The internal heat and life of the globe

January 23.

January 23, 2015

It is surprising how much work will be accomplished in such a night as the last, so many a brook will have run itself out and now be found reduced within reasonable bounds. This settling away of the water leaves much crackling white ice in the roads.

The river is higher than ever, especially the North River. I am obliged after crossing Hunt’s Bridge to keep on round to the railroad bridge at Loring’s before I can recross, it being over the road with a roar like a mill dam this side the further stone bridge, and I could not get over dry. 

I do not quite like to see so much bare ground in midwinter. 

The radical leaves of the shepherd’s-purse, seen in green circles on the water-washed plowed grounds, remind me of the internal heat and life of the globe, anon to burst forth anew.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 23, 1855

I do not quite like to see so much bare ground in midwinter. See January 23, 1858 ("The ground has been bare since the 11th. . . .The sun, and cockcrowing, bare ground, etc., etc., remind me of March.") ;January 23, 1859 ("The earth being generally bare ")