At Tommy Wheeler's,
great pitch pine timbers tell of
the primitive forest here.
December 28, 1851
White pines look greener --
a drop on every needle
in this gentle rain.Partially concealed
by mist in the air they seem
of a piece with it.
One moment of life
costs hours of preparation
and invitation.
To appreciate
a single phenomenon
requires a lifetime.
That which requires the
finest discipline is the
highest aim in life.
December 28, 1852
We live too fast just
as we eat too fast and do
not savor our food.
the hours of the universe --
those divine moments
In which your life is
coincident with the life
of the universe.
December 28, 1852
One moment of life
costs many hours of preparation and invitation.
moments
of divine leisure
in which your life is
coincident with the life
of the universe?
December 28, 1852
.
The days seem lengthenedsince the snow due to increased
light after sundown.
The fishermen sit,
still catching what they went for
if not many fish.
December 28, 1856
Looking at the shores
I have not paddled about
the pond of late years.
December 28,1858
in life the highest
aim requires the highest and
finest discipline.
One moment of life
costs hours of preparation
and invitation.
to appreciate
a single phenomenon
requires a lifetime
you must give yourself
wholly to it each moment
of divine leisure
in which your life is
coincident with the life
of the universe
December 28, 1852
December 28. 2019
Perhaps the coldest night. The pump is slightly frozen. December 28, 1853
In the morning the windows are like ground glass (covered with frost), and we cannot see out. December 28, 1859
Sleds creak or squeak along the dry and hard snow-path. December 28, 1859
Crows come near the houses. These are among the signs of cold weather. December 28, 1859
All day a drizzling rain, ever and anon holding up with driving mists. December 28, 1851
The white pines look greener than usual in this gentle rain, and every needle has a drop at the end of it. December 28, 1851
There is a mist in the air which partially conceals them, and they seem of a piece with it. December 28, 1851
Sleds creak or squeak along the dry and hard snow-path. December 28, 1859
Crows come near the houses. These are among the signs of cold weather. December 28, 1859
All day a drizzling rain, ever and anon holding up with driving mists. December 28, 1851
The white pines look greener than usual in this gentle rain, and every needle has a drop at the end of it. December 28, 1851
There is a mist in the air which partially conceals them, and they seem of a piece with it. December 28, 1851
The snow rapidly dissolving; in all hollows a pond forming; unfathomable water beneath the snow. December 28, 1851
A January thaw. December 28, 1851
A January thaw. December 28, 1851
Grass in the churchyard and elsewhere green as in the spring. December 28, 1852
Brought my boat from Walden in rain. December 28, 1852
No snow on ground. December 28, 1852
No snow on ground. December 28, 1852
The earth is bare. December 28, 1858
I hear and see tree sparrows about the weeds in the garden. December 28, 1853
They seem to visit the gardens with the earliest snow; or is it that they are more obvious against the white ground? December 28, 1853
By their sharp silvery chip, perchance, they inform each other of their whereabouts and keep together. December 28, 1853
They seem to visit the gardens with the earliest snow; or is it that they are more obvious against the white ground? December 28, 1853
By their sharp silvery chip, perchance, they inform each other of their whereabouts and keep together. December 28, 1853
Am surprised to see the F. hyemalis here. December 28, 1856
I notice a few chickadees there in the edge of the pines, in the sun, lisping and twittering cheerfully to one another, with a reference to me, I think, — the cunning and innocent little birds. December 28, 1858
One a little further off utters the phoebe note. December 28, 1858
One a little further off utters the phoebe note. December 28, 1858
That rocky shore under the pitch pines which so reflects the light, is only three feet wide by one foot high; yet there even to-day the ice is melted close to the edge, and just off this shore the pickerel are most abundant. December 28, 1858
This is the warm and sunny side to which any one — man, bird, or quadruped — would soonest resort in cool weather. December 28, 1858
There is a foot more or less of clear open water at the edge here, and, seeing this, one of these birds hops down as if glad to find any open water at this season, and, after drinking, it stands in the water on a stone up to its belly and dips its head and flirts the water about vigorously, giving itself a good washing. December 28, 1858
I had not suspected this at this season. December 28, 1858
No fear that it will catch cold. December 28, 1858
This is the warm and sunny side to which any one — man, bird, or quadruped — would soonest resort in cool weather. December 28, 1858
There is a foot more or less of clear open water at the edge here, and, seeing this, one of these birds hops down as if glad to find any open water at this season, and, after drinking, it stands in the water on a stone up to its belly and dips its head and flirts the water about vigorously, giving itself a good washing. December 28, 1858
I had not suspected this at this season. December 28, 1858
No fear that it will catch cold. December 28, 1858
I walk about the pond looking at the shores, since I have not paddled about it much of late years. December 28, 1858
What a grand place for a promenade! December 28, 1858
Methinks it has not been so low for ten years, and many alders, etc., are left dead on its brink. December 28, 1858
The high blueberry appears to bear this position, alternate wet and dry, as well as any shrub or tree. December 28, 1858
I see winterberries still abundant in one place. December 28, 1858
What a grand place for a promenade! December 28, 1858
Methinks it has not been so low for ten years, and many alders, etc., are left dead on its brink. December 28, 1858
The high blueberry appears to bear this position, alternate wet and dry, as well as any shrub or tree. December 28, 1858
I see winterberries still abundant in one place. December 28, 1858
As I have not observed the rainbow on the Juncus militaris nor the andromeda red the past fall, it suggests the great difference in seasons. December 28, 1852
I observe that some shrub oak leaves have but little silveriness beneath, as if they were a variety, the color of the under approaching that of the upper surface somewhat. December 28, 1856
I observe that some shrub oak leaves have but little silveriness beneath, as if they were a variety, the color of the under approaching that of the upper surface somewhat. December 28, 1856
Walden completely frozen over again last night. December 28, 1856
Ice about four inches thick, occasionally sunk by the snow beneath the water. December 28, 1856
The ice cracks suddenly with a shivering jar like crockery or the brittlest material, such as it is. December 28, 1858
And I notice, as I sit here at this open edge, that each time the ice cracks, though it may be a good distance off toward the middle, the water here is very much agitated. December 28, 1858
The ice is about six inches thick. December 28, 1858
Ice about four inches thick, occasionally sunk by the snow beneath the water. December 28, 1856
The ice cracks suddenly with a shivering jar like crockery or the brittlest material, such as it is. December 28, 1858
And I notice, as I sit here at this open edge, that each time the ice cracks, though it may be a good distance off toward the middle, the water here is very much agitated. December 28, 1858
The ice is about six inches thick. December 28, 1858
Goodwin & Co. are fishing there to-day. December 28, 1856
There lies a pickerel or perch on the ice, waving a fin or lifting its gills from time to time, gasping its life away. December 28, 1856
They have had but poor luck. One middling-sized pickerel and one large yellow perch only, since 9 or 10 a. m. It is now nearly sundown. December 28, 1856
The perch is very full of spawn. December 28, 1856
How handsome, with its broad dark transverse bars, sharp narrow triangles, broadest on the back! December 28, 1856
They have had but poor luck. One middling-sized pickerel and one large yellow perch only, since 9 or 10 a. m. It is now nearly sundown. December 28, 1856
The perch is very full of spawn. December 28, 1856
How handsome, with its broad dark transverse bars, sharp narrow triangles, broadest on the back! December 28, 1856
The men are standing or sitting about a smoky fire of damp dead wood, near by the spot where many a fisherman has sat before, and I draw near, hoping to hear a fish story. December 28, 1856
The fishermen sit by their damp fire of rotten pine wood, so wet and chilly that even smoke in their eyes is a kind of comfort. December 28, 1856
There they sit, ever and anon scanning their reels to see if any have fallen, and, if not catching many fish, still getting what they went for, though they may not be aware of it, i. e. a wilder experience than the town affords. December 28, 1856
The fishermen sit by their damp fire of rotten pine wood, so wet and chilly that even smoke in their eyes is a kind of comfort. December 28, 1856
There they sit, ever and anon scanning their reels to see if any have fallen, and, if not catching many fish, still getting what they went for, though they may not be aware of it, i. e. a wilder experience than the town affords. December 28, 1856
Some one has cut a hole in the ice at Jenny's Brook, and set a steel trap under water, and suspended a large piece of meat over it, for a bait for a mink, apparently. December 28, 1851
The rosettes in the ice, as Channing calls them, now and for some time have attracted me. December 28, 1852
The rosettes in the ice, as Channing calls them, now and for some time have attracted me. December 28, 1852
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. December 28, 1853
It being very smooth and the light differently reflected from the different surfaces, this arrangement was very obvious. December 28, 1853
To-day and yesterday the boys have been skating on the crust in the streets, —it is so hard, the snow being very shallow. December 28, 1855
The birches were most bent— and are still—in hollows on the north sides of hills. December 28, 1855
A clump of birches raying out from one centre make a more agreeable object than a single tree. December 28, 1852
Considerable ice still clings to the rails and trees and especially weeds, though much attenuated. December 28, 1855
What do the birds do when the seeds and bark are thus encased in ice? December 28, 1855
See some rabbit’s fur on the crust December 28, 1855
What do the birds do when the seeds and bark are thus encased in ice? December 28, 1855
See some rabbit’s fur on the crust December 28, 1855
Cross the river on the ice in front of Puffer’s. December 28, 1855
The open places in the river yesterday between Lee's Bridge and Carlisle Bridge were [eight]. December 28, 1859
In one place where the river was open yesterday, the water tossed into waves, looked exceedingly dark and angry. December 28, 1853
In one place where the river was open yesterday, the water tossed into waves, looked exceedingly dark and angry. December 28, 1853
When you come to where the river is winding, there is shallower and swifter water — and open places as yet. December 28, 1859
And all places not more than five and a quarter feet deep were open December 28, 1859
And all places not more than five and a quarter feet deep were open December 28, 1859
The places where the river was certainly (i. e. except 4th) open yesterday were all only five feet or less in depth, according to my map, and all except 8th at bends or else below the mouth of a brook. December 28, 1859
There was no opening between the Holt shoal and Carlisle Bridge, for there was none on the 25th. December 28, 1859
There was no opening between the Holt shoal and Carlisle Bridge, for there was none on the 25th. December 28, 1859
The most solidly frozen portions are the broad and straight reaches. December 28, 1859
All broad bays are frozen hard. December 28, 1859
It is remarkable that the river should so suddenly contract at Pelham Pond. It begins to be Musketaquid there. December 28, 1859
All broad bays are frozen hard. December 28, 1859
It is remarkable that the river should so suddenly contract at Pelham Pond. It begins to be Musketaquid there. December 28, 1859
It is worth the while to apply what wisdom one has to the conduct of his life, surely. December 28, 1852
I find myself oftenest wise in little things and foolish in great ones. December 28, 1852
That I may accomplish some particular petty affair well, I live my whole life coarsely. December 28, 1852
A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book. December 28, 1852
Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. December 28, 1852
Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars. December 28, 1852
What are threescore years and ten hurriedly and coarsely lived to moments of divine leisure in which your life is coincident with the life of the universe? December 28, 1852
We live too fast and coarsely, just as we eat too fast, and do not know the true savor of our food. December 28, 1852
We consult our will and understanding and the expectation of men, not our genius. December 28, 1852
I can impose upon myself tasks which will crush me for life and prevent all expansion, and this I am but too inclined to do. December 28, 1852
One moment of life costs many hours, hours not of business but of preparation and invitation. December 28, 1852
How much, what infinite, leisure it requires, as of a lifetime, to appreciate a single phenomenon! You must camp down beside it as for life, having reached your land of promise, and give yourself wholly to it. It must stand for the whole world to you, symbolical of all things . . . Unless the humming of a gnat is as the music of the spheres, and the music of the spheres is as the humming of a gnat, they are naught to me. December 28, 1852
The least partialness is your own defect of sight and cheapens the experience fatally. December 28, 1852
Both for bodily and mental health, court the present. December 28, 1852
That aim in life is highest which requires the highest and finest discipline. December 28, 1852
Embrace health wherever you find her. December 28, 1852
I thrive best on solitude. December 28, 1856
If I have had a companion only one day in a week, unless it were one or two I could name, I find that the value of the week to me has been seriously affected. December 28, 1856
It dissipates my days, and often it takes me another week to get over it. December 28, 1856
I thrive best on solitude. December 28, 1856
If I have had a companion only one day in a week, unless it were one or two I could name, I find that the value of the week to me has been seriously affected. December 28, 1856
It dissipates my days, and often it takes me another week to get over it. December 28, 1856
Since the snow of the 23d, the days seem considerably lengthened, owing to the increased light after sundown. December 28, 1856
January 28. 1853 ("These two or three have been the coldest days of the winter, and the river is generally closed. . .and the sun-sparkles where the river is open are very cheerful to behold.");
January 31, 1855 ("I skated up as far as the boundary between Wayland and Sudbury just above Pelham’s Pond, about twelve miles, . . . It was, all the way that I skated, a chain of meadows, with the muskrat-houses still rising above the ice.")
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,The Chickadee in Winter
Walden ("The cracking and booming of the ice indicate a change of temperature. . . .The pond does not thunder every evening, and I cannot tell surely when to expect its thundering; but though I may perceive no difference in the weather, it does. . . . Yet it has its law to which it thunders obedience when it should . . . The largest pond is as sensitive to atmospheric changes as the globule of mercury in its tube.”)
Walden: Where I lived and what I lived for ("God Himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages.")
*****
April 24, 1859 ("Find your eternity in each moment. Live in the present. On any other course life is a succession of regrets")
May 28, 1854 ("To be serene and successful we must be at one with the universe.")
June 22, 1851("My pulse must beat with Nature")
June 26, 1853 ("Fishing is often the young man's introduction to the forest and wild. As a hunter and fisher he goes thither until at last the naturalist or poet distinguishes that which attracted him first, and he leaves the gun and rod behind. The mass of men are still and always young men in this respect. They do not think they are lucky unless they get a long string of fish, though they have the opportunity of seeing the pond all the while. Many of my fellow-citizens might go fishing a thousand times, perchance, before the sediment of fishing would sink to the bottom and leave their purpose pure, -- before they began to angle for the pond itself.")
August 2, 1854 ("I must cultivate privacy. It is very dissipating to be with people too much.")
August 19, 1851("Nature rests no longer at her culminating point than at any other. If you are not out at the right instant, the summer may go by and you not see it.”)
September 7, 1851 ("The art of life")
October 4, 1858 ("A man runs down, fails, loses self-respect, and goes a-fishing, though he were never seen on the river before. . . There he stands at length, per chance better employed than ever, holding communion with nature and himself and coming to understand his real position and relation to men in this world. ")
October 27, 1858 ("The bayonet rush also has partly changed, and now, the river being perhaps lower than before this season, shows its rainbow colors. . . .Though a single stalk would not attract attention, when seen in the mass they have this singular effect. I call it, therefore, the rainbow rush.")
November 9, 1850 (“The chickadees, if I stand long enough, hop nearer and nearer inquisitively, from pine bough to pine bough, till within four or five feet, occasionally lisping a note”) November 29, 1850 ("The pines standing in the ocean of mist, seen from the Cliffs, are trees in every stage of transition from the actual to the imaginary. As you advance, the trees gradually come out of the mist and take form before your eyes.")
December 1, 1853 (“They are our most honest and innocent little bird, drawing yet nearer to us as the winter advances, and deserve best of any of the walker.”)
December 3, 1856 (“And they will flit after and close to you, and naively peck at the nearest twig to you, as if they were minding their own business all the while without any reference to you. ”)
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.")
December 5, 1852 ("This great rise of [Walden] pond after an interval of many years, and the water standing at this great height for a year or more, kills the shrubs and trees about its edge, — pitch pines, birches, alders, aspens, etc., — and, falling again, leaves an unobstructed shore")
December 12, 1851 ("I wish for leisure and quiet to let my life flow in its proper channels, with its proper currents; when I might not waste the days.")
December 15, 1852 ("A man should not live without a purpose")
December 17, 1850 ("I noticed when the snow first came that the days were very sensibly lengthened by the light being reflected from the snow. Any work which required light could be pursued about half an hour longer.")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 19, 1856 ("Walden froze completely over last night")
December 19, 1854 ("Last night was so cold that the river closed up almost everywhere, and made good skating where there had been no ice to catch the snow of the night before")
December 20, 1855 (A few chickadees busily inspecting the buds at the willow-row ivy tree, for insects, with a short, clear chink from time to time, as if to warn me of their neighborhood."")
December 21, 1856 ("The pond is open again in the middle, owing to the rain of yesterday.")
December 21, 1854 ("What C. calls ice-rosettes, i.e. those small pinches of crystallized snow, . . .I think it is a sort of hoar frost on the ice. It was all done last night, for we see them thickly clustered about our skate-tracks on the river, where it was quite bare yesterday")
December 24, 1856 ("Am surprised to find Walden still open in the middle.")
December 25, 1858 (“I stayed later to hear the pond crack, but it did not much. ”)
December 25, 1858 (“[T]he rocky shore under the pitch pines at the northeast end.. . . reflects so much light that the rocks are singularly distinct, as if the pond showed its teeth.”)
December 26, 1853 ("Their metallic chip is much like the lisp of the chickadee. ")
December 27, 1856 ("Walden is still open in one place of considerable extent, just off the east cape of long southern bay.").
December 27, 1852 ("Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. Paddled across it. I took my new boat out.”)
December 27, 1853 (“The crows come nearer to the houses, alight on trees by the roadside, apparently being put to it for food.”)
December 31, 1851 ("The round greenish-yellow lichens on the white pines loom through the mist. . . . Your eyes run swiftly through the mist to these things only. They eclipse the trees they cover.")
January 1, 1856 ("Here are two fishermen, and one has preceded them. They have not had a bite, and know not why. It has been a clear winter day.")
January 7, 1851(“I must live above all in the present.”);
January 7, 1856 ("The cold weather has brought the crows, and for the first time this winter I hear them cawing amid the houses")
January 7, 1856 ("It is completely frozen at the Hubbard’s Bath bend now, — a small strip of dark ice, thickly sprinkled with those rosettes of crystals, two or three inches in diameter");
January 9, 1860 ("I am interested by a clump of young canoe birches on the hillside shore of the pond")
January 11, 1852 ("We cannot live too leisurely. Let me not live as if time was short. Catch the pace of the seasons; have leisure to attend to every phenomenon of nature, and to entertain every thought that comes.")
January 19, 1856 (“The only open place in the river between Hunt’s Bridge and the railroad bridge is a small space against Merrick’s pasture just below the Rock”)
January 20, 1856 ("It is remarkable that the short strip in the middle below the Island yesterday should be the only open place between Hunt’s Bridge and Hubbard’s, at least, -—-probably as far as Lee’s. The river has been frozen solidly ever since the 7th,").
January 23, 1852 ("The snow is so deep and the cold so intense that the crows are compelled to be very bold in seeking their food, and come very near the houses in the village")
January 23, 1858 (“Walden, I think, begins to crack and boom first on the south side,. . . like the cracking of crockery. It suggests the very brittlest material, as if the globe you stood on were a hollow sphere of glass and might fall to pieces on the slightest touch. . . . as if the ice were no thicker than a tumbler, though it is probably nine or ten inches. ”)
January 24, 1856(“You may walk anywhere on the river now. Even the open space against Merrick’s, below the Rock, has been closed again ”)
January 20, 1857 ("The river has been frozen everywhere except at the very few swiftest places since about December 18th, and everywhere since about January 1st.")
January 23, 1858 ("I have not been able to walk up the North Branch this winter, nor along the channel of the South Branch at any time.")
January 23, 1852 ("The snow is so deep and the cold so intense that the crows are compelled to be very bold in seeking their food, and come very near the houses in the village.”)
January 24, 1858 ("The river is broadly open, as usual this winter. . . . What is a winter without snow and ice in this latitude? ")
January 26, 1852 ("Let us preserve, secure, protect the coincidence of our life with the life of nature.");
January 31, 1855 ("I skated up as far as the boundary between Wayland and Sudbury just above Pelham’s Pond, about twelve miles, . . . It was, all the way that I skated, a chain of meadows, with the muskrat-houses still rising above the ice.")
February 13, 1859 ("Ice which froze yesterday and last night is thickly and evenly strewn with fibrous frost crystals . . . sometimes arranged like a star or rosette, one for every inch or two; . . . I think that this is the vapor from the water which found its way up through the ice and froze in the night").
February 27, 1856 ("The river has been frozen solidly for seven weeks")
March 20, 1856 ("The river has just begun to open at Hubbard’s Bend. It has been closed there since January 7th, i. e. ten weeks and a half.")
March 26, 1860 ("Tried by various tests, this season fluctuates more or less.. . .The river may be either only transiently closed, as in '52-'53 and '57-'58, or it may not be open entirely (up to pond) till April 4th.")
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.”)
December 28, 2022
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 © 2009-2020
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