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5 April 1840. Concord, Mass.

Edmund Quincy Sewall Jr. writes to his cousin Mary Sewall Ward:

  I am going to school here now to a Mr Thoreau who is a very pleasant school-master. Saturdays we do nothing but write composition . . .

  I have been out to sail once since I have been here in Mr. Thoreau’s boat. He has a very good boat which he and his brother made themselves. The river was then quite high and we sailed very fast a part of the way.

(Concord Saunterer, OS vol. 17, no. 3 (December 1984): 2–3)
5 April 1841. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  I will build my lodge on the southern slope of some hill, and take there the life the gods send me. Will it not be employment enough to accept gratefully all that is yielded me between sun and sun? (Journal, 1:244).
5 April 1843. Concord, Mass.

Ralph Waldo Emerson writes to his brother William on 8 September:

  Apr . . . 5 or 6th Cash to H. D Thoreau on a/c W E 10.00 (The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 3:206).
5 April 1849. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes to Elizabeth Palmer Peabody:

Miss Peabody,

  I have so much writing to do at present, with the printers in the rear of me, that I have almost no time left, but for bodily exercise; however, I will send you the article in question [“Resistance to Civil Government”] before the end of next week. If this will not be soon enough will you please inform me by the next mail.

  Yrs respectly

  Henry D. Thoreau

  P. S. I offer the paper to your first volume only.

(The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau, 242)
5 April 1853. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  I have noticed the few phebes, not to mention other birds, mostly near the river. Is it not because of the greater abundance of insects there, those early moths or ephemeræ As these and other birds are most numerous there, the red-tailed hawk is there to catch them?
(Journal, 5:93)
5 April 1854.

Carlisle, Mass. Thoreau surveys woodlots for Samuel Hoar (A Catalog of Thoreau’s Surveys in the Concord Free Public Library, 8; Henry David Thoreau papers. Special Collections, Concord (Mass.) Free Public Library).

Concord, Mass. Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Surveying all day for Mr. [Samuel] Hoar in Carlisle, near Hitchinson’s and near I. [?] Green’s . . . I rode with my employer a dozen miles to-day, keeping a profound silence almost all the way as the most simple and natural course . . .
(Journal, 6:184)
5 April 1855. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Fast-Day. 9 A.M.—To Sudbury line by boat.

  A still and rather warm morning, with a very thick haze concealing the sun and threatening to turn to rain.

  It is a smooth, April-morning water, and many sportsmen are out in their boats. I see a pleasure boat, on the smooth surface away by the Rock, resting lightly as a feather in the air.

  By 4 P.M. it began to rain gently or mizzle. Saw this afternoon a great many of those little fuzzy gnats in the air.

(Journal, 7:285-286)
5 April 1856.

Concord, Mass. Thoreau writes in his journal:

  The April weather still continues. It looks repeatedly as if the sun would shine, and it rains five minutes after . . .

  P.M.—To North River at Tarbell’s . . . I am sitting on the dried grass on the south hillside behind Tarbell’s house, on the way to Brown’s . . .

(Journal, 8:249-251)

London, England. Nathaniel Hawthorne writes in his notebook:

  April 5th.—On Thursday, at eight o’clock, I went to the Reform Club, to dine with Dr.—[Charles MacKay?] . . .

  In the course of the evening, Jerrold [Douglas Jerrold] spoke with high appreciation of Emerson; and of Longfellow, whose Hiawatha he considered a wonderful performance; and of Lowell, whose Fable for Critics he especially admired. I mentioned Thoreau, and proposed to send his works to Dr.—, who, being connected with the Illustrated News, and otherwise a writer, might be inclined to draw attention to them. Douglas Jerrold asked why he should not have them too. I hesitated a little, but as he pressed me, and would have an answer, I said that I did not feel quite so sure of his kindly judgment on Thoreau’s books; and it so chanced that I used the word “acrid,” for lack of a better, in endeavoring to express my idea of Jerrold’s way of looking at men and books.

(Passages from the English Notebooks, 2:5, 9-10)

See entry 11 April.

5 April 1857. New Bedford, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Arthur R[icketson]. has been decking a new Vineyard boat which he has bought, and making a curb about the open part . . . Walked round by the ruins of the factory . . . (Journal, 9:318).
5 April 1858. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  What I call the young bullfrog, about two and a half inches long,—though it has no yellow on throat. It has a bright-golden ring outside of the iris as far as I can see round it. Is this the case with the bullfrog? May it not be a young Rana fontinalis? . . .

  P.M.—I go to the meadow at the mouth of the Mill Brook to find the spawn of R. halecina . . .

(Journal, 10:355-357)

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