Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/389

Rh that they had seemed absolutely flat and level before. Think of this kind of mosaic and tessellation for your floor, composed of crystals variously set, made up of surfaces not absolutely level, though level to the touch of the feet and to the noonday eye, but just enough inclined to reflect the colors of the rainbow when the sun gets low.

Feb. 12, 1857. 7.30 The caterpillar which I placed last night on the snow beneath the thermometer is frozen stiff again, this time not being curled up, the temperature being —6° now. Yet being placed on the mantel-piece, it thaws and begins to crawl in five or ten minutes, before the rear part of its body is limber. Perhaps they were revived last week when the thermometer stood at 52° and 53°.

Feb. 12, 1860. 2 22°. Walk up river to Fair Haven Pond. Clear and windy. In this cold, clear, rough air from the N. W. we walk amid what simple surroundings, surrounded by our thoughts or imaginary objects. Above me is a cloudless blue sky, beneath is the sky blue, i. e., sky-reflecting ice, with patches of snow scattered over it like mackerel clouds. At a distance in several directions I see the tawny earth streaked or spotted with white, where the bank, or hills and fields appear, or the green-black, evergreen forests, or the brown,