Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/151

Rh to be the symbol merely of my misery), and then again, suddenly, I was lying on a delicious smooth surface, as of a summer sea, as of gossamer or down, or softest plush, and it was a luxury to live. My waking experience always has been and is an alternate Rough and Smooth. In other words it is Insanity and Sanity.

Might I aspire to praise the moderate nymph Nature, I must be like her, moderate.

Jan. 7, 1858. The storm is over, and it is one of those beautiful winter mornings when a vapor is seen hanging in the air between the village and the woods. Though the snow is only six inches deep, the yards appear full of those beautiful crystals, star or wheel shaped flakes, as a measure is full of grain. By ten o'clock I notice a very long, level stratum of cloud not very high in the S. E. sky (all the rest being clear), which I suspect to be the vapor from the sea. This lasts for several hours.

These are true mornings of creation, original and poetic days, not mere repetitions of the past. There is no lingering of yesterday's fogs, only such a mist as might have adorned the first morning.

I see some tree sparrows feeding on the fine grass seed above the snow. They are flitting along one at a time, commonly sunk in the snow, uttering occasionally a low, sweet