A Book of the Seasons: January 4.

in addition

to my solitude

frost on the window

Issa

January 4

Snapping cold this night,
frost on windows sparkles as
I pass with a light.
January 4, 1856

\

High wind in the night
so cold the snow dries and is
drifted this morning.
January 3-4, 1857

Deep and drifted snow.

Burdock burs adhere to the

lining of my coat.

January 4, 1857

I wish again to

share the happiness of the

river and the woods.

January 4, 1857

A northeast snow-storm,
or rather a north snow-storm,
very hard to face.
January 4, 1859

Wind shakes the trees and 

great clouds of fine snow, like steam, 

roll down the wood-side.

January 4, 1859

The woods are nightly
thronged with little creatures which
most have never seen.
January 4, 1860

But to my surprise a high wind arose in the night and that and the cold so dried the snow that Jan 4 this morning it is a good deal drifted January 3-4, 1857


It is snapping cold this night (10 P. M.). I see the frost on the windows sparkle as I go through the passageway with a light January 4, 1856


January 4, 1856 ("I think it is only such a day as this, when the fields on all sides are well clad with snow, over which the sun shines brightly, that you observe the blue shadows on the snow.")

January 4, 2019

January 4.  The small white pines stand thus, the lower branches loaded and bent down the ground, while the upper are commonly free and erect:

January 4, 1859

January 4. I especially feel the necessity of putting myself in communication with nature again, to recover my tone, to withdraw out of the wearying and unprofitable world of affairs. The things I have been doing have but a fleeting and accidental importance, however much men are immersed in them, and yield very little valuable fruit. I would fain have been wading through the woods and fields and conversing with the sane snow. 

Having waded in the very shallowest stream of time, I would now bathe my temples in eternity. I wish again to participate in the serenity of nature, to share the happiness of the river and the woods. 

I thus from time to time break off my connection with eternal truths and go with the shallow stream of human affairs, grinding at the mill of the Philistines; but when my task is done, with never-failing confidence I devote myself to the infinite again. January 4, 1857

I must call that swamp of E. Hubbard's west of the Hunt Pasture, Yellow Birch Swamp.  There are more of those trees than anywhere else in town that I know. How pleasing to stand beside a new or rare tree! And few are so handsome as this.  . . ..In the twilight I went through the swamp, and yellow birches sent forth a dull-yellow gleam which each time made my heart beat faster. . . .I walked with the yellow birch..  . .If there were Druids whose temples were the oak groves, my temple is the swamp. Sometimes I was in doubt about a birch whose vest was buttoned smooth and dark, till I came nearer and saw the yellow gleaming through, or where a button was off.  January 4, 1853

 When I get down near to Cardinal Shore, the sun near setting, its light is wonderfully reflected from a narrow edging of yellowish stubble at the edge of the meadow ice . . .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 . . . It was remarkable that, looking eastward, this was the only evidence of the light in the west.   January 4, 1858 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The White Pines 

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Serene as the Sky.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Reflections

December 31, 1854 ("A beautiful, clear, not very cold day. The shadows on the snow are indigo-blue.") January 5, 1854 ("There is also some blueness now in the snow. The blueness is more distinct after sunset.")

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

All the fields and meadows covered deep with snow

January 3

Snows again. About two inches have fallen in the night, but it turns to a fine mist. It was a damp snow.

P. M. —To Hill.

The snow turned to a fine mist or mizzling, through which I see a little blue in the snow, lurking in the ruts.

January 5, 1856 ("The hardhack above the snow has this form")

In the river meadows and on the (perhaps moist) sides of the hill, how common and conspicuous the brown spear-heads of the hardhack, above the snow, and looking black by contrast with it!

Just beyond the Assabet Spring I see where a squirrel, gray or red, dug through the snow last night in search of acorns. I know it was last night, for it was while the last snow was falling, and the tracks are partly filled by it.

This squirrel has burrowed to the ground in many places within a few yards, probing the leaves for acorns in various directions, making a short burrow under the snow, sometimes passing under the snow a yard and coming out at another place; for, though it is somewhat hardened on the surface by the nightly freezing and the hail, it is still quite soft and light beneath next the earth, and a squirrel or mouse can burrow very fast indeed there. I am surprised to find how easily I can pass my hand through it there. In many places it has dropped the leaves, etc., about the mouth of the hole. (The whole snow about ten inches deep.)

I see where it sat in a young oak and ate an acorn, dropping the shells on the snow beneath, for there is no track to the shells, but only to the base of the oak. How independently they live, not alarmed, though the snow be two feet deep!

Now, when all the fields and meadows are covered deep with snow, the warm-colored shoots of osiers, red and yellow, rising above it, remind me of flames.

It is astonishing how far a merely well-dressed and good-looking man may go without being challenged by any sentinel. What is called good society will bid high for such. The man whom the State has raised to high office, like that of governor, for instance, from some, it may be, honest but less respected calling, cannot return to his former humble but profitable pursuits, his old customers will be so shy of him. His ex-honorableness-ship stands seriously in his way, whether he is a lawyer or a shopkeeper. He can’t get ex-honorated. So he becomes a sort of State pauper, an object of charity on its hands, which the State is bound in honor to see through and provide still with offices of similar respectability, that he may not come to want.

A man who has been President becomes the Ex-President, and can’t travel or stay at home anywhere but men will persist in paying respect to his ex-ship. It is cruel as to remember his deeds so long. When his time is out, why can’t they let the poor fellow go?

H. D Thoreau, Journal, January 3, 1856

The snow turned to a fine mist or mizzling, through which I see a little blue in the snow, lurking in the ruts. See January 6, 1856 ("Now, at 4.15, the blue shadows are very distinct on the snowbanks.”);  January 5, 1854 ("The blueness is more distinct after sunset.");  January 9, 1852 ("Apparently the snow absorbs the other rays and reflects the blue."); January 14, 1852 ("There is no blueness in the ruts and crevices in the snow to-day. What kind of atmosphere does this require? . . . It is one of the most interesting phenomena of the winter."); January 15, 1856 ("My shadow is a most celestial blue. This only requires a clear bright day and snow-clad earth, not great cold."); January 19, 1855 ("I never saw the blue in snow so bright as this damp, dark, stormy morning at 7 A. M.”); January 20, 1856 ("I see the blue between the cakes of snow cast out in making a path, in the triangular recesses, though it is pretty cold, but the sky is completely overcast”); February 7, 1859 ("Evidently the distant woods are more blue in a warm and moist or misty day in winter, and is not this connected with the blue in snow in similar days?")

How common and conspicuous the brown spear-heads of the hardhack, above the snow and looking black by contrast with it! See December 6, 1856 ("Not till the snow comes are the beauty and variety and richness of vegetation ever fully revealed."); January 14, 1852 ("When I see the dead stems of the tansy, goldenrod, johnswort, asters, hardhack, etc., etc., rising above the snow by the roadside, sometimes in dense masses, which carry me back in imagination to their green summer life, I put faintly a question which I do not yet hear answered, Why stand they there?")  See also January 16, 1860 ("There is no shrub nor weed which is not known to some bird."); March 14, 1855 (“This, then, is reason enough why these withered stems still stand, - that they may raise these granaries above the snow for the use of the snowbirds.”); December 17, 1859 ("I see on the pure white snow what looks like dust for half a dozen inches under a twig. Looking closely, I find that the twig is hardhack and the dust its slender, light-brown, chaffy looking seed, which falls still in copious showers, dusting the snow, when I jar it; and here are the tracks of a sparrow which has jarred the twig and picked the minute seeds")

The warm-colored shoots of osiers, red and yellow . . . remind me of flames. See January 19, 1856 ("The willow osiers of last year’s growth . . . aas bright as in the spring, the lower half yellow, the upper red."); January 26, 1859 ("The osiers there shone as brightly as in spring, showing that their brightness depends on the sun and air rather than the season.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Osier in Winter and early Spring

January 3. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 3

Osiers rising

above the snow-covered fields

remind me of flames.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, All the fields and meadows covered deep with snow

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560103

A Book of the Seasons: January 3 (It is now fairly winter, winter colors, winter landscape, twilight lingers, the day seems longer)

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

January 3

From the Peak I look 

over the wintry landscape

as twilight lingers. 

January 3, 1854

The ground has been bare for some days, and the weather warm. January 3, 1852

Having had rain within a few days on the four or five inches of snow there was, making slosh of it without melting the hard frozen ground, the slosh and surface water have now frozen, making it pretty good skating in the roads generally. January 3, 1859

The slosh on Walden had so much water in it that it has now frozen perfectly smooth and looks like a semitransparent marble. January 3, 1858

Snows again. About two inches have fallen in the night, but it turns to a fine mist. It was a damp snow. January 3, 1856

Snows all day, falling level, without wind, a moist and heavy snow. Snowed part of the night also. January 3, 1857

From the Peak, I look over the wintry landscape. First there is the white ground, then the dark, dulled green of evergreens, then the reddish brown of the oaks, which generally retain their leaves, then the gray of maples and other trees, which are bare. Modest Quaker colors seen above the snow.   January 3, 1854

Now, when all the fields and meadows are covered deep with snow, the warm-colored shoots of osiers, red and yellow, rising above it, remind me of flames. January 3, 1856

In the river meadows and on the (perhaps moist) sides of the hill, how common and conspicuous the brown spear-heads of the hardhack, above the snow, and looking black by contrast with it! January 3, 1856

Many of the clusters of the smooth sumach are now a very dark crimson.  January 3, 1859

Going to the Andromeda Ponds, I was greeted by the warm brown-red glow of the Andromeda calyculata toward the sun. I see where I have been through, the more reddish under sides apparently being turned up. It is long since a human friend has met me with such a glow.  January 3, 1858

I see a flock of F. hyemalis this afternoon, the weather is hitherto so warm. January 3, 1858

Saw four snow buntings by the railroad causeway, just this side the cut, quite tame. . . . They were busily eating the seed of the piper grass on the embankment there, and it was strewn over the snow by them like oats in a stable. January 3, 1860

As we passed the almshouse brook this pleasant winter afternoon, at 2.30 p. m. (perhaps 20°, for it was 10° when I got home at 4.45), I saw vapor curling along over the open part by the roadside. January 3, 1860

The most we saw, on the pond and after, was a peculiar track amid the men and dog tracks, which we took to be a fox-track, for he trailed his feet, leaving a mark, in a peculiar manner, and showed his wildness by his turning off the road. January 3, 1860

Melvin thinks that the musquash eat more clams now than ever, and that they leave the shells in heaps under the ice. As the river falls it leaves them space enough under the ice along the meadow's edge and bushes. I think he is right. January 3, 1860

When a locomotive came in, just before the sun set, I saw a small cloud blown away from it which was a very rare but distinct violet purple. January 3, 1860

The third considerable snow-storm. January 3, 1861

It is now fairly winter. We have passed the line, have put the autumn behind us, have forgotten what these withered herbs that rise above the snow here and there are, what flowers they ever bore. January 3, 1854

The twilight appears to linger. The day seems suddenly longer. January 3, 1854

*****

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Andromeda Phenomenon

A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Snow Bunting (Emberiza nivalis) 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Musquash

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Fox

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Snow-storms might be classified.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Winter Colors

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Steam of the Engine

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  the Osier in Winter and early Spring

*****

November 8, 1858 ("I admire again about this time the still bright red or crimson fruit of the sumach")

November 27, 1857 (“Returning, I see a fox run across the road in the twilight . . . I feel a certain respect for him, . . ., he still maintains himself free and wild in our midst.”)

November 24, 1857 ("Looking toward the sun, the andromeda in front of me is a very warm red brown and on either side of me, a pale silvery brown; looking from the sun, a uniform pale brown")

December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified . . . Also there is the pellet or shot snow, which consists of little dry spherical pellets the size of robin-shot.")

December 21, 1859 ("The incipient slosh of yesterday is now frozen, and makes good sleighing and a foundation for more.") 

December 28, 1856 ("Am surprised to see the F. hyemalis here.")

December 29, 1856 ("Do not the F. hyemalis, lingering yet, and the numerous tree sparrows foretell an open winter?")

January 1, 1854 ("[A] moist and heavy snow. It is about six inches in all this day.”)

January 2, 1856 ("Crossing the railroad at the Heywood meadow, I see some snow buntings rise from the side of the embankment, and with surging, rolling flight wing their way up through the cut. . . Returning, I see, near the back road and railroad, a small flock of eight snow buntings feeding on the the seeds of the pigweed . . . They have come with this deeper snow and colder weather.")

January 6, 1856 (" While I am making a path to the pump, I hear hurried rippling notes of birds, look up, and see quite a flock of snow buntings coming to alight amid the currant-tops in the yard . . .  What a pity our yard was made so tidy in the fall with rake and fire, and we have now no tall crop of weeds rising above this snow to invite these birds! ")

January 6, 1859 ("Near Nut Meadow Brook, on the Jimmy Miles road, I see a flock of snow buntings. They are feeding exclusively on that ragged weed which I take to be Roman wormwood. ")

January 7, 1857 ("This snow which fell last Saturday so moist and heavy is now surprisingly dry and light and powdery.")

January 10,1855 ("As I go toward the sun now at 4 P. M., the translucent leaves are lit up by it and appear of a soft red, more or less brown, like cathedral windows, but when I look back from the sun, the whole bed appears merely gray and brown or less reddish.”)

February 5, 1854 ("Here was one track that crossed the road, — did not turn in it like a dog, — track of a wilder life. How distinct from the others! Such as was made before roads were, as if the road were a more recent track.")

January 3, 2022

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature this year,

 you will have occasion to repeat it

 with illustrations the next, 

and the season and life itself is prolonged.

  April 7, 1853 

January 2 <<<<<<<<  January 3 >>>>>>>> January 4

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, January 3

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 ©  2009-2023

They have come with this deeper snow and colder weather.

January 2

Probably the coldest morning yet, our thermometer 6° below zero at 8 A.M.; yet there is quite a mist in the air. The neighbors say it was 10° below zero at 7 A.M. 

P.M. — To Walden. 

As for the fox and rabbit race described yesterday, I find that the rabbit was going the other way, and possibly the fox was a rabbit, for, tracing back the rabbit, I found that it had first been walking with alternate steps, fox-like. 

There were many white rabbits’ tracks in those woods, and many more of the gray rabbit, but the former broke through and made a deep track, except where there was a little crust on the south slope, while the latter made but a faint impression on the surface. The latter run very much in the same path, which is well trodden, and you would think you were in the midst of quite a settlement of them. 

Crossing the railroad at the Heywood meadow, I see some snow buntings rise from the side of the embankment, and with surging, rolling flight wing their way up through the cut. 

I walk through the western most Heywood swamp. There are the tracks of many rabbits, both gray and white, which have run about the edges of these swamps since this snow came, amid the alders and shrub oaks, and one white one has crossed it. 

January 2, 2016

The cat-tails rise high above the snow in the swamp, their brown heads bursting on one side into creamy (?) billows and wreaths, or partly bare. Also the rattlesnake grass is still gracefully drooping on every side, with the weight of its seeds, — a rich, wild grain. And other wild grasses and rushes rise above the snow. 

There is the wild-looking remnant of a white pine, quite dead, rising fifteen or twenty feet, which the woodpeckers have bored; and it is still clad with sulphur lichens and many dark-colored tufts of cetraria in the forks of its branches. 

Returning, I see, near the back road and railroad, a small flock of eight snow buntings feeding on the the seeds of the pigweed, picking them from the snow, – apparently flat on the snow, their legs so short, – and, when I approach, alighting on the rail fence. They are pretty black, with white wings and a brown crescent on their breasts. They have come with this deeper snow and colder weather.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 2, 1856

Probably the coldest morning yet, our thermometer 6° below zero at 8 A.M. See January 2, 1860 ("8 a.m. -15° below . . . the coldest thus far.")

The wild-looking remnant of a white pine, quite dead, still clad with sulphur lichens and many dark-colored tufts of cetraria. See December 31, 1851 ("The round greenish-yellow lichens on the white pines loom through the mist . . . The trees appear all at once covered with their crop of lichens and mosses of all kinds . . . the livid green of some, the fruit of others. They eclipse the trees they cover.") See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Lichens 

Snow buntings. See January 2, 1854 ("A flock of snow buntings flew over the fields with a rippling whistle, accompanied sometimes by a tender peep and a ricochet motion.") See also December 29, 1853 ("I see the first flock of arctic snowbirds (Emberiza nivalis) near the depot, white and black, with a sharp, whistle-like note."); January 3, 1859 ("Four snow buntings . . . arose and alighted on the rail fence as we went by. Very stout for their length. Look very pretty when they fly and reveal the clear white space on their wings next the body, — white between the blacks.")

Pigweed.  See  January 20, 1853 ("I see where snowbirds in troops have visited each withered chenopodium that rises above the snow in the yard — and some are large and bushlike — for its seeds, their well-filled granary now."); February 13, 1855 ("One of these pigweeds in the yard lasts the snow-birds all winter, and after every new storm they re-visit it. How inexhaustible their granary! ") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Pigweed

They have come with this deeper snow and colder weather. See December 24, 1851 ("I see them so commonly when it is beginning to snow that I am inclined to regard them as a sign of a snow-storm.”) See also A Book of Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Snow Bunting

January 2. See  A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  January 2

A small flock of eight

snow buntings feeding on the

seeds of the pigweed.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, They have come with this deeper snow 

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560102

A Book of the Seasons: January 2.

January 2.

God exhibits himself

in a frosted bush to-day

as to Moses of old.

January 2, 1853

The earth is our ship –

the sound of the wind in her

rigging as we sail.

January 2, 1859

January 2, 2019

How glorious the
perfect stillness and peace of
the winter landscape!
December 31, 1854

The bells are particularly sweet this morning. January 2, 1853

The ringing of the church bell is a much more melodious sound than any that is heard within the church .January 2, 1842

Men obey their call and go to the stove-warmed church, though God exhibits himself to the walker in a frosted bush to-day, as much as in a burning one to Moses of old. January 2, 1853

I wish to get on to a hill to look down on the winter landscape. January 2, 1854

Looking from the southwest side of Walden toward Heywood's Peak before sunset, the brown light on the oak leaves is almost dazzling. January 2, 1859

The color of young oaks of different species is still distinct, but more faded and blended, becoming a more uniform brown. January 2, 1859

I listen to the sharp, dry rustle of the withered oak leaves. This is the voice of the wood now. January 2, 1859

It sounds like the roar of the sea, and is enlivening and inspiriting like that, suggesting how all the land is seacoast to the aerial ocean. January 2, 1859

It is the sound of the surf, the rut of an unseen ocean, billows of air breaking on the forest like water on itself or on sand and rocks. January 2, 1859

It rises and falls, wells and dies away, with agreeable alternation as the sea surf does. January 2, 1859

It is remarkable how universal these grand murmurs are, these backgrounds of sound . . . are essentially one voice, the earth-voice, the breathing or snoring of the creature. January 2, 1859

The earth is our ship, and this is the sound of the wind in her rigging as we sail. January 2, 1859

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 © 2009-2017

A Book of the Seasons: January 1.

January 1.

Lichen-covered rock

almost warm as in summer –

naked in moonlight,

January 1, 1852

I return at last
in a rain and am coated
with glaze like the fields. 

January 1, 1853

Snow is like a mold

showing the form of the wind –

where the wind has been.

January 1, 1854 

Pink light on the snow.

The shadow of the bridges

dark indigo blue.

January 1, 1855

Looking closely as

the thin and fragile frostwork

melts under my breath.

January 1, 1856

Here two fishermen

know not why they have no bites

this clear winter day.

January 1, 1856

January 1, 2017

Moon little more than half full. Not a cloud in the sky. The stars dazzlingly bright. It is a remarkably warm night for the season, the ground almost entirely bare . . . Perhaps the only thing that spoke to me on this walk was the bare, lichen-covered gray rock at the Cliff, in the moonlight, naked and almost warm as in summer. January 1, 1852

This morning we have something between ice and frost on the trees, etc. The whole earth . . . is encased in ice . . . I return at last in a rain, and am coated with a glaze, like the fields. January 1, 1853

This morning it is snowing again fast, and about six inches has already fallen by 10 a. m., of a moist and heavy snow. It is about six inches in all this day . . . The snow-drift does not lie close about the pump, but is a foot off, forming a circular bowl, showing that there was an eddy about it. It shows where the wind has been, the form of the wind  January 1, 1854

We see the pink light on the snow within a rod of us. The shadow of the bridges on the snow is a dark indigo blue. January 1, 1855

On the ice at Walden are very beautiful great leaf crystals in great profusion . . . They are, on a close examination, surprisingly perfect leaves, like ferns . . .They are so thin and fragile that they melt under your breath while looking closely at them. January 1, 1856

Here are two fishermen, and one has preceded them. They have not had a bite, and know not why. It has been a clear winter day. January 1, 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 © 2009-2017

Thin and fragile leaf crystals melt under my breath.

January 1

P. M. —To Walden. 

January 1, 2016

Walden is covered with white snow ice six inches thick, for it froze while it was snowing, though commonly there is a thin dark beneath. This is now, therefore, bare, while the river, which was frozen before, is covered with snow.

A very small patch of Walden, frozen since the snow, looks at a little distance exactly like open water by contrast with the snow ice, the trees being reflected in it, and indeed I am not certain but a very small part of this patch was water.

The track-repairers have shovelled four little paths by the sides of the rails, all the way from the depot to Walden. As I went by the engine-house, I saw great icicles four feet long hanging from the eastern eaves, like slender pointed spears, the last half blown aside by the wind: and still more.

By the side of the Deep Cut are the tracks of probably tree sparrows about the weeds, and of partridges.

On the ice at Walden are very beautiful great leaf crystals in great profusion. 

The ice is frequently thickly covered with them for many rods. They seem to be connected with the rosettes,—a running together of them. They look like a loose web of small white feathers springing from a tuft of down, for their shafts are lost in a tuft of fine snow like the down about the shaft of a feather, as if a feather bed had been shaken over the ice.

They are, on a close examination, surprisingly perfect leaves, like ferns, only very broad for their length and commonly more on one side the midrib than the other. They are from an inch to an inch and a half long and three quarters wide, and slanted, where I look, from the southwest.

They have, first, a very distinct midrib, though so thin that they cannot be taken up; then, distinct ribs branching from this, commonly opposite, and minute ribs springing again from these last, as in many ferns, the last running to each crenation in the border. How much further they are subdivided, the naked eye cannot discern.

They are so thin and fragile that they melt under your breath while looking closely at them.

A fisherman says they were much finer in the morning. In other places the ice is strewn with a different kind of frostwork in little patches, as if oats had been spilled, like fibres of asbestos rolled, a half or three quarters of an inch long and an eighth or more wide. Here and there patches of them a foot or two over. Like some boreal grain spilled.

Here are two fishermen, and one has preceded them. They have not had a bite, and know not why. It has been a clear winter day. 

January 1, 2017

On the north shore, near the railroad, I see the tracks apparently of a white rabbit, afterward many tracks of gray rabbits, and where they had squatted under or rather by the side of an alder stem or the like, and left many balls in the pure snow. Many have run in one course.

In the midst of them I see the track of a large rabbit, probably a white one, which was evidently on the full spring. Its tracks are four feet apart, and, unlike the others, which are on the surface even of this light snow, these break through deep, making a hole six inches over. Why was this one in such haste?

I conclude to trace him back and find out. His bounds grow greater and greater as I go back, now six feet quite, and a few rods further are the tracks of a fox (possibly a dog, but I think not) exactly on the trail! A little further, where the rabbit was ascending a considerable slope, through this snow nearly a foot deep, the bounds measure full seven feet, leaving the snow untouched for that space between.

It appears that the fox had started the rabbit from a bank on which it was resting, near a young hemlock, and pursued it only a dozen rods up the hill, and then gave up the chase,—and well he might, methought.

In a rabbit’s track the two forefeet are the furthest apart. This chase occurred probably in the night, either the last or night before, when there was not a man within a mile; but, treading on these very deep and distinct tracks, it was as if I had witnessed it, and in imagination I could see the sharp eyes of the crafty fox and the palpitating breast of the timorous rabbit, listening behind.

We unwittingly traverse the scenery of what tragedies! Every square rod, perchance, was the scene of a life or death struggle last night. As you track the rabbit further off, its bounds becoming shorter and shorter, you follow also surely its changing moods from desperate terror till it walks calmly and reassured over the snow without breaking its very slight crust, — perchance till it gnaws some twig composedly, —and in the other direction you trace the retreating steps of the disappointed fox until he has forgotten this and scented some new game, maybe dreams of partridges or wild mice.

Your own feelings are fluttered proportionately.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 1, 1856 

A very small patch of Walden looks at a little distance exactly like open water, the trees being reflected in it, and indeed I am not certain but a very small part of this patch was water. See April 13, 1856 (“[D]ark-green clear ice . . . At a little distance you would mistake it for water; further off still . . .it is blue as in summer.“); December 18, 1852 ("I slid over it with a little misgiving, mistaking the ice before me for water. “)

Here are two fishermen, and one has preceded them. They have not had a bite, and know not why. It has been a clear winter day. See December 28, 1856 ("There they sit, ever and anon scanning their reels to see if any have fallen, and, if not catching many fish, still getting what they went for, though they may not be aware of it, i. e. a wilder experience than the town affords");  June 26, 1853 ("Fishing is often the young man's introduction to the forest and wild. As a hunter and fisher he goes thither until at last the naturalist or poet distinguishes that which attracted him first, and he leaves the gun and rod behind.”); December 22, 1859 ("The fisherman stands erect and still on the ice, awaiting our approach, as usual forward to say that he has had no luck. He has been here since early morning, and for some reason or other the fishes won't bite. You won't catch him here again in a hurry. They all tell the same story. The amount of it is he has had "fisherman's luck," and if you walk that way you may find him at his old post to-morrow. . . .[T]he pond floor is not a bad place to spend a winter day"); May 6, 1858 ("One man shall derive from the fisherman’s story more than the fisher has got who tells it")

Your own feelings are fluttered proportionately. See January 2, 1856 (“As for the fox and rabbit race described yesterday, I find that the rabbit was going the other way, and possibly the fox was a rabbit, for, tracing back the rabbit, I found that it had first been walking with alternate steps, fox-like.”)

January 1. See A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, January 1

While looking closely,

thin and fragile leaf crystals

melt under my breath.

Here two fishermen

know not why they have no bites

this clear winter day.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, A clear winter day.

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

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