79

WINTER DAYS.

EXTRACTS FROM Tilt. JOURNAL OF HENRY v . THOREAU.

JANUARY 1, 1811 . All, men and wo-men, woo one . There is a fragrance intheir breath .

°` Nosquo-equis oricus af'iavit aiihelis ."And if now they hate, I muse as ill som-bre, cloudy weather, not despairing ofthe absent ray .

"111ic sera ruhens accendit tumiua vesper ."January l, 1842 . . . . The virtuous

soul possesses a fortitude and hardihoodwhich not the grenadier nor pioneer canmatch . It never shrinks . It. goes sinsing to its work . Effort. i s its relaxation .The rude pioneer work of the world hasbeen done by the most devoted worship-ers of beauty . . . . Ill winter is theircampaign . They never go into quarters .They are elastic under the heavie~t ])in, -dell" under the extremest physical suffer-ing .

January 1, 1852 . . . . I have ob-served that one mood is the naturalcritic of another . When possessed with

a strong feeling on any subject foreignto the one I may be writing on, I knowvery well what of good aml what ofhad I have written on the latter. Itlooks to the now as it Ivill ten yearshcice . 111y life is theiz e:tnic~t, :u1cl willtolerate no rmtkesliift ; 1ior ~u~uscuse .What is tiusel, or euphui,m, or irrele-vant is revealed to such a touchstone .In the lialit of a strong feclitw allthings take their places, and truth ofevery kind is seen as such . Now let ineread my verses, mud I will tell you ifthe god has had a hand in them . Iwish to survey nny co n l rcr,;itioal fur amoment from the ]cast favor"ahle ]mintof view .

I N%ish to be transi : :tecl to 11iofuture, and look at xny Nvo :lc :t~ it 1vereat a structure on the plain, to observewhat portions have crumbled under the.influence of the elements.

9,'~ P. !tr.

To Fair Ilavon . Moon lit-tle more than half full .

Not a cloud in

80 Winter Days . [January,

the sky. It is a remarkably warm nightfor the season, the ground almost entire-ly bare . The stars are dazzlingly bright .The fault may be in my own barren-ness, but methinks there is a certainpoverty about the winter night's sky.The stars of Higher magnitude are morebright and dazzling, and therefore ap-pear more near and numerable ; whilethose that appear indistinct and infinitelyremote in the summer, giving the im-pression of unfathomablciiess ill the sky,are scarcely seen at all . The front hallsof heaven are so brilliantly lighted thatthey quite eclipse the more remote. Thesky has fallen many degrees.The worst kind of chico (?) or tick to

get under your skin is yourself in an ir-ritable mood .

. . . These are some of the differencesbetween this and the autumn or summernight- the stiffened glebe undermy feet,the dazzle and seeming nearness of thestars, the duller gleam from ice on riversand ponds, the white spots in the fieldsand streaks by the wall sides where arethe remains of drifts yet

unmelted.

Perhaps the onlythingthat spoke tome inthis walk was the bare, lichen-covered,gray rock at the cliff, in the moonlight,naked and almost warm as in summer .I have so much faith in the power of

truth to communicate itself that I shouldnot believe a friend, if he should tellme that he had given credit to an

unjust rumorconcerning me.Suspect!Ah, yes, you may suspect a thousandthings, but I well know that what yoususpect most confidently of all is justthe truth. Your other doubts but flavorthis your main suspicion . They are thecondiments which, taken alone, do simplybite the tongue.

January 1, 1853. This morning wehave something between ice and froston the trees, etc.

The rocks eased in icelook like alum rocks.

This, not frozenmist or frost, but frozen drizzle, collectedaround the slightest cores, gives promi-

pence to the least withered herbs andgrasses. Where yesterday was a plain,smooth field appears now a teeming cropof fat, icy berbage.

The stems of theherbs on the north side are enlargedfrom ten to one hundred times. Theaddition is so universally oil the northside that a traveler could not lose thepoints of the compass to-day, though itshould be never so dark ; for every bladeof grass would serve to guide him, tell-ing from which side the storm came yes-terday .

These straight stems of grassesstand up like white batons, or sceptres,and make a conspicuous foreground tothe landscape, from six inches to threefeet high .

C. thought that these fat, icybranches on the withered grass and herbshad no nucleus, but looking closer Ishowed him the fine, black, wiry threadsoil which they inpinged, which made himlaugh with surprise . . . . The clover andsorrel send up a dull, green gleam throughthis icy coat, like strange plants. . . .Some weeds bear the ice in masses ; some,like the trumpet weed and tansy, in ballsfor each dried flower.

What a crash ofjewels as you Nvalk !

The most carelesswalker, who never deigned to look atthese humble weeds before, cannot helpobserving them now.

This is why theherbage is left to stand dry in the fieldsall winter .

Upon a solid foundation ofice stand out, pointing in all directionsbetween N. `V. and N.E.., or within thelimits of 90 ° , little spicula, or ci ystallizedpoints, half an inch, or more, iin length .Upon the dark, glazed, ploughed ground,where a mere wiry stern rises, its northside is thickly clad with these snow-white spears, like some Indian heac1-dress, as if it had attracted all the front.I saw a Prinos bush full o£ large ber-ries by the wall in Ilubbard's field.Standing on the west side, the contrastof the red berries with their white en-crustation or prolongation oil the northwas admirable.

I thought I had neverseen the berries so dazzlingly bright .The whole north side of the bush, ber-

ATLANTICMOJan 1885 1_ f

T tz Z.Y7!P , -08

1885Jan

1885.]

Winter

ries and stock, was beautifully incrusted,and when I went round to the northside the redness of the berries camesoftened through, and tinging the alliedsnow-white bush, like an evening skybeyond. These adjoined snow or iceberries, being beset within the limits of90 ° on the N. with those icy particlesor spicula, between which the red glow,and sometimes the clear red itself, wassometimes visible, produced the appear-ance of a raspberry bush full of over-ripe fruit.

Standing on the north side of a bushor tree, looking against the sky, you seeonly the white ghost of a tree, withouta mote of earthiness ; but as you goround it, the dark core comes into view .It makes all the odds imaginable wheth-er you are traveling N. or S. Thedrooping birches along the edges ofwoods are the most feathery, fairy-likeostrich plumes, and the color of theirtrunks increases the delusion . Theweight of the ice gives to the pines theforms which northern trees, like the firs,constantly wear, bending and twistingthe branches ; for the twigs and plumesof the pines, being frozen, remain as thewind held them, and new portions ofthe trunk are exposed. Seen from theN. there is no greenness in the pines.and the character of the tree is changed.The willows along the edge of the riverlook like sedge in the meadows. Thesky is overcast, and a fine snowy hailand rain is falling, and these ghost-liketrees make a scenery which remindsyou of Spitzbergen . I see now thebeauty of the causeway by the bridge,alders below swelling into the road,overtopped by willows and maples . Thefine grasses and shrubs in the meadowrise to meet and mingle with the droop-ing willows, and the whole makes an in-distinct impression like a mist. Throughhall this, the road runs toward thosewhite, ice-clad, ghostly or fairy treesin the distance, toward spirit-land.

Thepines are as white as a counterpane,VOL . LV.-NO. 327.

6

with raised embroidery and white tas-sels and fringes. Each fascicle of leavesor needles is held apart by an icy clubsurmounted by a little snowy or icy ball .Finer than the Saxon arch is this pathrunning under the pines, roofed not withcrossing boughs, but drooping, ice-cov-ered, irregular twigs. In the midst ofthis stately pine, towering like the solemnghost of a tree, I see the white, ice-cladboughs of other trees appearing, of a dif-ferent character ; sometimes oaks withleaves incrusted, or fine-sprayed maplesor walnuts. But finer than all, this redoak, its leaves incrusted like shields aquarter of an inch thick, and a thousandfine spicula like long serrations at rightangles with their planes upon the edges.It produces an indescribably rich effect,the color of the leaf coming softenedthrough the ice, a delicate fawn of manysbades .

Where the plumes of the pitchpine are short and spreading close tothe trunk, sometimes perfect cups orrays are formed. Pitch pines presentrough, massy grenadier plumes, eachhaving a darker spot or cavity in theend where you look in to the bud.

Ilisten to the booming of the pond as ifit were a reasonable creature .

I returnat last in the rain, and am coated witha glaze, like the fields.

After talking with uncle Charles, theother night, about the worthies of thiscountry, Webster and the rest, as usual,considering who were geniuses and whonot, I showed him up to bed ; and whenI had got into bed myself I heard thechamber door opened, after eleven o'clock,and he called out in an earnest, ,.tento-rian voice, loud enough to evoke thowhole house, " Henry ! was John QnincyAdams a genius?" " No, I think net,"was my reply. " Well, I did n't thinkhe was," answered he .January 1, 1854 . Le Jenne, referring

to the death of a young Frenchwomanwho had devoted her life to the savagesof Canada, uses this expression : " Final-

82

Winter Days .

[January, wly this beautiful soul detached itself fromits body the 15th of March," etc.The drifts mark the standstill or

equilibrium between the currents of airor particular winds. In our greatestsnowstorms, the wind being northerly,the greatest drifts are on the south sideof houses and fences . . . . I noticethat in the angle made by our houseand shed, a S. W. exposure, the snow-drift does not lie close about the pump,but is afoot off, forming a circular bowl,showing that there was an eddy aboutit . Tho snow is like a mould, showingthe form of the eddying currents of airwhich have been impressed on it, whilethe drift and all the rest is that whichfell between the currents or where theycounterbalanced each other. Theseboundary lines are mountain barriers .The white-in-tails, or grass finches,

linger pretty late, flitting in flocks . Theycome only so near winter as the whitein their tails indicates. . . .The snow buntings and the tree spar-

rows are the true spirits of the snow-storm. They are the animated beingsthat ride upon it and have their life init .The snow is the great betrayer . It

not only shows the track of mice, ot-ters, etc., etc., which else we should rare-ly, if ever, see, but the tree sparrowsare more plainly seen against its whiteground, and they in turn are attractedby the dark weeds it reveals. It alsodrives the crows and other birds out ofthe wood, to the villages for food . Wemight expect to find in the snow the foot-print of a lice superior to our own, ofwhich no zoology takes co(,nizance .

Isthere no trace of a nobler life than thatof an otter or all escaped convict to belooped for in it ? Shall we suppose thatis the only life that has been abroad inthe night ? It is only the savage that cansee the track of no higher life than anotter's.Why do the vast snow plainsgive us pleasure, the twilight of the bentand half-buried woods?

Is not all there

consonant with virtue, justice, purity,courage, magnanimity ; and does not allthis amount to the track of a higher lifethan the otter's, - a life which has notgone by and left a footprint merely, butis there with its beauty, its music, itsperfume, its sweetness, to exhilarate andrecreate us ? All that we perceive is theimpress of its spirit. If there is a per-fect government of the world accordingto the highest laws, do we find no trace ofintelligence there, whether in the snow,or the earth, or in ourselves,-no othertrail but such as a dog can scent ?

Isthere none which an angel can detect andfollow, -none to guide a man in his pil-grimage, which water will not conceal ?Is there no odor of sanctity to be per-ceived ?

Is

its trail too old ?

Havemortals lost the scent? . . . Are therenot hunters who seek for somethinghigher than foxes, with judgment morediscriminating than the senses of fox-bounds, who rally to a nobler musicthan that of the hunting-horn? Asthere is contention among the fishermenwho shall be the first to reach the pondas soon as the ice will bear, in spite ofthe cold ; as the hunters are forward totake the field as soon as the first snowhas fallen, so he who would make themost of his life for discipline roust beabroad early and late, in spite of coldand wet, in pursuit of nobler game,whose traces are there most distinct, -- alife which we seek not to destroy, but tomake our own ; which whell pursued doesnot earth itself, does not burrow

down-ward, but upward, takes not to the trees,but to the heavens. as its home ; whichthe hunter pursues with winged thoughtsand aspirations (these the dogs that treeit), rallying his pack with the Lnglenotes of undying faith. . . . 1)o theIn-dian and hunteronlyneed snow-shoes,

while the saint sits indoors in embroi-dered slippers ?January l, 1856 . . . .

P. M.

ToWal-den . . . . On the iceat Walden are

very beautiful large leaf crystals in

ATLIAI'41T IC LINT PLYJan _1685 pp,7~--e,8

. . r. M.To Wal-ce at Walden aree leaf crystals in

1885.] Winter Days . 83

great profusion.

The ice is frequentlythickly covered with them for manyrods.

They seem to be connected withthe rosettes, a running together of them,look like a loose bunch of small whitefeathers springing from a tuft of down,for their shafts are lost in a tuft of finesnow, like the down about the shaft ofa feather, as if a feather bed had beenshaken over the ice . They are, on aclose examination, surprisingly perfectleaves, like ferns, only very broad fortheir length, and commonly more onone side the midrib than the other.They are from an inch to all inch and ahalf long, and three fourths of an inchwide, and slanted, where I look from theS. W.

They have first a very distinctmidrib, though so thin that they cannotbe taken up ; then distinct ribs branch-ing from this, commonly opposite ; andminute ribs springing again from theselast, as in many ferns, the last runningto each crenation in the border.

IIowmuch farther they are subdivided thenaked eye cannot discern.

They are sothin and fragile that they melt underyour breath while you are looking close-ly at them .

Afisherman says they weremuch finer in the morning. In otherplaces the ice is strewn with a differentkind of frost-work, in little patches, asif oats had been spilled, like fibres ofasbestos rolled one half or three fourthsof an inch long and one eighth or morewide.

Here and there patches of thema foot or two over, like some borealgrain spilled .January 1, 1858. . . . I have latelybeen surveying the Walden woods soextensively and minutely that I can seeit mapped it , my mind's eye as so manymen's woodlots, and am aware when Iwalk there that I am at a given mo-ment passing from such a one's woodlotto such another',,; . I fear this particulardry knowledge may affect my

imagtion and fancy, that it will not be easvto see so much wiriness and native vigor there as formerly .

No thicket will

seem so unexplored now that I know astake and stones may be found in it .

In these respects those Maine woodsdiffer essentially from ours.

There youare never reminded that the wildernessyou are treading is after all some vil-lager's familiar woodlot, from which hisancestors have sledded their fuel for ageneration or two, or some widow'sthirds, minutely described in some olddeed which is recorded, of which theowner has got a plan too, and of whichthe old boundmarks may be found everyforty rods, if you will search .What a history this Concord wilder-

ness which T affect so much may havehad ! How many old deeds describe it,some particular wild spot, how it passedfrom Cole to Robinson, and Robiusonto Jones, and from Jones finally to Smithin course of years. Some had cut it overthree times during their lives, built wallsand made a pasture of it perchance, andsome burned it and sowed it with rye.

In the Maine woods you are not re-minded of thesc things. '"T is true themap informs you that you stand on landgranted by the State to such an acad-emy, or on Bingham's purchase ; butthese names do not impose on you, foryou see nothing to remind you of theacademy or of Bingham.

January 2. 1841. . . . Everv needleof the white pine trembles distinctly inthe breeze, which on the sunny sidegives the whole tree a shimmering, seeth-ing aspect.

I stopped short in the path to-clay toadmire how the trees grow up withoutforethought, regardless of the time andcircumstances. They do not wait, asmen do . Now is the golden a«e of thesapling ; earth, air, still, and rain arc oc-casion enough.

They were no better in primeval cen-turies . "The winter of " their " discon-tent" never comes. Witness the budsof the native poplar, standing gayly out

84 Winter Days . [January,

to the frost, on the sides of its bareswitches . They express a naked confi-dence.

With cheerful heart I could be a so-journer in the wilderness . I should besure to find there the catkins of the alder.

When I read of them in the ac-counts of northern adventurers by Baf-fin's Bay or Mackenzie's River, I seehoweven there too I could dwell.

Theyare my little vegetable redeemers.

Me-thinks my virtue will not flag ere theycome again.

They are worthy to havebad a greater than Neptune or Ceres fortheir donor. Who was the benignantgoddess that bestowed them on man-kind?

I saw a fox run across the pond to-day with the carelessness of freedom.As at intervals I traced his course in thesunshine, as he trotted along the ridgeof a hill on the crust, it seemed as if thesun never slione so proudly, sheer downon the hillside, and the winds and woodswere huslied in sympathy . I gave upto him sun and earth as to their trueproprietor . Ile did not go in the sun-shine, but the sunshine seemed to followhim.

There was a visible sympathy be-tween him and it.

January 2, 1842. The ringing of thechurch bell is a much more melodioussound than any that is heard within thechurch. All great values are thus pub-lic, and undulate like sound through theatmosphere . Wealth cannot purchaseany great private solace or convenience.Riches are only the means of sociality.I will depend on the extravagance ofmy neighbors for my luxuries ; theywill take care to pamper me, if I willbe overfed. The poor man, who sacri-ficed nothing for the gratification, seemsto derive a safer and more natural enjoy-ment from his neighbor's extravagancethan lie does himself.

It is a new nat-ural product, from the contemplation ofwhich he derives new vigor and solaceas from a natural phenomenon .

In moments of quiet and leisure my

thoughts are more apt to revert to somenatural than to any human relation .

Cliaucer's sincere sorrow in his latterdays for the grossness of his earlierworks, and that lie " cannot recall andannul " what he had " written of thebase and filthy love of men towards wo-men, but alas . they are now continuedfrom mat to man," says he, " and I can-not do what I desire," is all very cred-itable to his character .January 2, 1853. 9 A . At . Down R. R.

to Cliffs .

A clear day, a pure sky withcirrhi .

In this clear air and bright sun-light, the ice-covered trees have a newbeauty, especially the birches along underthe edge of Warren's wood on each sideof the R. R., bent quite to the groundin every kind of curve.

At a distance,as you are approaching them endwise,they look like the white tents of In-dians tinder the edge of the wood . Thebirch is thus remarkable, perhaps, fromthe feathery form of the tree, whose nu-merous small branches sustain so greatweight, bending it to the ground ; and,moreover, because, front the color o£ thebark, the core is less observable.

Theoaks not only are less pliant in thetrunk, but have fewer and stiffer twigsand branches .

The birches droop overin all directions, like ostrich feathers .Most wood paths are impassable now toa carriage, almost to a foot traveler,from the number of saplings and boughsbent over even to the ground in them.Both sides of the deep cut shine in thesun as if silver-plated, and the fine sprayof a myriad bushes on the edge of thebank sparkle like silver . The telegraphwire is coated to ten times its size, andlooks like a slight fence scalloping alongat a distance. . . . When we climb thebank at Stow's woodlot and come uponthe piles of freshly split white pine wood(for he is ruthlessly laying it waste), thetransparent ice, like a tlrick varnish,beautifully exhibits the color of theclear, tender . yellowish wood . Bumpkinnine (') . and its grain . We pick our

ATLANTIC ji OT,!T'FT,YJan 1885

1885.] Winter Days.

85

proaching the Cliffs . The forms andvariety of the ice are particularly richhere, there are so many low bushes andweeds before me as I ascend toward thesun, especially very small white pinesalmost

merged

in

the

ice -incrustedground .

All objects are to the eye pol-ished silver. It is a perfect land offaery.

Le Jenne describes the same inCanada in 1636 : " Nos grands bois neparoissoient qu'une forest de cristal.". . . The bells are particularly sweetthis morning. I hear more, methinks,than ever before . . . . Men obey theircall and go to the stove-warmed church,though God exhibits himself to thewalker in a frosted bush to-day as muchas he did in a burning one to Moses ofold. We build a fire on the Cliffs .When kicking to pieces a pine stumpfor the fat knots which alone would burnthis icy day, at the risk of spoiling myboots, having looked in vain for a stone,I thought how convenient would be anIndian stone axe to batter it with .

Thebark of white birch, though covered withice, burned well .

We soon had a roar-ing fire of fat pine on a shelf of rockfrom which we overlooked the icy land-scape.

The sun, too, was melting the iceon the rocks, and the water was purlingdownwards in dark bubbles exactly likepollywogs.What a good word is flame,expressing the form and soul of tire,lambent, with forked tongue !

We lit afire to see it, rather than to feel it, it isso rare a sight these days . It seemsgood to have our eyes ache once morewith smoke. What a peculiar, indescrib-able color has this flame ! - a reddishor lurid yellow, not so splendid or hillof light as of life and heat . Thesefat roots made much flame and a veryblack smoke, commencing where theflame left off, which cast fine flickeringshadows on the rocks.

There was somebluish-white smoke from the rotten partof the wood .

Then there was the finewhite ashes which farmers' wives some-times use for pearlash.

way over a bed of pine boughs a footor two deep, covering the ground, eachtwig and needle thickly incrusted withice, one vast gelid mass, which our feetcrunch, as if we were walking throughthe cellar of some confectioner to thegods. The invigorating scent of the re-cently cut pines refreshes us, if that isany atonement for this devastation . . . .Especially now do I notice the hips,barberries, and winter-berries for theirred.

The red or purplish catkins of thealders are interesting as a winter fruit,and also of the birch. But few birdsabout.

Apparently their granaries arelocked up in ice, with which the grassesand buds are coated . Even far in thehorizon the pine tops are turned to firor spruce by the weight of the ice bend-ing them down, so that they look like aspruce swamp.

No two trees wear theice alike. The short plumes and needlesof the spruce make a very pretty andpeculiar figure .

I see some oaks in thedistance, which, from their branches be-ing curved and arched downward andmassed, are turned into perfect elms,which suggests that this is the peculiar-ity of the elm.

Few, if any, other treesare thus wisp-like, the branches

grace-fully drooping . Imean someslenderred and white oaks which have been re-cently left in a clearing .

Just apply aweight to the end of the boughs whichwill cause them to droop, and to eachparticular twig which will mass them to-gether, and you have perfect elms. Seenat the right angle, each ice-incrustedblade of stubble shines like a prismwith some color of the rainbow, intenseblue, or violet, and red. The smoothfield, clad the other day with a low wirygrass, is now converted into rough stub-ble land, where you walk with crunchingLet. It is remarkable that the treescan ever recover from the burden whichbends them to the ground. I shouldlike to weigh a limb of this pitch pine.'1 he character of the

tree is changed.I have now pa sed the bars, and am ap-

86 Winter Days .

[January,

January 2, 1854. . . . The tints ofthe sunset sky are never purer and moreethereal than in the coldest winter days.This evening, though the colors are notbrilliant, the sky is crystalline, and thepale fawn-tinged clouds are very beauti-ful.

I wish to get on to a hill to lookdown on the winter landscape.

We goabout these days as if we were in fet-ters ; we walk in the stocks, stepping intothe holes made by our predecessors . . . .The team and driver have long sincegone by, but I see the marks of hiswhiplash on the snow, its recoil ; but,alas' these are not a complete tally ofthe strokes which fell upon the oxen'sback . The unmerciful driver thought,perhaps, that no one saw him, but un-wittingly he recorded each blow on theunspotted snow behind his back as ill abook of life . To more searching eyesthe marks of his lash are in the air.

Ipaced partly through the pitch-pinewood, and partly, the open field from theturnpike by the Lee place to the R. R.from N. to S., more than one fourth ofa mile, measuring at every ten paces.The average of sixty-five measurementsup hill and down was nineteen inches .This, after increasing those in the woodsby one inch (little enough), on accountof the snow on the pines. . . . I thinkone would have to pace a mile on a N.and S. line, up and down hill, throughwoods and fields, to get a quite reliableresult . The snow will drift sometimesthe whole width of a field, and fill aroad or valley beyond, so that it wouldbe well your measuring included severalsuch driftings . Very little reliance isto be put on the usual estimates of thedepth of snow.I have heard differentmen set this snow at six, fifteen, eight-een, twenty-four, thirty-six, and forty-eight inches. My snow-shoes sank aboutfour inches into the snow this morning,but more than twice as much the 29th.On the N. side of the R. R. above

the Red House crossing, the train hascut through a drift about one fourth of

a mile long, and two to nine feet high,straight up and down . It reminds meof the Highlands, the Pictured Rocks,the side of an iceberg, etc. Now thatthe sun has just sunk below the horizon,it is wonderful what an amount of softlight it appears to be absorbing.Thereappears to be more day just here by- itsside than anywhere else .

I can almostsee to a depth of six inches into it.

Itis made translucent, it is so saturatedwith light .

I have heard of one precious stonefound in Concord the cinnamon stone.A geologist has spoken of it as found inthis town, and a farmer described to theone he once found, perhaps the samereferred to by the other. Ile said itwas as large as a brick, and as thick,and yet you could distinguish a pillthrough it, it was so transparent.January 2, 1855 . . . . Yesterday [skat-g] we saw the pink light oil the snow

within a, rod of us . The shadows of thebridges, etc., on the snow were a darkindigo blue .

January 2, 1859 . . . . Going up thehill through Stow's young oak woodland,I listen to the sharp, dry rustle of thewithered oak leaves .

This is the voiceof the wood now.

It would be compar-atively still and more dreary here inother respects, if it were not for theseleaves that hold on .

It, sounds like theroar of the sea, and is inspiriting likethat, suggesting how all the land is sea-coast to the aerial ocean. It is thesound of the surf, the rut, of an unseenocean, - billows of air breaking on theforest, like water on it,elf or on sandand rocks.

It rises and falls, swells anddies away, with agreeable alternation . asthe sea surf does . Perhaps the

lands-man canforetell astormbyit. It isremarkable how universal these grandmurmurs are, these backgrounds ofsound, -- the surf, the wind in the forest,waterfalls, etc., -- which yet to the earand in their origin are essentially omevoice, the earth voice, the breathing or

ATLAI` 1 ICJan 1685

1885.] Winter Days . 87

snoring of the creature . The earth isour ship, and this is the sound of thewind in her rigging as we sail. Just asthe inhabitant of Cape Cod hears thesurf ever breaking on its shores, so wecountrymen hear this kindred surf onthe leaves of the forest .

Regarded as avoice, though it is not articulate, as ourarticulate sounds are divided into vow-els (though this is nearer a consonantsound), labials, dentals, palatals, sibi-lants, mutes, aspirates, etc., so this maybe called folial or frondal, produced byair driven against the leaves, and comesnearest to our sibilants or aspirates .

Michaux said that white oaks mightbe distinguished by retaining their leavesin the winter, but as far as my obser-vation goes they cannot be so distin-guished. All our large oaks may re-tain a few leaves at the base of the low-er limbs and about the trunk, thoughonly a few, and the white oak scarcelymore than the others ; while the sametrees, when young, are all alike thicklyclothed in the winter, but the leaves ofthe white oak are the most witheredand shriveled of them all .

There being some snow on the ground,I can easily distinguish the forest on themountains (the Peterboro hills, etc.),and tell which are forested, those partsand those mountains being dark, like ashadow . I cannot distinguish the forestthus far in summer.When I hear the hypercritical quar-

reling about grammar and style, the po-sition of the particles, etc., etc., stretch-ing or contracting every speaker to cer-tain rules, -Mr. Webster, perhaps, nothaving spoken according to Mr . Kirk-ham's rule, -I see they forget that thefirst requisite and rule is that expressionshall be vital and natural, as much asthe voice of a brute, or an interjectionfirst of all, mother tongue ; and last ofall, artificial or father tongue . Essen-tially, your truest poetic sentence is asfree and lawless as a lamb's bleat.

Thegrammarian is often one who can neither

cry nor laugh, yet thinks he can expresshuman emotions . So the posture-mas-ters tell you how you shall walk, turn-ing your toes out excessively, perhaps ;but so the beautiful walkers are notmade.

Minott says that a fox will lead a dogon to the ice in order that he may getin . Tells of Jake Lakin losing a houndso, which went under the ice and wasdrowned below the Holt . . . . Theyused to cross the river there on the ice,going to market formerly .

January 3, 1842 .

It is pleasant whenone can relieve the grossness of thekitchen and the table by the simplebeauty of his repast, so that there maybe anything in it to attract the eye ofthe artist, even .

I have been poppingcorn to-night, which is only a more rapidblossoming of the seed under a greaterthan July heat.

The popped corn is aperfect winter flower . hinting of anem-ones and houstonias . . . . Here hasbloomed for lily repast such a delicateflower as will soon spring

) y the wallsides, and this is as it should be .

Whyshould not Nature reel sometimes, andgenially relax, and male herself familiarat my board l

I would have my housea bower fit to entertain her. It is afeast of such innocence as might havesnoweddown ;onmyw arm hearthsprang these cerealian blossoms ; herewas the bank where they grew .

Ale-thinks some such visible token of ap-proval would always accompany thesimple and healthy repast, -- some suchsmiling or blessing upon it .

Our appe-tite should always be so related to ourtaste, and our board be an epitome o( .the prime;al table which Nature sets byhill and wood and stream for her dumbpensioners .

January 3. 1852 . . . . Aspirit sweepsthe string of the telegraph harp, andstrains of music are drawn out suddenly,like the wire itself. . . . What becomesof the story of a tortoise shell on the

88

A Country Gentleman . [January,

seashore now ?

The world is young,and music is its infant voice.

I do notdespair of a world where you have onlyto stretch an ordinary wire from treeto tree to hear such strains drawn fromit by New England breezes as makeGreece and all antiquity seem poor inmelody .

Why was man so made as tobe thrilled to his inmost being by thevibrating of a wire ?

Are not inspira-tion and ecstasy a more rapid vibrationof the nerves swept by the inrushing ex-cited spirit, whether zephyral or borealin its character ?

January ~3, 1853. . . . I love Naturepartly because she is not man, but a re-treat from him. None of his institutionscontrol or pervade her.

Here a differentkind of right prevails .

In her midst Ican be glad with an entire gladness .

Ifthis world were all man, I could notstretch myself .

I should lose all hope .He is constraint ; she is freedom to me .He makes me wish for another world ;she makes me content with this.

Noneof the joys she supplies is subject to hisrules and definitions .

What he touches

he taints . In thought he moralizes.One would think that no free, joyfullabor was possible to him. How infiniteand pure the least pleasure of whichnature is basis compared with the congratulation of mankind!

The joy whichnature yields is like that afforded by thefrank words of one we love .

Mau, man is the devil,The source of all evil.

Dlethinks these prosers, with their sawsand their laws, do not know how glad amail can bo . What wisdom, what warn-ing, can prevail against gladness ? Thereis rro law so strong which a little glad-ness may not transgress . I have a roomall to myself . It is nature . It is aplace beyond the jurisdiction of humangovernments.

Pile up your books, therecords of sadness, your saws and yourlaws, Nature is glad outside, and hermany worms within will erelong topplethem down . . . . Nature is a prairie foroutlaws.

There are two worlds, - thepost-office and nature . I know themboth .

I continually forget mankind andtheir institutions, as I do a bank.