Log Search Results

  A dark, but warm, misty day, completely overcast. This great rise of the pond after an interval of many years, and the water standing at this great height for a year or more, kills the shrubs and trees about its edge,—pitch pines, birches, alders, aspens, etc .,—and, falling again, leaves an unobstructed shore. The rise and fall of the pond serves this use at least . . .

  I have said that Walden has no visible inlet nor outlet, but it is on the one hand distantly and indirectly related to Flint’s Pond, which is more elevated, by a chain of small ponds coming from that quarter, and on the other hand directly and manifestly related to Concord River, which is lower, by a similar chain of ponds, through which in some other geological period it may have flowed thither . . .

  4 P.M.—To Cliffs . . .

  Many living leaves are very dark red now, the only effect of the frost on them . . . Fair Haven Pond is skimmed completely over . . . I rode home from the woods in a hay-rigging, with a boy who had been collecting a load of dry leaves for the hog-pen; this the third or fourth load. Two other boys asked leave to ride, with four large empty box-traps which they were bringing home from the woods. It was too cold and late to follow box-trapping longer. They had caught five rabbits this fall, baiting with an apple. Before I got home the whole atmosphere was suddenly filled with a mellow yellowish light equally diffused, so that it seemed much lighter around me than immediately after the sun sank behind the horizon cloud, fifteen minutes before . . .

  I am extremely sorry to inform you that Mr. Jewett has decided not to commence the Magazine as he proposed. His decision was made too late to think of commencing this year with another publisher. His ill health and already numerous cares are the reasons he gives. The enterprise is therefore postponed – but not indefinitely it is to be hoped. Should the fates be favorable I will give you the earliest information.

  Very sincerely yours,

  F. H. Underwood

  Allow me to thank you once more for the Report of Sittgreaves, the Patent Office 2d part, and on Emigrants Ships.

  At this rate there will be one department in my library, and not the smallest one, which I may call the Sumnerian—

Yrs sincerely

Henry D. Thoreau.

  P.M.—Walked over the Hill.

  The Indians have at length got a regular load of wood. It is odd to see a pile of good oak wood beside their thin cotton tents in the snow . . .

  It is a perfectly cloudless and simple winter sky. A white moon, half full, in the pale or dull blue heaven and a whiteness like the reflection of the snow, extending up from the horizon all around a quarter the way up to the zenith. I can imagine that I see it shooting up like an aurora. This at 4 P.M. About the sun it is only whiter than elsewhere, or there is only the faintest possible tinge of yellow there . . .

  My themes shall not be far-fetched. I will tell of homely every-day phenomena and adventures. Friends! Society! It seems to the that I have an abundance of it, there is so much that I rejoice and sympathize with, and men, too, that I never speak to but only know and think of. What you call bareness and poverty is to me simplicity. God could not be unkind to me if he should try . . .

  Returning from the post-office at early candle-light, I noticed for the first time this season the peculiar effect of lights in offices and shops seen over the snowy streets, suggesting how withdrawn and inward the life in the former, how exposed and outward in the latter . . .