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

  Saw four snow buntings by the railroad causeway, just this side the cut, quite tame. They arose and alighted on the rail fence as we went by. Melvin speaks of seeing flocks of them on the river meadows in the fall, when they are of a different color . . .

  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 . . .

  See that long meandering track where a deer mouse hopped over the soft snow last night, scarcely making any impression. What if you could witness with owls’ eyes the revelry of the wood mice some night, frisking about the wood like so many little kangaroos? Here is a palpable evidence that the woods are nightly thronged with little creatures which most have never seen,-such populousness as commonly only the imagination dreams of . . .

  I see the dead stems of the water horehound just rising above the snow and curving outward over the bank of the Assabet, near the stone-heaps . . . (Journal, 13:76-78).

  2 P.M.—Walk to Walden.

  Thermometer 48 at 2 P.M. . . . When returning from Walden at sunset, the only cloud we saw was a small purplish one, exactly conforming to the outline of Wachusett,—which it concealed,—as if on that mountain only the universal moisture was at that moment condensed . . .

  P.M.—To Walden.

  I call that ice marbled when shallow puddles of melted snow and rain, with perhaps some slosh in them, resting on old ice, are frozen, showing a slightly internal marbling, or alternation of light and dark spots or streaks . . .

  After the January thaw our thoughts cease to refer to autumn and we look forward to spring . . .

Dear Sir:

  Enclosed please find $10 Amt of your bill of 27 Ult. Please acknowledge recpt and oblige

Yours truly
R. Allison Supt.

  Your Aunts case vs. Miss Pallies will be tried tomorrow—will you please come down by the first train?

Very truly yours
Edward Bangs

  Enclosed are Nine Dollars, for which, please send at once 6 lbs best (ground) plumbago, with bill

Yrs &c
Hobart & Robbins

  I go forth to walk on the Hill at 3 P.M.

  It is a very beautiful and spotless snow now, it having just ceased falling. You are struck by its peculiar tracklessness, as if it were a thick white blanket just spread. As it were, each snowflake lies as it first fell, or there is a regular gradation from the denser bottom up to the surface, which is perfectly light, and as it were fringed with the last flakes that fell. This was a star snow, dry, but the stars of considerable size . . .

  I notice, as I am returning half an hour before sunset, the thermometer about 24º, much vapor rising from the thin ice which has formed over the snow and water to-day by the riverside . . .

  The surface of the snow, now that the sun has shone on it so long, is not so light and downy, almost impalpable, as it was yesterday, but is somewhat flattened down and looks even as if [it] had had a skim-coat of some whitewash. I can see sparkles on it, but they are finer than at first and therefore less dazzling . . .

  We’ve been having a good deal of wintry weather for our section of late, and skating by both sexes is a great fashion. On the 26th of last month, Arthur, Walton, and I skated about fifteen miles. We rode out to the south end of Long pond (Aponoquet), and leaving our horse at a farmer’s barn, put on our skates, and went nearly in a straight line to the north end of said pond, up to the old herring weir of King Philip, where we were obliged to take off our skates, as the passage to Assawamset was not frozen. We stopped about an hour at the old tavern and had a good solid anti-slavery, and John Brown talk with some travellers. One, a square-set, red-bearded farmer, said among other rough things, that he would like to eat Southerners’ hearts! and drink their blood! for a fortnight, and would be willing to die if he could not live on this fare! This was said in reply to a spruce young fellow who had been in New Orleans, and knew all about slavery—damned the abolitionists most lustily, and John Brown and his associates in particular. Oaths flew like shot from one side to the other, but the renegade Northerner was no match for the honest farmer, who met him at every point with facts, statistics, oaths, and arguments, and finally swore his antagonist down flat. He “burst the bully” in good earnest. Occasionally I had interspersed a few words, and others present, but our farmer was the champion of the field, and a more complete annihilation of a doughface I never witnessed.

  My boys seemed to enjoy it well. After this scene we again assumed our skates from the Assawamset shore, near by, and skated down to the end of the East Quitticus pond, the extreme southern end of the ponds to our crossing place, we estimate at something over 15 miles. Taking off our skates we took a path through the woods, and walking about a mile came out in some old fields near our starting point. We put on our skates at 10.30 o’clock a.m., and at 3p.m. were eating dinner at the old farm-house of William A. Morton, near the south shore of Long Pond.

  I,as well as my boys, enjoyed the excursion very much. We saw our favorite pond under entirely new aspects, and visited many nooks that we had never before seen—sometimes under the boughs of the old cedars, draped in long clusters of moss, like bearded veterans, and anon farther out on the bosom of the lake, with broad and refreshing views of wild nature, taking the imagination back to the times of the Indians and early settlers of these parts—shooting by little islands and rocky islets, among them the one called “Lewis Island,” which you thought would do for a residence. I got a fresh hold of life that day, and hope to repeat the pleasure before winter closes his reign. I found myself not only exhausted, as I have expected, but unusually fresh and cheerful on my arrival home about 5p.m. The boys stood it equally well. So my friend shall not allow you all the glory of the skating field but must place out Aponoquet, Assawamset and Quitticas-et, in the skating account with your own beloved Musketaquid exploits.

  Well, since I saw you, dear old John Brown has met, and O! how nobly, his death, at the hands of Southern tyrants. I honor him and his brave associates in my “heart of hearts”; but my voice is for peaceable measures henceforth, doubtful, alas! as their success appears.

  I expect to be in Boston at the annual meeting of the Mass. A[nti] S[lavery] Society, near at hand, and hope to see you there, and if agreeable should like to have you return home with me, when, D.V., we may try our skates on the Middleborough ponds.

  We all spoke of you and wished you were with us on our late excursion there.

With kind regard to your family and my other Concord friends, I remain,

Yours faithfully,
D. Ricketson

  Very warm,—45º at 2 P.M.

  There is a tender crust on the snow, and the sun is brightly reflected from it. Looking toward Billerica from the cross-road near White’s, the young oaks on the top of a hill in the horizon are very red, perhaps seven or eight miles off and directly opposite to the sun, far more red, no doubt, than they would appear near at hand, really bright red; but nowhere else that I perceive. It is an aerial effect, depending on their distance and elevation and being opposite to the sun, and also contrasted with the snowy ground . . .

The temperature of the air and the clearness or serenity of the sky are indispensable to a knowledge of a day, so entirely do we sympathize with the moods of nature. It is important to know of a day that is past whether it was warm or cold, clear or cloudy, calm or windy, etc. . . .

  2 P.M.—Thermometer 38. Somewhat cloudy at first . . . (Journal, 13:95-96).

  Dear Sir,

  I send you with this a letter of introduction to Ticknor & Fields, as you request; though I am rather remote from them.

  I think that your poem was well calculated for our lyceum, and the neighboring towns, but I would advise you, if it is not impertinent, not to have it printed, as you propose. You might keep it by you, read it as you have done, as you may have opportunity, and see how it wears with yourself. It may be in your own way if printed. The public are very cold and indifferent to such things, and the publishers still more so. I have found that the precept “Write with fury, and correct with flegm” required me to print only the hundredth part of what I had written. If you print at first in newspapers, you can afterward collect survives [survivors?] — what your readers demand. That, I should say, is the simplest and safest, as it is the commonest, way. You so get the criticism of the public, & if you fail, no harm is done.

  You may think this harsh advice, but, believe me, it is sincere.

Yrs truly
Henry D. Thoreau

  The snow and ice under the hemlocks is strewn with cones and seeds and tracked with birds and squirrels. What a bountiful supply of winter food is here provided for them! No sooner has fresh snow fallen and covered up the old crop than down comes a new supply all the more distinct on the spotless snow . . .

  C. [William Ellery Channing] says that he followed the track of a fox all yesterday afternoon, though with some difficulty, and then lost it at twilight. I suggested that he should begin next day where he had left off, and that following it, up thus for many days he might catch him at last . . .

  Minott says that a hound which pursues a fox by scent cannot tell which way he is going; that the fox is very cunning and will often return on its track over which the dog had already run . . .

  Walking on the ice by the side of the river this very pleasant morning, I see many minnows (may be dace) from one and a half to four inches long which have come out, through holes or cracks a foot wide more or less, where the current has worn through . . .

  Each pleasant morning like this all creatures recommence life with new resolutions,—even these minnows, methinks.

  That snow which in the afternoons these days is thawing and dead—in which you slump—is now hard and crisp, supporting your weight, and has a myriad brilliant sparkles in the sunlight . . .

Dear Sir

  Enclosed please find note of my brother L.L. Smith for $100 payable in three months with my endorsement and acknowledge the receipt thereof to him

Yours truly
Chauncey Smith

  After the lecture Thoreau and I go to Emerson’s and talk further on it. Anna Whiting is there. I ask if civilization is not the ascendency of sentiment over brute force, the sway of ideas over animalism, of mind over matter. the more animated the brain, the higher is the man or creature in the scale of intelligence. The barbarian has no society; this begins in sympathy, the perception and sentiment of personality binding the general in one. Thoreau defends the Indian from the doctrine of being lost or exterminated, and thinks he holds a place between civilized man and nature, and must hold it. I say that he goes along with the woods and the beasts, who retreat before and are superseded by man and the planting of orchards and gardens. The savage succumbs to the superiority of the white man. No civilized man as yet, nor refined nations, for all ar brute largely still. Man’s victory over nature and himself is to overcome the brute beast in him.

  Saw A. Hosmer approaching in his pung. He calculated so that we should meet just when he reached the bare planking of the causeway bridge, so that his horse might as it were stop of his own accord and no other excuse would be needed for a talk . . .

  P.M.—To Eleazer Davis’s Hill, and made a fire on the ice, merely to see the flame and smell the smoke . . .

  Such clouds as the above are the very thin advanceguard of the cloud behind. It soon comes on more densely from the northwest, and darkens all.

  No bright sunset to-night.

  What fine and pure reds we see in the sunset sky! Yet earth is not ransacked for dye-stuffs. It is all accomplished by the sunlight on vapor at the right angle, and the sunset sky is constant if you are at the right angle. The sunset sky is sometimes more northerly, sometimes more southerly . . .

  P.M.—To Fair Haven Pond and return via Andromeda Ponds and railroad . . .

  As usual, I now see, walking on the river and river meadow ice, thus thinly covered with the fresh snow, that conical rainbow, or parabola of rainbow-colored reflections, from the myriad reflecting crystals of the snow, i.e., as I walk toward the sun . . .

  I go through the piny field northwest of M. Miles’s. There are no more beautiful natural parks than these pastures in which the white pines have sprung up spontaneously, standing at handsome intervals, where the wind chanced to let the seed lie at last, and the grass and blackberry vines have not yet been killed by them . . .

  Thermometer 45. Fair but all overcast. Sun’s place quite visible. Wind southwest.

  Went to what we called Two-Boulder Hill, behind the house where I was born. There the wind suddenly changed round 90° to northwest, and it became quite cold (had fallen to 24° or 24° [sic] at 5.30) . . . .

  Clock has stopped. Teams squeak.

  2 P.M.—To Fair Haven Pond . . .

  About 3 P.M. I noticed a distinct fragment of rainbow, about as long as wide, on each side of the sun, one north and the [other] south and at the same height above the horizon with the sun, all in a line parallel with the horizon; and, as I thought, there was a slight appearance of a bow . . .

  It is remarkable that the straw-colored sedge of the meadows, which in the fall is one of the least noticeable colors, should, now that the landscape is mostly covered with snow, be perhaps the most noticeable of all objects in it for its color, and an agreeable contrast to the snow . . .

  When I read some of the rules for speaking and writing the English language correctly,—as that a sentence must never end with a particle,—and perceive how implicitly even the learned obey it . . .

  2 P.M., 40º . . .

  We have no occasion to wonder at the instinct of a dog. In these last two instances I surpassed the instinct of the dog.

  It may always be a question how much or how little of a man goes to any particular act. It is not merely by taking time and by a conscious effort that he betrays himself. A man is revealed, and a man is concealed, in a myriad unexpected ways . . .

Dear Sir—

  If you do not desire to know my address, (which you had better not know if you have any prospect of being summoned to Washington) please hand the enclose knot to F.B. S[anborn] who, perhaps, may wish to see me to consult as to our future course. I have been regularly summoned, but have resolutely refused to obey the summons; & am in the country, now, to have quiet until I shall complete the forthcoming Volume. I directed your Lecture to be sent to you for correction; which—I am told—has been done.

  Can you furnish me with an a/c of the B[attle] of B[lack] J[ack]? I was very conscious of the defects of the a/c I copied; but as I recollect very little about the B, I cd not undertake to describe it from my own resources. I shall however yet obtain the testimony of the eye witnesses; as I have all their names (the “Orderly Book” that you allude to) & will either see or write to every man who was present, as soon as I can get their addresses or leave Mass. for K. Territory. I shall probably visit the ground in the spring.

  For the Private Life I have already a number of very interesting letters from Kansas men,—just such plain, matter of fact statements as you are greedy for, & which, better than any rehetorical estimates of John Brown’s character or cause, exhibit to the intelligent reader the spirit & life of the old warrior.

  The very numerous faults of language (there have been very few of facts) & the imperfect estimates of character which disfigure my book warn me—& I will heed the hint—to take more time in fixing another original volume. As for my forthcoming book, as it is an edited volume only, I have nothing to fear in that a/c.

  I have not even yet attempted to arrange my voluminous newspaper materials, & do not see that I shall be able to commence it for some weeks to come This is my apology or reason rather for neglecting (in appearance) my promise with reference to Miss Thoreau’s Scrap Book.

  I find that the extracts that [word] made in my book for your lecture were incorrectly reported. Do you desire that they shall be altered? If so, please return the volume I sent you properly marked; & I will return you as many vols as you desire with the latest corrections. The 33d thousand has been printed & contains many corrections not in the edition I sent you. The prospect is that it will reach over 50000 at least. I think it will do good among the masses; that is all I tried to do—for the educated have teachers enough; & over them I do not expect to have influence.

  Remember me to Mrs Thoreau & thank her, in my own name & in behalf of my wife, also—for her kind invitation which we shall, as soon as possible, accept.

Very truly yours
Jas Redpath

Dear Sir

  Enclosed please find draft on Boston for thirty-seven 50/100 dollars the amt of your bill due By receipting the same and returning it you will oblige

Yours truly

Welch, Bigelow & Co.

  At the last annual meeting of the Class of ’37, a vote was passed, that the members of the Class be requested to furnish the Secretary with their photographs, to be placed in the Class Book. Several fellows, in accordance with the above vote, have already sent me their pictures, and I trust that you will feel disposed, at an early date, to follow their example. You can send to me through the Post Office, at 18 Concord Square.

Very truly yours,

  I see that Wheildon’s pines are rocking and showing their silvery under sides as last spring,—their first awakening, as it were.

  P.M.—The river, where open, is very black, as usual when the waves run high, for each wave casts a shadow . . .

  In this cold, clear, rough air from the northwest we walk amid what simple surroundings! 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.

  Above me is a cloudless blue sky; beneath, the skyblue, i.e. sky-reflecting, ice with patches of snow scattered over it like mackerel clouds. At a distance in several directions I see the tawny earth streaked or spotted with white where the bank or hills and fields appear, or else the green-black evergreen forests, or the brown, or russet, or tawny deciduous woods, and here and there, where the agitated surface of the river is exposed, the blue-black water . . .

  It excites me to see early in the spring that black artery leaping once more through the snow-clad town. All is tumult and life there . . . The living waters, not the dead earth. It is as if the dormant earth opened its dark and liquid eye upon us.

  But to return to my walk. I proceed over the sky-blue ice, winding amid the flat drifts as if amid the clouds, now and then treading on that thin white ice (much marked) of absorbed puddles (of the surface), which crackles somewhat . . .

  Returning just before sunset, I see the ice beginning to be green, and a rose-color to be reflected from the low snow-patches . . .

  I thus find myself returning over a green sea, winding amid purple islets, and the low sedge of the meadow on one side is really a burning yellow . . .

  It is twenty above at 5.30, when I get home.

  I walk over a smooth green sea, or aequor, the sun just disappearing in the cloudless horizon, amid thousands of these flat isles as purple as the petals of a flower. It would not be more enchanting to walk amid the purple clouds of the sunset sky. And, by the way, this is but a sunset sky under our feet, produced by the same law, the same slanting rays and twilight . . .

  Water overflowing the ice at an opening in the river, and mixing witli thin snow, saturating it, seen now on one side at right angles with the sun’s direction, is as black as black cloth. It is surprising what a variety of distinct colors the winter can show us, using but few pigments, so to call them. The principal charm of a winter walk over ice is perhaps the peculiar and pure colors exhibited . . .

  When we descend on to Goose Pond we find that the snow rests more thickly on the numerous zigzag and horizontal branches of the high blueberries that bend over it than on any deciduous shrub or tree, producing a very handsome snowy maze, and can thus distinguish this shrub, by the manner in which the snow lies on it, quite across the pond . . .

  Minott says that he hears that Heard’s testimony in regard to Concord River in the meadow case was that “it is damned at both ends and cursed in the middle,” i.e. on account of the damage to the grass there . . . (Journal, 13:149-152).

The snow is fine: and drives low; is composed of granulated masses one sixteenth to one twentieth of an inch in diameter. Not in flakes at all. I think it is not those large-flaked snow-storms that are the worst for the traveller, or the deepest.

  It would seem as if the more odd and whimsical the conceit, the more credible to the mass. They require a surprising truth, though they may well be surprised at any truth . . .

  Sometimes, when I go forth at 2 P.M., there is scarcely a cloud in the sky, but soon one will appear in the west and steadily advance and expand itself, and so change the whole character of the afternoon and of my thoughts. The history of the sky for that afternoon will be but the development of that cloud . . .

  J. Farmer tells me that his grandfather once, when moving some rocks in the winter, found a striped squirrel frozen stiff. He put him in his pocket, and when he got home laid him on the hearth, and after a while he was surprised to see him running about the room as lively as ever he was . . .

  It was their very admiration of nature that made the ancients attribute those magnanimous qualities which are rarely to be found in man to the lion as her masterpiece, and it is only by a readiness, or rather preparedness, to see more than appears in a creature that one can appreciate what is manifest . . .

  3 P.M.—Thermometer 58º and snow almost gone . . .

  I walk over the moist Nawshawtuct hillside and see the green radical leaves of the buttercup, shepherd’s-purse (circular), sorrel, chickweed, cerastium, etc., revealed.

  About 4 P.M. a smart shower, ushered in by thunder and succeeded by a brilliant rainbow and yellow light from under the dark cloud in the west . . .

  The clouds reflecting a dazzling brightness from their edges, and though it is rather warm (the wind raw) there are many, finely divided, in a stream southwest to northeast all the afternoon, and some most brilliant mother-o’-pearl. I never saw the green in it more distinct . . .

  Colder, and frozen ground; strong wind, northwest.

  I noticed yesterday in the street some dryness of stones at crossings and in the road and sidewalk here and there, and even two or three boys beginning to play at marbles, so ready are they to get at the earth . . .

  To Abner Buttrick’s Hill.

  The river has been breaking up for several days, and I now see great cakes lodged against each of the bridges, especially at Hunt’s and the North Bridge, where the river flows with the wind. For a week or more you could not go to Ball’s Hill by the south side of the river . . .

  I walk down the river below Flint’s on the north side. The sudden apparition of this dark-blue water on the surface of the earth is exciting. I must now walk where I can see the most water, as to the most living part of nature. This is the blood of the earth, and we see its blue arteries pulsing with new life now . . .

  C. [William Ellery Channing] found a skater-insect on E. Hubbard’s Close brook in woods to-day.

  Passed a very little boy in the street to-day, who had on a home-made cap of a woodchuck-skin, which his father or elder brother had killed and cured, and his mother or elder sister had fashioned into a nice warm cap. I was interested by the sight of it, it suggested so much of family history, adventure with the chuck, story told about [it], not without exaggeration, the human parents’ care of their young these hard times . . .

  C. [William Ellery Channing] saw a dozen robins to-day on the ground on Ebby Hubbard’s hill by the Yellow Birch Swamp. One tells me that George Hubbard told him he saw blackbirds go over this afternoon . . .

  As I go down the Boston road, I see an Irishman wheeling home from far a large damp and rotten pine log for fuel. He evidently sweats at it, and pauses to rest many times. He found, perhaps, that his wood-pile was gone before the winter was, and he trusts thus to contend with the remaining cold. I see him unload it in his yard before me and then rest himself. The piles of solid oak wood which I see in other yards do not interest me at all, but this looked like fuel. It warmed me to think of it . . .

  I have thoughts, as I walk, on some subject that is running in my head, but all their pertinence seems gone before I can get home to set them down . . . (Journal, 13:170).

  2 P.M.—Thermometer 50º. To Witherell Glade via Clamshell; thence to Hubbard’s Close . . .

  C. [William Ellery Channing] has seen good bæomyces (?) lately. There is none however at Bæomyces Bank. In Hosmer’s ditches in the moraine meadow, the grass just peeps above the surface, apparently begun to grow a little . . .

Hayden thinks he has seen bluebirds for a fortnight!! Say that he has possibly for a week (?), and that will agree with Wheeler. Ed. Hoar says he heard a phœbe February 27th . . .

  To Abner Buttrick and Tarbell Hills.

  See a flock of large ducks in a line,—maybe black?—over Great Meadows; also a few sheldrakes.

  It was pleasant to hear the tinkling of very coarse brash—broken honeycombed dark ice—rattling one piece against another along the northeast shores, to which it has drifted.

  Scarcely any ice now about river except what rests on the bottom of the meadows, dirty with sediment . . . .

  C. [William Ellery Channing] says that Walden began to be hard to get on to the first of March. I saw this afternoon a meadow below Flint’s willow-row still frozen over (at 3 P.M.) . . .

  The earth is never lighter-colored than now,—the hillsides reflecting the sun when first dried after the winter,especially, methinks, where the sheep’s fescue grows (?). It contrasts finely with the rich blue of the water . . .

  Going by Messer’s, I hear the well-known note and see a flock of F. hyemalis flitting in a lively manner about trees, weeds, walls, and ground, by the roadside, showing their two white tail-feathers . . .

  Mr. Stacy tells me that the flies buzzed about him as he was splitting wood in his yard to-day.

  I can scarcely see a heel of a snow-drift window.

  Jonas Melvin says he saw hundreds of ‘speckled’ turtles out on the banks to-day in a voyage to Billerica for musquash . . .

  3 P.M.—34º.

  A little sleety snow falling all day, which does not quite cover the ground,—a sugaring. Song sparrow heard through it; not bluebird . . .

  I meet some Indians just camped on Brister’s Hill . . . (Journal, 13:183-187).

  2 and 3 P.M.—Thermometer 41º . . . (Journal, 13:187-188).

  I was amused with the behavior of two red squirrels as I approached the hemlocks. They were as gray as red, and white beneath. I at first heard a faint, sharp chirp, like a bird, within the hemlock, on my account, and then one rushed forward on a descending limb toward me, barking or chirruping at me after his fashion, within a rod. They seemed to vie with one another who should be most bold . . .

  I am surprised to find Walden almost entirely open. There is only about an acre of ice at the southeast end, north of the Lincoln bound, drifted there, and a little old and firm and snowy in the bottom of the deep south bay. I may say it opens to-morrow. I have not observed it to open before before the 23d of March . . .

  Though it is pretty dry and settled travelling on open roads, it is very muddy still in some roads through woods, as the Marlborough road or Second Division road.

  2 P.M.—To Lee’s Cliff . . .

  C. [William Ellery Channing] saw a green fly yesterday . . . (Journal, 13:196-198).

  Thermometer 56; wind south, gentle; somewhat overcast.

  There is still perhaps a half-acre of ice at the bottom of the deep south bay of Walden. Also a little at the southeast end of Goose Pond . . .

  C. [William Ellery Channing] picks up at Clamshell a very thin piece of pottery about one eighth of an inch thick , which appears to contain much pounded shell . . .

  Pratt says that his bees come out in a pleasant day at any time in the winter; that of late they have come out and cased themselves, the ground being covered around the hives with their yellow droppings . . .

  2 P.M.—Thermometer 51; wind easterly, blowing slightly. To Everett’s Spring.

  Going along the Turnpike, I look over to the pitch pines on Moore’s hillside,—ground bare as it has been since February 23, except a slight whitening or two,—and it strikes me that this pine, take the year round, is the most cheerful tree and most living to look at and have about your house, it is so sunny and full of light, in harmony with the yellow sand there and the spring sun . . .

  2 P.M.—Thermometer about 49 . . . (Journal, 13:205-207).

  Please send me by mail a copy of your “Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.”

  Enclosed please find one dollar and a quarter ($1.25), which I believe you consider the pecuniary value of the book.

  Address Jane Andrews, Newburyport, Mass. March 22, 1860.

  It will be seen by the annexed scrap that March is the fourth coldest month, or about midway between December and November. The same appears from the fifteen years’ observation at Mendon. (“American Almanac,” page 86.) The descent to extreme cold occupies seven months and is therefore more gradual (though a part of it is more rapid) than the ascent to extreme heat, which takes only five months . . . The three spring months, and also October and November, are transition months, in which the temperature rapidly changes.

  2 P.M.—About 39. To Copan . . .

  I saw two red squirrels in an apple tree, which were rather small, had simply the tops of their backs red and the sides and beneath gray!

  Fox-colored sparrows go flitting past with a faint, sharp chip, amid some oaks . . .

  At Well Meadow I notice, as usual, that the common cress has been eaten down close, and the uncertain coarse sedge there, etc. The skunk-cabbage leaf-buds have just begun to appear, but not yet any hellebore. The senecio is considerably grown, and I see many little purplish rosettes of Viola pedata leaves . . .

  To speak of the general phenomena of March: When March arrives, a tolerably calm, clear, sunny, springlike day, the snow is so far gone that sleighing ends and our compassion is excited by the sight of horses laboriously dragging wheeled vehicles through mud and water and slosh . . .

  To proceed with March: Frost comes out of warm sand-banks exposed to the sun, and the sand flows down in the form of foliage . . .

  2 P.M.—Thermometer 4 [sic]. To Second Division Brook . . .

  The Second Division Spring is all covered with a brown floating gelatinous substance of the consistency of frog-spawn, but with nothing like spawn visible in it. It is of irregular longish, or rather ropy, form, and is of the consistency of frog-spawn without the ova. I think it must be done with. It quite covers the surface . . .

  The afternoon so warm—wind southwest—you take off coat. The streets are quite dusty for the first time . . . At eve I go listening for snipe, but hear none . . .

  As I walk the street I realize that a new season has arrived . . .

  One tells me he found the saxifrage out a Lee’s Cliff this afternoon, and another, Ellen Emerson, saw a yellow or little brown snake, evidently either the Coluber ordinatus or else amænus, probably the first . . .

  As we paddle up the Assabet we hear the wood turtles—the first I have noticed—and painted turtles rustling down the bank into the water, and see where they have travelled over the sand and the mud . . .

  Walked to the Mayflower Path and to see the great burning of the 31st . . .

  As we were ascending the hill in the road beyond College Meadow, we saw the dust, etc., in the middle of the road at the top of the hill taken up by a small whirlwind . . .

  J. Brown says that he saw martins on his box on the 13th and 14th, and that his son saw one the 18th (?) . . .

  Melvin says he has heard snipe some days, but thinks them scarce . . . As I go by the site of Staple’s new barn on the Kettle place, I see that they have just dug a well on the hillside and are bricking it up . . . Humphrey Buttrick, the sportsman, was at the bottom, bricking up the well; a Clark who had been mining lately in California, and who had dug the well, was passing down brick and mortar to him; and Melvin, with a bundle of apple scions in his hand, was sitting close by and looking over into the well from time to time . . .

  C. [William Ellery Channing] sees bluets and some kind of thrush to-day, size of wood thrush,—he thought probably hermit thrush.

Dear Sir—

  Send us immediately by Express 10 lbs. Plumbago with bill to

Yours Respt

L. Johnson & Co.

  Land at Lee’s Cliff . . . (Journal, 13:255).

  I fix a stake on the west side the willows at my boat’s place, the top of which is at summer level and is about ten and half inches below the stone wharf there . . .

  Mr. Stewart tells me that he has found a gray squirrel’s nest up the Assabet, in a maple tree . . .

  Minott says that, being at work in his garden once, he saw a mink coming up from the brook with a pout in her mouth, half-way across his land . . .

  To-day it is 53º at 2 P.M., yet cold, such a difference is there in our feelings . . .

  P.M.—To Cliffs and Well Meadow . . .

  P.M.—Row to Conantum . . .

  I stand under Lee’s Cliff. There is a certain summeriness in the air now, especially under a warm cliff like this, where you smell the very dry leaves, and hear the pine warbler and the hum of a few insects,—small gnats, etc.,—and see considerable growth and greenness. Though it is still windy, there is, nevertheless, a certain serenity and long-lifeness in the air, as if it were a habitable place and not merely to be hurried through. The noon of the year is approaching . . .

  Again I am advertised of the approach of a new season, as yesterday. The air is not only warmer and stiller, but has more of meaning or smothered voice to it, now that the hum of insects begins to be heard. You seem to have a great companion with you, are reassured by the scarcely audible hum, as if it were the noise of your own thinking. It is a voiceful and significant stillness . . .

  P.M.—Up Assabet . . .

  I listen to a concert of red-wings,—their rich sprayey notes, amid which a few more liquid and deep in a lower tone or undertone, as if it bubbled up from the very water beneath the button-bushes; as if those singers sat lower, Some old and skillful performer touches these deep and liquid notes, and the rest seem to get up a concert just to encourage him. Yet it is ever a prelude or essay with him, as are all good things, and the melody he is capable of and which we did not hear this time is what we remember . . .

  Ed. Emerson’s snails (the simplest kind) spawned March 28. I see young now as big as the head of a pin . . . (Journal, 13:270).

  P.M.—To stone-heaps and stone bridge . . .

  It was 63º at 2 P.M., and yet a good deal of coolness in the wind, so that I can scarcely find a comfortable seat . . .

Dear Sir—

  Enclosed find Fifteen dollars in notes amt of your bill of 21st ult. Please acknowledge receipt.

Yours truly
L. Johnson & Co

  I see at the Aquarium many of my little striped or barred breams, now labelled Bryttus obesus . . . (Journal, 13:273).

  P.M.—To Great Meadows by boat. I see Haynes with a large string of pickerel, and he says that he caught a larger yesterday . . . (Journal, 13:274-277).

  2 P.M.—76º. Warm and hazy (and yesterday warm also); my single thick coat too much. Wind southeast. A fresher and cooler breeze is agreeable now . . .

  2 P.M.—To Second Division.

  74°; wind southeast; and hazy . . .

  P.M.—To Assabet stone bridge . . .

  Met old Mr. Conant with his eye and half the side of his face black and blue, looking very badly. He said he had been jerked down on to the barn-floor by a calf some three weeks old which he was trying to lead. The strength of calves is remarkable . . .

  The small pewee, how long. The night-warbler’s note . . .

  I see a woodchuck in the middle of the field at Assabet Bath . . .

  The simple peep peep of the peetweet, as it flies away from the shore before me, sounds hollow and rather mournful, reminding me of the seashore and its wrecks, and when I smell the fresh odor of our marshes the resemblance is increased . . .

  C. [William Ellery Channing] has seen a brown thrasher and a republican swallow to-day.

  A boy brought me what I take to be a very red Rana sylvatica, caught on the leaves the 6th . . .

  P.M.—To Flint’s Pond.

  It is a still, cloudy, thoughtful day . . .

  We sit by the shore of Goose Pond . . .

  Thermometer at 2 P.M., 71 . . .

  P.M.—To Bateman’s Pond . . .

  Going over the hill behind S. Brown’s, when the crossed the triangular space between the roads beyond the pump-maker’s, I saw countless little heaps of sand like the small ant-hills, but, looking more closely, the size of the holes (a little less than a quarter of an inch) and the comparative irregularity of the heaps—as if the sand had been brought forth and dropped in greater quantity at once—attracted my attention and I found they were the work of bees . . .

  E. Hosmer, as a proof that the river has been lower than now, says that his father, who was born about the middle of the last century, used to tell of a time, when he was a boy, when the river just below Derby’s Bridge did not run, and he could cross it dry-shod on the rocks, the water standing in pools when Conant’s mill (where the factory now is) was not running . . .

  First bathe in the river . . . (Journal, 13:290).

  2 P.M.—82º; warmest day yet . . .

  Row to Bittern Cliff . . .

  It is a remarkable day for this season. You have the heat of summer before the leaves have expanded. The sky is full of glowing summer cumuli. There is no haze; the mountains are seen with perfect distinctness . . .

  2 P.M.—56º, with a cold east wind. Many people have fires again . . .

  The swamps are exceedingly dry. On the 13th I walked wherever I wanted to in thin shoes in Kalmia Swamp, and to-clay I walk through the middle of Beck Stows. The river meadows are more wet, comparatively . . .

  P.M.—To J. Farmer’s . . . (Journal, 13:297-300).

  The creak of the cricket has been common on all warm, dry hills, banks, etc., for a week,—inaugurating the summer . . . (Journal, 13:300-301).

  2 P.M.—To Second Division . . .

  I measure a bear’s boot which F. Monroe brought from Vermont, where it was killed in a trap within a few years . . .

  To Walden . . .

  Judging from Hind’s Report of his survey of the region between the Assiniboine and Saskatchewan Rivers, the prevailing trees—and they are small—are aspens and willows . . . their abundant fine and light seed, being buoyed up and wafted far through the atmosphere, speedily clothe the burnt tracts of British America . . .

  I must endeavor to pay some of my debts to you.

  To begin where we left off then.

  The presumption is that we are always the same; our opportunities & Nature herself fluctuating. Look at mankind. No great difference between two, apparently; perhaps the same height and breadth and weight; and yet to the man who sits most E. this life is a weariness, routine, dust and ashes, and he drowns his imaginary cares (!) (a sort of friction among his vital organs), in a bowl. But to the man who sits most W., his contemporary (!) it is a field for all noble endeavors, an elysium, the dwelling place of heroes & knights. The former complains that he has a thousand affairs to attend to; but he does not realize, that his affairs, (though they may be a thousand,) and he are one.

  Men & boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves. They learn to make houses, but they are not so well housed, they are not so contented in their houses, as the woodchucks in their holes. What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on? If you can not tolerate the planet it is on? Grade the ground first. If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him, (of course, you cannot put him anywhere nor show him anything), he will be surrounded by grandeur. He’s in the condition of a healthy & hungry man, who says to himself—How sweet this crust is!

  If he despairs of himself, then Tophet is his dwelling place, and he is in the condition of a sick man who is disgusted with the fruits of finest flavor

  Where he sleeps or wakes, whether he runs or walks, whether he uses a microscope or a telescope, or his named eye, a man never discovers anything, never overtales anything or leaves anything behind, but himself. Whatever he says or does he merely reports himself. If he is in love, he loves; if he is in heaven he enjoys, if he is in hell he suffers. It is his condition that determines his locality.

  The principal, the only thing a man makes is his condition, or fate. Though commonly he does not know it, nor put up a sign to this effect, “My own destiny made & mended here” [not yours] He is a masterworkman in this business. He works 25 hours a day at it and gets it done. Whatever else he neglects or botches, no man was every known to neglect this work. A great many pretend to make shoes chiefly, and would scout the idea that they make the hard times which they experience.

  Each reaching and aspiration is an instinct with which all nature consists & cooperates, and therefore it is not vain. But alas! each relaxing and desperation is an instinct too. To be active, well, happy, implies rare courage. To be ready to fight in a duel or a battle implies desperation, or that you hold your life cheap.

  If you take this life to be simply what old religious folk pretend, (I mean the effect, gone to seed in a drought, mere human galls stung by the Devil once), then all your joy & serenity is reduced to grinning and bearing it. The fact is, you have got to take the world on your shoulders like Atlas and put along with it. You will do this for an idea’s sake, and your success will be in proportion to your devotion to ideas. It may make your back ache occasionally, but you will have the satisfaction of hanging it or twirling it to suit yourself. Cowards suffer, heroes enjoy. After a long day’s walk with it, pitch it into a hollow place, sit down and eat your luncheon. Unexpectedly, by some immortal thoughts, you will be compensated. The bank whereon you sit will be afragrant and flowery one, and your world in the hollow a sleek and light gazelle.

  Where is the “Unexplored land” but in our own untried enterprises? To an adventurous spirit any place,—London, New York, Worcester, or his own yard, is “unexplored land,” to seek which Freemont & Kane travel so far. To a sluggish & defeated spirit even the Great Basin & the Polaris are trivial places. If they ever get there (& indeed they are there now) they will want to sleep & give it up, just as they always do. These are the regions of the Known & of the Unknown. What is the use of going right over the old track again? There is an adder in the path which your own feet have worn. You must make tracks into the Unknown. That is what you have your board & clothes for. Why do you ever men your clothes, unless that, wearing them, you may mend your ways?

  Let us sing
  H.D.T.

  P.M.—To Cambridge.

  All vegetation is refreshed by the rain. The grass appears to stand perfectly erect and on tiptoe, several inches higher. . .

  P.M.—69. By boat to Ball’s Hill . . .

  River at 6 P.M. about one and two thirds inches below summer level; risen some two and a half inches since 6 A.M. . . .

  Will you join us for one hour (11 ocl to 12.) at our home this day to celebrate the marriage of our dear Anna and John

Yrs affectionately

Abby Alcott

  P.M.—To Cliffs.

  I see in a ditch a painted turtle nibbling the edge of a frost-bitten yellow lily pad (in the water), which has turned white. Other pads have evidently been nibbled by him, having many scallops or notches in their edges, just the form of his jaws . . .

  Looking into the northwest horizon, I see that Wachusett is partially concealed by a haze . . .

  P.M.—To Gowing’s Swamp and Copan.

  Quite warm, and I see in the east the first summer shower cloud, a distinct cloud above, and all beneath to the horizon the general slate-color of falling rain, though distant, deepest in the middle . . .

  9 A.M.—To Easterbrooks Country . . .

  5 P.M.—River five eighths of an inch below summer level (Journal, 13:314).

  The Sylvia striata are the commonest bird in the street, as I go to the post-office, for several days past. I see six (four males, two females) on one of our little fir trees; are apparently as many more on another close by . . .

  J. Farmer found a marsh hawk’s nest on the 16th,—near the Cooper’s hawk nest,—with three fresh eggs.

  Carex debilis, not long.

  Along the edge of Warren’s wood east of the Cut, see not only the chestnut-sided warbler but the splendid Sylvia pardalina. It is a bright yellow beneath, with a broad black stripe along each side of the throat . . .

  We proceeded [to] the Cooper’s hawk nest in an oak and pine wood (Clark’s) north of Ponkawtasset . . . I climbed to the nest, some thirty to thirty-five feet high in a white pine, against the main stem. It was a mass of bark-fibre and sticks about two and a half feet long by eighteen inches wide and sixteen high . . .

  C. [William Ellery Channing] has seen to-day an orange-breasted bird which may be the female (?) Blackburnian warbler . . .

  A succession of moderate thunder and lightning storms from the west, two or three, an hour apart.

  Saw some devil’s-needles (the first) about the 25th.

  I took refuge from the thunder-shower this afternoon by running for a high pile of wood near Second Division, and while it was raining, I stuck three stout cat-sticks into the pile, higher than my head, each a little lower than the other, and piled large flattish wood on them and tossed on dead pine-tops, making a little shed, under which I stood dry.

Dear Sir

  I enclose to you my brothers note with my endorsement, at his request.

  Please acknowledge to him its reception

Yours truly
Chauncey Smith

  P.M.—To river behind Hubbard’s Grove . . .

  8 P.M.—Up Assabet . . .

  Hear the sound of Barrett’s sawmill first like a drum, then like a train of cars.

  2 P.M.—To bayberry . . . (Journal, 13:326).

  One asks me to-day when it is that the leaves are fully expanded, so that the trees and woods look dark and heavy with leaves . . .

  P.M.—To Gowing’s Swamp and Copan . . .

  Seeing house-leek on several rocks in the fields and by roadside in the neighborhood of Brooks Clark’s, Farmer [Jacob Farmer] told me that it was the work of Joe Dudley, a simple fellow who lives at one of the Clarks; that, though half-witted, he knew more medicinal plants than almost anybody in the neighborhood . . .

  A painted turtle beginning her hole for eggs at 4 P.M. . . .

  River at 6 P.M., twelve and five eighths inches above summer level. To-night the toads ring loudly and generally, as do hylodes also, the thermometer being at 62 at 9 P.M. . . .

  2 P.M.—To Well Meadow via Walden . . .

  River 7 P.M. fourteen and a half above summer level (Journal, 13:336-339).

  6 P.M.—Paddle to Flint’s hedge . . .

  C. [William Ellery Channing] says that a fox stood near, watching him, in Britton’s Hollow to-day . . .

  At 6 P.M. it was 58º . . . (Journal, 13:341-343).

  With a north-west wind, it is difficult to sail from the willow-row to Hubbard’s Bath, yet I can sail more westerly from the island point to Fair Haven Bay to the bath-place above: and though I could not do the first to-day, I did sail all the way from Rice’s Bar to half a mile above Sherman’s Bridge by all the windings of the river . . .

  On our way up, we ate our dinner at Rice’s shore . . .

  A painted turtle laying, at 5 P.M. . . .

  At 9 P. M., 54º, and no toads nor peepers heard.

  At 7.30 P.M. I hear many toads, it being a warm night, but scarcely any hylodes . . . (Journal, 13:348).

  I first heard that tchuck soundas of fish striking a padon the 2d of June, when there were very few weeds in the river, and have since heard it repeatedly . . .

  I noticed as I sat in my boat by the riverside last evening [12 June.], half an hour after sunset, a very low and local, yet dense, fog close to the shore . . . a foot high by three or four wide for several rods.

  P.M.—To Second Division . . . (Journal, 13:351-353).

  I paddle to Clamshell . . . (Journal, 13:353-356).

  At evening paddle to Clamshell . . .

  Channing [William Ellery Channing] found a marsh hawk’s nest on the Great Meadows this afternoon, with three eggs considerably developed . . .

  About 1 P.M., notice thunder-clouds in west and hear the muttering. As yesterday, it splits at sight of Concord and goes south and north . . . (Journal, 13:358).

  2 P.M.—To Walden and Cliffs . . .

  Standing on Emerson’s Cliff, I see very distinctly the redness of a luxuriant field of clover on the top of Fair Haven Hill, some two thirds of a mile off, the day being cloudy and misty, the sun just ready to break out. You might have mistaken the redness for that of withered pine boughs where wood was cut last winter . . .

  Let an oak be hewed and put into the frame of a house, where it is sheltered, and it will last several centuries. Even as a sill it may last one hundred and fifty years. But simply cut it down and let it lie, though in an open pasture, and it will probably be thoroughly rotten in twenty-five years . . .

  2 P.M.—To Flint’s Pond . . .

  I follow a distinct fox-path amid the grass and bushes for some thirty rods beyond Britton’s Hollow . . .

  Heavy rain (with holdings up) all day and part of the following night . . . (Journal, 13:362).

  At 12 M. it is only 59º above zero, and I am surprised to hear some toads ring . . .

  2 P.M.—To Little Truro . . .

  Started up a nighthawk in the dry field near the pondhole. Probably they affect these dry and gravelly fields, as at Truro, where the small fescue grass grows . . .

  Rice tells me that he saw in a mud-hole near the river in Sudbury, about a fortnight ago, a pout protecting her ova, which were in a ball about as big as an apple, all exposed, not at all hatched (I think he said on a stick), under which she swam. There were also pouts of various sizes about there, some only two inches long (!), says his son William . . .

  2 P.M.—To Great Meadows . . .

  2 P.M.—To Bare Hill road . . .

  At 7 P.M. the river is fifteen and three fourths inches above summer level . . . (Journal, 13:369-371).

  The dogdayish weather continues . . .

  That hilly road through Baker’s land to Bare Hill is a true up-country road with the scent of ferns along it . . .

  At evening up the Assabet. 7 P.M., river twelve and a half inches above summer level . . . (Journal, 13:373-374).

  River at 6 P.M. seven and five eighths inches above summer level . . . (Journal, 13:375-377).

  This month, it must be 85° at 2 P.M. and still to make hot weather. 80° with wind is quite comfortable . . .

  Farmer said yesterday that he thought foxes did not live so much in the depth of the woods as on open hillsides, where they lay out and overlooked the operations of men,—studied their ways,—which made them so cunning . . .

  At 2 P.M. the river is six inches above summer level . . .

  Seen through this clear, sparkling, breezy air, the fields, woods, and meadows are very brilliant and fair. The leaves are now hard and glossy (the oldest), yet still comparatively fresh, and I do not see a single acre of grass that has been cut yet. The river meadows on each side the stream, looking toward the light, have an elysian beauty . . .

  7 P.M., river is one and three eighths above summer level (Journal, 13:385-386).

  Mother reminds me that I must write to you, if only a few lines, though I have sprained my thumb so that it is questionable whether I can write legibly, if at all. I can’t bear on much. What is worse, I believe that I have sprained my brain too—i.e it sympathizes with my thumb. But there is no excuse, I suppose, for writing a letter in such a case, is, like sending a newspaper, only a hint to let you know that “all is well”—but my thumb.

  I hope that you begin to derive some benefit from that more mountainous air which you are breathing Have you had a distinct view of the Franconia Notch ruts (blue peaks in the N horizon)? which I told you that you could get from the road in Campton, & probably from some other points nearer. Such a view of the mts is more memorable than any other.

  Have you been to Squam Lake, or overlooked it—I should think that you could easily make an excursion to some mt in that direction from which you could see the lake & the mts generally.

  Is there no friend of N.P. Rogers who can tell you where the “lions” are. Of course I did not go to North Elba, but I sent some reminiscences of last fall

  I hear that John Brown jr has just come to Boston for a few days. Mr Sanborn’s case, it is said, will come on after some murder cases have been disposed of—here.

  I have just been invited, formally, to be present at the annual picnic of Theodore Parker’s society (that was) at Waverly next Wednesday, & to make some remarks. But that is wholly out of my line—I do not go to picnics even in Concord you know.
  Mother & Aunt Sophia rode to Acton in time yesterday. I suppose that you have heard that Mr Hawthorne has come home. I went to meet him the other evening & found that he has not altered except that he was looking pretty brown after his voyage He is as simple & child-like as ever.

  I believe that I have fairly scared the kittens away, at last, by my pretended fierceness—which was humane merely.

  & now I will consider my thumb—& your eyes

Henry

  River at 7 P. M. eight and a half inches above summer level (Journal, 13:396-398).

Dear Sir: I have been unable to obtain from our booksellers your “Week on the Concord & Merrimack Rivers” and therefore enclose you the supposed price. You will please send it to my address by mail.

  I would also inquire if you are in the lecture field and whether you could be obtained to deliver two or more lectures upon some[?] scientific subjects before our association this coming winter?

Yours Respectfully

Chas C. Morse

  The river at 8 P.M. is eight and three quarters inches above summer level. Just after the sun is set I observe the dewdrops on the pontederia leaves . . .

  A Mr. Bradshaw, a taxidermist, carpenter, etc., etc., of Wayland, tells me that he finds the long-eared owl there in summer, and has set it up.

Dear Sir—
  I mail to your address today a copy of my “Week” as you request—

  I am in the lecture field—but my subjects are not scientific—rather [Transcendentalist & aesthetic. I devote myself to the absorption of nature generally.] Such as “Walking or the Wild” “Autumnal tints” &c—[Even if the utterances were scientific, the treatment would hardly bear that sense]

less in a popular vein if you think that your audience will incline or erect[?] their ears to such themes as these. I shall be happy to read to them.

Yr respect[ful]ly

Hen. D. Thoreau

  Returning, I notice on a large pool of water in A. Heywood’s cow-yard a thick greenish-yellow scum mantling it, an exceedingly rich and remarkable color, as if it were covered with a coating of sulphur . . .

  7 P.M.—On river . . .

  Look down on a field of red-top now in full bloom, a quarter of a mile west of this hill,—a very dense and red field,—at 2.30 P. M. of this warm and slightly hazy but not dogdayish day, in a blazing sun . . .

  Standing amid the pipes of the Great Meadow, I hear a very sharp creaking peep, no doubt from a rail quite near me, calling to or directing her young . . . (Journal, 13:404-306).

Dear Sir

  I shall be very happy to read to your association three lectures on the evenings named, but the question is about their character. They will not be scientific in the common, nor, perhaps, in any sense. They will be such as you might infer from reading my books. As I have just told Mr. Morse, they will be transcendental, that is, to the mass of bearers, probably moonshine. Do you think that this will do? Or does your audience prefer lamplight, or total darkness these nights? I dare say, however, that they would interest those who are most interested in what is called nature.

  Mr Morse named no evenings & I have not had time to hear from, or make any arrangement with him.

Yrs respectfully

Henry D. Thoreau

Dear Sir,
  Allow me to thank you for your two speeches on the Hyatt case, & for two Patent Office Reports on Agriculture

  Especially, I wish to thank you for your speech on the Barbarism of Slavery, which, I hope and suspect, commences a new era in the history of our Congress; when questions of national importance have come to be considered occasionally from a broadly ethical, and not from a narrowly political point of view alone.

  It is refreshing to hear some naked truth, moral or otherwise, uttered there – which can always take care of itself when uttered, and of course belongs to no party. (That was the whole value of Gerrit Smith’s presence there, methinks, though be did go to bed early.) Whereas this has only been employed occasionally to perfume the wheel-grease of party or national politics.

  The Patent Office Reports on Agriculture contain much that concerns me, & I am very glad to possess now a pretty complete series of them.

Yrs truly
Henry D. Thoreau

  Many a field where the grass has been cut shows now a fresh and very lit-up light green as you look toward the sun. This is a remarkably cool day. Thermometer 72º at 2 P. M. . . .

  2 P.M.—Sail and paddle down river . . .

  See, twenty rods or more down-stream, four or five young ducks, which appear already to be disturbed by my boat. So, leaving that to attract their attention, I make my way alongshore in the high grass and behind the trees till I am opposite to them . . .

  Below you will find my bill for plumbago. I will thank you to send a Draft for the amount on a Boston bank, as heretofore. Trusting that you will not require me to wait so long, without explanation, as the last time, I remain

Yrs truly

Henry D. Thoreau

Concord July 27 1860

Messrs Welch Bigelow & Co
   Bought of Henry D. Thoreau
  Twenty-four lb of Plumbago
  sent April 27
       Recd Payt

  Returning, we come through the midst of the nearly quite dry J. P. B.’s Cold Pool . . . (Journal, 13:426-428).

  Mr. Bradford finds and brings to me what I judge from a plate in Loudon to be Potentilla recta of southern Europe . . .

  P.M.—Up Assabet . . .

  At mid-afternoon I am caught in another deluging rain as I stand under a maple by the shore . . .

  Now, in the still moonlight, the dark foliage stands almost stiff and dark against the sky. At 5 P. M. the river is nine and seven eighths inches above summer level . . .

  At 2 P. M. the river is twelve and seven eighths above summer level, higher than for a long time, on account of the rain of the 31st . . .

  As we rest in our boat under a tree, we hear from time to time the loud snap of a wood pewee’s bill overhead, which is incessantly diving to this side and that after an insect and returning to its perch on a dead twig . . .

  P.S.—That was a very insufficient visit you made here the last time. My mother is better, though far from well; and if you should chance along here any time after your journey, I trust that we shall all do better.

  We heard the voices of many berry-pickers and visitors to the summit, but neither this nor the camp we built afterward was seen by any one. P.M.—Walked to the wild swamp at the northeast spur . . .

  Returned over the top at 5 P. M., after the visitors, men and women, had descended, and so to camp.

  This forenoon, after a breakfast on cranberries, leaving, as usual, our luggage concealed under a large rock, with other rocks placed over the hole, we moved about a quarter of a mile along the edge of the plateau eastward and built a new camp there . . .

  At 5 P. M. we went to our first camp for our remaining baggage . . .

  Returned to enjoy the evening at the second camp . . .

  After dinner, descended in to the gulf and swamp beneath our camp . . .

  Return to camp at noon. Toward night, walk to east edge of the plateau (Journal, 14:25).

  The black spruce, is the prevailing tree, commonly six or eight feet high, but very few, and those only in the most sheltered places, as hollows and swamps, are of regular outline, on account of the strong and cold winds with which they have to contend . . . So stout and tapering do they grow . They spread so close to the rocks that the lower branches are often half worn away for a foot in length by their rubbing on the rocks in the wind, and I sometimes mistook the creaking of such a limb for the note of a bird . . .

  P.M.—To Walden to get its temperature. The air is only 66 (in the mizzling rain the 23d it was 78); the water at top, 75° (the 23d also 75). What I had sunk to the bottom in the middle, where a hundred feet deep by my line, left there half an hour, then pulled up and poured into a quart dipper, stood at 53° . . .

  See a large lien-haN%k sailing over Hubbard’s meadow and Clamshell, soaring at last very high and toward the north . . . (Journal, 14:61-62).

  I hope the “Atlantic Monthly” is to speak the good word for you. Emerson will see that it does. My neighbour Hawthorne is now reading your Book admiringly: And Thoreau, who has been busty with Monadnoc, for the last ten days, tells me he shall acknowledge your gift presently.

  I am interested by the little ridge or cliff of foam which the breeze has raised along the White Pond shore, the westerly breeze causing the wavelets to lapse on the shore and mix the water with the air graduallv. Though this is named White Pond from the whiteness of its sandy shore, the line of foam is infinitely whiter . . .

  Clear weather within a day or two after the thick dogdays. The nights have been cooler of late, but the heat of the sun by day has been more local and palpable . . . (Journal, 14:64-65).

  At first the sky was completely overcast, but, just before setting, the sun came out into a clear space in the horizon and fell on the east end of the pond and the hillside, and this sudden blaze of light on the still very fresh green leaves was a wonderful contrast with the previous and still surrounding darkness. Indeed, the bright sunlight was at this angle reflected from the water at the east end—while I in the middle was in the shade of the east woods—up under the verdure of the bushes and trees on the shore and on Pine Hill, especially to the tender under sides and to the lower leaves not often lit up. Thus a double amount of light fell on them, and the most vivid and varied shades of green were revealed. I never saw such a green glow before . . .

  At sunset the air over the pond is 62+; the water at the top, 74° . . .

  Am surprised to find on his hard land, where he once raised potatoes, the hairy huckleberry, which before I had seen in swamps only. Here, too, they are more edible, not so insipid, yet not quite edible generally. They are improved, you would say . . .

Dear Sir:

  By the instructions of our Committee I am requested to write, that we have two lectures on the Sabbath.

  If you could give us two lectures instead of one for the terms you state we shall be happy to hear you. Otherwise we shall be obliged to wait till we gain a stronger hold on the public mind, and chiefly increase or better our financial condition.

  Please answer if possible by return of mail.

Yours Respectfully

Charles P. Ricker

  Hear that F. Hayden saw and heard geese a fortnight ago! . . .

  We are so accustomed to see another forest spring up immediately as a matter of course, whether from the stump or from the seed, when a forest is cut down, never troubling about the succession, that we hardly associate the seed with the tree, and do not anticipate the time when this regular succession will cease and we shall be obliged to plant, as they do in all old countries . . .

  2 P.M.—River six and seven eighths above [summer level].

  Here is a beautiful, and perhaps first decidedly autumnal, clay,—a, cloudless sky, a clear air, with, maybe, veins of coolness . . .

  It is cooler these days and nights, and I move into an eastern chamber in the morning, that I may sit in the sun. The water, too, is cooler when I bathe in it, and I am reminded that this recreation has its period . . .

  Having walked through a quantity of desmodium under Ball’s Hill, by the shore there (Marilandicum or rigidum), we found our pants covered with its seeds to a remarkable and amusing degree. These green scales closely covering and greening my legs reminded me of the lemna on a ditch . . .

  Rainy day . . . (Journal, 14:75).

  Concord River has a high, and hard bank at its mouth, maybe thirty feet high on the east side; and my host thinks it was o1igirnally about as high on the west side, where now it is much , lower and flat, having been dug down. There is a small isle in the middle of the mouth . . .

  Leaving Lowell at 7 A.M. in the cars, I observed and admired the dew on a fine grass in the meadows, which was almost as white and silvery as frost when the rays of the newly risen sun fell on it . . . (Journal, 14:76-77).

  Some weeks ago a. little girl named Buttrick, who was huckleberrying near where the lynx was killed, was frightened by a wild animal leaping out of the bushes near her—over her, as she said—and bounding off. But no one then regarded her story. Also a Mr. Grimes, who lives in Concord just on the line, tells me that some month ago he heard from his house the loud cry of an animal in the woods northward . . .

  The river this morning, about 7 A.M., is already twenty-eight and a half inches above summer level, and more than twenty inches of this is owing to the rain of yesterday and last night!! By 1.30 P.M., when it has risen two or three inches more, I can just cross the meadow in a straight line to the Rock . . .

  A Carlisle man tells me of a coon he killed in Carlisle which weighed twenty-three and a half pounds and dressed fourteen pounds . . .

  On the 13th I go to J. Q. Adams’s [John Quincy Adams] again to see the lynx. Farmer [Jacob Farmer] said that if the skin was tainted the hair would come off . . .

  Dr. Reynolds tells me of a lynx killed in Andover . . .

  Rice tells me of a common wildcat killed in Sudbury some forty years ago… Mr. Boutwell of Groton tells me that a lynx was killed in Dunstable within two or three years . . .

  Looked at Mr. Davis’s museum. Miss Lydia Hosmer (the surviving maiden lady) has given him some relics which belonged to her (the Hosmer) family. A small lead or pewter sun-dial, which she told him was brought over by her ancestors and which has the date 1626 scratched on it . . .

  P.M.—Up river . . . (Journal, 14:88).

  P.M.—To Easterbrooks Country . . . (Journal, 14:90-91).

  I hear that a large owl, probably a cat owl, killed and carried off a full-grown turkey in Carlisle a few days ago (Journal, 14:92-93).

  2 P.M.—The river risen about thirty-three inches above summer level (Journal, 14:93-95).

  Knowing your interest in whatever relates to Agriculture, I send you with this a short address delivered by me before “the Middlesex Agricultural Society,” in this town, Sep. 20, on The Succession of Forest Trees. It is part of a chapter on the Dispersion of Seeds. If you would like to print it, please accept it. If you do not wish to print it entire, return it to me at once, for it is due to the Societys “Report” a month or 6 weeks hence.

Yours truly
Henry D. Thoreau

  P.M.—Rain again . . .

  Button-bush balls were fairly reddened yesterday . . . Water was prepared for ice, and C. [William Ellery Channing] saw the first Vanessa Antiopa since spring.

  Gathered to-day my apples at the Texas house . . . (Journal, 14:98-99).

  About 4 P.M. it is fast clearing up, the clouds withdrawing, with a little dusky scud beyond their western edges against the blue . . . (Journal, 14:99-101).

  I have yours of the 22nd ult—We accept your offer to lecture here and have assigned you for Tuesday evening December 11th. We have Rev. H. H. Bellows for the 4th & Bayard Taylor for the 18th. Please name your subject in advance of the time if convenient as we would like to be able to state it.

Truly yours

A. S Chase Cor Sy

  Horace Mann tells me that he saw a painted turtle in this town eating a unio, in our river, in the shell, it evidently having just caught and opened it . . . (Journal, 14:101-102).

  Rice says that when a boy, playing with darts with his brother Israel, one of them sent up his dart when a flock of crows was going over. One of the crows followed it down to the earth, picked it up, and flew off with it a quarter of a mile before it dropped it . . .

  I met in the street afterward a young lady who rowed up the river after me, and I could tell exactly where she plucked the maple twig which she held in her hand . . . (Journal, 14:107-109).

  P.M.—Went to a fire—or a smoke—at Mrs. Hoar’s . . . (Journal, 14:109-111).

  Dear Sir;

  The members of the Nat. Hist. Soc. may be interested to hear, that a female Canada Lynx (L. Canadensis, or Loup Cervier) was killed, on the 9th of September, in Carlisle, about three miles from the middle of Concord. I saw the carcase, & have the skin & skull, which I have set up. It is as large as any of its kind which I find described. I was at first troubled to identify it in the books, because it has naked soles, though I believed it to be the Canadensis. Audubon & Bachman give “soles hairy” as one of the specific characters of this species, and “soles naked” as a specific character of L. Rufus. Emmons (in the Massachusetts’ Reports) says further & more particularly, “The two most remarkable characters of the Lynx [i.e. The Canadensis] are the beautiful pencils of black hair which ornament the ears, and the perfect hairiness of the soles of the feet, which have no naked spots or tubercles like the other species of the feline race.”” And, speaking of the Bay Lynx, he says that it “is easily distinguished from the preceding by the shorter pencils of hair upon the ear, and by the nakedness of the balls of the toes. This last character, it appears to me, is sufficiently important in the borealis [i.e. Canadensis] to constitute it agenus by itself.”

  At length, I obtained a copy of Bairds’ “Mammals”; but still I was not satisfied till I had read to near the end of his account, when he says that he has received a second specimen, “in summer pelage,” and that “the pads of the feet in this specimen are distinctly visible, not being at all overgrown, as in winter specimens.” This is my animal, both in this and in other respects. I am thus minute because it is not yet made quite distinct enough, that hairy soles are no more characteristic of this Lynx than naked soles are.

  Judging from the above descriptions, the only peculiarity in my specimen is a distinct black line commencing at the eye and terminating in the black portion of the ruff.

  I suspect that some of the Lynxes killed in this vicinity of late years, and called the Bay Lynx, were the Canada Lynx.

Yrs truly
Henry D. Thoreau

  I examine the John Hosmer wood-lot (sprout-land) cut off last winter on the north side at Colburn Hill . . . (Journal, 14:120-124).

  Am I to infer from your silence that you decline any farther correspondence and intercourse with me? Or is it that having nothing in particular to communicate you deem silence the wiser course? Yet, between friends, to observe a certain degree of consideration is well, and as I wrote you last, and that some nine or ten months ago, inviting you to visit me, I have often felt disappointed and hurt by your almost sepulchral silence towards me.

  I am aware that I have no claims upon you, that I voluntarily introduced myself to your notice, and that from the first you have always behaved toward me with a composure which leads me not to judge too severely your present neutrality. I know also that I have but little to give you in return for the edification and pleasure I have derived from your society, and of which to be deprived not only myself but my family would deem a great and irreparable loss. I readily admit that this gives me no claim upon your friendship, but having passed so much of my life in the want of rural companionship I cannot easily surrender the opportunity of occasionally conversing and rambling among the scenes of our beloved neighborhood, here and at Concord, with you. I trust you will now pardon me for again obtruding myself upon you. I am not accustomed to be humble, nor do I intend to be at this time, for I am not conscious of having committed any offence of sufficient magnitude to forfeit your regard for me.

  I would, however, state, that you have probably never seen me under the most favorable circumstances, that is, in my calmest hours. I am by nature very easily disturbed, mentally and physically, and this tendency, or infirmity, has been increased by smoking. I have, at last, abandoned the use of the weed. It is now about four months since I have made any use whatever of tobacco, and nearly a year since I began to battle seriously with this enemy of my soul’s and body’s peace. When I was last at Concord, owing to bad sleep, and the consequent nervous irritability aggravated by smoking, I was particularly out of order, and like an intoxicated or crazed man, hardly responsible for my conduct. Wherefore, if I betrayed any want of kind or gentlemanly feeling, which, I fear, may have been the case, I trust you will pardon the same and attribute it to a source not normal with me.

  In conclusion, I would add that it would give me much pleasure to continue our friendship and occasional intimacy. Still I would not press it, for in so doing I should be selfish, as I have so little to return you for your favors. But ah! me, what is this life worth, if those of congenial tastes and pursuits cannot exchange common courtesies with each other?

  Channing [William Ellery Channing] is occasionally in New Bedford, but he never comes to see me, nor writes me. I endeavored to be to him a good friend, and his cold, strange ways hurt and grieve me. Would to God that he were able to be true to his higher nature, so beautiful and intelligent.

  It is possible you may not have got the last letter I wrote you, which was in December last, if so, the cause of your silence will prove less painful to me.

  I write under embarrassment, and must trust to your generosity for the want of felicity of expression in my attempt to convey to you my estimation of the value of your friendship, and my unwillingness to lose it.

  I remain, truly and faithfully your friend,

D. Ricketson

  Horace Mann tells me that he found in the crop or inside of the stake-driver killed the other day one grass-hopper, several thousand-legs one to one and a half inches long, and not much else . . .

  It is an interesting inquiry what determines which species of these shall grow on a given tract. It is evident that the soil determines this to some extent . . .

  It is well known that the chestnut timber of this vicinity has rapidly disappeared within fifteen years, having been used for railroad sleepers, for rails, and for planks, so that there is danger that this part of our forest will become extinct . . .

  Sophia tells me that the large swamp white oak acorns in their cups, which she gathered a fortnight ago, are now all mouldy about the cups, or base of the acorn . . . (Journal, 14:148-155).

  P.M.—To Walden Woods to examine old stumps . . .

  In the Deep Cut big wood (Stow’s), pines and oaks, there are thousands of little white pines as well as many oaks. After a mixed wood like this you may have a mixed wood, but after dense pines, commonly oak chiefly, yet not always; for, to my surprise, I find that in the pretty dense pitch pine wood of Wheeler’s blackberry-field, where there are only several white pines old enough to bear, and accordingly more than a thousand pitch pine seeds to one white pine one, yet there are countless white pines springing up under the pitch pines (as well as many oaks), and very few or scarcely any little pitch pines . . .

  Melvin thinks that a fox would not on an average weigh more than ten pounds . . .

  Examine arcain V Emerson’s pond lot, to learn its age by the stumps cut last spring . . .

  Then there are the countless downy seeds (thistle-like) of the goldenrods, so fine that we do not notice them in the air. They cover our clothes like dust. No wonder they spread over all fields and far into the woods . . .

  E. Hubbard’s mound of pitch pines contains not one seed-bearing white pine, yet there are under these pines many little white pines (whose seed must have blown some distance), but scarcely one pitch pine. The latter, however, are seen along its edge and in the larger openings . . .

  I then searched in the large Woodis Park, the most oaken parts of it, wood some twenty-five or thirty years old, but I found only three . . .

  P.M.—To Lincoln . . .

  Cut a limb of a cedar (near the Irishman’s shanty site at Flint’s panel) some two inches thick and three and a half feet from the ground. It had about forty-one rings . Adding ten, you have say fifty, years for the age of the tree . . .

  On the side of T. Hubbard’s hill I see an old chestnut stump some two feet in diameter and nearly two feet high, and its outside and form well kept, yet all the inside gone . . .

  Quite a sultry, cloudy afternoon,—hot walking in woods and lowland where there is no air . . .

  Examine Tarbell’s pitch pine grove. This is all of one age and very dense. The largest trees on the north side, as estimated by sawing a branch, are twenty-eight to thirty years old. Tarbell says this grove came up in 189-6 on land which had been burnt over,—in fact open land . . .

Dear Sir

  Please send us another installment of Black Lead as before. Only you should pay express chg. to Boston as heretofore with the exception of the last

Yours truly
Welch Bigelow & Co

  Consider what a demand for arrowheads there must be, that the surface of the earth should be thus sprinkled with them,—the arrowhead and all the disposition it implies toward both man and brute. There they lie, pointed still, making part of the sands of almost every field . . .

  A perfect Indian-summer day, and wonderfully warm. 72 + at 1 P.M. and probably warmer at two.

  The butterflies are out again,—probably some new broods. I see the common yellow and two Vanessa Antiopa, and yellow-winged grasshoppers with blackish edges . . .

  Lee of the Corner speaks of an oak lot of his in Sudbury, which he bought in ’31 and cut off (last and all of it last winter), but from the older stumps no sprouts have come up, but good ones from the younger . . . (Journal, 14:208-212).

  Sophia brings me the drawer which held her acorns (almost all red oak) . . . (Journal, 14:212-215).

  I am glad to hear any particulars of your excursion. As for myself, I looked out for you somewhat on that Monday, when, it appears, you passed Monadnock—turned my glass upon several parties that were ascending the mountain half a mile on one side of us. In short, I came as near to seeing you as you to seeing me. I have no doubt that we should have had a good time if you had come, for I had, all ready, two good spruce houses, in which you could stand up, complete in all respects, half a mile apart, and you & B [Theophilus Brown] could have lodged by yourselves in one, if not with us.

  We made an excellent beginning of our mt life. You may remember that the Saturday previous was a stormy day. Well, we went up in the rain—wet through, and found ourselves in a cloud there at mid pm. in no situation to look about for the best place for a camp. So I proceeded at once, though the cloud, to that memorable ston “chunk yard,” in which we made our humble camp once, and there, after putting our packs under a rock, having a good hatchet, I proceeded to build a substantial house, which C[hanning] declared the handsomest he ever saw. (He never camped out before, and was, no doubt, prejudiced in its favor.) This was done about dark, and by that time we were nearly as wet as if we had stood in a hogshead of water. We then build a fire before the door, directly on the site of our little camp of two years ago, and it too a long time to burn thro’ its remains to the earth beneath. Standing before this, and turning round slowly, like meat that is roasting, we were as dry if not dierer than ever after a few hours, & so, at last we “turned in.”

  This was a great deal better than going up there in fair weather, & having no adventure (not knowing how to appreciate either fair weather or foul) but dull common—place sleep in a useless house, & before a comparatively useless fire—such as we get every night. Of course, we thanked our stars, when we saw them, which was about midnight, that they had seemingly withdrawn for a season. We had the mt all to ourselves that pm & night. There was nobody going up that day to engrave his name on the summit, nor gather blueberries. The Genius of the mts. Saw us starting from Concord & it said, There come two of our folks. Let us get ready for them—Get up a serious storm, that will send a packing these holiday guests (They may have their say another time) Let us receive them with true mt. hospitality—kill the fatted could—Let them know the value of a spruce roof, & of a fire of dead spruce stumps. Every bush dripped tears of joy at or advent. Fire did its best & received our thanks—What could fire have done in fair weather?—Spruce roof got its share of our blessings. And then such a view of the wet rocks with the wet lichens on them, as we had the next morning, but did not get again!

  We & the mt had a sound season, as the saying is. How glad we were to be wet in order that we might be dried!—how glad we were of the storm which made our house seem like a new home to us! This day’s experience was indeed lucky for we did not have a thunder shower during all our stay. Perhaps our host reserved this attention in order to tempt us to come again!

  Our next house was more substantial still. One side was rock, good for durability, the floor the same, & the roof which I made would have upheld a horse. I stood on it to do the shingling.

  I noticed, when I was at the White Mts last, several nuisances which render travelling there—abouts unpleasant. The chief of these was the mt houses. I might have supposed that the main attraction of that region even to citizens, lay in its wildness and unlikeness to the city, & yet they make it as much like the city as they can afford to. I heard that the Crawford House was lighted with gas, & had a large saloon, with its band of music, for dancing. But give me a spruce house made in the rain.

  An old Concord farmer tells me that he ascended Monadnock once, & danced on the top. How did that happen? Why, he being up there, a party of young men & women came up bringing boards & a fiddler, and having laid down the boards they made a level floor, on which they danced to the music of the fiddle. I suppose the tune was “Excelsior.” This reminds me of the fellow who climbed to the top of a very high spire, stood upright on the ball, &am; then hurrahed for—what? Why for Harrison & Tyler. That’s the kind of sound which most ambitious people emit when they culminate. They are wont to be singularly frivolous in the thin atmosphere they can’t contain themselves, though our comfort & their safety require it; it takes the pressure of many atmospheres to do this; & hence they helplessly evaporate there. It would seem, that, as they ascend, they breath shorter and shorter, and at each expiration, some of their wits leave them, till, when they reach the pinnacle, they are so light headed as to be fit only to show how the wind sits. I suspect that Emersons criticism called Monadnock was inspired not by remembering the inhabitants of N.H. as they are in the valleys, so much as by meeting some of them on the mt top.

  After several nights’ experience C came to the conclusion that he was “lying out doors,” and inquired what was the largest beast that might nibble his legs there. I fear that he did not improve all the night, as he might have done, to sleep. I had asked him to go and spend a week there. We spent 5 nights, being gone 6 days, for C suggested that 6 working days made a week, & I saw that he was ready to de-camp. However, he found his account in it, as well as I.

  We were seen to go up in the rain, grim, & silent like 2 Genii of the storm, by Fassett’s men or boys, but we were never identified afterward, though we were the subject of some conversation which we overheard. Five hundred persons at least came onto the mt. while we were there, but not one found our camp. We saw one party of three ladies & two gentlemen spread their blankets and spend the night on the top, & heard them converse, but they did not know that they had neighbors, who were comparatively old settlers. We spared them the chagrin which that knowledge would have caused them, & let them print their story in a newspaper accordingly.

  From what I heard of Fassett’s infirmities I conclude that his partner was Tap. He has moved about thirty rods farther down the mt., & is still hammering at a new castle there when you go by, while Tap is probably down cellar. Such is the Cerberus that guard this passage. There always is one you know. This is not so bad to go by as the Glen House. However, we left those Elysian fields by a short cut of our own which departed just beyond where he is stationed.

  Yes, to meet men on an honest and simple footing, meet with rebuffs, suffer from sore feet, as you did, aye & from a sore heart, as perhaps you also did,—all that is excellent. What a pity that that young prince could not enjoy a little of the legitimate experience of travelling, be dealt with simply & truly though rudely. He might have been invited to some hospitable house in the country, had his bowl of bread & milk set before him, with a clean pin-a-fore, been told that there were the punt & the fishing rod, and he could amuse himself as he chose—might have swung a few birches, dug out a woodchuck, & had a regular good time, & finally been sent to bed with the boys,—and so never have been introduced to Mr. [Edward] Everett at all. I have no doubt that this would have been a far more memorable & valuable experience than he got.

  The snow-clad summit of Mt. Washington must have been a very interesting sight from Wachusett. How wholesome winter is seen far or near, how good above all mere sentimental warm-blooded—short-lived, soft-hearted moral goodness, commonly so called. Give me the goodness which has forgotten its own deeds,—which God has seen to be good and let me. None of your just made perfect—pickled eels! All that will save them will be their picturesqueness, as with blasted trees Whatever is and is not ashamed to be good. I value no moral goodness or greatness unless it is good or great even as that snowy peak is. Pray how could thirty feet of bowels improve it? Nature is goodness crystalized. You looked into the land of promise. Whatever beauty we behold, the more it is distant, serene, and cold, the purer & more durable it is. It is better to warm ourselves with ice than with fire.

Tell Brown that he sent me more than the price of the book—viz a word from himself, for which I am greatly his debtor.

H. D. T.

  I thank you for the verses. They are quite too good to apply to me. However, I know what a poet’s license is, and will not get in the way.

  But what do you mean by that prose? Why will you waste so many regards on me, and not know what to think of my silence? Infer from it what you might from the silence of a dense pine wood. It is its natural condition, except when the winds blow, and the jays scream, & the chickadee winds up his clock. My silence is just as inhuman as that, and no more.

  You know that I never promised to correspond with you, & so, when I do, I do more than I promised.

  Such are my pursuits and habits that I rarely go abroad, and it is quite a habit with me to decline invitation to do so. Not that I could not enjoy such visits, if I were not otherwise occupied. I have enjoyed very much my visits to you and my rides in your neighborhood, and am sorry that I cannot enjoy such things oftener; but life is short, and there are other things also to be done. I admit that you are more social than I am, and far more attentive to ‘the common courtesies of life” but this is partly for the reason that you have fewer or less exacting private pursuits.

  Not to have written a note for a year is with me a very venial offence. I think that I do not correspond with any one so often as once in six-months.

  I have a faint recollection of your invitation referred to, but I suppose that I had no new nor particular reason for declining & so made no new statements. I have felt that you would be glad to see me almost whenever I got ready to come, but I only offer myself as a rare visitor, & a still rarer correspondent.

  I am very busy, after my fashion, little as there is to show for it, and feel as if I could not spend many days nor dollars in travelling, for the shortest visit must have a fair margin to it, and the days thus affect the weeks, you know. Nevertheless, we cannot forego these luxuries altogether.

  You must not regard me as a regular diet, but at most only as acorns, which too are not to be despised, which, at least, we love to think are edible in a bracing walk. We have got along pretty well together in several directions, though we are such strangers in others.

I hardly know what to say in answer to your letter.

  Some are accustomed to write many letters, others very few. I am one of the last. At any rate, we are pretty sure, if we write at all, to send those thoughts which we cherish, to that one, who we believe, will most religiously attend to them.

  This life is not for complaint, but for satisfaction. I do not feel addressed by this letter of yours. It suggests only misunderstanding. Intercouse may be good, but of what use are complaints & apologies? Any complaints I have to make is too serious to be uttered, for the evil cannot be mended.

  Turn over a new leaf

  My out-door harvest this fall has been one Canada Lynx, a fierce looking fellow, which it seems we have hereabouts; eleven barrels of apples from trees of my own planting; and a large crop of white oak acorns which I did not raise

  Please remember me to your family. I have a very pleasant recollection of your fireside, and I trust that I shall revisit it—also of your shanty & the surrounding regions.

  Yrs truly
  Henry D. Thoreau

  Blood’s oak lot may contain about a dozen acres. It consists of red, black, white, and swamp white oaks, and a very little maple . . . (Journal, 14:215-219).

  Collier tells me that his sunflower-head (now dried) measures just twenty-one and a half inches [in] diameter,—the solid part . . .

  Elijah Wood, senior, tells me that about 1814 (or before 1815, in which year he was married, and while he still lived at his father’s on Carlisle road), as he was riding to town on horseback in the evening alone to singing to prepare for Thanksgiving, he stopped to let his horse drink at the brook beyond Winn’s, when he heard a cry from some wild beast just across the river. It affected him so that he did not stop to let his horse drink much . . .

  J. Baker’s pitch pines south of upper wood-path north of his house abundantly confirm the rule of young white pines under pitch pines. That fine young white pine wood west of this is partly of these which were left when the pitch pines were cut.

  Baker’s hill between farm and Pleasant Meadow, oak (apparently a black), diameter twenty-six, seventyone rings. The stumps here were cut some five or six years ago and have fifty to sixty rings . . .

  We next walked across the open land by the road to the high hill northeast of Boxboro Centre . . .

  Frank Brown tells me of a chestnut in his neighborhood nineteen feet and eight (?) inches in circumference at three feet . . . (Journal, 14:241-249).

  Silas Hosmer tells me ho — and — sold the Heywood lot between the railroad and Fair Haven . . . (Journal, 14:249-252).

  Mr. Bradshaw says that he got a little auk in Wayland last week, and heard of two more, one in Weston and the other in Natick . . . (Journal, 14:252-253).

  1 see, on the southwest or railroad side, near top, of Emerson’s hill, a great many oak stumps (which were sprouts) with the older stump still very plain . . . (Journal, 14:253-255).

  P.M.—To Fair Haven Hill.

  On what was Stow’s lot, southwest the Boiling Spring, adjacent to Wheeler’s field, I count the rings of four oak stumps which are from eighteen to twenty-two inches in diameter. They are all about 120, and the oaks are evidently all from the seed. This was both a pine and oak wood, and I suspect that about one hundred and twenty years [ago] pines were cut or burned or blown down or decayed there and these oaks succeeded . . .

  We journeyed into the foreign land of Sudbury to see how the Sudbury men—the Hayneses, and the Puffers, and the Brighams—live . . . (Journal, 14:257-260).

  As I sail the unexplored sea of Concord, many a dell and swamp and wooded hill is my Ceram and Amboyna . . . (Journal, 14:260-263).

  Under the two white oaks by the second wall southeast of my house, on the east side the wall, I am surprised to find a great many sound acorns still, though every one is sprouted . . .

  It is true these two trees are exceptions and I do not find sound ones nearly as numerous under others . . . It will he worth the while to see how many of these sprouted acorns are left and are sound in the spring . . .

  Ministerial Swamp, P. M. It is 10 1/2 feet high, 2 1/2 inches [in] diameter just above ground, and has 21 rings, 1/17 inch to a ring. . . .

  Last night and to-day are very cold and blustering. Winter weather has come suddenly this year. The house was shaken by wind last night, and there was a general deficiency of bedclothes. This morning some windows were as handsomely covered with frost as ever in winter . . .

  Mother says that Lidy Bay, an Indian woman (so considered), used to live in the house beyond Cæsar’s and made baskets, which she brought to town to sell, with a ribbon about her hat . . . (Journal, 14:269-275).

  We are thinking of issuing the Dial next year as a Quarterly instead of a Monthly; and I wish to ask if you will be so bountiful as to let me publish therein your Agricultural Address.

Your friend,

M. D. Conway.

  The less you get, the happier and the richer you are. The rich man’s son gets cocoanuts, and the poor man’s, pignuts ; but the worst of it is that the former never goes a-cocoanutting, and so he never gets the cream of the Cocoanut as the latter does the cream of the pignut . . .

  P.M.—To Fair Haven Hill.

  The Bear Garden pitch pines are so generally open that young pitch pines of all sizes are intermixed with the others. There are many small white pines beside, but few if any seed-bearing ones.

  I proceed through Potter’s young wood south of this grove (toward Fair Haven Hill-side) and here I find by the stumps what I remember . . .

  Yesterday, rain, raising river somewhat. Examined the young hickories on Fair Haven Hill slope to see how old they are . . . (Journal, 14:285-287).

  I am going to Waterbury Ct. to lecture on the 11th inst. If you are to be at home, & it will be agreeable to you, I will spend the afternoon & night of the 10th with you & Brown.

H. D. Thoreau

  Talking with Walcott and Staples to-day, they declared that John Brown did wrong. When I said that I thought he was right, they agreed in asserting that he did wrong because he threw his life away, and that no man had a right to undertake anything which he knew would cost him his life . . .

Dr. Sir

  Enclosed are Nine Dollars, to pay our order of the 26th.

  Return the enclosed bill receipted.

Yr’s Resp’y

Hobart & Robbins

Dear Sir

  I am very sorry to say that the illness of my mother, who is confined to her bed, will prevent her showing to Mr Phillips the attention which she desired to. The prospect is also that I shall be kept at home Wednesday evening by an influenza—My mother wishes me to say, however, that Mrs Brooks will be happy to entertain Mr Phillips at her home.

Yrs truly

Henry D. Thoreau