Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/137

Rh spawning, etc., of the pout and perch, because I know something about it already, and have my attention aroused, but I do not discover till very late that he has made other equally important observations on the spawning of other fishes, because I am not interested in those fishes.

Jan. 6, 1838. As a child looks forward to the coming of the summer, so could we contemplate with quiet joy the circle of the seasons returning without fail eternally. As the spring came round during so many years of the gods, we could go out to admire and adorn anew our Eden, and yet never tire.

Jan. 6, 1841. We are apt to imagine that this hubbub of Philosophy, Literature, and Religion, which is heard in pulpits, lyceums, and parlors, vibrates through the universe, and is as catholic a sound as the creaking of the earth's axle. But if a man sleeps soundly, he will forget it all between sunset and dawn. It is the three-inch swing of some pendulum in a cupboard, which the great pulse of Nature vibrates clearly through each instant. When we lift our lids and open our ears, it disappears with smoke and rattle, like the cars on the railroad.

Jan. 6, 1857. A man asked me the other night whether such and such persons were not as happy as anybody, being conscious, as I