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

In this winter often no apparent difference between rivers, ponds & fields.

 in Thoreau’s Journal

….If possible, come upon the top of hill unexpectedly, perhaps through the woods, and then look off from it….

in Thoreau’s Journal

I see great shadows on the N.E.. sides of the mts 40 miles off….

in Thoreau’s Journal:

When we have experienced many disappointments, such as the loss of friends, the notes of birds cease to affect us as they did.

February 5, 1841

Friday….There is something in the effect of a harmonious voice upon the disposition of its neighborhood analogous to the law of crystals; it centralizes itself and sounds like the published law of things. If the law of the universe were to be audibly promulgated, no mortal lawgiver would suspect it, for it would be a finer melody than his ears ever attended to. It would be sphere music.

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.

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.

Is it the lover of nature who has access to all that has been written on the subject of his favorite studies? No; he lives far away from this. It is the lover of books & systems-who know nature chiefly at 2nd hand.

 in Thoreau’s Journal

Already we begin to anticipate spring and this is an important difference between this time & a month ago — We begin to say that the day is spring-like.

Is not January the hardest month to get through—? When you have weathered that—you get into the gulf-stream of winter nearer the shores of Spring—

in Thoreau’s Journal:

….skated up the river yesterday, now here, now there….the great arundo in the Sudbury meadows was all level with ice. There was a great bay of ice stretching up the Pantry, and up Larned Brook.

I looked up a broad, glaring bay of ice at the last place which seemed to reach to the base of Nobscot and almost to the horizon. Some dead maple or oak saplings laid side by side made my bridges, by which I got on to the ice along the watery shore, It was a problem to get off, and another to get on, dry shod.