Journal 01, 1837-1846
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text · 1 illegible passages, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~130,000 words · 606 passages
Cite this work
- APAHenry David Thoreau. (n.d.). Journal 01, 1837-1846. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/thoreau/journal-01-1837-1846
- MLAHenry David Thoreau. "Journal 01, 1837-1846." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/thoreau/journal-01-1837-1846.
- ChicagoHenry David Thoreau. Journal 01, 1837-1846. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/thoreau/journal-01-1837-1846.
What it is about
The first volume of Thoreau's journal: from the age of twenty to the Walden years.
Context and history
Thoreau's journal is his real work, and very few people know it. He kept it for twenty-four years, from the age of twenty until nearly his death, and it runs to some two million words: more than ten times everything he published in his lifetime. It is not an intimate diary nor a notebook of jottings: it is a daily record of what he saw — what day each plant flowered, when the pond froze, which bird returned and when — mixed with philosophical thinking and with pages of prose among the best he wrote. His books come out of it; this is the material of which 'Walden' is a distillation. The botanical and ice records he kept for decades are being used today to measure climate change, which he could not have foreseen. NOTE: the catalogue holds two volumes of the journal, not the whole of it.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
[The small manuscript volume bearing on its first fly-leaf the legend printed on the preceding page is evidently a transcript of unused passages in the early journals, and this is also the case with several succeeding small volumes. See note on page 342. The following mottoes occupy the next three pages of the book.] "By all means use sometimes to be alone. Salute thyself: see what thy soul doth wear. Dare to look in thy chest; for 'tis thine own: And tumble up and down what thou find'st there. Who cannot rest till he good fellows find, He breaks up house, turns out of doors his mind." HERBERT, _The Church Porch_. "Friends and companions, get you gone! 'Tis my desire to be alone; Ne'er well, but when my thoughts and I _Do domineer in privacy_." BURTON, _Anatomy of Melancholy_. "Two Paradises are in one, To live in Paradise alone." MARVELL, _The Garden_. THE JOURNAL OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU I (ÆT. 20) _Oct 22._ "What are you doing now?" he asked. "Do you keep a journal?" So I make my first entry to-day. SOLITUDE To be alone I find it necessary to escape the present,—I avoid myself. How could I be alone in the Roman emperor's chamber of mirrors? I seek a garret. The spiders must not be disturbed, nor the floor swept, nor the lumber arranged. The Germans say, "Es ist alles wahr wodurch du besser wirst." THE MOULD OUR DEEDS LEAVE _Oct. 24._ Every part of nature teaches that the passing away of one life is the making room for another. The oak dies down to the ground, leaving within its rind a rich virgin mould, which will impart a vigorous life to an infant forest. The pine leaves a sandy and sterile soil, the harder woods a strong and fruitful mould. So this constant abrasion and decay makes the soil of my future growth. As I live now s