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17 March 1852. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  I catch myself philosophizing most abstractly when first returning to consciousness in the night or morning. I make the truest observations and distinctions then, when the will is yet wholly asleep and the mind works like a machine without friction. I am conscious of having, in my sleep, transcended the limits of the individual, and made observations and
carried on conversations which in my waking hours I can neither recall nor appreciate. As if in sleep our individual fell into the infinite mind, and at the moment of awakening we found ourselves on the confines of the latter. On awakening we resume our enterprise, take up our bodies and become limited mind again.
(Journal, 3:353-354)

Concord, Mass. Thoreau lectures on “An Excursion to Canada” at the Centre School House for the Concord Lyceum (“An Excursion to Canada“).

Thoreau also sends the manuscript of “An Excursion to Canada” to Horace Greeley in New York, N.Y. (Revising Mythologies, 260).

17 March 1853. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  [William Ellery] Channing says he saw blackbirds yesterday; F. C. [Frank] Brown, that they were getting ice out of Loring’s Pond yesterday.

  P.M.—Rode to Lexington with Brown . . .

(Journal, 5:21-22)
17 March 1854. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  A remarkably warm day for the season; too warm while surveying without my great-coat, almost like May heats.

  4 P.M.—To Cliffs.

  The grass is slightly greened on south bank-sides . . .

(Journal, 6:170)

Thoreau also surveys a house lot of Lowell Road for Joseph Reynolds (A Catalog of Thoreau’s Surveys in the Concord Free Public Library, 10; Henry David Thoreau papers. Special Collections, Concord (Mass.) Free Public Library).

17 March 1855. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  H. Hosmer [Henry Hosmer] says he has seen black ducks. Edmund Hosmer’s meadow, i.e. the Hunt house meadow, is covered with great pieces of meadow, the largest thick and dense cranberry meadow. It is piled three or four feet high for several rods. Higher up on the North Branch I see where the trees, especially the swamp white oaks, have been chafed smooth and white by the ice (at that time) . . .
(Journal, 7:253)
17 March 1856. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Snow going off very gradually under the sun alone. Going begins to be bad; horses slump; hard turning out . . . (Journal, 8:209).
17 March 1857. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  These days, beginning with the 14th, more springlike. Last night it rained a little, carrying off nearly all the little snow that remained, but this morning it is fair, and I hear the note of the woodpecker on the elms (that early note) and the bluebird again. Launch my boat.

  No mortal is alert enough to be present at the first dawn of the spring, but lie will presently discover some evidence that vegetation had awaked some days at least before . . .

(Journal, 9:295-296)
17 March 1858. Concord, Mass.
Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Hear the first bluebird.

  P.M.—To the Hill.

  A remarkably warm and pleasant day with a south or southwest wind, but still very bad walking, the frost coming out and the snow that was left going off. The air is full of bluebirds . . .

(Journal, 10:299-301)
17 March 1859. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  6.30 A.M.—River risen still higher. It is seven and a half inches below the highest part of the truss and about fifteen and a half inches below the middle of the lower stone step of the railroad . It is not quite over Wood’s road . . .

  P.M.—To Flint’s Bridge by water.

  The water is very high, and smooth as ever it is. It is very warm. I wear but one coat on the water. The town and the land it is built on seem to rise but little above the flood. This bright smooth and level surface seems here the prevailing clement, as if the distant town were an island . . .

(Journal, 12:53-57)
17 March 1860. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—To Walden and Goose Pond.

  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 . . .

(Journal, 13:198-199)
17 March. Concord, Mass. 1841.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  The stars go up and down before my only eye. Seasons come round to me alone. I cannot lean so hard on any arm as on a sun beam. So solid men are not to my sincerity as is the shimmer of the fields (Journal, 1:240).

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