Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/410

396 Feb. 16, 1841. For how slight an accident shall two noble souls wait to bring them together.

Feb. 16, 1852. It is interesting to meet an ox with handsomely spreading horns. There is a great variety of sizes and forms, though one horn commonly matches the other. I am willing to turn out for those that spread their branches wide. Large and spreading horns, I fancy, indicate a certain vegetable force and naturalization in the wearer; they soften and ease off the distinction between the animal and the vegetable, the unhorned animals and the trees. The deer that run in the woods, as the moose, for instance, carry perfect trees on their heads. The French call them &quot;bois.&quot; No wonder there are fables of centaurs and the like. No wonder there is a story of a hunter who when his bullets failed fired cherry stones into the heads of his game and so trees sprouted out of them, and the hunter refreshed himself with the cherries. It is a perfect piece of mythology which belongs to these days. Oxen, which are deanimalized, to some extent, approach nearer to the vegetable, perchance, than bulls and cows, and hence their bulky bodies, and large and spreading horns. Nothing more natural than that a deer should appear with a tree growing out of his head.

Feb. 16, 1854. By this time in the winter I