Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/416

402 make a channel for a short distance. I suspect that the mice sometimes build their nests in bushes from the foundation, for where I found two mice nests last fall, I find one begun with a very few twigs and some moss, close by where the others were, at the same height, and also on Prinos bushes, plainly the work of mice wholly.

Feb. 18, 1838. I had not been out long to-day when it seemed that a new spring was already born; not quite weaned, it is true, but verily entered upon existence. Nature struck up &quot;the same old song in the grass,&quot; despite eighteen inches of snow.

Feb. 18, 1840. All romance is grounded on friendship. What is this rural, this pastoral, this poetic life but its invention? Does not the moon shine for Endymion? Smooth pastures and mild airs are for some Coridon and Phyllis. Paradise belongs to Adam and Eve. Plato's Republic is governed by Platonic love.

Feb. 18, 1841. My recent growth does not appear in any visible new talent; but its deed will enter into my gaze when I look into the sky or vacancy. It will help me to consider ferns and everlasting.

Man is like a tree which is limited to no age, but grows as long as it has its root in the ground. We have only to live in the alburnum, and not in the old wood.