Log Search Results

  Carried my owl to the hill again. Had to shake him out of the box, for he did not go of his own accord. He had learned to alight on his perch, and it was surprising how lightly and noiselessly he would hop upon it.) There he stood on the grass, at first bewildered, with his horns pricked up and looking toward me. In this strong light the pupils of his eyes suddenly contracted and the iris expanded till then were two great brazen orbs, with a centre spot merely. His attitude expressed astonishment more than anything. I was obliged to toss him up a little that he might feel his wings, and then he flapped away . . .

  There is a wild apple on the lull which has to me a peculiarly pleasant bitter tang, not perceived till it is three quarters tasted. It remains on the tongue. As you cut it, it smells exactly like a squash-bug. I like its very acerbity. It is a sort of triumph to cat and like it, an ovation. In the fields alone are the sours and bitters of nature appreciated . . .

  Though the pleasure of ascending the mountain is largely mixed with awe, my thoughts are purified and sublimed by it, as if I had been translated.

I see that men may be well-mannered or conventionally polite toward men, but skeptical toward God.

  We see mankind generally either (from ignorance or avarice) toiling too hard and becoming mere machines in order to acquire wealth . . .

  P.M.—To Baker Farm, on foot . . .

  Nature now, like an athlete, begins to strip herself in earnest for her contest with her great antagonist Winter. In the bare trees and twigs what a display of muscle! . . .

  On the side of T. Hubbard’s hill I see an old chestnut stump some two feet in diameter and nearly two feet high, and its outside and form well kept, yet all the inside gone . . .

  Found Hosmer carting out manure from under his barn to make room for the winter. He said he was tired of farming, he was too old. Quoted Webster as saying that he had never eaten the bread of idleness for a single day, and thought that Lord Brougham might have said as much with truth while he was in the opposition, but he did not know that he could say as much of himself. However, he did not wish to be idle, he merely wished to rest. Looked on Walden from the hill with the sawed pine stump on the north side.