To improve the nick of time.

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.

H. D. Thoreau,  Walden, Where I lived and what I lived for

See Economy, ("In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line.”); April 24, 1859 ("Nothing must be postponed. Take time by the forelock. Now or never! You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this, or the like of this.”); May 12, 1857 ("Our past experience is a never-failing capital which can never be alienated, of which each kindred future event reminds us. If you would have the song of the sparrow inspire you a thousand years hence, let your life be in harmony with its strain to-day.”);  June 6, 1857 ("Each season is but an infinitesimal point. It no sooner comes than it is gone. It has no duration. It simply gives a tone and hue to my thought. Each annual phenomenon is a reminiscence and prompting. Our thoughts and sentiments answer to the revolutions of the seasons, as two cog-wheels fit into each other. We are conversant with only one point of contact at a time, from which we receive a prompting and impulse and instantly pass to a new season or point of contact. A year is made up of a certain series and number of sensations and thoughts which have their language in nature. Now I am ice, now I am sorrel. Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind. ")

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

I drink at it 

but while I drink I see 

the sandy bottom

and detect how shallow it is.

 

Its thin current 

slides away.

But eternity remains.

 

I would drink deeper –

fish in the sky whose bottom 

is pebbly with stars.

I cannot count one. 

I know not the first letter

of the alphabet . . .

always regretting

that I was not as wise as

the day I was born.

H. D. Thoreau, Walden, Where I lived and what I lived for

if we are alive, let us go about our business. Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet, I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. 

See May 22, 1854 (“[W] e come to a knowledge of eternity after some acquaintance with time.”); January 4, 1857 ("Having waded in the very shallowest stream of time, I would now bathe my temples in eternity.”)

See also September 2, 1856 ("When you hear him you have got to the end of the alphabet and may imagine the &.")

and  Walden, Conclusion:

There was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed to strive after perfection.

One day it came into his mind to make a staff.

Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does not enter, he said to himself, It shall be perfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my life.

He proceeded instantly to the forest for wood, being resolved that it should not be made of unsuitable material; and as he searched for and rejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him, for they grew old in their works and died, but he grew not older by a moment.

His singleness of purpose and resolution, and his elevated piety, endowed him, without his knowledge, with perennial youth.

As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a distance because he could not overcome him.

Before he had found a stock in all respects suitable the city of Kouroo was a hoary ruin, and he sat on one of its mounds to peel the stick.

Before he had given it the proper shape the dynasty of the Candahars was at an end, and with the point of the stick he wrote the name of the last of that race in the sand, and then resumed his work.

By the time he had smoothed and polished the staff Kalpa was no longer the pole–star; and ere he had put on the ferule and the head adorned with precious stones, Brahma had awoke and slumbered many times.

But why do I stay to mention these things? When the finishing stroke was put to his work, it suddenly expanded before the eyes of the astonished artist into the fairest of all the creations of Brahma.

He had made a new system in making a staff, a world with full and fair proportions; in which, though the old cities and dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken their places.

And now he saw by the heap of shavings still fresh at his feet, that, for him and his work, the former lapse of time had been an illusion, and that no more time had elapsed than is required for a single scintillation from the brain of Brahma to fall on and inflame the tinder of a mortal brain.

The material was pure, and his art was pure; how could the result be other than wonderful?

A song sparrow on the wood-pile

January 28

Am again surprised to see a song sparrow sitting for hours on our wood-pile in the yard, in the midst of snow in the yard. It is unwilling to move. People go to the pump, and the cat and dog walk round the wood-pile without starting it. I examine it at my leisure through a glass. 

Remarkable that the coldest of all winters these summer birds should remain. Perhaps it is no more comfortable this season further south, where they are accustomed to abide. 

In the afternoon this sparrow joined a flock of tree sparrows on the bare ground west of the house. 

It was amusing to see the tree sparrows wash themselves, standing in the puddles and tossing the water over themselves.  Minott says they wade in to where it is an inch deep and then "splutter splutter," throwing the water over them. They have had no opportunity to wash for a month, perhaps, there having been no thaw. 

The song sparrow did not go off with them. 

January 28, 2018

P. M. — To Walden.  Notice many heaps of leaves on snow on the hillside southwest of the pond, as usual. Probably the rain and thaw have brought down some of them.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 28, 1857

Am again surprised to see a song sparrow sitting for hours on our wood-pile in the yard. See January 15, 1857 ("I saw, to my surprise, that it must be a song sparrow . . . taken refuge in this shed”) See also January 22, 1857 ("Minott tells me that Sam Barrett told him once when he went to mill that a song sparrow took up its quarters in his grist-mill and stayed there all winter.”) See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Song Sparrow (Fringilla melodia) 

The coldest of all winters . . . no thaw.  See note to January 23, 1857 ("I may safely say that -5° has been the highest temperature to-day by our thermometer.")

Notice many heaps of leaves on snow on the hillside southwest of the pond, as usual. See December 9, 1856 ("Coming through the Walden woods, I see already great heaps of oak leaves collected in certain places on the snow-crust by the roadside, where an eddy deposited them."); December 11, 1858 ("Already, in hollows in the woods and on the sheltered sides of hills, the fallen leaves are collected in small heaps on the snow-crust. ")

January 28.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, January 28

See a song sparrow 

sitting for hours on our 

wood-pile in the yard.

A song sparrow sits

 on our wood-pile in the yard 

in the midst of snow. 

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A song sparrow on the wood-pile 

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-570128

The most poetic and truest account of objects is generally by those who first observe them.

January 27

Thawing a little at last. Thermometer 35°. 

JANUARY 27, 2017

The most poetic and truest account of objects is generally by those who first observe them, or the discoverers of them, whether a sharper perception and curiosity in them led to the discovery or the greater novelty more inspired their report.

Accordingly I love most to read the accounts of a country, its natural productions and curiosities, by those who first settled it, and also the earliest, though often unscientific, writers on natural science.

Hear the unusual sound of pattering rain this after noon, though it is not yet in earnest.

Thermometer to-day commonly at 38°. 

Wood in the stove is slow to burn; often goes out with this dull atmosphere. But it is less needed. 

10 p. m. — Hear music below. It washes the dust off my life and everything I look at. 

Was struck to-day with the admirable simplicity of Pratt. He told me not only of the discovery of the tower of Babel, which, from the measures given, he had calculated could not stand between the roads at the Mill Pond, but of the skeleton of a man twenty feet long. 

Also of an eyestone which he has, bought of Betty Nutting, about as big as half a pea. Just lay it in your eye, bind up your eye with a handkerchief, and go to bed. It will not pain you, but you will feel it moving about, and when it has gathered all the dirt in the eye to itself, it will always come out, and you will probably find it in the handkerchief. It is a little thing and you must look sharp for it. He often lends his.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 27, 1857

The most poetic and truest account of objects is generally by those who first observe them,. . .Accordingly I love most to read. . . the earliest, though often unscientific, writers on natural science. See February 16, 1852 ("Linnæus says elements are simple, naturalia composed by divine art. And these two embrace all things on earth. Physics treats of the properties of elementa, natural science of naturalia. . . .By the artificial system we learn the names of plants, by the natural their relations to one another; but still it remains to learn their relation to man. The poet does more for us in this department."); February 17, 1852 ("If you would read books on botany, go to the fathers of the science. Read Linnaeus at once"); December 16, 1859 ("To Cambridge, where I read in Gerard's Herbal. His . . descriptions are, to my mind, greatly superior to the modern more scientific ones. He describes not according to rule but to his natural delight in the plants. He brings them vividly before you, as one who has seen and delighted in them. It is almost as good as to see the plants themselves. . . .It is the keen joy and discrimination of the child who has just seen a flower for the first time and comes running in with it to its friends. . . . He has really seen, and smelt, and tasted, and reports his sensations.")

Hear music below. It washes the dust off my life and everything I look at. See January 13, 1857 (“I hear one thrumming a guitar below stairs. It reminds me of moments that I have lived.”); January 24, 1852 ("I hear the tones of my sister's piano below . It reminds me of strains which once I heard more frequently, when, possessed with the inaudible rhythm, I sought my chamber in the cold and commụned with my own thoughts")

January 27.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  January 27

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The most poetic and truest account of objects

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

Boston Harbor frozen over

January 26. 

Another cold morning. None looked early, but about eight it was -14°. 

A. M. — At Cambridge and Boston. 

Saw Boston Harbor frozen over (for some time). Reminded me of, I think, Parry's Winter Harbor, with vessels frozen in. 

Saw thousands on the ice, a stream of men reaching down to Fort Independence, where they were cutting a channel toward the city. Ice said to reach fourteen miles. 

Snow untracked on many decks. [Ice did not finally go out till about Feb. 15th.] 

At 10 p.m., +14°.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 26, 1857

Saw Boston Harbor frozen over . . . thousands on the ice, a stream of men reaching down to Fort Independence, where they were cutting a channel. See January 20, 1857 (" I hear that Boston Harbor froze over on the 18th, down to Fort Independence."); Good Morning Gloucester ("In January 1857, the merchants organized a crew, who chopped a channel out of the harbor ice seven miles in length. In that month the thermometer went 16 degrees below zero, and it did not rise above zero for two weeks") See also December 2, 1853 ("A communication to a newspaper, dated Bangor, 28th (November), says of the Penobscot :“The navigation is closed here, the anchor ice with the surface ice making an obstruction of several feet thickness. There are enclosed in the ice from 60 to 80 vessels with full cargoes, besides the steamers. The ice obstruction extends about five miles,")

Thousands on the ice

down to Fort Independence 

cutting a channel.

HDT ~ January 26, 1857

Still another very cold morning.

January 25. 

Still another very cold morning. Smith's thermometer over ours at -29°, ours in bulb; but about seven, ours was at -8° and Smith's at -24; ours therefore at first about -23°. 

P. M. — To Bittern Rock on river. 

The road beyond Hubbard's Bridge has been closed by snow for two or three weeks; only the walls show that there has been a road there. Travellers take to the fields. 

I see the track of a fox or dog across the meadow, made some time ago. Each track is now a pure white snowball rising three inches above the surrounding surface, and this has formed a lee behind which a narrow drift has formed, extending a foot or two south easterly.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, January 25, 1857

Still another very cold morning. See January 25, 1852 (The cold for some weeks has been intense""); January 25, 1854 ("A very cold day . . .The 22d, 23d, 24th, and 25th of this month have been the coldest spell of weather this winter."); January 25, 1856 ("The hardest day to bear that we have had, for, beside being 5° at noon and at 4 P. M., there is a strong northwest wind. It is worse than when the thermometer was at zero all day. "); See also January 23, 1857 (The coldest day that I remember recording.").

Each track is now a pure white snowball rising three inches above the surrounding surface. See  January 8, 1860 (" Those [tracks] of the fox which has run along the side of the pond are now so many snowballs, raised as much above the level of the water-darkened snow as at first they sank beneath it. The snow, having been compressed by their weight, resists the melting longer. . . .There are a man's tracks, perhaps my own, along the pond-side there . . . like white stepping-stones"); January 12, 1854 ("I see my snowshoe tracks quite distinct, though made January 2d. Though they pressed the snow down four or five inches, they consolidated it, and it now endures and is two or three inches above the general level there, and more white.");

The cold spell that began the evening of the 22d ended to-day noon.

January 24.

Thermometer about 6.30 a.m. in the bulb!! but Smith's on the same nail, -30°; Wilds', early, -16°; Emerson's, the same; at 9.15 a.m., ours, -18°; Smith's, -22°; which would indicate that ours would have stood at -26° at 6.30, if the thermometer had been long enough. 

At 11.30 a.m. ours was -1°, at 4 p.m., +12°. 

So the cold spell that began the evening of the 22d ended to-day noon.

H. D Thoreau. Journal, January 24, 1857

See January 23, 1857 ("The coldest day that I remember recording . . .I may safely say that -5° has been the highest temperature to-day . . ")

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, The cold spell  ended to-day noon.

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