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7 August 1857. Portland, Maine and Boston, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Take cars for Portland, and at the evening the boat for Boston. A great deal of cat-tail flag by railroad between Penobscot and Kennebec. Fine large ponds about Belgrade.
(Journal, 9:503)
7 August 1858. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—Up Assabet . . .

  In the upper part of J. Farmer’s lane I find huckleberries which are distinctly pear-shaped, all of them . . . (Journal, 11:79-81).

7 August 1860. Mt. Monadnock, N.H.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Morning—dawn and sunrise—was another interesting season. I rose always by four or half past four to observe the signs of it and to correct my watch . . .

  After dinner, descended in to the gulf and swamp beneath our camp . . .

(Journal, 14:22-25)
7 December 1834. Cambridge, Mass.

Thoreau finishes his first term of his sophomore year ranking sixth in a class of 45. He had earned 1,568 points that should have given him a grand total of 5,606, but by an error that was never caught or corrected, he was given a grand total of 6,206. Starts his second term, with classes in mathematics, Greek, Latin, English, and French.

(Thoreau’s Harvard Years, part 2:14)
7 December 1838. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  We may believe it, but never do we live a quiet, free life, such as Adam’s, but are enveloped in an-invisible network of speculations. Our progress is only from one such speculation to another, and only at rare intervals do we perceive that it is no progress. Could we for a moment drop this by-play, and simply wonder, without reference or inference!
(Journal, 1:61)
7 December 1841. Cambridge, Mass.

Thoreau checks out Ancient metrical tales: printed chiefly from original sources edited by Charles Henry Hartshorne and Heliconia: Comprising a selection of English poetry of the Elizabethan age edited by Thomas Park, volume 2, from Harvard College Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 289).

7 December 1852. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—Perhaps the warmest day yet. True Indian summer. The walker perspires . . . (Journal, 4:426).
7 December 1853. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—To Trillium Woods and Hubbard’s Close . . . (Journal, 6:12-13).
7 December 1854.

Providence, R.I. Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Walked through Olneyville in Johnston, two and a half or three miles west of Providence.

  [Thaddeus W.] Harris tells me that since he exchanged a duplicate Jesuit Relation for one he had not with the Montreal men, all theirs have been burnt. He has two early ones which I have not seen.

(Journal, 7:80)

Cambridge, Mass. Thoreau checks out Memoirs of a captivity among the Indians of North America, from childhood to the age of nineteen by John D. Hunter, History of the five Indian nations of Canada which are dependent on the province of New York, and are a barrier between the English and the French by Cadwallader Colden, Relation de ce qui s’est passé en la Nouvelle France en l’année 1639, and Historical and statistical information respecting the history, condition, and prospects of the Indian tribes of the United Statesby Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, volume 4, from Harvard College Library.

(Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 290-291)
7 December 1856. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—Take my first skate to Fair Haven Pond.

  It takes my feet a few moments to get used to the skates . I see the track of one skater who has preceded me this morning. This is the first skating. I keep mostly to the smooth ice about a rod wide next the shore commonly . . . (Journal, 9:165-9)

Thoreau writes to H.G.O. Blake:

  That Walt Whitman, of whom I wrote to you, is the most interesting fact to me at present. I have just read his 2nd edition (which he gave me) and it has done me more good than any reading for a long time. Perhaps I remember best the poem of Walt Whitman an American & the Sun Down Poem. There are 2 or 3 pieces in the book which are disagreeable to say the least, simply sensual. He does not celebrate love at all. It is as if the beast spoke. I think that men have not been ashamed of themselves without reason. No doubt there has always been dens where such deeds were unblushingly recited, and it is not merit to compete with their inhabitants. But even on this side, he has spoken more truth than any American or modern that I know. I have found his poem exhilirating encouraging. As for its sensuality,—& it may turn out to be less sensual than it appeared—I do not so much wish that those parts were not written, as that men & women were so pure that they could read them without harm, that is, without understanding them. One women told me that no women could read it as if a man could read what a women could not. Of course Walt Whitman can communicate to us no experience, and if we are shocked, whose experience is that we are reminded of?

  On the whole it sounds to me very brave & American after whatever deductions. I do not believe that all the sermons so called that have been preached in this land put together are equal to it for preaching—

  We ought to rejoice greatly in him. He occasionally suggests something a little more than human. You cant confound him with the other inhabitants of Brooklyn or New York. How they must shudder when they read him! He is awfully good.

  To be sure I sometimes feel a little imposed on. By his heartiness & broad generalities he puts me into a liberal frame of mind prepared to see wonders as it were sets me upon a hill or in the midst of the plain—stirs me well up, and then—throws in a thousand of brick. Though rude & sometimes ineffectual, it is a great primitive poem,—an alarum or trumpet—not ringing through the American camp. Wonderfully like the Orientals, too, considering that when I asked him if he had read them, he answered, “No: tell me about them.”

  I did not get fair in conversation with him,—two more being present,—and among the few things which I chanced to say, I remember that one was, in answer to him which I chanced to say, I remember that one was, in answer to him as representing America, that I did not think much of America or of politics, and so on, which may have been somewhat of a damper to him.

  Since I have seen him, I find that I am not disturbed by any brag or egoism in his book. He may turn out the least of a braggart of all, having a better right to be confident.

  He is a great fellow.

(Letters to Harrison Gray Otis Blake, ed. Wendell Glick (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), 97-98; The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau, 444-445)

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