Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/127

Rh about the crown of the trunk, in the lower part of the tree, like a tree within a tree. The tree is thus less wracked by the wind and ice.—In the twilight I went through the swamp, and the yellow birches sent forth a yellow gleam which each time made my heart beat faster. Occasionally you come to a dead and leaning white birch, beset with large fungi like ears or little shelves, with a rounded edge above. I walked with the yellow birch. The prinos is green within. If there were Druids whose temples were the oak groves, my temple is the swamp. Sometimes I was in doubt about a birch whose vest was buttoned, smooth and dark, till I came nearer and saw the yellow gleaming through, or where a button was off.

Jan. 4, 1857. After spending four or five days surveying and drawing a plan, incessantly, I especially feel the need of putting myself in communication with nature again to recover my tone, to withdraw out of the wearying and unprofitable world of affairs. The things I have been doing have but a fleeting and accidental importance, however much men are immersed in them, and yield very little valuable fruit. I would fain have been wading through the woods and fields, and conversing with the sane snow. Having waded in the very shallowest stream of time, I would now bathe my temples