THIS DATE, FROM HENRY DAVID THOREAU'S JOURNAL

February 28, 1855

Examined where the white maple and the apple tree were tripped over by the ice the other day at the railroad bridge. It struck them seven or eight feet from the ground, that being the height of the water, rubbed off the bark, and then bent flat and broke them. They were about ten inches in diameter, the maple partly dead before. I see where many trees have been wounded by the ice in former years. They have a hard time of it when a cake half a dozen rods in diameter and nearly two feet thick is floated and blown against them.

Just south of Derby’s Bridge lie many great cakes, some one upon another, which were stopped by the bridge and causeway, and a great many have a crust of the meadow of equal thickness - six inches to one foot - frozen to their under surfaces. Some of these are a rod in diameter, and when the ice melts, the meadow where they are landed will present a singular appearance. I see many also freshly deposited on the Elfin Burial-Ground, showing how that was formed. The greater part of those hummocks there are probably, if not certainly, carried by the ice, though I now see a few small but thick pieces of meadow four or five feet broad without any ice or appearance of its having been attached to them. This is a powerful agent at work. Many great cakes have lodged on a ridge of the meadow west of the river here, and suggest how such a ridge may be growing from year to year.

February 27, 1857

P. M. - To the Hill.

The river has skimmed over again in many places. I see many crows on the hillside, with their sentinel on a tree. They are picking the cow-dung scattered about, apparently for the worms, etc., it contains. They have done this in so many places that it looks as if the farmer had been at work with his maul. They must save him some trouble thus. I see cinders two or three inches in diameter, apparently burnt clapboards, on the bank of the North River, which came from the burning Lee house! Yet it was quite a damp night, after rain in the afternoon, and rather still. They are all curled by the heat, so that you can tell which side was first exposed to it. The grain is more distinct than ever. Nature so abhors a straight line that she curls each cinder as she launches it on the fiery whirlwind. All the lightness and ethereal spirit of the wood is gone, and this black earthy residuum alone returned. The russet hillside is spotted with them. They suggest some affinity with the cawing crows.

February 26, 1851

Wednesday. Examined the floating meadow again to-day. It is more than a foot thick, the under part much mixed with ice, - ice and muck. It appeared to me that the meadow surface had been heaved by the frost, and then the water had run down and under it, and finally, when the ice rose, lifted it up, wherever there was ice enough mixed with it to float it. I saw large cakes of ice with other large cakes, the latter as big as a table, on top of them. Probably the former rose while the latter were already floating about. The plants scattered about were bulrushes and lily-pad stems.

Saw five red-wings and a song sparrow (?) this afternoon.

February 25, 1857

I hear of lilac buds expanding, but have not looked at them. I go through the woods behind the Kettle place. The leaves rustle and look all dry on the ground in the woods, as if quite ready to burn. The flies buzz out of doors. Though I left my outside coat at home, this single thick one is too much. I go across the Great Fields to Peter’s, but can see no ducks on the meadows. I suspect they have not come yet, in spite of the openness. The fragrant everlasting has retained its fragrance all winter. That mildew, or gossamer-like scum, of the 18th is still visible here and there. It is like very thin and frail isinglass. Goodwin says he saw a robin this morning. The thermometer is at 65˚ at noon.

February 24, 1855

The brightening of the willows or of osiers, - that is a season in the spring, showing that the dormant sap is awakened. I now remember a few osiers which I have seen early in past springs, thus brilliantly green and red (or yellow), and it is as if all the landscape and all nature shone. Though the twigs were few which I saw, I remember it as a prominent phenomenon affecting the face of Nature, a gladdening of her face. You will often fancy that they look brighter before the spring has come, and when there has been no change in them.

February 23, 1853

I think myself in a wilder country, and a little nearer to primitive times, when I read in old books which spell the word savages with an l (salvages), like John Smith’s “General Historie of Virginina, etc.,” reminding me of the derivation of the word from sylva. There is some of the wild wood and its bristling branches still left in their language. The savages they described are really salvages, men of the woods.

February 22, 1854

Saw in Sleepy Hollow a small hickory stump, about six inches in diameter and six inches high, so completely, regularly, and beautifully covered by that winkle-like fungus in concentric circles and successive layers that the core was concealed and you would have taken it for some cabbage-like plant. This was the way the wound was healed. The cut surface of the stump was completely and thickly covered. Our neighbor Wetherbee was J. Moore’s companion when he took that great weight of pickerel this winter. He says it was fifty-six pounds in Flint’s, in one day, and that four of them weighed eighteen pounds and seven ounces. My alder catkins in the pitcher have shed their pollen for a day or two, and the willow catkins have pushed out half an inch or more and show red and yellowish.

February 21, 1855

A warmth begins to be reflected from the partially dried ground here and there in the sun in sheltered places, very cheering to invalids who have weak lungs, who think they may weather it till summer now. Nature is more genial to them. When the leaves on the forest floor are dried, and begin to rustle under such a sun and wind as these, the news is told to how many myriads of grubs that underlie them! When I perceive this dryness under my feet, I feel as if I had got a new sense, or rather I realize what was incredible to me before, that there is a new life in Nature beginning to awake, that her halls are being swept and prepared for a new occupant. It is whispered through all the aisles of the forest that another spring is approaching. The wood mouse listens at the mouth of his burrow, and the chickadee passes the news along.

February 20, 1859

Sometimes from the altered manner of our friend, which no cloak can possibly conceal, we know that something has happened, and what it was, all the essential particulars, though it would be a long story to tell, - though it may involve the agency of four or five persons who never breathed it to you. Yet you are sure, as if you had detected all their tracks in the wood. You are the more sure because, in the case of love, effects follow their causes more inevitably than usual, this being a controlling power. Why, a friend tells all with a look, a tone, a gesture, a presence, a friendliness. He is present when absent.

February 19, 1855

Many will complain of my lectures that they are transcendental. “Can’t understand them.” “Would you have us return to the savage state?” etc., etc. A criticism true enough, it may be, from their point of view. But the fact is, the earnest lecturer can speak only to his like, and the adapting of himself to his audience is a mere compliment which he pays them. If you wish to know how I think, you must endeavor to put yourself in my place. If you wish me to speak as if I were you, that is another affair.