Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/110

96 Chaucer's sincere sorrow in his latter days for the grossness of his earlier works, and that he &quot;cannot recall and annul&quot; what he had &quot;written of the base and filthy love of men towards women, but alas, they are now continued from man to man,&quot; says he, &quot;and I cannot do what I desire,&quot; is all very creditable to his character.

Jan. 2, 1853. 9 Down railroad to Cliffs. A clear day, a pure sky with cirrhi. In this clear air and bright sunlight, the ice-covered trees have a new beauty, especially the birches along under the edge of Warren's wood on each side of the railroad, bent quite to the ground in every kind of curve. At a distance, as you are approaching them endwise, they look like the white tents of Indians under the edge of the wood. The birch is thus remarkable, perhaps, from the feathery form of the tree, whose numerous small branches sustain so great weight, bending it to the ground; and, moreover, because, from the color of the bark, the core is less observable. The oaks not only are less pliant in the trunk, but have fewer and stiff er twigs and branches. The birches droop over in all directions, like ostrich feathers. Most wood paths are impassable now to a carriage, almost to a foot traveler, from the number of saplings and boughs bent over even to the ground in them. Both sides of the deep cut shine in the sun as if silver-plated,