Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/380

366 some Sir Joseph Banks, snatches at a fact or two in behalf of science, as he goes, just as a panther in his leap will take off a man's sleeve, and land twenty feet beyond him, when traveling down hill.

Feb. 10, 1860. The river where open is very black, as usual, when the waves run high, for each wave casts a shadow. Theophrastus notices that the roughened water is black, and says it is because fewer rays fall on it, and the light is dissipated.

I do not know of any more exhilarating walking than up or down a broad field of smooth ice like this in a cold, glittering, winter day, when your rubbers give you a firm hold on the ice.

Feb. 11, 1841. True help, for the most part, implies a greatness in him who is to be helped as well as in the helper. It takes a god to be helped even. A great person, though unconsciously, will constantly give you great opportunities to serve him, but a mean one will quite preclude all active benevolence. It needs but simply and greatly to want it for once, that all true men may contend who shall be foremost to render aid. My neighbor's state must pray to heaven so devoutly, yet disinterestedly, as he never prayed in words, before my ears can hear. It must ask divinely. But men so cobble and botch their request that you must stoop as low