Concord Writers on White Pond
Henry David Thoreau
"White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth, Lakes of Light. If they were permanently congealed…like precious stones [they would] adorn the heads of emperors; but being liquid, and ample…we disregard them...
"Since the wood-cutters, and the railroad, and I myself have profaned Walden, perhaps the most attractive, if not the most beautiful, of all our lakes, the gem of the woods, is White Pond…[Its name may be] derived from the remarkable purity of its waters or the color of its sands. [White Pond is a] twin of Walden. They are so much alike that you would say they must be connected under ground. It has the same stony shore, and its waters are of the same hue…[L]ooking down through the woods on some of its bays which are not so deep but that the reflection from the bottom tinges them, its waters are of a misty bluish-green…
"Successive nations perchance have drank at, admired, and fathomed it…and still its water is green and pellucid as ever...Yet perchance the first who came to this well have left some trace of their footsteps."
from Walden Chapter 9: Ponds
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Writing about a walk with Ellery Channing on Oct. 28, 1848
"We went to White Pond, a pretty little Indian bath, lonely now as Walden once was; we could almost see the sachem in his canoe in a shadowy cove...[M]aking the circuit of the lake on the shore, we [saw] marvelous reflections of the colored woods in the water, of such singular beauty and novelty that they held us fast to the spot almost to the going down of the sun. The water was very slightly rippled, which took the proper character from the pines, birches and few oaks which composed the grove; and the sub-marine wood seemed all made of Lombardy poplar with such delicious green, stained by gleams of mahogany from the oaks and streaks of white from the birches, every moment growing more excellent; it was the world seen through a prism…"
From Emerson in Concord: A Memoir
"White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth, Lakes of Light. If they were permanently congealed…like precious stones [they would] adorn the heads of emperors; but being liquid, and ample…we disregard them...
"Since the wood-cutters, and the railroad, and I myself have profaned Walden, perhaps the most attractive, if not the most beautiful, of all our lakes, the gem of the woods, is White Pond…[Its name may be] derived from the remarkable purity of its waters or the color of its sands. [White Pond is a] twin of Walden. They are so much alike that you would say they must be connected under ground. It has the same stony shore, and its waters are of the same hue…[L]ooking down through the woods on some of its bays which are not so deep but that the reflection from the bottom tinges them, its waters are of a misty bluish-green…
"Successive nations perchance have drank at, admired, and fathomed it…and still its water is green and pellucid as ever...Yet perchance the first who came to this well have left some trace of their footsteps."
from Walden Chapter 9: Ponds
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Writing about a walk with Ellery Channing on Oct. 28, 1848
"We went to White Pond, a pretty little Indian bath, lonely now as Walden once was; we could almost see the sachem in his canoe in a shadowy cove...[M]aking the circuit of the lake on the shore, we [saw] marvelous reflections of the colored woods in the water, of such singular beauty and novelty that they held us fast to the spot almost to the going down of the sun. The water was very slightly rippled, which took the proper character from the pines, birches and few oaks which composed the grove; and the sub-marine wood seemed all made of Lombardy poplar with such delicious green, stained by gleams of mahogany from the oaks and streaks of white from the birches, every moment growing more excellent; it was the world seen through a prism…"
From Emerson in Concord: A Memoir