Ink froze.

The coldest day that I remember recording, clear and bright, but very high wind, blowing the snow. Ink froze. 

Thoreau's Journal

23-Jan-1857

November twilights just begun

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 twilight's just begun! . . . Thoreau's Journal . . . 1st November 1858 . . .