After a spitting of snow in the forenoon, I see the blue sky here and there, and the sun is coming out. It is still and warm. The earth is two thirds bare. I walk along the Mill Brook below Emerson’s, looking into it for some life.
Perhaps what most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. How we leap by the side of the open brooks! What beauty in the running brooks! What life! What society! The cold is merely superficial; it is summer still at the core, far, far within.
It is in the cawing of the crow, the crowing of the cock, the warmth of the sun on our backs. I hear faintly the cawing of a crow far, far away, echoing from some unseen wood-side. 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. Ah, bless the Lord, O my soul! bless him for wildness, for crows that will not alight within gunshot! and bless him for hens, too, that croak and cackle in the yard!
Where are the shiners now, and the trout? I see none in the brook. Have the former descended to the deep water of the river? Ah, may I be there to see when they go down! Why can they not tell me? Or gone into the mud? There are few or no insects for them now.
The strong scent of this red oak, just split and corded, is a slight compensation for the loss of the tree.
How cheering the sight of the evergreens now, on the forest floor, the various pyrolas, etc., fresh as in summer!
What is that mint whose seed-vessels rubbed are so spicy to smell—minty—at the further end of the pond by the Gourgas wood-lot?
On Flint’s Pond I find Nat Rice fishing. He has not caught one. I asked him what he thought the best time to fish. He said, “When the wind first comes south after a cold spell, on a bright morning.”
Well may the tender buds attract us at this season, no less than partridges, for they are the hope of the year, the spring rolled up. The summer is all packed in them.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 12, 1855
Perhaps what most moves us in winter is some reminiscence of far-off summer. See October 26, 1853 ("It is surprising how any reminiscence of a different season of the year affects us. 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")
The warmth of the sun on our backs. See January 31, 1854 ("The wind is more southerly, and now the warmth of the sun prevails, and is felt on the back.”); July 21, 1853 ("The sun is now warm on my back, and when I turn round I have to shade my face with my hands . . .")
I hear faintly the cawing of a crow far, far away, echoing from some unseen wood-side.See November 11, 1853 ("I hear the cawing of crows toward the distant wood.”); February 12, 1855 ("as usual in this state of the air, the cawing of crows at a distance. “)
I am part of one great creature with him; if he has voice, I have ears. I can hear when he calls. See 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. “); May 12, 1857 ("As the bay-wing sang many a thousand years ago, so sang he to-night. . . . One with the rocks and with us.”); August 3, 1852 (“By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe, I am fitted to hear, ”)
The tender buds attract us at this season, no less than partridges, for they are the hope of the year, the spring rolled up. The summer is all packed in them. See January 31, 1854 ("In the winter, when there are no flowers and leaves are rare, even large buds are interesting and somewhat exciting. I go a-budding like a partridge. I am always attracted at this season by the buds of the swamp-pink, the poplars, and the sweet-gale."); January 10, 1856 ("We are reduced to admire buds, even like the partridges, and bark, like the rabbits and mice, —the great yellow and red forward-looking buds of the azalea, the plump red ones of the blueberry, and the fine sharp red ones of the panicled andromeda, sleeping along its stem, the speckled black alder, the rapid-growing dogwood, the pale-brown and cracked blueberry. Even a little shining bud which lies sleeping behind its twig and dreaming of spring, perhaps half concealed by ice, is object enough."); January 25, 1858 ("What a rich book might be made about buds, including, perhaps, sprouts! — the impregnable, vivacious willow catkins, but half asleep under the armor of their black scales, sleeping along the twigs; the birch and oak sprouts, and the rank and lusty dogwood sprouts; the round red buds of the blueberries; the small pointed red buds, close to the twig, of the panicled andromeda; the large yellowish buds of the swamp pink, etc.")
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality.”
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2022
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