Log Search Results

7 July 1851. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  I have been to-night with Anthony Wright to look through Perez Blood’s telescope a second time. A dozen of Blood’s neighbors were swept along in the stream of our curiosity. One who lived half a mile this side said that Blood had been down that way within a day or two with his terrestrial, or day, glass, looking into the eastern horizon [at] the hills of Billerica, Burlington, and Woburn. I was amused to see what sort of respect this man with a telescope had obtained from his neighbors, something akin to that which savages award to civilized men though in this case the interval between the parties was very slight. Mr. Blood, with his skull-cap on, his short figure, his north European figure, made me think of Tycho Brahe. He did not invite us into his house this cool evening,—men nor women,—nor did he ever before to my knowledge. I am still contended to see the stars with my naked eye. Mr. Wright asked him what his instrument cost. He answered, “Well, that is something I don’t like to tell.” (Stuttering or hesitating in his speech a little as usual.) “It is a very proper question, however.” “Yes,” said I, “and you have given a very proper answer.” Returning, my companion, Wright, the sexton, told me how dusty he found it digging a grave that afternoon,—for one who had been a pupil of mine. For two feet, he said, notwithstanding the rain, he found the soil as dry as ashes.
(Journal, 2:286-292)
7 July 1852. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  4 A.M.—The first really foggy morning. Yet before I rise I hear the song of birds from out it, like the bursting of its bubbles with music, the bead on liquids just uncorked. Their song gilds thus the frostwork of the morning. As if the fog were a great sweet froth on the surface of land and water, whose fixed air escaped, whose bubbles burst,with music. The sound of its evaporation, the fixed air of the morning just brought from the cellars of the night escaping . . .

  The cobwebs on the dead twigs in sprout-lands covered with fog or dew. Their geometry is very distinct, and I see where birds have flown through them. I noticed that the fog last night, just after sundown, was like a fine smoke in valleys between the woods . . .

(Journal, 4:197-201)
7 July 1853. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Is that a utricularia which fills the water at the north end of Beck Stow’s? Sarsaparilla berries are ripe. Paddled up the river this morning . . . (Journal, 5:313).

7 July 1854. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—To lygodium.

  Verbena urticifolia. Ilysanthes, three or four days back, flat east of Clamshell Shore. Large form of arrowhead, two or more days. Woodcock at the spring under Clamshell. Campanula aparinoides, apparently three or four clays. The clover heads are turned brown and dry, and whiteweed is also drying up . . .

(Journal, 6:386)
7 July 1855. North Truro, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  C. [William Ellery Channing] says he saw in the catalogue of the Mercantile Library, New York, “Peter Thoreau on Book-keeping, London” . . . (Journal, 7:433-434).
7 July 1856. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

   I see a difference now between the alder leaves near Island and edge of meadow westward, on Hill . . .

  P.M.—To Gowing’s Swamp.

  The purple finch still sings over the street. The sagittaria, large form, is out, roadside . . .

(Journal, 8:401-402)
7 July 1857. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Some of the inhabitants of the Cape think that the Cape is theirs and all occupied by them, but in my eyes it is no more theirs than it is the black-birds’, and in visiting the Cape there is hardly more need of my regarding or going through the villages than of going through the blackbirds’ nests. I am inclined to leave them both on one side, or perchance I just glance into them to see how they are built and what they contain. I know that they have spoken for the whole Cape, and lines are drawn on their maps accordingly, but I know these are imaginary, having perambulated many such, and they would have to get me or one of my craft to find them for them. For the most part, indeed with very trifling exceptions, there were no human beings there, only a few imaginary lines on a map . . .
(Journal, 9:471-472)
7 July 1858. Mt. Washington, N.H.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Having engaged the services of Wentworth to carry up some of our baggage and to keep our camp, we rode onward to the Glen House, eight miles further, sending back our horse and wagon to his house . . .

  Began the ascent by the mountain road at 11.30 A.M. . . . [At three miles] was the foot of the ledge and limit of trees, only their dead trunks standing, probably fir and spruce, about the shanty where we spent the night with the colliers . . .

(Journal, 11:14-16)
7 July 1859. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—To Great Meadows.

  P. Hutchinson says he once found a wood duck’s nest in a hollow maple by Heywood’s meadow (now by railroad), and tried to get the young as soon as hatched, but they were gone too soon for him . . . Bathing at Barrett’s Bay, I find it to be composed in good part of sawdust, mixed with sand . . .

(Journal, 12:224-226)
7 July 1860. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  7 A.M. River two and a half above summer level . . . (Journal, 13:387-395).

Return to the Log Index

Donation

$