If he looks into the water, he gets no comfort there, for that is cold and empty, expecting ice.

November 14. 

It is very cold and windy; thermometer 26. I walk to Walden and Andromeda Ponds. 

It is all at once perfect winter. I walk on frozen ground two thirds covered with a sugaring of dry snow, and this strong and cutting northwest wind makes the oak leaves rustle dryly enough to set your heart on edge. A great many have fallen, even since the snow last evening. 

Take a citizen out into an oak sprout-land when there is a sugaring of dry snow and a cold, cutting northwest wind rustles the leaves. A sympathetic shiver will seize him. He will know of no fire to warm his wits by. He has no pleasing pursuit to follow through these difficulties, no traps to inspect, no chopping to do. Every resounding step on the frozen earth is a vain knocking at the door of what was lately genial Nature, his bountiful mother, now turned a stepmother. He is left outside to starve. The rustling leaves sound like the fierce breathing of wolves, — an endless pack, half famished, from the north, impelled by hunger to seize him. 

Of birds only the chickadees seem really at home. Where they are is a hearth and a bright fire constantly burning. The tree sparrows must be very lively to keep warm. The rest keep close to-day. 

You will see where a mouse (or mole?) has run under the thinnest snow, like this. Such humble paths they prefer, perhaps to escape nocturnal foes. 

Now I begin to notice the silver downy twigs of the sweet-fern in the sun (lately bare), the red or crimson twigs and buds of the high blueberry. The different colors of the water andromeda in different lights.

If he looks into the water, he gets no comfort there, for that is cold and empty, expecting ice. 

Now, while the frosty air begins to nip your fingers and your nose, the frozen ground rapidly wears away the soles of your shoes, as sandpaper might; the old she wolf is nibbling at your very extremities. The frozen ground eating away the soles of your shoes is only typical of the vulture that gnaws your heart this month. 

Now all that moves migrates, or has migrated. Ducks are gone by. The citizen has sought the town. 

Probably the witch-hazel and many other flowers lingered till the 11th, when it was colder. The last leaves and flowers (?) may be said to fall about the middle of November.

Snow and cold drive the doves to your door, and so your thoughts make new alliances.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 14, 1858

It is all at once perfect winter. I walk on frozen ground two thirds covered with a sugaring of dry snow. See November 14, 1857 ("I feel the crunching sound of frost-crystals in the heaving mud under my feet,. . .Such is the first freezing day.")

This strong and cutting northwest wind makes the oak leaves rustle dryly enough to set your heart on edge. See November 27, 1853 ("Now a man will eat his heart, if ever, now while the earth is bare, barren and cheerless, and we have the coldness of winter without the variety of ice and snow"); November 25, 1857 (“November Eatheart, — is that the name of it? ")

Now I begin to notice the silver downy twigs of the sweet-fern in the sun (lately bare). See November 17, 1858 ("Ascending a little knoll covered with sweet-fern, shortly after, the sun appearing but a point above the sweet-fern, its light was reflected from a dense mass of the bare downy twigs of this plant in a surprising manner"); December 7, 1857 ("I would rather sit at this table with the sweet-fern twigs between me and the sun than at the king’s."); January 14, 1860 ("Those little groves of sweet-fern still thickly leaved, whose tops now rise above the snow, are an interesting warm brown-red now, like the reddest oak leaves.")

If he looks into the water, he gets no comfort there, for that is cold and empty, expecting ice. See November 11, 1858 ("The waters look cold and empty of fish and most other inhabitants now. Here, in the sun in the shelter of the wood, the smooth shallow water, with the stubble standing in it, is waiting for ice. Indeed, ice that formed last night must have recently melted in it. The sight of such water now reminds me of ice as much as of winter quarters.”)

Probably the witch-hazel and many other flowers lingered till the 11th. See November 15, 1853 ("Take up a witch-hazel with still some fresh blossoms. "); November 24, 1859 ("At Spanish Brook Path, the witch-hazel (one flower) lingers")