For the last 5 years, I have read Henry David Thoreau’s journals almost every morning. What began as exploring one Winter journal evolved into a daily practice of centering, meditation, reflection, and — sometimes — sharing of thought.
Below is a scrolling collection of clips and quotes, plus a few favorites. Explore those I’ve shared in daily order via my highlighted stories on Instagram.
Captions for the below and beautiful articles/documents about Thoreau coming!
This entry read like an incantation, at a time when I needed one very much:
March 15, 1852. This afternoon I throw off my outside coat. A mild spring day. I must hie to the Great Meadows. The air is full of bluebirds; the ground almost entirely bare. The villagers are out in the sun, and every man is happy whose work takes him out doors. I go by Sleepy Hollow toward the Great Fields. I lean over a rail to hear what is in the air liquid with the bluebirds' warble. My life partakes of infinity. The air is as deep as our nature. Is the drawing in of this vital air attended with no more glorious results than I witness? The air is a velvet cushion against which I press my ear. I go forth to make new demands on life. I wish to begin this summer well, to do something in it worthy of it and of me, to transcend my daily routine and that of my townsmen, to have my immortality'now, in the quality of my daily life, to pay the greatest price, the greatest tax, of any man in Concord, and enjoy the most!! I will give all I am for my nobility. I will pay all my days for my success. I pray that the life of this spring and summer may ever lie fair in my memory. May I dare as I have never done. May I persevere as I have never done. May I purify myself anew as with fire and water, soul and body. May my melody not be wanting to the season. May I gird myself to be a hunter of the beautiful, that naught escape me. May I attain to a youth never attained. I am eager to report the glory of the universe. May I be worthy to do it, to have got through with regarding human values so as not to be distracted from regarding divine values. It is reasonable that a man should be something worthier at the end of the year than he was at the beginning.
A particularly favorite entry: Feb 3, 1841
Struggling to find perspective this morning, I found extra comfort rediscovering this entry.
By the 1950s, Thoreau is the surveyor, botanist, and post-Walden writer who regularly records fascinating tidbits and astounding reflections on nature. But his 1941 entries — before Walden, before his brother unexpectedly died of lockjaw from a tetanus infection — entries fill with philosophical posturing. He’s only 23 on Feb 3, 1841. I find many of these young entries a bit… unsteady. He's lecturing. Emoting. His boots are a bit too big, maybe? But he’s aware of his footing. He's intentional in recording where he is and where he wants to be. And he uses language around integrity, awareness, and personal growth similar to what we bandy around today. In that, I pause and connect with the timelessness of such personal struggle, and find comfort in my own present.
Click on any of these images to open a PDF of the full entry.
Thoreau’s entry Feb 3, 1841: “The present seems never to get its due. It is the least obvious, neither before nor behind, but within us. All the past plays into this moment, and we are what we are. My aspiration is one thing, my reflection, another; but, over all, myself and condition — is and does…”
Thoreau: “To men and nature I am each moment a finished tool, — a spade, a barrow, a pickaxe. This immense promise is no efficient quality. For all practical purposes I am done. We are constantly invited to be what we are, as to something worthy and noble. I never waited but for myself to come round; none ever detained me, but I lagged or staggered after myself…”
Thoreau: “I would meet the morning and evening on very sincere ground. When the sun introduces me to a new day, I silently say to myself, “Let us be faithful all round. We will do justice and receive it.” Something like this is the secrete charm of Nature’s demeanor towards us, strict conscientiousness, and disregard of us when we have ceased to have regard for ourselves…”