1854 in Thoreau’s Journal:

Made a fire on the south side of the pond [Fair Haven Pond]. We skated home in the dark—with an odor of smoke in our clothes. It was pleasant to dash over the ice—feeling the inequalities which we could not see—now rising over considerable hillocks for it had settled on the meadows—now descending into corresponding hollows.

We have had but one no more this winter (and that I think was the first) of those gentle moist snows which lodge perfectly on the trees—and make perhaps the most beautiful sight of any.

1842 in Thoreau’s Journal:

The death of friends should inspire us as much as their lives.