in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is a moist & starry snow–lodging on trees–leaf bough & trunk. The pines are well laden with it. How handsome, though wintry the side of a high pine wood–well greyed with the snow that has lodged on it– & the smaller pitch pines converted into marble or alabaster–with their lowered plumes–like rams-heads’ drawings.

The character of the wood paths is wholly changed by the new fallen snow–- not only all tracks are concealed–but the pines drooping over it–& half concealing or filling it, it is merely a long chink or winding open space between the trees– 

in Thoreau’s Journal:

When lately the open parts of the river froze more or less in the night after that windy day, they froze by stages, as it were, many feet wide, and the water dashed and froze against the edge of each successive strip of ice, leaving so many parallel ridges. 

The river is rapidly falling, is more than a foot lower than it was a few days ago, so that there is an ice-belt left where the bank is steep, and on this I skate in many places; in others the ice slants from the shore for a rod or two to the water; and on the meadows for the most part there is no water under the ice, and it accordingly rumbles loudly as I go over it, and I rise and fall as I pass over hillocks or hollows.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

At the Cliffs the rocks are in some places covered with ice. And the least inclination beyond a perpendicular in their faces is betrayed by the formation of icicles at once which hang perpendicularly—like organ pipes—in front of the rock—They are now conducting downward the melting ice and snow which drips from their points with a slight clinking & lapsing sound—but when the sun has set will freeze there and add to the icicles’ length. Where the icicles have reached the ground & are like thick pillars they have a sort of annular appearance somewhat like the successive swells on the legs of tables and bed-posts— There is perhaps a harmony between the turner’s taste & the law of nature in this instance. The shadow of the water flowing or pulsating behind the transparent icy crust or these stalactites—in the sun imparts a semblance of life to the whole.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Winter comes to make walking possible where there was no walking in summer. Not till winter do we take possession of the whole of our territory.

I have three great highways raying out from one centre, which is near my door. I may walk down the main river or up either of its two branches. Could any avenues be contrived more convenient ? With this river I am not compelled to walk in the tracks of horses.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Nature works by contraries. That which in summer was most fluid and unresting is now most solid and motionless….

Such is the cold skill of the artist. He carves a statue out of a material which is fluid as water to the ordinary workman. His sentiments are a quarry which he works.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

A fine clear day— There is a glare of light from the fresh unstained surface of the snow that it pains the eyes to travel toward the sun. I go across Walden. 

My shadow is very blue— It is especially blue when there is a bright sun light on pure white snow— It suggests that there may be something divine—something celestial in me.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is easier to get about the country than at any other season— Easier than in summer because the rivers & meadows are frozen—

& there is no high grass or other crops to be avoided—easier than in Dec. before the crust was frozen.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Debauched and worn-out senses require the violent vibrations of an instrument to excite them, but sound and still youthful senses, not enervated by luxury, hear music in the wind and rain and running water. One would think from reading the critics that music was intermittent as a spring in the desert, dependent on some Paganini or Mozart, or heard only when the Pierians or Euterpeans drive through the villages; but music is perpetual, and only hearing is intermittent.

I hear it in the softened air of these warm February days which have broken the back of the winter…

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Under the waves of the snowy ocean yesterday, roads and rivers, pastures and cultivated fields, all traces of man’s occupancy of the globe were for the most part concealed. Water and sand also assume this same form under the influence of wind.

And I have seen, on the surface of the Walden ice, great sweeping, waving lines, somewhat like these. It is the track of the wind, the impress which it makes on flowing materials.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

When I select one here and another there, and strive to join sundered thoughts, I make but a partial heap after all— Nature strews her nuts and flowers broadcast, and never collects them into heaps— A man does not tell us all he has thought upon truth or beauty at a sitting—but from his last thought on the subject wanders through a varied scenery of upland meadow and woodland to his next— Sometimes a single and casual thought rises naturally and inevitably with a queenly majesty and escort  like the stars in the east.

Fate has surely enshrined it in this hour and circumstances for some purpose— What she has joined together, let not man put asunder.—  Shall I transplant the primrose by the river’s brim—to set it beside its sister on the mountain? This was the soil it grew in—this the hour it bloomed in—if sun, wind, and rain came here to cherish and expand it–shall not we come here to pluck it? — Shall we require it to grow in a conservatory for our convenience?

in Thoreau’s Journal:

In a journal it is important in a few words to describe the weather, or character of the day, as it affects our feelings. That which was so important at the time cannot be unimportant to remember.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

A mild, thawy day. The needles of the pine are the touch-stone for the air—any change in that element is revealed to the practiced eye by their livelier green or increased motion. They are the tell-tales. Now they are (the white pine) a cadaverous, misty blue—anon a lively silvery light plays on them —& they seem to erect themselves unusually—while the pitch pines are a brighter yellowish green than usual—The sun loves to nestle in the boughs of the pine & pass rays through them.

The scent of bruised pine leaves where a sled has passed is a little exciting to me now…

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Access to nature for original observation is secured by one ticket, by one kind of expense, but access to the works of your predecessors by a very different kind of expense. All things tend to cherish the originality of the original.

Nature, at least, takes no pains to introduce him to the works of his predecessors, but only presents him with her own Opera Omnia.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

I frequently see where oak leaves–absorbing the heat of the sun have sunk in to the ice & an inch in depth & afterward been blown out–leaving a perfect type of the leaf with its petiole & lobes sharply cut–with perfectly upright sides–so that I can easily tell the species of oak that made it. Sometimes these moulds have been evenly filled with snow–while the ice is dark–& you have the figure of the leaf in white.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

-5º.  A cold day;  Two or three inches of dry snow last night. 

Grows colder apace toward night.  Frost forms on windows.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

A clear, cold, beautiful day. Fine skating. An unprecedented expanse of ice.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

These particles of snow which the early wind shakes down are what is stirring, or the morning news of the wood.

Sometimes it is blown up above the trees, like the sand of the desert.

in Thoreau’s Journal:

It is interesting to see near the sources even of  small streams or brooks which now flow through an open country–

perhaps shrunken in their volume–the traces of ancient mills–which have devoured the primitive forest–the earthen dams & old sluice ways–& ditches and banks for obtaining a supply of water–

_________

in Thoreau’s Journal:

Perhaps I can never find so good a setting for my thoughts as I shall thus have taken them out of.  The crystal never sparkles more brightly than in the cavern. The world have always loved best the fable with the moral. The children could read the fable alone, the grown-up read both. The truth so told has the best advantages of the most abstract statement, for it is not the less universally applicable. Where else will you ever find the true cement for your thoughts?

How will you ever rivet them together without leaving the marks of the file? Yet Plutarch did not so; Montaigne did not so. Men have written travels in this form, but perhaps no man’s daily life has been rich enough to be journalized.