Thoreau writes in his journal:
P.M.—To Heywood’s Pond with [William] Tappan.
We were looking for rainbow-tinted clouds, small whiffs of vapor which form and disperse, this clear, cold afternoon, when we saw to our surprise a star, about half past three or earlier, a mere round white clot. Is the winter then such a twilight? . . .
Lidian Jackson Emerson writes to her husband Ralph Waldo:
Henry Thoreau has once taken tea with us, & seemed highly to enjoy looking at the children’s Christmas gifts and hearing their whole story. He seemed much pleased that they enjoyed his lecture – and also surprised to find that they were present He did not see them. Mr. C [William Ellery Channing] has not been here again – When I think, not only of his evil conduct in his family but of his unheard of unmatched insolence towards me in his letters to you when in England – to say nothing of their insolence to you – (but that is your affair) I doubt if it is not duplicity in me to give him hospitable welcome. You should be his reprover as well as his excuser – if you will excuse the suggestion.
(The Selected Letters of Lidian Jackson Emerson, 194)
