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  I think that I can send you a part of the story to which I referred within a fortnight. I am to read some of my latest Maine wood experiences to my townsmen this week; and in this case I shall not hesitate to call names.

  He belongs to the Homeric age, and is older than fields and gardens; as virile and talented as Homer’s heroes, and the elements. He seems alone, of all the men I have known, to be a native New Englander,—as much so as the oak, or granite ledge; and I would rather send him to London or Vienna or Berlin, as a specimen of American genius spontaneous and unmixed, than anyone else. I shall have occasion to use him presently in these portraits. We must grind him into paint to help brown and invigorate Channing’s profile, when we come to it. Here is coloring for half a dozen Socialisms. It stands out in layers and clots, like carbuncles, to give force and homeliness to the otherwise feminine lineaments. This man is the independent of independents—is, indeed, the sole signer of the Declaration, and a Revolution in himself—a more than ’76—having got beyond the signing to the doing it our fully. Concord jail could not keep him safely; Justice Hoar paid his tax, too; and was glad to forget thereafter, till now, his citizenship, and omit his existence, as a resident, in the poll list. Lately he has taken to surveying as well as authorship, and make the compass pay for his book on “The Concord and Merrimac Rivers,” which the public is slow to take off his hands. I went with him to the publishers, Monroe and Co., and learned that only about two hundred of an edition of a thousand were sold. But author and book can well afford to wait.

  It is a sharp, cutting cold day, stiffening the face. Thermometers have lately sunk to 20° . . .

  No second snow-storm in the winter can be so fair and interesting as the first. Last night was very windy . . .

  P.M.—To stone bridge, Loring’s Pond, Derby’s and Nut Meadow.

  It is a good lichen day, for the high wind has strewn the bark over the fields and the rain has made them very bright. In some places for fifteen rods the whole road is like a lake from three to fifteen inches deep. It is very exciting to see, where was so lately only ice and snow, dark wavy lakes, dashing in furious torrents . . .

  Miss Minott talks of cutting down the oaks about her house for fuel, because she cannot get her wood sledded home on account of the depth of the snow, though it lies all cut there. James, at R. W. E.’s, [Ralph Waldo Emerson] water his cows at the door, because the brook is frozen . . .

  F. Morton [Frank Morton] hears to-day from Plymouth that three men have just caught in Sandy Pond, in Plymouth, about two hundred pounds of pickerel in two days . . .

  P.M.—To Walden.

I asked M[inott]. about Cold Friday. He said, “it was plaguy cold; it stung like a wasp.” He remembers seeing them toss up water in a shoemaker’s shop, usually a very warm place, and when it struck the floor it was frozen and rattled like so many shot. Old John Nutting used to say, “When it is cold it is a sign it’s going to be warm,” and “When it’s warm it’s a sign it’s going to be cold.”