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9 December 1834. Cambridge, Mass.

Thoreau is absent from the meeting of the Institute of 1770 and its debate, “Is early marriage beneficial?” He is selected to debate the topic “Is political eminence more worthy of admiration than literary?” at the meeting to be held on 27 January 1835 (The Transcendentalists and Minerva, 1:84).

9 December 1841. Cambridge, Mass.

Thoreau checks out The glorious lover. A divine poem, upon the adorable mystery of sinners redemption by Benjamin Keach and Theophila, or loves sacrifice. A divine poem by Edward Benlowes from Harvard College Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 289).

9 December 1842. Cambridge, Mass.

James Richardson Jr. writes to Thoreau:

Friend Thoreau

  I have been desirous of sending to some of my mystic brethren—some selections from certain writings of mine, that wrote themselves, when “I was in the spirit on the Lord’s Day.” Some of these are so utterly and entirely out of all my rational faculties, that I can’t put any meaning in them; others I read over, and learn a great deal from. This, I send you, seems to be a sort of Allegory—When you return it, will you be so kind as to tell me all that it means, as there are some parts of it I do not fully understand myself—I have a grateful remembrance of the moment I saw you in. Mr emerson too I have less awe of, and more love for, than formerly His presence has always to me something infinite as well as divine about it. Mrs Emerson I am very desirous of knowing. Your family give my love to—

James Richardson jr

(The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau, 71; MS, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY)
9 December 1852. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—To C. Smith’s Hill.

  Those little ruby-crownued wrens (?) still about. They suddenly dash away from this side to that in flocks, with a tumultuous note, half jingle, half rattle, like nuts shaken in a bag, or a bushel of nutshells . . .

(Journal, 4:426-427)
9 December 1853. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  The third (at least) glorious day, clear and not too cold (this morning a leaf frost on the rails a third of an inch long), with peculiarly long and clear cloudless silvery twilights morn and eve, with a stately,
withdrawn after-redness . . .
(Journal, 6:15)
9 December 1854. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau surveys a woodlot for Tilly Holden (A Catalog of Thoreau’s Surveys in the Concord Free Public Library, 8; Henry David Thoreau papers. Special Collections, Concord (Mass.) Free Public Library).

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Surveying for T. Holden . . . White Pond mostly skimmed over . . . C. [William Ellery Channing] says he saw three larks on the 5th (Journal, 7:81).
9 December 1855. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  A still, completely gray, overcast, chilly morning. At 8.30 a fine snow begins to fall, increasing very gradually, perfectly straight down, till in fifteen minutes the ground is white, the smooth places first, and thus the winter landscape is ushered in. And now it is falling thus all the land over . . .
(Journal, 8:41)

Thoreau also writes to H.G.O. Blake:

Mr. Blake,—

  Thank you! thank you for going a-wooding with me,—and enjoying it,—for being warmed by my wood fire. I have indeed enjoyed it much alone. I see how I might enjoy it yet more with company,—how we might help each other to live. And to be admitted to nature’s hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.

  I am glad to hear that you were there too. There are many more such voyages, and longer ones, to be made on that river, for it is the water of life. The Ganges is nothing to it. Observe its reflections, no idea but is familiar to it. That river, though to dull eyes it seems terrestrial wholly, flows through Elysium. What powers bathe in it invisible to villagers! Talk of its shallowness,—that hay—carts can be driven through it at midsummer; its depth passeth my understanding. If, forgetting the allurements of the world, I could drink deeply enough of it; if, cast adrift from the shore, I could with complete integrity float on it, I should never be seen on the Mill-dam again. If there is any depth in me, there is a corresponding depth in it. It is the cold blood of the gods. I paddle and bathe in their artery.

  I do not want a stick of wood for so trivial a use as to burn even, but they get it over night, and carve a gild it that it may please my eye. What persevering lovers they are! What infinite pains to attract and delight us! They will supply us with fagots wrapped in the dantiest packages, and freight paid; sweet—scented woods, and bursting into flower, and resounding as if Orpheus had just left them, these shall be our fuel, and we still prefer to chaffer with the wood-merchant!

  The jug we found still stands draining bottom up on the bank, on the sunny side of the house. That river, —who shall say exactly whence it came, and whither it goes? Does aught that flows come from a higher source? Many things rift downward on its surface which would enrich a man. If you could only be on the alert all day, and every day! And the nights are as long as the days.

  Do you not think you could contrive this to get woody fibre enough to bake your wheaten bread with? Would you not perchance have tasted the sweet crust of another kind of break-fruit trees of the world?

  Talk of burning your smoke after the wood has been consumed! There is a far more important and warming heart, commonly lost, which precedes the burning of the wood. It is the smoke of industry, which is incense. I had been so thoroughly warmed in the body and spirit, that when at length my fuel was housed, I came near selling it to the ashman, as if I had extracted all its heat.

  You should have been here to help me get in my boat. The last time I used it, November 27th, paddling up the assabet, I saw a great round pine long sunk deep in the water, and with labor got it abroad. When I was floating this some so gently, it occurred to me why I had found it. It was to make wheels with to roll my boat into winter quarters upon. So I sawed off two thick rollers from one end, pierced them for wheels, and then of a joist which I had found drifting on the river in the summer I made an axletree, and on this I rolled my boat out.

  Miss Mary Emerson [R.W.’s aunt] is here, the youngest person in Concord, though about eighty,—and the most apprehensive of a genuine thought; earnest to know of your inner life; most stimulating society; and exceedingly witty withal. She says they call her old when she was young, and she has never grown any older. I wish you could see her.

  My books did not arrive till November 20th, the cargo of the Asia having been complete when they reached Liverpool, I have arranged them in a case which I made in the mean whole, partly of river boards. I have not dipped far into the news one yet. One is splendidly bound and illuminated. They are in English, French, Latin, Greek, and Sanscrit. I have not made out the significance of this godsend yet.

  Farewell, and bright dreams to you!

(Letters to Harrison Gray Otis Blake (88-90) edited by Wendell Glick (from Great Short Works of Henry David Thoreau edited, with an introduction, by Wendell Glick (New York: Harper & Row, 1982). Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers)

9 December 1856. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  P.M.—Railroad to Lincoln Bridge and back by road.

  There is scarcely a particle of ice in Walden yet, and that close to the edge, apparently, on the west and northwest sides. Yet Fair Haven was so solidly frozen on the 6th that there was fishing on it, and yesterday I met Goodwin bringing a fine lot of pickerel from Flint’s, which was frozen at least four itches thick. This is, no doubt, owing solely to the greater depth of Walden . . .

  From a little east of Wyman’s I look over the pond westward. The sun is near setting, away beyond Fair Haven. A bewitching stillness reigns through all the woodland and over the snow-clad landscape. Indeed, the winter day in the woods or fields has commonly the stillness of twilight. The pond is perfectly smooth and full of light . . .

  When I get as far as my bean-field, the reflected white in the winter horizon of this perfectly cloudless sky is being condensed at the horizon’s edge, and its hue deepening into a dun golden, against which the tops of the trees—pines and elms—are seen with beautiful distinctness, and a slight blush begins to suffuse the eastern horizon, and so the picture of the day is done and set in a gilded frame.

  Such is a winter eve. Now for a merry fire, some old poet’s pages, or else serene philosophy, or even a healthy book of travels, to last far into the night . . .

(Journal, 9:170-174)
9 December 1859. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  The river and Fair Haven Pond froze over generally (I see no opening as I walk) last night, though they were only frozen along the edges yesterday . . . I observe at mid-afternoon, the air being very quiet and serene, that peculiarly softened western sky, which perhaps is seen commonly after the first snow has covered the earth . . .
(Journal, 13:18-19)
9 December. New Bedford, Mass.
Thoreau writes in his journal:

  At New Bedford . . .

  Asked a sailor at the wharf how he distinguished a whaler. He said by the ” davits,” large upright timbers with sheaves curving over the sides . . . (Journal, 11:367).

Daniel Ricketson writes in his journal:

  9th. Thoreau and Cholmondeley walked to town this forenoon and back at dinner (Daniel Ricketson and His Friends, 310).

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