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30 July 1853. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P. M.—To Ministerial Swamp.

  Going through Dennis’s and Hosmer’s meadows, I see a dozen or more men at work. In almost every meadow throughout the town they are thus engaged at present. In every meadow you see far or near the lumbering hay-cart with its mountainous load and rakers and mowers in white shirts . . .

(Journal, 5:344-349)
30 July 1854. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Opened one of the snapping turtle’s eggs at Dugan Desert, laid June 7th. There is a little mud turtle squirming in it, apparently perfect in outline, shell and all, but all soft and of one consistency,—a bluish white, with a mass of yellowish yolk (?) attached. Perhaps it will be [a] month before it is hatched . . .
(Journal, 6:413-414)
30 July 1855. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Saw the lightning on the telegraph battery and heard the shock about sundown from our window,—an intensely white light (Journal, 7:444-746).
30 July 1856. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  To Rudbeckia laciniata via Assabet.

  Amaranthus hybridus and albus, both some days at least; first apparently longest.

  This is a perfect dog-day. The atmosphere thick, mildewy, cloudy. It is difficult to dry anything. The sun is obscured, yet we expect no rain. Bad hay weather. The streams are raised by the showers of yesterday and day before . . . All the secrets of the river bottom are revealed. I look down into sunny depths which before were dark. The wonderful clearness of the water, enabling you to explore the river bottom and many of its secrets now, exactly as if the water had been clarified. This is our compensation for a heaven concealed . . .

(Journal, 8:434-435)
30 July 1857. Maine.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  To a philosopher there is a sense no great and no small, and I do not often submit to the criticism which objects to comparing so-called great things with small. It is often a question which is most dignified by the comparison, and, beside, it is pleasant to be reminded that ancient worthies who dealt with affairs of state recognized small and familiar objects known to ourselves. We are surprised at the permanence of the relation . . .
(Journal, 9:496)

Thoreau writes in “The Allegash and East Branch” chapter of The Maine Woods:

  I aroused the Indian early this morning to go in search of our companion, expecting to find him within a mile or two, farther down the stream. The Indian wanted his breakfast first, but I reminded him that my companion had had neither breakfast nor supper . . .

  We had launched our canoe and gone but little way down the East Branch, when I heard an answering shout from my companion, and soon after saw him standing on a point where there was a clearing a quarter of a mile below, and the smoke of his fire was rising nearby . . .

  We all had good appetites for the breakfast which we made haste to cook here, and then, having partially dried our clothes, we glided swiftly down the winding stream toward Second Lake.

  As the shores became flatter with frequent gravel and sand-bars, and the stream more winding in the lower land near the lake, elms and ash trees made their appearance . . . The morning was a bright one, and perfectly still and serene, the lake as smooth as glass, we making the only ripple as we paddled into it. The dark mountains about it were seen through a glaucous mist, and the brilliant white stems of canoe birches mingled with the other woods around it. The wood thrush sang°on the distant shore, and the laugh of some loons, sporting in a concealed western bay, as if inspired by the morning, came distinct over the lake to us, and, what was more remarkable, the echo which ran round the lake was much louder than the original note ; probably because, the loon being in a regularly curving bay under the mountain, we were exactly in the focus of many echoes, the sound being reflected like light from a concave mirror. The beauty of the scene may have been enhanced to our eyes by the fact that we had just come together again after a night of some anxiety . . .

(The Maine Woods, 288-304)
30 July 1859. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  A.M.—On river to ascertain the rate of the current . . .

  This dog-day weather I can see the bottom where five and a half feet deep. At five feet it is strewn clear across with sium, heart-leaf, Ranunculus Parshii, etc. It is quite green and verdurous, especially with the first. I see the fishes moving leisurely about amid the weeds, their affairs revealed . . .

  P.M.—Left boat at Rice’s Bend. I spoke to him of the clapper rail . . .

(Journal, 12:262-265)

Thoreau also writes to William A. Wilson:

Mr. Wm. A. Wilson

Dear Sir,

  I send you by the same mail with this a copy of A Week on the Concord & Merrimack Rivers. The price in $1.25. The change can be sent in postage stamps. I have no copies of “Walden” to spare; and I learn that it is out of print.

Yours respectfully
Henry D. Thoreau

  P.S. These are the only books I have published.

(The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau, 553)
30 July 1860. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  2 P.M.—To Martial Miles’s Swamp . . .

  Returning, we come through the midst of the nearly quite dry J. P. B.’s Cold Pool . . . (Journal, 13:426-428).

Ellen Emerson writes to her sister Edith on 31 July:

  Mr Thoreau was here; he had brought a sample of the service-berry to show us, and said that berries were sufficiently ripe on Anursnack (The Letters of Ellen Tucker Emerson, 1:216).
30 June 1835. Cambridge, Mass.

Thoreau attends a meeting of the Institute of 1770 in which Williams (the record does does specify which one; Henry, William Pinckney, Francis Stanton, or Edward Pinckney) lectures on “Eloquence” and Horace Morison reads a poem on “Genius,” to much applause (The Transcendentalists and Minerva, 1:83).

30 June 1837. Cambridge, Mass.

Thoreau writes an essay on Titus Pomponius Atticus:

  One cannot safely imitate the actions, as such, even of the wise and good. Truth is not exalted, but rather degraded and soiled by contact with humanity. We may not conform ourselves to any mortal pattern, but should conform our every act and thought to Truth.

  Truth is what whole of which Virtue, Justice, Benevolence and the like are the parts, the manifestations; she includes and runs through them all. She is continually revealing herself. Why, then, be satisfied with the mere reflection of her genial warmth and light? why dote upon her faint and fleeting echo, if we can bask in her sunshine, and hearken to her revelations when we will? No man is so situated that he may not, if he choose, find her out; and when he has discovered her, he may without fear go all lengths with her; but if he take her at second hand, it must be done cautiously; else she will not be pure and unmixed.

  Wherever she manifests herself, whether in God, in man, or in nature, by herself considered, she is equally admirable, equally inviting; though to our view she seems, from her relations, now stern and repulsive, now mild and persuasive. We will then consider Truth by herself, so that we may the more heartily adore her, and more confidently follow her.

  Next, how far was the life of Atticus a manifestation of Truth? According to Nepos, his Latin biographer: “He so carried himself as to seem level with the lowest, and yet equal to the highest. He never sued for any preferment in the State, because it was not to be obtained by fair and honorable means. He never went to law about anything. He never altered his manner of life, though his estate was greatly increased. His compliance was not a strict regard to truth.”

  Truth neither exalteth nor humbleth herself. She is not too high for the low, nor yet too low for the high. She never stoops to what is mean or dishonorable. She is persuasive, not litigious, leaving Conscience to decide. Circumstances do not affect her. She never sacrificeth her dignity that she may secure for herself a favorable reception. Thus far the example of Atticus may safely be followed. But we are told, on the other hand: “That, finding it impossible to live suitably to his dignity at Rome, without offending one party or the other, he withdrew to Athens. That he left Italy that he might not bear arms against Sylla. That he so managed by taking no active part, as to secure the good will of both Cæsar and Pompey. Finally, that he was careful to avoid even the appearance of crime.”

  It is not a characteristic of Truth to use men tenderly, nor is she over-anxious about appearances. The honest man, according to George Herbert,-is

“He that doth still and strongly good pursue,
To God, his neighbor and himself most true;
  Whom neither fear nor fawning can
Unpin, or wrench from giving all their due.
  Who rides his sure and even trot,
While the World now rides by, now lags behind.
  Who, when great trials come,
Nor seeks nor shuns them, but doth always stay
Till he the thing, and the example weigh;
  All being brought into a sum,
What place or person calls for, he doth pay.”
Atticus seems to have well understood the maxim applied to him by his biographer,—“Sui cuique mores fingunt fortunam.” (Character shapes his lot for each of us.)
(The Life of Henry David Thoreau (1917), 183-185)
30 June 1840. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  A man’s life should be a stately march to a sweet but unheard music, and when to his fellows it shall seem irregular and inharmonious, he will only be stepping to a livelier measure, or his nicer ear hurry him into a thousand symphonies and concordant variations. There will be no halt ever, but at most a marching on his post, or such a pause as is richer than any sound, when the Melody runs into such depth and wildness as to he no longer heard, but implicitly consented to with the whole life and being. He will take a false step never, even in the most arduous times, for then the Music will not fail to swell into greater sweetness and volume, and itself rule the movement it inspired.
(Journal, 1:155-157)

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes to Thomas Carlyle:

  In this number what say you to the Elegy [i.e. “Sympathy”] written by a youth who grew up in this town and lives near me,—Henry Thoreau? A criticism on Persius is his also (The Correspondence of Emerson and Carlyle, 273).

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