Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/434

420 the mantle of winter. The snow on the mountains has, in this case, a singular smooth and crusty appearance, and by contrast you see even single evergreens rising here and there above it; and where a promontory casts a shadow along the mountain side, I saw what looked like a large lake of misty, bluish water on the side of the farther Peterboro mountain, its edges or shore very distinctly defined. This I concluded was the shadow of another part of the mountain, and it suggested that in like manner what on the surface of the moon is taken for water may be shadows.

Feb. 21, 1860. It was their admiration of nature that made the ancients attribute those magnanimous qualities, which are surely to be found in man, to the lion, as her masterpiece. It is only by a readiness or preparedness to see more than appears in a creature that we can appreciate what is manifest.

Feb. 21, 1861. This plucking and stripping of a pine cone is a business which he [the squirrel] and his family understand perfectly. He does not prick his fingers, nor pitch his whiskers, nor gnaw the solid cone any more than he needs to. Having sheared off the twigs and needles that may be in his way (for, like a skillful wood-chopper, he first secures room and verge enough), he neatly cuts off the stout stem