Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/31

Rh diameter of three feet, arid their average diameter at three feet from the ground was about two inches These had not been cut because they stood on this small island which has little wood beside, and therefore had grown thus large.

The stems rise up in a winding and zigzag manner, one sometimes resting in the forks of its neighbor. Judging from those whose rings I have counted, the largest of those stems must be about sixty years old.

Dec. 25, 1840. The character of Washington has, after all, been undervalued, because not valued correctly. He was a proper Puritan hero. It is his erectness and persistency which attract me. A few simple deeds with a dignified silence for background, and that is all. He never fluctuated, nor lingered, nor stooped, nor swerved, but was nobly silent and assured. He was not the darling of the people, as no man of integrity can ever be, but was as much respected as loved. His instructions to his steward, his refusal of a crown, his interview with his officers at the termination of the war, his thoughts after his retirement, as expressed in a letter to La Fayette, his remarks to another correspondent on his being chosen president, his last words to Congress, and the unparalleled respect which his most distinguished contemporaries, as Fox and Erskine, expressed for him, are