Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/214

200 Hardly could the New England farmer drive to market under these trees without feeling that his sense of beauty was addressed. A farmer told me in all sincerity that, having occasion to go into Walden woods in his sleigh, he thought he never saw anything so beautiful in all his life, and if there had been men there who knew how to write about it, it would have been a great occasion for them. Many times I thought that if the particular tree, commonly an elm, under which I was walking or riding were the only one like it in the country, it would be worth a journey across the continent to see it. Indeed, I have no doubt that such journeys would be undertaken on hearing a true account of it. But instead of being confined to a single tree, this wonder was as cheap and common as the air itself. Every man's wood-lot was a miracle and surprise to him, and for those who could not go far there were the trees in the street and the weeds in the yard. The weeping willow with its thickened twigs seemed more precise and regularly curved than ever, and was as still as if carved from alabaster.

It was remarkable that when the fog was a little thinner, so that you could see the pine woods a mile or more off, they were a distinct dark blue.—If any tree is set and stiff, it was now more stiff; if any airy and graceful, it was