Thoreau writes in his journal:
Returning by the steep side-hill just south of Holden’s wood-lot and some dozen or fourteen rods west of the open land, I saw, amid the rattlesnake-plantain leaves, what I suspect to the Polygala paucifolia,—some very beautiful oval leaves of a dull green (green turned dark) above, but beneath—and a great many showed the under side—a clear and brilliant purple (or lake? ?), growing and looking like checkerberry leaves . . .
Thoreau also writes to George William Curtis:
. . . I see that I was not careful enough to preserve the past tense. I suppose that your objection will be avoided by writing the passage this,—“Not one of those moderate Calvanist, said to be common in the writers day, who, by giving up or explaining away the peculiar doctrines of the party, became, like a porcupine disarmed of its quills, but a consistent Calvanist . . .” By “Scripture” I mean the bible. I suspected that the line was derived from Elliot’s Indian bible. It will be better if it is printed “the Scripture” . . .
