from a black spruce, unless they are together. The woodchopper, even hereabouts, cuts down several kinds of trees without knowing what they are. Neither do the spruce trees know the villager. The villager doesn't know a black spruce tree when he sees it. How slender his relation to the spruce tree! The white has taken refuge in swamps from him. It is nothing but so much evergreen to him. 

Last night's sprinkling of snow does not now whiten the ground, except that here in the swamp it whitens the ice and already I see the tracks of rabbits on it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 22, 1853

The second whitening of the winter.  See December 22, 1860 ('the second important snow.”); See also  December 5, 1853 ("The river frozen. ..  and whitened with snow , which was sprinkled on it this noon'"); November  8, 1853 (“Our first snow,. . . The children greet it with a shout when they come out at recess. ”); January 22, 1854("No second snow-storm in the winter can be so fair and interesting as the first")

Walden skimmed over in the widest part, but some acres still open. See December 26, 1853 ("Walden still open. Saw in it a small diver, . . . This being the only pond hereabouts that is open.”); December 30, 1853 ("The pond not yet frozen entirely over; about six acres open, the wind blew so hard last night.”); December 31, 1853 ("Walden froze completely over last night. It is, however, all snow ice, as it froze while it was snowing hard, and it looks like frozen yeast somewhat.”)

Here in the swamp it whitens the ice and already I see the tracks of rabbits on it.  See December 22, 1850 ("I see more tracks in the swamps than elsewhere.”) See also November 24, 1860 ("Though a slight touch, . . . The rabbits in the swamps enjoy it, as well as you.”)

A hard edge against the sunset sky

December 18

Clears off cold after rain. Cross Fair Haven Pond at sunset. The western hills, these bordering it, seen through the clear, cold air, have a hard, distinct edge against the sunset sky. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 18, 1853

A hard, distinct edge against the sunset sky. Compare December 9, 1859 ("Methinks it often happens that as the weather is harder the sky seems softer."); December 27, 1851 ("The man is blessed who every day is permitted to behold anything so pure and serene as the western sky at sunset, while revolutions vex the world."): August 14, 1854 ("I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon, — to behold and commune with something grander than man.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Sunsets and Winter Colors (The solstice)

December 18. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 18

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

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While surveying for Daniel Weston in Lincoln

While surveying for Daniel Weston in Lincoln to-day, see a great many — maybe a hundred — silvery-brown cocoons, wrinkled and flattish, on young alders in a meadow, three or four inches long, fastened to the main stem and branches at same time, with dry alder and fragments of fern leaves attached to and partially concealing them; of some great moth.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 17, 1853

Cocoons of some great moth. See December 24, 1853 ("The largest are four inches long by two and a half, bag-shaped and wrinkled and partly concealed by dry leaves, — alder, ferns, etc., — attached as if sprinkled over them. This evidence of cunning in so humble a creature is affecting, for I am not ready to refer it to an intelligence which the creature does not share, as much as we do the prerogatives of reason. This radiation of the brain. The bare silvery cocoons would otherwise be too obvious. The worm has evidently said to itself: "Man or some other creature may come by and see my casket. I will disguise it, will hang a screen before it." Brake and sweet-fern and alder leaves are not only loosely sprinkled over it and dangling from it, but often, as it were, pasted close upon and almost incorporated into it.”); January 19, 1854 ("Dr. Harris says that my cocoons found in Lincoln in December are of the Attacus cecropia, the largest of our emperor moths."); February 19, 1854 ("Each and all such disguises and other resources remind us that not some poor worm's instinct merely, as we call it, but the mind of the universe rather, which we share, has been intended upon each particular object. All the wit in the world was brought to bear on each case to secure its end.”); June 2, 1855 ("From that cocoon of the Attacus cecropia which I found — I think it was on the 24th of May . . .came out this forenoon a splendid moth . . ..It was surprising to see the creature unfold and expand before our eyes, the wings gradually elongating, . . .at dusk, when apparently it was waving its wings preparatory to its evening flight, I gave it ether and so saved it in a perfect state.");June 18, 1857 ("They brought me an Attacus Cecropia . . . Its body was large like the one I have preserved"); June 22, 1857 ("It seems that Sophia found an Attacus Cecropia out in my chamber last Monday, or the 15th. It soon went to laying eggs on the window-sill, "); May 6, 1858 ("A boy brings me to-day an Attacus Cecropia moth . . ., the male, a dark brown above, and considerably larger than mine. It must be about seven inches in alar extent."); July 8, 1858 ("I see an emperor moth (Attacus Cecropia), which came out the 6th"):

Bright moonlight nights.

December 15.

Looking from my window these bright moonlight nights, the ground being still bare, the whole landscape — fields, road, and roof — has a wintry aspect, as if covered with snow. 

It is the frost.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 15, 1853

These bright moonlight nights. See December 10, 1856 ("the apparently full moon has fairly commenced her reign, and I go home by her light."); see also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December Moonlight

The whole landscape . . . has a wintry aspect, as if covered with snow. See November 12, 1851 ("The moonlight reflected from (apparently) the fine frost crystals on the withered grass"); November 12, 1853 ("The meadows, with perhaps a little mist on them, look as if covered with frost in the moonlight.");  November 13, 1858 (“We looked out the window at 9 P. M. and saw the ground for the most part white with the first sugaring, which at first we could hardly tell from a mild moonlight.")

See also: Li Po :(Thoughts in Night Quiet):

Seeing moonlight here at my bed,

and thinking it’s frost on the ground,

I look up, gaze at the mountain moon,

then back, dreaming of my old home

and Issa:

in addition

to my solitude

frost on the window

December 15.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 15

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

https://tinyurl.com/hdt531215

 

At Haywood's Pond the sky placed under our feet.

December 11. 

Almost a complete Indian-summer day, clear and warm. I am without greatcoat. 

We find Heywood's Pond frozen five inches thick. This pond is bordered on the northeast with much russet sedge grass beneath the bushes, and the sun, now falling on the ice, seems to slide or glance off into this grass and light it up wonderfully, filling it with yellowish light. This ice being whitened and made partially opaque by heat, while the surface is quite smooth, perhaps from new freezings, reflects the surrounding trees, their forms and colors, distinctly like water. The white air-bubbles are the quicksilver on the back of the mirror.

R. W. E. told me that W. H. Channing conjectured that the landscape looked fairer when we turned our heads, because we beheld it with nerves of the eye unused before. Perhaps this reason is worth more for suggestion than explanation. It occurs to me that the reflection of objects in still water is in a similar manner fairer than the substance, and yet we do not employ unused nerves to behold it. Is it not that we let much more light into our eyes, in the first case by turning them more to the sky, and in the case of the reflections by having the sky placed under our feet? i. e. in both cases we see terrestrial objects with the sky or heavens for a background or field.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 11, 1853

We find Heywood's Pond frozen five inches thick See November 14, 1851 ("Unexpectedly find Heywood's Pond frozen over thinly, it being shallow and coldly placed."); see also December 13, 1859 ("Now that the river is frozen we have a sky under our feet also.”); A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, First Ice.

The landscape looked fairer when we turned our heads[because] we see terrestrial objects with the sky or heavens for a background or field..  See January 25, 1852 (" when I invert my head and look at the woods down the stream, I seem to see every stem and twig with beautiful distinctness, the fine tops of the trees relieved against the sky.”); February 9, 1852, ("The state of the atmosphere is continually varying. . . . If we invert our heads completely our wood-lot appears far off. But if I invert my head this morning and look at the woods in the horizon, they do not look so far off as in the afternoon. The prospect is a constantly varying mirage, answering to the condition of our perceptive faculties and our fluctuating imaginations.”) 

The writer in repose

December 10.

These are among the finest days in the year, on account of the wholesome bracing coolness and clearness. 

Paddled Cheney’s boat up Assabet. 

Passed in some places between shooting ice-crystals, extending from both sides of the stream. Upon the thinnest black ice-crystals, just cemented, was the appearance of broad fern leaves, or ostrich-plumes, or flat fir trees with branches bent down. The surface was far from even, rather in sharp-edged plaits or folds. The form of the crystals was oftenest that of low, flattish, three-sided pyramids; when the base was very broad the apex was imperfect, with many irregular rosettes of small and perfect pyramids, the largest with bases equal to two or three inches. All this appeared to advantage only while the ice (one twelfth of an inch thick, perhaps) rested on the black water.

What I write about at home I understand so well, comparatively! and I write with such repose and freedom from exaggeration.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 10, 1853

These are among the finest days in the year, on account of the wholesome bracing coolness and clearness. See December 10, 1856 ("A fine, clear, cold winter morning, . . . a warm, clear, glorious winter day."); December 21, 1854 (“We are tempted to call these the finest days of the year.”; October 10, 1857 (" The sixth day of glorious weather, which I am tempted to call the finest in the year. "); October 10, 1856 ("These are the finest days in the year, Indian summer.” ); September 18, 1858 ("It is a wonderful day."); September 18, 1860 ("If you are not happy to-day you will hardly be so to-morrow.”); August 19, 1853 (“A glorious and ever-memorable day.”); July 22, 1851 ("These are our fairest days, which are born in a fog."); May 21, 1854 (“the finest days of the year, days long enough and fair enough for the worthiest deeds.”); May 18, 1852 (The world can never be more beautiful than now”); May 5, 1852 ("Every part of the world is beautiful today.”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.

. . I write with such repose . . .See July 7, 1851 (“All the faculties in repose but the one you are using, the whole energy concentrated in that.”)

Now for the short days and early twilight.

December 5.

Got my boat in. The river frozen over thinly in most places and whitened with snow, which was sprinkled on it this noon.

Many living leaves are very dark red now. Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over. The ground has been frozen more or less about a week, not very hard. 

See and hear a downy woodpecker on an apple tree. Have not many winter birds, like this and the chickadee, a sharp note like tinkling glass or icicles?

Now for the short days and early twilight, in which I hear the sound of woodchopping. The sun goes down behind a low cloud, and the world is darkened. 

The partridge budding on the apple tree bursts away from the path-side. 

Suddenly the whole atmosphere fills with a mellow yellowish light equally diffused. It seems much lighter around me than immediately after the sun sank behind the horizon cloud, fifteen minutes before.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 5, 1853


Got my boat in. See Boat in. Boat out.

The river frozen over thinly in most places. Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over.  See  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, as by the bridges. The ice trap was sprung last night.") See also .  December 4, 1853 ("Goose Pond apparently froze over last night, all but a few rods, but not thick enough to bear. (Flint's Pond only skimmed a little at the shore, like the river.)") December 4, 1856 ("Each day at present, the wriggling river nibbles off the edges of the trap which have advanced in the night. It is a close contest between day and night, heat and cold. ");  December 7, 1856 ("Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond . . .The ice appears to be but three or four inches thick.”); December 9, 1856 (" Fair Haven was so solidly frozen on the 6th that there was fishing on it,"); December 9, 1859 ("The river and Fair Haven Pond froze over generally last night, though they were only frozen along the edges yesterday. This is unusually sudden.")

Now for the short days and early twilight. See note to 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.”)

Dec. 5. P. M. 

Got my boat in.

The river frozen over thinly in most places and whitened with snow, which was sprinkled on it this noon.

4 P. M. To Cliffs.

Many living leaves are very dark red now, the only effect of the frost on them, — the checkerberry, andromeda, low cedar, and more or less lambkill, etc. 

Saw and heard a downy woodpecker on an apple tree.

Have not many winter birds, like this and the chickadee, a sharp note like tinkling glass or icicles? The chip of the tree sparrow, also, and the whistle of the shrike, are they not wintry in the same way? And the sonorous hooting owl? But not so the jay and Fringilla linaria, and still less the crow.

Now for the short days and early twilight, in which I hear the sound of woodchopping.

The sun goes down behind a low cloud, and the world is darkened.

The partridge is budding on the apple tree and bursts away from the path-side.

Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over.

The ground has been frozen more or less about a week, not very hard.

Probably stiffened the 3d so as to hinder spading, but softened afterward.

I rode home from the woods in a hay-rigging, with a boy who had been collecting a load of dry leaves for the hog-pen; this the third or fourth load.

Two other boys asked leave to ride, with four large empty box-traps which they were bringing home from the woods. It was too cold and late to follow box-trapping longer. They had caught five rabbits this fall, baiting with an apple.

Before I got home the whole atmosphere was suddenly filled with a mellow yellowish light equally diffused, so that it seemed much lighter around me than immediately after the sun sank behind the horizon cloud, fifteen minutes before.

Apparently not till the sun had sunk thus far did I stand in the angle of reflection.

It is a startling thought that the Assyrian king who with so much pains recorded his exploits in stone at Nineveh, that the story might come down to a distant generation, has indeed succeeded by those means which he used.

All was not vanity, quite.

Layard, at the lake of Wan, says:

 “Early next morning I sought the inscriptions which I had been assured were graven on the rocks near an old castle, standing on a bold projecting promontory above the lake.

After climbing up a dangerous precipice by the help of two or three poles, in which large nails had been inserted to afford a footing, I reached a small natural cave in the rock.

A few crosses and ancient Armenian letters were rudely cut near its entrance.

There was nothing else, and I had to return as I best could, disappointed, as many a traveller has been under similar circumstances before me.”

They were not old enough; that was all.

Wait a thousand years and you will not be disappointed.

The ice of Goose Pond.

December 4.

Sunday. 

The coldest day yet, clear with considerable wind, after the first cloudless morning for a week or two. 

Goose Pond apparently froze over last night, all but a few rods, but not thick enough to bear. 

I see a lizard on the bottom under the ice. No doubt I have sometimes mistaken them for tadpoles. 

(Flint's Pond only skimmed a little at the shore, like the river.) 

The ice of Goose Pond already has a dusty look. It shows the crystals distinctly.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 4, 1853

Goose Pond apparently froze over last night, all but a few rods, but not thick enough to bear. See December 2, 1857 ("Measuring Little Goose Pond, I observed two painted tortoises moving about under the thin transparent ice. . . .”); December 13, 1857 ("This and the like ponds are just covered with virgin ice just thick enough to bear,. . . I see those same two tortoises (of Dec. 2d), moving about in the same place under the ice, which I can not crack with my feet.”)

December 4. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 4; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I love you like I love the sky

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 ©  2009-2022

Winter moods

December 3.


Look at the trees, bare or rustling with sere brown leaves, except the evergreens, their buds dormant at the foot of the leaf-stalks. Look at the fields, russet and withered, and the various sedges and weeds with dry bleached culms. Such is our relation to nature at present; such plants are we. We have no more sap nor verdure nor color now. 

But even in winter we maintain a temperate cheer and a serene inward life, not destitute of warmth and melody.  I remember how cheerful it has been formerly to sit around a fire outdoors amid the snow, and, while I felt some cold, to feel some warmth also, and see the fire gradually increasing and prevailing over damp, steaming and dripping logs and making a warm hearth for me.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 3, 1853

Dec. 3. 

P. M. — Up river by boat to Clamshell Hill. 

Saw two tree sparrows on Monroe's larch by the waterside. Larger than chip-birds, with more bay above and a distinct white bar on wings, not to men tion bright-chestnut crown and obscure spot on breast; all beneath pale-ash. They were busily and very adroitly picking the seeds out of the larch cones. It would take man's clumsy fingers a good while to get at one, and then only by breaking off the scales, but they picked them out as rapidly as if they were insects on the outside of the cone, uttering from time to time a faint, tinkling chip. 

I see that muskrats have not only erected cabins, but, since the river rose, have in some places dug galleries a rod into the bank, pushing the sand behind them into the water. So they dig these now as places of retreat merely, or for the same purpose as the cabins, apparently. 

One I explored this afternoon was formed in a low shore (Hubbard's Bathing-Place), at a spot where there were no weeds to make a cabin of, and Was apparently never completed, perhaps because the shore was too low. 

The ranunculus is still a fresh bright green at the bottom of the river. It is the evergreen of the river, and indeed resembles the common running evergreen (Lycopodium, I think it is called). 

I see along the sides of the river, two to four inches above the surface but all at one level, clear, drop-shaped crystals of ice, either held up by some twig or hanging by a dead vine of climbing mikania. They are the remains of a thin sheet of ice, which melted as the river went down, and in drops formed around and ran down these cores and again froze, and, being thicker than the surrounding ice, have outlasted it. 

At J. Hosmer's tub spring, I dug out a small bull frog (?) in the sandy mud at the bottom of the tub — it was lively enough to hop — and brought it home. Probably they lie universally buried in the mud now, below the reach of frost. 

In a ditch near by, under ice half an inch thick, I saw a painted tortoise moving about. 

The frogs then are especially to be looked for in the mud about springs. 

It is remarkable how much power I can exert through the undulations which I produce by rocking my boat in the middle of the river. Some time after I have ceased I am surprised to hear the sound of the undulations which have just reached the shores acting on the thin ice there and making a complete wreck of it for a long distance up and down the stream, cracking off pieces four feet wide and more. I have stirred up the river to do this work, a power which I cannot put to rest. The secret of this power appears to lie in the extreme mobility, or, as I may say, irritability, of this element. It is the principle of the roller, or of an immense weight moved by a child on balls, and the momentum is tremendous. 

Some of the clamshells, freshly opened by the muskrats and left lying on their half-sunken cabins, where they are kept wet by the waves, show very handsome rainbow tints. I examined one such this afternoon. The hinge of the shell was not broken, and I could discover no injury to the shell, except a little broken off the edges at the broadest end, as if by the teeth of the rat in order to get hold, insert its incisors. The fish is confined to the shell by strong muscles at each end of each valve, and the rat must dissolve the union between both of these and one side of the shell before he can get it open, unless the fish itself opens it, which perhaps it cannot wide enough. I could not open one just dead without separating the muscle from the shell. The growth of the mussel's shell appears to be in somewhat concentric layers or additions to a small shell or eye. 

The clam which I brought home the 30th ult., and left outdoors by mistake, I now find frozen to death. J. Hosmer told me the other day that he had seen a man eat many of these clams raw and relish them. It is a somewhat saddening reflection that the beautiful colors of this shell for want of light cannot be said to exist, until its inhabitant has fallen a prey to the spoiler, and it is thus left a wreck upon the strand. Its beauty they are not "gems of purest ray serene," though fitted to be, but only when they are tossed up to light.

Probably the muskrat inserts his incisors between the edges of the shells (and so crumbles them) in order to pry them open. Some of these shells at Clamshell Hill, whose contents were cooked by the Indians, are still entire, but separated. Wood has spread a great many loads over his land. People would be surprised to learn what quantities of these shellfish are annually consumed by the muskrat. Their shells help convert the meadow mud or river sediment into food for plants. 

The Indians generally — I have particularly observed it in the case of the Penobscots — make a very extensive use of the muskrat for food, and from these heaps it would seem that they used the fresh-water clam extensively also, — these two peculiarly indigenous animals. What if it were calculated how often a muskrat rises to his stool on the surface of the ice with a mussel in his mouth and ejects the tenant, taking the roof ? It is as if the occupant had not begun to live until the light, with whatever violence, is let into its shell with these magical results. It is rather a resurrection than a death. These beaming shells, with the tints of the sky and the rainbow commingled, suggest what pure serenity has occupied it. 

Look at the trees, bare or rustling with sere brown leaves, except the evergreens, their buds dormant at the foot of the leaf-stalks. Look at the fields, russet and withered, and the various sedges and weeds with dry bleached culms. Such is our relation to nature at present; such plants are we. We have no more sap nor verdure nor color now. 

I remember how cheerful it has been formerly to sit around a fire outdoors amid the snow, and, while I felt some cold, to feel some warmth also, and see the fire gradually increasing and prevailing over damp, steaming and dripping logs and making a warm hearth for me. 

When I see even these humble clamshells lying open along the riverside, displaying some blue, or violet, or rainbow tints, I am reminded that some pure serenity has occupied them. 

(I sent two and a half bushels of my cranberries to Boston and got four dollars for them.) 

There the clam dwells within a little pearly heaven of its own. 

But even in winter we maintain a temperate cheer and a serene inward life, not destitute of warmth and melody. Only the cold evergreens wear the aspect of summer now and shelter the winter birds. 

Layard discovers sculptured on a slab at Kouyunjik (Nineveh) machines for raising water which I perceive correspond exactly to our New England well-sweeps, except that in the former case the pole is "balanced on a shaft of masonry." He observes that it is "still generally used for irrigation in the East, as well as in southern Europe, and called in Egypt "shadoof.” [Wilkinson exhibits it from the Egyptian sculptures.]

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 3, 1853

In a ditch near by, under ice half an inch thick, I saw a painted tortoise moving about. See December 2, 1857 (“Measuring Little Goose Pond, I observed two painted tortoises moving about under the thin transparent ice. ... There was a brown leech spread broad and flat and roundish on the sternum of one, nearly an inch and a half across, apparently going to winter with it”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Painted Turtle (Emys picta)

I sent two and a half bushels of my cranberries to Boston and got four dollars for them. See November 20, 1853 ("I once came near speculating in cranberries")