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.