Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/339

Rh bare and smoking twigs. Then you sedulously feed a little flame until the fire takes hold of the solid wood and establishes itself. What an uncertain and negative thing is fire when it finds nothing to suit its appetite after the first flash. What a positive and inexpugnable thing, when it begins to devour the solid wood with a relish, burning with its own wind. You must think as long at last how to put it out as you did how to kindle it. Close up under some upright rock where you scorch the yellow sulphur lichens. Then cast on some creeping juniper wreaths or hemlock boughs to hear them crackle, realizing scripture.

Some little boys ten years old are as handsome skaters as I know. They sweep along with a graceful, floating motion, leaning now to this side, then to that, like a marsh hawk beating the bush.

I still recur in my mind to that skating tour of the 31st. I was thus, enabled to get a bird's-eye view of the river, to survey its length and breadth within a few hours, connect one part or shore with another in my mind, and realize what was going on upon it from end to end, to know the whole, as I ordinarily knew a few miles of it only. I connected the chestnut-tree house near the shore in Wayland with the chimney house in Billerica, Pelham's Pond with