Henry David Thoreau, New Year's Eve 150 Years Ago

Over the nearly three years that I have been posting pieces at “One Poet’s Notes,” I have often spoken of my fondness for the magnificent journals of Henry David Thoreau, and I have wondered what kind of blog Thoreau might have produced had he the technology. As I do frequently during vacations, I returned to the journals during this holiday season, and I noticed an entry written exactly 150 years ago (December 31, 1859)—an excerpt of which addresses issues of time, age, health, contemplation, and poetry—perhaps an appropriate post for this New Year’s Eve:

“A man may be old and infirm. What, then, are the thoughts he thinks? what the life he lives? They and it are, like himself, infirm. But a man may be young, athletic, active, beautiful. Then, too, his thoughts will be like his person. They will wander in a living and beautiful world. If you are well, then how brave you are! How you hope! You are conversant with joy! A man thinks as well through his legs and arms as his brain. We exaggerate the importance of exclusiveness of the headquarters, Do you suppose they were a race of consumptives and dyspeptics who invented Grecian mythology and poetry? The poet’s words are, ‘You would almost say the body thought!’ I quite say it. I trust we have a good body then.”

Visitors are invited to read other posts at “One Poet’s Notes” concerning Thoreau: “Henry David Thoreau: Description of Walden Pond,” “Henry David Thoreau on the Nature of Poetry and the Poetry of Nature,” “Henry David Thoreau on Writing a Journal: 300 Posts,” and “Henry David Thoreau and the Blog.”