Unvaried snow, stretching mile after mile, and no place to sit.

February 19

The sky appears broader now than it did. The day has opened its eyelids wider. The lengthening of the days, commenced a good while ago, is a kind of forerunner of the spring. Of course it is then that the ameliorating cause begins to work.

February 19, 2019

To White Pond. 

Considering the melon-rind arrangement of the clouds, by an ocular illusion the bars appearing to approach each other in the east and west horizons, I am prompted to ask whether the melons will not be found to be in this direction oftenest. 

The strains from my muse are as rare nowadays, or of late years, as the notes of birds in the winter, — the faintest occasional tinkling sound, and mostly of the woodpecker kind or the harsh jay or crow. It never melts into a song. Only the day-day-day of an inquisitive titmouse. 

Everywhere snow, gathered into sloping drifts about the walls and fences, and, beneath the snow, the frozen ground, and men are compelled to deposit the summer's provision in burrows in the earth like the ground squirrel. Many creatures, daunted by the prospect, migrated in the fall, but man remains and walks over the frozen snow-crust and over the stiffened rivers and ponds, and draws now upon his summer stores. Life is reduced to its lowest terms. There is no home for you now, in this freezing wind, but in that shelter which you prepared in the summer. You steer straight across the fields to that in season.

I can with difficulty tell when I am over the river. There is a similar crust over my heart.

Where I rambled in the summer and gathered flowers and rested on the grass by the brook-side in the shade, now no grass nor flowers, no brook nor shade, but cold, unvaried snow, stretching mile after mile, and no place to sit. 

Look at White Pond, that crystal drop that was, in which the umbrageous shore was reflected, and schools of fabulous perch and shiners rose to the surface, and with difficulty you made your way along the pebbly shore in a summer afternoon to the bathing-place. Now you stalk rapidly across where it was, muffled in your cloak, over a more level snow -field than usual, furrowed by the wind, its finny inhabitants and its pebbly shore all hidden and forgotten, and you would shudder at the thought of wetting your feet in it. 

Returning across the river just as the sun was setting behind the Hollowell place, the ice eastward of me a few rods, where the snow was blown off, was as green as bottle glass, seen at the right angle, though all around, above and below, was one unvaried white, — a vitreous glass green. Just as I have seen the river green in a winter morning. This phenomenon is to be put with the blue in the crevices of the snow. So, likewise, give me leave, or require me, to mend my work, and I will chip down the vessel on both sides to a level with the notches which I have made.

A fine display of the northern lights after 10 p. m., flashing up from all parts of the horizon to the zenith, where there was a kind of core formed, stretching south southeast [and] north-northwest, surrounded by what looked like a permanent white cloud, which, however, was very variable in its form. The light flashes or trembles upward, as if it were the light of the sun reflected from a frozen mist which undulated in the wind in the upper atmosphere.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, February 19, 1852

The lengthening of the days, commenced a good while ago, is a kind of forerunner of the spring. See January 3, 1854 ("The twilight appears to linger. The day seems suddenly longer."); January 23, 1854 ("The increased length of the days is very observable of late.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring :The Days have grown Sensibly Longer

Considering the melon-rind arrangement of the clouds, by an ocular illusion the bars appearing to approach each other in the east and west horizons, I am prompted to ask whether the melons will not be found to be in this direction oftenest. See December 21, 1851 ("To-night, as so many nights within the year, the clouds arrange themselves in the east at sunset in long converging bars, according to the simple tactics of the sky. It is the melon-rind jig . . .converging bars inclose the day at each end as within a melon rind, and the morning and evening are one day"); December 29, 1859 ("The clouds were very remarkable this cold afternoon, about twenty minutes before sunset, consisting of very long and narrow white clouds converging in the horizon (melon-rind-wise) both in the west and east")

Man remains and walks over the frozen snow-crust and over the stiffened rivers and ponds, See February 19, 1854 ("I incline to walk now in swamps and on the river and ponds, where I cannot walk in summer.")

The harsh jay or crow. It never melts into a song. Only the day-day-day of an inquisitive titmouse. See February 12, 1854 ("and you hear the lisping tinkle of chickadees from time to time and the unrelenting steel-cold scream of a jay, unmelted, that never flows into a song, a sort of wintry trumpet, screaming cold; hard, tense, frozen music, like the winter sky itself; in the blue livery of winter's band.")

The ice eastward of me a few rods, where the snow was blown off, was as green as bottle glass, seen at the right angle, — a vitreous glass green. Just as I have seen the river green in a winter morning. See January 24, 1852 (Walden and White Ponds are a vitreous greenish blue, like patches of the winter sky seen in the west before sundown); Compare February 21, 1854 ("The ice in the fields by the poorhouse road — frozen puddles — amid the snow, looking westward now while the sun is about setting, in cold weather, is green.”); January 7, 1856 ("Returning, just before sunset, the few little patches of ice look green as I go from the sun (which is in clouds). 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.”); December 25, 1858 (“The sun getting low now, say at 3.30, I see the ice green, southeast.”) January 19, 1859 ("To-night I notice, this warm evening, that there is most green in the ice when I go directly from the sun. There is also considerable when I go directly toward it, but more than that a little one side; but when I look at right angles with the sun, I see none at all.") February 12, 1860 ("Returning just before sunset, I see the ice beginning to be green...")

A fine display of the northern lights after 10 p. m., flashing up from all parts of the horizon to the zenith. See Note to November 5, 1860 ("Last evening, the weather being cooler, there was an arch of northern lights in the north, with some redness. Thus our winter is heralded.") and See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Northern Lights and the Poetic Science of the Aurora:

On the evening of February 19, 1852, a scientist at the New Haven station of the nascent telegraph witnessed something extraordinary:

A blue line appeared upon the paper, which gradually grew darker and larger, until a flame of fire followed the pen, and burned through a dozen thicknesses of the prepared paper. The paper was set on fire by the flame, and produced considerable smoke. The current then subsided as gradually as it came on, until it entirely disappeared, and was then succeeded by a negative current, which bleached instead of colored, the paper; this also gradually increased, until, as with the positive current, it burned the paper, and then subsided, to be followed by the positive current.

. . . It came in waves of varying intensity all throughout the evening, interpolating between positive and negative current with each wave. Scientists knew of only one phenomenon in nature that corresponds to this pattern: the Aurora Borealis.

February 19. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, February 19

Cold unvaried snow

now stretching mile after mile

and no place to sit.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  

Unvaried snow, stretching mile after mile, and no place to sit.

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

tinyurl.com/hdt-520219 

Northern lights, rainbow, ice, snow, hail, pollywogs and mice.

March 13 

Northern lights last night. Rainbow in east this morning. 

6.30 A. M. — The river is low, very low for the season. It has been falling ever since the freshet of February 18th. Now, about sunrise, it is nearly filled with the thin, half cemented ice-crystals of the night, which the warmer temperature of day apparently has loosened. They grate against the bushes and wheel round in great fields with a slight crash and piling up.

I hear the rapid tapping of the woodpecker from over the water.

P. M. — To Hubbard’s Close. I am surprised to see, not only many pollywogs through the thin ice of the warm ditches, but, in still warmer, stagnant, unfrozen holes in this meadow, half a dozen small frogs, probably Rana palustris. 

Coming through the stubble of Stow’s rye-field in front of the Breed house, I meet with four mice-nests in going half a dozen rods. They lie flat on the ground amid the stubble; are flattened spheres, the horizontal diameter about five inches, the perpendicular considerably less, composed of grass or finer stubble, and on taking them up you do not at once detect the entrance with your eye, but rather feel it with your finger on the side; lined with the finest of the grass. 

These were undoubtedly - probably - made when the snow was on the ground, for their winter residence, while they gleaned the rye-field, and when the snow went off they scampered to the woods. I think they were made by the Mus leucopus.

I look into many woodchucks’ holes, but as yet they are choked with leaves and there is no sign of their having come abroad. 

March 13, 2025

At evening the raw, overcast day concludes with snow and hail. 

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 13, 1855

Northern lights last night.  See note to  November 5, 1860 ("An arch of northern lights in the north, with some redness."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Northern Lights

Rainbow in east this morning. See February 23, 1860 ("About 4 P. M. a smart shower, ushered in by thunder and succeeded by a brilliant rainbow and yellow light from under the dark cloud in the west.."); March 15. 1859 ("two brilliant rainbows at sunset, the first of the year."); April 9, 1855 ("In the afternoon it rained, but the sun set clear,. . .producing the first rainbow I have seen or heard of except one long ago in the morning . . . Why are they so rare in the winter? ") and note to May 11, 1854 ("A rainbow on the brow of summer")

I hear the rapid tapping of the woodpecker from over the water. See March 11, 1859 (“But methinks the sound of the woodpecker tapping is as much a spring note as any these mornings; it echoes peculiarly in the air of a spring morning.); March 15, 1854 ("I hear that peculiar, interesting loud hollow tapping of a woodpecker from over the water.”); March 18, 1853 ("The tapping of the woodpecker about this time.”); March 30, 1854 ("At the Island I see and hear this morning the cackle of a pigeon woodpecker at the hollow poplar; had heard him tapping distinctly from my boat's place."); April 14, 1856 ("Hear the flicker’s . . . tapping sounds afar over the water . It is a hollow sound which rings distinct to a great distance, especially over water."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring, woodpeckers tapping

I meet with four mice-nests. See March 6, 1855 ("a nice warm globular nest some five inches in diameter, amid the sphagnum and cranberry vines , etc., -made of dried grass and lined with a still finer grass. The hole was on one side, and the bottom was near two inches thick. See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Wild Mouse

I am surprised to see, not only many pollywogs through the thin ice of the warm ditches, but, in still warmer, stagnant, unfrozen holes in this meadow, half a dozen small frogs, probably Rana palustris. See  February 23, 1857 ("I have seen signs of the spring. I have seen a frog swiftly sinking in a pool, or where he dimpled the surface as he leapt in.");  March 7, 1855 ("I see many tadpoles of medium or full size in deep warm ditches in Hubbard’s meadow. They may probably be seen as soon as the ditches are open, thus earlier than frogs."); March 10, 1853 ("Channing says he saw pollywogs."); March 22, 1860 ("The phenomena of an average March . . .salamanders and pollywogs are more commonly seen, and also those little frogs (sylvatica males?) at spring-holes and ditches"); March 30, 1859 ("Little pollywogs two inches long are lively"); April 24, 1858 ("The pollywogs must be a long time growing, for I see those of last year not more than two inches long, also some much larger. ") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring: Frogs, and Turtles Stirring 

I look into many woodchucks’ holes. See March 5, 1857 ("See the tracks of a woodchuck in the sand-heap about the mouth of his hole, where he has cleared out his entry."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Signs of the Spring; The Woodchuck Ventures Out

The raw, overcast day concludes with snow and hail. See March 14, 1855 ("Three inches of snow in the morning, and it snows a little more during the day, with occasional gleams of sunshine. Winter back again in prospect"); March 15, 1855 ("Foul weather all day, -- at first a fine snow, and finally rain. Now, at 9 P. M., a clear sky. And so the storm which began evening of 13th ends.") See alao January 21, 1855 ("The snow is turning to rain through a fine hail."); March 2, 1854 ("Warm air has come to us from the south, but charged with moisture, which will yet distill in rain or congeal into snow and hail."); March 31, 1852 ("A cold, raw day with alternating hail-like snow and rain.")

March 13, A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, March 13

Northern lights last night. 

Rainbow in east this morning. 

— The river is low

I hear the rapid

tapping of the woodpecker 

over the water. 

March 13, 1855

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Northern lights, rainbow, ice, snow, hail, pollywogs and mice.

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-550313

A sultry night.

June 16.

Down railroad. 

Heat lightning in the horizon. A sultry night. 

A flute from some villager. How rare among men so  fit a thing as the sound of a flute at evening! 

The sonorous note of bullfrogs is heard a mile off in the river, the loudest sound this evening. Ever and anon the sound of his trombone comes over the meadows and fields, a-lulling all Concord to sleep. 

Have not the fireflies in the meadow relation to the stars above etincelant? When the darkness comes, we see stars beneath also.  Do not the stars, too, show their light for love, like the fireflies?

There are northern lights, shooting high up withal.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 16, 1852

Have not the fireflies in the meadow relation to the stars? See August 2, 1854 (“Shooting stars are but fireflies of the firmament.”)

A flute from some villager. How rare among men so fit a thing as the sound of a flute at evening! See  June 18, 1852 ("I hear a man playing a clarionet far off.  . . .  There is something glorious and flower-like in it. What a contrast this evening melody with the occupations of the day! It is perhaps the most admirable accomplishment of man."); June 25, 1852 (“Now his day's work is done, the laborer plays his flute, — only possible at this hour. Contrasted with his work, what an accomplishment! . . . He plays some well-known march. But the music is not in the tune; it is in the sound.”);   August 3, 1852  ("I hear the sound of a distant piano. . . .  By some fortunate coincidence of thought or circumstance I am attuned to the universe ...")

A Strange Dog

April 22.

It still rains. The water is over the road at Flint's Bridge, so that there is now only the Boston road open. This flood tempts men to build boats. The villagers walk the streets and talk of the great rise of waters.


A strange dog accompanies us today, a hunting dog, gyrating about us at a great distance, beating every bush and barking at the birds, with great speed, gyrating his tail too all the while. Our dog sends off a partridge with a whir, far across the open field and the river, like a winged bullet. This stranger dog has good habits for a companion, he keeps so distant. He never trusts himself near us, though he accompanies us for miles.

It takes this day to clear up gradually; successive sun-showers still make it foul. But the sun feels very warm after the storm. This makes five stormy days. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

The water, slightly agitated, looks bright when the sun shines.

See four hawks soaring high in the heavens over the Swamp Bridge Brook. At first saw three; said to myself there must be four, and found the fourth.

From Cliffs see much snow on the mountains.

The pine on Lee's shore of the pond, seen against the light water this cloudy weather from part way down the Cliff, is an agreeable object to me. When the outline and texture of white pine is thus seen against the water or the sky, it is an affecting sight.

The shadow of the Cliff on Conantum in the semi-sunshine, with indistinct edge and a reddish tinge from bushes here and there!

What is that grass with a yellow blossom which I find now on the Cliff? [Carex marginata, early sedge, the earliest grass that flowers.] 
The early sedge grows on the side of the Cliffs in little tufts with small yellow blossoms, i. e. with yellow anthers, low in the grass.

I want things to be incredible, — too good to appear true. 

C. says, "After you have been to the post-office once you are damned!" But I answer that it depends somewhat on whether you get a letter or not. If you should not get a letter there is some hope for you.

If you would be wise, learn science and then forget it.

A boat on the river, on the white surface, looks black, and the boatman like Charon.

I see swarms of gnats in the air.
.
It is the contrast between sunshine and storm that is most pleasing; the gleams of sunshine in the midst of the storm are the most memorable.

It is pleasant sometimes looking thirty or forty rods into an open wood, where the trunks of the trees are plainly seen, and patches of soft light on the ground.

The maples in the side swamp near Well Meadow are arranged nearly in a circle in the water.

Saw that winkle-like fungus, fresh and green, covering an oak stump to-day with concentric marks, spirally arranged, sometimes in a circle, very handsome. I love this apparent exuberance of nature.
.
On the most retired, the wildest and craggiest,  most precipitous hillside you will find some old road by which the teamster carted off the wood.

The hylas peep now in full chorus, but are silent on my side of the pond.

The water at 6 P. M. is one and a half inches higher than in the morning , i.e. seven inches above the iron truss. 

The strain of the red-wing on the willow spray over the water to-night is liquid, bubbling, watery, almost like a tinkling fountain, in perfect harmony with the meadow. It oozes, trickles, tinkles, bubbles from his throat, -bob-y-lee-e-e, and then its shrill, fine whistle.

At 10 P. M. the northern lights are flashing, like some grain sown broadcast in the sky. 

I hear the hylas peep on the meadow as I stand at the door.

Mr. Holbrook tells me he heard and saw martins (?) yesterday. [Storm ends this evening.]

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 22, 1852

It still rains. The water is over the road at Flint's Bridge, so that there is now only the Boston road open. See April 22, 1856 (“These rain-storms -- this is the third day of one -- characterize 'the season, and belong rather to winter than to summer.”)

Our dog sends off a partridge with a whir, far across the open field and the river, like a winged bullet. See April 22,1859 (" Scare up partridges feeding about the green springy places under the edge of hills. See them skim or scale away for forty rods along and upward to the woods. . .dodging to right and left and avoiding the twigs, yet without once flapping the wings after having launched themselves.")See also December 14, 1855 ("They shoot off swift and steady, showing their dark-edged tails, almost like a cannon-ball. “)

The shadow of the Cliff on Conantum in the semi-sunshine, . . . See May 16, 1854 ("I notice the dark shadow of Conantum Cliff from the water. Why do I notice it at this season particularly? Is it because a shadow is more grateful to the sight now that warm weather has come? Or is there anything in the contrast between the rich green of the grass and the cool dark shade?”)

The early sedge (Carex marginata) grows on the side of the Cliffs in little tufts with small yellow blossoms, i. e. with yellow anthers, low in the grass. See  April 22, 1859 ("Sedge, rising green and dense with yellow tips above the withered clumps, is very striking, suggesting heat, even a blaze, there."); April 10, 1855 ('As for the early sedge, who would think of looking for a flower of any kind in those dry tufts whose withered blades almost entirely conceal the springing green ones? I patiently examined one tuft after another, higher and higher up the rocky hill, till at last I found one little yellow spike low in the grass which shed its pollen on my finger");  See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Sedges in Early Spring

The strain of the red-wing on the willow spray over the water to-night is liquid,,bubbling, watery, almost like a tinkling fountain,. . ., and then its shrill, fine whistle. See April 30, 1855 (" Red-wing blackbirds now fly in large flocks, covering the tops of trees—willows, maples, apples, or oaks—like a black fruit , and keep up an incessant gurgling and whistling, — all for some purpose; what is it?")  

See four hawks soaring high in the heavens. See April 22, 1860 ("See now hen-hawks, a pair, soaring high as for pleasure, circling ever further and further away, as if it were midsummer. The peculiar flight of a hawk thus fetches the year about. I do not see it soar in this serene and leisurely manner very early in the season, methinks. ")

When the outline and texture of white pine is thus seen against the water or the sky, it is an affecting sight. See April 24, 1853 ("See a pretty islet in the Creek Pond on the east side covered with white pine wood, appearing from the south as if the trees grew out of the water. . . .This gives the isle a peculiarly light and floating appearance.")

I see swarms of gnats in the air. See note to April 22, 1860 ("And in one place we disturb great clouds of the little fuzzy gnats that were resting on the bushes.")

The pine on Lee’s shore

seen against the light water

this cloudy weather.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A Strange Dog

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 © 2009-2025

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-520422

To Blood's oak lot.

November 5.

Blood's oak lot may contain about a dozen acres. It consists of red, black, white, and swamp white oaks, and a very little maple.  This is quite a dense wood-lot, even without considering the size of the trees, and  I am  surprised to see how much spread there is to the tops of the trees in it, especially to the white oaks.

The more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core.  I think that the same is true of human beings.  We do not wish to see children precocious, making great strides in their early years like sprouts, producing a soft and perishable timber, but better if they expand slowly at first, as if contending with difficulties, and so are solidified and perfected.

Such trees continue to expand with nearly equal rapidity to an extreme old age. This  wood is  a hundred to a hundred and sixty years old.

I am struck by the orderly arrangement of the trees, as if each knew its own place. As if in the natural state of things, when sufficient time is given, trees will be found occupying the places most suitable to each, but when they are interfered with some are prompted to grow where they do not belong and a certain degree of confusion is produced. That is, our forest generally is in a transition state to a settled and normal condition.

Many young white pines — the largest twenty years old — are distributed through this wood, and I have no doubt that if let alone this would in a hundred years look more like a pine wood than an oak one  Hence we see that the white pine may introduce itself into a primitive oak wood of average density.

The only sounds  I hear are the notes of the jays, evidently attracted by the acorns, and the only animal I see is  a red squirrel, while there are the nests of several gray squirrels in the trees.

Last evening, the weather being cooler, there was an arch of northern lights in the north, with some redness. Thus our winter is heralded.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 5, 1860

This wood is a hundred to a hundred and sixty years old. See October 20, 1860 ("I examine Ebby Hubbard's old oak and pine wood. The trees may be a hundred years old.”); November 2, 1860 ("Wetherbee's oak wood ... The trees would average probably between a hundred and fifty and two hundred years. Such a wood has got to be very rare in this neighborhood.”); ( November 10, 1860 ("Inches Wood . . .as fine an oak wood as there is in New England.").

The more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core. I think that the same is true of human beings. See October 29, 1860 ("It is with men as with trees; you must grow slowly to last long.)

Northern lights. See September 7, 1851 ("I see the northern lights over my shoulder, to remind me of the Esquimaux and that they are still my contemporaries on this globe, that they too are taking their walks on another part of the planet, in pursuit 476of seals, perchance . . . The northern lights now, as I descend from the Conantum house, have become a crescent of light crowned with short, shooting flames,—or the shadows of flames, for sometimes they are dark as well as white. . . .Now the fire in the north increases wonderfully, not shooting up so much as creeping along, like a fire on the mountains of the north seen afar in the night. The Hyperborean gods are burning brush, and it spread, and all the hoes in heaven couldn’t stop it. It spread from west to east over the crescent hill. Like a vast fiery worm it lay across the northern sky, broken into many pieces; and each piece, with rainbow colors skirting it, strove to advance itself toward the east, worm-like, on its own annular muscles. It has spread into their choicest wood-lots. Now it shoots up like a single solitary watch-fire or burning bush, or where it ran up a pine tree like powder, and still it continues to gleam here and there like a fat stump in the burning, and is reflected in the water. And now I see the gods by great exertions have got it under, and the stars have come out without fear, in peace."); February 19, 1852 ("A fine display of the northern lights after 10 p. m., flashing up from all parts of the horizon to the zenith, where there was a kind of core formed, stretching south southeast [and] north-northwest, surrounded by what looked like a permanent white cloud, which, however, was very variable in its form. The light flashes or trembles upward, as if it were the light of the sun reflected from a frozen mist which undulated in the wind in the upper atmosphere."); April 22, 1852 ("At 10 P. M. the northern lights are flashing, like some grain sown broadcast in the sky."); May 10, 1852 ("There is an aurora borealis to-night."); May 19, 1852 ("Lightning here this evening and an aurora in form of a segment of a circle."); June 16, 1852 ("There are northern lights, shooting high up withal."); July 12, 1852 ("As I sit on the river-bank beyond the ash tree there is an aurora, a low arc of a circle, in the north. The twilight ends to-night apparently about a quarter before ten. There is no moon."); March 13, 1855 ("Northern lights last night. Rainbow in east this morning."); January 28, 1858 ("Coming through the village at 11 P.M., the sky is completely overcast, and the (perhaps thin) clouds are very distinctly pink or reddish, somewhat as if reflecting a distant fire, but this phenomenon is universal all round and overhead. I suspect there is a red aurora borealis behind."); August 29, 1859 ("There was a remarkable red aurora all over the sky last night."). See also Wikipedia (Solar Cycle 10 beginning in December 1855 and the Solar storm ( Carrington Event.) of September 1–2, 1859) and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Northern Lights