I go forth to see the sun set.

 

December 25.

Thursday.

Via spruce swamp on Conantum to hilltop, returning across river over shrub oak plain to Cliffs.

A wind is now blowing the light snow which fell a day or two ago into drifts, especially on the lee, now the south, side of the walls, the outlines of the drifts corresponding to the chinks in the walls and the eddies of the wind.

The snow glides, unperceived for the most part, over the open fields without rising into the air (unless the ground is elevated), until it reaches an opposite wall, which it sifts through and is blown over, blowing off from it like steam when seen in the sun.

As it passes through the chinks, it does not drive straight onward, but curves gracefully upwards into fantastic shapes, somewhat like the waves which curve as they break upon the shore; that is, as if the snow that passes through a chink were one connected body, detained by the friction of its lower side.

It takes the form of saddles and shells and porringers.

It builds up a fantastic alabaster wall  behind the first, a snowy sierra.

It is wonderful what sharp turrets it builds up, - builds up, i. e. by accumulation though seemingly by attrition, though the curves upward to a point like the prows of ancient vessels look like sharp carving, or as if the material had been held before the blowpipe.

So what was blown up into the air gradually sifts down into the road or field, and forms the slope of the sierra.

Astonishingly sharp and thin overhanging eaves it builds, even this dry snow, where it has the least suggestion from a wall or bank, — less than a mason ever springs his brick from.

This is the architecture of the snow.

On high hills exposed to wind and sun, it curls off like the steam from a damp roof in the morning.

Such sharply defined forms it takes as if the core had been the flames of gaslights.

I go forth to see the sun set.

Who knows how it will set, even half an hour beforehand? whether it will go down in clouds or a clear sky? 

I feel that it is late when the mountains in the north and northwest have ceased to reflect the sun. The shadow is not partial but universal.

In a winter day the sun is almost all in all.

I witness a beauty in the form or coloring of the clouds which addresses itself to my imagination, for which you account scientifically to my understanding, but do not so account to my imagination. It is what it suggests and is the symbol of that I care for, and if, by any trick of science, you rob it of its symbolicalness, you do me no service and explain nothing.

 I, standing twenty miles off, see a crimson cloud in the horizon.

 You tell me it is a mass of vapor which absorbs all other rays and reflects the red, but that is nothing to the purpose, for this red vision excites me, stirs my blood, makes my thoughts flow, and I have new and indescribable fancies, and you have not touched the secret of that influence.  If there is not something mystical in your explanation, something unexplainable to the understanding, some elements of mystery, it is quite insufficient.

 If there is nothing in it which speaks to my imagination, what boots it? 

What sort of science is that which enriches the understanding, but robs the imagination? not merely robs Peter to pay Paul, but takes from Peter more than it ever gives to Paul ? 

That is simply the way in which it speaks to the understanding, and that is the account which the understanding gives of it; but that is not the way it speaks to the imagination, and that is not the account which the imagination gives of it.

 Just as inadequate to a pure mechanic would be a poet's account of a steam-engine.

 If we knew all things thus mechanically merely, should we know anything really? 

It would be a truer discipline for the writer to take the least film of thought that floats in the twilight sky of his mind for his theme, about which he has scarcely one idea (that would be teaching his ideas how to shoot), faintest intimations, shadowiest subjects, make a lecture on this, by assiduity and attention get perchance two views of the same, increase a little the stock of knowledge, clear a new field instead of manuring the old; instead of making a lecture out of such obvious truths, hackneyed to the minds of all thinkers.

We seek too soon to ally the perceptions of the mind to the experience of the hand, to prove our gossamer truths practical, to show their connection with our every-day life (better show their distance from our every-day life), to relate them to the cider-mill and the banking institution.

Ah, give me pure mind, pure thought!

Let me not be in haste to detect the universal law; let me see more clearly a particular instance of it!

Much finer themes I aspire to, which will yield no satisfaction to the vulgar mind, not one sentence for them.

Perchance it may convince such that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in their philosophy.

Dissolve one nebula, and so destroy the nebular system and hypothesis.

Do not seek expressions, seek thoughts to be expressed.

By perseverance you get two views of the same rare truth.

That way of viewing things you know of, least insisted on by you, however, least remembered, — take that view, adhere to that, insist on that, see all things from that point of view.

Will you let these intimations go unattended to and watch the door-bell or knocker? That is your text.

Do not speak for other men; speak for yourself.

They show you as in a vision the kingdoms of the world, and of all the worlds, but you prefer to look in upon a puppet-show.

Though you should only speak to one kindred mind in all time, though you should not speak to one, but only utter aloud, that you may the more completely realize and live in the idea which contains the reason of your life, that you may build yourself up to the height of your conceptions, that you may remember your Creator in the days of your youth and justify His ways to man, that the end of life may not be its amusement, speak — though your thought presupposes the non-existence of your hearers — thoughts that transcend life and death.

What though mortal ears are not fitted to hear absolute truth!

Thoughts that blot out the earth are best conceived in the night, when darkness has already blotted it out from sight.

We look upward for inspiration.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 25, 1851

On high hills exposed to wind and sun, it curls off like the steam from a damp roof in the morning. See note to December 24, 1850 ("I notice that the fine, dry snow blown over the surface of the frozen fields looks like steam curling up, as from a wet roof when the sun comes out after a rain.") 

I go forth to see the sun set. See December 23, 1851 ("I see that there is to be a fine, clear sunset, and make myself a seat in the snow on the Cliff to witness it"); July 23, 1852 ("I sit at my window to observe the sun set"); June 5, 1854 ("I have come to this hill to see the sun go down.");; November 4, 1857 ("I climb Pine Hill just as the sun is setting,"); November 13, 1857 ("See the sun rise or set if possible each day."); December 23, 1859 ("I ascended Ball's Hill to see the sun set. How red its light at this hour! I covered its orb with my hand, and let its rays light up the fine woollen fibres of my glove. They were a dazzling rose-color.")

Let me not be in haste to detect the universal law; let me see more clearly a particular instance of it! See November 9, 1851 (“Observing me still scribbling, [Channing] will say that he confines himself to the ideal. . . he leaves the facts to me. Sometimes, too, he will say a little petulantly, "I am universal; I have nothing to do with the particular and definite.”")

What sort of science is that which enriches the understanding, but robs the imagination? See May 6, 1854 (“There is no such thing as pure objective observation. Your observation, to be interesting, i. e. to be significant, must be subjective. ”);November 5, 1857 ("I think that the man of science makes this mistake, and the mass of mankind along with him: that you should coolly give your chief attention to the phenomenon which excites you as something independent on you, and not as it is related to you.”): December 8, 1859 ("How is it that what is actually present and transpiring is commonly perceived by the common sense and understanding only, is bare and bald, without halo or the blue enamel of intervening air? . . . It is not simply the understanding now, but the imagination, that takes cognizance of it. The imagination requires a long range. It is the faculty of the poet to see present things as if, in this sense, also past and future, as if distant or universally significant. ")

We look upward for inspiration. See December 20, 1851 ("Go out before sunrise or stay out till sunset."); January 17, 1852 (“In proportion as I have celestial thoughts, is the necessity for me to be out and behold the western sky sunset these winter days.."); January 26, 1852 ("Would you see your mind, look at the sky.")