Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/72

58 house is, in this sense, a sort of hospital. A night and a forenoon is as much confinement to those wards as I can stand. I am aware that I recover some sanity, which I had lost, almost the instant that I come abroad.

Dec. 29, 1858. Skate to Israel Rice's. I think more of skates than of the horse or locomotive as annihilators of distance, for while I am getting along with the speed of the horse, I have at the same time the satisfactions of the horse and his rider, and far more adventure and variety than if I were riding. We never cease to be surprised when we see how swiftly the skater glides along. Just compare him with one walking or running. The walker is but a snail in comparison, and the runner gives up the contest after a few rods. The skater can afford to follow all the windings of a stream, and yet soon leaves far behind and out of sight the walker who cuts across. Distance is hardly an obstacle to him. The skater has wings, talaria to his feet. Moreover, you have such perfect control of your feet that you can take advantage of the narrowest and most winding and sloping bridge of ice in order to pass between the button bushes and the open stream, or under a bridge on a narrow shelf where the walker can not go at all. You can glide securely within an inch of destruction on this, the most slippery of