Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/432

418 There must be some narrowness in the soul that compels one to have secrets.

Feb. 21, 1855. A clear air, with a northwesterly March-like wind, as yesterday. What is the peculiarity in the air that both the in valid in his chamber and the traveler on the highway say, &quot;These are perfect March days&quot;? The wind is rapidly drying up the earth, and elevated sands already begin to look whitish. How much light there is in the sky and on the surface of the russet earth! It is reflected in a flood from all cleansed surfaces which rain and snow have washed, from the railroad rails, the mica on the rocks and the silvery latebræ of insects there, and I never saw the white houses of the village more brightly white. Now look for an early crop of arrowheads, for they will shine. When I have entered the wooded hollow on the east of the Deep Cut, it is novel and pleasant to hear the sound of the dry leaves and twigs, which have so long been damp and silent, crackling again under my feet, though there is still considerable snow along wall-sides, etc., and to see the holes and galleries recently made by the mice (?) in the fine withered grass of such places. I see the peculiar softened blue sky of spring over the tops of the pines, and when I am sheltered from the wind I feel the warmer sun of the season reflected from the withered