Log Search Results | The Walden Woods Project

Thoreau writes in his journal:

A truly good book attracts very little favor to itself. It is so true that it teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down and commence living on its hint. I do not see how any can be written more, but this is the last effusion of genius. When I read an indifferent book, it seems the best thing I can do, but the inspiring volume hardly leaves me leisure to finish its latter pages. It is slipping out of my fingers while I read. It creates no atmosphere in which it may be perused, but one in which its teachings may be practiced. It confers on me such wealth that I lay it down with the least regret. What I began by reading I must finish by acting.

(Journal, 1:216-218)

19 February 1842. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

I never yet saw two men sufficiently great to meet as two. In proportion as they are great the differences are fatal, because they are felt not to be partial but total (Journal, 1:319).

19 February 1849. Salem, Mass.

Nathaniel Hawthorne writes to Thoreau:

My dear Thoreau,

The managers request that you will lecture before the Salem Lyceum on Wednesday evening after next—that is to say, on the 28th inst. May we depend on you? Please to answer immediately, if convenient.

[A. Bronson] Alcott delighted my wife and me, the other evening, by announcing that you had a book in prep. I rejoice at it, and nothing doubt of such success as will be worth having. Should your manuscripts all be in the printer’s hands, I suppose you can reclaim one of them, for a single evening’s use, to be returned the next morning; or perhaps that Indian lecture, which you mentioned to me, is in a state of forwardness. Either that, or a continuation of the Walden experiment (or, indeed, anything else,) will be acceptable.

We shall expect you at 14 Mall Street.

Very truly yours,

Nathl Hawthorne

(The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau, 238-239)

19 February 1852. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

To White Pond . . . Returning across the river just as the sun was setting behind the Hollowell place, the ice eastward of me a few rods, where the snow was blown off, was as green as bottle glass . . . A fine display of northern lights after 10 P. M . . .

(Journal, 3:312-314)

19 February 1854. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

P.M.—To Fair Haven by river, back by railroad . . . There are so many rocks under Grape-vine Cliff that apparently for this reason the chopper saws instead of cuts his trees into lengths . . . (Journal, 6:130-133).

19 February 1855. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

Rufus Hosmer says that in the year 1820 (?) there was so smooth and strong an icy crust on a very deep snow that you could skate everywhere over the fields and for the most part over the fences. Many will complain of my lectures that they are transcendental. “Can’t understand them.” “Would you have us return to the savage state?” etc., etc. A criticism true enough, it may be, from their point of view. But the fact is, the earnest lecturer can speak only to his like, and the adapting of himself to his audience is a mere compliment which he pays them. If you wish to know how I think, you must endeavor to put yourself in my place. If you wish me to speak as if I were you, that is another affair.

(Journal, 7:196-197)

Thoreau also writes to Elizabeth Oakes Smith in reply to her letter of 14 February:

My Dear Madam,

I presume you will like an early, though it should be an unfavorable, answer to your note. After due consultation and inquiry, I am sorry to be obliged to say that we cannot make it worth your while to come to Concord at this season. The curators of the Lyceum, before which you lectured three years ago, tell me that they have already exceeded their means—Our N.E. towns are not so enterprising as some Western ones, in this respect—and Mr. [Daniel?] Foster’s society which used to be our next resources, furnishing a meeting—house and an audience, no longer exists. He is settled in Princeton, in this state.

Mrs. Emerson sends love, and wishes me to say that she would be glad to have you spend a day or two with her after Mr. E’s return, which will probably be before the middle of March,—and she will not forget that you have a lecture on Margaret Fuller in your bag.

I remember well meeting you at Mr. Emerson’s, in company with Mr. Alcott, and that we did not fatally disagree. You were fortunate to be here at the same time with Mr. A, who diffuses sunshine wherever he goes. I hear that he says the times are so hard that the people cannot have him to converse. Are not those hard times indeed?

As for the good time that is coming, let us not forget that there is a good time going too, and see that we dwell on that eternal ridge between the two which neither comes nor goes.

Yrs truly
Henry D. Thoreau

“Mrs. Smith was a professional feminist and one of the earliest female lecturers.”

(The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau, 372-373)

19 February 1856. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

Measure snow again, on account of what fell on 17th. West of railroad, 15+ + 2; east of railroad, 12 1/2- + 2; average of both, 14 + 2 =16; Trillium Wood, 18 1/2 +2 = 20 1/2. The great body of the last snow appears to have settled under the east side of the railroad. There are five and one half inches more in the wood than on the 12th . . .

(Journal, 8:183)

19 February 1857. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

Mr. Cheney tells me that Goodwin brought him a partridge to sell in the midst of the late severe weather. [William Ellery] C[hanning]. said it was a pity to kill it, it must find it hard to get a living. “I guess she did n’t find it any harder than I do,” answered G[oodwin] . . .

(Journal, 9:272-273)

19 February 1858. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

Coldest morning this winter by our thermometer, -3° at 7.30 . . . (Journal, 10:285).

19 February 1860. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

Snow maybe near a foot deep, and now drifting (Journal, 13:156).