Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/91

Rh You had to fire small charges. I did not have a finger in once, for fear of blowing away all her works, and so ending the game. You had to substitute courtesy for sense and argument. It requires nothing less than a chivalric feeling to sustain a conversation with a lady. I carried her lecture for her in my pocket wrapped in her handkerchief. My pocket exhales cologne to this moment. The championess of woman's rights still asks you to be a ladies' man. I can't fire a salute for fear some of the guns may be shotted. I had to unshot all the guns in truth's battery, and fire powder and wadding only. Certainly the heart is only for rare occasions; the intellect affords the most unfailing entertainment. It would only do to let her feel the wind of the ball. I fear that to the last, women's lectures will demand mainly courtesy from men.

Denuded pines stand in the clearings with no old cloak to wrap about them, only the apexes of their cones entire, telling a pathetic story of the companions that clothed them. So stands a man. His clearing around him, he has no companions on the hills. The lonely traveler, looking up, wonders why he was left when his companions were taken.

Dec. 31, 1853. It is a remarkable sight, this snow-clad landscape, the fences and bushes half-buried, and the warm sun on it. The