Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/22

8, and the ground covered with snow, I noticed a solitary robin.

In the side of the high bank by the leaning hemlock there were some curious crystallizations. Wherever the water or other cause had formed a hole in the bank, its throat and outer edge, like the entrance to a citadel of the olden time, bristled with a glistening ice armor. In one place you might see minute ostrich feathers which seemed the waving plumes of the warriors filing into the fortress, in another, the glancing fan-shaped banners of the Liliputian host, and in another, the needle-shaped particles collected into bundles resembling the plumes of the pine, might pass for a phalanx of spears. The whole hill was like an immense quartz rock with minute crystals sparkling from innumerable crannies.

Dec. 23, 1841. The best man's spirit makes a fearful sprite to haunt his tomb. The ghost of a priest is no better than that of a highwayman. It is pleasant to hear of one who has blest whole regions after his death by having frequented them while alive, who has profaned or tabooed no place by being buried in it. It adds not a little to the fame of Little John that his grave was long &quot;celebrous for the yielding of excellent whetstones.&quot;

A forest is in all mythologies a sacred place;