Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/354

340 presentiment that I should find the ledum in Concord. It is a remarkable fact that in the case of the most interesting plants which I have discovered in this vicinity, I have anticipated finding them perhaps a year before the discovery.

Feb. 5, 1841. Music is the crystallization of sound. There is something in the effect of a harmonious voice upon the disposition of its neighborhood analogous to the law of crystals. It centralizes itself, and sounds like the published law of things. If the law of the universe were to be audibly promulgated, no mortal law giver would suspect it, for it would be a finer melody than his ears ever attended to. It would be sphere music.

In all emergencies there is always one step which you may take on firm ground, where gravity will assure your footing. So you hold a draft on Fate payable at sight.

Feb. 5, 1852. Men do believe in symbols yet and can understand some. When Sir Francis Head left his government in Upper Canada, and the usual farewell had been said, as the vessel moved off, he, standing on the deck, pointed, for all reply, to the British flag floating over his head, and a shriek rather than a cheer went up from the crowd on the piers who had observed his gesture.