I see thick ice and boys skating all the way to Providence.

December 6.

I see thick ice and boys skating all the way to Providence, 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 by trying to become a successful lecturer, ie., to interest my audiences. 

I am disappointed to find that most that I am and value myself for is lost, or worse than lost, on my audience. I fail to get even the attention of the mass. I should suit them better if I suited myself less. 

I feel that the public demand an average man, —average thoughts and manners, — not originality, nor even absolute excellence. You cannot interest them except as you are like them and sympathize with them. 

I would rather that my audience come to me than that I should go to them, and so they be sifted; i.e., I would rather write books than lectures. That is fine, this coarse.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 6, 1854

I see thick ice and boys skating . . . but know not when it froze, I have been so busy writing my lecture. See 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 November 25, 1850 ("But some times it happens that I cannot easily shake off the village; the thought of some work, some surveying, will run in my head, and I am not where my body is, I am out of my senses");  August 21, 1851 ("A man may walk abroad and no more see the sky than if he walked under a shed."); February 12, 1860 ("Surrounded by our thoughts or imaginary objects, living in our ideas, not one in a million ever sees the objects which are actually around him.")

This winter I feel that I am in danger of cheapening myself by trying to become a successful lecturer . . . I would rather write books than lectures. See Thoreau's Lectures Before Walden, Lecture 46 (Wednesday, December 6, 1854, 7:30 PM Thoreau read at Railroad Hall in Providence, Rhode Island his lecture “What Shall it Profit“, in which he argues “a man had better starve at once than loose his innocence in the process of getting his bread.” Over the course of time this lecture evolved evolved into "Life Without Principle.")

December 6. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 6

I see boys skating

but know not when the ice froze –

so busy writing.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  I see thick ice and boys skating

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-541206

The sea level blue

The flying fish 
breaks the surface 
in a flash of light 

with whirring fins
in erratic flight 

skimming the sea level blue.

zphx 20141113

Damp snow frozen solid

December 5.

Very cold last night. Probably river skimmed over in some places. The damp snow with water beneath (in all five or six inches deep and not drifted, notwithstanding the wind) is frozen solid, making a crust which bears well. This, I think, is unusual at this stage of the winter.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 5, 1854

Probably river skimmed over in some places. See December 4, 1853 ("Flint's Pond only skimmed a little at the shore, like the river.") December 5, 1853 ("The river frozen over thinly in most places . . . Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over."); December 5, 1856 (The river is well skimmed over in most places, though it will not bear")

We head out around 7 pm in a light snow. thirty degrees. o the view. on the way trim the branches from the hemlock that has fallen over the trial. the valley is illuminated by a dome of clouds back lit by the full moon.  it is light enough to walk without a headlamp where there is snow .  We go over the east side and up the gulf to the top of the mountain and sit. Deccember 5, 2014

Already the bird-like birch scales dot the snow.

December 4.

Down railroad to Walden. 

Walden went down quite rapidly about the middle of November, leaving the isthmus to Emerson’s meadow bare. Flint’s has been very low all summer. 

The northeast sides of the trees are thickly incrusted with snowy shields, visible afar, the snow was so damp (at Boston it turned to rain). This had none of the dry delicate powdery beauties of a common first snow. 

Already the bird-like birch scales dot the snow.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 4, 1854

Already the bird-like birch scales dot the snow. See December 4 1856 ("I see where the pretty brown bird-like birch scales and winged seeds have been blown into the numerous hollows of the thin crusted snow. So bountiful a table is spread for the birds. For how many thousand miles this grain is scattered over the earth.")

December 4. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 4; A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, I love you like I love the sky

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

In the midst of the snow.

December 3.

The first snow of consequence fell in the evening, very damp (wind northeast); five or six inches deep in morning, after very high wind in the night. 

Snowbirds in garden in the midst of the snow in the afternoon.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 3, 1854

The first snow of consequence fell in the evening, very damp (wind northeast); five or six inches deep in morning. See November 12, 1859 ("The first sprinkling of snow, which for a short time whitens the ground in spots."); November 18, 1855 ("About an inch of snow fell last night, but the ground was not at all frozen or prepared for it. A little greener grass and stubble here and there seems to burn its way through it this forenoon."); November 23, 1852 ("There is something genial even in the first snow, and Nature seems to relent a little of her November harshness."); November 24, 1860 ("Though a slight touch, this was the first wintry scene of the season. The rabbits in the swamps enjoy it, as well as you."); November 29, 1856 (“[S]nows slowly and interruptedly with a little fine hail all day till it is several inches deep. This the first snow I have seen . . .”); December 8, 1850 ( . . ."the ground is now covered, - our first snow, two inches deep. . . . 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.”)

Snowbirds in garden in the midst of the snow in the afternoon. See December 1, 1856 ("Slate-colored snowbirds flit before me in the path, feeding on the seeds on the snow, the countless little brown seeds that begin to be scattered over the snow,"); see also A Book of the Seasons by Henry Thoreau, the Dark-eyed Junco (Fringilla hyemalis)

A sign of Winter

December 2

Got up my boat and housed it, ice having formed about it.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 2, 1854

See December 2, 1852 ("I do not remember when I have taken a sail or a row on the river in December before.”);  December 2, 1856 ("Got in my boat, which before I had got out and turned up on the bank.") See also November 26, 1857 ("Got my boat up this afternoon . . . One end had frozen in.”); November 26, 1858 ("Got in boat on account of Reynolds’s new fence going up (earlier than usual”); November 29, 1860 ("Get up my boat, 7 a. m. Thin ice of the night is floating down the river.”); November 30, 1855 (“Got in my boat. River remained iced over all day.”); December 5, 1853 ("Got my boat in."); December 10, 1859 ("Get in my boat, in the snow. The bottom is coated with a glaze”); December 27, 1852 ("I took my new boat out") and A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Boat in. Boat out;

I love to have the river closed up for a season

and a pause put to my boating

to be obliged to get my boat in.

I shall launch it again in the spring

with so much more pleasure. 

I love best to have each thing in its season only

and enjoy doing without it at all other times. 

Henry Thoreau, December 5, 1856

Late November sail

November 30

Sail down river. No ice, but strong cold wind; river slightly over meadows.  

Was that large diver which was on the edge of the shore and scooted away down-stream as usual, throwing the water about for a quarter of a mile, then diving, some time afterward flying up-stream over our head, the goosander or red-breasted merganser? 

It was large, with, I should say, a white breast, long reddish bill, bright-red or pink on sides or beneath, reddish-brown crest, white speculum, upper part of throat dark, lower white with breast.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 30, 1854


Was that large diver the goosander or red-breasted merganser? Compare March 23, 1859 (“As we sit there, we see coming, swift and straight, northeast along the river valley, not seeing us and therefore not changing his course, a male goosander, so near that the green reflections of his head and neck are plainly visible. He looks like a paddle-wheel steamer, so oddly painted up, black and white and green, and moves along swift and straight like one. Ere long the same returns with his mate, the red-throated, the male taking the lead. ”); April 7, 1855 (“I plainly see the vermilion bill of the male and his orange legs when he flies (but he appears all white above), and the reddish brown or sorrel of the neck of the female, and, when she lifts herself in the water, as it were preparatory to flight, her white breast and belly. . . .I suspect that about all the conspicuous white ducks I see are goosanders.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Sheldrake (Merganser, Goosander)