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9 February 1837. Cambridge, Mass.

Thoreau checks out The prose works of John Milton, volume 7 from Harvard College Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 288).

9 February 1838. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  To manage the small talk of a party is to make an effort to do what was at first done, admirably because naturally, at your fireside (Journal, 1:27-28).

Thoreau also writes to David Greene Haskins (The Correspondence (2013, Princeton), 1:34-5; MS, Robert H. Taylor Collection of English and American Literature. Firestone Library, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.).

9 February 1839. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  It takes a man to make a room silent (Journal, 1:73).

Thoreau’s brother John advertises the Concord Academy in the Yeoman’s Gazette. The advertisements continue in every issue through 13 April.

Concord Academy.
  The Above School will be continued under the care of the subscriber, after the commencement of the spring term, Monday, March 11th.
Terms for the Quarter:
English branches, $4.00
Languages included 6.00
He will be assisted in the classical department by Henry D. Thoreau, the present instructor.

N. B. Writing will be particularly attended to.

John Thoreau, Jr., Preceptor.
Concord, Feb. 9, 1838

(Yeoman’s Gazette, 9 Feb 1839:3)
9 February 1841. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Better be defamed than overpraised. Thou canst then justly praise thyself. What notoriety art thou that can be defamed? Who can be praised for what they are not deserve rather to be damned for what they are. It is hard to wear a dress that is too long and loose without stumbling.
(Journal, 2:209-210)
9 February 1849. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes to George Augustus Thatcher:

Dear Cousin,

  California, mad dogs, and rail-roads are still the great topics here as everywhere. About half a dozen are gone and going to California from Concord. Mr Hoar’s second son Edward, who was a lawyer in New York, has just taken leave of his friends here to go to the new Ophir. Many are going from the neighborhood of Boston of whom one would not have expected it. For my part, I should rather have gone before the gold was found. I think that those who have delayed thus long will be prudent if they wait a little longer and hear from their acquaintances who went out early. It is impossible yet to tell what is truth. After all we have had no quite trustworthy and available report yet. We shall have some rich stories to read a year or two hence.

  I am interested in George’s progress in Engineering. I should say let him begin with Algebra at once, and soon, or at the same time, if convenient, take up Geometry—it is all important that he be well grounded in this. In due time will come Trigonometry & Nat. Philosophy—A year hence he might profitably commence Surveying. I talked lately with Samuel Felton, Chief Engineer and Superintendent of the Fitchburg RR, and brother of Prof. Felton of Cambridge, with reference to George. He considers “Davies’ Surveying”—a West Point book—the best. This is the one I used in teaching Surveying eight or nine years ago. It is quite simple & thorough—and to some extent national or American.

  I would have George study without particular reference to the Scientific School and so he will be best prepared to suck its whole me at in the shortest time—

  There is “Bigelows Technology” a popular and not expensive book in 2 vols. used, recently at least, at Cambridge. I am sure that i t will interest him if he has a taste for mechanics. He never need study it, but only read it from time to time, as study and practice make it more intelligible. This is one of the best books for him to own that I know of. There is a great deal of interesting & valuable matter for his or any body’s reading in the Penny Magazine—the best periodical of the kind that was ever printed.

  In the mean time he should improve his opportunities to visit machine shops of all kinds. It should be a part of every man’s education today to understand the Steam Engine. What right has a man to ride in the cars who does not know by what means he is moved? Every man in this age of the world may and should understand pretty thoroughly—the Saw and Grist mill—Smelting—casting—and working in iron—cotton and woolen machinery—the locomotive & rail-road—the Steamboat—the telegraph &c &cA man can learn from a few hours of actual inspection what he can never learn from books—and yet if he has not the book-knowledge to generalize & illuminate his particulars he will never be more than a journeyman & cannot reach the head of his profession.

  I lately spent a day at the repair shop of the Eastern RR. company, East Boston, and at Hinckley & Drury’s in Boston—the largest Locomotive manufactory in this country. They turn out 7 a month worth from 8 to 9000 dollars apiece. I went into it, and knowing the principle before, saw and understood the use of every wheel & screw, so that I can build an engine myself when I am ready. I now read every paragraph in which the word locomotive occurs with greater interest and profit than before.

  I have no news to send respecting Helen—She is about the same that she has been for some months, though it may be a little weaker, as she thinks; Her spirits are very good and she is very comfortable for a sick person. Sophia & Mother would perchance be sick if Helen were not.

  I look wishfully towards the woods of Maine, but as yet I feel confined here.

  Please remember me to Rebecca Jane?? Cousins Charles & Mary &c — yrs truly

  Henry D. Thoreau

—I have just received your letter for which I thank you. I should be glad to come to Bangor.—I hope that I shall so conduct as to deserve your good wishes—Excuse my business like scroll.

(MS, The Raymond Adams Collection in The Thoreau Society Collections at Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods, Lincoln, Mass.)
9 February 1851. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  The last half of January was warm and thawy. The swift streams were open, and the muskrats were seen swimming and diving and bringing up clams, leaving their shells on the ice. We had now forgotten summer and autumn, but had already begun to anticipate spring. Fishermen improved the warmer weather to fish for pickerel through the ice. Before it was only the autumn landscape with a thin layer of snow upon it; we saw the withered flowers through it; but now we do not think of autumn when we look on this snow. That earth is effectually buried. It is midwinter. Within a few days the cold has set in stronger than ever, though the days are much longer now. Now I travel across the fields on the crust which has frozen since the January thaw, and I can cross the river in most places. It is easier to get about the country than at any other season,—easier than in summer, because the rivers and meadows are frozen and there is no high grass or other crops to be avoided; easier than in December before the crust was frozen.
(Journal, 2:149)
9 February 1852. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  At 9 A.M. up river to Fair Haven Pond . . . Met Sudbury Haines on the river before the Cliffs, come a-fishing. Wearing an old coat, much patched, with many colors . . . (Journal, 3:289-293).
9 February 1853. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes to Horace Greeley:

  Friend Greeley,

  I send you inclosed Putnam’s cheque for 59 dollars, which together with the 20” sent last December—make, nearly enough, principal interest of the $75 which you lent me last July—However I regard that loan as a kindness for which I am still indebted to you both principal and interest. I am sorry that my manuscript should be so mangled, insignificant as it is, but I do not know how I could have helped it fairly, since I was born to be a pantheist—if that be the name of me, and I do the deeds of one.

  I suppose that Sartain is quite out of hearing by this time, & it is well that I sent him no more.

  Let me know how much I am still indebted to you pecuniarily for trouble taken in disposing of my papers – which I am sorry to think were hardly worth our time.

  Yrs with new thanks

  Henry D. Thoreau

(The Correspondence of Henry David Thoreau, 294)

Cambridge, Mass. Thoreau checks out A generall historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles by John Smith, Collectiones peregrinationum in Indiam Orientalem et Indiam Occidentalem by Theodore de Bry, and Relation de ce qui s’est passé en la Nouvelle France, en l’année M. DC. XL. from Harvard College Library (Companion to Thoreau’s Correspondence, 290).

Thoreau also writes in his journal:

  At Cambridge to-day. Dr. [Thaddeus William] Harris think the Indians had no real hemp but their apocynum, and, he thinks, a kind of nettle, and an asclepias, etc. He doubts if the dog was indigenous among them. Finds nothing to convince him in the history of New England. Thinks that the potato which is said to have been carried from Virginia by Raleigh was the ground-nut (which is described, I perceived, in Debry (Heriot ?) among the fruits of Virginia), the potato not being indigenous in North America, and the ground-nut having been called wild potato in New England, the north part of Virginia, and not being found in England. Yet he allows that Raleigh cultivated the potato in Ireland. Saw the grizzly bear near the Haymarket to-day, said (?) to weigh nineteen hundred,—apparently too much . . . Two sables also, that would not be waked up by day, with their faces in each other’s fur. An American chinchilla, and a silver lioness said to be from California.
(Journal, 4:490-491)
9 February 1854. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  9 A.M.—To Pine Hill . . .

  The hollows about Walden, still bottomed with snow, are filled with greenish water like its own . . . (Journal, 6:109-113).

9 February 1855. Concord, Mass.

Thoreau writes in his journal:

  Snowed harder in the night and blowed considerably. It is somewhat drifted this morning. A very fine and dry snow, about a foot deep on a level.

  I was so sure this storm would bring snowbirds into the yard that I went to the window at ten to look for them, and there they were. Also a downy woodpecker—perhaps a hairy—flitted high across the street to an elm in front of the house and commenced assiduously tapping, his head going like a hammer.

(Journal, 7:175-178)

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