A Book of the Seasons: December 25 (winter weather, golden-crested wren, voice of the barred owl, ice booming, winter sky)

 

The year is but a succession of days,

and I see that I could assign some office to each day

which, summed up, would be the history of the year.

Henry Thoreau, August 24, 1852

December 25.

Snow from the northeast

driving horizontally

fast whitens the ground.

December 25, 1855

Now after sunset

the light of the western sky –

the outlines of pines.

December 25, 1858

I hear an owl hoot.

How glad I am to hear him

in this serene hour.

December 25, 1858

December 25, 2018

December 25, 2019

A wind is now blowing the light snow which fell a day or two ago into drifts. December 25, 1851

Snow driving almost horizontally from the northeast and fast whitening the ground, and with it the first tree sparrows I have noticed in the yard. December 25, 1855

A strong wind from the northwest is gathering the snow into picturesque drifts behind the walls. December 25, 1856

Up river on ice to Fair Haven Pond and across to Walden. The ground is still for the most part bare. Such a December is at least as hard a month to get through as November. You come near eating your heart now. December 25, 1858

Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary. December 25, 1856

Walden at length skimmed over last night, i. e. the two holes that remained open. One was very near the middle and deepest part, the other between that and the railroad. December 25, 1858

The rocky shore under the pitch pines at the northeast end.. . . reflects so much light that the rocks are singularly distinct, as if the pond showed its teeth. December 25, 1858

I hear a sharp fine screep from some bird . . . The screep is a note of recognition meant for me. December 25, 1859

The bird is so very active that I can not get a steady view of it. Yet II can see a brilliant crown . . .the golden-crested wren, which I have not made out before. December 25, 1859

This little creature is contentedly seeking its food here alone this cold winter day on the shore of our frozen river. December 25, 1859

I notice that a fox has taken pretty much my own course along the Andromeda Ponds. December 25, 1858
.
The sun getting low now, say at 3.30, I see the ice green, southeast. December 25, 1858

About 4 p. m. the sun sunk behind a cloud, and the pond began to boom or whoop. I noticed the same yesterday at the same hour at Flint's. It is a very pleasing phenomenon, so dependent on the altitude of the sun. December 25, 1853

I go forth to see the sun set. Who knows how it will set, even half an hour beforehand ? December 25, 1851

How full of soft, pure light the western sky now, after sunset! I love to see the outlines of the pines against it. . . . In a pensive mood I enjoy the complexion of the winter sky at this hour. December 25, 1858

I standing twenty 

miles off see a crimson cloud 

in the horizon. 

December 25, 1851

In that serene hour I hear an owl hoot. How glad I am to hear him rather than the most eloquent man of the age! December 25, 1858


I stayed later to hear the pond crack, but it did not much. December 25, 1858

*****

Walden ("The cracking and booming of the ice indicate a change of temperature. . . .The pond does not thunder every evening, and I cannot tell surely when to expect its thundering; but though I may perceive no difference in the weather, it does. . . . Yet it has its law to which it thunders obedience when it should . . . The largest pond is as sensitive to atmospheric changes as the globule of mercury in its tube.”)

March 14, 1855 ("Winter back again in prospect, and I see a few sparrows, probably tree sparrows, in the yard")

April 19 1852 ("To see wild life you must go forth at a wild season. When it rains and blows, keeping men indoors, then the lover of Nature must forth. Then returns Nature to her wild estate.’)
November 18, 1851 ("Now at sundown I hear the hooting of an owl, — hoo hoo hoo, hoorer hoo. . . . . It is a sound admirably suited to the swamp and to the twilight woods, suggesting a vast undeveloped nature which men have not recognized nor satisfied. I rejoice that there are owls. They represent the stark, twilight, unsatisfied thoughts I have. . . This sound faintly suggests the infinite roominess of nature, that there is a world in which owls live")

November 25, 1857 (“November Eatheart, — is that the name of it?")

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 28, 1859 ("We make a good deal of the early twilights of these November days, they make so large a part of the afternoon.”)

November 30, 1858 (“The short afternoons are come. . . . We see purple clouds in the east horizon.")

December 7, 1851 ("The man is blessed who every day is permitted to behold anything so pure and serene as the western sky at sunset")

December 8, 1854 (" Go over the fields on the crust to Walden, over side of Bear Garden. Already foxes have left their tracks. How the crust shines afar, the sun now setting!")

December 8, 1854 (“There is a glorious clear sunset sky, soft and delicate and warm”)

 December 9, 1856 ("A slight blush begins to suffuse the eastern horizon, and so the picture of the day is done and set in a gilded frame. Such is a winter eve.");

 December 9, 1859 (" I observe at mid-afternoon, the air being very quiet and serene, that peculiarly softened western sky, which perhaps is seen commonly after the first snow has covered the earth. . . .[T]here is just enough invisible vapor, perhaps from the snow, to soften the blue, giving it a slight greenish tinge. Thus, methinks, it often happens that as the weather is harder the sky seems softer")

December 9, 1856 ("The worker who would accomplish much these short days must shear a dusky slice off both ends of the night”)

December 9, 1856 (" Where does the ubiquitous hooter sit, and who sees him? In whose wood-lot is he to be found? . . .every week almost I hear the loud voice of the hooting owl, though I do not see the bird more than once in ten years")
December 10, 1856 (“How short the afternoons! I hardly get out a couple of miles before the sun is setting”)

December 11, 1858 ("Walden is about one-third skimmed over.");
December 11, 1854 ("It is but mid-afternoon when I see the sun setting far through the woods, and there is that peculiar clear vitreous greenish sky in the west, as it were a molten gem.") 

December 11, 1854 ("The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely; the morning and the evening twilight make the whole day ")

December 12, 1859 ("The night comes on early these days, and I soon see the pine tree tops distinctly outlined against the dun (or amber) but cold western sky.")

Night comes on early.

Pine tree tops outlined against

the cold western sky,

December 12, 1859

December 13, 1859 ("I see that the fox too has already taken the same walk before me")

December 13, 1858 (There is not so much ice in Walden as on the 11th.") 

December 14, 1851 ("There is a beautifully pure greenish-blue sky under the clouds now in the southwest just before sunset.")

December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified. This is a fine, dry snow, drifting nearly horizontally from the north, so that it is quite blinding to face .")

December 14, 1852 ("Who can tell the serenity and clarity of a New England winter sunset?")

December 14, 1855 ("Then I came upon a fox-track made last night, leading toward a farmhouse . . . Thus by the snow I was made aware in this short walk of the recent presence there of squirrels, a fox, and countless mice, whose trail I had crossed, but none of which I saw, or probably should have seen before the snow fell.")

December 18, 1853 ("The western hills, these bordering it, seen through the clear, cold air, have a hard, distinct edge against the sunset sky.")

December 18, 1858 ("The pond is merely frozen a little about the edges. I see various little fishes lurking under this thin, transparent ice, close up to the edge or shore, especially where the shore is flat and water shoal.")

December 19, 1851 ("Now the sun sets suddenly without a cloud– & with scarcely any redness following so pure is the atmosphere – only a faint rosy blush along the horizon.")

December 19, 1856 ("As I stand here, I hear the hooting of my old acquaintance the owl in Wheeler's Wood . . .Is more than the voice of the owl, the voice of the wood as well. ")

December 20, 1851 ("Sunset in winter from a clearing in the woods.")

December 20, 1851 ("The sun goes down apace behind glowing pines, and golden clouds like mountains skirt the horizon.")

December 20, 1854 ("The sky in the eastern horizon has that same greenish-vitreous, gem-like appearance which it has at sundown, as if it were of perfectly clear glass, —with the green tint of a large mass of glass.");

The icy water

reflecting the warm colors

of the sunset sky.

December 20, 1855

December 20, 1858 ("Walden is frozen over, except two small spots, less than half an acre in all, in middle.")

December 20, 1855 ("I see . . .in now hard, dark ice, the tracks apparently of a fox, made when it was saturated snow.")

 December 21, 1851 ("How swiftly the earth appears to revolve at sunset, which at midday appears to rest on its axle!")

December 23, 1851 ("This morning, when I woke, I found it snowing, the snow fine and driving almost horizontally.”) 

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.")

 December 23, 1851 (“Now the sun has quite disappeared, but the afterglow, as I may call it, apparently the reflection from the cloud beyond which the sun went down on the thick atmosphere of the horizon, is unusually bright and lasting. Long, broken clouds in the horizon, in the dun atmosphere, — as if the fires of day were still smoking there, — hang with red and golden edging like the saddle cloths of the steeds of the sun.”)

December 21 1851 ("Long after the sun has set, and downy clouds have turned dark, and the shades of night have taken possession of the east, some rosy clouds will be seen in the upper sky over the portals of the darkening west.") 

 December 23, 1851 ("The evening star is shining brightly, and, beneath all, the west horizon is glowing red, . . . and I detect, just above the horizon, the narrowest imaginable white sickle of the new moon.")

December 24, 1851 (“When I had got home and chanced to look out the window from supper, I perceived that all the west horizon was glowing with a rosy border.”)

December 24, 1856 ("Am surprised to find Walden still open in the middle.")

December 24, 1859 ("There is, in all, an acre or two in Walden not yet frozen, though half of it has been frozen more than a week")

December 24, 1856 ("It is very pleasant walking thus before the storm is over, in the soft, subdued light. . . . Do not see a track of any animal till returning near the Well Meadow Field, where many foxes, one of whom I have a glimpse of, had been coursing back and forth in the path and near it for three quarters of a mile. They had made quite a path")

December 24, 1858 ("Those two places in middle of Walden not frozen over yet, though it was quite cold last night! ")

December 26, 1853 ("Walden still open.. . . the only pond hereabouts that is open.")

December 27, 1852 ("Not a particle of ice in Walden to-day. Paddled across it.);

December 27, 1853 ("It is a true winter sunset, almost cloudless, clear, cold indigo-y along the horizon. The evening star is seen shining brightly, before the twilight has begun. A rosy tint suffuses the eastern horizon")

December 27, 1856 ("Walden is still open in one place of considerable extent, just off the east cape of long southern bay.")

December 27, 1857 ("Walden is almost entirely skimmed over. It will probably be completely frozen over to-night")

December 27, 1851("Venus - I suppose it is - is now the evening star, and very bright she is immediately after sunset in the early twilight.")

The evening star seen

shining brightly before the

twilight has begun.

December 27, 1853

December 28, 1858 ("The ice cracks suddenly with a shivering jar like crockery or the brittlest material, such as it is.")

December 28, 1853 ("I hear and see tree sparrows about the weeds in the garden. They seem to visit the gardens with the earliest snow")

December 28, 1858 ("That rocky shore under the pitch pines which so reflects the light.")

December 29, 1853 ("Wind from the north blows the snow almost horizontally, and, beside freezing you, almost takes your breath away. The driving snow blinds you.”)
December 30, 1859 ("I noticed the other day that even the golden-crested wren was one of the winter birds which have a black head, — in this case divided by yellow")
December 31, 1854 ("I see mice and rabbit and fox tracks on the meadow.")
January 4, 1859 ("A north snow-storm, very hard to face. It snows very hard, driving along almost horizontally.”)

January 5, 1853 ("A fine rosy sky in the west after sunset; and later an amber-colored horizon.")

January 7, 1856 (“Returning just before sunset, the few little patches of ice look green as I go from the sun . . .It is probably a constant phenomenon in cold weather when the ground is covered with snow and the sun is low, morning or evening, and you are looking from it.”)

January 7, 1854 (" I hear one distinctly, hoorer hoo. Strange that we should hear this sound so often, loud and far, — a voice which we call the owl, — and yet so rarely see the bird. Oftenest at twilight. It has a singular prominence as a sound; is louder than the voice of a dear friend. Yet we see the friend perhaps daily and the owl but few times in our lives. It is a sound which the wood or horizon makes.")

January 9, 1859 ("It is worth the while to stand here at this hour and look into the soft western sky, over the pines whose outlines are so rich and distinct against the clear sky.")

To look over pines

so rich and distinct, into

the soft western sky.

January 9, 1859

January 10, 1859 ("This is one of the phenomena of the winter sunset, this distinct pink light reflected from the brows of snow-clad hills on one side of you as you are facing the sun.");
January 11, 1852 ("The glory of these afternoons, though the sky may be mostly overcast, is in the ineffably clear blue, or else pale greenish-yellow, patches of sky in the west just before sunset.")

January 12, 1852 ("I sometimes think that I may go forth and walk hard . . . be much abroad in heat and cold, day and night; live more, expend more atmospheres, be weary often, etc., etc.” ) 

January 14, 1852 ("I notice to-night, about sundown, that the clouds in the eastern horizon are the deepest indigo-blue of any I ever saw. Commencing with a pale blue or slate in the west, the color deepens toward the east.")

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. That is the symbol of the unclouded mind that knows neither winter nor summer. . . .As the skies appear to a man, so is his mind.");

The unclouded mind,

serene, pure, ineffable

like the western sky.

January 17, 1852

January 19, 1857 ("A snow-storm with very high wind all last night and to-day. . . .A fine dry snow, intolerable to face")

January 19, 1859 ("It occurs to me that I know of no more agreeable object to bound our view, looking outward through the vista of our elm lined streets, than the pyramidal tops of a white pine forest in the horizon.")

January 23, 1858 (“Walden, I think, begins to crack and boom first on the south side,. . . like the cracking of crockery. It suggests the very brittlest material, as if the globe you stood on were a hollow sphere of glass and might fall to pieces on the slightest touch. . . . as if the ice were no thicker than a tumbler, though it is probably nine or ten inches. ”)

January 24, 1852 ("A single elm by Hayden's stands in relief against the amber and golden, deepening into dusky but soon to be red horizon.");

January 17, 1860 ("When I reached the open railroad causeway returning, there was a splendid sunset.")

January 26, 1852. ("Would you see your mind, look at the sky.")

January 30, 1859 ("How peculiar the hooting of an owl! . . . full, round, and sonorous, waking the echoes of the wood.")

February 3, 1856 (“We go wading through snows now up the bleak river, in the face of the cutting northwest wind and driving snow-steam, turning now this ear, then that, to the wind, and our gloved hands in our bosoms or pockets. Our tracks are obliterated before we come back.”)

February 9, 1855 ("Tree sparrows, two or three only at once, come into the yard, the first I have distinguished this winter. ")  

February 12, 1854 ("The pond does not thunder every night, and I do not know its law exactly. I cannot tell surely when to expect its thundering, . . . [y]et it has its law to which it thunders obedience when it should")

February 12, 1860 ("Returning just before sunset, I see the ice beginning to be green”)

February 17, 1852 ("The shortness of the days, when we naturally look to the heavens and make the most of the little light, when we live an arctic life, when the woodchopper's axe reminds us of twilight at 3 o'clock p. m., when the morning and the evening literally make the whole day")

February 28, 1852 (“To get the value of the storm we must be out a long time and travel far in it, so that it may fairly penetrate our skin, . . . and there be no part in us but is wet or weather beaten, - so that we become storm men instead of fair weather men.”) 

A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, First Ice.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau: the ruby-crowned or crested wren. (Thoreau did not truly identify the golden-crested wren until Christmas 1859. )
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Tree Sparrow

December 25.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 25

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2021

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. "); November 20, 1851 ("How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding!")

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.")

The pond began to boom or whoop.

December 25. 

P. M. — Skated to Fair Haven and above. 

At seven this morning the water had already oozed out at the sides of the river and flowed over the ice. It appears to be the result of this bridging of the river in the night and so obstructing the channel or usual outlet. 

About 4 p. m. the sun sunk behind a cloud, and the pond began to boom or whoop. I noticed the same yesterday at the same hour at Flint's. It was perfectly silent before. The weather in both cases clear, cold, and windy. It is a sort of belching, and, as C. said, is somewhat frog-like. I suspect it did not continue to whoop long either night. It is a very pleasing phenomenon, so dependent on the altitude of the sun. 

December 25, 2019

When I go to Boston, I go naturally straight through the city down to the end of Long Wharf and look off, for I have no cousins in the back alleys. The water and the vessels are novel and interesting. 

What are our maritime cities but the shops and dwellings of merchants, about a wharf projecting into the sea, where there is a convenient harbor, on which to land the produce of other climes and at which to load the exports of our own? 

Next in interest to me is the market where the produce of our own country is collected. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, New Orleans, and many others are the names of wharves projecting into the sea. They are good places to take in and to discharge a cargo. Everybody in Boston lives at No. so-and-so, Long Wharf. 

I see a great many barrels and fig-drums and piles of wood for umbrella-sticks and blocks of granite and ice, etc., and that is Boston. 

Great piles of goods and the means of packing and conveying them, much wrapping-paper and twine, many crates and hogsheads and trucks, that is Boston. The more barrels, the more Boston. 

The museums and scientific societies and libraries are accidentals. They gather around the barrels, to save carting. 

Apparently the ice is held down on the sides of the river by being frozen to the shore and the weeds, and so is overflowed there, but in the middle it is lifted up and makes room for the tide. 

I saw, just above Fair Haven Pond, two or three places where, just before the last freezing, when the ice was softened and partly covered with sleet, there had been a narrow canal, about eight inches wide, quite across the river from meadow to meadow. I am constrained to believe, from the peculiar character of it on the meadow end, where in one case it divided and crossed itself, that it was made either by muskrats or otters or minks repeatedly crossing there. One end was for some distance like an otter trail in the soft upper part of the ice, not worn through.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 25, 1853

 Skated to Fair Haven and above. See ; December 5, 1853 (" Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over."); December 7, 1856 ("Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond”); December 20, 1854 ( P. M. — Skate to Fair Haven.”); December 24, 1853 ("Skated across Flint's Pond.")

About 4 p. m. the sun sunk behind a cloud, and the pond began to boom or whoop. I noticed the same yesterday at the same hour at Flint's. It is a very pleasing phenomenon, so dependent on the altitude of the sun. See February 12, 1854 ("The pond does not thunder every night, and I do not know its law exactly. I cannot tell surely when to expect its thundering, . . . [y]et it has its law to which it thunders obedience when it should"); December 25, 1858 (“I stayed later to hear the pond crack, but it did not much. ”)

Now after sunset the light of the western sky – the outlines of pines.

December 25

December 25, 2018

P. M. —Up river on ice to Fair Haven Pond and across to Walden. 

The ground is still for the most part bare. Such a December is at least as hard a month to get through as November. You come near eating your heart now.

There is a good deal of brown or straw-color in the landscape now, especially in the meadows, where the ranker grasses, many of them uncut, still stand. They are bleached a shade or two lighter. Looking from the sun, there is a good deal of warm sunlight in them. 

I see where one farmer has been getting this withered sedge on the ice within a day or two for litter, in a meadow which had not been cut. Of course he could not cut very close. 

The ice on the river is about half covered with light snow, it being drifted thus, as usual, by the wind. (On Walden, however, which is more sheltered, the ice is uniformly covered and white.) I go running and sliding from one such snow-patch to another. It is easiest walking on the snow, which gives a hold to my feet, but I walk feebly on the ice. It is so rough that it is but poor sliding withal. 

I see, in the thin snow along by the button-bushes and willows just this side of the Hubbard bridge, a new track to me, looking even somewhat as if made by a row of large rain-drops, but it is the track of some small animal. The separate tracks are at most five eighths of an inch in diameter, nearly round, and one and three quarters to two inches apart, varying perhaps half an inch from a straight line. Sometimes they are three or four inches apart. The size is but little larger than that of a mouse, but it is never like a mouse. Goodwin, to whom I described it, did not know what it could be. 

The sun getting low now, say at 3.30, I see the ice green, southeast. 

Goodwin says that he once had a partridge strike a twig or limb in the woods as she flew, so that she fell and he secured her. 

Going across to Walden, I see that the fuzzy purple wool-grass is now bleached to a dark straw-color with out any purple. 

I notice that a fox has taken pretty much my own course along the Andromeda Ponds. 

The sedge which grows in tufts eighteen or twenty inches high there is generally recurving. 

I see that the shiners which Goodwin is using for bait to-day have no longitudinal dark bar or line on their sides, such as those minnows of the 11th and 18th had. Yet I thought that by the position of their fins, etc., the latter could not be the banded minnow. 

Walden at length skimmed over last night, i. e. the two holes that remained open. One was very near the middle and deepest part, the other between that and the railroad. 

Now that the sun is setting, all its light seems to glance over the snow-clad pond and strike the rocky shore under the pitch pines at the northeast end. Though the bare rocky shore there is only a foot or a foot and a half high as I look, it reflects so much light that the rocks are singularly distinct, as if the pond showed its teeth. 

I stayed later to hear the pond crack, but it did not much. 

December 25, 2019

How full of soft, pure light the western sky now, after sunset! I love to see the outlines of the pines against it. Unless you watch it, you do not know when the sun goes down. It is like a candle extinguished without smoke. A moment ago you saw that glittering orb amid the dry oak leaves in the horizon, and now you can detect no trace of it. In a pensive mood I enjoy the complexion of the winter sky at this hour.

Those small sphagnous mountains in the Andromeda Ponds are grotesque things. Being frozen, they bear me up like moss-clad rocks and make it easy getting through the water-brush. 

But for all voice in that serene hour I hear an owl hoot. How glad I am to hear him rather than the most eloquent man of the age! 

I saw a few days ago the ground under a swamp white oak in the river meadow quite strewn with brown dry galls about as big as a pea and quite round, like a small fruit which had fallen from it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 25, 1858

As hard a month to get through as November. You come near eating your heart now. 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? “)

Looking from the sun, there is a good deal of warm sunlight in them. See January 4, 1858 (“It is surprising how much sunny light a little straw that survives the winter will reflect . . .
That bright and warm reflection of sunlight from the insignificant edging of stubble”)

I notice that a fox has taken pretty much my own course along the Andromeda Ponds. See December 13, 1859 ("I see that the fox too has already taken the same walk before me, just along the edge of the button-bushes, where not even he can go in the summer.”)

The shiners which Goodwin is using for bait to-day have no longitudinal dark bar or line on their sides. See March 29, 1854 ("poised over the sand on invisible fins, the outlines of a shiner. . . distinct longitudinal light-colored line midway along their sides and a darker line below it”); July 16, 1856 ("I see many young shiners (?) (they have the longitudinal bar)"): July 17, 1856 (“They have . . . a broad, distinct black band along sides (which methinks marks the shiner)"); December 11, 1858 (“a minnow — apparently a young shiner, but it has a dark longitudinal line along side ”); December 18, 1858 (“They are little shiners with the dark longitudinal stripe”)

The sun getting low now, say at 3.30, I see the ice green, southeast. See January 7, 1856 (“Returning just before sunset, the few little patches of ice look green as I go from the sun . . .It is probably a constant phenomenon in cold weather when the ground is covered with snow and the sun is low, morning or evening, and you are looking from it.”); February 12, 1860 ("Returning just before sunset, I see the ice beginning to be green.”)

Walden at length skimmed over last night, i. e. the two holes that remained open. See note to December 20, 1858 (“Walden is frozen over, except two small spots, less than half an acre in all, in middle.”); December 22, 1858 (“The pond is no more frozen than on the 20th.”); December 24, 1858 ("Those two places in middle of Walden not frozen over yet, though it was quite cold last night! "); December 28, 1858 (“The ice is about six inches thick.”) See also December 25, 1859 ("The last our coldest night, as yet. No doubt Walden froze over last night entirely.") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Annual ice-in at Walden

Now that the sun is setting, all its light seems to glance over the snow-clad pond and strike the rocky shore under the pitch pines at the northeast end. See December 25, 1858 ("That rocky shore under the pitch pines which so reflects the light, is only three feet wide by one foot high")

Unless you watch it, you do not know when the sun goes down.  See December 25, 1851 (“I go forth to see the sun set. Who knows how it will set, even half an hour beforehand ?”); See also July 20, 1852 (“We see the first star in the southwest, and know not how much earlier we might have seen it had we looked.”)

How full of soft, pure light the western sky now, after sunset! I love to see the outlines of the pines against it.

Full of soft pure light

western sky after sunset –

the outlines of pines.

December 25, 1858

See December 3, 1856   ("The pine forest's edge seen against the winter horizon"); December 12, 1859 ("The night comes on early these days, and I soon see the pine tree tops distinctly outlined against the dun (or amber) but cold western sky."); December 20, 1851 (In the west the sun goes down apace behind glowing pines, and golden clouds like mountains skirt the horizon."); January 5, 1853 ("A fine rosy sky in the west after sunset; and later an amber-colored horizon, in which a single tree-top showed finely."); January 9, 1859 ("It is worth the while to stand here at this hour and look into the soft western sky, over the pines whose outlines are so rich and distinct against the clear sky."); January 19, 1859 ("It occurs to me that I know of no more agreeable object to bound our view . . . than the pyramidal tops of a white pine forest in the horizon.");  See also October 20, 1858 ("There is one advantage in walking eastward these afternoons, at least, that in returning you may have the western sky before you.");   December 8, 1854 (“There is a glorious clear sunset sky, soft and delicate and warm”); December 9, 1859 (“I observe at mid-afternoon that peculiarly softened western sky . . . giving it a slight greenish tinge.”); December 11, 1854 ("I see the sun setting far through the woods, and there is that peculiar clear vitreous greenish sky in the west, as it were a molten gem.The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely"); December 18, 1853 (“The western hills, these bordering it, seen through the clear, cold air, have a hard, distinct edge against the sunset sky.”); 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")

Clear yellow light of

the western sky reflected

from the smooth water.

November 15, 1853

Night comes on early.  

Pine tree tops outlined against

the cold western sky,

December 12, 1859

To look over pines

so rich and distinct into

the soft western sky.

January 9, 1859

The unclouded mind,

serene, pure, ineffable

like the western sky.

January 17, 1852

See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Western Sky

I hear an owl hoot. How glad I am to hear him. See November 18, 1851 ("I rejoice that there are owls. . . . This sound faintly suggests the infinite roominess of nature”); January 7, 1854 (“It is a sound which the wood or horizon makes”) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Voice of the Barred Owl

December 25.  See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, December 25

Now after sunset

the light of the western sky –

the outlines of pines.

I hear an owl hoot.

How glad I am to hear him

in this serene hour.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the outlines of pines.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, 

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-581225

I find the true line.

December 25.  

Surveying for heirs of J. Richardson, G. Heywood and A. Brooks accompanying.

Skate on Goose Pond. 

Heywood says that some who have gone into Ebby Hubbard's barn to find him have seen the rats run over his shoulders, they are so familiar with him. This because I stopped to speak with Hubbard in his barn about bounds. 

I find the true line between Richardson and Mrs. Bigelow, which Captain Hubbard overlooked in 1840, and yet I find it by his own plan of 1827. Bigelow had set a split stone far into Richardson. After making the proper allowance for variation since 1827, I set my stake exactly on an old spotted line, which was overlooked in 1840 and is probably as old as the survey of ’27, or thirty years. It is on good-sized white pines, and is quite distinct now, though not blazed into the wood at first. 

It would not be detected unless you were looking for it.

H. D. Thoreau, JournaL December 25, 1857

I find the true line between Richardson and Mrs. Bigelow. See November 30, 1857 ("Northwest of Little Goose Pond, on the edge of Mrs. Bigelow's wood-lot are several hornbeams . . .”)

Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.

December 25. 

P. M. — To Lee's Cliff. 

A strong wind from the northwest is gathering the snow into picturesque drifts behind the walls. As usual they resemble shells more than anything, sometimes prows of vessels, also the folds of a white napkin or counterpane dropped over a bonneted head. There are no such picturesque snow-drifts as are formed behind loose and open stone walls. 

Already yesterday it had drifted so much, i.e. so much ground was bare, that there were as many carts as sleighs in the streets. 

Just beyond Hubbard's Bridge, on Conant's Brook Meadow, I am surprised to find a tract of ice, some thirty by seven or eight rods, blown quite bare. It shows how unstable the snow is. 

Sanborn got some white spruce and some usnea for Christmas in the swamp. I thought the last would be the most interesting and weird. 

On the north sides of the walls we go over boots and get them full, then let ourselves down into the shell- work on the south side; so beyond the brows of hills.

At Lee's Cliff I pushed aside the snow with my foot and got some fresh green catnip for Min. 

I see the numerous tracks there, too, of foxes, or else hares, that have been running about in the light snow. 

Called at the Conantum House. It grieves me to see these interesting relics, this and the house at the Baker Farm, going to complete ruin. 

Met William Wheeler's shaggy gray terrier, or Indian dog, going home. He got out of the road into the field and went round to avoid us. 

Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 25, 1856

A strong wind from the northwest is gathering the snow into picturesque drifts behind the walls. See December 25, 1855 ("Snow driving almost horizontally from the northeast and fast whitening the ground.”)

Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows.  Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary. See January 12, 1852 ("I sometimes think that I may go forth and walk hard . . . be much abroad in heat and cold, day and night; live more, expend more atmospheres, be weary often, etc., etc.” ); February 28, 1852 (“To get the value of the storm we must be out a long time and travel far in it, so that it may fairly penetrate our skin . . . and there be no part in us but is wet or weather beaten, - so that we become storm men instead of fair weather men.”); April 19 1852 ("To see wild life you must go forth at a wild season. When it rains and blows, keeping men indoors, then the lover of Nature must forth. Then returns Nature to her wild estate.’)