Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/181

Rh As I stand by the hemlocks, I am greeted by the lively and unusually prolonged tche-de-de de-de-de of a little flock of chickadees. The snow has ceased falling, the sun comes out, and it is warm and still, and this flock of chickadees, feeling the influences of this genial season, have begun to flit amid the snow-covered fans of the hemlocks, jarring down the snow, for there are hardly bare twigs enough for them to rest on, or they plume themselves in some sunny recess on the sunny side of the tree, only pausing to utter their tche-de-de-de.

Jan. 13, 1841. We should offer up our perfect thoughts to the gods daily. Our writing should be hymns and psalms. Who keeps a journal is purveyor to the gods. There are two sides to every sentence. The one is contiguous to me, but the other faces the gods, and no man ever fronted it. When I utter a thought, I launch a vessel which never sails in my harbor more, but goes sheer off into the deep. Consequently it demands a godlike in sight, a fronting view, to read what was greatly written.

Jan. 13, 1852. told me this afternoon of a white pine in Carlisle which the owner was offered thirty dollars for and refused. He had bought the lot for the sake of the tree which he left standing.