# The Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906)/Volume 7

Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin and Company
​CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
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.
CHAPTER II. 1838 (Æt 20-21) 25
The Saxons—Hoar Frost—Zeno, the Stoic—Small Talk—Old Books—Greece—Goethe—Homer—A Sunday Scene—What to Do—Composition—Scraps from a Lecture on Society—The Indian Axe—Friendship—Conversation—The Bluebirds—Journey to Maine—May Morning—Walden—Cliffs—Heroism—Divine Service—The Sabbath Bell—Holy War—The Loss of a Tooth—Deformity—Crickets—Sphere Music—Alma Natura—Compensation—My Boots—Speculation—Byron—Fair Haven—Scraps from an Essay on Sound and Silence—Anacreon's Ode to the Cicada—Anacreontics.
CHAPTER III. 1839 (Æt 21-22) 71
The Thaw—The Dream Valley—Love—The Evening Wind—The Peal of the Bells—The Shrike—Morning—The Teamster—Fat Pine for Spearing—Terra Firma in Society—The Kingdoms of the Earth—The Form of Strength—My Attic—Sympathy—Annursnack—The Assabet—The Breeze's Invitation—The Week on the Concord and Merrimack—The Walk to the White Mountains—The Wise Rest ​—Æschylus —Despondency—Linnæus—Bravery—Noon—Scraps from a Chapter on Bravery—Friendship—Crickets.
CHAPTER IV. 1840 (Æt. 22-23) 110
The Fisher's Son—Friends—Poetry—A Tame Life—Æschylus—Truth—Duty—Beauty lives by Rhymes—Fishes—Muskrats—The Freshet—Important Events—Ornithology—Inward Poverty—Wild Ducks—The World as a Theatre for Action—Rain—Farewell, Etiquette!—War—The Beginning of the Voyage on the Concord and Merrimack—The Boat—End of the Journal of 546 Pages—Reflections—A Sonnet to Profane Swearing—Down the Concord—The Landscape through a Tumbler—Likeness and Difference—A Drum in the Night—The Inspired Body—Dullness—The Yankee Answer—Greek Philosophers—Rhythm and Harmony—Evening—Paradox—Sailing—A Stately March—Effort the Prerogative of Virtue—The True Poem—Sunrise—A Muster—The Great Ball—Fishing and Sporting—The Golden Mean—Grecian History—The Eye—True Art—Necessity—Dress—Bravery.
CHAPTER V. 1841 (Æt. 23-24) 173
Routine—Stillness—Seriousness cutting Capers—Wealth is Power—A Dream—Suspicion—Resistance—Rough Usage—Trust in God—Journalizing—The Snow on the Pitch Pines—A Team coming out of the Woods—The Tracks of a Fox—Chasing a Fox—End of the Journal of 396 Pages—Repetition—Weight—Sincerity—The Etiquette of Keeping One's Seat—The Human Voice—Swiss Singers—Costume—The Value of the Recess in a Public Entertainment—Assisting Nature—Prophecy—The Geniality of Cold—Recognition of Greatness—Victory and Defeat—The Lover's Court—The Measure of Time—My Journal—The Industriousness of Vice—Overpraising—Silence—True Modesty—The Helper and the Helped—A Poor Farm—Bronchitis—A Good Book—The Leisure of Society and Nature—The Grandeur of the Storm—Music—Friends— ​The Care of the Body—The Best Medicine—Life Diversion and Amusement—Composition—The Sound of a Horn—Boarding—Thoroughfares of Vice—Reproof—An Interpretation of Emerson's "Sphinx"—Homeliness in Books—Aubrey—The Loneliness of our Life—Seriousness—Magnanimity—Moral Reflections in a Work on Agriculture—Tea-Kettle and Cow-Bell—Plowing—Eclipsing Napoleon's Career—The True Reformer—Seeing—Friendship's Steadfastness—The Gods side with no Man—A Profane Expression—The Silence of the Woods—The Civilization of the Woods—The Oppression of the House—Shoulders—Approaching a Great Nature—The Use of a Cane—Wachusett—Navigation—The Pine—Westward Ho!—The Echo of the Sabbath Bell heard in the Woods—Books—The Laws of Menu—A Vermonter—The Moon through a Telescope—Immemorial Custom—An Unchangeable Morning Light—The Book of the Hindoos—History and Biography—The Form of a Mountain—Art and Nature—The Strains of a Flute—Earnestness—Afternoon—Various Sounds of the Crickets—The Work of Genius—The Idea of Man in the Hindoo Scripture—The Hindoo's Conception of Creation—Taste and Poetry—The Austerity of the Hindoos—The Only Obligation—Seines in the River—Moonlight the Best Restorer of Antiquity—A Poem to be called "Concord"—A Boat floating amid Reflections—Poetry—Directions for setting out Peach Trees and Grape-Vines—Experience at the Harvard Library—The English Poets—Saxon Poetry—Character—The Inward Morning—Music and Character—The Form of the Wind—Ancient Scotch Poetry—My Redeeming Qualities—The Smoke from an Invisible Farmhouse—Latent Eloquence—Ghosts—Sacred Forests—Thoughts of a Life at Walden—The Rich Man—The Trade of Life—True Greatness—Chaucer—Snowflakes—Books of Natural History.
CHAPTER VI. 1842 (Æt. 24-25) 308
Good Courage—The Church the Hospital for Men's Souls—Chaucer—Popped Corn—The Literary Style of the ​xiv CONTENTS boring Man—Sir Walter Raleigh—Calmness—The Perfume of the Earth—Unhealthiness of Morality—Music from a Music-Box—Raleigh's Faults—Man's Puny Fences—The Death of Friends—Chaucer the Poet of Gardens—Character and Genius—The History of Music—Chaucer's Way of Speaking of God—My Life—Dying a Transient Phenomenon—The Memory of Departed Friends—The Game of Love—A New Day—The Eye—Originality of Nature—Raleigh—The Most Attractive Sentences—Law and the Right—An Old Schoolmate—Carlyle's Writing—The Tracks of the Indian—The Stars and Man—Friendship—The Roominess of Nature—The Exuberance of Plain Speech—Action and Reflection—Common Sense in Very Old Books—Thoughts like Mountains—Insufficiency of Wisdom without Love—I am Time and the World—My Errand to Mankind—Two Little Hawks and a Great One—Flow in Books—Nature's Leniency toward the Vicious—Intercourse—A Fish Hawk—Poetry—Lydgate's "Story of Thebes"—Humor—Man's Destiny—The Economy of Nature.
CHAPTER VII. 1845-1846 (Æt. 27-29) 361
The Beginning of the Life at Walden—A House in the Catskills—The Vital Facts of Life—Relics of the Indians—Auxiliaries and Enemies of the Bean-Field—Therien, the Canadian Woodchopper—A Visit from Railroad Men—Life of Primitive Man—Wild Mice—The Written and the Spoken Language—The Interest and Importance of the Classics—The Fragrance of an Apple—The Race of Man—The Mansions of the Air—Echo—"The Crescent and the Cross"—Carnac—The Heroic Books—Screech Owls—Bullfrogs—Nature and Art—Childhood Memories of Walden Pond—Truth—John Field, a Shiftless Irishman, and his Family—A Hard and Emphatic Life—Language—Plastering the House—Primitive Houses—The Cost of a House—The Romans and Nature—Jehovah and Jupiter—Some Greek Myths—Difficulty of Getting a Living and Keeping out of Debt—The Fox as an Imperfect Man—Reading suggested by Hallam's History of Literature—The Necessaries of Life— ​A Dog Lost—Therien and the Chickadees—The Evening Robin—The Earth as a Garden—A Flock of Geese.
CHAPTER VIII. 1845-1847 (Æt. 27-30) 403
The Hero—At Midnight's Hour—Wordsworth—Dying Young—The Present Time—Exaggeration—Carlyle's Discovery that he was not a Jackass—Longevity—Life and Death of Hugh Quoil, a Waterloo Soldier—Quoil's Deserted House—Old Clothes—Former Inhabitants of the Walden Woods—The Loon on Walden Pond—Ducks and Geese—The Pack of Hounds—An Unsuccessful Village—Concord Games—Animal Neighbors—Carlyle's Use of the Printer's Art—Northern Slavery—Brister and Zilpha—Making Bread—Emerson and Alcott—A Rabbit—A Town Officer.
CHAPTER IX. 1837-1847 (Æt 20-30) 438
Friends—The Loading and Launching of the Boat—Gracefulness—On the Merrimack—The Era of the Indian—Fate of the Indian—Criticism's Apology—Life—Suspicion—The Purple Finch—Gower's Poetry—Light—Indian Implements—Success in Proportion to Average Ability—Kindness—Fog—The Attitude of Quarles and his Contemporaries towards Nature—The Mystery of Life—Three-o'clock-in-the-Morning Courage—A Recent Book—Museums—Some Old English Poets—Our Kindred—Friendship—Skating after a Fox—To a Marsh Hawk in the Spring—The Gardener—A Fisherman's Account at the Store—Finny Contemporaries—Marlowe—Thaw—Modern Nymphs—Living by Self-Defense—The Survival of the Birds—The Slaughter-House—The Tragedy of the Muskrat—Carlyle not to be Studied—The Subject of the Lecture—The Character of our Life—The Sovereignty of the Mind—Coöperation. ​ILLUSTRATIONS WHITE VIOLETS, Carbon photograph (page 304) Frontispiece VIEW FROM ANNURSNACK HILL Colored plate HENRY DAVID THOREAU IN 1854, FROM THE ROWSE CRAYON IN THE CONCORD PUB LIC LIBRARY 1 FROST CRYSTALS AT THE MOUTH OF A HOLE IN A BANK 22 VIEW FROM ANNURSNACK HILL 84 TREES REFLECTED IN THE RIVER 140 WINTER LANDSCAPE FROM FAIRHAVEN HILL 296