Log Search Results

17 December 1837. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  In all ages and nations we observe a leaning towards a right state of things. This may especially be seen in the history of the priest, whose life approaches most nearly to that of the ideal man. The Druids paid no taxes, and “were allowed exemption from warfare and all other things.” The clergy are even now a privileged class. In the last stage of civilization Poetry, Religion, and Philosophy will lie one; and this truth is glimpsed in the first.
(Journal, 1:18-19)
17 December 1840. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau pays his father $5 toward a debt (The Personality of Thoreau (1901), 28).

17 December 1843. Concord, Mass.

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes to his brother William:

  Henry Thoreau brought me his letter from you announcing Susan’s improvement and at the same time the illness of Charles . . . Henry T. thanks you for the purse and says that the Pindar he will return through me, & says that he left nothing of any value at all in his chamber You will please use your discretion with any matters found there.
(The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 3:228-229)
17 December 1849. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau’s aunt Maria writes to Prudence Ward:

  Henry is writing lectures on his tour to Cape Cod. I think they will be very entertaining, and much liked. Mr. Lowell has written a beautiful review of his book in the Massachusetts Monthly, it is so just, and pleasant, and some parts of it so laubhable that I enjoyed reading it very much, perhaps you have seen it.
(transcript in The Thoreau Society Archives at the Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods; MS, private owner)
17 December 1850. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Flint’s Pond apparently froze completely over last night. It is about two inches thick. Walden is only slightly skimmed over a rod from the shore (Journal, 2:125-126)
17 December 1851. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  The pitch pine woods on the right of the Corner road. A piercing cold afternoon, wading in the snow. R. Rice was going to Sudbury to put his bees into the cellar for fear they would freeze . . . (Journal, 3:139-142).
17 December 1853. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  While surveying for Daniel Weston in Lincoln to-day, saw a great many—maybe a hundred—silvery-brown cocoons, wrinkled and flattish, on young alders in a meadow . . .
(Journal, 6:19)
17 December 1855. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  9.30 A.M.—To Hill.

  A reararkably fine, springlike morning. The earth all bare; the sun so bright and warm; the steam curling up from every fence and roof, and carried off at [an] angle by the slight northwesterly air. After those rainy days the air is apparently uncommonly clear, and hence (?) the sound of cock-crowing is so sweet . . .

(Journal, 8:52)
17 December 1856. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—Cold, with a piercing northwest wind and bare ground still. The river, which was raised by the rain of the 14th and ran partly over the meadows, is frozen over again, and I go along the edge of the meadow under Clamshell and back by Hubbard’s Bridge.

  At Clamshell, to my surprise, scare up either a woodcock or a snipe. I think the former, for I plainly saw considerable red on the breast, also a light stripe along the neck. It was feeding alone . . .

(Journal, 9:183-186)
17 December 1859. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—To Walden.

  The snow being some three or four inches deep, I see rising above it, generally, at my old bean-field, only my little white pines set last spring in the midst of an immense field of Solidago nemoralis, with a little sweet-fern (i.e. a large patch of it on the north side). What a change there will be in a few years, this little forest of goldenrod giving place to a forest of pines! . . .

(Journal, 13:30-33)

Return to the Log Index

Donation

$