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Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
The following alternate spellings were noted, but retained:
contemporaries and cotemporaries
Bramins and Brahmins
Shakspeare and Shakespeare
Sanskrit and Sanscrit
Catskills and Caatskills
THE WRITINGS OF
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
IN TWENTY VOLUMES
VOLUME VII
MANUSCRIPT EDITION
LIMITED TO SIX HUNDRED COPIES
NUMBER ----
[Illustration: _White Violets_ (_page 304_)]
[Illustration: _View from Annursnack Hill_]
THE WRITINGS OF
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
JOURNAL
EDITED BY BRADFORD TORREY
I
1837-1846
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
MDCCCCVI
COPYRIGHT 1906 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
_All rights reserved_
PUBLISHERS' NOTE
Aside from the use Thoreau himself made of his Journal in writing his
more formal works, the first extensive publication of the Journal
material began in 1881 with "Early Spring in Massachusetts." This
volume consisted of extracts covering the month of March and parts
of February and April, arranged according to the days of the month,
the entries for the successive years following one another under each
day. It was edited by Thoreau's friend Mr. H. G. O. Blake, to whom the
Journal was bequeathed by Miss Sophia Thoreau, who died in 1876. It
was succeeded in 1884 by a volume entitled "Summer," which in reality
covered only the early summer, and that, in turn, by "Winter" in 1887
and "Autumn" in 1892, all made by Mr. Blake on the same principle.
These volumes, from the first to the last, were received with delight
by the ever-increasing body of Thoreau's admirers, but they have served
to whet rather than satisfy the appetite of readers, and it has long
been evident that they ought not to stand alone as representing this
important phase of Thoreau's activity. The publishers therefore gladly
seized the opportunity afforded, when the Journal, on the death of
Mr. Blake, passed into the hands of Mr. E. H. Russell of Worcester,
who was desirous of giving it to the public in its entirety, and they
at once made arrangements with him to bring it out in extenso as soon
as the long labor of copying and comparing the manuscripts could be
completed. As editor the publishers have been so fortunate as to secure
Mr. Bradford Torrey, who is eminently qualified to consider Thoreau both
as a writer and as an observer of nature.
EDITOR'S PREFACE
Concerning this first practically complete printing of Thoreau's Journal
it seems proper to make the following explanations, in addition to those
contained in the Publishers' Note:—
1. It has been found necessary, if the Journal was to be of comfortable
use by ordinary readers, to punctuate it throughout. Otherwise each
reader would have been compelled to do the work for himself. A literal
reproduction, like the literal reproduction of Milton's minor poems,
for example, may some day be of interest to antiquaries and special
students; but such an edition could never be adapted, more than the
literal reproduction of Milton's manuscripts, to the needs of those who
read for pleasure and general profit.
2. Certain things have been omitted; _i. e._, incomplete sentences,
where parts of pages have been torn out by the writer; long quotations,
especially from Latin authors, entered without comment, as in a
commonplace-book; Maine woods matter—"Chesuncook" and "The Allegash and
East Branch"—already printed _in extenso_ in the volume entitled "The
Maine Woods;" a few long lists of plants, etc., recapitulating matter
contained in the preceding pages; the word _ultimo_, or _ult._, which
in hundreds of instances is written where the context makes it plain
that _instant_ was the word intended; a proper name here and there,
out of regard for the feelings of possible relatives or descendants
of the persons mentioned; guesses at the identification of particular
plants,—willows, goldenrods, and the like,—often accompanied by
tediously minute technical descriptions, the whole evidently meant as
mere memoranda for the writer's possible future guidance, and believed
to be of no interest now, even to the botanical reader.
3. In the case of passages which Thoreau had revised, mostly in pencil,
the editor has commonly printed the original form when the amended one
has been followed in already printed volumes. In other cases the amended
version has been given. Corrections of error have always been allowed to
stand, except that, where it is plain that the correction must have been
made at a date later than that of the original entry, the correction
has been printed as a footnote, without brackets.
4. The footnotes of the editor are always in brackets.
5. Where parts of the Journal have been printed in the author's books,
the editor and his associate, as far as their knowledge has gone, have
indicated the fact, citing first the present and then the Riverside
edition,—thus: "_Week_, p. 305; Riv. 379." References to "Channing"
are to "Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist," by William Ellery Channing, new
edition, edited by Mr. F. B. Sanborn. References to "Sanborn" are to
"Henry D. Thoreau," by F. B. Sanborn, in the American Men of Letters.
6. The earlier manuscript volumes of the Journal, as we now have them,
are evidently not the originals, but are made up of selections from
volumes that appear to have been destroyed by the author.
It remains only to add the editor's very hearty acknowledgements to
his associate, Mr. Francis H. Allen, who has overseen and verified the
copying of the manuscript, an onerous task, and in every way, by counsel
and labor, has facilitated, not to say made possible, the completion of
the work.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION xix
CHAPTER I. 1837 (ÆT. 20) 3
Opening of the Journal—Quotations from Goethe—Ducks
at Goose Pond—The Arrowhead—With and Against
the Stream—Discipline—Sunrise—Harmony—The World
from a Hilltop—Hoar Frost—Measure—Thorns—Jack
Frost—Druids—Immortality Post—The Saxons—Crystals
—Revolutions—Heroes—The Interesting Facts in History.