Thoreau T-Shirt Givaway: Deadline July 12

We're giving away a handsome baseball t-shirt, courtesy of Novel-T, and all you have to do is post your favorite excerpt from Henry David Thoreau's Journal here before July 12th (HDT's birthday).

Please cite the date of the entry. The passage need not appear in the NYRB Classics edition of The Journal, but it must be from that work. A winner will be chosen at random. Sorry international readers, this contest is only open to people with US or Canadian mailing addresses.

And please take a moment to browse around the Novel-T shop, they've recently released a second roster of literary tops and they donate $1 of every purchase to 826 NYC, 826NYC, "a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills."

Comments

[Jim G.]

11-16-50. What shall we do with a man who is afraid of the woods, their solitude and darkness? What salvation is there for him? God is silent and mysterious.

[Geoff Wisner]

As the afternoons grow shorter, and the early evening drives us home to complete our chores, we are reminded of the shortness of life, and become more pensive, at least in the twilight of the year. We are prompted to make haste and finish our work before the night comes. I leaned over a rail in the twilight on the Walden road, waited for the evening mail to be distributed, when such thoughts visited me. I seemed to recognize the November evening as a familiar thing come round again, and yet I could hardly tell whether I had ever known it or only divined it. The November twilights just begun! It appeared like part of a panorama at which I sat spectator, a part with which I was perfectly familiar just coming into view, and I foresaw how it would look and roll along, and prepared to be pleased. -- November 1, 1858

[Ella]

March 27, 1855

6:30 A. M. - To Island. The ducks sleep these nights in the shallowest water which does not freeze, and there may be found early in the morning. I think that they prefer that part of the shore which is permanently covered. Snow last evening, about one inch deep, and now it [is] fair and somewhat warmer. Again I see the tracks of rabbits, squirrels, etc. It would be a good time this forenoon to examine the tracks of woodchucks and see what they are about.

[Justin]

"It is the love of virtue makes us young ever - That is the fountain of youth"

July 16, 1851

[Ali]

Perfect sincerity and transparency make a great part of beauty,as in dewdrops, lakes, and diamonds.
- June 20, 1840

[Tyler]

"Man is the artificer of his own happiness."
-Journal, January 21, 1838

[Ian Wolcott]

"The question is not what you look at, but what you see."

August 5, 1851

[Mark Nigara]

August 30, 1856

It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves.

[Matthew]

6-23-52, how he uses his hat for a botany box, and how it's better when after a bath.

[Jessica Moon]

There is no remedy for love but to love more.
Henry David Thoreau, Journal, July 25, 1839