A library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself.

October 28

Rain in the night and this morning, preparing for winter.

We noticed in a great many places the narrow paths by which the moose came down to the river, and sometimes, where the bank was steep and somewhat clayey, they had slid down it.  The holes made by their feet in the soft bottom in shallow water are visible for a long time.

Joe told me that, though they shed their horns annually, each new pair has an additional prong. They are sometimes used as an ornament in front entries, for a hat-tree (to hang hats on).

Cedar bark appeared to be their commonest string.

These first beginnings of commerce on a lake in the wilderness are very interesting, — these larger white birds that come to keep company with the gulls, - if they only carry a few cords of wood across the lake. 

***

April 28, 1855 ("A a bird of many colors")

Just saw in the garden, in the drizzling rain, little sparrow-sized birds flitting about amid the dry corn stalks and the weeds, — one, quite slaty with black streaks and a bright-yellow crown and rump, which I think is the yellow-crowned warbler, but most of the others much more brown, with yellowish breasts and no yellow on crown to be observed, which I think the young of the same.

One flew up fifteen feet and caught an insect. They uttered a faint chip. Some of the rest were sparrows. I did not get good sight of the last. I suspect the former may be my tull-lulls of the Moosehead Carry. [No they were.] 

For a year or two past, my publisher, falsely so called, has been writing from time to time to ask what disposition should be made of the copies of "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" still on hand, and at last suggesting that he had use for the room they occupied in his cellar.

So I had them all sent to me here, and they have arrived to-day by express, filling the man's wagon, — 706 copies out of an edition of 1000 which I bought of Munroe four years ago and have been ever since paying for, and have not quite paid for yet. The wares are sent to me at last, and I have an opportunity to examine my purchase. 

They are something more substantial than fame, as my back knows, which has borne them up two flights of stairs to a place similar to that to which they trace their origin.

Of the remaining two hundred and ninety and odd, seventy-five were given away, the rest sold.

I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over seven hundred of which I wrote myself. Is it not well that the author should behold the fruits of his labor? My works are piled up on one side of my chamber half as high as my head, my opera omnia.

This is authorship; these are the work of my brain.

There was just one piece of good luck in the venture. The unbound were tied up by the printer four years ago in stout paper wrappers, and inscribed, —

H. D. Thoreau's 

Concord River 

50 cops. 

So Munroe had only to cross out 'River’ and write 'Mass.' and deliver them to the expressman at once.

I can see now what I write for, the result of my labors.

Nevertheless, in spite of this result, sitting beside the inert mass of my works, I take up my pen to-night to record what thought or experience I may have had, with as much satisfaction as ever.

Indeed, I believe that this result is more inspiring and better for me than if a thousand had bought my wares. It affects my privacy less and leaves me freer. 


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 28, 1853 

The yellow-crowned warbler, . . .my tull-lulls of the Moosehead Carry. [Probably the yellow-rumped warbler.]  See  April 28, 1855 ("The myrtle-birds flit before us in great numbers, yet quite tame, uttering commonly only a chip, but some times a short trill or che che, che che, che che. Do I hear the tull-lull in the afternoon? It is a bird of many colors, — slate, yellow, black, and white, — singularly spotted."); October 3, 1859 ("I see on a wall a myrtle-bird in its October dress, looking very much like a small sparrow."); October 10, 1859 ("White-throated sparrows in yard and close up to house, together with myrtle-birds (which fly up against side of house and alight on window-sills)");  October 14, 1855 ("Some sparrow-like birds with yellow on rump flitting about our wood-pile. One flies up against the house and alights on the window-sill within a foot of me inside. Black bill and feet, yellow rump, brown above, yellowish-brown on head, cream-colored chin, two white bars on wings, tail black, edged with white, — the yellow-rump warbler or myrtle-bird without doubt. "); October 15, 1859 ("I think I see myrtle-birds on white birches, and that they are the birds I saw on them a week or two ago, — apparently, or probably, after the birch lice."); October 19, 1856 ("See quite a flock of myrtle-birds, — which I might carelessly have mistaken for slate-colored snowbirds, — flitting about on the rocky hillside under Conantum Cliff. They show about three white or light-colored spots when they fly, commonly no bright yellow, though some are pretty bright."); October 21, 1857 ("I see many myrtle-birds now about the house this forenoon, on the advent of cooler weather. They keep flying up against the house and the window and fluttering there, as if they would come in, or alight on the wood-pile or pump. They would commonly be mistaken for sparrows, but show more white when they fly, beside the yellow on the rump and sides of breast seen near to and two white bars on the wings."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The Myrtle-bird; A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, Birds in the Rain