Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/158

144 evidently the principal cake of the aborigines, and was generally known and used by them all over this part of North America, as much as or more than plum cake by us. They enjoyed it ages before our ancestors heard of Indian meal or huckleberries. If you had traveled here one thousand years ago, it would probably have been offered you alike on the Connecticut, the Potomac, the Niagara, the Ottawa, and the Mississippi. It appears that the Indian used the dried berries commonly in the form of huckleberry cake, and also of huckleberry porridge or pudding. We have no national cake so universal and well known as this was in all parts of the country where corn and huckleberries grew.

Jan. 9, 1841. Each hearty stroke we deal with these outward hands slays an inward foe.

Jan. 9, 1842. One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors. To dwell long upon them is to add to the offense. Repentance and sorrow can only be displaced by something better, which is as free and original as if they had not been. Not to grieve long for any action, but to go immediately and do freshly and otherwise, subtracts so much from the wrong; else we may make the delay of repentance the punishment of the sin. A great soul will not consider its sins as its own, but be more absorbed in the prospect of