Farewell, my friend (by moonlight all is simple)

 

 

We drifted apart

asteroids tumbling in space

the heat of the sun.

(April 25)

The other day I rowed in my boat

 a free even lovely young lady

and as I plied the oars

 she sat in the stern

 and there was

nothing but she

 between me

and the sky.

Along the river

the memory of roses --

late rose now in prime.

Thoughts of autumn and

the memory of past years

occupy my mind.

What you can recall of a walk

on the second day will differ from

what you remember on the first day --

as to one who is

journeying amid mountains

any view changes.

Farewell, my friend

my path inclines

 to this side the mountain,

yours to that --

for a long time you have appeared

further and further off to me --

I see that you will at length

 disappear altogether--

 for a season my path

seemed lonely without you --

the memory of me is steadily

passing away from you --

 my path grows narrower and steeper

and the night is approaching.

 I am struck by this sudden solitude

and remoteness that these places have acquired.

This evening for the first time the new moon

is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.

She who was as the morning light to me
is now neither the morning star
nor the evening star.

[June 19, 1840,  March 28, 1856,  July 23, 1860, 

July 31, 1856,  January 10, 1854, December 8, 1850 , October 27, 1851]

This moment in memory

half the leaves of our love

are still on the tree

and half have fallen

like a reflection.

(October 16)

See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Reminiscence and Prompting;  May 27, 1859 ("These expressions of the face of Nature are as constant and sure to recur as those of the eyes of maidens, from year to year, — sure to be repeated as long as time lasts.")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Farewell my friend

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 © 2009-2022

tinyurl.com/HDTfarewellmyfriend

The recent water-line at Walden is quite distinct.

December 8. 

Another Indian-summer day. 

Saw some puffballs in the woods, wonderfully full of sulphur-like dust, which yellowed my shoes, greenish-yellow. 

The recent water-line at Walden is quite distinct, though like the limit of a shadow, on the alders about eighteen inches above the present level.

One cannot burn or bury even his old shoes without a feeling of sadness and compassion; much more his old body, without a slight sense of guilt.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 8, 1852

Wonderfully full of sulphur-like dust, which yellowed my shoes, greenish-yellow. Compare June 29, 1858 ("Walking in the white pine wood there, I find that my shoes and, indeed, my hat are covered with the greenish-yellow pollen of the white pines,. . .My shoes are green-yellow, or yellow-green, even the next day with it.")

The recent water-line at Walden is quite distinct, See December 5, 1852 ("This great rise of the pond after an interval of many years, and the water standing at this great height for a year or more, kills the shrubs and trees about its edge")

Burn or bury old shoes.  See December 3, 1856 ("The man who has bought his boots feels like him who has got in his winter's wood.”); December 6, 1859 ("That is an era, when, in the beginning of the winter, you change from the shoes of summer to the boots of winter.")

Winter twilights, morn and eve, are very clear and light, very glorious and pure

December 8. 

December 8, 2023

7 a. m. — How can we spare to be abroad in the morning red, to see the forms of the leafless eastern trees against the dun sky and hear the cocks crow, when a thin low mist hangs over the ice and frost in meadows? 

I have come along the riverside in Merrick's pasture to collect for kindling the fat pine roots and knots which the spearers dropped last spring, and which the floods have washed up. Get a heaping bushel-basketful. 

The thin, trembling sheets of imperfectly cemented ice or ice-crystals, loosened by the warmth of the day, now go floating down the stream, looking like dark ripples in the twilight and grating against the edges of the firm ice. They completely fill the river where it is bridged with firmer ice below. 

I observe a place on the shore where a small circle of the withered grass was feathered white with frost, and, putting down my hand, felt the muskrat's hole in the bank which was concealed to my eye. I often see this, and at woodchuck-holes. Yet you may see the same over the edge of many a hole, however shallow. 

At midday (3 p. m.) see an owl fly from toward the river and alight on Mrs. Richardson's front-yard fence. Got quite near it, and follow it to a rock on the heap of dirt at Collier's cellar. 

A rather dark brown owl above (with a decided owl head (and eyes), though not very broad), with longitudinal tawny streaks (or the reverse), none transverse, growing lighter down the breast, and at length clear rusty yellowish or cream color beneath and about feathered feet. Wings large and long, with a distinct large black spot beneath; bill and claws, I think, black. Saw no ears. Kept turning its head and great black eyes this way and that when 'it heard me, but appeared not to see me. Saw my shadow better, for I approached on the sunny side. 

I am inclined to think it the short-eared owl, though I could see no ears, though it reminded [me] of what I had read of the hawk owl. It was a foot or more long and spread about three feet. Flew somewhat flappingly, yet hawk-like. Went within two or three rods of it. 

Walden at sunset. 

The twilights, morn and eve, are very clear and light, very glorious and pure, or stained with red, and prolonged, these days. But, now the sun is set, Walden (I am on the east side) is more light than the sky, -— a. whiteness as of silver plating, while the sky is yellowish in the horizon and a dusky blue above. 

Though the water is smooth enough, the trees are lengthened dimly one third in the reflection. Is this phenomenon peculiar to this season? 

[ The next night but one just like this, a little later. I saw from the peak the entire reflection of large white pines very distinctly against a clear white sky, though the actual tree was completely lost in night against the dark distant hillside. ]

Goose Pond now firmly frozen. It had melted since it froze before. I see there a narrow open channel in the ice, two and a half rods long and six inches wide, leading straight to a muskrat-house by the shore, apparently kept open by them. 

Snow will soon come, in a measure to restore the equilibrium between night and day by prolonging the twilight. 

I was amused by R. W. E.’s telling me that he drove his own calf out of the yard, as it was coming in with the cow, not knowing it to be his own, a drove going by at the time.

H. D. Thoreau,  Journal, December 8, 1853

I often see this, and at woodchuck-holes. Yet you may see the same over the edge of many a hole, however shallow. See November 13, 1858 (“There is frost . . .thick and white and handsome around the throat of every hole and chink in the earth’s surface,. . . so that you would think at first it was the entry to some woodchuck’s, or squirrel’s, or mouse’s, retreat. But it is the great dormant earth gone into winter quarters here, the earth letting off steam after the summer’s work is over.”)

See an owl fly from toward the river and alight on Mrs. Richardson's front-yard fence. See December 16, 1853 (“Some creature has killed ten, at least, of H. Wheeler's doves and left them together in the dove-house. I think it was my short-eared owl, which flew thither.”)

Walden (I am on the east side) is more light than the sky, See November 30, 1852 (There was more light in the water than in the sky.");  December 9, 1856 ("I look over the pond westward. The sun is near setting,. . . The pond is perfectly smooth and full of light.") 

I saw from the peak the entire reflection of large white pines very distinctly against a clear white sky, though the actual tree was completely lost in night against the dark distant hillside.  See December 11, 1853 ("In the case of the reflections. . .we see terrestrial objects with the sky or heavens for a background or field."); December 9, 1856 ("As I look now over the pond westward, I see in substance the now bare outline of Fair Haven Hill a mile beyond, but in the reflection I see not this, only the tops of some pines, which stand close to the shore but are invisible against the dark hill beyond.") See also October 16, 1858 (“[Objects] appear in the reflection as they would if viewed from that point on the surface from which they are reflected to my eye, so that it is as if I had another eye placed there to see for me.”)

Goose Pond now firmly frozen. See December 4, 1853 ("Goose Pond apparently froze over last night, all but a few rods, but not thick enough to bear.”); December 13, 1857 (“This and the like ponds are just covered with virgin ice just thick enough to bear, though it cracks about the edges”);(December 27, 1857 ("Goose Pond is not thickly frozen yet . . .in many places water has oozed out and spread over the ice, mixing with the snow and making dark places.”)

He drove his own calf out of the yard, a drove going by at the time. See December 8, 1850 (“”A week ago I saw cows being driven home from pasture. Now they are kept at home. Here 's an end to their grazing.);  October 28, 1858 ("Cattle coming down from up country.")

tinyurl.com/HDT531208

The clothes of an honest man.

December 8. 

Staples says he came to Concord some twenty-four years ago a poor boy with a dollar and three cents in his pocket, and he spent the three cents for drink at Bigelow’s tavern, and now he ’s worth “twenty hundred dollars clear.” 

He remembers many who inherited wealth whom he can buy out to-day. 

I told him that he had done better than I in a pecuniary respect, for I had only earned my living.

 “Well,” said he, “that ’s all I’ve done, and I don’t know as I’ve got much better clothes than you.” 

I was particularly poorly clad then, in the woods; my hat, pants, boots, rubbers, and gloves would not have brought four pence, and I told the Irishman that it wasn’t  everybody could afford to have a fringe round his legs, as I had, my corduroys not preserving a selvage.

Staples said there was one thing he liked. 

“What is that?” 

“An honest man.” 

If he lent a man money, and when it became due he came and asked for more time because he could not pay, he excused him, but if, after it had become due, he went to the man, and he then made the same excuse, he lost all confidence in him.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 8, 1857

My corduroys not preserving a selvage. See May 8, 1857 ("Within a week I have had made a pair of corduroy pants, which cost when done $1.60. . . .[B]eside being very strong, they will look about as well three months hence as now, — or as ill, some would say.")

Staples. See April 18, 1860 ("As I go by the site of Staples' new barn on the Kettle place, I see that they have just dug a well and are bricking it up.")

Probably the coldest day yet.

December 8. 

Thermometer at 8 a.m. 8° above zero. Probably the coldest day yet. 

Bradford, in his "History of the Plymouth Plantation," remembering the condition of the Pilgrims on their arrival in Cape Cod Bay the 11th of November, 1620, O. S. (page 79): "Which waysoever they turned their eyes (save upward to the heavens) they could have little solace or content in respect of any outward objects. For summer being done, all things stand upon them with a weather-beaten face; and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hue." 

Such was a New England November in 1620 to Bradford's eyes, and such, no doubt, it would be to his eyes in the country still. However, it required no little courage to found a colony here at that season of the year. 

The earliest mention of anything like a glaze in New England that I remember is in Bradford's "History of the Plymouth Plantation," page 83, where he describes the second expedition with the shallop from Cape Cod Harbor in search of a settlement, the 6th of December, O. S. "The weather was very cold, and it froze so hard as the spray of the sea lighting on their coats, they were as if they had been glazed." Bradford was one of the ten principal ones. That same night they reached the bottom of the Bay and saw the Indians cutting up a blackfish. 

Nature has not changed one iota.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 8, 1856

A cheering silvery light from the needles of the pine.

December 8.

Saturday. Still no snow, nor ice noticeable. 

December 8, 2015

I might have left my boat out till now. I have not worn gloves yet. 

This afternoon I go to the woods down the railroad, seeking the society of some flock of little birds, or some squirrel, but in vain. I only hear the faint lisp of (probably) a tree sparrow. I go through empty halls, apparently unoccupied by bird or beast. 

Yet it is cheering to walk there while the sun is reflected from far through the aisles with a silvery light from the needles of the pine. The contrast of light or sunshine and shade, though the latter is now so thin, is food enough for me. 

Some scarlet oak leaves on the forest floor, when I stoop low, appear to have a little blood in them still. The shrivelled Solomon’s-seal berries are conspicuously red amid the dry leaves. 

I visit the door of many a squirrel’s burrow, and see his nutshells and cone-scales and tracks in the sand, but a snow would reveal much more. Let a snow come and clothe the ground and trees, and I shall see the tracks of many inhabitants now unsuspected, and the very snow covering up the withered leaves will supply the place of the green ones which are gone. 

In a little busy flock of lisping birds, — chickadees or lesser redpolls, — even in a nuthatch or downy woodpecker, there would have been a sweet society for me, but I did not find it. Yet I had the sun penetrating into the deep hollows through the aisles of the wood, and the silvery sheen of its reflection from masses of white pine needles.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 8, 1855

Yet it is cheering to walk there while the sun is reflected from far through the aisles with a silvery light from the needles of the pine.. See November 11, 1851("There is a cold, silvery light on the white pines as I go through J.P. Brown's field near Jenny Dugan's. . . . The lately dark woods are open and light; the sun shines in upon the stems of trees which it has not shone on since spring."); December 3, 1856 (". . . the pine forest's edge seen against the winter horizon. . . .The silvery needles of the pine straining the light.”); February 4, 1852 ("Now the white pine are a misty blue; anon a lively, silvery light plays on them, and they seem to erect themselves unusually. . . The sun loves to nestle in the boughs of the pine and pass rays through them."); February 5, 1852 ("The boughs, feathery boughs, of the white pines, tier above tier, reflect a silvery light against the darkness of the grove, as if both the silvery-lighted and greenish bough and the shadowy intervals of the shade behind belong to one tree."); May 1, 1855 ("Why have the white pines at a distance that silvery look around their edges or thin parts? Is it owing to the wind showing the under sides of the needles? Methinks you do not see it in the winter.")

Let a snow come and clothe the ground and trees, and I shall see the tracks of many inhabitants now unsuspected. See December 8, 1855 ("Already foxes have left their tracks."); December 14, 1855 ("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.")

The sun reflected 

with a silvery light from the 

needles of the pine.

A Book of the Seasons: December 8.

December 8.

First snow two inches.

Hills and fields and icy woods

gleam with wintry sheen.

December 8, 1850

For the first time the

new moon is reflected from

the frozen snow-crust .

December 8, 1850

The retirement

and solitude that Winter

now makes possible!

December 8, 1850

First time this evening

the new moon reflected from

the frozen snow-crust.

December 8, 1850

We see from the peak

large white pines in reflection 

against a white sky.

December 8, 1853

How black the water 

 when I look from the light – how  

 white the ice and snow.

December 8, 1854

 This clear sunset sky 

soft and delicate and warm –

snow crust shines afar.

December 8, 1854

The sun reflected 

with a silvery light from the 

needles of the pine.

December 8, 1855

Still no snow, nor ice – 

I might have left my boat out.

 I have not worn gloves.

December 8, 1855

December 8, 2015

Thermometer at 

 8° above zero. 

The coldest day yet.

December 8, 1856

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 © 2009-2019

Winter comes unnoticed – already foxes have left their tracks.

December 8

P. M. —Up river and meadow on ice to Hubbard Bridge and thence to Walden.

Winter has come unnoticed by me, I have been so busy writing. This is the life most lead in respect to Nature. How different from my habitual one! It is hasty, coarse, and trivial, as if you were a spindle in a factory. The other is leisurely, fine, and glorious, like a flower. In the first case you are merely getting your living; in the second you live as you go along. You travel only on roads of the proper grade without jar or running off the track, and sweep round the hills by beautiful curves.

Here is the river frozen over in many places, I am not sure whether the fourth night or later, but the skating is hobbly or all hobbled like a coat of mail or thickly bossed shield, apparently sleet frozen in water. Very little smooth ice.

December 8, 2024

How black the water where the river is open when I look from the light, by contrast with the surrounding white, the ice and snow! A black artery here and there concealed under a pellicle of ice.

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! There is a glorious clear sunset sky, soft and delicate and warm even like a pigeon’s neck. 

Why do the mountains never look so fair as from my native fields?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 8, 1854

Up river and on ice to Hubbard Bridge. See December 13, 1859 (“My first true winter walk is perhaps that which I take on the river, or where I cannot go in the summer.”)

Winter has come unnoticed by me, I have been so busy writing . . . hasty, coarse, and trivial, as if you were a spindle in a factory. See December 6, 1854 ("I see thick ice and boys skating . . . but know not when it froze, I have been so busy writing my lecture . . . After lecturing twice this winter I feel that I am in danger of cheapening myself."); December 12, 1851("I have been surveying for twenty or thirty days, living coarsely, - indeed, leading a quite trivial life ");  December 14. 1851 ("The boys have been skating for a week, but . . .I have hardly realized that there was ice, though I have walked over it about this business.") See also December 7, 1856 ("That grand old poem called Winter is round again without any connivance of mine . . . I see with surprise the pond a dumb white surface of ice speckled with snow . . . It seemed as if winter had come without any interval since midsummer, and I was prepared to see it flit away by the time I again looked over my shoulder. It was as if I had dreamed it.")

Already foxes have left their tracks. Compare December 8, 1855 ("Saturday. Still no snow, nor ice noticeable . . .Let a snow come and clothe the ground and trees, and I shall see the tracks of many inhabitants now unsuspected"); See  December 12, 1855 ("The snow having come, we see . . . now first, as it were, we have the fox for our nightly neighbor, and countless tiny deer mice."); 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. We both turn our steps hither at the same time."); December 14, 1855 ("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.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Fox

Clear sunset sky, soft and delicate.  See December 8, 1853 ("Now the sun is set, Walden (I am on the east side) is more light than the sky . . . while the sky is yellowish in the horizon and a dusky blue above "); See also December 5, 1856 ("It is a perfectly cloudless and simple winter sky . . . The sun goes down and leaves not a blush in the sky."); December 9, 1859 ("Methinks it often happens that as the weather is harder the sky seems softer." ); December 14, 1852 ("Ah, who can tell the serenity and clarity of a New England winter sunset? This could not be till the cold and the snow came.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Sunsets

How the crust shines afar, the sun now setting! See December 8, 1850 ("This evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.")

Why do the mountains never look so fair as from my native fields? See November 11, 1851 ("The horizon has one kind of beauty and attraction to him who has never explored the hills and mountains in it, and another . . . to him who has."); August 2, 1852 ("In many moods it is cheering to look across hence to that blue rim of the earth,  . . . These hills extend our plot of earth; they make our native valley or indentation in the earth so much the larger."); September 27, 1852 ("From the mountains we do not discern our native hills; but from our native hills we look out easily to the far blue mountains, which seem to preside over them."); March 31, 1853 ("It is affecting to see a distant mountain-top,. . . still as blue and ethereal to your eyes as is your memory of it.'); November 1, 1858 ("A man dwells in his native valley like a corolla in its calyx, like an acorn in its cup. Here, of course, is all that you love, all that you expect, all that you are.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Mountains in the Horizon

To travel only

on roads of the proper grade

and sweep round the curves.

How black the water 

 when I look from the light – how  

 white the ice and snow.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, 

Winter comes unnoticed – already foxes have left their tracks.

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-541208

The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible!

December 8

It snowed in the night of the 6th, and the ground is now covered, - our first snow, two inches deep. 

From Fair Haven I see the hills and fields, and the icy woods in the corner shine, gleam with the dear old wintry sheen.

A week or two ago Fair Haven Pond was frozen and the ground was still bare. Now  the Pond is open and ground is covered with snow and ice.

A week ago I saw cows being driven home from pasture. Now they are kept at home.

I see no tracks now of cows or men or boys beyond the edge of the wood. Suddenly they are shut up. The remote pastures and hills beyond the woods are now closed to cows and cowherds, aye, and to cowards.

I am struck by this sudden solitude and remoteness that these places have acquired. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible! 

This evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 8, 1850

The ground is now covered, - our first snow, two inches deep. See note to November 29, 1856 (“This is the first snow.”)

I am struck by this sudden solitude and remoteness that these places have acquired. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible! See December 5, 1856 ("I love the winter, with its imprisonment and its cold."); January 7, 1857 ("I come out to these solitudes, where the problem of existence is simplified. I get away a mile or two from the town into the stillness and solitude of nature, with rocks, trees, weeds, snow about me. I enter some glade in the woods, perchance, where a few weeds and dry leaves alone lift themselves above the surface of the snow, and it is as if I had come to an open window. I see out and around myself. "); January 10, 1856 ("I love to wade and flounder through the swamp now, these bitter cold days when the snow lies deep on the ground, and I need travel but little way from the town to get to a Nova Zembla solitude, — to wade through the swamps, all snowed up, untracked by man, into which the fine dry snow is still drifting.”)

in addition

to my solitude

frost on the window

~Issa

Winter solitude –

in a world of one color

the sound of wind.

~Basho

See also Farewell, my friend

For the first time the

new moon is reflected from

the frozen snow-crust .

The retirement

and solitude that Winter

now makes possible!

Dec. 8. It snowed in the night of the 6th, and the ground is now covered, — our first snow, two inches deep. A week ago I saw cows being driven home from pasture. Now they are kept at home. Here 's an end to their grazing. The farmer improves this first slight snow to accomplish some pressing jobs, — to move some particular rocks on a drag, or the like. I perceive how quickly he has seized the opportunity. I see no tracks now of cows or men or boys beyond the edge of the wood. Suddenly they are shut up. The remote pastures and hills beyond the woods are now closed to cows and cowherds, aye, and to cowards. I am struck by this sudden solitude and remoteness which these places have acquired. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible! carpeting the earth with snow, furnishing more than woolen feet to all walkers, cronching the snow only. From Fair Haven I see the hills and fields, aye, and the icy woods in the corner shine, gleam with the dear old wintry sheen. Those are not surely the cottages I have seen all summer. They are some cottages which I have in my mind. Now Fair Haven Pond is open and ground is covered with snow and ice; a week or two ago the pond was frozen and the ground was still bare. Still those particular red oak leaves which I had noticed are quite unwilted under the cliffs, and the apple leaves, though standing in snow and ice and incrusted with the latter, still ripe red, and tender fresh green leaves. It is interesting to observe the manner in which the plants bear their snowy burden. The dry calyx leaves, like an oblong cup, of the Triclwstema dichotomum have caught the rain or melting snow, and so this little butter boat is filled with a frozen pure drop which stands up high above the sides of the cup, — so many pearly drops covering the whole plant, — in the wood-paths. The pennyroyal there also retains its fragrance under the ice and snow. I find that the indigo-weed, whose shade still stands and holds its black seed-vessels, is not too humble to escape enemies. Almost every seed-vessel, which con tains half a dozen seeds or more, contains also a little black six-legged bug about as big as a bug [sic], which gnaws the seeds; and sometimes I find a grub, though it is now cold weather and the plant is covered with ice. Not only our peas and grain have their weevils, but the fruit of the indigo-weed! This evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.

The blue enamel of the present - the reality that surrounds us

December 8

It snowed and rained in the night. The wind has risen and the trees are stiffly waving with a brattling sound.

The birches, seen half a mile off toward the sun, are the purest dazzling white of any tree.

We believe in beauty, but not now and here. Let it be past or to come, and a thing is at once idealized. The imagination takes cognizance of it. It becomes a deed ripe and with the bloom on it.

But what is actually present and transpiring is commonly perceived without halo or the blue enamel of intervening air. The imagination requires a long range.

Only the poet has the faculty to see present things as if also past and future, as if universally significant.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 8, 1859

We believe in beauty, but not now and here. Only the poet has the faculty to see present things as if also past and future, as if universally significant. See Walden Where I lived and what i lived for ("Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind the farthest star, before Adam and after the last man. In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God Himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. “); Seea lso May 12, 1851 ("f you have an inclination to travel, take the ether; you go beyond the furthest star.")


Only the poet has the faculty to see present things as if also past and future, as if universally significant. 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.”)

***

Dec. 8. Here is a better glaze than we have yet had, for it snowed and rained in the night. I go to Pleasant Meadow, — or rather toward the sun, for the glaze shows best so. The wind has risen and the trees are stiffly waving with a brattling sound. The birches, seen half a mile off toward the sun, are the purest dazzling white of any tree, probably because their stems are not seen at all. It is only those seen at a particular angle between us and the sun that appear thus. Day before yesterday the ice which had fallen from the twigs covered the snow beneath in oblong pieces one or two inches long, which C. well called lemon-drops.
***
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 ? But let it be past or to come, and it is at once idealized. As the man dead is spiritualized, so the fact remembered is idealized. It is a deed ripe and with the bloom on it. 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 do not know poets, heroes, and saints for our contemporaries, but we locate them in some far-off vale, and, the greater and better, the further off we [are] accustomed to consider them. We believe in spirits, we believe in beauty, but not now and here. They have their abode in the remote past or in the future.

The fact remembered is idealized . . . It is not simply the understanding now, but the imagination, that takes cognizance of it.    See November 20, 1851 ("How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding!")