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 Henry David Thoreau Poster  Sweet Chestnut, Blossom & Fruit  High Mountain Lake  Walking  Walden  The Wisdom of Thoreau Kindle Edition  Summer From the Journal of Henry David Thoreau  Thoreau and the Art of Life Reflections on Nature and the Mystery of Existence  Walden Then & Now An Alphabetical Tour of Henry Thoreau's Pond  Walden  Walden, or Life in the Woods Poster  Kindle 6" Display, U.S. & International Wireless |
Picking
chestnuts on Pine Hill. A rather cold and wind, somewhat wintry
afternoon, the heavens overcast. The clouds have lifted in the
northwest, and I see the mountains in sunshine, all the more attractive
from the cold I feel here, with a tinge of purple on them, a cold but
memorable and glorious outline. This is an advantage of mountains in
the horizon: they show you fair weather from the midst of foul. The
small red Solomon's-seal berries spot the ground here and there amid
the dry leaves. The witch-hazel is bare of all but flowers. Many a man, when I tell him that I have been on to a mountain, asks if I took a glass with me. No doubt, I could have seen further with a glass, and particular objects more distinctly -- could have counted more meeting-houses; but this has nothing to do with the peculiar beauty and grandeur of the view which an elevated position affords. It was not to see a few particular objects, as if they were near at hand, as I had been accustomed to see them, that I ascended the mountain, but to see an infinite variety far and near in their relation to each other, thus reduced to a single picture. The facts of science, in comparison with poetry, are wont to be as vulgar as looking from the mountain with a telescope. It is a counting of meeting-houses . At the public house, the mountain-house, they keep a glass to let, and think the journey to the mountain-top is lost, that you have got but half the view, if you have not taken a glass with you. October 20, 1852 Other Entries October 23-28 October 29 November 1 November 6 November 10 November 11 November 14 November 20 November 27 December 6 December 16 January 7 February 21 February 25 March 1 March 7 March 11 March 19 April 3 May 1 May 3 May 9 May 10 May 19 May 20 May 24 May 26 May 27 May 29 May 31 June 3 June 9 June 10 June 11 June 14 June 16 July 4 July 15 August 13 August 15 August 16 August 18 August 20 August 22 August 23 September 1 September 26 September 29 |