Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/208

194 Every form and creature is thus shadowed forth in vapor in the heavens.

It appears to me that at a very early age the mind of man, perhaps at the same time with his body, ceases to be elastic. His intellectual power becomes something defined and limited. He does not think expansively, as he was wont to stretch himself in his growing days. What was flexible sap hardens into heart wood, and there is no further change. In the season of youth man seems to me capable of intellectual effort and performance which surpass all rules and bounds as the youth lays out his whole strength without fear or prudence, and does not feel his limits. It is the transition from poetry to prose. The young man can run and leap, he has not learned exactly how far. The grown man does not exceed his daily labor. He has no strength to waste.

Jan. 17, 1853. Cato, prescribing a medicamentum for oxen, says, &quot;When you see a snake's slough, take it and lay it up, that you may not have to seek it when it is wanted.&quot; This was mixed with bread, corn, etc.

He tells how to make bread and different kinds of cakes, viz., a libum, a placenta, a spira (so called because twisted like a rope, perhaps like doughnuts), scriblita (because ornamented with characters like writing), globi (globes),