They must have the essence or oil of himself, tried out of the fat of his experience and joy.

December 23. 

December 23, 2016

Some savage tribes must share the experience of the lower animals in their relation to man. With what thoughts must the Esquimau manufacture his knife from the rusty hoop of a cask drifted to his shores, not a natural but an artificial product, the work of man's hands, the waste of the commerce of a superior race, whom perchance he never saw! 

The cracking of the ground is a phenomenon of the coldest nights. After being awaked by the loud cracks the night of the 18th at Amherst (a man told me in the morning that he had seen a crack running across the plain (I saw it), almost broad enough to put his hand into; this was an exaggeration; it was not a quarter of an inch wide), I saw a great many the same forenoon running across the road in Nashua, every few rods, and also by our house in Concord the same day when I got home. So it seems the ground was cracking all the country over, partly, no doubt, because there was so little snow, or none (none at Concord). 

If the writer would interest readers, he must report so much life, using a certain satisfaction always as a point d'appui. However mean and limited, it must be a genuine and contented life that he speaks out of. They must have the essence or oil of himself, tried out of the fat of his experience and joy.

1 P. M. — Surveying for Cyrus Jarvis. 

Snows more or less all day, making an inch or two.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 23, 1856

The cracking of the ground . . . at Amherst. . . . See December 19, 1856 ("[I]n Amherst, I had been awaked by the loud cracking of the 'ground, which shook the house like the explosion of a powder-mill. . . . This is a sound peculiar to the coldest nights.")

The writer . . . must report so much life, . . . experience and joy .See October 18, 1856 ("All that interests the reader is the depth and intensity of the life excited."); May 6, 1854 ("Every important worker will report what life there is in him. All that a man has to say or do that can possibly concern mankind, is in some shape or other to tell the story of his love, — to sing; and, if he is fortunate and keeps alive, he will be forever in love."); July 13, 1852 (A journal, a book that shall contain a record of all your joy, your ecstasy.); September 2, 1851 ("We cannot write well or truly but what we write with gusto. . . . Expression is the act of the whole man. . . A writer, a man writing, is the scribe of all nature; he is the corn and the grass and the atmosphere writing. It is always essential that we love to do what we are doing, do it with a heart.")