December 26, 1840

There is as good as a mine under my feet wherever I go. - When the pond is frozen and covered with snow, I do not suspect the wealth under my feet. How many pickerel are poised on easy fin fathoms below the loaded wain. - The revolution of the seasons must be a curious phenomenon to them. Now the sun and wind brush aside their curtain and they see the heavens again.

December 25, 1840

The thought there is in a sentence is its solid part, which will wear to the latest times.

November 23, 1840

All things are in revolution; it is the one law of nature by which order is preserved, and time itself lapses and is measured.

(Undated entry.)

June 22, 1840

It is odd that people will wonder how Shakespeare could write as he did without knowing Latin, or Greek, or geography, as if these were of more consequence than to know how to whistle. They are not backward to recognize Genius, - how it dispenses with those furtherances which others require, leaps where they crawl, - and yet they never cease to marvel that so it was, - that it was Genius, and helped itself.

July 28, 1840

Oftener from lone caves and over bogs and fens gleams the ray which cheers and directs us, than from lighted saloons. (undated entry)

July 16, 1840

We are as much refreshed by sounds as by sights, or scents, or flavors, - as the barking of a dog heard in the woods at midnight, or the tinklings which attend the dawn. As I picked blackberries this morning, by starlight, the distant yelping of a dog fell on my inward ear, as the cool breeze on my cheek.

December 30, 1840

Let us grow to the full stature of our humbleness - ere we aspire to be greater.

December 29, 1840

An echo makes me enunciate distinctly - So the sympathy of a friend gives plainness and point to my speech. This is the advantage of letter writing.

December 7, 1852

P. M. - Perhaps the warmest day yet. True Indian summer. The walker perspires. The shepherd’s-purse is in full bloom; the andromeda not turned red. Saw a pile of snow-fleas in a rut in the wood-path, six or seven inches long and three quarters of an inch high, to the eye exactly like powder, as if a sportsman had spilled it from his flask; and when a stick was passed through the living and skipping mass, each side of the furrow preserved its edge as in powder.

July 27, 1840

The wood thrush is a more modern philosopher than Plato and Aristotle. They are now a dogma, but he preaches the doctrine of this hour.

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