Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/239

Rh not in his will to invite me. We should deal with the real mood of our friends. I visited my friend constantly for many years, and he postponed our friendship to trivial engagements, so that I saw him not at all. When in after years he had leisure to meet me, I did not find myself invited to go to him.

Jan. 22, 1854. Once or twice of late I have seen the mother-of-pearl tints and rainbow flecks in the western sky. The usual time is when the air is clear and pretty cool, about an hour before sunset. Yesterday I saw a very permanent specimen, like a long knife handle of mother-of-pearl, very pale, with an interior blue, and rosaceous tinges. I think the summer sky never exhibits this so finely.

No second snow-storm in the winter can be so fair and interesting as the first.

Jan. 22, 1855. Heavy rain in the night and half of to-day, with very high wind from the southward washing off the snow, and filling the road with water. It is very exciting to see where was so lately only ice and snow dark, wavy lakes dashing in furious torrents through the commonly dry channels under the cause ways, to hear only the rush and roar of waters, and look down on mad billows where in summer are commonly only dry pebbles. The muskrats driven out of their holes by the water are