February 13.
2 p. m. — Down river. Thermometer 38°. Warm; a cloud just appearing in the west.
That hard meadow just below the boys' bathing- place below the North Bridge is another elfin burial- ground. It would be a bad place to walk in a dark night. The mounds are often in ridges, even as if turned up by the plow.
Water overflowing the ice at an opening in the river, and mixing with thin snow, saturating it, seen now on one side at right angles with the sun's direction, is as black as black cloth.
It is surprising what a variety of distinct colors the winter can show us, using but few pigments, so to call them. The principal charm of a winter walk over ice is perhaps the peculiar and pure colors exhibited.
There is the red of the sunset sky, and of the snow at evening, and in rainbow flocks during the day, and in sun-dogs.
The blue of the sky, and of the ice and water reflected, and of shadows on snow.
The yellow of the sun and the morning and evening sky, and of the sedge (or straw-color, bright when lit on edge of ice at evening), and all three in hoar frost crystals.
Then, for the secondary, there is the purple of the snow in drifts or on hills, of the mountains, and clouds at evening.
The green of evergreen woods, of the sky, and of the ice and water toward evening.
The orange of the sky at evening.
The white of snow and clouds, and the black of clouds, of water agitated, and water saturating thin snow on ice.
The russet and brown and gray, etc., of deciduous woods.
The tawny of the bare earth.
I suspect that the green and rose (or purple) are not noticed on ice and snow unless it is pretty cold, and perhaps there is less greenness of the ice now than in December, when the days were shorter.
The ice may now be too old and white.
Those horn, knob, and rake icicles on the southeast sides of all open places — or that were open on the 10th near enough to the bushes — are suddenly softening and turning white on one side today, so that they remind me of the alabaster (?) or plaster images on an Italian's board.
All along the ice belt or shelf — for the river has fallen more than a foot — countless white figures stand crowded, their minute cores of sedge or twigs being concealed. Some are like beaks of birds, — cranes or herons. Having seen this phenomenon in one place, I know with certainty in just how many places and where, throughout the town, — four or five, — I shall find these icicles, on the southeast sides of the larger open places which approached near enough to a bushy or reedy shore.
The grass comes very nearly being completely en crusted in some places, but commonly rounded knobs stand up.
The ground being bare, I pick up two or three arrow heads in Tarbell's field near Ball's Hill. There is nothing more affecting and beautiful to man, a child of the earth, than the sight of the naked soil in the spring. I feel a kindredship with it.
The sun being in a cloud, partly obscured, I see a very dark purple tinge on the flat drifts on the ice earlier than usual, and when afterward the sun comes out below the cloud, I see no purple nor rose. Hence it seems that the twilight has as much or more to do with this phenomenon, supposing the sun to be low, than the slight angle of its rays with the horizon.
Always you have to contend with the stupidity of men. It is like a stiff soil, a hard-pan. If you go deeper than usual, you are sure to meet with a pan made harder even by the superficial cultivation. The stupid you have always with you. Men are more obedient at first to words than ideas. They mind names more than things. Read to them a lecture on "Education," naming that subject, and they will think that they have heard some thing important, but call it "Transcendentalism," and they will think it moonshine.
Or halve your lecture, and put a psalm at the beginning and a prayer at the end of it and read it from a pulpit, and they will pronounce it good without thinking.
The Scripture rule, "Unto him that hath shall be given," is true of composition. The more you have thought and written on a given theme, the more you can still write. Thought breeds thought. It grows under your hands.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 13, 1860
Thought breeds thought. See January 22, 1852 ("Thought begat thought.")
Sun-dogs. See February 2, 1860 ("I noticed a distinct fragment of rainbow, about as long as wide, on each side of the sun.")
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