Log Search Results

16 January 1853. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Trench says that “‘rivals,’ in the primary sense of the word, are those who dwell on the banks of the same stream” or “on opposite banks,” but as he says, in many words, since the use of water-rights is a fruitful source of contention between such neighbors, the word has acquired this secondary sense. My friends are my rivals on the Concord, in the primitive sense of the word. There is no strife between us respecting the use of the stream. The Concord offers many privileges, but none to quarrel about. It is a peaceful, not a brawling, stream. It has not made rivals out of neighbors that lived on its banks, but friends. My friends are my rivals; we dwell on opposite banks of the stream, but that stream is the Concord, which flows without a ripple or a murmur, without a rapid or a brawl, and offers no petty privileges to quarrel about.
(Journal, 467-468)
16 January 1855. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  To Cambridge and Boston.

  Carried to [Thaddeus W.] Harris the worms—brown, light-striped—and fuzzy black caterpillars (he calls the first also caterpillars); also two black beetles; all which I have found within a week or two on ice and snow; thickest in a thaw. Showed one, in a German work, plates of the larvæ of dragon-flies and ephemeræ . . .

(Journal, 7:116-117)

Thoreau also checks out The History of English Birds by Thomas Bewick and Histoire du Canada by Gabriel Sagard from Harvard College Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 291).

16 January 1856. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  8 A.M.—Down railroad, measuring snow, having had one bright day since the last flake fell; but, as there was a crust which would bear yesterday (as to-day), it cannot have settled much . . .
(Journal, 8:111-112)
16 January 1857. Concord, Mass.
Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—Up Assabet . . .

  I observe that the holes which I bored in the white maples last spring were nearly grown over last summer, commonly to within a quarter or an eighth of an inch, but in one or two instances, in very thriftily growing trees, they were entirely closed . . .

(Journal, 9:224)
16 January 1858. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes to Jones Very:

My Dear Sir,

  I received your note inviting me to Salem after my lecture Wednesday evening. My first impulse was to go to you; but I reflected that Mr [Parker] Pillsbury had just invited me to Lynn, thro’ Mr Buffum, promising to be there to meet me, indeed, we had already planned some excursions to Nahant, &—and he would be absent on Friday;—so I felt under obligations to him & the Lynn people to stay with them. Jonathan Buffum & Son, Pillsbury & Mr. [Benjamin?] Mudge—My reason for not running over to Salem for an hour, or a fraction of the day, was simply that I did not wish to impair my right to come by & by when I may have leisure to take in the whole pleasure & benefit of such a visit—for I hate to feel in a hurry.

  I shall improve or take an opportunity to spend a day—or part of a clay with you ere long, and I trust that you will be attracted to Concord again, and will find me a better walker than I chanced to be when you were here before.

  I have often thought of taking a walk with you in your vicinity. I have a little to tell you, but a great deal more to hear from you. I had a grand time deep in the woods of Maine in July, &c &c. I suppose that I saw the genista tinctoria in the N. W. part of Lynn—on my way to the boulder & the mill-stone ledge.

  Please remember me to Mr. [George P.?] Bradford.

Yrs truly
Henry D. Thoreau

(The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau, 503-504)
16 January 1859. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—To Walden and thence via Cassandra Ponds to Fair Haven and down river . . .

  When, this evening, I took a split hickory stick which was very slightly charred or scorched, but quite hot, out of my stove, I perceived a strong scent precisely like that of a burnt or roasted walnut,—as was natural enough.

(Journal, 11:401-402)
16 January 1860. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—Down Boston road around Quail Hill.

  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 . . .

(Journal, 13:90-92)
16 July 1840. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  As I picked blackberries this morning by starlight, the distant yelping of a dog fell on my inward ear, as the cool breeze on my cheek. (Journal, 1:170).
16 July 1845. Walden Pond.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  [Alek] Therien said this morning (July 16th, Wednesday), “If those beans were mine, I should n’t like to hoe them till the dew was off.” He was going to his wood chopping. “Ah!” said I, “that is one of the notions the farmers have got, but I don’t believe it.” “How thick the pigeons are!” said he. “If working every day were not my trade, I could get all the meat I should want by hunting,—pigeons, woodchucks, rabbits, partridges,—by George! I could get all I should want for a week in one day.” . . . Here is [a mouse] has had her nest under my house, and came when I took my luncheon to pick the crumbs at my feet. It had never seen the race of man before, and so the sooner became familiar. It ran over my shoes and up my pantaloons inside, clinging to my flesh with its sharp claws. It would run up the side of the room by short impulses like a squirrel, which [it] resembles, coming between the house mouse and the former. Its belly is a little reddish, and its ears a little longer. At length, as I leaned my elbow on the bench, it ran over my arm and round the paper which contained my dinner. And when I held it a piece of cheese, it came and nibbled between my fingers, and then cleaned its face and paws like a fly.
(Journal, 1:367-369)
16 July 1850. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  I have not yet been able to collect half a thimbleful of the pollen of the pine on Walden, abundant as it was last summer (Journal, 2:40-41).

Return to the Log Index

Donation

$