December 14.
This morning it begins to snow, and the ground is whitened again, but in an hour or two it turns to rain, and rains all the rest of the day.
At night clears up, and in the night a strong and gusty northwest wind blows, which, by morning, — has dried up almost all the water in the road.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 14, 1856
This morning it begins to snow, and the ground is whitened again, but in an hour or two it turns to rain . See December 9, 1855 ("At 8.30 a fine snow begins to fall . . . till in fifteen minutes the ground is white . . . But in a few minutes it turns to rain, and so the wintry landscape is postponed for the present."); December 14, 1859 ("Snow-storms might be classified") See also .A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Snow-storms might be classified.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
A fine healthy and handsome scarlet oak.
December 13.
P. M. — To Hill and round by J. Hosmer woodland and Lee house.
I see some of those great andromeda puffs still hanging on the twigs behind Assabet Spring, black and shrivelled bags.
The river is generally open again. The snow is mostly gone. In many places it is washed away down to the channels made by the mice, branching galleries.
I go through the lot where Wheeler's Irishmen cut last winter. Though they changed hands, they did not cut twice in a place, and the stump, instead of having a smooth surface, is roughly hacked.
There is a fine healthy and handsome scarlet oak between Muhlenbergii Brook and the Assabet River watering-place, in the open land. It is about thirty- five feet high and spreads twenty-five, perfectly regular. It is very full of leaves, excepting a crescent of bare twigs at the summit about three feet wide in the middle. The leaves have a little redness in them.
There is a dense growth of young birches from the seed in the sprout-land lot just beyond on the riverside, now apparently two or three years old,
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 13, 1856
The river is generally open again. See December 13, 1850 ("The river froze over last night, — skimmed over."); December 13, 1852 ("River and ponds all open."); December 13, 1859 (" Now that the river is frozen we have a sky under our feet also.)
There is a dense growth of young birches from the seed in the sprout-land lot . . . See December 8, 1859 ("The birches, seen half a mile off toward the sun, are the purest dazzling white of any tree.")
 |
| December 13, 2016 |
P. M. — To Hill and round by J. Hosmer woodland and Lee house.
I see some of those great andromeda puffs still hanging on the twigs behind Assabet Spring, black and shrivelled bags.
The river is generally open again. The snow is mostly gone. In many places it is washed away down to the channels made by the mice, branching galleries.
I go through the lot where Wheeler's Irishmen cut last winter. Though they changed hands, they did not cut twice in a place, and the stump, instead of having a smooth surface, is roughly hacked.
There is a fine healthy and handsome scarlet oak between Muhlenbergii Brook and the Assabet River watering-place, in the open land. It is about thirty- five feet high and spreads twenty-five, perfectly regular. It is very full of leaves, excepting a crescent of bare twigs at the summit about three feet wide in the middle. The leaves have a little redness in them.
There is a dense growth of young birches from the seed in the sprout-land lot just beyond on the riverside, now apparently two or three years old,
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 13, 1856
Though they changed hands, they did not cut twice in a place. . . See December 11, 1856 ("[Minott] complains that the choppers make a very long carf nowadays, doing most of the cutting on one side, to avoid changing hands so much.")
A fine healthy and handsome scarlet oak . . . very full of leaves, . . . a little redness in them. See October 30, 1855 ("I see that the scarlet oak leaves have still some brightness; perhaps the latest of the oaks."); October 21, 1855 ("Up Assabet. . . . [T]he scarlet oak is very bright and conspicuous. How finely its leaves are out against the sky with sharp points, especially near the top of the tree! . . .)
A fine healthy and handsome scarlet oak . . . very full of leaves, . . . a little redness in them. See October 30, 1855 ("I see that the scarlet oak leaves have still some brightness; perhaps the latest of the oaks."); October 21, 1855 ("Up Assabet. . . . [T]he scarlet oak is very bright and conspicuous. How finely its leaves are out against the sky with sharp points, especially near the top of the tree! . . .)
There is a dense growth of young birches from the seed in the sprout-land lot . . . See December 8, 1859 ("The birches, seen half a mile off toward the sun, are the purest dazzling white of any tree.")
Monday, December 12, 2016
We fatten and kill and eat some of our cousins!
December 12.
Wonderful, wonderful is our life and that of our companions! That there should be such a thing as a brute animal, not human! and that it should attain to a sort of society with our race!
Think of cats, for instance. They are neither Chinese nor Tartars. They do not go to school, nor read the Testament; yet how near they come to doing so! how much they are like us who do so!
What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing of the origin and destiny of cats ?
At length, without having solved any of these problems, we fatten and kill and eat some of our cousins!
As soon as the snow came, I naturally began to observe that portion of the plants that was left above the snow, not only the weeds but the withered leaves, which before had been confounded with the russet earth.
Yesterday afternoon, after a misty forenoon, it began to rain by degrees, and in the course of the night more than half the snow has disappeared, revealing the ground here and there; and already the brown weeds and leaves attract me less.
This morning it is fair again.
P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook and back by Red Choke-berry Path and Walden.
Large oaks in thick woods have not so many leaves on them as in pastures, methinks (?).
At the wall between Saw Mill Brook Falls and Red Choke-berry Path, I see where a great many chestnut burs have been recently chewed up fine by the squirrels, to come at the nuts. The wall for half a dozen rods and the snow are covered with them. You can see where they have dug the burs out of the snow, and then sat on a rock or the wall and gnawed them in pieces.
I, too, dig many burs out of the snow with my foot, and though many of these nuts are softened and discolored they have a peculiarly sweet and agreeable taste.
Yesterday morning I noticed that several people were having their pigs killed, not foreseeing the thaw. Such warm weather as this the animal heat will hardly get out before night.
I saw Peter, the dexterous pig-butcher, busy in two or three places, and in the afternoon I saw him with washed hands and knives in sheath and his leather overalls drawn off, going to his solitary house on the edge of the Great Fields, carrying in the rain a piece of the pork he had slaughtered, with a string put through it. Often he carries home the head, which is less prized, taking his pay thus in kind, and these supplies do not come amiss to his outcast family.
I saw Lynch's dog stealthily feeding at a half of his master's pig, which lay dressed on a wheelbarrow at the door. A little yellow-brown dog, with fore feet braced on the ice and outstretched neck, he eagerly browsed along the edge of the meat, half a foot to right and left, with incessant short and rapid snatches, which brought it away as readily as if it had been pudding. He evidently knew very well that he was stealing, but made the most of his time. The little brown dog weighed a pound or two more afterward than before.
Where is the great natural-historian? Is he a butcher, or the patron of butchers? As well look for a great anthropologist among cannibals, New-Zealanders.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 12, 1856
As soon as the snow came, I naturally began to observe that portion of the plants that was left above the snow. . . See November 18, 1855 ("Now first mark the stubble and numerous withered weeds rising above the snow. They have suddenly acquired a new character. “)
Wonderful, wonderful is our life and that of our companions! That there should be such a thing as a brute animal, not human! and that it should attain to a sort of society with our race!
Think of cats, for instance. They are neither Chinese nor Tartars. They do not go to school, nor read the Testament; yet how near they come to doing so! how much they are like us who do so!
What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing of the origin and destiny of cats ?
At length, without having solved any of these problems, we fatten and kill and eat some of our cousins!
As soon as the snow came, I naturally began to observe that portion of the plants that was left above the snow, not only the weeds but the withered leaves, which before had been confounded with the russet earth.
Yesterday afternoon, after a misty forenoon, it began to rain by degrees, and in the course of the night more than half the snow has disappeared, revealing the ground here and there; and already the brown weeds and leaves attract me less.
This morning it is fair again.
P. M. — To Saw Mill Brook and back by Red Choke-berry Path and Walden.
Large oaks in thick woods have not so many leaves on them as in pastures, methinks (?).
At the wall between Saw Mill Brook Falls and Red Choke-berry Path, I see where a great many chestnut burs have been recently chewed up fine by the squirrels, to come at the nuts. The wall for half a dozen rods and the snow are covered with them. You can see where they have dug the burs out of the snow, and then sat on a rock or the wall and gnawed them in pieces.
I, too, dig many burs out of the snow with my foot, and though many of these nuts are softened and discolored they have a peculiarly sweet and agreeable taste.
Yesterday morning I noticed that several people were having their pigs killed, not foreseeing the thaw. Such warm weather as this the animal heat will hardly get out before night.
I saw Peter, the dexterous pig-butcher, busy in two or three places, and in the afternoon I saw him with washed hands and knives in sheath and his leather overalls drawn off, going to his solitary house on the edge of the Great Fields, carrying in the rain a piece of the pork he had slaughtered, with a string put through it. Often he carries home the head, which is less prized, taking his pay thus in kind, and these supplies do not come amiss to his outcast family.
I saw Lynch's dog stealthily feeding at a half of his master's pig, which lay dressed on a wheelbarrow at the door. A little yellow-brown dog, with fore feet braced on the ice and outstretched neck, he eagerly browsed along the edge of the meat, half a foot to right and left, with incessant short and rapid snatches, which brought it away as readily as if it had been pudding. He evidently knew very well that he was stealing, but made the most of his time. The little brown dog weighed a pound or two more afterward than before.
Where is the great natural-historian? Is he a butcher, or the patron of butchers? As well look for a great anthropologist among cannibals, New-Zealanders.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 12, 1856
As soon as the snow came, I naturally began to observe that portion of the plants that was left above the snow. . . See November 18, 1855 ("Now first mark the stubble and numerous withered weeds rising above the snow. They have suddenly acquired a new character. “)
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Minott's woodlot.
year.
He knows his wood-lot and what grows in it as well as an ordinary farmer does his corn-field, for he has cut his own wood till within two or three years; knows the history of every stump on it and the age of every sapling; knows how many beech trees and black birches there are there, as another knows his pear or cherry trees.
He complains that the choppers make a very long carf nowadays, doing most of the cutting on one side, to avoid changing hands so much.
It is more economical, as well as more poetical, to have a wood-lot and cut and get out your own wood from year to year than to buy it at your door.
Minott may say to his trees: "Submit to my axe. I cut your father on this very spot." How many sweet passages there must have been in his life there, chopping all alone in the short winter days! How many rabbits, partridges, foxes he saw! A rill runs through the lot, where he quenched his thirst, and several times he has laid it bare.
At last rheumatism has made him a prisoner, and he is compelled to let a stranger, a vandal, it may be, go into his lot with an axe.
It is fit that he should be buried there.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 11, 1856
. . .supplied all their fuel for thirty years, and he thinks would constantly continue to do so. See August 30, 1860 ("Minott is an old-fashioned man and has not scrubbed up and improved his land as many, or most, have. It is in a wilder and more primitive condition.”) Compare October 16, 1860 ("The history of a wood-lot is often, if not commonly, here, a history of cross-purposes, - of steady and consistent endeavor on the part of Nature, of interference and blundering with a glimmering of intelligence at the eleventh hour on the part of the proprietor.”) with November 2, 1860 ("Ebby Hubbard's [wood]was never cut off but only cut out of.")
He knows his wood-lot and what grows in it as well as an ordinary farmer does his corn-field, for he has cut his own wood till within two or three years; knows the history of every stump on it and the age of every sapling; knows how many beech trees and black birches there are there, as another knows his pear or cherry trees.
He complains that the choppers make a very long carf nowadays, doing most of the cutting on one side, to avoid changing hands so much.
It is more economical, as well as more poetical, to have a wood-lot and cut and get out your own wood from year to year than to buy it at your door.
Minott may say to his trees: "Submit to my axe. I cut your father on this very spot." How many sweet passages there must have been in his life there, chopping all alone in the short winter days! How many rabbits, partridges, foxes he saw! A rill runs through the lot, where he quenched his thirst, and several times he has laid it bare.
At last rheumatism has made him a prisoner, and he is compelled to let a stranger, a vandal, it may be, go into his lot with an axe.
It is fit that he should be buried there.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 11, 1856
. . .supplied all their fuel for thirty years, and he thinks would constantly continue to do so. See August 30, 1860 ("Minott is an old-fashioned man and has not scrubbed up and improved his land as many, or most, have. It is in a wilder and more primitive condition.”) Compare October 16, 1860 ("The history of a wood-lot is often, if not commonly, here, a history of cross-purposes, - of steady and consistent endeavor on the part of Nature, of interference and blundering with a glimmering of intelligence at the eleventh hour on the part of the proprietor.”) with November 2, 1860 ("Ebby Hubbard's [wood]was never cut off but only cut out of.")
Saturday, December 10, 2016
A fine, clear, cold winter morning -- a warm, clear, glorious winter day.
A fine, clear, cold winter morning --
The sun is rising
and the smokes from the chimneys
blush like sunset clouds
. . .
I hardly get out
a couple of miles before
the sun is setting
. . .
I see the sun set
and make haste with the red sky
over my shoulder.
It has been a warm, clear, glorious winter day.
December 10, 2022
A fine, clear, cold winter morning, with a small leaf frost on trees, etc. The thermometer at 7.15 and at 7.30 3°.
Going to the post-office at the former hour, I notice those level bars, as it were, of frozen mist against the Walden wood.
When I return, the sun is rising and the smokes from the chimneys, which slant from northwest to southeast, though it seems quite still, blush like sunset clouds.
It is remarkable how suggestive the slightest drawing as a memento of things seen. For a few years past I have been accustomed to make a rude sketch in my journal of plants, ice, and various natural phenomena, and though the fullest accompanying description may fail to recall my experience, these rude outline drawings do not fail to carry me back to that time and scene. It is as if I saw the same thing again, and I may again attempt to describe it in words if I choose.
Yesterday I walked under the murderous Lincoln Bridge, where at least ten men have been swept dead from the cars within as many years. I looked to see if their heads had indented the bridge, if there were sturdy blows given as well as received, and if their brains lay about. But I could see neither the one nor the other. The bridge is quite uninjured, even, and straight, not even the paint worn off or discolored. The ground is clean, the snow spotless, and the place looks as innocent as a bank whereon the wild thyme grows. It does its work in an artistic manner.
We have another bridge of exactly the same character on the other side of the town, which has killed one, at least, to my knowledge. Surely the approaches to our town are well guarded. These are our modern Dragons of Wantley. Boucaniers of the Fitchburg Railroad, they lie in wait at the narrow passes and decimate the employees.
The Company has signed a bond to give up one employee at this pass annually. The Vermont mother commits her son to their charge, and when she asks for him, again the Directors say: "I am not your son's keeper. Go look beneath the ribs of the Lincoln Bridge." It is a monster which would not have minded Perseus with his Medusa's head. If he could be held back only four feet from where he now crouches, all travellers might pass in safety and laugh him to scorn. This would require but a little resolution in our legislature, but it is preferred to pay tribute still.
I felt a curiosity to see this famous bridge, naturally far greater than my curiosity to see the gallows on which Smith was hung, which was burned in the old court house, for the exploits of this bridge are ten times as memorable. Here they are killed without priest, and the bridge, unlike the gallows, is a fixture. Besides, the gallows bears an ill name, and I think deservedly. No doubt it has hung many an innocent man, but this Lincoln Bridge, long as it has been in our midst and busy as it has been, no legislature, nobody, indeed, has ever seriously complained of, unless it was some be reaved mother, who was naturally prejudiced against it.
To my surprise, I found no difficulty in getting a sight of it. It stands right out in broad daylight in the midst of the fields. No sentinels, no spiked fence, no crowd about it, and you have to pay no fee for looking at it. It is perfectly simple and easy to construct, and does its work silently. The days of the gallows are numbered. The next time this county has a Smith to dispose of, they have only to hire him out to the Fitchburg Railroad Company. Let the priest accompany him to the freight-train, pray with him, and take leave of him there.
Another advantage I have hinted at, an advantage to the morals of the community, that, strange as it may seem, no crowd ever assembles at this spot; there are no morbidly curious persons, no hardened reprobates, no masculine women, no anatomists there.
Does it not make life more serious ? I feel as if these were stirring times, as good as the days of the Crusaders, the Northmen, or the Boucaniers.
Gathered this afternoon quite a parcel of walnuts on the hill. It has not been better picking this season there. They lie on the snow, or rather sunk an inch or two into it. And some trees hang quite full. See the squirrel-tracks leading straight from tree to tree.
It has been a warm, clear, glorious winter day, the air full of that peculiar vapor.
How short the afternoons! I hardly get out a couple of miles before the sun is setting.
The nights are light on account of the snow, and, there being a moon, there is no distinct interval between the day and night.
I see the sun set from the side of Nawshawtuct, and make haste to the post-office with the red sky over my shoulder. When the mail is distributed and I come forth into the street on my return, the apparently full moon has fairly commenced her reign, and I go home by her light.
Bradford, in his "History of the Plymouth Plantation," written between 1630 and 1650, uses, on page 235, the word " kilter," speaking of guns being out of kilter, proving that this is an old word; yet it is not in my dictionaries.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 10, 1856
A fine, clear, cold winter morning, . . . a warm, clear, glorious winter day. See December 10, 1853 ("These are among the finest days in the year, on account of the wholesome bracing coolness and clearness.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.
It is remarkable how suggestive the slightest drawing as a memento of things seen. Compare October 26, 1853 ("You only need to make a faithful record of an average summer day's experience and summer mood, and read it in the winter, and it will carry you back to more than that summer day alone could show."); April 7, 1853 ("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.")
How short the afternoons! I hardly get out a couple of miles before the sun is setting. See November 27, 1853 ("The days are short enough now. The sun is already setting before I have reached the ordinary limit of my walk, November 28, 1859 ("We make a good deal of the early twilights of these November days, they make so large a part of the afternoon.”); December 5, 1853 ("Now for the short days and early twilight”); December 9, 1856 ("The worker who would accomplish much these short days must shear a dusky slice off both ends of the night”); December 11, 1854 (“The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely”)
Gathered this afternoon quite a parcel of walnuts on the hill. See October 24, 1852 ("I see, far over the river, boys gathering walnuts.”);October 27, 1857 ("Now it is time to look out for walnuts"); October 28, 1852 ("The boys are gathering walnuts. Their leaves are a yellowish brown.”); November 16, 1850 ("The walnut trees spot the sky with black nuts"); November 9, 1852 ("Fore part of November time for walnutting."); November 20, 1858 ("When walnut husks have fairly opened, showing the white shells within, — the trees being either quite bare or with a few withered leaves at present, — a slight jar with the foot on the limbs causes them to rattle down in a perfect shower, and on bare, grass-grown pasture ground it is very easy picking them up."); December 5, 1856 ("There are a great many walnuts on the trees, seen black against the sky, and the wind has scattered many over the snow-crust. It would be easier gathering them now than ever. “); December 14, 1855 (" getting over the wall under the walnut trees on the south brow of the hill, I see the broad tracks of squirrels, probably red, where they have ascended and descended the trees, and the empty shells of walnuts which they have gnawed left on the snow.”)
The nights are light on account of the snow, and, there being a moon, there is no distinct interval between the day and night See August 5, 1851 (“When the moon is on the increase and half full it is already in mid-heaven at sunset so that there is no marked twilight intervening” )
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau
When I return, the sun is rising and the smokes from the chimneys, which slant from northwest to southeast, though it seems quite still, blush like sunset clouds.
It is remarkable how suggestive the slightest drawing as a memento of things seen. For a few years past I have been accustomed to make a rude sketch in my journal of plants, ice, and various natural phenomena, and though the fullest accompanying description may fail to recall my experience, these rude outline drawings do not fail to carry me back to that time and scene. It is as if I saw the same thing again, and I may again attempt to describe it in words if I choose.
Yesterday I walked under the murderous Lincoln Bridge, where at least ten men have been swept dead from the cars within as many years. I looked to see if their heads had indented the bridge, if there were sturdy blows given as well as received, and if their brains lay about. But I could see neither the one nor the other. The bridge is quite uninjured, even, and straight, not even the paint worn off or discolored. The ground is clean, the snow spotless, and the place looks as innocent as a bank whereon the wild thyme grows. It does its work in an artistic manner.
We have another bridge of exactly the same character on the other side of the town, which has killed one, at least, to my knowledge. Surely the approaches to our town are well guarded. These are our modern Dragons of Wantley. Boucaniers of the Fitchburg Railroad, they lie in wait at the narrow passes and decimate the employees.
The Company has signed a bond to give up one employee at this pass annually. The Vermont mother commits her son to their charge, and when she asks for him, again the Directors say: "I am not your son's keeper. Go look beneath the ribs of the Lincoln Bridge." It is a monster which would not have minded Perseus with his Medusa's head. If he could be held back only four feet from where he now crouches, all travellers might pass in safety and laugh him to scorn. This would require but a little resolution in our legislature, but it is preferred to pay tribute still.
I felt a curiosity to see this famous bridge, naturally far greater than my curiosity to see the gallows on which Smith was hung, which was burned in the old court house, for the exploits of this bridge are ten times as memorable. Here they are killed without priest, and the bridge, unlike the gallows, is a fixture. Besides, the gallows bears an ill name, and I think deservedly. No doubt it has hung many an innocent man, but this Lincoln Bridge, long as it has been in our midst and busy as it has been, no legislature, nobody, indeed, has ever seriously complained of, unless it was some be reaved mother, who was naturally prejudiced against it.
To my surprise, I found no difficulty in getting a sight of it. It stands right out in broad daylight in the midst of the fields. No sentinels, no spiked fence, no crowd about it, and you have to pay no fee for looking at it. It is perfectly simple and easy to construct, and does its work silently. The days of the gallows are numbered. The next time this county has a Smith to dispose of, they have only to hire him out to the Fitchburg Railroad Company. Let the priest accompany him to the freight-train, pray with him, and take leave of him there.
Another advantage I have hinted at, an advantage to the morals of the community, that, strange as it may seem, no crowd ever assembles at this spot; there are no morbidly curious persons, no hardened reprobates, no masculine women, no anatomists there.
Does it not make life more serious ? I feel as if these were stirring times, as good as the days of the Crusaders, the Northmen, or the Boucaniers.
Gathered this afternoon quite a parcel of walnuts on the hill. It has not been better picking this season there. They lie on the snow, or rather sunk an inch or two into it. And some trees hang quite full. See the squirrel-tracks leading straight from tree to tree.
It has been a warm, clear, glorious winter day, the air full of that peculiar vapor.
How short the afternoons! I hardly get out a couple of miles before the sun is setting.
The nights are light on account of the snow, and, there being a moon, there is no distinct interval between the day and night.
I see the sun set from the side of Nawshawtuct, and make haste to the post-office with the red sky over my shoulder. When the mail is distributed and I come forth into the street on my return, the apparently full moon has fairly commenced her reign, and I go home by her light.
Bradford, in his "History of the Plymouth Plantation," written between 1630 and 1650, uses, on page 235, the word " kilter," speaking of guns being out of kilter, proving that this is an old word; yet it is not in my dictionaries.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 10, 1856
A fine, clear, cold winter morning, . . . a warm, clear, glorious winter day. See December 10, 1853 ("These are among the finest days in the year, on account of the wholesome bracing coolness and clearness.”) See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The world can never be more beautiful than now.
It is remarkable how suggestive the slightest drawing as a memento of things seen. Compare October 26, 1853 ("You only need to make a faithful record of an average summer day's experience and summer mood, and read it in the winter, and it will carry you back to more than that summer day alone could show."); April 7, 1853 ("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.")
How short the afternoons! I hardly get out a couple of miles before the sun is setting. See November 27, 1853 ("The days are short enough now. The sun is already setting before I have reached the ordinary limit of my walk, November 28, 1859 ("We make a good deal of the early twilights of these November days, they make so large a part of the afternoon.”); December 5, 1853 ("Now for the short days and early twilight”); December 9, 1856 ("The worker who would accomplish much these short days must shear a dusky slice off both ends of the night”); December 11, 1854 (“The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely”)
Gathered this afternoon quite a parcel of walnuts on the hill. See October 24, 1852 ("I see, far over the river, boys gathering walnuts.”);October 27, 1857 ("Now it is time to look out for walnuts"); October 28, 1852 ("The boys are gathering walnuts. Their leaves are a yellowish brown.”); November 16, 1850 ("The walnut trees spot the sky with black nuts"); November 9, 1852 ("Fore part of November time for walnutting."); November 20, 1858 ("When walnut husks have fairly opened, showing the white shells within, — the trees being either quite bare or with a few withered leaves at present, — a slight jar with the foot on the limbs causes them to rattle down in a perfect shower, and on bare, grass-grown pasture ground it is very easy picking them up."); December 5, 1856 ("There are a great many walnuts on the trees, seen black against the sky, and the wind has scattered many over the snow-crust. It would be easier gathering them now than ever. “); December 14, 1855 (" getting over the wall under the walnut trees on the south brow of the hill, I see the broad tracks of squirrels, probably red, where they have ascended and descended the trees, and the empty shells of walnuts which they have gnawed left on the snow.”)
December 10. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, December 10
I hardly get out
a couple of miles before
the sun is setting.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, A fine, clear, cold winter morning
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
https://tinyurl.com/HDT18561210
Friday, December 9, 2016
Such is a winter eve.
P. M. — Railroad to Lincoln Bridge and back by road.
December 9, 2023
As I stand on the railroad against Heywood's meadow, the sun now getting low in the west, the leaves of the young oaks in Emerson's sprout-land on the side of the hill make a very agreeable thick, rug-like stuff for the eye to rest on. The white oak leaves are a very pale brown, but the scarlet oaks are quite red now in the sun. Near at hand they are conspicuously ruddy in any light, the scarlet oaks. (Those black oaks which I examine near at hand afterward are a pure, somewhat yellowish brown.) This slight difference of shading makes a very pleasing variety on this densely covered hillside, like a rich embroidered stuff. One species does not stand by itself, but they are dispersed and intimately mingled.
These oak leaves have more distinct characters now at this distance than in summer. It is as if a rich rug, with stuff six or eight feet deep, had been dropped over this hill, opening the stuff on the brow, dyed of various shades of enduring brown, the wholesome and strong color which Nature loves; and here and there the now dark green of a pine is seen. When the wind rises, the leaves rustle their content. The sunlight reveals no redness in the white oak leaves.
The bright colors of autumn are transient; these browns are permanent. These are not so much withered leaves, for they have a wintry life in them still, and the tanned or bronzed color of assured health. They are a sort of epidermis or bark, not at once thrown off, serving, perhaps, to protect the trees as well as the quadrupeds and birds.
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. It suggests that a certain law has attended their movements, which appeared so lawless, even as with the iron filings under the influence of music. The greater part that have fallen are deposited in clear and crispy heaps in particular places. They are beds which invite the traveller to repose on them, even in this wintry weather.
From a little east of Wyman's I look over the pond westward. The sun is near setting, away beyond Fair Haven. A bewitching stillness reigns through all the woodland and over the snow-clad landscape. Indeed, the winter day in the woods or fields has commonly the stillness of twilight. The pond is perfectly smooth and full of light.
I hear only the strokes of a lingering woodchopper at a distance, and the melodious hooting of an owl, which is as common and marked a sound as the axe or the locomotive whistle. Yet where does the ubiquitous hooter sit, and who sees him? In whose wood-lot is he to be found? Few eyes have rested on him hooting. Few on him silent on his perch even.
Yet cut away the woods never so much year after year, though the chopper has not seen him and only a grove or two is left, still his aboriginal voice is heard indefinitely far and sweet, mingled oft, in strange harmony, with the newly invented din of trade, like a sentence of Allegri sounded in our streets, — hooting from invisible perch at his foes the woodchoppers, who are invading his domains.
As the earth only a few inches beneath the surface is undisturbed and what it was anciently, so are heard still some primeval sounds in the air. Some of my townsmen I never see, and of a great proportion I do not hear the voices in a year, though they live within my horizon; but every week almost I hear the loud voice of the hooting owl, though I do not see the bird more than once in ten years.
I perceive that more or other things are seen in the reflection than in the substance. 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, and these are indefinitely prolonged into points of shadow.
The sun is set, and over the valley, which looks like an outlet of Walden toward Fair Haven, I see a burnished bar of cloud stretched low and level, as if it were the bar over that passageway to Elysium, the last column in the train of the sun.
When I get as far as my bean-field, the reflected white in the winter horizon of this perfectly cloudless sky is being condensed at the horizon's edge, and its hue deepening into a dun golden, against which the tops of the trees — pines and elms — are seen with beautiful distinctness, and a slight blush begins to suffuse the eastern horizon, and so the picture of the day is done and set in a gilded frame.
December 9, 2021
Now for a merry fire, some old poet's pages, or else serene philosophy, or even a healthy book of travels, to last far into the night, eked out perhaps with the walnuts which we gathered in November.
The worker who would accomplish much these short days must shear a dusky slice off both ends of the night. The chopper must work as long as he can see, often returning home by moonlight, and set out for the woods again by candle-light.
In many parts of the river the ice has been formed with remarkably coarse crystallization, the surface being starred with great raised rays as thick as your thumb and several feet long, as it were the beginning of a bony system, as if under the action of a strong wind which rippled the water while it was freezing. All covered with these rounded plaits. Soon, where there is much current, even in pretty cold weather, the ice is worn thin during the day, and when you are following the tracks of one who has preceded you by half a dozen hours over the black ice, you are surprised by seeing the trembling water reveal itself at numerous holes other wise not noticeable close about you.
The northwest wind, meeting the current in an exposed place, produces that hobbly ice which I described at Cardinal Shore day before yesterday. This is the case in this place every year, and no doubt this same phenomenon occurred annually at this point on this river a thousand years before America was discovered. This regularity and permanence make these phenomena more interesting to me.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, December 9, 1856
There is scarcely a particle of ice in Walden yet. Fair Haven was so solidly frozen on the 6th and yesterday Flint’s, was frozen at least four inches thick. See December 9, 1854 ("White Pond mostly skimmed over.”); December 9, 1859 ("The river and Fair Haven Pond froze over generally last night . . . This is unusually sudden.”). See also December 19, 1856 ("Walden froze completely over last night. This is very sudden, for on the evening of the 15th there was not a particle of ice in it. In just three days, then, it has been completely frozen over, and the ice is now from two and a half to three inches thick.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Annual ice-in at Walden
The sun is near setting . . . The pond is perfectly smooth and full of light. See December 8, 1853 (" But, now the sun is set, Walden . . . is more light than the sky")
And so the picture of the day is done and set in a gilded frame. See January 7, 1852 (" Every day a new picture is painted and framed, held up for half an hour, in such lights as the Great Artist chooses, and then withdrawn, and the curtain falls.")
Such is a winter eve. See December 15, 1856 ("I still recall to mind that characteristic winter eve of December 9th")
Such is a winter eve. See December 15, 1856 ("I still recall to mind that characteristic winter eve of December 9th")
Smooth serenity
and reflections of the pond,
alone free from ice.
Hooting of the owl
with the distant whistle of
a locomotive.
The last strokes of the
woodchopper, who presently
bends his steps homeward.
Gilded bar of cloud
conducting my thoughts into
the eternal west.
The horizon glow
and the hasty walk homeward.
Long winter evening.
Long winter evening.
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 December 8, 1853 (" 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 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.”)
Yet where does the ubiquitous hooter sit, and who sees him? In whose wood-lot is he to be found?. . . I do not see the bird more than once in ten years. See January 7, 1854 ("Strange that we should hear this sound so often, loud and far, — a voice which we call the owl, — and yet so rarely see the bird. Oftenest at twilight. It has a singular prominence as a sound; is louder than the voice of a dear friend. Yet we see the friend perhaps daily and the owl but few times in our lives. It is a sound which the wood or horizon makes."); November 18, 1851 ("I rejoice that there are owls. This sound suggests the infinite roominess of nature, that there is a world in which owls live.”)
I perceive that more or other things are seen in the reflection than in the substance. See December 11, 1853 (“It occurs to me that the reflection of objects in still water is . . .fairer than the substance . . . we see terrestrial objects with the sky or heavens for a background or field.”); October 14, 1857 (“Not even reflections in still water are like their substances as seen by us. This, too, accounts for my seeing portions of the sky through the trees in reflections often when none appear in the substance. . . .[T]he reflection is never a true copy or repetition of its substance, but a new composition, and this may be the source of its novelty and attractiveness, and of this nature, too, may be the charm of an echo."); November 27, 1857 ("I think that Ruskin is wrong about reflections . . . He says . . . 'Whatever you can see from the place in which you stand, of the solid objects so reversed under the water, you will see in the reflection’”).
The worker who would accomplish much these short days must shear a dusky slice off both ends of the night. See December 11, 1854 ("The day is short; it seems to be composed of two twilights merely; the morning and the evening twilight make the whole day. You must make haste to do the work of the day before it is dark.”)
The hushed stillness of
the winter day at twilight –
the pond full of light.
And so the picture
of the day is done and set
in a gilded frame.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Such is a winter eve.
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-561209
Thursday, December 8, 2016
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
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
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