WINTER PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE WOODS AND 



FIELDS OF MASSACHUSETTS WITH QUOTATIONS 



SELECTED FROM THOREAU'S JOURNAL 



ON WINTER' IN MASSACHUSETTS 



BY MARY CYNTHIA DICKERSON 



<v. 



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TRACK OF A DEER MOUSE IN THE WOODS 



"A single track stretching away ... is very handsome, like a chain of a new pattern. . . . There is a 

 Btill life in America that is little observed or dreamed of. . . . How snug they are somewhere under the snow 

 now, not to be thought of, if it were not for these pretty tracks. For a week, or fortnight even, of pretty still 

 weather, the tracks will remain to tell of the nocturnal adventures of a tiny mouse. ... So it was so many thou- 

 sands of years before Gutenberg invented printing with hU types, and so it will be so many thousands of years 

 after his types are forgotten perchance. The deer mouse will be printing in the snow ... to be read 

 by a new race of men. (Jan. 15) ... The winter was not given to us for no purpose. . . . Beeau.se the 

 fruits of the eartli are already ripe, we are not to suppose there is no fruit left for winter to ripen. . . . 

 Then is the great harvest of the year, the harvest of thought. All previous harvests are stubble to this, mere 

 fodder and green crop. (Jan. 30) ... A fact must be the vehicle of some humanity in order to interest us. 

 Otherwise it is like giving a man a stone when he asks for bread. ... It must be warm, incarnated, have 

 been breathed on at lea^t. A man has not seen a thing who has not felt it." (Feb. 23) — Thoreau 



^Quotations used throui/h courtesy of Houyhton, Mifflin Co. 



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