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Cornell University Library 
 PS 3042.B63 
 
 Early u spring in Massachusetts.From the J 
 3 1924 022 192 383 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022192383 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 FROM THE JOURNAL OF 
 
 HENRY DfTHOREAU, 
 
 AUTHOR OP " X WEEK ON THE COHOORD AMD JUBBIKAOE RTVEXS," 
 "WAL»EK," WO 
 
 " The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation la uninter- 
 rupted ; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside 
 of the earth everywhere " — Walden, p. 92 
 
 BOSTON: 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 
 QLie Riuercitie Bttee, Camfrftffe. 
 
 ^ 6 
 
■MIvr.-i'OfTY. 
 
 a p : jii »o, t » i I 
 
 fi^r- 
 
 Copyright, 1881, 
 By HOUGHTON, MIPFUN A 00. 
 
 Alt rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge: 
 Stereotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton A Oik 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Henry David Thobeatt was born in Con- 
 cord, Massachusetts, July 12, 1817, and died 
 there May 6, 1862. Most of his life was spent 
 in that town, and most of the localities referred 
 to in this volume are to be found there. His 
 Journal, from which the following selections 
 were made, was bequeathed to* me by his sister 
 Sophia, who died October 7, 1876, at Bangor, 
 Maine. Before it came into my possession I 
 had been in the habit of borrowing volumes of 
 it from time to time, and thus continuing an 
 intercourse with its author which I had en- 
 joyed, through occasional visits and correspond- 
 ence, for many years before his death, and 
 which I regard as perhaps the highest privilege 
 of my life. 
 
 In reading the Journal for my own satisfac- 
 tion, I had sometimes been wont to attend each 
 day to what had been written on the same day 
 of the month in some other year ; desiring 
 thus to be led to notice, in my walks, the 
 phenomena which Thoreau noticed, so to be 
 
iv INTBODTJCTOBY. 
 
 brought nearer to the -writer by observing the 
 Bame sights, sounds, etc., and if possible have 
 my love of nature quickened by him. This 
 habit suggested the arrangement of dates in 
 the following pages, viz., the bringing together 
 of passages under the same day of. the month 
 in different years. In this way I hoped to 
 make an interesting picture of the progress of 
 the seasons, of Thoreau's year. It was evi- 
 dently painted with a most genuine love, and 
 often apparently in the open air, in the very 
 presence of the phenomena described, so that 
 the written page brings the mind of the reader, 
 as writing seldom does, into closest contact with 
 nature, making him see its sights, hear its 
 sounds, and feel its very breath upon his 
 cheek. 
 
 Thoreau seems deliberately to have chosen 
 nature rather than man for his companion, 
 though he knew well the higher value of man, 
 as appears from such passages as the following : 
 " The blue sky is a distant reflection of the 
 azure serenity that looks out from under a 
 human brow." " To attain to a true relation 
 to one human creature is enough to make a 
 year memorable." And somewhere he says in 
 substance, " What is the singing of birds or any 
 natural sound compared with the voice of one 
 We lova ? " Friendship was one of his favorite 
 
INTRODUCTORY. T 
 
 themes, and no one has written with a finer ap- 
 preciation of it. Still, in ordinary society, he 
 found it so difficult to reach essential humanity 
 through the civilized and conventional, that he 
 turned to nature, who was ever ready to meet 
 his highest mood. From the haunts of business 
 and the common intercourse of men he went 
 into the woods and fields as from a solitary 
 desert into society. He might have said with 
 another, — he did virtually say, — " If we go sol- 
 itary to streams and mountains, it is to meet 
 man there where he is more than ever man." 
 
 But while I have sought in these selections to 
 represent the progressive life of nature, I have 
 also been careful to give Thoreau's thoughts, 
 because though his personality is in a striking 
 degree single, he being ever the same man in 
 his conversation, letters, books, and the details 
 of his life, though his observation is imbedded 
 in his philosophy ("how to observe is how to 
 behave," etc.), yet if any distinction may be 
 made, his thoughts or philosophy seem to me 
 incomparably the more interesting and impor- 
 tant. He declined from the first to live for 
 the common prizes of society, for wealth or even 
 what is called a competence, for professional, 
 social, political, or even literary success ; and 
 this not from a want of ambition or a purpose, 
 but from an ambition far higher than the ordi 
 
n INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 nary, which fully possessed him, — an ambition 
 to obey his purest instincts, to follow implicitly 
 the finest intimations of his genius, to secure 
 thus the fullest and freest life of which he was 
 capable. He chose to lay emphasis on his rela- 
 tions to nature and the universe rather than 
 on those he bore to the ant-hill of society, not 
 to be merely another wheel in the social ma- 
 chine. He felt that the present is only one 
 among the possible forms of civilization, and so 
 preferred not to commit himself to it. Herein 
 lies the secret of that love of the wild which 
 was so prominent a trait in his character. 
 
 It is evident that the main object of society 
 now is to provide for our material wants, and 
 still more and more luxuriously for them, while 
 the higher wants of our nature are made secon- 
 dary, put off for some Sunday service and future 
 'eisure. A great lesson of Thoreau's life is that 
 all this must be reversed, that whatever relates 
 to the supply of inferior wants must be simpli- 
 fied, in order that the higher life may be en- 
 riched, though he desired no servile imitation 
 of his own methods, for perhaps the highest les- 
 son of all to be learnt from him is that the only 
 way of salvation lies in the strictest fidelity to 
 one's own genius. 
 
 A late English reviewer, who shows in many 
 (espects a very just appreciation of Thoreau, 
 
INTRODUCTORY. Til 
 
 charges him with doing little beyond writing a 
 few books, as if that might not be a great thing; 
 but a life so steadily directed from the first to- 
 ward the highest ends, gaining as the fruits of 
 its fidelity such a harvest of sanity, strength, 
 and tranquillity, and that wealth of thought 
 which has been well called " the only conceiva- 
 ble prosperity," accompanied, too, as it naturally 
 was, with the earnest and effective desire to 
 communicate itself to others, — such a life is the 
 worthiest deed a man can perform, the purest 
 benefit he can confer upon his fellows, compared 
 with which all special acts of service or philan- 
 thropy are trivial . - tr ^\ j 
 
 W'Qtfo'. Blake. 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 February 24, 1852. p. m. Railroad causeway. 
 I am reminded of spring by the quality of the 
 air. The cock-crowing, and even the telegraph 
 harp prophesy it, though the ground is, for the 
 most part, covered with snow. It is a natural 
 
 resurrection, an experience of immortality 
 
 The telegraph harp reminds me of Anacredn. 
 That is the glory of Greece, that we are re- 
 minded of her only when in our best estates — 
 our elysian days, — when our senses are young 
 and healthy again. I could find a name for 
 every strain or intonation of the harp from one 
 or other of the Grecian bards. I often hear 
 Mimnermus ; often, Menander. I am too late 
 by a day or two for the sand foliage on the east 
 side of the Deep Cut. It is glorious to see the 
 soil again here where a shovel perchance will 
 enter it and find no frost. The frost is partly 
 come out of this bank, and it has become dry 
 again in the sun. The very sound of mens' 
 work reminds, advertises, me of the coming of 
 l 
 
2 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 spring, as I now hear the laborer's sledge on 
 the rails As we grow older, is it not om- 
 inous that we have more to write about evening, 
 less about morning. We must associate more 
 with the early hours. 
 
 February 24, 1854. P. M. To Walden and 
 Fair Haven. Nuthatches are faintly answering 
 each other, tit for tat, on different keys — a 
 faint creak. Now and then one utters a loud, 
 distinct quah. This bird, more than any other 
 I know, loves to stand with its head downward ; 
 meanwhile, chickadees, with their silver tink- 
 ling are flitting high above through the tops of 
 
 the pines Observed in one of the little 
 
 pond holes between Walden and Fair Haven, 
 where a partridge had traveled around in the 
 snow, amid the bordering bushes, twenty-five 
 rods ; had pecked the green leaves of the lamb- 
 kill, and left fragments on the snow, and had 
 paused at each high blueberry bush, and shaken 
 down fragments of its. bark on the snow. The 
 buds appeared to be its main object. I finally 
 scared the bird. 
 
 February 24, 1855. The brightening of the 
 willow or of osiers, that is a season in the 
 spring, showing that the dormant sap is awak- 
 ened. I now remember a few osiers which I 
 have seen early in past springs, thus brilliantly 
 green or red, and it is as if all the landscape 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 3 
 
 shone. Though the twigs were few that I saw, 
 I remember it as a prominent phenomenon af- 
 fecting the face of nature, a gladdening of her 
 face. You will often fancy that they look 
 brighter before the spring has come, and when 
 there has been no change in them. Thermome- 
 ter at 10° at 10 P. M. 
 
 February 24, 1857. A fine spring morning. 
 The ground is almost completely bare again. 
 There has been a frost in the night. Now at 
 half past eight it is melted and wets my feet 
 like a dew. The water on the meadow this 
 still bright morning is smooth as in April. I 
 am surprised to hear the strain of a song-spar- 
 row from the river side, and as I cross from the 
 causeway to the hill, thinking of the bluebird, 
 I that instant hear one's note from deep in the 
 softened air. It is already 40°. By noon it 
 is between 50° and 60°. As the day advances 
 I hear more bluebirds, and see their azure 
 flakes settling on the fence posts. Their short 
 rich warble curls through the air. Its grain 
 now lies parallel to the bluebird's warble, like 
 boards of the same lot. It seems to be one of 
 those early springs of which we have heard, but 
 which we have never experienced. 
 
 I have seen the probings of skunks for a 
 week or more. I now see where one has 
 pawed out the worn dust or chankings from 
 
4 EAKLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 a hole in the base of a walnut, and torn opei 
 the fungi, etc., exploring for grubs or insects 
 They are very busy these nights. 
 
 If I should make the least concession mj 
 friend would spurn me. I am obeying his law 
 as well as my own. 
 
 Where is the actual friend you love ? Ask 
 from what hill the rainbow's arch springs ! It 
 adorns and crowns the earth. Our friends are 
 our kindred, of our species. There are but few 
 of our species on the globe. Between me and 
 my friend what unfathomable distance ! All 
 mankind, like water and insects, are between 
 us. If my friend says in his mind, I will 
 never see you again, I translate it, of necessity, 
 into ever. That is its definition in Love's 
 lexicon. Those we can love we can hate. To 
 others we are indifferent. 
 
 P. M. To Walden. The railroad in the Deep 
 Cut is dry as in spring, almost dusty. The 
 best of the sand foliage is already gone. I 
 walk without a great coat. A chickadee, with 
 its winter lisp, flits over. I think it is time to 
 hear its phebe note, and that instant it pipes 
 it forth. Walden is still covered with thick 
 '.ce, though melted a foot from the shore. The 
 French (in the Jesuit Relation) say "fil de 
 I'eau " for that part of the current of a river in 
 which any floating thing would be carried, gen- 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 5 
 
 erally about equidistant from the two banks. 
 It is a convenient expression for which I think 
 we have no equivalent. 
 
 February 24, 1858. I see rhodora in bloom 
 in a pitcher with water andromeda. Went 
 through that long swamp northeast of Boaz's 
 Meadow. Interesting and peculiar are the 
 clumps and masses of panicled andromeda, with 
 light brown stems, topped uniformly with very 
 distinct, yellow-brown recent shoots, ten or 
 twelve inches long, with minute red buds sleep- 
 ing close along them. This uniformity in such 
 masses gives a pleasing tinge to the swamp's 
 surface. Wholesome colors which wear well. 
 I see quite a number of emperor moths' cocoons 
 attached to this shrub, some hung round with 
 a loose mass of leaves as big as my two fists. 
 What art in the red-eye to make these two 
 adjacent maple twigs serve for the rim of its 
 pensile basket, inweaving them ! Surely it 
 finds a place for itself in nature, between the 
 two twigs of a maple. On the side of the 
 meadow moraine, just north of the bowlder 
 field, I see barberry bushes three inches in di- 
 ameter and ten feet high. What a surprising 
 color this wood has. It splits and splinters 
 very much when I bend it. I cut a cane, and, 
 shaving off the outer bark, find it of imperial 
 yellow, as if painted, — fit for a Chinese man* 
 iarin. 
 
6 EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 February 25, 1859. Measure your health by 
 your sympathy with morning and spring. If 
 there is no response in you to the awakening of 
 nature, if the prospect of an early morning 
 walk does not banish sleep, if the warble of 
 the first bluebird does not thrill you, know that 
 the morning and spring of your life are past. 
 Thus may you feel your pulse. I heard this 
 morning a nuthatch in the elms on the street. 
 I think they are heard oftener at the approach 
 of spring, just as the phebe note of the chicka- 
 dee is, and so their quah quah is a herald of 
 the spring. 
 
 A good book is not made in the cheap and 
 off-hand manner of many of our scientific re- 
 ports, ushered in by the message of the Pres- 
 ident communicating it to Congress, and the 
 order of Congress that many thousand copies 
 be printed with the letters of instruction from 
 the Secretary of the Interior (or rather ex- 
 terior) ; the bulk of the book being a jour- 
 nal of a picnic or sporting expedition by a 
 brevet lieutenant-colonel, illustrated by photo- 
 graphs of the traveler's footsteps across _ the 
 plains, and an admirable engraving of his na- 
 tive village as it appeared on his leaving it, and 
 followed by an appendix on the paleontology 
 of the route by a distinguished savant who was 
 not there ; the last illustrated by very finely 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 7 
 
 executed engravings of some old broken shells 
 picked up on the road. 
 
 There are several men of whose comings and 
 goings the town knows little, — I mean the 
 trappers. They may be seen coming from the 
 woods and river, perhaps with nothing in their 
 hands, and you do not suspect what they have 
 been about. They go about their business in a 
 stealthy manner for fear that any should see 
 where they set their traps, for the fur-trade 
 still flourishes here. Every year they visit 
 the out-of-the-way swamps and meadows and 
 brooks to set and examine their traps for mus- 
 quash and mink, and the owners of the land 
 commonly know nothing of it. But few as 
 
 the trappers are here, it seems by G 's 
 
 accounts that they steal one another's traps. 
 
 All the criticism I got on my lecture on 
 " Autumnal Tints, " at Worcester, on the 22d, 
 was that I presumed my audience had not seen 
 so much of them as they had. But after read- 
 ing it I am more than ever convinced that they 
 have not seen much of them, that there are 
 very few persons who do see much of nature. 
 
 February 25, 1860. The fields of open water 
 amid the thin ice of the meadows are the spec- 
 tacle to-day. They are especially dark blue 
 when I look southwest. Has it anything to 
 do with the direction of the wind ? It is pleas* 
 
8 EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 ant to see high, dark blue waves half a mile 
 off, running incessantly along the edge of white 
 ice. There the motion of the blue liquid is 
 the most distinct. As the waves rise and fall 
 they seem to run swiftly along the edge of the 
 ice. 
 
 For a day or two past I have seen in various 
 places the small tracks of skunks. They ap- 
 pear to come out commonly in the warmer 
 weather in the latter part of February. 
 
 I noticed yesterday the first conspicuous 
 silvery sheen from the needles of the white 
 pine waving in the wind. A small one was 
 conspicuous by the side of the road, more than 
 a quarter of a mile ahead. I suspect that 
 those plumes which have been oppressed -or 
 contracted by snow and ice, are not only dried, 
 but opened and spread by the wind. Those 
 peculiar tracks which I saw some time ago, 
 and still see, made in slosh, and since frozen 
 at the andromeda ponds, I think must be mole 
 tracks, and those " nicks " on the sides are 
 where they shoved back the snow with their 
 vertical flippers. This is a very peculiar track, 
 a broad channel in slosh and at length in ice. 
 
 February 26, 1840. The most important 
 events make no stir on their first taking place, 
 nor indeed in their effects directly. They seem 
 bedged about by secrecy. It is concussion or 
 
EARLY SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 9 
 
 the rushing together of air to fill a vacuum 
 which makes a noise. The great events to 
 which all things consent, and for which they 
 have prepared the way, produce no explosion, 
 for they are gradual, and create no vacuum 
 which requires to be filled. As a birth takes 
 place in silence, and is whispered about the 
 neighborhood, but an assassination, which, is at 
 war with the constitution of things, creates a 
 tumult immediately. 
 
 February 26, 1841. My prickles or smooth- 
 ness are as much a quality of your hand as of 
 myself. I cannot tell you what I am more than 
 a ray of the summer's sun. What I am, I am, 
 and say not. Being is the great explainer. In 
 the attempt to explain, shall I plane away all 
 the spines till it is no thistle, but a cornstalk. 
 If my world is not sufficient without thee, my 
 friend, I will wait till it is, and then call thee. 
 You shall come to a palace, not to an alms- 
 house. To be great we do as if we would be 
 tall merely, longer than we are broad, stretch" 
 ourselves and stand on tiptoe. But greatness 
 is well-proportioned, unstrained, and stands on 
 the soles of the feet. 
 
 In composition I miss the hue of the mind, 
 as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the 
 morning and evening without their colors, or 
 the heavens without their azure. This good 
 
10 EAELT SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 book helps the sun shine in my chamber. The 
 rays fall on its page as if to explain and illus- 
 trate it. I, who have been sick, hear cattle 
 low in the street with such a healthy ear as 
 prophesies my cure. These sounds lay a finger 
 on my pulse to some purpose. A fragrance 
 comes in at all my senses which proclaims that 
 I am still of nature, the child. The threshing 
 m yonder barn, and the tinkling of the anvil 
 come from the same side of Styx with me. If 
 I were a physician I would try my patients 
 thus : I would wheel them to a window and let 
 nature feel their pulses. It will soon appear 
 if their sensuous existence is sound. These 
 sounds are but the throbbing of some pulse in 
 me. Nature seems to have given me these 
 hours to pry into her private drawers. I watch 
 the insensible perspiration rising from my coat 
 or hand on the wall. I go and feel my pulse in 
 all the recesses of the house, and see if I am 
 of force to carry a homely life and comfort into 
 them. 
 
 February 26, 1852. We are told to-day that 
 civilization is making rapid progress ; the ten- 
 dency is ever upward, substantial justice is done 
 even by human courts. You may trust the good 
 intentions of mankind. We read to-morrow in 
 the newspapers that Prance is on the eve of go- 
 ing to war with England to give employment 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 11 
 
 to her army. This Russian war is popular. 
 What is the influence of men of principle ? or 
 how numerous are they? How many moral 
 teachers has society ? Of course so many as 
 she has will resist her. How many resist her ? 
 How many have I heard speak with warning 
 voice? The preacher's standard of morality 
 is no higher than that of his audience. He 
 Btudies to conciliate his hearers, and never to 
 offend them. Does the threatened war between 
 France and England evince any more enlight- 
 enment than a war between two savage tribes, 
 the Iroquois and Hurons? Is it founded in 
 better reason ? 
 
 February 26, 1855. Directly off Clam-shell 
 Hill, within four rods of it, where the water is 
 three or four feet deep, I see where the mus- 
 quash dived and brought up clams before the 
 last freezing. Their open shells are strewn 
 along close to the edge of the ice, and close to- 
 gether for about three rods in one place, and 
 the bottom under the edge of the older ice, as 
 seen through the new black ice, is perfectly 
 white with those which sank. They may have 
 been blown in or the ice may have melted. The 
 nacre of these freshly-opened shells is very fair, 
 azure, or else a delicate salmon pink (?), or ro- 
 saceous, or violet. I find one not opened, but 
 frozen, and several have one valve quite broken 
 
12 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 in two in the rat's effort to wrench them open, 
 leaving the frozen fish half-exposed. All the 
 rest show the marks of their teeth at one end 
 or the other. You can see distinctly also the 
 marks of their teeth where with a scraping cut 
 they have scraped off the tough muscle which 
 fastens the fish to its shell, also sometimes all 
 
 along the nacre next the edge These 
 
 shells lie thickly around the edge of each small 
 circle of thinner black ice in the midst of the 
 white, showing where was open water a day or 
 two ago. At the beginning and end of winter, 
 when the river is partly open, the ice thus serves 
 
 the muskrat instead of other stool Hence 
 
 it appears that this is still a good place for clams 
 as it was in Indian days. 
 
 February 26, 1857. What an accursed land, 
 methinks unfit for the habitation of man, where 
 the wild animals are monkeys ! 
 
 February 27, 1841. Life looks as fair at this 
 moment as a summer's sea .... like a Persian 
 city or hanging gardens in the distance, so 
 washed in light, so untried, only to be thridded 
 by clean thoughts. All its flags are flowing 
 and tassels streaming, and drapery flapping like 
 some pavilion. The heavens hang over it like 
 tome low screen, and seem to undulate in the 
 breeze. Through this pure, unwiped hour, as 
 through a crystal glass, I look out upon the 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 13 
 
 future as a smooth lawn for my virtue to disport 
 in. It shows from afar as unrepulsive as the 
 sunshine upon walls and cities, over which the 
 passing life moves as gently as a shadow. I see 
 the course of my life, like some retired road, 
 wind on without obstruction into a country 
 maze. I am attired for the future so, as the sun 
 setting presumes all men at leisure and in con- 
 templative mood, and am thankful that it is 
 thus presented blank and indistinct. It still 
 o'ertops my life. My future deeds bestir them- 
 selves within me and move grandly towards a 
 consummation, as ships go down the Thames. 
 A steady onward motion I feel in me as still 
 as that, or like some vast snowy cloud whose 
 shadow first is seen across the fields. It is the 
 material of all things, loose and set afloat, that 
 makes my sea. 
 
 These various words are not without various 
 meanings. The combined voice of the race 
 makes nicer distinctions than any individual. 
 There are the words diversion and amusement. 
 It takes more to amuse than to divert. We 
 must be surrendered to our amusements, but 
 only turned aside to our diversions. We have 
 vo will in the former, but oversee the latter. 
 We are oftenest diverted in the street, but 
 amused in our chambers. We are diverted 
 from our engagements, but amused when we 
 
14 EAKLY SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 are listless. We may be diverted iron- .* 
 amusement, and amused by a diversion. It 
 often happens that a diversion becomes our 
 amusement, and an amusement our employ- 
 ment. 
 
 February 27, 1851. Of two men, one of 
 whom knows nothing about a subject, and, what 
 is extremely rare, knows that he knows noth- 
 ing, and the other really knows something about 
 it, but thinks that he knows all, what great ad- 
 vantage has the latter over the former ? which 
 is the better to deal with ? I do not know that 
 knowledge amounts to anything more definite 
 than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden 
 revelation of the insufficiency of all we had 
 called knowledge before, an indefinite sense of 
 the grandeur and glory of the universe. It is a 
 lighting up of the mist by the sun. But man 
 cannot be said to know, in the highest sense, any 
 better than he can look serenely and with im- 
 punity in the face of the sun. 
 
 How when a man purchases a thing, he is 
 determined to get and get hold of it, using 
 how many expletives and how long a string of 
 iynonymous or similar terms signifying posses- 
 sion in the legal process. What 's mine 's my 
 own. An old deed of a small piece of swamp 
 land which I have lately surveyed at the risk of 
 being mired past recovery, says that " the said 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. ll 
 
 i 
 
 Spaulding, his heirs and assigns, shall and may 
 from this (?) time, and at all times forever 
 hereafter, by force and virtue )f these presents, 
 lawfully, peaceably, and quietly have, hold, use, 
 occupy, possess, and enjoy the said swamp," etc. 
 
 The following bears on the floating ice which 
 has risen from the bottom of the meadows. 
 Robert Hunt says, " Water conducts heat down- 
 ward but very slowly j a mass of ice will re- 
 main undissolved but a few inches under water 
 on the surface of which ether or any other 
 inflammable body is burning. If ice swam 
 beneath the surface the summer sun would 
 scarcely have power to thaw it, and thus our 
 lakes and seas would be gradually converted 
 into solid masses." 
 
 Nature and man ; some prefer one, others the 
 other. But that is all " de gustibus." It makes 
 no odds at what well you drink, provided it be 
 a well-head. 
 
 Walking in the woods, it may be some after- 
 noon, the shadow of the wings of a thought flits 
 across the landscape of my mind, and I am re- 
 minded how little eventful are our lives. What 
 have been all these wars and rumors of wars, 
 and modern discoveries and improvements, so- 
 called ? A mere irritation in the skin. But 
 this shadow which is so soon past, and whose 
 Bubstance is not detected, suggests that there 
 
16 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 are events of importance whose interval is to us 
 a true historic period. 
 
 The lecturer is wont to describe the nine- 
 teenth century, the American of the last gen- 
 eration, in an off-hand and triumphant strain, 
 wafting him to Paradise, spreading his fame by 
 steam and telegraph, recounting the number of 
 wooden stopples he has whittled. But he does 
 not perceive that this is not a sincere or perti- 
 nent account of any man's or nation's life. It 
 is the hip-hip-hurrah and mutual admiration 
 society style. Cars go by and we know their 
 substance as well as their shadow I They stop 
 and we get into them. But those sublime 
 thoughts, passing on high, do not stop, and we 
 never get into them. Their conductor is not 
 like one of us. 
 
 I feel that the man who, in his conversation 
 with me about the life of man in New England, 
 lays much stress on railroads, telegraphs, and 
 such enterprises does not go below the surface 
 of things In one of the mind's ava- 
 tars, in the interval between sleeping and wak- 
 ing, aye, in one of the interstices of a Hin- 
 doo dynasty, perchance, such things as the 
 nineteenth century, with all its improvements, 
 may come and go again. Nothing makes a deep 
 und lasting impression but what is weighty. 
 
 . . . He who lives according to the highest 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 17 
 
 law is in one sense lawless. That is an unfor- 
 tunate discovery, certainly, that of a law which 
 binds us where we did not know that we were 
 bound. Liye_free, child of the mist. He for 
 whom the law is made, who does not obey the 
 law, but whom the law obeys, reclines on pil- 
 lows of down, and is wafted at will whither he 
 pleases ; for man is superior to all laws, both of 
 heaven and earth, when he takes his liberty. 
 
 February 27, 1852. The main river is not 
 yet open except in very few places, but the 
 north branch, which is so much more rapid, is 
 open near Tarbell's and Harrington's, where I 
 walked to-day, and flowing with full tide, bor- 
 dered with ice on either side, sparkles in the 
 clear, cool air, — a silvery sparkle as from a 
 
 stream that would not soil the sky We 
 
 have almost completely forgotten the summer. 
 This restless and now swollen stream has burst 
 its icy fetters, and as I stand looking up it west- 
 ward for half a mile, where it winds slightly 
 under a high bank, its surface is lit up here and 
 there with a fine-grained silvery sparkle which 
 makes the river appear something celestial, 
 more than a terrestrial river, which might have 
 suggested that one surrounding the shield in 
 Homer. If rivers come out of their prison 
 thus bright and immortal, shall not I, too, re- 
 sume my spring life with joy and hope. Have 
 
18 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 I no hopes to sparkle on the surface of life's 
 current? It is worthwhile to have our faith 
 revived by seeing where a river swells and 
 eddies about a half-buried rock. 
 
 February 27, 1853. A week or two ago I 
 brought home a handsome pitch pine cone, 
 which had freshly fallen, and was closed per- 
 fectly tight. It was put into a table-drawer. 
 To-day I am agreeably surprised that it has 
 there dried and opened with perfect regularity, 
 filling the drawer ; and from a solid, narrow 
 and sharp cone has become a broad, rounded, 
 open one, — has, in fact, expanded into a coni- 
 cal flower with rigid scales, and has shed a 
 remarkable quantity of delicate winged seeds. 
 Each scale, which is very elaborately and per- 
 fectly constructed, is armed with a short spine 
 pointing downward, as if to protect its seeds 
 from squirrels and birds. That hard, closed 
 cone, which defied all violent attempts to open 
 it, and could only be cut open, has thus yielded 
 to the gentle persuasion of warmth and dryness. 
 The expanding of the pine cones, that, too, is 
 a season. 
 
 February 27, 1854 I remarked yes- 
 terday the rapidity with which water flowing 
 over the icy ground sought its level. All that 
 rain would hardly have produced a puddle in 
 midsummer, but now it produces a freshet, and 
 will perhaps break up the river. 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. j . 
 
 February 27, 1856.. The papers are talking 
 about the prospect of war between England 
 and America. Neither side sees how its coun- 
 try can avoid a long and fratricidal war without 
 sacrificing its honor. Both nations are ready 
 to take a desperate step, to forget the interests 
 of civilization and Christianity and their com- 
 mercial prosperity, and fly at each other's 
 throats. When I see an individual thus be- 
 side himself, thus desperate, ready to shoot or 
 be shot like a blackleg, who has little to lose, 
 no serene aims to accomplish, I think he is a 
 candidate for bedlam. What asylum is there 
 for nations to go to ? 
 
 Nations are thus ready to talk of wars and 
 challenge one another because they are made 
 up, to such an extent, of poor, low-spirited, de- 
 spairing men, in whose eyes the chance of 
 shooting somebody else without being shot 
 themselves, exceeds their actual good fortune. . 
 Who, in fact, will be the first to enlist but the 
 most desperate class, they who have lost all . 
 hope ? and they may at last infect the rest. Will 
 not war, at length, be thought disreputable like 
 duelling between individuals ? 
 
 February 27, 1857. Before I opened the win- 
 dow this cold morning I heard the peep of a 
 robin, that sound which is often heard in cheer- 
 less or else rainy weather, so often heard first 
 
20 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 borne on the cutting March wind, or through 
 Bleet or rain, as if its coming were premature. 
 
 February 27, 1858 The -hedges on 
 
 the hill are all cut off. The journals think 
 they cannot say too much on improvements in 
 husbandry. But as for one of these farms 
 brushed up, — a model farm, — I had as lief 
 see a patent churn and a man turning it. It 
 is simply a place where somebody is making 
 money. 
 
 I see a snow bunting, though it is pleasant 
 and warm. 
 
 February 27, 1859. P. M. To Cliffs ; though 
 it was a dry, powdery snow-storm yesterday, 
 the sun is now so high that the snow is soft and 
 sticky this P. M. The sky, too, is soft to look 
 at, and the air to feel on my cheek. 
 
 Health makes the poet, or sympathy with nat- 
 ure, a good appetite for his food, which is con- 
 stantly renewing him, — whetting his senses. 
 Pay for your victuals then with poetry, give 
 back life for life. 
 
 February 27, 1860. 2 P. M. To Abner But- 
 
 trick's Hill I walk down by the river 
 
 below Flint's, on the north side. The sudden 
 apparition of the dark blue water on the sur- 
 face of the earth is exciting. I must now walk 
 where I can see the most water, as to the most 
 'iving part of nature. This is the blood of the 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 21 
 
 earth, and we see its blue arteries pulsing with 
 new life now. I see from far over the mead- 
 ows white cakes of ice gliding swiftly down the 
 stream, — a novel sight. They are whiter than 
 ever in this spring sun. 
 
 The abundance of light, as reflected from 
 clouds and the snow, etc., etc., is more spring- 
 like than anything else of late I had 
 
 noticed for some time, far in the middle of the 
 great meadows, something dazzling white, which 
 I took, of course, to be a small cake of ice on 
 its end ; but now that I have climbed the pitch 
 pine hill, and can overlook the whole meadow, 
 I see it to be the white breast of a small shel- 
 drake accompanied, perhaps, by its mate, a 
 darker one. They have settled warily in the 
 very midst of the meadow, where the wind has 
 blown a space of clear water for an acre or 
 two. The aspect of the meadow is sky blue 
 and dark blue, the former a thin ice, the lat- 
 ter the spaces of open water which the wind has 
 made ; but it is chiefly ice still. Thus as soon 
 as the river breaks up, or begins to break up 
 fairly, and the strong wind, widening the cracks, 
 makes at length open spaces in the ice of the 
 meadow, this hardy bird appears, and is seen 
 tailing in the first widened crack in the ice 
 where it can come at the water. Instead of a 
 piece of ice I find it to be the breast of the 
 
22 .EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Bheldrake which so reflects the light as to look 
 larger than it is, the bird steadily sailing this 
 way and that with its companion who is diving 
 from time to time. They have chosen the 
 opening farthest removed from all shores. As 
 I look I see the ice drifting in upon them and 
 contracting the water, till finally they have but 
 a few square rods left, while there are forty or 
 fifty acres near by. This is the first bird of the 
 spring that I have seen or heard of. 
 
 February 28, 1841. Nothing goes by luck in 
 composition ; it allows of no trick. The best 
 you can write will be the best you are. Every 
 sentence is the result of a long probation. The 
 author's character is read from title page to 
 end. Of this he never corrects the proofs. We 
 read it as the essential character of a hand- 
 writing without regard to the flourishes. And 
 so of the rest of our actions. It runs as straight 
 as a ruled line through them all, no matter 
 how many curvets about it. Our whole life is 
 taxed for the least thing well done. It is its 
 net result. How we eat, drink, sleep, and use 
 our desultory hours now in these indifferent 
 days, with no eye to observe and no occasion to 
 excite us, determines our authority and capaci- 
 ty for the time to come. 
 
 February 28, 1852. To-day it snows again, 
 covering the ground. To get the value of the 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 23 
 
 storm, we must be out a long time and travel 
 far in it, so that it may fairly penetrate our 
 skin, and we be, as it were, turned inside out to 
 it, and there be no part in us but is wet or 
 weather-beaten, so that we become storm-men, 
 instead of fair-weather men. Some men speak 
 of having been wet to the skin once as a mem- 
 orable event in their lives which, notwithstand- 
 ing the croakers, they survived. 
 
 February 28, 1855. I observed how a new ra- 
 vine was formed in that last thaw at Clam- 
 shell Hill. Much melted snow and rain being 
 collected on the top of the hill, some apparently 
 found its way through the ground frozen a foot 
 thick, a few feet from the edge of the bank, and 
 began with a small rill washing down the slope 
 the unfrozen sand beneath. As the water con- 
 tinued to flow, the sand on each side continued 
 to slide into it and be carried off, leaving the 
 frozen crust above quite firm, making a bridge 
 five or six feet wide over this cavern. Now 
 since the thaw, this bridge, I see, has melted 
 and fallen in, leaving a ravine some ten feet 
 wide* and much longer, which now may go on 
 increasing from year to year without limit. I 
 was there just after it began. 
 
 February 28, 1856. How simple the machin- 
 ery of a saw-mill. M has dammed a stream, 
 
 raised a pond or head of water, and placed an 
 
24 EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 old horizontal mill-wheel in position to receive 
 a jet on its buckets, transferred the motion to a 
 horizontal shaft and saw, by a few cog-wheels 
 and simple gearing ; then throwing a roof of 
 slabs over all, at the outlet of the pond, you 
 
 have a mill A weight of water stored 
 
 upon a meadow, applied to move a saw, which 
 scratches its way through the trees placed be- 
 fore it, so simple is a saw-mill. 
 
 February 28, 1857. It is a singular infatua- 
 tion that leads men to become clergymen in 
 regular or even irregular standing. I pray to 
 be introduced to new men at whom I may stop 
 short and taste their peculiar sweetness. But 
 in the clergyman of the most liberal sort I see 
 no perfectly independent human nucleus, but I 
 seem to see some indistinct scheme hoveriDg 
 about, to which he has lent himself, to which 
 he belongs. It is a very fine cobweb in the 
 lower stratum of the air, which stronger wings 
 do nr>t even discover. Whatever he may say, 
 ne does not know that one day is as good as 
 another. Whatever he may say, he does not 
 know that a man's creed can never be written, 
 that there are no particular expressions of wor- 
 ship that deserve to be prominent. He dreams 
 of a certain sphere to be filled by him some- 
 thing less in diameter than a great circle, may 
 be not greater than a hogshead. All the staves 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 25 
 
 are got out, and his sphere is already hooped. 
 What 's the use of talking to him ? When you 
 spoke of sphere music, he thought only of a 
 thumping on his cask. If he does not know 
 something that nobody else does, that nobody 
 told him, then he 's a tell-tale. 
 
 February 28, 1860. Passed a very little boy 
 in the street to-day who had on a home-made 
 cap of a woodchuck's skin, which his father or 
 older brother had killed and cured, and his 
 mother or older sister had fashioned into a nice 
 warm cap. I was interested by the sight of it, 
 it suggested so much of family history, adven- 
 ture with the animal, story told about it, not 
 without exaggeration, the human parents, care 
 of their young these hard times. Johnny had 
 been promised a cap many times, and now the 
 work was completed. A perfect little Idyl, as 
 they say. The cap was large and round, big 
 enough, you would say, for the boy's father, and 
 had some kind of cloth visor stitched to it. 
 The top of the cap was evidently the back of 
 the woodchuck, as it were, expanded in breadth, 
 contracted in length, and it was as fresh and 
 handsome as if the woodchuck wore it himself. 
 The great gray-tipped hairs were all preserved 
 and stood out above the brown ones, only a lit- 
 tle more loosely than in life. As if he had put 
 his head into the belly of a woodchuck, having 
 
26 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 cut off his tail and legs, and substituted a visor 
 for the head. The little fellow wore it inno- 
 cently enough, not knowing what he had on 
 forsooth, going about his small business pit-a- 
 pat, and his black eyes sparkled beneath it when 
 I remarked on its warmth, even as the wood- 
 chuck's might have done. Such should be the 
 history of every piece of clothing that we wear. 
 
 As I stood by Eagle Field wall, I heard a fine 
 rattling sound from some dry seeds at my el- 
 bow. It was occasioned by the wind rattling 
 the fine seeds in those pods of the Indigo weed 
 which were still closed, a distinct rattling din 
 which drew my attention, like a small Indian cal- 
 abash. Not a mere rattling of dry seeds, but the 
 shaking of a rattle or a hundred rattles 
 
 As it is important to consider nature from 
 the point of view of science, remembering the 
 nomenclature and systems of men, and so, if 
 possible, go a step further in that direction, so 
 it is equally important often to ignore or forget 
 all that men presume that they know, and take 
 an original and unprejudiced view of nature, 
 letting her make what impression she will on 
 you, as the first men, and all children, and nat- 
 ural men do. For our science, so called, is al- 
 ways more barren and mixed with error than 
 our sympathies are. 
 
 As I go down the Boston road I see an Irish 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 27 
 
 man wheeling home from far a large, damp, 
 and rotten pine log for fuel. He evidently 
 sweats at it and pauses to rest many times. 
 He found, perhaps, that his woodpile was gone 
 before the winter was, and he trusts thus to 
 contend with the remaining cold. I see him 
 unload it in his yard before me, and then rest 
 himself. The piles of solid oak wood which I 
 see in other yards do not interest me at all, 
 but this looked like fuel. It warmed me to 
 think of it. He will now proceed to split it 
 finely, and then I fear it will require about as 
 much heat to dry it a3 it will give out at last. 
 How rarely we are encouraged by the sight of 
 simple actions in the street. We deal with 
 banks and other institutions where the life and 
 humanity are concealed, what there is of it. I 
 like, at least, to see the great beams half-ex- 
 posed in the ceiling or the corner. 
 
 February 28, 1861. P. M. Down Boston 
 road under the hill. Air full of bluebirds, as 
 yesterday. The sidewalk is bare and almost 
 dry the whole distance under the hill. Turn 
 in at the gate this side of Moore's, and sit 
 on one of the yellowish stones rolled down in 
 the bay of a digging, and examine the radical 
 leaves, etc., etc. Where the edges of grassy 
 banks have caved I see the fine fibrous roots of 
 the grass which have been washed bare during 
 
28 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 the winter, extending straight downward two 
 feet (and how much further within the earth I 
 know not), a pretty dense, grayish mass. 
 
 February 29, 1840. A friend advises by his 
 whole behavior, and never condescends to par- 
 ticulars. Another chides away a fault, he loves 
 it away. While he sees the other's error, he is 
 silently conscious of it, and only the more loves 
 truth itself, and assists his friend in loving it 
 till the fault is expelled and gently extin- 
 guished. 
 
 February 29, 1852. Simplicity is the law of 
 nature for men as well as for flowers. When 
 the tapestry (corolla) of the nuptial bed (ca- 
 lyx) is excessive, luxuriant, it is unproductive. 
 Linnaeus says, "Luxuriant flowers are none 
 natural, but all monsters," and so, for the most 
 part, abortive, and when proliferous " they but 
 increase the monstrous deformity." " Luxurians 
 flos tegmenta fructiflcationis ita multiplicat ut 
 essentiales equidem partes destruantur." " Ori- 
 tur luxurians flos plerumque ab alimento luxu- 
 riante." Such a flower has no true progeny, 
 and can only be reproduced by the humble 
 mode of cuttings from its stem or roots. 
 
 " Anthophilorum et hortulanorum delicisa 
 sunt flores pleni," not of nature. The fertile 
 flowers are single, not double. 
 
 P. M. To Pine Hill across Walden. The 
 
EAHLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 29 
 
 high wind takes off the oak leaves. I oee 
 them scrambling up the slopes of the Deep 
 
 Cut, hurry scurry like a flock of squirrels 
 
 For the past month there has been more sea- 
 room in the day, without so great danger of 
 running aground on one of those two promon- 
 tories that make it so arduous to navigate the 
 winter day, the morning or the evening. It is 
 a narrow pass, and you must go through with 
 the tide. Might not some of my pages be 
 called the short days of winter. 
 
 From Pine Hill looking westward I see the 
 snow-crust shine in the sun as far as the eye 
 can reach, — snow which fell yesterday morn- 
 ing. Then before night came the rain, then 
 in the night the freezing northwest wind, and 
 where day before yesterday half the ground 
 was bare, is this sheeny snow-crust to-day. 
 
 March 1, 1838. Spring. March fans it, 
 April christens it, and May puts on its jacket 
 and trousers. It never grows up, but, Alex- 
 andrine-like, " drags its slow length along," — 
 ever springing, bud following close upon leaf, — 
 and when winter comes it is not annihilated, 
 but creeps on mole-like under the snow, show- 
 ing its face, nevertheless, occasionally by fuming 
 springs and watercourses. So let our manhood 
 be a more advanced and still advancing youth, 
 bud following hard upon leaf. By the side of 
 
30 EARLY SPEIHG IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 the ripening corn let 's have a second or third 
 crop of peas and turnips, decking the fields in 
 a new green. So amid clumps of sere herd's- 
 grass sometimes flower the violet and butter- 
 cups, spring-born. 
 
 March 1, 1842. Whatever I learn from any 
 circumstance, that especially I needed to know. 
 Events come out of God, and our characters 
 determine them and constrain fate as much as 
 they determine the words and tone of a friend 
 to us. Hence are they always acceptable in ex- 
 perience, and we do not see how we could have 
 done without them. 
 
 March 1, 1854. Here is our first spring 
 morning according to the almanac. It is re- 
 markable that the spring of the almanac and 
 of nature should correspond so closely. The 
 morning of the 26th ult. was good winter; but 
 then came a plentiful rain in the afternoon, 
 and yesterday and to-day are quite spring-like. 
 This morning the air is still, and though clear 
 enough, a yellowish light is widely diffused 
 through the east now just after sunrise. The 
 .sunlight looks and feels warm, and a fine va- 
 por fills the lower atmosphere. I hear the 
 " phebe " or spring note of the chickadee, and 
 the scream of the jay is perfectly repeated by 
 the echo from a neighboring wood. For some 
 days past the surface of the earth, covered with 
 
EAKLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 3] 
 
 water or with ice where the snow is washed off, 
 has shone in the sun as it does only at the 
 approach of spring, methinks, and are not the 
 frosts in the morning more like the early frosts 
 in the fall, — common white frosts ? As for the 
 birds of the past winter, I have seen but three 
 hawks, one early in the winter, two lately ; have 
 heard the hooting owl pretty often late in the 
 afternoon. Crows have not been numerous, but 
 their cawing was heard chiefly in the pleasanter 
 mornings. Blue jays have blown the trumpet 
 of winter as usual, but they, as all birds, are 
 most lively in spring-like days. The chickadees 
 have been the prevailing bird. The partridge 
 common enough. One ditcher tells me that he 
 saw two robins in Moore's swamp a month ago. 
 I have not seen a quail, though a few have been 
 killed in the thaws, — four or five downy wood- 
 peckers. The white-breasted nuthatch four or 
 five times. Tree sparrows, one or more at a 
 time, oftener than any bird that comes to us 
 from the north. Two pigeon-woodpeckers, I 
 think, lately. One dead shrike and perhaps 
 one or two live ones. Have heard of two 
 white owls, one about Thanksgiving time and 
 one in midwinter; one short-eared owl in De- 
 cember, several flocks of snow buntings in the 
 severest storm in the last part of December ; 
 one grebe in Walden, just before it froze com- 
 
32 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 pletely, and two brown creepers once in the 
 
 middle of February. C says he saw a 
 
 little olivaceous green bird lately. I have not 
 seen a Fringilla linaria, nor a pine grossbeak, 
 nor a Fringilla hiemalis this winter, though the 
 first was the prevailing bird last winter. 
 
 In correcting my MSS., which I do with suf- 
 ficient phlegm, I find that I invariably turn out- 
 much that is good along with the bad, which it 
 is then impossible for me to distinguish, — so 
 much for keeping bad company ; but after a 
 lapse of time, having purified the main body 
 and thus created a distinct standard for com- 
 parison, I can review the rejected sentences, 
 and easily detect those which deserve to be re- 
 admitted. 
 
 p. M. To Walden by R. "W. E.'s. I am 
 surprised to see how bare Minot's hillside is 
 already. It is spring there, and M. is putter- 
 ing outside in the sun. How wise in his grand- 
 father to select such a site for a house ; the 
 summers he has lived there have been so much 
 longer. How pleasant the calm season and the 
 warmth (the sun is even like a burning glass 
 on my back), and the sight and sound of melt- 
 ing snow running down the hill. I look in 
 among the withering grass blades for some 
 Btartihg greenness. I listen to hear the first 
 bluebird in the soft air. I hear the dry cluck- 
 
MRLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 33 
 
 ing of hens which have come abroad. The ice 
 at Walden is softened. With a stick you can 
 loosen it to the depth of an inch, or the first 
 freezing, and turn it up in cakes. Yesterday 
 you could skate here, now only close to the 
 south shore. I notice the redness of the an- 
 dromeda leaves, but not so much as once. The 
 sand foliage is now in its prime. 
 
 March 1, 1855. It is a very pleasant and 
 warm day, the finest yet, with considerable 
 coolness in the air, however. Winter still. The 
 air is beautifully clear, and through it I love to 
 trace at a distance the roofs and outlines of 
 sober-colored farm-houses amid the woods. We 
 go listening for bluebirds, but only hear crows 
 and chickadees. A fine seething air over the 
 fair russet fields. The dusty banks of snow 
 by the railroad reflect a wonderfully dazzling 
 white from their pure crannies, being melted 
 into an uneven, sharp-wavy surface. This more 
 dazzling white must be due to the higher sun. 
 
 March 1, 1856. 9 A. M. To Flint's Pond 
 via Walden, by railroad and the crust. I hear 
 the hens cackle as not before for many months. 
 Are they not beginning to lay ? The catkins 
 of the willow by the causeway and of the as- 
 pens appear to have pushed out a little farther 
 than a month ago. I see the down of half a 
 dozen on that willow by the causeway, on the 
 s 
 
34 EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 aspens pretty generally. As I go through the 
 out it is still warm, and more or less sunny, 
 spring-like (about 40°) ; and the sand and red- 
 dish subsoil is bare for about a rod in width 
 on the railroad. I hear several times the fine- 
 drawn phe-be note of the chickadee, which I 
 
 heard only once during the winter It is 
 
 remarkable that though I have not been able 
 to find any open place in the river almost all 
 winter, except under the further stone bridge 
 and at Loring's Pond, this winter so remarka- 
 ble for ice and snow, yet C s should (as he 
 
 says) have killed two sheldrakes at the falls of 
 the factory, a place which I had forgotten, — 
 some four or six weeks ago ; singular that this 
 hardy bird should have found that small open- 
 ing which I had forgotten, while the ice every- 
 where else was from one to two feet thick, and 
 the snow sixteen inches on a level. If there is 
 a crack amid the rocks of some waterfall, this 
 bright diver is sure to know it. Ask the shel- 
 drake whether the rivers are completely sealed 
 up. 
 
 March 1, 1860. I have thoughts, as I walk, 
 on some subject that is running in my head, 
 but all their pertinence seems gone before I can 
 get home to set them down. The most valu- 
 able thoughts which I entertain are anything 
 but what /thought. Nature abhors a vacuum 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 35 
 
 and if I can only walk with sufficient careless- 
 ness, I am sure to be filled. 
 
 March 2, 1840. Love is the burden of all 
 nature's odes, the song of the birds is an epi- 
 thalamium, a hymeneal. The marriage of the 
 flowers spots the meadows and fringes the 
 hedges with pearls and diamonds. In the deep 
 water, in the high air, in woods and pastures, 
 and the bowels of the earth, this is the employ- 
 ment and condition of all things. 
 
 March 2, 1852. If the sciences are protected 
 from being carried by assault by a palisade 
 or chevaux-de-frise of technical terms, so also 
 the learned man may ensconce himself, and 
 conceal his little true knowledge behind hard 
 names. Perhaps the value of any statement 
 may be increased by its susceptibility of being 
 expressed in popular language. The greatest . 
 discoveries can be reported in the newspapers. 
 I thought it was a great advantage both to 
 speakers and hearers, when, at the meetings of 
 scientific gentlemen at the Marlborough Chapel, 
 the representatives of one department of science 
 were required to speak intelligibly to those of 
 other departments ; therefore dispensing with 
 the most peculiarly technical terms. A man 
 may be permitted to state a very meagre truth 
 to a fellow-student using technical terms, but 
 when he stands up before the mass of men he 
 
86 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 must have some distinct and important truth to 
 communicate, and the most important it will 
 always be the most easy to communicate to the 
 vulgar. 
 
 If anybody thinks a thought how sure we 
 are to hear of it. Though it be only a half 
 thought or half a delusion, it gets- into the 
 newspapers, and all the country rings with it. 
 But how much clearing of land, and plowing 
 and planting, and building of stone wall is done 
 every summer without being reported in the 
 newspapers or in literature. Agricultural lit- 
 erature is not as extensive as the fields, and the 
 farmer's almanac is never a big book. Yet I 
 think that the history (or poetry) of one farm 
 from a state of nature to the highest state of 
 cultivation comes nearer to being the true sub- 
 ject of a modern epic than the siege of Jerusa- 
 lem or any such paltry and ridiculous romance 
 to which some have thought men reduced. Was 
 it Coleridge who said that the "Works and 
 Days" of Hesiod, the Eclogues and Georgics of 
 Virgil are but leaves out of that epic? The 
 turning of a swamp into a garden, though the 
 poet may not think it an improvement, is at 
 any rate an enterprise interesting to all men. 
 
 A wealthy farmer, who has money to let, was 
 here yesterday who said that fourteen years ago 
 a man came to him to hire two hundred dollars 
 
EABLT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 37 
 
 for thirty days. He told him that he should 
 have it if he would give proper security. But 
 the other, thinking it exorbitant to require 
 security for so short a term, went away. He 
 soon returned, however, and gave the security ; 
 " and," said the farmer, " he has punctually 
 paid me twelve dollars a year ever since. I 
 have never said a word to him about the prin- 
 cipal." 
 
 March 2, 1854. What produces the peculiar 
 softness of the air yesterday and to-day, as if it 
 were the air of the south suddenly pillowed 
 amid our wintry hills ? We have suddenly a 
 different sky, a different atmosphere. It is as 
 if the subtlest possible soft vapor were diffused 
 through the atmosphere. Warm air has come 
 to us from the south, but charged with moist- 
 ure which will yet distill into rain or congeal 
 into snow and hail. 
 
 March 2, 1855. Another still, warm, beauti- 
 ful day, like yesterday. 9. A. M. To Great 
 Meadows to see the ice. These meadows, like 
 all the rest, are one great field of ice a foot 
 thick, to their utmost verge far up the hillsides 
 and into the swamps, sloping upward there, 
 without water under it, resting almost every- 
 where on the ground, a great undulating field 
 of ice, rolling, prairie-like, the earth wearing 
 this dry icy shield or armor, which shines in 
 
38 EAELT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 the sun. Over brooks and ditches, perhaps, and 
 in many other places, the ice, sometimes a foot 
 thick, is shoved (?) or puffed up in the form 
 of a pent roof, in some places three feet high 
 and stretching twenty or thirty rods. There ia 
 certainly more ice than could lie flat there, as 
 if the adjacent masses had been moved toward 
 each other. Yet this general motion is not 
 likely, and it is more probably the result of 
 the expansion of the ice under the sun, and of 
 the warmth of the water (?) there. In many 
 places the ice is dark and transparent, and 
 you see plainly the bottom on which it lies. 
 The various figures in the partially rotted ice 
 are very interesting, white bubbles, which look 
 like coins of various sizes overlapping each 
 other, parallel waving lines, with sometimes 
 very slight intervals on the underside of slop- 
 ing white ice, marking the successive levels at 
 which the water has stood ; also countless white 
 cleavages, perpendicular or inclined, straight 
 and zigzag, meeting and crossing each other at 
 all possible angles, and making all kinds of geo- 
 metrical figures, checkering the whole surface 
 like white frills or ruffles in the ice. At length 
 it melts on the edge of these cleavages into 
 little gutters which catch the snow. There is 
 the greatest noise from the cracking of the ice 
 about 10 A. M., as I noticed yesterday and to- 
 day. 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 39 
 
 Where the last year's shoots or tops of the 
 young white maples are brought together, as I 
 walk toward a mass of them, one quarter of a 
 mile off, with the sun on them, they present a 
 fine dull scarlet streak. Young twigs are thus 
 more fluid than the old wood, as if from their 
 nearness to the flower, or like the complexion 
 of children. You see thus a fine dash of red 
 or scarlet against the distant hills which near 
 at hand, or in the midst, is wholly unobservable. 
 I go listening, but in vain, for the warble of 
 the bluebird from the old orchard across the 
 river. I love to look now at the fine-grained 
 russet hillsides in the sun, ready to relieve and 
 contrast with, the azure of the bluebirds. I 
 made a burning glass of ice which produced a 
 slight sensation of warmth on 4he back of my 
 hand, but was so irregular that it did not con- 
 centrate the . rays to a sufficiently small focus. 
 Returning over Great Fields found half a dozen 
 arrow-heads, one with three scollops in the 
 
 base Heard two hawks scream. There 
 
 was something truly March-like in it, like a 
 prolonged blast or whistling of the wind through 
 a crevice in the sky, which, like a cracked blue 
 saucer, overlaps the woods. Such are the first 
 rude notes which prelude the summer's choir, 
 learned of the whistling March wind. 
 
 March 2, 1856. Walking up the river by 
 
40 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 •'s was surprised to see on the snow over 
 
 the river a great many seeds and scales of 
 birches, though the snow had so recently fal- 
 len. There had been but little wind, and it 
 was already spring. There was one seed or 
 Bcale to a square foot, yet the nearest birches 
 were, about fifteen of them, along the wall 
 thirty rods east. As I advanced towards them 
 the seeds became thicker and thicker till they 
 quite discolored the snow half a dozen rods 
 distant, while east of the birches there was not 
 one. The birches appear not to have lost a 
 quarter of their seeds yet. So I went home up 
 the river. T saw some i of the seeds forty rods 
 off, and perhaps in a more favorable direction 
 I might have found them much farther. It 
 suggested how unwearied nature is in spread- 
 ing her seeds. Even the spring does not find 
 her unprovided with birch, aye, and alder and 
 pine, seed. A great proportion of the seed that 
 was carried to a distance lodged in the hollow 
 over the river, and when the river breaks up 
 will be carried far away to distant shores and 
 
 meadows 
 
 _, I can hardly believe that hen-hawks may be 
 beginning to build their nests now, yet their 
 young were a fortnight old the last of April 
 last year. 
 March 2, 1858. I walk through the Colburn 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 41 
 
 j 
 
 farm pine woods, and thence to rear of John 
 Hosmer's. See a large flock of snow buntings, 
 the white birds of the winter, rejoicing in the 
 snow. I stand near a flock in an open field. 
 They are trotting about briskly over the snow, 
 amid the weeds, apparently pig-weed and Ro- 
 man wormwood, as if to keep their toes warm 
 hopping up to the weeds. Then they suddenly 
 take to wing again, and as they wheel about 
 one, it is a very rich sight to see them dressed 
 in black and white uniforms, alternate black 
 and white, very distinct and singular. Perhaps 
 no colors would be more effective above the 
 snow, black tips (considerably more) to wings, 
 then clear white between this and the back, 
 
 which is black or very dark again They 
 
 alight again equally near. Their track is much 
 like a small crow's track. 
 
 The last new journal thinks that it is very 
 liberal, nay, bold ; but it does not publish a 
 child's thought on important subjects, such as 
 life and death and good books. It requires 
 the sanction of the divines just as surely as 
 the tamest journal does. If it had been pub- 
 lished at the time of the famous dispute be- 
 tween Christ and the doctors, it would have 
 published only the opinions of the doctors and 
 Buppressed Christ's. There is no need of a 
 iaw to check the license of the press. It is law 
 
42 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 enough and more than enough to itself. Vir- 
 tually the community must have come together 
 and agreed what things shall be uttered, have 
 agreed on a platform and to excommunicate 
 him who departs from it, and not one in a 
 thousand dares utter anything else. There are 
 plenty of journals brave enough to say what 
 they think about the government, this being a 
 free one ; but I know of none widely circulated 
 or well conducted that does say what it thinks 
 about the Sunday or the Bible. They have 
 been bribed to keep dark. They are in the 
 service of hypocrisy. 
 
 March 2, 1859. We talk about spring as at 
 hand before the end of February, and yet it 
 will be two good months, one sixth part of the 
 whole year, before we can go a-Maying. There 
 may be a whole month of solid and uninter- 
 rupted winter yet, plenty of ice and good sleigh 
 ing. We may not even see the bare ground, 
 and hardly the water ; and yet we sit down 
 and warm our spirits annually with the distant 
 prosp.ect of spring. As if a man were to warm 
 his hands by stretching them towards the ris- 
 ing sun and rubbing them. We listen to the 
 February cock-crowing and turkey gobbling as 
 to a first course or prelude. The bluebird, 
 which some wood-chopper or inspired walker 
 is said to have seen in that sunny interval be- 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 43 
 
 fcween the snow storms, is like a speck of clear 
 blue sky seen near the end of a storm, remind- 
 ing us of an ethereal region, and a heaven which 
 we had forgotten. Princes and magistrates are 
 often styled serene, but what is their turbid se- 
 renity to that ethereal serenity which the blue- 
 bird embodies. His most serene Birdship ! His 
 soft warble melts in the ear as the snow is melt- 
 ing in the valleys around. The bluebird comes, 
 and with his warble drills the ice, and sets free 
 the rivers and ponds and frozen ground. As the 
 sand flows down the slopes a little way, assum- 
 ing the forms of foliage when the frost comes 
 out of the ground, so this little rill of melody 
 flows a short way down the concave of the sky. 
 
 The sharp whistle of the blackbird, too, is 
 heard like single sparks, or a shower of them, 
 shot up from the swamp and seen against the 
 dark winter in the rear. 
 
 March 2, 1860. There is a strong westerly 
 wind to-day, though warm, and we sit under 
 Dennis's Lupine promontory to observe the 
 water. A richer blue than the sky ever is. The 
 flooded meadows are ripple lakes on a large 
 scale. The bare landscape, though no growth 
 is visible in it, is bright and spring-like. There 
 is the tawny earth (almost completely bare) 
 of different shades, lighter or darker, the light 
 very light in this air, more so than the surface 
 
44 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 of the earth ever is (i. e., without snow), 
 bleached, as it were, and in the hollows of it, 
 set round by the tawny hills and banks, is this 
 copious, living, and sparkling blue water of vari- 
 ous shades. It is more dashing, rippling, spark- 
 ling, living this windy but clear day, never 
 smooth, but ever varying in its degree of mo- 
 tion and depth of blue, as the wind is more or 
 less strong, rising and falling. All along the 
 shore next us is a strip a few feet wide of very 
 light and smooth sky-blue, for so much is shel- 
 tered ever by the lowest shore, but the rest is 
 all more or less agitated and dark blue. In it 
 are floating or stationary, here and there, cakes 
 of white ice, the least looking like ducks, and 
 large patches of water have a dirty-white or 
 even tawny look where the ice still lies on the 
 bottom of the meadow. Thus even the meadow 
 flood is parded, of various patches of color. Ever 
 and anon the wind seems to drop down from 
 over the hills in strong puffs, and then spread 
 and diffuse itself in dark, fan-shaped figures 
 over the surface of the water. It is glorious to 
 see how it sports on the watery surface. You 
 see a hundred such nimble-footed puffs drop 
 and spread on all sides at once, and dash on, 
 sweeping the surface of the water for forty rods 
 in a few seconds, as if so many invisible spirits 
 were playing tag there. It even suggests some 
 
, EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 45 
 
 fine dust swept along just above the surface 
 and reminds me of snow blowing over ice — and 
 vapor curving along a roof, meandering like 
 that, often. The before dark blue is now diver- 
 sified with much darker or blackish patches, 
 
 with a suggestion of red, purplish even I 
 
 am surprised to see that the billows which the 
 wind makes are concentric curves, apparently- 
 reaching round from shore to shore of this broad 
 bay forty rods wide or more. For this, two 
 things may account, the greater force of the wind 
 in the middle and the friction of the shores. 
 When it blows hardest each successive billow 
 (four or five feet apart or more) is crowned 
 with a yellowish or dirty-white foam. The 
 wind blows around each side of the hill, the 
 opposite currents meeting, perchance, or it falls 
 over the hill so that you have a field of ever- 
 varying color, dark blue, blackish, yellowish, 
 light blue, smooth sky-blue, purplish, and yel- 
 lowish foam, all at once. Sometimes the wind 
 visibly catches up the surface and blows it 
 along and about in spray four or five feet high. 
 The requisites are high water, mostly clear of 
 ice, ground bare and sufficiently dry, weather 
 warm enough, and wind strong and gusty. 
 Then you may sit or stand on a hill and watch 
 the play of the wind with the water. I know 
 of no checker-board more interesting to watch. 
 
46 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 The wind, the gusts, comb the hair of the water- 
 nymphs. You never tire of seeing it drop, 
 spread, and sweep over the yielding and -sensi- 
 tive surface. The water is full of life, now ris- 
 ing into higher billows which would make your 
 mast crack if you had any, now subsiding into 
 lesser, dashing against and wearing away the 
 still anchored ice, setting many small cakes 
 adrift. How they entertain us with ever-chang- 
 ing scenes in the sky above or on the earth be- 
 low. If the plowman lean on his plow handle 
 and look up or down, there is danger that he 
 will forget his labor on that day. 
 
 March 3, 1838. Homer. Three thousand 
 years and the world so little changed. The 
 Iliad seems like a natural sound which has re- 
 verberated to our days. Whatever in it is still 
 freshest in the memories of men was most 
 childlike in the poet. It is the problem of old 
 age, a second childhood exhibited in the life of 
 the world. Phoebus Apollo went like night, 
 s 8' 7/ie vwktI counos. This either refers to the 
 gross atmosphere of the plague, darkening the 
 sun, or to the crescent of night, rising solemn 
 and stately in the east, while the sun is setting 
 in the west. 
 
 Then Agamemnon darkly lowers on Calchas, 
 
 prophet of evil, oarae 8e ol wvfii Xa/xwerornvTi eiicn/v, 
 
 such a fire-eyed Agamemnon as you may see ai 
 
EABLY SPEING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 47 
 
 town meetings and elections, as well here as in 
 Troy neighborhood. 
 
 March 3, 1839. The poet must be some- 
 thing more than natural, even supernatural. 
 Nature will not speak through him, but along 
 with him. His voice will not proceed from her 
 midst, but, breathing on her, will make her the 
 expression of his thought. He then poetizes 
 when he takes a fact out of nature into spirit. 
 He speaks without reference to time or place. 
 His thought is one world, hers, another. He is 
 another nature, nature's brother. 
 
 March 3, 1841. I hear a man blowing a 
 horn this still evening, and it sounds like the 
 plaint of nature in these times. In this which 
 I refer to some man there is something greater 
 than any man. It is as if the earth spoke. It 
 adds a great remoteness to the horizon, and its 
 very distance is grand, as when one draws back 
 the head to speak. That which I now hear in 
 the west seems like an invitation to the east. 
 It runs round the earth as round a whisper- 
 ing gallery. All things great seem transpiring 
 where this sound comes from. It is friendly as 
 & distant hermit's taper. When it trills or un- 
 dulates, the heavens are crumpled into time, 
 and successive waves flow across them. It is a 
 strangely healthy sound for these disjointed 
 times. It is a rare soundness when cow-bells 
 
48 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 and horns are heard from over the fields. And 
 now I see the full meaning and beauty of that 
 word, sound. Nature always possesses a cer- 
 tain sonorousness, as in the hum of insects, the 
 booming of ice, the crowing of cocks in the 
 morning, and the barking of dogs in the night, 
 which indicates her sound state. God's voice" 
 is but a clear bell sound. I drink in a wonder- 
 ful health, a cordial, in sound. The effect of 
 the slightest tinkling in the horizon measures 
 my own soundness, I thank God for sound. It 
 always mounts and makes me mount. I think 
 I will not trouble myself for any wealth when 
 I can be so cheaply enriched. Here I contem- 
 plate to drudge that I may own a farm, and 
 may have such a limitless estate for the listen- 
 ing. All good things are cheap, all bad are 
 very dear. 
 
 As for these communities, I think I had 
 rather keep bachelor's hall in hell than go to 
 board in heaven. Do not think your virtue 
 will be boarded with you. It will never live 
 on the interest of your money, depend upon it. 
 The boarder has no home. In heaven I hope to 
 bake my own bread and clean my own linen. 
 The tomb is the only boarding-house in which 
 a hundred are served at once. In the cata- 
 combs we may dwell together and prop one 
 another up without loss. 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 49 
 
 March 3, 1857. To Fair Haven Hill. 3 P. 
 M. 24°+ in shade. The red maple sap, which 
 1 first noticed the 21st of February, is now 
 frozen up in the auger holes, and thence down 
 the trunk to the ground, except in one place 
 where the hole was made on the south side of 
 the tree, where it is melted and is flowing a lit- 
 tle. Generally, -then, when the thermometer is 
 thus low, say below freezing point, it does not 
 thaw in the auger holes. There is no expand- 
 ing of buds of any kind, nor are early birds to 
 be seen. Nature was, thus, premature, antici- 
 pated her own revolutions with respect to the 
 sap of trees, the buds (spiraea, at least), and 
 birds. The warm spell ended with February 
 26th. 
 
 The crust of yesterday's snow has been con- 
 verted by the sun and wind into flakes of thin 
 ice from two or_three inches to a foot in diame- 
 ter, scattered like a mackerel sky over the past- 
 ures, as if all the snow bad been blown out 
 from beneath. Much of this thin ice is partly 
 opaque and has a glutinous look even, remind- 
 ing me of frozen glue. Probably it has much 
 
 dust mixed with it The slight robin 
 
 snow of yesterday is already mostly dissipated, 
 but where a heap still lingers the sun on the 
 Ibarra face of this cliff leads down a puny, trick- 
 ling rill, moistening the gutters on the steep 
 
50 EARLY SPEING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 face of the rocks where patches of umbiliearia 
 lichens grow, of rank growth, but now thirsty 
 and dry as bones and hornets' nests, dry as 
 shells which crackle under your feet. The more 
 fortunate of these, which stand by the moistened 
 seam or gutter of the rock, luxuriate in the 
 grateful moisture as in the spring, their rigid 
 nerves relax, they unbend and droop like lim- 
 ber infancy, and from dry ash and leather color 
 turn a lively olive green. You can trace the 
 course of this trickling stream over the rock 
 through such a patch of lichens by the olive 
 green of the lichens alone. Here and there the 
 same moisture refreshes and brightens up the 
 scarlet crown of some little cockscomb lichen; 
 and when the rill reaches the perpendicular face 
 of the cliff its constant drip at night builds 
 great organ pipes, of a ringed structure, which 
 run together buttressing the rock. Skating 
 yesterday and to-day. 
 
 March 3, 1859. Going by the solidago oak 
 at Clam-shell Hill bank, I heard a faint rip- 
 pling note, and looking up saw about fifteen 
 snow buntings sitting in the top of the oak, all 
 with their breasts toward me. Sitting so still, 
 and quite white seen against the white cloudy 
 Bky, they did not look like birds, and their bold- 
 ness, allowing me to come quite near, enhanced 
 this impression. They were almost as white as 
 
EARLY SPUING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 51 
 
 mow-balls, and from time to time I heard a 
 low, soft, rippling note from them. I could see 
 no features, but only the general outline of 
 plump birds in white. It was a very spectral 
 Bight, and after I had watched them for several 
 minutes I can hardly say that I was prepared 
 to see them fly away like ordinary buntings 
 when I advanced further. At first they were 
 almost concealed by being the same color with 
 
 the cloudy sky 
 
 How imperceptibly the first springing takes 
 place ! In some still, muddy "springs whose 
 temperature is more equable than that of the 
 brooks, while brooks and ditches generally are 
 thickly frozen and concealed, and the earth is 
 covered with snow, and it is even cold, hard, 
 and nipping winter weather, some fine grass 
 which fills the water begins to lift its tiny 
 spears or blades above the surface which di- 
 rectly fall flat for half an inch or an inch along 
 the surface, and on these (though many are 
 frost-bitten) you may measure the length to 
 which the spring had advanced (has sprung) ; 
 very few indeed, even of botanists, are aware 
 of this growth. Some of it appears to go on 
 even under ice and snow. Or, in such a place 
 as I have described, if it is sheltered by alders 
 or the like you may see (as March 2d) a little 
 green crescent of caltha leaves raised an inch 
 
52 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 or so above the water, the leaves but partially 
 unrolled and looking as if they would with- 
 draw beneath the surface again at night. This 
 I think must be the most conspicuous and for- 
 ward greenness of the spring. The small red- 
 dish, radical leaves of the dock, too, are ob- 
 served flat on the moist ground as soon as the 
 snow has melted there, *as if they had grown 
 beneath it. 
 
 Talk about reading ! a good reader ! It de- 
 pends on how he is heard. There may be 
 elocution and pronunciation (recitation say) to 
 satiety, but there can be no good reading un- 
 less there is good hearing also. It takes two, 
 at least, for this game, as for love, and they 
 must cooperate. The lecturer will read but 
 those parts of his lecture which are best heard. 
 Sometimes, it is true, the faith and spirits of 
 the reader run a little ahead and draw after 
 the good hearing, and at other times the good 
 hearing runs ahead and draws on the good 
 reading. The reader and the hearer are a 
 team not to be harnessed tandem, the poor 
 wheel horse supporting the burden of the shafts, 
 while the leader runs pretty much at will, the 
 lecture lying passive in the painted curricle be- 
 hind. I saw some men unloading molasses 
 hogsheads from a truck at a depot the other 
 day, by rolling them up an inclined plane. The 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 53 
 
 truckmen stood behind and shoved, after put- 
 ting a couple of ropes, one round each end of 
 the hogshead, while two men standing in the 
 depot steadily pulled at the ropes. The first 
 man was the lecturer, the others were the audi- 
 ence. It is the duty of the lecturer to team his 
 hogshead of sweets to the depot or Lyceum, 
 place the horse, arrange the ropes, and shove, 
 and it is the duty of the audience to take hold 
 of the ropes and pull with all their might. The 
 lecturer who has to read his essay without be- 
 ing abetted by a good hearing is in the predica- 
 ment of a teamster who is engaged in the Sisy- 
 phean labor of rolling a molasses hogshead up 
 an inclined plane alone, while the freight-mas- 
 ter and his men stand indifferent with their 
 hands in their pockets. I have seen many such 
 a hogshead which had rolled off the horse and 
 gone to smash with all the sweets wasted on the 
 ground between the truckmen and the freight- 
 house, and the freight-masters thought the loss 
 was not theirs. Read well ! Did you ever know 
 a full well that did not yield of its refreshing 
 waters to those who put their hands to the 
 windlass or the well-sweep ? Did you ever suck 
 cider through a straw ? Did you ever know 
 the cider to push out of the straw when you 
 were not. sucking, unless it chanced to be in a 
 complete ferment ? An audience will draw out 
 
54 EARLY SPEING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 of a lecture, or enable a lecturer to read, only 
 such parts of his lecture as they like. It is like 
 a barrel half fuH. of some palatable liquor. You 
 may tap it at various levels, in the sweet liquor, 
 or in the froth, or in the fixed air above. If it 
 is pronounced good, it is partly to the credit of 
 the hearers, if bad, it is partly their fault. 
 Sometimes a lazy audience refuses to cooperate 
 and pull at the ropes because the hogshead is 
 full and therefore heavy, when if it were empty, 
 or had only a little sugar adhering to it, they 
 would whisk it up the slope in a jiffy. The 
 lecturer therefore desires of his audience a long 
 pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether. I 
 have seen a sturdy (truckman) lecturer who 
 had nearly broken his back with shoving his 
 lecture up such an inclined plane, while the 
 audience were laughing at him, at length, as 
 with a last effort, set it a-rolling in amid the 
 audience and upon their toes, scattering them 
 like sheep and making them cry out with pain, 
 while he drove proudly away. Rarely it is a 
 very heavy freight of such hogsheads stored in 
 a vessel's hold that is to be lifted out and de- 
 posited on the public wharf, and this is accom- 
 plished only after many a hearty pull and a 
 good deal of heave-yo-ing. 
 
 March 3, 1860. 2 p. m. 50°+. Overcast 
 Mid somewhat rain-threatening. Wind south- 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 55 
 
 west. To Abner Buttrick and Tarbell Hills. 
 See a flock of large ducks in a line (may be 
 black ?) over Great Meadows' also a few shel- 
 drakes. It was pleasant to hear the tinkling of 
 very coarse brash, broken, honey-combed, dark 
 ice, rattling one piece against another along 
 the northeast shores to which it had drifted. 
 Scarcely any ice now about river except what 
 rests on the bottom of the meadow, dirty with 
 sediment. The first song-sparrows are very in- 
 conspicuous and shy on the brown earth. You 
 hear some weeds rustle, or think you see a 
 mouse run amid the stubble, and then the spar- 
 row flies low away. 
 
 March 4, 1840. I learned to-day that my 
 ornithology had done me no service. The birds 
 I heard, which fortunately did not come within 
 the scope of my science, sang as freshly as if it 
 had been the first morning of creation and had 
 for background to their song an untrodden wil- 
 derness stretching through many a Carolina 
 and Mexico of the soul. 
 
 March 4, 1841. Ben Jonson says in his 
 epigrams, " He makes himself a thoroughfare of 
 vice." This is true, for by vice the substance 
 of a man is not changed, but all his pores and 
 cavities and avenues are profaned by being 
 made the thoroughfares of vice. The searching 
 devil courses through and through him. His 
 
56 EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 flesh and blood and bones are cheapened. He 
 is all trivial, a place where three highways of 
 sin meet. So is another the thoroughfare of 
 virtue, and virtue circulates through all his 
 aisles like a wind, and he is hallowed. 
 
 We reprove each other unconsciously by 
 our own behavior. Our very carriage and de- 
 meanor in the streets should be a reprimand 
 that will go to the conscience of every beholder. 
 An infusion of love from a great soul gives a 
 color to our faults which will discover them as 
 lunar caustic detects impurities in water. The 
 best will not seem to go contrary to others ; but 
 as if they could afford to travel the same way, 
 they go a parallel but higher course. Jonson 
 says, — 
 
 " That to the vulgar canst thyself apply, 
 Treading a better path, not contrary." 
 
 March 4, 1852. It is discouraging to talk 
 with men who will recognise no principles. 
 How little use is made of reason in this world ! 
 You argue with a man for an hour, he agrees 
 with you step by step, you are approaching a 
 triumphant conclusion, you think that you have 
 converted him, but, ah, no, he has a habit, he 
 takes a pinch of snuff, he remembers that he 
 entertained a different opinion at the com- 
 mencement of the controversy, and his rever- 
 ence for the past compels him to reiterate it 
 
EAELT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 57 
 
 now. You began at the butt of tbe pole to 
 curve it, you gradually bent it round according 
 to rule, and planted the other end in the ground, 
 and already in imagination saw the vine curling 
 round this segment of an arbor, under which a 
 new generation was to recreate itself, but when 
 you had done, it sprang back to its former stub- 
 born and unhandsome position like a bit of 
 whalebone. 
 
 10 A. M. Up river on ice to Fairhaven Pond. 
 .... We have this morning the clear, cold, 
 continent sky of January. The river is frozen 
 solidly and I do not have to look out for open- 
 ings. Now I can take that walk along the 
 river highway and the meadow which leads me 
 under the boughs of the maples and the swamp 
 white oaks, etc., which in summer overhang the 
 water. I can now stand at my ease and study 
 their phenomena amid the sweet gale and but- 
 ton bushes projecting above the snow and ice. 
 I see the shore from the water side ; a liberal 
 walk, so level, wide, and smooth, without un- 
 derbrush. In some places where the ice is ex- 
 posed I see a kind of crystallized' chaffy snow 
 like little bundles of asbestos on its surface. I 
 seek some sunny nook on the -south side of a 
 wood which keeps off the cold wind, among the 
 maples and the swamp white oaks, and there 
 ut and anticipate the spring and hear the chick- 
 
58 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 adees and the belching of the ice. The sun has 
 got a new power in his rays after all, cold as 
 the weather is. He could not have warmed me 
 so much a month ago, nor should I have heard 
 such rumblings of the ice in December. I see 
 where a maple has been wounded, the sap is 
 flowing out. Now, then, is the time to make 
 sugar. 
 
 If I were to paint the short days of winter 
 I should represent two towering icebergs ap- 
 proaching each other like promontories, for 
 morning and evening, with cavernous recesses, 
 and a solitary traveler wrapping his cloak about 
 him and bent forward against a driving storm, 
 just entering the narrow pass. I would paint 
 the light of a taper at midday, seen through a 
 cottage window, half buried in snow and frost. 
 .... In the foreground should appear the 
 harvest, and far in the background, through 
 the pass, should be seen the sowers in the fields 
 and other evidences of spring. On the right 
 and left of the approaching icebergs the heav- 
 ens should be shaded off from the light of mid- 
 day to midnight with its stars, the sunbeing 
 low in the sky. I look between my legs up the 
 river across Fair Haven. Subverting the head, 
 we refer things to the heavens, the sky becomes 
 the ground of the picture, and where the river 
 breaks through low hills which slope to meet 
 
EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 59 
 
 each other one quarter of a mile off, appears a 
 mountain pass, so much nearer is it to heaven. 
 We are compelled to call it something which 
 relates it to- the heavens rather than the earth. 
 
 Now at eleven and a half, perhaps, the sky 
 begins to be slightly overcast. The northwest 
 is the god of the winter, as the southwest of 
 the summer. The forms of clouds are inter- 
 esting, often, as now, like flames, or more like 
 the surf curling before it breaks, reminding 
 me of the prows of ancient vessels which have 
 their pattern or prototype again in the surf, as 
 if the wind made a surf of the mist. Thus as 
 the fishes look up at the waves, we look up at 
 the clouds. It is pleasant to see the reddish- 
 green leaves of the lambkill still hanging with 
 -fruit above the snow, for I am now crossing the 
 shrub oak plain to the Cliffs. I find a place 
 on the south side of this rocky hill where the 
 snow is melted and the bare gray rock appears 
 covered with mosses and lichens and beds of 
 oak leaves in the hollows, where I can sit, and 
 an invisible flame and smoke seem to ascend 
 from the leaves,, and the sun shines with a gen- 
 ial warmth, and you can imagine the hum of 
 bees amid flowers. The heat reflected from the 
 dry leaves reminds you of the sweet fern and 
 those summer afternoons which are longer than 
 ft winter day, though you sit on a mere oasis in 
 
60 EARLY SPEING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 the snow. The snow is melting on the rocks, 
 the water trickles down in shining streams, the 
 mosses look bright ; the first awakening of veg- 
 etation is at the root of the saxifrage. As I go 
 by the farmer's yard the hens cackle more sol- 
 idly, as if eggs were the burden of the strain. 
 
 A horse's fore legs are handier than his hind 
 ones, the latter but fall into the place which the 
 former have found. They have the advantage 
 of being nearer the head, the source of intelli- 
 gence.. He strikes and paws with them. It is 
 true he kicks with the hind legs. But that is 
 a very simple and unscientific action, as if his 
 whole body were a whip lash and his heels the 
 snapper. 
 
 The constant reference in our lives, even in 
 the most trivial matters, to the superhuman is 
 wonderful. If a portrait is painted, neither the 
 wife's opinion of the husband, nor the husband's 
 opinion of the wife, nor either's opinion of the 
 artist, not man's opinion of man, is final and 
 satisfactory. Man is not the final judge of the 
 humblest work, though it be piling wood. The 
 queen and the chambermaid, the king and the 
 hired man, the Indian and the slave, alike ap- 
 peal to God. 
 
 Each man's mode of speaking of the sexual 
 relation proves how sacred his own relations of 
 that kind are. We do not respect the mind 
 that can jest on this subject. 
 
EAELT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 61 
 
 March 4, 1854. p. M. To Walden. In the 
 meadow I see some still fresh and perfect 
 pitcher plant leaves, and everywhere the green 
 and reddish radical leaves of the golden sene- 
 cio, whose fragrance when bruised carries me 
 back or forward to an incredible season. Who 
 would believe that under the snow and ice lie 
 still, or in mid-winter, some green leaves which 
 bruised yield the same odor that they do when 
 their yellow blossoms spot the meadows in 
 June. Nothing so realizes the summer to me 
 now. In the dry pastures under the Cliff Hill, 
 the radical leaves of the Johnswort are now re- 
 vealed everywhere in pretty radiating wreaths 
 flat on the ground. These leaves are recurved, 
 reddish above, green beneath, and covered with 
 dewy drops. I see now-a-days, the ground being 
 laid bare, great cracks in the earth revealed, a 
 third of an inch wide, running with a crink- 
 ling line for twenty rods or more through the 
 pastures and under the walls, frost cracks of 
 the past winter. Sometimes they are revealed 
 through ice four or five inches thick over them. 
 I observed to-day where a crack had divided a 
 piece of bark lying over it with the same ir- 
 regular and finely meandering lines, sometimes 
 forking. 
 
 March 4, 1855. P. M. Though there is a 
 cold and strong wind, it is very warm in the 
 
62 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Bun, and we can sit in it when sheltered by 
 these rocks with impunity. It is a genial 
 warmth. The rustle of the dry leaves on the 
 earth and in the crannies of the rocks, and 
 gathered in deep windrows just under their 
 edge, midleg deep, reminds me of fires in the 
 woods. They are almost ready to burn. 
 
 March 4, 1859. We stood still a few mo- 
 ments on the turnpike below Wright's (the 
 turnpike which has no wheel track beyond Tut- 
 tle's and no track at all beyond Wright's), and 
 listened to hear a spring bird. We only heard 
 the jay screaming in the distance and the caw- 
 ing of a crow. What a perfectly New England 
 sound is this voice of the crow ! If you stand 
 perfectly still anywhere in the outskirts of the 
 town, and listen, stilling the almost incessant 
 hum of your personal factory, this is perhaps 
 the sound which you will be most sure to hear, 
 rising above all sounds of human industry, and 
 leading your thoughts to some far bay in the 
 woods, where the crow is venting his disgust. 
 This bird sees the white man come and the In- 
 dian withdraw, but it withdraws not. Its un- 
 tamed voice is still heard above the tinkling 
 of the forge. It sees a race pass away, but it 
 passes not away. It remains to remind us of 
 aboriginal nature. 
 
 March, 5, 1841. How can our love increase 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 63 
 
 unless our loveliness increases also. We must 
 securely love each other as we love God, with 
 no more danger that our love be unrequited or 
 ill-bestowed. There is that in my friend before 
 which I must first decay and prove untrue. Love 
 is. the least moral and the most. Are the best 
 good in their love ? or the worst, bad ? 
 
 March 5, 1853. It is encouraging to know 
 that though every kernel of truth has been care- 
 fully swept out of our churches, there yet re- 
 mains the dust of truth on their walls, so that 
 if you should carry a light into them, they 
 would still, like some powder-mills, blow up 
 at once. 
 
 3 P. M. To the Beeches. A misty after- 
 noon, but warm, threatening rain. Standing on 
 Walden, whose eastern shore is laid waste, men 
 walking on the hillside a quarter of a mile off 
 are singularly interesting objects seen through 
 the mist which has the effect of a mirage. The 
 persons of the walkers are black on the snowy 
 ground, and the limited horizon makes them 
 the more important in the scene. This kind 
 of weather is very favorable to our landscape. 
 I must not forget the lichen-painted boles of 
 the beeches. 
 
 Round to the white bridge where the red-ma- 
 ple buds are already much expanded, foretell- 
 ing summer, though our eyes s'>e only winter 
 
64 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 as yet. As I sit under their boughs looking 
 into the sky, I suddenly see the myriad black 
 dots of the expanded buds against the sky. 
 Their sap is flowing. The elm buds, too, I 
 find are expanded, though on earth are no 
 signs of spring. I find myself inspecting lit- 
 tle granules, as it were, on the bark of trees, 
 little shields or apothecia springing from a 
 thallus, and I call it studying lichens. That 
 is merely the prospect which is afforded me. 
 It is short commons and innutritious. Surely 
 I might take wider views. The habit of look- 
 ing at things microscopically, as the lichens 
 on the trees and rocks, really prevents my see- 
 ing aught else in a walk. Would it not be 
 noble to study the shield of the sun on the 
 thallus of the sky, cerulean, which scatters its 
 infinite sporules of light through the universe. 
 To the lichenist is not the shield (or rather the 
 apotliecium) of a lichen disproportionately large 
 compared with the universe ? 
 
 March 5, 1853. F. Browne showed me some 
 lesser red -polls which he shot yesterday. They 
 turn out to be very falsely called the chest- 
 nut frontleted bird of the winter. " Linaria 
 minor. Ray. Lesser Red-poll. Linnet. From 
 Pennsylvania and New Jersey to Maine, in 
 winter ; inland to Kentucky. Breeds in Maine, 
 Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Labrador, and 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 65 
 
 the fur countries." Aud. Synopsis. They 
 have a sharp bill; black legs and claws, and 
 a bright crimson crown or frontlet, in the male 
 reaching to the base of the bill, with, in his 
 case, a delicate rose or carmine on the breast 
 and rump. Though this is described in Nuttall 
 as an occasional visitor in the winter, it has 
 been the prevailing bird here this winter. 
 
 Yesterday I got my grape cuttings. The day 
 before went to the Corner spring to look at the 
 
 tufts of green grass Was pleased with 
 
 the sight of the yellow osiers of the golden wil- 
 low and the red of the cornel, now colors are so 
 rare. Saw the green fine-threaded conferva in 
 a ditch, commonly called frog spittle. Brought 
 it home in my pocket and it expanded again in 
 a tumbler. It appeared quite a fresh growth, 
 with what looked like filmy air-bubbles as big 
 as large shot in its midst. 
 
 The Secretary of the Association for the Ad- 
 vancement of Science requested me, as he prob- 
 ably has thousands of others, by a printed cir- 
 cular letter from Washington, the other day, to 
 fill the blanks against certain questions, among 
 which the most important one was what branch 
 of science I was specially interested in, using 
 the term science in the most comprehensive 
 sense possible. Now, though I could state to 
 a select few that department of human inquiry 
 
66 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 which engages me, and should rejoice at an op- 
 portunity so to do, I felt that it would be to 
 make myself the laughing stock of the scien- 
 tific community to describe to them that branch 
 of science which specially interests me, inas- 
 much as they do not believe in a science which 
 deals with the higher law. So I was obliged to 
 speak to their condition and describe to them 
 that poor part of me which alone they can un- 
 derstand. The fact is I am a mystic, a tran- 
 Bcendentalist, and a natural philosopher to boot. 
 Now I think of it, I should have told them at 
 once that I was a transcendentalist; that would 
 have been the shortest way of telling them 
 that they would not understand my explana- 
 tions. How absurd that though I probably 
 stand as near to Nature as any of them, and 
 am by constitution as good*| an observer as 
 most, yet a true account of my relation to na- 
 ture should excite their ridicule only. If it 
 had been the secretary of an association of 
 which Plato or Aristotle was the president, I 
 should not have hesitated to describe my studies 
 at once and particularly. 
 
 March 5, 1856. To Carlisle, surveying. I 
 had two friends. The one offered me friend- 
 ship on such terms that I could not accept it 
 without a sense of degradation. He would not 
 meet me on equal terms, but only be to some 
 
EABLT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 67 
 
 extent my patron. He would not come to see 
 me, but was hurt if I did not visit him. He 
 would not readily accept a favor, but wuiild 
 gladly confer one. He treated me with cere- 
 mony occasionally, though he could be simple 
 and downright sometimes. From time to time 
 he acted a part, treating me as if I were a dis- 
 tinguished stranger, was on stilts, using made 
 words. Our relation was one long tragedy, yet 
 I did not directly speak of it. I do not believe 
 in complaint, nor in explanations. The whole 
 is but too plain, alas, already. We grieve that 
 we do not love each other. I could not bring 
 myself to speak and so recognize an obstacle to 
 our affection. 
 
 I had another friend who through a slight 
 obtuseness, perchance, did not recognize a fact 
 which the dignity of friendship would by no 
 means allow me to descend so far as to speak 
 of, and yet the inevitable effect of that igno- 
 rance was to hold us apart forever. 
 
 March 5, 1858. We read the English poets, 
 we study botany and zoology and geology, lean 
 and dry as they are, and it is rare that we 
 get a new suggestion. It is ebb tide with the 
 
 scientific reports, Professor in the chair. 
 
 We would fain know something more about 
 these animals and stones and trees around us. 
 We are ready to skin the animals alive to came 
 
68 EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 at them. Our scientific names convey a very par- 
 tial information, they suggest certain thoughts 
 only. It does not occur to me that there are 
 other names for most of these objects given by 
 a people who stood between me and them, who 
 had better senses than our race. How little I 
 know of that arbor vitce when I have heard only 
 what science can tell me. It is but a word, it 
 is not a tree of life. But there are twenty 
 words for the tree and its different parts which 
 the Indian gave, which are not in our botanies, 
 which imply a more practical and vital science. 
 He used it every day. He was well acquainted 
 with its wood, its bark, and its leaves. No sci- 
 ence does more than arrange what knowledge 
 we have of any class of objects. But generally 
 speaking how much more conversant was the 
 Indian with any wild animal or plant than we, 
 and in his language is implied all that intimacy, 
 as much as ours is expressed in our language, 
 How many words in his language about a moose, 
 or birch bark, and the like. The Indian stood 
 nearer to wild nature than we. The wildest 
 and noblest quadrupeds, even the largest fresh 
 water fish, some of the wildest and noblest birds, 
 and the fairest flowers have actually receded as 
 we advanced, and we have but the most distant 
 knowledge of them. A rumor has come down 
 to us that the skin of a lion was seen and his 
 
EARLY SPEING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 69 
 
 roar heard here by an early settler. But there 
 was a race here that slept on his skin. It was 
 a new light when my guide gave me Indian 
 names for things for which I had only scientific 
 ones before. In proportion as I understood the 
 language, I saw them from a new point of view. 
 
 A dictionary of the Indian language reveals 
 another and wholly new life to us. Look at 
 the wood canoe, and see what a story it tells of 
 out-door life, with the names of all its parts and 
 of the modes of driving it, as our words describe 
 the different parts of a coach ; or at the word 
 wigwam, and see how close it brings you to the 
 ground ; or at Indian corn, and see which race 
 has been most familiar with it. It reveals to 
 me a life within a life, or rather a life with- 
 out a life, as it were threading the woods be- 
 tween our towns, and yet we can never tread 
 on its trail. The Indian's earthly life was as 
 far off from us as heaven is. 
 
 I saw yesterday a musquash sitting on thin 
 ice on the Assabet by a hole which it had kept 
 open, gnawing a white root. Now and then it 
 would dive and bring up more. I waited for 
 it to dive again that I might run nearer to it 
 meanwhile, but it sat ten minutes all wet in the 
 freezing wind while my feet and ears grew 
 numb, so tough it is. At last I got quite near. 
 When I frightened it, it dove with a sudden 
 
70 EAKLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Blap of its tail. I feel pretty sure that this 
 is an involuntary movement, the tail, by the 
 sudden turn of the body, being brought down 
 on the water or ice like a whip-lash. 
 
 March 5, 1859. Going down town this A. M. 
 I heard a white-bellied nuthatch on an elm 
 within twenty feet, uttering peculiar notes and 
 more like a song than I remember to have 
 heard from it. There was a chickadee close by 
 to which it may have been addressed. It was 
 something like " To-what what what what what " 
 rapidly repeated, and not the usual " quah quah." 
 And this instant it occurs to me that this may 
 be that earliest spring note which I hear and 
 have referred to a wood-pecker ! This is be- 
 fore I have chanced to see a bluebird, black- 
 bird, or robin in Concord this year. It is the 
 spring note of the nuthatch. It paused in its 
 progress about the trunk or branch, and uttered 
 this lively but peculiarly inarticulate song, an 
 awkward attempt to warble almost in the face 
 of the chickadee, as if it were one of its kind. 
 It was thus giving vent to the spring within it. 
 If I am not mistaken, this is what I have heard 
 in former springs or winters long ago, fabulously 
 aarly in the season, when we men had but just 
 begun to anticipate the spring, for it would 
 seem that we in our anticipations and sympa- 
 thies include in succession the moods and ex 
 
EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 71 
 
 pressions of all creatures. When only the snow 
 had begun to melt and no rill of song had 
 broken loose, a note so dry and fettered still, so 
 inarticulate and half thawed out that you might 
 and would commonly mistake for the tapping 
 of a woodpecker. As if the young nuthatch in 
 its hole had listened only to the tapping of 
 woodpeckers and learned that music, and now 
 when it would sing and give vent to its spring 
 ecstasy, it can modulate only some notes like 
 that. That is its theme still. That is its rul- 
 ing idea of song and music. Only a little clan- 
 gor and liquidity added to the tapping of the 
 woodpecker. It was the handle by which my 
 thoughts took firmly hold on spring. This 
 herald of spring is commonly unseen, it sits so 
 close to the bark. 
 
 March 5, 1860. The old naturalists were 
 so sensitive and sympathetic toward nature that 
 they could be surprised by the ordinary events 
 of life. It was an incessant miracle to them, 
 and therefore gorgons and flying dragons were 
 not incredible. The greatest and saddest de- 
 fect is not credulity, but an habitual forgetful- 
 ness that our science is ignorance. 
 
 As we sat under Lupine promontory the 
 other day, watching the ripples that swept over 
 the flooded meadows, and thinking what an eli- 
 gible site that would be for a cottage, C de- 
 
72 EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 clared that we did not live in the country as 
 long as we lived in that village street and only 
 took walks into the fields, any more than if we 
 lived in Boston or New York. We enjoyed 
 none of the immortal qniet of the country as 
 we might here, for instance, but, perchance, the 
 first sound that we hear in the morning, in- 
 stead of the note of a bird, is some neighbor's 
 hawking and spitting. 
 
 March 6, 1840. There is no delay in an- 
 swering great questions ; for them all things 
 have an answer ready. The Pythian priestess 
 gave her answers instantly, and ofttimes before 
 the questions were fairly propounded. Great 
 topics do not wait for past or future to be de- 
 termined ; but the state of the crops or Brighton 
 market, no bird concerns itself about. 
 
 March 6, 1841. An honest misunderstand- 
 ing is often the ground of future intercourse. 
 
 March 6, 1853. p. m. To Lee's Hill. I am 
 pleased to cut the small woods with my knife 
 to see their color. The high blueberry, hazel, 
 and swamp pink are green. I love to see the 
 clear green sprouts of the sassafras, and its 
 large and fragrant buds and bark. The twigs 
 and branches of young trees twenty feet high 
 look as if scorched and blackened. 
 
 The water is pretty high on the meadows 
 (though the ground is covered with snow) so 
 
EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 73 
 
 that we get a little of the peculiar still lake 
 view at evening when the wind goes down. 
 Two red squirrels made an ado about or above 
 me near the North River, hastily running from 
 tree to tree, leaping from the extremity of one 
 bough to that of another on the next tree, until 
 they gained and ascended a large white pine. 
 I approached and stood under this, while they 
 made a great fuss about me. One at length 
 came part way down to reconnoitre me. It 
 seemed that one did the barking, a faint, short, 
 chippy bai'k, like that of a toy dog, its tail vi- 
 brating each time, while its neck was stretched 
 over a bough as it peered at me. The other, 
 higher up, kept up a sort of gurgling whistle, 
 more like a bird than a beast. When I made a 
 noise, they would stop a moment. 
 
 Scared up a partridge which had crawled 
 iato a pile of wood. Saw a gray hare, a dirty 
 yellowish gray, not trig and neat, but, as usual, 
 apparently in dishabille. As it frequently does, 
 it ran a little way and stopped just at the en- 
 trance to its retreat, then, when I moved again, 
 suddenly disappeared. By a slight obscure hole- 
 in the snow it had access to a large and appar- 
 ently deep woodchucks' hole. 
 
 March 6, 1854. The water here and there 
 on the meadow begins to appear smooth and I 
 look to see it rippled by a musk-rat. The earth 
 
74 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 has, to some extent, frozen dry, for the drying 
 of the earth goes on in the cold night as well as 
 the warm day. The alders and hedge-rows are 
 still silent, emit no notes. According to G. B. 
 Emerson, maple sap sometimes begins to flow 
 in the middle of February, but usually in the 
 second week in March, especially in a clear 
 bright day with a westerly wind, after a frosty 
 
 night I saw trout glance in the Mill 
 
 Brook this afternoon, though near its sources in 
 Hubbard's Close it is still covered with dark 
 icy snow, and the river into which it empties 
 has not broken up. Can they have come up 
 from the sea ? Like a film or shadow they 
 glance before the eye, and "you see where the 
 mud is roiled by them. .... I see the skunk 
 cabbage started about the spring at head of 
 Hubbard's Close, amid the green grass, and 
 what looks like the first probing of the skunk. 
 .... The ponds are hard enough for skating 
 again. Heard and saw the first blackbird fly- 
 ing east over the Deep Cut, with a tchuck- 
 tchuek, and finally a split whistle. 
 
 March 6, 1855. To Second Division Brook. 
 .... Observed a mouse's nest in Second Di- 
 vision meadow, where it had been made under 
 the snow, a nice, warm, globular nest, some five 
 inches in diameter amid the sphagnum, cran- 
 berry vines, etc., made of dried grass and lined 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 75 
 
 with a still finer grass. The hole was on one 
 side, and the bottom was near two inches thick. 
 There were many small paths or galleries in 
 the meadow leading to this from the brook 
 some rod or more distant. 
 
 The small gyrinus is circling in the brook. 
 I see where much fur of a rabbit, which prob- 
 ably a fox was carrying, has caught on a moss- 
 rose twig as he leaped a ditch There is a 
 
 peculiar redness in the western sky just after 
 sunset. There are many great dark slate-col- 
 ored clouds floating there, seen against more 
 distant and thin wispy, bright, vermillion, (?) 
 almost blood-red, ones, which in many places 
 
 appear as the lining of the former I 
 
 see in many places where, after the late freshet, 
 the musquash made their paths under the ice, 
 leading from the water a rod or two to a bed 
 of grass above the water level. 
 
 March 6, 1858. P. M. Up river on ice to 
 Fair Haven Pond. The river is frozen more 
 solidly than during the past winter, and for the 
 first time for a year I could cross it in most 
 places. I did not once cross it the past winter, 
 though by choosing a safe place I might have 
 done so without doubt once or twice. But I 
 have had no river walks before. I see the first 
 hen-hawk or hawk of any kind, methinks, since 
 the beginning of winter. Its scream, even, is 
 
76 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 inspiring, as the voice of a spring bird. That 
 light spongy bark about the base of the nesaea 
 appears to be good tinder. I have only to touch 
 one end to a coal and it all burns out slowly, 
 without blazing, in whatever position held, and 
 even after being dipped in water. 
 
 Sunday, March 6, 1859. P. M. To Yellow 
 Birch Swamp. We go through the swamp near 
 Bee Tree or Oak Ridge listening for blackbirds 
 or robins, and in the old orchard, for bluebirds. 
 Found between two of the little birches in the 
 path, where they grow densely, in indigo-bird 
 sproutland, a small nest suspended between one 
 and two feet from the ground. This is where I 
 have seen the indigo-bird in summer, and the 
 nest apparently answers to Wilson's account of 
 that bird, being fastened with saliva to the birch 
 on each side. Wilson says " It is built in a low 
 bush, .... suspended between two twigs, one 
 passing up each side." It is about the diame- 
 ter of a hair-bird's nest within, composed chiefly 
 of fine bark shreds looking like grass, and one 
 or two strips of grapevine bark, and very se- 
 curely fastened to the birch on each side by a 
 whitish silk or cobweb and saliva. It is thin, 
 the lining being probably gone. 
 
 March 6, 1860. P. M. Fair and spring-like, 
 t. e., rather still for March, with some raw 
 wind. Pleasant in sun. Going by Messer's I 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 77 
 
 hear the well-known note and see a flock of 
 Fringilla hiemalis, flitting in a lively manner 
 about trees, weeds, walls, and ground by the 
 roadside, showing their two white tail feathers. 
 They are more fearless than the song-sparrow. 
 They attract notice by their numbers and in- 
 cessant twittering in a social manner. The lin- 
 arias have been the most numerous birds here 
 the past winter. I can scarcely see a heel of 
 a snow drift from my window. Jonas Melvin 
 says he saw hundreds, of " speckled " turtles 
 out on the banks to-day in a voyage to Bil- 
 lerica for musquash. Also saw gulls. Shel- 
 drakes and black ducks are the only ones he 
 has seen this year. A still and mild moonlight 
 night, and people walking about the streets. 
 March 7, 1838. We should not endeavor 
 coolly to analyze our thoughts, but, keeping the 
 pen even and parallel with the current, make an 
 accurate transcript of them. Impulse is, after 
 all, the best linguist ; its logic, if not conforma- 
 ble to Aristotle, cannot fail to be most con- 
 vincing. The nearer we can approach to a 
 complete but simple transcript of our thought, 
 the more tolerable will be the piece, for we can 
 endure to consider ourselves in a state of pass- 
 ivity or in involuntary action, but rarely can 
 we endure to consider our efforts, and least of 
 »T, our rare efforts. 
 
78 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 i 
 
 March 7, 1852. At 9 o'clock P. M. to the 
 
 woods by the full moon Going through 
 
 the high field beyond the lone grave-yard, I see 
 the track of a boy's sled before me, and his foot- 
 steps shining like silver between me and the 
 moon; and now I come to where they have 
 coasted in a hollow in the upland beanfield, and 
 there are countless tracks of sleds. I forget 
 that the sun shone on them in their sport as if 
 I had reached the region of perpetual twilight, 
 and their sports appear more significant and 
 symbolical now, more earnest. For what a man 
 does abroad by night requires and implies more 
 deliberate energy than what he is encouraged 
 to do in the sunshine. He is more spiritual, less 
 
 animal, and vegetable, in the former case 
 
 This stillness is more impressive than any sound. 
 The moon, the stars, the trees, the snow, the 
 Band when bare, a monumental stillness whose 
 void must be supplied by thought. It extracts 
 thought from the beholder like, the void under 
 a cupping glass, raises a swelling. How much 
 a silent mankind might suggest! .... The 
 moon appears to have waned a little, yet with 
 this snow on the ground I can plainly see the 
 
 words I write I do not know why such 
 
 emphasis should be laid on certain events that 
 transpire, why my news should be so trivial* 
 considering what one's dreams and expectations 
 
EARLY SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 79 
 
 are, why the developments should be so paltry. 
 These facts appear to float in the atmosphere 
 insignificant as the sporules of fungi and im- 
 pinge on my thallus. Some neglected surface 
 of my mind affords a basis for them, and hence 
 a parasitic growth. We should wash ourselves 
 clean of such news. Methinks I should hear 
 with indifference if a trustworthy messenger 
 were to inform me that the sun drowned him- 
 self last night. 
 
 March 7, 1853. What is the earliest sign of 
 spring ? The motion of worms and insects ? 
 The flow of sap in trees and the swelling of 
 buds ? Do not the insects awake with the flow 
 of the sap ? Bluebirds, etc., probably do not 
 come till the insects come out. Or are there 
 earlier signs in the water, the tortoises, frogs, 
 etc. ? The little cup and cocciferse lichens mixed 
 with other cladonias of the reindeer moss kind 
 are full of fresh fruit to-day. The scarlet apo- 
 thecia of the cocciferae on the stumps and earth 
 partly covered with snow with which they con- 
 trast, I never saw more fresh and brilliant. But 
 they shrivel up and lose their brightness by the 
 time you get them home. The only birds I see 
 to-day are the lesser red-polls. I have not seen 
 a fox-colored sparrow or a Fringilla hiemalis. 
 
 March 7, 1854. P. m. To Anursnack 
 
 Heard the first bluebird, something like pe-a- 
 
80 EARLY* SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 wor, and then other slight warblings as if farther 
 off. Was surprised to see the bird within seven 
 or eight rods on the top of an oak on the or- 
 chard's edge under the hill. But he appeared 
 silent while I heard others faintly warbling and 
 twittering far in the orchard. When he flew I 
 heard no more, and then I suspected that he had 
 been ventriloquizing, as if he hardly dared open 
 his mouth yet while there was so much winter 
 left. It is an overcast and moist, but rather 
 warm, afternoon. He revisks the apple trees 
 and appears to find some worms. Probably not 
 till now was his food to be found abundantly. 
 
 Saw some fuzzy gnats in the air The 
 
 river channel is nearly open everywhere. Saw 
 on the alders by the river side front of Hil- 
 dreth's a song-sparrow quirking its tail. It flew 
 across the river to the willows and soon I heard 
 its well-known dry tchip-tchip. 
 
 March 7, 1858. Walking by the river this P. 
 M., it being half open, and the waves running 
 pretty high, the black waves, yellowish where 
 they break over ice, I inhale a fresh meadowy 
 spring odor from them which is a little exciting. 
 It is like the fragrance of tea to an old tea- 
 drinker. 
 
 March 7, 1859. 6j A. M. To Hill. I came 
 out to hear a spring bird, the ground generally 
 covered with snow yet, and the channel of the 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 81 
 
 river only partly open. On the hill I hear first 
 the tapping of a small woodpecker. I then see 
 a bird alight on the dead top of the highest 
 ■white oak on the hill-top, on the topmost point. 
 It is a shrike. While I am watching him eight 
 or ten rods off, I hear robins down below west 
 of the hill. Then to my surprise the shrike be- 
 gins to sing. It is at first a wholly ineffectual 
 and inarticulate sound, without any solid tone, 
 a mere hoarse breathing, as if he were clearing 
 his throat, unlike any bird that I know, a shrill 
 hissing. Then he uttered a kind of mew, a very 
 decided mewing, clear and wiry, between that 
 of a catbird and the note of the nuthatch, as if 
 to lure a nuthatch within his reach. Then rose 
 with the sharpest, shrillest vibratory or tremu- 
 lous whistling, or chirruping on the very high- 
 est key. This high gurgling jingle was like 
 some of the notes of a robin singing in summer. 
 But they were very short spurts in all these 
 directions, though there was all this variety. 
 Unless you saw the shrike, it would be hard to 
 tell what bird it was. These various notes cov- 
 ered considerable time, but were sparingly ut- 
 tered with intervals. It was a decided chink- 
 ing sound, the clearest strain, suggesting much 
 ice in the stream. I heard this bird sing once 
 Defore, but that was also in early spring, or 
 about this time. It is said that they imitate 
 
 6 
 
82 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 the notes of other birds in order to attract them 
 within their reach. Why then have I never 
 heard them sing in the winter ? I have seen 
 seven or eight of them the past winter quite 
 near. The birds which it imitated, if it imi- 
 tated any this morning, were the catbird and 
 the nuthatch, neither of which, probably, would 
 it catch. The first is not here to catch. Hear- 
 ing a peep I looked up and saw three or four 
 birds passing which suddenly descended and 
 settled on this oak top. They were robins, 
 but the shrike instantly hid himself behind a 
 bough, and in half a minute flew off to a wal- 
 nut and alighted, as usual, on its very topmost 
 twig, apparently afraid of its visitors. The 
 robins kept their ground, one alighting on the 
 very point which the shrike vacated. Is not 
 this, then, probably the spring note or pairing 
 song of the shrike ? The first note which I 
 heard from the robins far under the hill was 
 " sveet sveet," suggesting a certain haste and 
 alarm, and then a rich, hollow, somewhat plain- 
 tive peep or peep-eep-eep, as when in distress 
 with young just flown. When you first see 
 them alighted, they have a haggard, an anxious 
 
 and hurried, look 
 
 The mystery of the life of plants is kindred 
 with that of our own lives, and the physiologist 
 must not presume to explain their growth ao- 
 
EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 83 
 
 cording to mechanical laws, or as lie would ex- 
 plain a machine of his own making. We must 
 not expect to probe with our fingers the sanc- 
 tuary of any life, whether animal or vegetable. 
 If we do, we shall discover nothing but surface 
 still. The ultimate expression or fruit of any 
 created thing is a fine effluence which only the 
 most ingenuous worshipper perceives at a rever- 
 ent distance from its surface even. The cause 
 ind the effect are equally evanescent and in- 
 tangible, and the former must be investigated 
 in the same spirit and with the same reverence 
 with which the latter is perceived. Science is 
 often like the grub which, though it may have 
 nestled in the germ of a plant, has merely 
 blighted or consumed it, never truly tasted it. 
 Only that intellect makes any progress toward 
 conceiving of the essence which at the same 
 time perceives the effluence. The rude and ig- 
 norant finger is probing in the rind still, for in 
 this case, too, the angles of incidence and exci- 
 dence are equal, and the essence is as far on the 
 other side of the surface or matter, as reverence 
 detains the worshipper on this, and only rever- 
 ence can find out this angle instinctively. Shall 
 we presume to alter the angle at which God 
 chooses to be worshipped " Accordingly I re- 
 ject Carpenter's explanation of the fact that 
 n potato-vine in a cellar grows toward the 
 
84 EARLY SPKING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 light, when he says, " The reason obviously is 
 that in consequence of loss of fluid from the 
 tissue of the stem on the side on which the 
 light falls, it is contracted, whilst that of the 
 other side remains turgid with fluid ; the stem 
 makes a bend, therefore, until its growing point 
 becomes opposite to the light, and then in- 
 creases in that direction. 1 There is no ripe- 
 ness which is not, so to speak, something ulti- 
 mate in itself, and not merely a perfected means 
 to a higher end. In order to be ripe it must 
 serve a transcendent use. The ripeness of a 
 leaf, being perfected, leaves the tree at that 
 point and never returns to it. It has nothing 
 to do with any other fruit which the tree may 
 bear, and only genius can pluck it. The fruit 
 of a tree is neither in the seed nor in the full- 
 grown tree, but it is simply the highest use to 
 which it can be put. 
 
 March 8, 1840. The wind shifts from north- 
 east and east to northwest and south, and every 
 icicle which has tinkled in the meadow grass so 
 long, trickles down its stem and seeks its water 
 level, unerringly with a million comrades. In 
 the ponds the ice cracks with a busy and in- 
 spiriting din, and down the larger streams is 
 whirled, grating hoarsely and crashing its way 
 along, which was so lately a firm field for the 
 
 1 Carpenter's Vegetable Physiology, page 174. 
 
EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 85 
 
 woodman's team and the fox, sometimes with 
 the tracks of the skaters still fresh upon it, and 
 the holes cut for pickerel. Town committees 
 inspect the bridges and causeways as if by mere 
 eye-force to intercede with the ice and save the 
 treasury. In the brooks the floating of small 
 cakes of ice with various speed, is full of con- 
 tent and promise, and when the water gurgles 
 Under a natural bridge you may hear these hasty 
 rafts hold conversation in an undertone. Every 
 rill is a channel for the juices of the meadow. 
 Last year's grasses and flower stalks have been 
 steeped in rain and snow, and now the brooks 
 flow with meadow tea, thoroughwort, mint, flag- 
 root, and pennyroyal, all at one draught; In 
 the ponds the sun makes encroachments around 
 the edges first, as ice melts in a kettle on the 
 fire, darting his rays "through this crevice, and 
 preparing the deep water to act simultaneously 
 on the under side. 
 
 March 8, 1842. Most lecturers preface their 
 discourses on music with a history of music, but 
 as well introduce an essay on virtue with a his- 
 tory of virtue. As if the possible combinations 
 of sound, the last wind that sighed or melody 
 that waked the wood, had any history other 
 than a perceptive ear might hear in the least 
 and latest sound of nature. A history of music 
 would be like the history of the future, for so 
 
86 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 little past is it and capable of record that it is 
 but the hint of a prophecy. It is the history of 
 gravitation. It has no history more than God. 
 It circulates and resounds forever, and only 
 
 flows like the sea or air Why, if I should 
 
 sit down to write its story, the west wind would 
 rise to refute me. Properly speaking there can 
 be no history but natural history, for there is 
 no past in the soul, but in nature. .... I 
 might as well write the history of my aspira- 
 tions. Does not the last and highest contain 
 them all ? Do the lives of the great composers 
 contain the facts which interested them ? What 
 is this music? why, thinner and more evanes- 
 cent than ether ? Subtler than sound, for it is 
 only a disposition of sound. It is to sound what 
 color is to matter. It is the color of a flame, 
 or of the rainbow, or of water. Only one sense 
 has known it. The least profitable, the least 
 tangible fact, which cannot be bought or cul- 
 tivated but by virtuous methods, and yet our 
 ears ring with it like shells left on the shore. 
 
 March 8, 1853. 10 A. m. Rode to Saxon- 
 ville with F. B. to look at a small place for 
 sale, via Wayland. Return by Sudbury. On 
 wheels in snow. A spring sheen on the snow. 
 The melting snow running and sparkling down 
 
 hill in the ruts was quite spring-like 
 
 Saw a mink run across the road in Sudbury, a 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 87 
 
 large, black weasel, to appearance, worming its 
 Bupple way over the snow. Where it ran, its 
 tracks were thus, == = = = 
 
 the intervals between the fore and hind feet 
 sixteen or eighteen inches, and between the two 
 fore and the two hind feet two inches and a 
 half. 
 
 The distant view of the open-flooded Sud- 
 bury meadows all dark blue, surrounded by a 
 landscape of white snow, gave an impulse to 
 the dormant sap in my veins. Dark blue and 
 angry waves contrasting with the white but 
 melting winter landscape. Ponds, of course, 
 do not yet afford this water prospect, only the 
 flooded meadows. There is no ice over or near 
 the stream, and the flood has covered or broken 
 up much of the ice on the meadow. The as- 
 pect of these waters at sunset, when the air is 
 still, begins to be unspeakably soothing and 
 promising. Waters are at length and begin 
 to reflect, and instead of looking into the sky, 
 I look into the placid reflecting water for the 
 signs and promise of the morrow. These mead- 
 ows are the most of ocean that I have fairly 
 learned. Now, when the sap of the trees is 
 probably beginning to flow, the sap of the 
 earth, the river, overflows and bursts its icy fet- 
 ters. This is the sap of which I make my sugar 
 After the frosty nights, boiling it down and 
 
88 EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 crystallizing it. I must be on the lookout now 
 for gulls and the ducks. That dark-blue mead- 
 owy revelation. It is as when the sap of the 
 maple bursts forth early and runs down the 
 trunk to the snow. Saw two or three hawks 
 
 sailing Saw some very large willow buds 
 
 expanded (their silk) to thrice the length of 
 their scales, indistinctly barred or waved witn 
 darker lines around them. They look more 
 like, are more of spring than anything else I 
 have seen. Heard the spring note of the chick- 
 adee now before any spring bird has arrived. 
 
 March 8, 1854. What pretty wreaths the 
 mountain cranberry makes, curving upward at 
 the extremity. The leaves are now a dark red, 
 and wreath and all are of such a shape as might 
 fitly be copied in wood or stone, or architectural 
 foliage. 
 
 March 8, 1855. As the ice melts in the 
 swamps I see the horn-shaped buds of the 
 skunk cabbage, green with a bluish bloom, 
 standing uninjured, ready to feel the influence 
 of the sun, more prepared for spring, to look at, 
 than any other plant. 
 
 March 8, 1857. When I cut a white pine 
 twig, the crystalline sap at once exudes. How 
 long has it been thus ? Got a glimpse of a 
 hawk, the first of the season. The tree spar- 
 rows sing a little on the still, sheltered, and 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 89 
 
 sunny side of the hill, but not elsewhere. A 
 partridge goes from amid the pitch pines. It 
 lifts each wing so high above its back and flaps 
 so low and withal so rapidly that it presents 
 the appearance of a broad wheel, almost a re- 
 volving sphere, as it whirrs off, like a cannon 
 ball shot from a gun. 
 
 March 8, 1859. p. M. To Hill in rain, 
 There is a fine freezing rain with strong wind 
 from the north, so I keep along under the shel- 
 ter of hills and woods, along the south side, in 
 my India-rubber coat and boots. Under the 
 southern edge of Woodis Park, in the low 
 ground I see many radical leaves of the Soli- 
 dago altissima and another, I am pretty sure it 
 is the Solidago strieta, and occasionally, also, of 
 the Aster undulatus, and all are more or less 
 lake beneath. The first, at least, have when 
 bruised a strong scent. Some of them have 
 recently grown decidedly. So at least several 
 kinds of golden rods and asters have radical 
 leaves lake-colored at this season. The common 
 strawberry leaves, too, are quite fresh, and a 
 handsome lake color beneath in many cases. 
 There are also many little rosettes of the radical 
 leaves of the Epilobium eoloratum, half brown 
 and withered, with bright green centres, at 
 
 Ipast There is but a narrow strip of bare 
 
 ground reaching a few rods into the wood along 
 
90 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 the edge, but the less ground there is bare, the 
 more we make of it. Such a day as this I re- 
 Bort where the partridges, etc., do, to the bare 
 ground and the sheltered sides of woods and 
 hills, and there explore the moist ground for 
 the radical leaves of plants while the storm 
 lowers overhead, and I forget how the. time is 
 passing. If the weather is thick and stormy- 
 enough, if there is a good chance to be cold and 
 wet and uncomfortable, in other words to feel 
 weather-beaten, you may consume the after- 
 noon to advantage, thus browsing along the 
 edge of some near wood which would scarcely 
 detain you at all in fair weather, and you will 
 get as far away there as at the end of your 
 longest fair-weather walk, and come home as if 
 from an adventure. There is no better fence 
 to put between you and the village than a storm 
 into which the villagers do not venture out. I 
 go looking for green radical leaves. What a 
 dim and shadowy existence have now to our 
 memories the fair flowers whose localities they 
 markl How hard to find any trace of their 
 stem now after it has been flattened under the 
 snows of the winter. I go feeling with wet and 
 freezing fingers amid the withered grass and 
 the snow for their prostrate stems that I may 
 reconstruct the plant. But greenness so ab 
 •orbs my attention that sometimes I do not see 
 
EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 91 
 
 .the former rising from the midst of those radi- 
 cal leaves when it almost puts my eyes out. 
 The radical leaves of the shepherd's purse are 
 
 particularly bright Men of science, when 
 
 they pause to contemplate the power, wisdom/ 
 and goodness of God, or as they sometimes call 
 Him " the Almighty Designer," speak of Him 
 as a total stranger whom it is necessary to treat 
 with the highest consideration. They seem 
 suddenly to have lost their wits. 
 
 March 8, 1860. To Cliffs and Walden. 
 See a small flock of grackles on the willow row 
 above railroad bridge. How they sit and make 
 a business of chattering, for it cannot be called 
 singing, and there is no improvement from age 
 to age, perhaps. Yet as nature is a becoming, 
 these notes may become melodious at last. At 
 length, on my very near approach, they flit sus- 
 piciously away, uttering a few subdued notes as 
 they hurry off. This is the first flock of black- 
 birds I have chanced to see, though C. saw one 
 the 6th. 
 
 To say nothing of fungi, lichens, mosses, 
 and other oryptogamous plants, you cannot say 
 that vegetation absolutely ceases at any season 
 in this latitude. For there is grass in some 
 warm exposures and in springy places always 
 growing more or less, and willow catkins ex- 
 panding and peeping out a little farther every 
 
32 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 warm day from the very beginning of winter, 
 and the skunk cabbage buds being developed 
 and actually flowering sometimes in the winter, 
 and the sap flowing in the maples on some days 
 'in midwinter, and perhaps some cress growing 
 a little (?), certainly some pads, and various 
 naturalized garden weeds steadily growing, if 
 not blooming, and apple buds sometimes ex- 
 panding. Thus much of vegetable life, or mo- 
 tion, or growth, is to be detected every winter. 
 There is something of spring in all seasons. 
 There is a large class which is evergreen in its 
 radical leaves, which make such a show as soon 
 as the snow goes off that many take them to be 
 a new growth of the spring. In a pool I no- 
 tice that the crowfoot (buttercup) leaves which 
 are at the bottom of the water stand up and 
 are much more advanced than those two feet 
 off in the air, for there they receive warmth 
 from the sun, while they are sheltered from 
 cold winds. Nowadays we separate the warmth 
 of the sun from the cold of the wind, and ob- 
 serve that the cold does not pervade all places, 
 Vt being due to strong northwest winds, if we 
 get into some sunny and sheltered nook where 
 Jhey do not penetrate, we quite forget how cold 
 
 it is elsewhere I meet some Indians just 
 
 camped on Brister's Hill. As usual, they are 
 zhiefly concerned to And where black ash grows 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 93 
 
 for their baskets. This is what they set about 
 to ascertain as soon as they arrive in any strange 
 neighborhood. 
 
 March 9, 1852. A warm spring rain in the 
 night. 3 p. M. Down the railroad. Cloudy, 
 but spring-like. When the frost conies out of 
 the ground there is a corresponding thawing of 
 the man. The earth is now half bare. These 
 March winds, which make the woods roar and 
 fill the world with life and bustle, appear to wake 
 up the trees out of their winter sleep and excite 
 the sap to flow. I have no doubt they serve 
 some such use, as well as to hasten the evap- 
 oration of the snow and water. The railroad 
 men have now their hands full. I hear and see 
 bluebirds come with the war n\ wind. The sand 
 is flowing in the deep cut. I am affected by 
 the sight of the moist red sand or subsoil under 
 the edge of the sandy bank under the pitch 
 pines. The railroad is perhaps our pleasantest 
 and wildest road. It only makes deep cuts into 
 and through the hills. On it are no houses nor 
 foot- travelers. The travel on it does not dis- 
 turb me. The woods are left to hang over it. 
 Though straight, it is wild in its accompani 
 ments, keeping all its raw edges. Even the 
 laborers on it are not like other laborers. Its 
 houses, if any, are shanties, and its ruins the 
 ruins of shanties, shells where the race that 
 
94 EARLY SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 built the railroad dwelt; and the bones they 
 gnawed lie about. I am cheered by the sound 
 of running water now down the wooden troughs 
 each side the cut. This road breaks the sur- 
 face of the earth. Here is the dryest walking 
 in wet weather, and the easiest in snowy. Even 
 the sight of smoke from the shanty excites me 
 to-day. Already these puddles on the railroad, 
 reflecting the pine woods, remind me of sum- 
 mer lakes. 
 
 When I hear the telegraph harp I think I 
 must read the Greek poets. This sound is like 
 a brighter color, red, or blue, or green, where 
 all was dull white or black. It prophesies 
 finer senses, a finer life, a golden age. It is 
 the poetry of the railroad./ The heroic and 
 poetic thoughts which the Irish laborers had at 
 their toil has now got expression, that which 
 has made the world mad so long. Or is it the 
 gods expressing their delight at this invention ? 
 The flowing sand bursts out through the snow 
 and overflows it where no sand was to be seen. 
 .... Again it rains, and I turn about. The 
 sound of water falling on rocks and of air fall- 
 ing on trees are very much alike. Though 
 cloudy, the air excites me. Yesterday all was 
 tight as a stricture on my breast. To-day all 
 is loosened. It is a different element from wha* 
 it was. The sides of the bushy hill where the 
 
EABLT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 95 
 
 snow is melted look through this air as if I 
 were under the influence of some intoxicating 
 liquor. The earth is not quite steady nor palp- 
 able to my sense, — a little idealized. 
 
 March 9, 1853. Minott thinks, and quotes 
 some old worthy as authority for saying, that 
 the bark of the striped squirrel is one of the 
 first sure signs of decided spring weather. 
 
 March, 9, 1854. Saw this morning a musk- 
 rat sitting " in a round form on the ice," or 
 rather motionless, like the top of a stake or a 
 mass of muck on the edge of the ice. He then 
 dove for a clam, whose shells he left on the ice< 
 beside him. Boiled a handful of rock tripe 
 ( Umbilicaria Muhlenbergii) (which Tuckerman 
 says " was the favorite rock tripe in Franklin's 
 journey ") for more than an hour. It produced 
 a black puff, looking somewhat like boiled tea- 
 leaves, and was insipid, like rice or starch. The 
 dark water in which it was boiled had a bitter 
 taste, and was slightly gelatinous. The puff 
 was not positively disagreeable to the palate. 
 
 P. M. To Great Meadows. Saw several 
 flocks of large grayish and whitish or speckled 
 ducks, I suppose the same that P. calls shel- 
 drakes. They, like ducks, commonly incline to 
 fly in a line about an equal distance apart. I 
 hear the common sort of quacking from them. 
 It is pleasant to see them at a distance alight 
 
96 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 on the water with a slanting flight, launch 
 themselves, and sail along so stately. The 
 pieces of ice, large and small, drifting along, 
 help to conceal them. In the spaces of still, 
 open water I see the reflection of the hills and 
 woods, which for so long I have not seen, and 
 it gives expression to the face of nature. The 
 face of nature is lit up by these reflections in 
 still water in the spring. Sometimes you see 
 only the top of a distant hill reflected far with- 
 in the meadow, where a dull, gray field of ice 
 intervenes between the water and the shore. 
 
 March 9, 1855. p. M. To Andromeda 
 Ponds. Scare up a rabbit on the hillside by 
 these ponds which was gnawing a smooth su- 
 mach. See also where they have gnawed the 
 red maple, sweet fern, Popidus grandldentata, 
 white and other oaks (taking off considera- 
 ble twigs at four or five cuts), amelanchier, 
 and sallow. But they seem to prefer the 
 smooth sumach to any of them. With this 
 variety of cheap diet they are not likely to 
 starve. The rabbit, indeed, lives, but the su- 
 mach may be killed. I get a few drops of the 
 sweet red-maple juice which has run down the 
 main stem where a rabbit has nibbled a twig 
 off close. 
 
 The heart-wood of the poison dog-wood, 
 when I break it down with my hand, has a 
 
EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 97 
 
 singular, decayed-yellow look, and a spirituous 
 or apothecary odor. As the other day I clam- 
 bered over those great white pine masts which 
 lay in all directions, one upon another, on the 
 hillside south of Fair Haven, where the woods 
 have been laid waste, I was struck, in favorable 
 lights, with the jewel-like brilliancy of the 
 sawed ends thickly bedewed with crystal drops 
 of turpentine, thickly as a shield, as if the Dry- 
 ads, Oreads, pine-wood nymphs had seasonably 
 wept there the fall of the tree. The perfect 
 sincerity of these terebinthine drops, each one 
 reflecting the world, colorless as light, or like 
 drops of dew heaven-distilled and trembling to 
 their fall, is incredible when you remember how 
 firm their consistency. And is this that pitch, 
 which you cannot touch without being denied ? 
 Looking from the cliffs, the sun being, as 
 before, invisible, I saw far more light in the 
 reflected sky in the neighborhood of the sun 
 than I could see in the heavens from my po- 
 sition, and it occurred to me that the reason 
 
 ' Sun 'a place. 
 
 Rirex. 
 
 was that there was reflected to me from the 
 river, the view I should have got if I had stood 
 there on the water in a more favorable position. 
 I see that the sand in the road has crystallized 
 7 
 
98 EARLY SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 as if dried (for it is nearly cold enough to 
 freeze), like the first crystals that shoot and 
 
 set on water when freezing C. says he 
 
 saw yesterday the slate-colored hawk, with a 
 white bar across tail, meadow hawk, i. e., frog 
 hawk. Probably it finds moles and mice. 
 
 March 9, 1859 At Corner Spring 
 
 Brook the water reaches up to the crossing, and 
 stands over the ice there, the brook being open 
 and some space each side of it. When I look 
 from forty to fifty rods off at the yellowish 
 water covering the ice about a foot here, it is 
 decidedly purple (though, when I am close by 
 and looking down on it, it is yellowish merely), 
 while the water of the brook and channel, and 
 a rod on each side of it, where there is no ice 
 beneath, is a beautiful very dark blue. These 
 colors are very distinct, the fine of separation 
 being the edge of the ice on the bottom ; and 
 this apparent j uxtaposition of different kinds of 
 water is a ve?y~ singular and pleasing sight. 
 You see a light purple flood about the color of 
 a red grape, and a broad channel of dark pur- 
 ple water, as dark as a common blue-purple 
 grape, sharply distinct across its middle. 
 
 March 10, 1852. I was reminded this morn- 
 ing before I rose, of those undescribed ambrosial 
 mornings of summer which I can remember, 
 when a thousand birds were heard gently twit 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 99 
 
 tering and ushering in the light, like the argu- 
 ment to a new canto of an epic, a heroic poem. 
 The serenity, the infinite promise of such a I 
 morning ! The song or twitter of birds drips l 
 from the leaves like dew. Then there was 
 something divine and immortal in our life; 
 when I have waked up on my couch in the 
 woods and seen the day dawning and heard the 
 
 twittering of the birds I see flocks of a 
 
 dozen bluebirds together. The warble of thisi 
 bird is innocent and celestial like its color. Saw 
 a sparrow, perhaps a song-sparrow, flitting amid 
 the young oaks where the ground was covered 
 with snow. I think that this is an indication 
 that the ground is quite bare a little further 
 south. Probably the spring birds never fly far 
 over a snow-clad country I see the re- 
 ticulated leaves of the rattlesnake plantain in 
 the woods quite fresh and green. What is the 
 little chickweed-like plant already springing up 
 on the top of the cliffs ? There are some other 
 plants with bright green leaves which have 
 either started somewhat or have never suffered 
 from the cold under the snow. I am pretty sure 
 that I heard the chuckle of a ground squirrel 
 among the warm and bare rocks of the cliffs. 
 .... The mosses are now very handsome like 
 young grass pushing up. Heard the phebe note 
 of the chickadee to-day for the first time; I 
 
100 EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 had at first heard their day, day, day, ungrate- 
 fully. " Ah ! you but carry my thoughts back to 
 winter !" But anon I found that they, too, had 
 become spring birds. They had changed their 
 note. Even they feel the influence of spring. 
 
 I see cup lichens (cladonias) with their cups 
 beset inside and out with little leaflets like shell 
 work. 
 
 March 10, 1853. This is the first really 
 spring day. The sun is brightly reflected from 
 all surfaces, and the north side of the street be- 
 gins to be a little more passable to foot travel- 
 ers. You do not think it necessary to button 
 up your coat. 
 
 P. M. To Second Division Brook. As I 
 stand looking over the river, looking from the 
 bridge into the flowing, eddying tide, the al- 
 most strange chocolate-colored water, the sound 
 of distant crows and cocks, is full of spring. 
 As Anacreon says " the works of men shine," 
 so the sounds of men and birds are musical. 
 Something analogous to the thawing of the ice 
 seems to have taken place in the air. At the 
 end of winter there is a season in which we 
 are daily expecting spring, and finally, a day 
 
 when it arrives The radical leaves of 
 
 innumerable plants (as here a dock in and near 
 the water) are evidently affected by the spring 
 influences. Many plants are to some extent 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 101 
 
 evergreen, like the buttercup novr beginning to 
 start. Methinks the first obvious evidence of 
 spring is the pushing out of the swamp willow 
 catkins, the pushing up of skunk cabbage 
 spatb.es, and pads at the bottom of water. 
 This is the order I am inclined to, though, per- 
 haps any of these may take precedence of all 
 the rest in any particular case. What is that 
 dark pickle-green alga (?) at the bottom of this 
 ditch, looking somewhat like a decaying cress, 
 with fruit like a lichen ? 
 
 At Nut Meadow Brook Crossing we rest 
 awhile on the rail gazing into the eddying 
 stream. The ripple marks on the sandy bot- 
 tom where silver spangles shine in the sun 
 with black wrecks of caddis casts lodged under 
 each, the shadows of the invisible dimples re- 
 flecting prismatic colors on the bottom, the 
 minnows already stemming the current with 
 restless, wiggling tails, ever and anon darting 
 aside, probably to secure some invisible mote 
 in the water, whose shadows we do not at first 
 detect on the sandy bottom, though, when de- 
 tected, they are so much more obvious as well 
 »s larger and more interesting than the sub- 
 stance, in which each fin is distinctly seen, 
 though scarcely to be detected in the substance, 
 these are all very beautiful and exhilarating 
 Bights, a sort of diet drink to heal our winter 
 
102 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 discontent. Have the minnows played thus all 
 winter ? The equisetum at the bottom has 
 freshly grown several inches. Then should I 
 not have given the precedence on the other page 
 to this and some other water plants ? I suspect 
 that I should, and the flags appear to be start- 
 ing. I am surprised to find on the rail a young 
 tortoise l^r inches long in the shell, which has 
 crawled out to sun or perchance is on its way to 
 the water. I think it must be the Emys gut- 
 tata, for there is a large and distinct yellow spot 
 on each dorsal and lateral plate, and the third 
 dorsal plate is hexagonal and not quadrangular 
 as that of the Emys picta is described as being, 
 though in my specimen I can't make it out to 
 be so. Yet the edges of the plates are prom- 
 inent as described in the Emys sculpta, which, 
 but for the spots, two yellow spots on each side 
 of the hind head, and one fainter on the top of 
 the head, I should take it to be. It is about 
 seven eighths of an inch wide, very inactive. 
 When was it hatched and where ? 
 
 What is the theory of these sudden pitches of 
 deep shelving places in the sandy bottom of the 
 brook. It is very interesting to walk along such 
 ,i brook as this in the midst of the meadow, 
 which you can better do now before the frost is 
 quite out of the sod, and gaze into the deep 
 holes in its irregular bottom and the dark gulfs 
 
EAELT SPKING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 103 
 
 tinder the banks. Where it rushes over the 
 edge of a steep slope in the bottom, the shadow 
 of the disturbed surface is like sand hurried for- 
 ward in the water. The bottom being of shift- 
 ing sand is exceedingly irregular and interest- 
 ing. 
 
 What was that sound that came on the soft- 
 ened air ? It was the warble of the first bluebird 
 from that scraggy apple orchard yonder. When 
 this is heard then has spring arrived. 
 
 It must be that the willow twigs, both the 
 yellow and green, are brighter colored than be- 
 fore ; I cannot be deceived. They shine as if 
 the sap were already flowing under the bark, a 
 certain lively and glossy hue they have. The 
 early poplars are pushing forward their catkins 
 though they make not so much display as the 
 willows. Still, in some parts of the woods it is 
 good sledding; At Second Division Brook, the 
 fragrance of the senecio, decidedly evergreen, 
 which I have bruised, is very permanent. It is 
 a memorable, sweet, meadow fragrance. I find 
 a yellow-spotted tortoise, Emys guttata, in the 
 bank. A very few leaves of cowslips, and those 
 wholly under water, show themselves yet. The 
 leaves of the water saxifrage, for the most part 
 frost-bitten, are common enough 
 
 Minott says that old Sam Nutting, the hun 
 tor, Fox Nutting, old Pox he was called, whc 
 
104 EARLY SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 died more than forty years ago (he lived in Ja> 
 cob Baker's home in Lincoln, came from Wes- 
 ton, and was some seventy years old when he 
 died), told him that he had killed not only 
 bears about Fair Haven among the walnuts, 
 but moose. 
 
 March 10, 1854. Misty rain, rain. The third 
 day of more or less rain. 
 
 P. M. C. Miles road via Clam Shell Hill. 
 .... It occurs to me that heavy rains and 
 sudden meltings of the snow, such as we had 
 a fortnight ago (February 26)., before the 
 ground is thawed, so that all the water, in- 
 stead of being soaked up by the ground, flows 
 rapidly into the streams and ponds, is neces- 
 sary to swell and break them up. If we waited 
 for the direct influence of the sun on the ice, 
 and the influence of such water as would reach 
 the river under other circumstances, the spring 
 would be very much delayed. In the violent 
 freshet there is a mechanic force added to the 
 chemic 
 
 Saw a skunk in the corner road, which I 
 followed sixty rods or more. Out now, about 
 4 P. M., partly because it is a dark, foul day. It 
 is a slender, black (and white) animal, with its 
 back remarkably arched, standing high behind, 
 and carrying its head low, it runs, even when 
 undisturbed, with a singular teter or undula- 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 105 
 
 tion, like the walking of a Chinese lady. Very- 
 slow ; I hardly have to run to keep up with it. 
 It has a long tail which it regularly erects when 
 I come too near, and prepares to discharge its 
 liquid. It is white at the end of the tail, on 
 the hind head, and in a line on the front of the 
 face. The rest black, except the flesh-colored 
 nose (and I think, feet) It tried repeat- 
 edly to get into the wall, and did not show 
 much cunning. Finally it steered for an old 
 skunk or woodchuck hole under a wall four rods 
 off and got into it, or under the wall, at least, 
 for the hole was stopped up. There I Could 
 view it closely and at leisure. It has a remarka- 
 bly long, narrow, pointed head and snout which 
 enable it to make those deep narrow holes in 
 the earth by which it probes for insects. Its 
 eyes are bluish-black, and have an innocent, 
 child-like expression. It made a singular loud 
 patting sound repeatedly on the frozen ground 
 under the wall, undoubtedly with its fore feet. 
 (I saw only the upper part of the animal.). . . . 
 Probably it has to do with getting its food, 
 patting the earth to get the insects or worms, 
 chough why it did so then, I know not. Its 
 track was small and round, showing the nails, a 
 little less than an inch in diameter. Its steps 
 alternate, five or six inches by two or two and 
 a half, sometimes two feet together. There is 
 
106 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 something pathetic in such a sight, next to see- 
 ing one of the human aborigines of the country. 
 I respect the skunk as a human being in a very 
 humble sphere. I have no doubt they have be- 
 gun to probe already where the ground permits 
 or as far as it does. But what have they eat 
 all winter ? 
 
 The weather is almost April-like. We al- 
 ways have much of this rainy drizzling weather 
 in early spring, after which we expect to hear 
 
 March 10, 1855. I am not aware of growth 
 in any plant yet, unless it be the further peep- 
 ing out of the willow catkins. They have crept 
 out further from under the scales, and looking 
 closely I detect a little redness along the twigs 
 even now. 
 
 You are always surprised by the sight of the 
 first spring bird or insect. They seem prema- 
 ture, and there is no such evidence of spring as 
 themselves, so that they literally fetch the year 
 about. It is thus when I hear the first robin 
 or bluebird, or looking along the brooks see the 
 first water-bugs out, circling. But you think 
 they have come and nature cannot recede. 
 Thus, when, on the 6th, I saw the gyrinus at 
 Second Division Brook. I saw no peculiarity 
 in the water or the air to remind me of them, 
 but to-day they are here and yesterday they 
 
EARLY SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 107 
 
 were not. I go looking deeper for tortoises, 
 when suddenly my eye rests on these black cir- 
 cling apple-seeds in some smoother bay. 
 
 The red squirrel should be drawn with a 
 pine cone 
 
 J F gave me to-day a part of the 
 
 foot, probably of a pine marten, which he found 
 two or three days ago in a trap he had set in 
 his brook under water for a mink, baited with 
 a pickerel. It is colored above with glossy 
 dark brown hair, and contains but two toes 
 armed with fine and very sharp talons, much 
 curved. There may be a third without the 
 talon. It had left thus much in the trap and 
 departed. 
 
 March 10, 1859. There are some who never 
 do nor say anything, whose life merely excites 
 expectation. Their excellence reaches no fur- 
 ther than a gesture or mode of carrying them- 
 selves. They are a sash dangling from the 
 waist, or a sculptured war-club over the shoul- 
 der. They are like fine-edged tools gradually 
 becoming rusty in a shop window. I like as 
 well, if not better, to see a piece of iron or 
 steel, out of which many such tools will be 
 made, or the bushwhack in a man's hand. 
 
 When I meet gentlemen and ladies I am re- 
 minded of the extent of the habitable and un- 
 inJ ^bitable globe. I exclaim to myself : Sur- 
 
108 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 faces ! surfaces ! If the outside of a man is so 
 variegated and extensive what must the inside 
 be ? You are high up the Platte River, travers- 
 ing deserts, plains covered with soda, with no 
 deeper hollow than a prairie-dog hole, tenanted 
 also by owls and venomous snakes. 
 
 As I look toward the woods from Wood's 
 Bridge, I perceive the spring in the softened 
 air. This is to me the most interesting and 
 affecting phenomenon of the season as yet. 
 Apparently, in consequence of the very warm 
 Bun, this still and clear day, falling on the earth 
 four fifths covered with snow and ice, there is 
 an almost invisible vapor held in suspension, 
 which is like a thin coat or enamel applied to 
 every object, and especially it gives to the 
 woods of pine and oak intermingled, a softened 
 and more living appearance.. They evidently 
 stand in a more genial atmosphere than before. 
 Looking more low I see that shimmering in the 
 air over the earth which betrays the evapora- 
 tion going on. Looking through this trans- 
 parent vapor, all surfaces, not osiers and open 
 water alone, look more vivid. The hardness of 
 winter is relaxed. There is a fine effluence sur- 
 rounding the wood, as if the sap had begun to 
 stir, and you could detect it a mile off. Such 
 is the difference in an object seen through a 
 warm, moist, and soft air, and a cold, dry, hard 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 109 
 
 one. Such is the genialness of nature that 
 the trees appear to have put out feelers, by 
 which the senses apprehend them more ten- 
 derly. I do not know that the woods are ever 
 more beautiful or affect me more. 
 
 I feel it to be a greater success as a lecturer 
 to affect uncultivated natures than to affect the 
 most refined, for all cultivation is necessarily 
 superficial, and its root may not even be di- 
 rected toward the centre of the being 
 
 Look up or down the open river channel now 
 so smooth. Like a hibernating animal, it has 
 ventured to come out to the mouth of its bur- 
 row. One way, perhaps, it is like melted sil- 
 ver alloyed with copper. It goes nibbling off 
 the edge of the thick ice on each side. Sere 
 and there I see a musquash sitting in the sun 
 on the edge of the ice eating a clam, and the 
 shells it has left, are strewn along the edge. 
 Ever and anon he drops into the liquid mirror 
 and soon reappears with another clam. 
 
 This clear, placid, silvery water is evidently 
 a phenomenon of spring. Winter could not 
 show us this As we sit in this wonder- 
 ful air, many sounds — that of wood-chopping 
 for one — come to our ears, agreeably blunted, 
 or muffled even, like the drumming of a part- 
 ridge, not sharp and rending as in winter and 
 recently. If a partridge should drum in win- 
 
110 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 ter, probably it would not reyerberate so softly 
 through the wood, and sound indefinitely far. 
 Our voices even sound differently, and betray 
 the spring. We speak as in a house, in a warm 
 apartment still, with relaxed muscles and soft- 
 ened voices. The voice, like a woodchuck in his 
 burrow, is met and lapped in and encouraged by 
 all genial and sunny influences. There may be 
 heard now, perhaps, under south hillsides and 
 the south sides of houses, a slight murmur of 
 conversation, as of insects, out of doors. 
 
 These earliest spring days are peculiarly 
 pleasant; we shall have no more of them for 
 a year. I am apt to forget that we may have 
 raw and blustering days a month hence. The 
 combination of this delicious air, which you do 
 not want to be warmer or softer, with the pres- 
 ence of ice and snow, you sitting on the bare 
 russet portions, the south hillsides of the earth, 
 — this is the charm of these days. It is the 
 summer beginning to show itself, like an old 
 friend, in the midst of winter. You ramble 
 from one drier russet patch to another. These 
 are your stages. You have the air and sun of 
 summer over snow and ice, and in some places 
 p^en the rustling of dry leaves under your feet, 
 as in Indian-summer days. 
 
 The bluebird on the apple-tree, warbling so 
 innocently, to inquire if any of its mates are 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. Ill 
 
 within call, — the angel of the spring! Fair 
 and innocent, yet the offspring of the earth. 
 The color of the sky, above, and of the subsoil, 
 beneath, suggesting what sweet and innocent 
 melody, terrestrial melody, may have its birth- 
 place between the sky and the ground. 
 
 March 11, 1842. We can only live healthily 
 the life the gods assign us. I must receive my 
 life as passively as the willow leaf that flutters 
 over the brook. I must not be for myself, but 
 God's work, and that is always good. I will 
 wait the breezes patiently, and grow as they 
 shall determine. My fate cannot but be grand 
 so. We may live the life of a plant or an ani- 
 mal without living an animal life. This con- 
 stant and universal content of the animal comes 
 of resting quietly in God's palm. I feel as if I 
 could at any time resign my life and the re- 
 sponsibility into God's hands, and become as 
 innocent and free from care as a plant or stone. 
 
 My life! my life! why will you linger? Are 
 the years short and the months of no account ? 
 .... Can God afford that I should forget him ? 
 Is he so indifferent to my career ? Can heaven 
 be postponed with no more ado? Why were 
 my ears. given to hear those everlasting strains 
 which haunt my life, and yet to be profaned 
 by these perpetual dull sounds? .... Why, 
 God, did you include me in your great scheme ? 
 
112 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Will you not make me a partner at last ? Did 
 it need there should be a conscious material ? 
 
 My friend ! my friend ! I 'd speak so frank to 
 thee that thou,wouldst pray me to keep back 
 some part of it, for fear I robbed myself. To 
 address thee, delights me, there is such clear- 
 ness in the delivery. I am delivered of my tale, 
 which, told to strangers, still would linger in 
 my life as if untold, or doubtful how it ran. 
 
 March 11, 1854. Fair weather after three 
 rainy days. Air full of birds, — bluebirds, song- 
 sparrows, chickadees (phebe-notes), and black- 
 birds. Song-sparrows toward the water with 
 at least two kinds or variations of their strain 
 
 quick 
 
 hard to imitate, — ozit, ozit, ozit, psa te te te 
 tete ter twe ter, is one. The other began chip, 
 chip che we, etc., etc. 
 
 Bluebirds' warbling curls in elms. 
 
 Shall the earth be regarded as a graveyard, a 
 necropolis merely, and not also as a granary 
 filled with the seeds of life, fertile compost, not 
 exhausted sand ? Is not its fertility increased 
 by decay ? 
 
 On Tuesday, the 7th, I heard the first song- 
 isparrow chirp, and saw it flit silently from 
 alder to alder. This pleasant morning, after 
 three days' rain and mist, they generally burst 
 forth into sprayey song from the low trees along 
 the river. The development of their song is 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 118 
 
 gradual, but sure, like the expanding of a 
 flower. This is the first song I have heard. 
 
 P. M. To Cliffs. River higher than at any 
 
 time in the winter, I think Musk-rats 
 
 are driven out of their holes. Heard one's 
 loud plash behind Hubbard's. It comes up 
 brown, striped with wet. I could detect its 
 progress beneath, in shallow water, by the bub- 
 bles which came up From the hill, the 
 
 river and meadow is about equally water and 
 ice, — rich, blue water, and islands or conti- 
 nents of white ice, no longer ice in place. The 
 distant mountains are all white with snow, 
 while our landscape is nearly bare. 
 
 Another year I must observe the alder and 
 willow sap as early as the middle of February 
 
 at least Nowadays, where snow-banks 
 
 have partly melted against the banks by the 
 roadside in low ground, I see in the grass nu- 
 merous galleries where the mice or moles have 
 worked in the winter. 
 
 March 11, 1855. At this season, before 
 grass springs to conceal them, I notice those 
 pretty little roundish shells on the tops of hills ; 
 one to-day on Anursnack. 
 
 I see pitch pine needles looking as if white- 
 washed, thickly covered on each of the two 
 slopes of the needle with narrow white oyster- 
 shell-like latebrae or chrysalids of insects. 
 8 
 
114 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 "''March 11, 1856. When it is proposed to me 
 to go abroad, rub off some rust, and better my 
 condition in a worldly sense, I fear lest my life 
 would lose some of its homeliness. If these 
 fields, and streams, and woods, the phenomena 
 of nature here, and the simple occupations of 
 the inhabitants should cease to interest and in- 
 spire me, no culture or wealth would atone for 
 the loss. I fear the dissipation that traveling, 
 going into society, even the best, the enjoy- 
 ment of intellectual luxuries, imply. If Paris 
 is much in your mind, if it is more and more to 
 you, Concord is less and less, and yet it would 
 be a wretched bargain to accept the proudest 
 Paris in exchange for my native village. At 
 best, Paris could only be a school in which to 
 learn to live here, a stepping-stone to Concord, 
 a school in which to fit for this university. I 
 wish so to live ever as to derive my satisfactions 
 and inspirations from the commonest events, 
 every-day phenomena, so that what my senses 
 hourly perceive in my daily walk, the conver- 
 sations of my neighbors, may inspire me, and I 
 may dream of no heaven but that which lies 
 about me. A man may acquire a taste for wine 
 or Jbrandy, and so lose his love for water, but 
 should we not pity him ? The sight of a marsh 
 hawk in Concord meadows is worth more to 
 me than the entry of the allies into Paris. In 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 115 
 
 this sense I am not ambitious. I do not wish, 
 my native soil to become exhausted and run 
 out through neglect. Only that traveling is 
 good which reveals to me the value of home and 
 enables me to enjoy it better. That man is the 
 richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. 
 
 It is strange that men are in such haste to 
 geb fame as teachers rather than knowledge as 
 learners. 
 
 March 11, 1857. I see and talk with Rice 
 sawing off the ends of clapboards, which he has 
 planed to make them square, for an addition to 
 his house. He has a fire in his shop and plays 
 at house-building there. His life is poetic. He 
 does the work himself. He combines several 
 qualities and talents rarely combined. Though 
 he owns houses in the city whose repairs he at- 
 tends to, finds tenants for them, and collects the 
 rent, he also has his Sudbury farm and bean- 
 field. Though he lived in a city, he would still 
 be natural, and related to primitive nature 
 around him. Though he owned all Beacon 
 Street, you might find that his mittens were 
 made of the skin of a woodchuck that had rav- 
 aged his beanfield. I noticed a woodchuck's 
 Bkin tacked up to the inside of his shop. He 
 said it had fatted on his beans and William had 
 killed it, and expected to get another to make 
 i, pair of mittens of, one not being quite large 
 
116 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 enough. It was excellent for mittens ; you 
 could hardly wear it out. Spoke of the cuckoo, 
 which was afraid of other birds, was easily 
 beaten, would dive into the middle of a poplar, 
 then come out on to some bare twig and look 
 round for a nest to rob of young or eggs. 
 
 March 11, 1859. Mrs. A. takes on dolefully 
 on account of the solitude in which she lives ; 
 but she gets little consolation. Mrs. B. says 
 she envies her that retirement. Mrs. A. is 
 aware that she does, and says it is as if a thirsty 
 man should envy another the river in which he 
 is drowning. So goes the world, it is either 
 this extreme or that. Of solitude, one gets too 
 much ; another, not enough. 
 
 March 11, 1860. I see a woodchuck out on 
 the calm side of Lee's Hill (Nawshawtuck). 
 He has pushed away the withered leaves which 
 filled his hole and come forth, and left his 
 tracks on those slight patches of the recent 
 snow which are left about his hole. 
 
 I was amused with the behavior of two red 
 squirrels, as I approached the hemlocks. They 
 were as gray as red, and white, beneath. I at 
 first heard a faint, sharp chirp, like a bird, with- 
 in the hemlock, on my account, and then one 
 rushed forward on a descending limb toward 
 me, barking or chirruping at me after his fash- 
 ion, within a rod. They seemed to vie with 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 117 
 
 »ne another who should be most bold. For 
 four or five minutes at least they kept up an 
 incessant chirruping or squeaking bark, vibrat- 
 ing their tails and their whole bodies, and fre- 
 quently changing their position or point of view, 
 making a show of rushing forward, or perhaps 
 darting off a few feet like lightning, and bark- 
 ing still more loudly, i. e., with a yet sharper 
 exclamation, as if frightened by their own mo- 
 tions, their whole bodies quivering, their heads 
 and great eyes on the qui vive. You are uncer- 
 tain whether it is not partly in sport, after all. 
 March 11, 1861. The seed of the willow is 
 exceedingly minute, as I measure, from one 
 twentieth to one twelfth of an inch in length 
 and ohe fourth as much in width. It is sur- 
 rounded at base by a tuft of cotton-like hairs, 
 about one quarter of an inch long rising around 
 and above it, forming a kind of parachute. 
 These render it more buoyant than the seeds of 
 any other of our trees, and it is borne the fur- 
 thest horizontally with the least wind. It falls 
 very slowly even in the still air of a chamber, 
 aud rapidly ascends over a stove. It floats 
 more like a mote than the seed of any other of 
 Dur trees, in a meandering manner, and being 
 enveloped in this tuft of cotton, the seed is hard 
 to detect. Each of the numerous little pods, 
 more or less ovate and beaked, which form the 
 
118 EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 fertile catkin, is closely packed with down and 
 seeds. At maturity these pods open their beaks, 
 which curve back, and gradually discharge their 
 burden, like the milk-weed. It would take a 
 delicate gin indeed to separate these seeds from 
 their cotton. 
 
 If you lay bare any spot in our woods, how- 
 ever sandy, as by a railroad cut, no shrub or 
 tree is surer to plant itself there, sooner or 
 later, than a willow (Salix humilis, commonly) 
 or a poplar. We have many kinds, but each is 
 confined to its own habitat. I am not aware 
 that the Salix nigra has ever strayed from the 
 river's bank. Though many of the Salix alba 
 have been set along our causeways, very few 
 have sprung up and maintained their ground 
 elsewhere. 
 
 The principal habitat of most of our species, 
 such as love the water, is the river's bank, and 
 the adjacent river meadows, and where certain 
 kinds spring up in an inland meadow where 
 they were not known before I feel pretty cer- 
 tain that they come from the river meadows. 
 I have but little doubt that the seed of four of 
 them that grow along the railroad causeway 
 was blown from the river meadows, namely, 
 Salix pedioellaris, lucida, Torreyana, and petio- 
 laris. 
 
 The barren and fertile flowers are usually on 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 119 
 
 Beparate plants. The greater part of the white 
 willows set out on our causeways are sterile 
 only. You can easily distinguish the fertile 
 ones at a distance when the pods are bursting. 
 It is said that no sterile weeping willows have 
 been introduced into this country, so that it 
 cannot be raised from the seed. Of two of the 
 indigenous willows common along the bank of 
 our river I have detected but one sex. 
 
 The seeds of the willow thus annually fill 
 the air with their lint, being wafted to all parts 
 of the country, and though apparently not more 
 than one in many millions gets to be a shrub, 
 yet so lavish and persevering is nature that her 
 purpose is completely answered. 
 
 March 12, 1842. Consider what a difference 
 there is between living and dying. To die is 
 not to begin to die and continue, it is not a state 
 of continuance, but of transientness ; whereas 
 to live is a condition of continuance, and does 
 not mean to be born merely. There is no con- 
 tinuance of death. It is a transient phenome- 
 non. Nature presents nothing in a state of 
 ieath. 
 
 March 12, 1852. According to Linnaeus very 
 many plants become perennial and arborescent 
 in warm regions which with us are annual, for 
 duration often depends more on the locality 
 than on the plant. So is it with men. Under 
 
120 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 more favorable conditions, the human plant that 
 is short-lived and dwarfed becomes perennial 
 
 and arborescent I have learned in a 
 
 shorter time and more accurately the meaning 
 of the scientific terms used in botany from a few 
 plates of figures at the end of the " Philosophia 
 Botanica," with the names annexed, than a vol- 
 ume of explanations or glossaries could teach. 
 And, that the alternate pages may not be left 
 blank, Linnseus has given on them very concise 
 and important instruction to students of botany. 
 This lawgiver of science, this systematizer, this 
 methodizer, carries his system into his studies 
 in the field. On one of the little pages he 
 gives some instruction concerning " Herbatio " 
 or botanizing. Into this he introduces law, or- 
 der, and system, and describes with the great- 
 est economy of words what some would have 
 required a small volume to tell, all on a small 
 page ; tells what dress you shall wear, what in- 
 struments you shall carry, what season and 
 hours you shall observe, namely, " from the leaf- 
 ing of the trees,-Sirius excepted, to the fall of the 
 leaf, twice a week in summer, once, in spring; 
 from seven in the morning till seven at night." 
 When you shall dine and take your rest, etc., 
 whether you shall botanize in a crowd or dis- 
 persed, etc., how far you shall go, two miles 
 and a half, at most; what you shall collect 
 what kind of observations make, etc., etc. 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 121 
 
 Railroad to Walden, 3 p.m. I see the popw 
 lus (apparently tremuloides, not grandidentata') 
 at the end of the railroad causeway; showing 
 the down of its ament. Bigelow makes the 
 tremuloides flower in April, the grandidentata 
 
 in May The little grain of wheat, triti- 
 
 cum, is the noblest food of man, the lesser 
 grains of other grasses are the food of passerine 
 birds at present. Their diet is like man's. 
 
 The gods can never afford to leave a man in 
 the world who is privy to any of their secrets. 
 They cannot have a spy here. They will at 
 once send him packing. How can you walk on 
 ground where you see through it ? 
 
 The telegraph harp has spoken to me more 
 distinctly and effectually than any man ever 
 did. 
 
 March 12, 1853. It is essential that a man 
 confine himself to pursuits, a scholar, for in- 
 stance, to studies which lie next to and con- 
 duce to his life, which do not go against the 
 grain either of his will or his imagination. 
 The scholar finds in his experience some studies 
 to be most fertile and radiant with light, others, 
 dry, barren, and dark. If he is wise, he will 
 not persevere in the last, as a plant in a cellar 
 will strive towards the light. He will confine 
 the observations of his mind as closely as possi- 
 ble to the experience or life of his senses. His 
 
122 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 thought must live with and be inspired with 
 the life of the body. The death-bed scenes 
 even of the best and wisest afford but a sorry 
 picture of our humanity. Some men endeavor 
 to live a constrained life, to subject their whole 
 lives to their will, as he who said he would 
 give a sign, if he were conscious, after his head 
 was cut off, but he gave no sign. Dwell as 
 near as possible to the channel in which your 
 life flows. A man may associate with such 
 companions, he may pursue such employments, 
 as will darken the day for him. Men choose 
 darkness rather than light. 
 
 P. M. Saw the first lark rise from the rail- 
 road causeway and sail on quivering wing over 
 the meadow to alight on a heap of dirt. 
 
 Was that a mink we saw at the boiling 
 spring? The senecio was very forward there 
 in the water, and it still scents my fingers. A 
 
 very lasting odor it leaves It is a rare 
 
 lichen day. The usnea with its large fruit is 
 very rich on the maples in the swamp, lux- 
 uriating in this moist, overcast, melting day, 
 but it is impossible to get it home in good con- 
 dition. 
 
 Looking behind the bark of a dead white 
 pine I find plenty of gnats quite lively and 
 ready to issue forth as soon as the sun comes 
 out. The grubs there are sluggish, buried in 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 123 
 
 the chunkings. I took off some pieces of bark 
 more than three feet long and one foot wide. 
 Between this and the wood, in the dust left 
 by borers, the gnats were concealed, ready to 
 Bwarm. This is their hibernaculum. 
 
 The rich red-brown leaves of the gnaphalium, 
 downy white beneath, begin to attract me where 
 the snow is off. 
 
 March 12, 1854. A. M. Up railroad to woods. 
 We have white frosts these mornings. This is 
 the blackbird morning. Their sprayey notes and 
 conqueree ring with the song-sparrow's jingle 
 all along the river. Thus gradually they ac- 
 quire confidence to sing. It is a beautiful spring 
 morning. I hear my first robin peep distinctly 
 at a distance on some higher trees, oaks or other, 
 on a high key, no singing yet. I hear from an 
 apple tree a faint cricket-like chirp, and a spar- 
 row darts away, flying far, dashing from side to 
 side. I think it must be the white-in-tail or 
 grass finch. I hear a jay loudly screaming, phe- 
 phay, phe-phay, a loud, shrill chickadee's phe- 
 bee. I see and hear the lark sitting with head 
 erect, neck outstretched, in the middle of a pas- 
 ture, and-I hear another far off, singing. They 
 sing when they first come. All these birds do 
 their warbling espeoially in the still sunny hour 
 after sunrise. Now is the time to be abroad to 
 hear them, as you detect the slightest ripple in 
 
124 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 smooth water. As -with tinkling sounds the 
 sources of streams burst their icy fetters, so the 
 rills of music begin to flow and swell the general 
 choir of spring. Memorable is the warm light 
 of the spring sun on russet fields in the morn- 
 ing. 
 
 P. M. To Ball's Hill along river. My com- 
 panion tempts me to certain licenses of speech, 
 *'. e., to reckless and sweeping expressions which 
 I am wont to regret that I have used. I find 
 that I have used more harsh, extravagant, and 
 cynical expressions concerning mankind and in- 
 dividuals than I intended. I find it difficult 
 to make to him a sufficiently moderate state- 
 ment. I think it is because I have not his sym- 
 pathy in my sober and constant view. He asks 
 for a paradox, an eccentric statement, and too 
 often I give it to him. 
 
 Saw some small ducks, teal or widgeons. 
 
 This great expanse of deep blue water, deeper 
 than the sky, why does it not blue my soul, as 
 
 of yore ? It is hard to soften me now 
 
 The time was when this great blue scene would 
 have tinged my spirit more. 
 
 Now is the time to look for Indian relics, the 
 sandy fields being just bared. 
 
 I stand on the high lichen-covered and col- 
 ored (greenish) hill beyond Abner Buttrick's, 
 I go further east and look across the meadows 
 
EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 125 
 
 to Bedford, and see that peculiar scenery of 
 March in which I have taken so many ram- 
 bles; the earth just bare and beginning to be 
 dry, the snow lying on the north sides of hills, 
 the gray, deciduous trees, and the green pines 
 soughing in the March wind. They look now 
 as if deserted by a companion, the snow. When 
 you walk over bare, lichen-clad hills, just be- 
 ginning to be dry, and look afar over the blue 
 water on the meadows, you are beginning to 
 break up your winter quarters and plan adven- 
 tures for the new year. The scenery is like, 
 yet unlike, November. You have the same 
 barren russet, but now instead of a dry, hard, 
 cold wind, a peculiarly soft, moist air, or else a 
 raw wind. Now is the reign of water. I see 
 many crows on the water's edge these days. 
 It is astonishing how soon the ice has gone out 
 of the river. But it still lies on the bottom of 
 the meadow. 
 
 Is it peculiar to the song-sparrow to dodge 
 behind and hide in walls and the like ? 
 
 Toward night the water becomes smooth and 
 beautiful. Men are eager to launch their boats 
 and paddle over the meadows. 
 
 March 12, 1856. I never saw such solid 
 mountains of snow in the roads. You travel 
 along for many rods over excellent, dry, solid 
 sleighing where the road is perfectly level, not 
 
126 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 thinking but you are within a foot of the 
 ground, then suddenly descend four or five feet, 
 and find, to your surprise, that you had been 
 traversing the broad back of a drift. 
 
 March 12, 1857. P. M. To Hill. Observe 
 the waxwork twining about the smooth sumach. 
 It winds against the sun. It is at first loose 
 about the stem, but this ere long expands and 
 overgrows it. 
 
 Observed the track of a squirrel in the snow 
 under one of the apple trees on the southeast 
 side of the hill, and looking up saw a red squir- 
 rel with a nut or piece of frozen apple (?) in 
 his mouth within six feet, sitting in a con- 
 strained position, partly crosswise, on a limb 
 over my head, perfectly still, and looking not 
 at me, but off into the air, evidently expecting 
 to escape my attention by this trick. I stood, 
 and watched and chirruped to him about five 
 minutes, so near, and yet he did not once turn 
 his head to look at me, or move a foot, or wink. 
 The only motion was that of his tail curled 
 over his back in the wind. At length he did 
 change his attitude a little and look at me a 
 moment. Evidently this is a trick they often 
 practice. If I had been farther off, he might 
 have scolded at me. 
 
 March 12, 1859. P. M. In rain to Minis- 
 terial Swamp As I passed the J—— 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 127 
 
 Hosmer (rough-cast) house, I thought I never 
 saw any bank so handsome as the russet hill- 
 side behind it. It is a very barren, exhausted 
 soil where the cladonia lichens abound, and the 
 lower side is a flowing sand, but this russet 
 grass, with its weeds, being saturated with 
 moisture, was, in this light, the richest brown, 
 methought, that I ever saw. There was the 
 pale brown of the grass, red-brown of some 
 weeds (sarothra and pinweed, probably), dark 
 brown of huckleberry and sweet fern stems, and 
 the very visible green of the cladonias, thirty 
 rods off, and the rich brown fringes where the 
 
 broken sod hung over the sand-bank 
 
 On some knolls these vivid and rampant lichens, 
 as it were, dwarf the oaks. A peculiar and 
 unaccountable light seemed to fall on that 
 bank or hillside, though it was thick storm all 
 around. A sort of Newfoundland sun seemed 
 to be shining on it. It was such a light that 
 you looked round for the sun from which it 
 
 might come It was a prospect to excite 
 
 a reindeer. These tints of brown were as softly 
 and richly fair and sufficing as the most bril- 
 liant autumnal tints. In fair and dry weather 
 these spots may be commonplace. But now 
 they are worthy to tempt the painter's brush. 
 The picture should be the side of a barren, 
 lichen-clad hill with a flowing sand-bank be- 
 
128 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Death, a few blackish huckleberry bushes scat- 
 tered about, and bright, white patches of , snow 
 here and there in the ravines, the hill running 
 east and west, and seen through the storm from 
 a point twenty or thirty rods south. 
 
 March 13, 1841. How alone must our life 
 be lived. We dwell on the sea-shore, and none 
 between us and the sea. Men are my merry 
 companions, my fellow-pilgrims, who beguile 
 the way, but leave me at the first turn in the 
 road, for none are traveling one road so far as 
 myself. Each one marches in the van. The 
 weakest child is exposed to the fates henceforth 
 as barely as its parents. Parents and relatives 
 but entertain the youth. They cannot stand 
 between him and his destiny. This is the one 
 bare side of every man. There is no fence. It 
 is clear before him to the bounds of space. 
 
 What is fame to a living man ? If he live 
 aright the sound of no man's voice will resound 
 through 'the aisles of his secluded life. His life 
 is a hallowed silence, a pool. The loudest sounds 
 have to thank my little ear that they are heard. 
 
 March 13, 1842. The sad memory of de- 
 parted friends is soon incrusted over with sub- 
 lime and pleasing thoughts, as their monuments 
 are overgrown with moss. Nature doth thus 
 kindly heal every wound. By the mediation of 
 a thousand little mosses and fungi the most 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 129 
 
 unsightly objects become radiant with beauty. 
 There seem to be two sides of this world pre- 
 sented to us at different times, as we see things 
 in growth or dissolution, in life or death. For 
 seen with the eye of a poet, as God sees them, 
 all things are alive and beautiful, but seen with 
 the historical eye, or the eye of memory, they 
 are dead and offensive. If we see nature as 
 pausing, immediately all mortifies and decays ; 
 but seen as progressing she is beautiful. 
 
 I am startled that God can make me so rich 
 even with my own cheap stores. It needs but 
 a few wisps of straw in the sun, some small 
 word dropped, or that has long lain silent in 
 some book. When heaven begins and the dead 
 arise no trumpet is blown. Perhaps the south 
 wind will blow. 
 
 March 13, 1853. 6 A. M., to Cliffs. There 
 begins to be a greater depth of saffron in the 
 morning sky. The morning and evening hori- 
 zon fires are warmer to the eye. 
 
 March 13, 1855. p.m. To Hubbard's Close 
 .... Coming through the stubble of Stow's 
 rye-field in front of the Breed House, I meet 
 with four mice nests in going half a dozen rods. 
 They lie flat on the ground amid the stubble, 
 flattened spheres, the horizontal diameter about 
 five inches, the perpendicular considerably less, 
 composed of grass or finer stubble. On taking 
 
130 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 them up you do not at once detect the entrance 
 with your eye, but rather feel it with your fin- 
 ger on the side. They are lined with the finest 
 of the grass. These were probably made when 
 the snow was on the ground for their winter 
 residence, while they gleaned the rye-field, and 
 when the snow went off, they scampered to the 
 woods. I think they were made by the Mus 
 Leucopus, i. e., Arvida Emmonsii. 
 
 I look at many woodchuck's holes, but as yet 
 they are choked with leaves. There is no sign 
 that their occupants have come abroad. 
 
 March 13, 1859. I see a small flock of black- 
 birds flying over, some rising, others falling, 
 yet all advancing together, one flock, but many 
 birds, some silent, others tchucking, — inces- 
 sant alternation. This harmonious movement, 
 as in a dance, this agreeing to differ, makes the 
 charm of the spectacle to me. One bird looks 
 fractional, naked, like a single thread or ravel- 
 ing from the web to which it belongs. Alter- 
 nation ! Alternation ! Heaven and Hell ! Here 
 again, in the flight of a bird, its ricochet mo- 
 tion is that undulation observed in so many 
 materials, as in the mackerel sky. 
 
 If men were to be destroyed, and the books 
 they have written, to be transmitted to a new 
 race of creatures, a new world, what kind of 
 record would be found in them of so remark- 
 able a phenomenon as the rainbow? 
 
EAKLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 131 
 
 I cannot easily forget the beauty of those 
 terrestrial browns in the rain yesterday. The 
 withered grass was not of that very pale, hoary 
 brown that it is to-day, now that it is dry and 
 lifeless ; but being perfectly saturated and drip- 
 ping with the rain, the whole hillside seemed to 
 reflect a certain yellowish light so that you 
 looked round for the sun in the midst of the 
 
 storm The cladonias crowning the knoll 
 
 had richly expanded and erected themselves, 
 though seen twenty rods off, and the knoll ap- 
 peared swelling and bursting as with yeast. 
 The various hues of brown were most beauti- 
 fully blended, so that the earth appeared cov- 
 ered with the softest and most harmoniously 
 
 spotted and tinted fur coat In short, in 
 
 these early spring rains, the withered herbage 
 thus saturated, and reflecting its brightest with- 
 ered tint, seems in a certain degree to have re- 
 vived, and sympathizes with the fresh greenish, 
 or yellowish, or brownish lichens in its midst, 
 which also seemed to have withered. It seemed 
 to "^e, and I think it may be the truth, that 
 the abundant moisture, bringing out the highest 
 color on the brown surface of the earth, gen- 
 erated a certain degree of light, which, when 
 the rain held up a little, reminded you of the 
 
 sun shining through a thick mist The 
 
 barrenest surfaces are perhaps the most inter- 
 
132 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 eating in such weather as yesterday, where the 
 most terrene colors are seen. The wet earth 
 and sand, and especially subsoil, are very invig- 
 orating sights. 
 
 It is remarkable that the spots where I find 
 most arrow-heads, etc., being light, dry soil (as 
 the Great Fields, Clamshell Hill, etc.), are 
 among the first to be bare of snow and free 
 from frost. It is very curiously and particu- 
 larly true, for the only parts of the northeast 
 section of the Great Fields which are so dry 
 that I do not slump there, are those, small in 
 area, where perfectly bare patches of sand oc- 
 cur, and there, singularly enough, the arrow- 
 heads are particularly common. Indeed, in 
 some cases, I find them only on such bare 
 spots, a rod or two in extent, where a single 
 wigwam might have stood, and not half a dozen 
 rods off in any direction. Yet the difference of 
 level may not be more than a foot, if there is 
 any. It is as if the Indians had selected pre- 
 cisely the driest spots on the whole plain with 
 a view to their advantage at this season. If vou 
 were going to pitch a tent to-night on the Great 
 Fields, you would inevitably pitch on one of 
 those spots, or else lie down in water or mud, or 
 on ice. It is as if they had chosen the site of 
 <heir wigwams at this very season of the year. 
 - March 14, 1842. It is not easy to find one 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 133 
 
 brave enough to play the game of love quite 
 alone with you, but they must get some third 
 person or world to countenance them. They 
 thrust others between. Love is so delicate and 
 fastidious that I see not how it can ever begin. 
 Do you expect me to love with you unless you 
 make my love secondary to nothing else ? Your 
 words come tainted if the thought of the world 
 darts between thee and the thought of me. 
 You are not venturous enough for love. It 
 goes alone unscared through wildernesses. As 
 soon as I see people loving what they see 
 merely, and not their own high hopes that they 
 form of others, J pity them, and do not want 
 their love. Did I ask thee to love me who 
 hate myself ? No ! Love that which I love, 
 and I will love thee that loves it. 
 
 The love is faint-hearted and short-lived that 
 is contented with the past history of its object. 
 It does not prepare the soil to bear new crops 
 lustier than the old. 
 
 I would I had leisure for these thiDgs, sighs 
 the world. When I have done my quilting and 
 baking, then I will not be backward. 
 
 Love never stands still, nor does its object. 
 It is the revolving sun and the swelling bud. 
 
 If I know what I love, it is because I remem- 
 ber it. 
 
 Life is grand, and so are its environments of 
 
134 EAELT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Past and Future. Would the face of nature be 
 bo serene and beautiful if man's destiny were 
 not equally so ? 
 
 What am I good for now, who am still search- 
 ing after high things, but to hear and tell the 
 news, to bring wood and water, and count how 
 many eggs the hens lay? In the meanwhile 
 I expect my life to begin. I will not aspire 
 longer. I will see what it is I would be after. 
 I will be unanimous. 
 
 March 14, 1854. Great concert of song-spar- 
 rows in willows and alders along swamp brook 
 by river. Hardly hear a distinct strain. < Couples 
 chasing each other, and some tree sparrows 
 with them 
 
 P. M. To Great Meadows. Counted over 
 forty robins with my glass in the meadow north 
 of Sleepy Hollow on the grass and on the snow. 
 A large company of fox-colored sparrows in 
 Heywood's maple swamp close by. I heard 
 their loud, sweet, canary-like whistle thirty or 
 forty rods off, sounding richer than anything 
 else yet ; some on the bushes, singing twee twee 
 twa twa twa ter tweer tweer twa. This is the 
 scheme of it only, there being no dental grit. 
 They were shy, flitting before me, and I heard a 
 slight susurrus where many were busily scratch- 
 ing amid the leaves in the swamp, without 
 seeing them, and also saw many indistinctly. 
 
EAELT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 135 
 
 Wilson never heard but one sing, their common 
 note, where he heard them, being a cheep. 
 
 From within the house at 5£ P. M. I hear the 
 loud honking of geese, throw up the window, 
 and see a large flock in disordered harrow fly- 
 ing more directly north, or even northwest than 
 usual. Raw, thick, misty weather. 
 
 March 14, 1855. I observe the tracks of 
 sparrows leading to every little sprig of blue 
 curls amid the other weeds, which, with its 
 seemingly empty pitchers, rises above the snow. 
 There seems, however, to be a little seed left in 
 them. This, then, is reason enough why these 
 withered stems still stand, that they may raise 
 these granaries above the snow for the use of 
 the snowbirds. 
 
 March 14, 1858. P. M. I see a Fringilla 
 hiemalis, the first bird, perchance, unless one 
 hawk, which is an evidence of spring, though 
 they lingered with us the past unusual winter 
 till the 19th of January. They are now getting 
 back earlier than our permanent summer resi- 
 dents. It flits past with a rattling or grating 
 chip, showing its two white tail feathers. 
 
 March 14, 1860. No sooner has the ice of 
 Walden melted than the wind begins to play in 
 dark ripples over the face of the virgin water. 
 It is affecting to see nature so tender, however 
 old, and wearing none of the wrinkles of age. 
 
136 EARLY SPRING IH MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Ice dissolved is the next moment as perfect 
 water as if it had been melted a million years. 
 To see that which was lately so hard and im- 
 movable now so soft and impressible. What 
 if our moods could dissolve thus completely? 
 It is like a flush of life on a cheek that was 
 dead. It seems as if it must rejoice in its own 
 newly acquired fluidity, as it affects the be- 
 holder with joy. Often the March winds have 
 no chance to ripple its face at all. 
 
 March 15, 1841. When I have access to a 
 man's barrel of sermons, which were written 
 from week to week as his life lapsed, though I 
 now know bim to live cheerfully and bravely 
 enough, still I cannot conceive what interval 
 there was for laughter and smiles in the midst 
 of so much sadness. Almost in proportion to 
 the sincerity and earnestness of the life will be 
 the sadness of the record. When I reflect that 
 twice a week for so many years he pondered 
 and preached such a sermon, I think he must 
 have been a splenetic and melancholy man, 
 and wonder if his food digested well. It seems 
 as if the fruit of virtue was never a careless 
 happiness. A great cheerfulness have all great 
 wits possessed, almost a profane levity to such 
 as understood them not, but their religion had 
 the broader basis in proportion as it was less 
 prominent. The religion I love is very laic. 
 
EARLY SPEING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 137 
 
 The clergy are as diseased and as much pos- 
 sessed with a devil as the reformers. They 
 make their topic as offensive as the politician ; 
 for our religion is as unpublic and incommuni- 
 cable as our poetical vein, and to be approached 
 tvith as much love and tenderness. 
 
 March 15, 1842 The poor have come 
 
 out to employ themselves in the sunshine, the 
 old and feeble to scent the air once more. " I 
 hear the bluebird, the song-sparrow, and the 
 robin, and the note of the lark leaks up through 
 the meadows, as if its bill had been thawed by 
 the'warm sun. As I am going to the woods I 
 think to take some small book in my pocket, 
 whose author has been there already, whose 
 pages will be as good as my thoughts, and will 
 eke them out or show me human life still gleam- 
 ing in the horizon when the woods have shut 
 out the town. But I can find none. None will 
 sail as far forward into the bay of nature as my 
 thought. They stay at home. I would go home. 
 When I get to the wood their thin leaves rustle 
 in my fingers. They are bare and obvious, and 
 there is no halo or haze about them. Nature 
 lies fair and far behind them all. 
 
 Cold Spring. I hear nothing but a phebe, 
 and the wind, and the rattling of a chaise in 
 the wood. For a few years I stay here, not 
 knowing, taking my own life by degrees, and 
 
138 EAELT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 then I go. I hear a spring hubbling near where 
 I drank out of a can in my earliest youth. The 
 birds, the squirrels, the alders, the pines, they 
 seem serene and in their places. I wonder if 
 my life looks as serene to them too. Does no 
 creature, then, see, not only with the eyes of its 
 own narrow destiny, but with God's ? When 
 God made man, he reserved some parts and 
 some rights to himself. The eye has many 
 qualities which belong to God more than man. 
 It is his lightning which flashes therein. When 
 I look into my companion's eye, I think it is 
 God's private mine. It is a noble feature '; it 
 cannot be degraded. For God can look on all 
 things undented. 
 
 Pond. Nature is constantly original and in- 
 denting new patterns, like a mechanic in his 
 shop. When the overhanging pine drops into 
 the water, by the action of the sun and of the 
 wind rubbing it on the shore, its boughs become 
 white and smooth, and assume fantastic forms, 
 as if turned by a lathe. All things, indeed, are 
 subjected to a rotary motion, either gradual 
 and partial, or rapid and complete, from the 
 planet and system to the simplest shell-fish and 
 pebbles on the beach. As if all beauty resulted 
 from an object's turning on its own axis, or 
 from the turning of others about it. It estab- 
 lishes a new centre in the universe. As al' 
 
EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 139 
 
 curves have reference to their centres or foci, 
 so all beauty of character has reference to the 
 soul, and is a graceful gesture of recognition or 
 ■waving of the body toward it. 
 
 The great and solitary heart will love alone, 
 without the knowledge of its object. It cannot 
 have society in its love. It will expend its 
 love as the cloud drops rain upon the fields over 
 which it floats. 
 
 The only way to speak the truth is to speak 
 lovingly. Only the lover's words are heard. 
 The intellect should never speak. It does not 
 utter a natural sound. 
 
 How trivial the best actions are. I am led 
 about from sunrise to sunset by an ignoble rou- 
 tine, and yet can find no better road. I must 
 make a part of the planet. I must obey the 
 law of nature. 
 
 March 15, 1852. This afternoon I throw off 
 my outside coat. A mild spring day. I must 
 hie to the Great Meadows. The air is full of 
 bluebirds ; the ground almost entirely bare. 
 The villagers are out in the sun, and every man 
 is happy whose work takes him out doors. I 
 go by Sleepy Hollow toward the Great Fields. 
 I lean over a rail to hear what is in the air 
 ,'iquid with the bluebirds' warble. My life par- 
 takes of infinity. The air is as deep as our na- 
 ture. Is the drawing in of this vital air at* 
 
140 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 tended with no more glorious results than I 
 witness ? The air is a velvet cushion against 
 which I press my ear. I go forth to make new 
 demands on life. I wish to begin this summer 
 well, to do something in it worthy of it and of 
 me, to transcend my daily routine and that of 
 my townsmen, to have my immortality now, in 
 the quality of my daily life, to pay the greatest 
 price, the greatest tax, of any man in Concord, 
 and enjoy the most ! ! I will give all I am for 
 my nobility. I will pay all my days for my suc- 
 cess. I pray that the life of this spring and 
 summer may ever lie fair in my memory. May 
 I dare as I have never done. May I persevere 
 as I have never done. May I purify myself 
 anew as with fire and water, soul and body. 
 May my melody not be wanting to the season. 
 May I gird myself to be a hunter of the beau- 
 tiful, that naught escape me. May I attain to 
 a youth never attained. I am eager to report 
 the glory of the universe. May I be worthy to 
 do it, to have got through with regarding hu- 
 man values so as not to be distracted from re- 
 garding divine values. It is reasonable that a 
 man should be something worthier at the end 
 of the year than he was at the beginning. 
 
 Yesterday's rain, in which I was glad to be 
 drenched, has advanced the spring, settled the 
 ways, and the old foot-path and the brook and 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHFSETTS. 141 
 
 the plank bridge behind the hill which have 
 been buried so long,; are suddenly uncovered, 
 as if we had returned to our earth after an ab- 
 sence and took pleasure in finding things so 
 nearly in the state in which we left them. We 
 go out without overcoats, saunter along the 
 street, look at the aments of the willow begin- 
 ning to appear, and the swelling buds of the 
 maple and the elm. The Great Meadows are 
 water instead of ice. I see the ice on the bot- 
 tom in white sheets. 
 
 Most men find farming unprofitable. But 
 there are some who can get their living any- 
 where. If you set them down on a bare rock, 
 they will thrive there. The true farmer is to 
 those that come after him and take the benefit 
 of his improvements like the lichen which 
 plants itself on the bare rock and grows and 
 thrives and cracks it, making vegetable mould 
 for the garden vegetables which are to grow in 
 it. 
 
 March 15, 1854. I am sorry to think that 
 you do not get a man's most effective criticism 
 until you provoke him. Severe truth is ex- 
 pressed with some bitterness. 
 
 March 15, 1855. Mr. Rice tells me. that 
 when he was getting mud out of the little 
 Bwamp at the foot of Brister's Hill he heard a 
 squeaking and found that he was digging into 
 
142 EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 the nest of what he called a " field mouse," from 
 his description probably the meadow mouse. It 
 was made of grass, etc., and while he stood over 
 it, the mother, not regarding him, came and 
 carried off the young, one by one, in her mouth, 
 being gone some time in each case before she 
 returned, and finally she took the nest itself. 
 
 March 15, 1857. P. M. To Hubbard's Close 
 and Walden. I see in the ditches in Hubbard's 
 Close the fine green tips of the spires of grass 
 just rising above the surface of the water in one 
 place, as if unwilling to trust itself to the frosty 
 air. Favored by the warmth of the water and 
 sheltered by the banks of the ditch it has ad- 
 vanced thus far. But generally I see only the 
 placid and frost-bitten tips of grass which ap- 
 parently started during that warm spell in Feb- 
 ruary. The surface of the ditches is spotted 
 with these pale and withered frost-bitten blade- 
 lets. It was the first green blush (nay, it is 
 purple or lake often, and a true blush) of spring, 
 of that Indian spring we had in February. To 
 be present at the instant when the springing 
 grass at the bottoms of ditches lifts its spear 
 above the surface and bathes in the spring air. 
 Many a first faint crop mantling the pools thus 
 early is mown down by the frost before the vil- 
 lager suspects that vegetation has reawakened. 
 
 The trout darts away in the hazy brook there 
 
EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 143 
 
 30 swiftly in zigzag course that commonly I only 
 see the ripple he makes, in proportion, in thi3 
 brook only a foot wide, like that made by a 
 steamer in a canal. If I catch a glimpse of him 
 before he buries himself in the mud, it is only 
 a dark film without distinct outline. By his 
 zigzag course he bewilders the eye and avoids 
 capture perhaps. 
 
 March 15, 1860. 2 p.m. To Lee's Cliff. . . . 
 A henhawk sails away from the wood south- 
 ward. I get a very fair sight of it sailing over- 
 head. What a perfectly regular and neat out- 
 line it presents ! an easily recognized figure any- 
 where. Yet I never see it represented in books. 
 The exact correspondence of the marks on one 
 side to those on the other, as of the black or 
 dark tip on one wing to that of the other, and 
 the dark line midway the wing. I do not be- 
 lieve that one can get as correct an idea of the 
 form and color of the under sides of a hen- 
 hawk's wings by spreading those of a dried 
 specimen in his study as by looking up at a free 
 and living hawk soaring above him in the fields. 
 The penalty for obtaining a petty knowledge 
 thus dishonestly is that it is less interesting to 
 men generally as it is less significant. Some 
 seeing and admiring the neat figure of the hawk 
 Bailing two or three hundred feet above their 
 heads, wish to get nearer and hold it in their 
 
144 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 hands, perchance, not realizing that they can 
 Bee it beet at a distance, better now, perhaps, 
 than ever they will again. What is an eagle 
 in captivity ! screaming in a court-yard ! I am 
 not the wiser respecting eagles for having seen 
 one there. I do not wish to know the length 
 of its entrails. 
 
 How neat and all compact the hawk 1 Its 
 wings and body are all one piece, the wings 
 apparently the greater part, while its body is 
 a mere fullness, a protuberance between its 
 wings, an inconspicuous pouch hung there. It 
 suggests no insatiable maw, no corpulence, but 
 looks like a large moth, with little body in pro- 
 portion to its wings, its body naturally more 
 etherealized as it soars higher. These hawks, 
 as usual, began to be common about the first of 
 March, showing that they were returning from 
 their winter quarters. 
 
 Am surprised to hear from the pool behind 
 Lee's Cliff the croaking of the wood frog. It 
 is all alive with them and I see them spread 
 out on the surface. Their note is somewhat in 
 harmony with the rustling of the now drier 
 leaves. It is more like the note of the classical 
 frog as described by Aristophanes, etc. How 
 suddenly they awake. Yesterday, as it were, 
 asleep and dormant; to-day, as lively as ever 
 they are. The awakening of the leafy wood« 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 145 
 
 land pools. They must awake in good condi- 
 tion. As Walden opens eight days earlier than 
 I have known it, so this frog croaks about as 
 much earlier It is remarkable how lit- 
 tle certain knowledge even old weather-wise 
 men have of the comparative earliness of the 
 year. They will speak of the passing spring as 
 earlier or later than they ever knew, when per- 
 chance the third spring before, it was equally 
 early or late, as I have known. 
 
 March 16, 1840. The cabins of the settlers 
 are the points whence radiate these rays of 
 green and yellow and russet over the landscape. 
 Out of these go the axes and spades with which 
 the landscape is painted. How much is the 
 Indian summer and the budding of spring re- 
 lated to the cottage. Have not the flight of 
 the crow and the gyrations of the hawk a refer- 
 ence to that roof? 
 
 The ducks alight at this season on the wind- 
 ward side of the river in the smooth water, and 
 swim about by twos and threes, pluming them- 
 selves and diving to peck at the root of the lily 
 and the cranberries which the frost has not 
 loosened. It is impossible to approach them 
 within gunshot when they are accompanied by 
 the gull which rises sooner and makes them 
 sestless. They fly to windward first in order 
 to get under weigh, and are more easily reached 
 10 
 
146 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 by tne shot if approached on that side. When 
 preparing to fly they swim about with their 
 heads erect and then gliding along a few feet 
 with their bodies just touching the surface, rise 
 heavily with much splashing, and fly low at 
 first, if not suddenly aroused, but otherwise rise 
 directly to survey the danger. The cunning 
 sportsman is not in haste to desert his position, 
 but waits to ascertain if, having got themselves 
 into flying trim, they will not return over the 
 ground in their course to a new resting-place. 
 
 March 16, 1842. Raleigh's maxims are not 
 true and impartial, but yet are expressed with 
 a certain magnanimity which was natural to 
 the man, as if this selfish policy could easily af- 
 ford to give place in him to a more human and 
 generous one. He gives such advice that we 
 have more faith in his conduct than his princi- 
 ples. He seems to have carried the courtier's 
 life to the highest pitch of magnanimity and 
 grace it was capable of. He is liberal and gra- 
 cious as a prince, that is, within bounds ; brave, 
 chivalrous, heroic, as the knight in armor, and 
 not as a defenseless man. His was not the 
 heroism of Luther, but of Bayard. There was 
 more of grace than of truth in it. He had 
 more taste than character. There may be 
 something petty in a refined taste ; it easily 
 degenerates into effeminacy. It does not con« 
 
EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 147 
 
 sider the broadest use. It is not content with 
 simple good and bad, and so is fastidious and 
 
 curious, or nice only That is very true 
 
 which Raleigh says about the equal necessity*of 
 war and law, that " The necessity of war which 
 among human actions is most lawless hath some 
 kind of affinity and near resemblance with the 
 necessity of law," for both equally rest on force 
 as their basis, and war is only the resource 
 of law, either on a smaller or larger scale, its 
 authority asserted. In war, in some sense, lie3 
 the very genius of law. It is law creative and 
 active, it is the first principle of law. What is 
 human warfare but just this, an effort to make 
 the laws of God and nature take sides with one 
 party. Men make an arbitrary code, and, be- 
 cause it is not right, they try to make it prevail 
 by might. The moral law does not want any 
 champion. Its assertors do not go to war. It 
 was never infringed with impunity. It is in- 
 consistent to deny war and maintain law, for if 
 there were no need of war there would be no 
 need of law. 
 
 March 16, 1852. Before sunrise. With what 
 infinite and unwearied expectation and procla- 
 mation the cocks usher in every dawn, as if 
 there had never been one before, and the dogs 
 bark still, and the thallus of lichens springs, so 
 tenacious of life is nature. 
 
148 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Spent the day in Cambridge Library. .... 
 What a wilderness of books it is. Looking over 
 books on Canada written within the last three 
 hundred years, I could see how one had been 
 built on another, each author consulting and re- 
 ferring to his predecessors. You could read 
 most of them without changing your position 
 on the steps. It is necessary to find out ex- 
 actly what books to read on a. given subject. 
 Though there may be a thousand books written 
 upon it, it is only necessary to read three or 
 four. They will contain all that is essential, 
 and a few pages will show which they are. 
 Books which are books are all that you want, 
 and there are but half a dozen in any thousand. 
 I saw that while we are clearing the forest in 
 our westward progress, we are accumulating a 
 forest of books in our rear, as wild and unex- 
 plored as any of nature's primitive wildernesses. 
 The volumes of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and sev- 
 enteenth centuries which lie so near on the 
 shelf, are rarely opened, are effectually forgot- 
 ten, and not implied by our literature and 
 newspapers. When I looked into one of them, 
 it affected me like looking into an inaccessible 
 swamp, ten feet deep with sphagnum, where 
 the inonarchs of the forest covered with mosses 
 and stretched along the ground were making 
 haste to become peat. Those old books sug 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 149 
 
 gested a certain fertility, an Ohio soil, as if 
 they were making a humus for new literatures 
 to spring in. I heard the bellowing of bull- 
 frogs and the hum of mosquitoes reverberating 
 through the thick embossed covers when I had 
 closed the book. Decayed literature makes the 
 richest of all soils. 
 
 March 16, 1854. A. M. Another fine morn- 
 ing. Willows and alders along water courses 
 all alive these mornings, and ringing with the 
 trills and jingles and warbles of birds, even as 
 the waters have lately broken loose and tinkle 
 below, song-sparrows, blackbirds, not to men- 
 tion robins, etc., etc. The song-sparrows are 
 very abundant, peopling each bush, willow, or 
 alder for a quarter of a mile and pursuing each 
 other as if now selecting their mates. It is 
 their song which especially fills the air, made 
 an incessant and indistinguishable trill and jin- 
 gle by their numbers. I see ducks afar sailing 
 on the meadow leaving a long furrow in the 
 water behind them. Watch them at leisure 
 without scaring them, with my glass, observe 
 their free and undisturbed motions. Some dark 
 orown, partly on water, alternately dipping 
 with their tails up, partly on land. Others with 
 bright white breasts, etc., and black heads, of 
 about the same size or larger. (Later date. 
 Probably both are sheldrakes.) They dive and 
 
150 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 are gone some time, and come up a rod off. 
 At first I saw but one, then, a minute after, 
 three. The first phebe, near the water, is heard. 
 March 16, 1855. P. M. To Conantum End. 
 At the woodchuck's hole, just beyond the cock- 
 spur thorn, I see several diverging and con- 
 verging tracks of, undoubtedly, a woodchuck or 
 several, which must have come out at least as 
 early as the 13th. The track is about one and 
 three quarters inches wide by two long, the five 
 toes very distinct and much spread, and, in- 
 cluding the scrape of the snow before the foot 
 came to its bearing, is somewhat handlike. It 
 is simple and alternate, thus, ****** 
 commonly, but sometimes much like a rabbit's, 
 and again, like a mink's, somewhat thus * * e 
 They had come out and run about directly from 
 hole to hole, six in all, within a dozen rods or 
 more. This appeared to have been all their 
 traveling, as if they had run round a visiting 
 and waked each other up the first thing. At 
 first they soiled the snow with their sandy feet. 
 At one place they had been clearing out to- 
 day the throat of two holes within a rod of 
 each other, scattering the mud-like sand, made 
 wet by the melting snow, over the pure snow 
 around. I saw where, between these holes, they 
 had sat on a horizontal limb of a shrub-oak 
 (which they had tried their teeth on) about 9 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 151 
 
 foot from the ground, plainly to warm and dry 
 themselves in the sun, having muddied it all 
 over. I also saw where one had sunned him- 
 self on a stone at the foot «f a small pitch pine, 
 and tried his teeth on a dead limb of the pine. 
 They could not go in or out of these sandy 
 burrows without being completely covered with 
 Bandy mud. The path over the snow between 
 these holes was quite covered with it. They 
 have but four toes on the fore feet with the 
 rudiment of a thumb. The woodchuck's first 
 journey then appears to be to some neighboring 
 hole which he remembers a dozen or fifteen rods 
 off, and, perchance, he goes as straight or uner- 
 ringly to it as if he had not been asleep all win- 
 ter. Apparently, after a little gossiping there, 
 his first work is to clear out the entrance to his 
 burrow, ejecting the leaves and sand which have 
 there collected. None have traveled beyond 
 these holes, except that one track leads into the 
 swamp. But here are the tracks of foxes bound 
 on longer journeys. They are generally ten or 
 twelve inches apart lengthwise, by three to five 
 wide, ' . ' . " but are irreg- 
 ular, now two at the usual distance, then two 
 close together orthree or four inches apart only. 
 The foot is very shapely, much like a dog's. 
 
 March 16, 1858 A still, foggy, and 
 
 rather warm day. I heard this morning . . . 
 
152 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 that peculiar drawling note of a hen who has 
 this hennish way of expressing her content at 
 the sight of bare ground and mild weather. 
 The crowing of cocks and cawing of crows tell 
 the same story 
 
 How conversant the Indian, who lived out of 
 doors, must have been with mouse ear leaves, 
 pine needles, mosses, and lichens which form 
 the crust of the earth. No doubt he had names 
 accordingly for many things for which we have 
 no popular names. 
 
 I walk in muddy fields hearing the tinkle of 
 the new-born rills. Where the melted snow 
 has made a swift rill in the rut of a cart-path, 
 flowing over an icy bottom, and between icy 
 banks, I see, just below a little fall an inch high, 
 a circular mass of foam or white bubbles nearly 
 two inches in diameter, slowly revolving, but 
 never moving off. The swift stream at the 
 fall appears to strike one side, as it might the 
 side of a water wheel, and so cause it to revolve ; 
 but in the angle between this and the fall half 
 an inch distant, is another circle of bubbles, re- 
 volving very rapidly in the opposite direction. 
 The laws, perchance, by which the world was 
 made, and according to which the systems re- 
 volve, are seen in full operation in a rill of 
 melted snow. 
 
 March 16, 1859. P. M. Launch my boat 
 
EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 153 
 
 and sail to Ball's Hill. It is fine, clear weather, 
 and a strong northwest wind. What, a change 
 since yesterday ! Last night I qame home 
 through as incessant heavy rain as I have been 
 out in for many years, through the muddiest 
 and wettest of streets, still partly covered with 
 ice, and the rain-water stood over shoes in many 
 places on the sidewalks. I heard of several 
 who went astray in this water, and had adven- 
 tures in the dark. You require India-rubber 
 boots then. But to-day I see the children play- 
 ing at hop-scotch on those very sidewalks, with 
 a bed marked in the dry sand. So rapid are 
 the changes of weather with us and so porous 
 
 our soil 
 
 A new phase of the spring is presented, a 
 new season has come. We no longer see drip- 
 ping, saturated russet and brown banks through 
 rain, hearing at intervals the alarm notes of 
 early robins, banks which reflect a yellowish 
 light, but we see the bare and now pale-brown 
 and dfy russet hills. The earth has cast off 
 her white coat and come forth in her clean- 
 washed, sober, russet, early spring dress. As 
 ive look over the lively tossing blue waves for 
 a mile or more eastward and westward, our 
 eyes fall on these shining russet hills. Ball's 
 Hill appears in the strong light, at the verge 
 of this undulating blue plain, like some glo- 
 
154 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 nous newly-created island of the spring, just 
 sprung up from the bottom in the midst of the 
 blue waters. The fawn-colored oak leaves, with 
 a few pines intermixed, thickly covering the 
 hill, look not like a withered vegetation, but 
 an ethereal kind just expanded and peculiarly 
 adapted to the season and the sky. 
 
 Look toward the sun, the water is yellow, as 
 water in which the earth had just washed itself 
 clean of its winter impurities ; look from the 
 sun and it is a beautiful dark-blue, but in each 
 direction the crests of the waves are white, and 
 you cannot sail or row over this watery wilder- 
 ness without sharing the excitement of this ele- 
 ment. Our sail draws so strongly that we cut 
 through the great waves without feeling them. 
 .... We meet one great gull beating up the 
 course of the river against the wind at Flint's 
 Bridge. It is a very leisurely sort of limping 
 flight, the bird tacking its way along like a sail- 
 ing vessel. Yet the slow security with which 
 it advances suggests a leisurely contemplative- 
 ness, as if it were working out some problem 
 quite at its leisure. As often as its very nar- 
 row, long, and curved wings are lifted up 
 against the light, I see a very narrow, distinct 
 light edging to the wing where it is thin. Its 
 black tipt wings. Afterwards from Ball's Hill 
 I see two more circling about looking for food 
 over the ice and water. 
 
EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 155 
 
 March 16, 1860. Saw a flock of sheldrakes 
 a hundred rods off on the Great Meadows, 
 mostly males, with a few females, all intent on 
 fishing. They were coasting along a spit of 
 bare ground that showed itself in the middle 
 of the meadow, sometimes the whole twelve^ ap- 
 parently in a straight line, at nearly equal dis- 
 tances apart, each with its head under water, 
 rapidly coasting along back and forth, and ever 
 and anon one having caught something would 
 be pursued by the others. It is remarkable 
 that they find their finny prey in the middle of 
 the meadow now, and even on the very inmost 
 side, as I afterward saw, though the water is 
 quite low. Of course, as soon as they are seen 
 on the meadows there are fishes there to be 
 caught. I never see them fish thus in the chan- 
 nel. Perhaps the fishes lie up there for warmth 
 already. 
 
 I also see two gulls nearly a mile off. One 
 stands still and erect for three quarters of an 
 hour, or till disturbed, on a little bit of floated 
 meadow crust which rises above the water, just 
 room for it to stand on, with its great white 
 breast toward the wind. Then another comes 
 flying past it, and alights on a similar perch, 
 but which does not rise quite to the surface, so 
 that it stands in the water. Thus they will 
 stand fo> an hour, at least. They are not of 
 
156 EARLY SPKING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 handsome form, but look like great wooden im- 
 ages of birds, bluish slate, and white. But 
 when they fly they are quite another creature. 
 
 March, 17, 1842. I have been making pen- 
 cils all day, and then at evening walked to see 
 an old schoolmate who is going to help make 
 the Welland canal navigable for ships round 
 Niagara. He cannot see any such motives and 
 modes of living as I, professes not to look be- 
 yond the securing of certain " creature com- 
 forts." And so we go silently different ways 
 with all serenity, I, in the still moonlight 
 through the village this fair evening to write 
 these thoughts in my journal, and he, forsooth, 
 to mature his schemes to ends as good, may be, 
 but different. So are we two made, while the 
 same stars shine quietly over us. If I or he be 
 wrong, nature yet consents placidly. She bites 
 her lip and smiles to see how her children will 
 agree. So does the Welland canal get built 
 and other conveniences, while I live. Well and 
 good, I must confess. Fast-sailing ships are 
 hence not detained. 
 
 What means this changing sky, that now I 
 freeze and contract and go within myself to 
 warm me, and now I say it is a south wind and 
 go all soft and warm along the way ? I some- 
 times wonder if I do not breathe the south 
 wind. 
 
EAELT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 157 
 
 March 17, 1852. I catch myself philosophiz- 
 ing most abstractly when first returning to con- 
 sciousness in the night or morning. I make 
 the truest observations and distinctions then, 
 when the will is yet wholly asleep, and the 
 mind works like a machine without friction. I 
 am conscious of having in my sleep transcended 
 the limits of the individual, and made observa- 
 tions and carried on conversations which in my 
 waking hours I can neither recall nor appre- 
 ciate. As if in sleep our individual fell into the 
 infinite mind, and at the moment of awakening 
 we found ourselves on the confines of the latter. 
 On awakening we resume our enterprises, take 
 up our bodies, and become limited mind again. 
 We meet and converse with those bodies which 
 we have previously animated. There is a mo- 
 ment in the dawn when the darkness of the 
 night is dissipated and before the exhalations of 
 the day begin to rise, when we see things more 
 truly than at any other time. The light is 
 more trustworthy, since our senses are purer 
 and the atmosphere is less gross. By afternoon 
 all objects are seen in mirage 
 
 To-day the fox-colored sparrow is on its way 
 to Hudson's Bay. 
 
 March 17, 1854. . . . The grass is slightly 
 greened on south bank-sides, on the south side 
 of the house. The first tinge of green appears 
 
158 EAKLT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 to be due to moisture more than direct heat. 
 It is not on bare, dry banks, but in hollows 
 •where the snow melts last, that it is most con- 
 spicuous. 
 
 March 17, 1855. See now along the edge of 
 the river, the ice being gone, many fresh heaps 
 of clam-shells which were opened by the mus- 
 quash when the water was higher, about some 
 tree where the ground rises. And in very many 
 places you see where they formed new burrows 
 into the bank, the sand being pushed out into 
 the stream about the entrance, which is still be- 
 low water, and you feel the ground undermined 
 as you walk. 
 
 March 17, 1857. These days, beginning with 
 the 14th, more spring-like. I hear the note of 
 the woodpecker from the elms, that early note. 
 Launch my boat. No mortal is alert enough 
 to be present at the first dawn of the spring, 
 but he will presently discover some evidence 
 that vegetation had awaked some days at least 
 before. Early as I have looked this year, per- 
 haps the first unquestionable growth of an in- 
 digenous plant detected was the fine tips of grass 
 blades which the frost had killed, floating pale 
 and placid, though still attached to their stems, 
 spotting the pools like a slight fall or flurry of 
 dull-colored snow-flakes. After a few mild and 
 sunny days, even in February, the grass in still 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 159 
 
 muddy pools and ditches, sheltered by the sur- 
 rounding banks which reflect the heat upon it, 
 ventures to lift the points of its green phalanx 
 into the mild and flattering atmosphere, and 
 advances rapidly from the saffron even to the 
 rosy tints of morning. But the following night 
 comes the frost which with rude and ruthless 
 hand sweeps the surface of the pooh and the 
 advancing morning pales into the dim light of 
 earliest dawn. I thus detect the first approach 
 of spring by finding here and there its scouts 
 and vanguard which have been slain by the 
 rearguard of retreating winter. 
 
 March 17, 1858. Hear the first bluebird. 
 
 P. M. To the Hill. A remarkably warm 
 and pleasant day with a south or southwest 
 wind. The air is full of bluebirds, I hear them 
 far and near on all sides of the hill, warbling in 
 the tree-tops, though I do not distinctly see 
 them. I stand by the wall at the east base of 
 the hill, looking into the alder meadow lately 
 cut off. I am peculiarly attracted by its red- 
 brown maze, seen in this bright sun and mild 
 southwest wind. It has expression in it as a 
 familiar freckled face. Methinks it is about 
 waking up, though it still slumbers. I see the 
 still, smooth pools of water in its midst almost 
 free from ice, and seem to hear the sound of the 
 water soaking into it, as it were, its voice 
 
160 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Even the shade is agreeable to-day. You 
 hear the buzzing of a fly from time to time, and 
 see the black speck zig-zag by. 
 
 x Ah, there is the note of the first flicker, a 
 prolonged monotonous wick-wiek-wick-wick-wick- 
 wick, etc., or, if you please, quick-quick-quick, 
 heard far over and through the dry leaves. 
 But how that single sound peoples and enriches 
 all the woods and fields ! They are no longer 
 the same woods and fields that they were. 
 This note really quickens what was dead. It 
 seems to put life into the withered grass and 
 leaves and bare twigs, and henceforth the days 
 shall not be as they have been. It is as when 
 a family, your neighbors, return to an empty 
 house after a long absence, and you hear the 
 cheerful hum of voices and the laughter of chil- 
 dren, and see the smoke from the kitchen fire. 
 The doors are thrown open, and children go 
 screaming through the hall. So the flicker 
 dashes through the aisles of the grove, throws 
 up a window here, and cackles out of it, and 
 then there, airing the house. He makes his 
 voice ring up-stairs and down-stairs, and so, as 
 it were, fits it for his habitation and ours, and 
 takes possession. It as good as a house-warm- 
 ing to all nature. Now I hear and see him 
 louder and nearer on the top of the long-armed 
 white oak, sitting very upright, as is their wont, 
 
EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 161 
 
 as it were calling to some of his kind that may 
 also have arrived. 
 
 Sitting under the handsome scarlet oak be- 
 yond the hill, I hear a faint note far in the 
 wood which reminds me of the robin ; again I 
 hear it ; it is he, an occasional peep. These 
 notes of the earliest birds seem to invite forth 
 vegetation 
 
 Now I .hear, when passing the south side of 
 the hill, or first when threading the maple 
 swamp far west of it, the tohuck tchuek of a 
 blackbird, and after, a distinct conqueree. So 
 it is a red-wing. Thus these four species of 
 birds all come in one day, no doubt, to almost 
 all parts of the town. 
 
 March 17, 1859. 6£ A. M. River rises still 
 
 higher A great many musquash have 
 
 been killed within a week. One says a cart- 
 load have been killed in Assabet. Perhaps 
 a dozen gunners have been out in this town 
 every day. They get a shilling apiece for their 
 skins. One man getting musquash and one 
 mink earned five or six dollars the other day. 
 I hear their guns early and late, long before 
 sunrise and after sunset, for these are the best 
 times. 
 
 p. M. To Flint's Bridge by water. The water 
 is very high and as smooth as it ever is. It is 
 very warm. I wear but one coat. On the 
 u 
 
162 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 water, the town and the land it is built on, 
 rise but little above the flood. This bright, 
 smooth, and level surface seems here the pre- 
 vailing element, as if the distant town were an 
 island. I realize how water predominates on 
 
 the surface of the globe How different 
 
 to-day from yesterday. Yesterday was a cool, 
 bright day, the earth just washed bare by the 
 rain, and a strong northwest wind raised re- 
 spectable billows on our vernal seas, and im- 
 parted remarkable life and spirit to the scene. 
 To-day it is perfectly still and warm, not a rip- 
 ple disturbs the surface of these lakes, but 
 every insect, every small black beetle struggling 
 on it, is betrayed. Seen through this air, though 
 many might not notice the difference, the rus- 
 set surface of the earth does not shine, is not 
 bright. I see no shining russet islands with 
 dry but flushing oak leaves. The air is com- 
 paratively dead when I attend to it, and it is as 
 if there were the veil of a fine mist over all ob- 
 jects, dulling their edges. Yet this would be 
 called a clear day. These aerial differences in 
 the days are not commonly appreciated, though 
 they affect our spirits. 
 
 When I am opposite the end of the willow 
 row, seeing the osiers of perhaps two years old, 
 all in a mass, they are seen to be very distinctly 
 yellowish beneath and scarlet above. They are 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 163 
 
 fifty rods off. Here is the same chemistry that 
 colors the leaf or fruit, coloring the bark. It is 
 generally, probably always, the upper part of the 
 twig, the more recent growth, that is the higher- 
 colored, and more flower or fruit-like. So leaves 
 are more ethereal, the higher up and farther from 
 the root. In the bark of the twigs, indeed, is 
 the more permanent flower or fruit. The flower 
 falls in spring or summer, the fruit and leaves 
 fall or wither in autumn, but the blushing 
 twigs retain their color throughout the winter, 
 and appear more brilliant than ever the suc- 
 ceeding spring. They are winter fruit. It adds 
 greatly to the pleasure of late November, of 
 winter, or of early spring walks to look into 
 these mazes of twigs of different colors. 
 
 As I float by the Rock, I hear a rustling amid 
 ihe oak leaves above that new water line, and 
 there being no wind I know it to be a striped 
 squirrel, and soon see its long unseen striped 
 sides flirting about the instep of an oak. Its 
 lateral stripes, alternate black and yellowish, are 
 si type which I have not seen for a long time, 
 = a punctuation mark to indicate that a new 
 paragraph commences in the revolution of the 
 seasons. 
 
 March 17, 1860. P. M. To Walden and 
 Goose Pond. I see a large flock of sheldrakes, 
 which have probably risen from the pond, go 
 
164 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 over my head in the woods, a dozen large and 
 compact birds flying with great force and rapid- 
 ity, spying out the land, eyeing every traveler. 
 Now you hear the whistling of their wings, 
 and in a moment they are lost in the horizon. 
 What health and vigor they suggest I The 
 life of man seems slow and puny in comparison, 
 reptilian. 
 
 How handsome a flock of red-wings, ever 
 changing its oval form as it advances, from the 
 rear birds pursuing the others. 
 
 March 18, 1842. Whatever book or sentence 
 will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was 
 thought twice. I say this thinking of Carlyle, 
 who writes pictures or first impressions merely, 
 which consequently will only bear a first read 
 ing. As if any transient, any new, mood of the 
 best man deserved to detain the world long. I 
 should call his writing essentially dramatic, ex- 
 cellent acting, entertaining especially to those 
 who see rather than those who hear, not to be 
 repeated, more than a joke. If he did not think 
 who made the joke, how shall he think who 
 hears it. He never consults the oracle, but 
 thinks to utter oracles himself. There is noth- 
 ing in his book for which he is not and does not 
 feel responsible. He does not retire behind the 
 truth he utters, but stands in the fore-ground. 
 I wish he would just think, and tell me what he 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 165 
 
 thinks, appear to me in the attitude of a man 
 with his ear inclined, who comes as silently and 
 meekly as the morning star which is uncon- 
 scious of the dawn it heralds ; leading the way 
 Up the steep as though alone and unobserved in 
 its observing, without looking behind. 
 
 March 18, 1852. That is a pretty good story 
 told of a London citizen just retired to country 
 life on a fortune, who wishing, among other 
 novel rustic experiments, to establish a number 
 of bee communities, would not listen to the ad- 
 vice of his under-steward, but asking fiercely 
 "how he could be so thoughtless as to recom- 
 mend a purchase of what might so easily be pro- 
 cured on the Downs?" ordered him to hire ten 
 women to go in quest of bees the next morning, 
 and to prepare hives for the reception of the 
 captives. Early the next day the detachment 
 started for the Downs, each furnished with a 
 tin canister to contain the spoil ; and after run- 
 ning about for hours, stunning the bees with 
 blows from their straw bonnets, and encounter- 
 ing stings without number, secured about thirty 
 prisoners who were safely lodged in a hive. 
 But as has been the fate of many arduous cam- 
 paigns, little advantage accrued from all this 
 fatigue and danger. Next morning the squire 
 sallied forth to visit his new colony. As he ap- 
 proached, a loud humming assured him that 
 
166 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 they were hard at work, when, to his infinite 
 disappointment, it was found that the bees had 
 made their escape through a small hole in the 
 hive, 'leaving behind them only an unfortunate 
 humble-bee, whose bulk prevented his squeez- 
 ing himself through the aperture, and whose 
 loud complaints had been mistaken for the 
 busy hum of industry." You must patiently 
 study the method of nature, and take advice of 
 the under-steward in the establishment of all 
 communities, both insect and human. Prob- 
 ably the bees could not make industry attract- 
 ive under the circumstances described above. 
 
 A wise man will not go out of his way for 
 information. He might as well go out of na- 
 ture, or commit suicide. 
 
 March 18, 1853 The bluebird and 
 
 song-sparrow sing immediately on their ar- 
 rival, and hence deserve to enjoy some preemi- 
 nence. They give expression to the joy which 
 the season inspires, but the robin and black- 
 bird only peep and tchuck at first, commonly, 
 and the lark is silent and flitting. The blue- 
 bird at once fills the air with his sweet warb- 
 ling, and the song-sparrow from the top of a 
 rail pours forth his most joyous strain. Both 
 oxpress their delight at the weather, which per- 
 mits them to return to their favorite haunts 
 They are the more welcome to man for it. 
 
EAELT SPEING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 167 
 
 The sun is now declining with a warm and 
 bright light on all things, a light which answers 
 to the late afterglow of the year, when, in the 
 fall, wrapping his cloak about him, the traveler 
 goes home at night to prepare for winter. This 
 is the foreglow of the year, when the walker 
 goes home at eve to dream of summer. 
 
 March 18, 1855. Round by Hollowell Place 
 via Clam-shell. I see with my glass as I go over 
 the railroad bridge, sweeping the river, a great 
 gull standing far away on the top of a musk-rat 
 cabin, which rises just above the water. When 
 I get round within sixty rods of him, ten min- 
 utes later, he still stands on the same spot, con- 
 stantly turning his head to every side looking 
 out for food. Like a wooden image of a bird 
 he stands there, heavy to look at, head, breast, 
 beneath, and rump, pure white, slate-colored 
 wings tipped with black, and extending beyond 
 the tail, the herring gull. I can see down to 
 his webbed feet. But now I advance and he 
 rises easily, and goes off northeastward over 
 the river with a leisurely flight. 
 
 At Clam-shell Hill I sweep the river again, 
 and see standing midleg deep on the meadow 
 where the water is very shallow, with deeper 
 around, another of these wooden images, which 
 is harder to scare. I do not fairly distinguish 
 black tips to its wings. It is ten or fifteen 
 
168 EAKLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 minutes before I get him to rise, and then he 
 goes off in the same leisurely manner, stroking 
 the air with his wings, and now making a great 
 circle back in his course, so that you cannot 
 tell which way he is bound. By standing so 
 long motionless in these places they may, per- 
 chance, accomplish two objects, i. e., catch pass- 
 ing fish (suckers ?) like a heron, and escape the 
 attention of man. His utmost motions were to 
 plume himself once, and turn his head about. 
 If he did not move his head he would look like 
 a decoy. 
 
 March 18, 1858. 7 A. m. By river. Al- 
 most every bush has its song-sparrow this morn- 
 ing, and their tinkling strains are heard on all 
 sides. You see them just hopping under a bush 
 or into some other covert as you go by, turning 
 with a jerk this way and that ; or they flit 
 away just above the ground, which they resem- 
 ble. Theirs is the prettiest strain I have heard 
 
 yet. M is already out in his boat for all 
 
 day with his white hound in the prow, bound 
 up the river for musquash, etc., but the river 
 is hardly high enough to drive them out. 
 
 P. M. To Fair Haven Hill via Hubbard's 
 Bathing Place. How much more habitable a 
 few birds make the fields I At the end of the 
 winter, when the fields are bare, and there is 
 nothing to relieve the monotony of withered 
 
EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 169 
 
 vegetation, our life seems reduced to its lowest 
 terms. But let a bluebird come and warble 
 over them, and what a change ! The note of 
 the first bluebird in the air answers to the purl- 
 ing rill of melted snow beneath. It is evidently 
 soft and soothing, and, as surely as the ther- 
 mometer, indicates a higher temperature. It is 
 the accent of the south wind, its vernacular. It 
 is modulated by the south wind. 
 
 The song-sparrow is more sprightly, mingling 
 its notes with the rustling of the brush along 
 the water sides, but it is at the same time more 
 terrene than the bluebird. The first wood- 
 pecker comes screaming into the empty house, 
 and throws open doors and windows wide, call- 
 ing out each of them to let the neighbors know 
 of its return. But heard farther off it is very 
 suggestive of ineffable associations, which can- 
 not be distinctly recalled, of long-drawn summer 
 hours, and thus it also has the effect of music. 
 I was not aware that the capacity to hear the 
 woodpecker had slumbered within me so long. 
 When the blackbird gets to a conqueree he seems 
 to be dreaming of the sprays that are to be and 
 on which he will perch. The robin does not 
 come singing, but utters a somewhat anxious 
 or inquisitive peep at first. The song-sparrow 
 is immediately most at home of those I have 
 named. 
 
170 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Each new year is a surprise to us. We find 
 that we had virtually forgotten the note of each 
 bird, and when we hear it again it is remem- 
 bered like a dream, reminding us of a previous 
 state of existence. How happens it that the 
 associations it awakens are always pleasing, 
 never saddening, reminiscences of our sanest 
 hours. The voice of nature is always encour- 
 aging. 
 
 When I get two thirds up the hill, I look 
 round, and am for the hundredth time sur- 
 prised by the landscape of the river valley 
 and the horizon with its distant blue-scolloped 
 rim. It is a spring landscape, and as impos- 
 sible a fortnight ago as the song of birds. It 
 is a deeper and warmer blue than in winter, 
 methinks. The snow is off the mountains, 
 which seem even to have come again like the 
 birds. The undulating river is a bright blue 
 channel between sharp-edged, shores of ice re- 
 tained by the willows. The wind blows strong 
 but warm from west by north (so that I have 
 to hold my paper tight while I write this), mak- 
 ing the copses creak and roar, but the sharp 
 tinkle of a song-sparrow is heard through it all. 
 But, ah ! the needles of the pine, how they 
 shine, as I look down over the Holden wood 
 and westward ! Every third tree is lit with 
 •toe most subdued, but clear, ethereal light, ay 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 171 
 
 if it were the most delicate frost-work in a win- 
 ter morning, reflecting no heat, but only light. 
 And as they rock and wave in the strong wind, 
 even a mile off, the light courses up and down 
 them as over a field of grain, i. e., they are al- 
 ternately light and dark, like looms above the 
 forest, when the shuttle is thrown between the 
 light woof and the dark web. At sight of this 
 my spirit is like a lit tree. It runs or flashes 
 over their parallel boughs as when you play 
 with the teeth of a comb. Not only osiers, but 
 pine needles, shine brighter, I think, in the 
 spring, and arrow-heads and railroad rails, etc., 
 etc. Anacreon noticed this spring shining. Is 
 it not from the higher sun and cleansed air 
 and greater animation of nature ? There is a 
 warmer red on the leaves of the shrub oak and 
 on the tail of the hawk circling over them. 
 
 I sit on the cliff and look toward Sudbury. I 
 see its meeting-houses and its common, and its 
 fields lie but little beyond my ordinary walk. 
 How distant in all important senses may be the 
 town which yet is within sight. With a glass 
 I might, perchance, read the time on its clock. 
 How circumscribed are our walks after all ! 
 with the utmost industry we cannot expect to 
 know well an area more than six miles square ; 
 and yet we pretend to be travelers, to be ac- 
 quainted with Siberia and Africa. 
 
172 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 March 18, 1860. I examine the skunk cab- 
 bage now generally and abundantly in bloom 
 all along under Clam-shell. It is a flower, as it 
 were, without a leaf. All that you see is a 
 stout beaked hood just rising above the dead 
 brown grass in the springy ground where it 
 has felt the heat under some south bank. The 
 single enveloping leaf or "spathe" is all the 
 flower that you see commonly, and these are 
 as variously colored as tulips, and of singular 
 color, from a very dark, almost black mahogany 
 to a bright yellow, streaked or freckled with 
 mahogany. It is a leaf simply folded around 
 the flower, with its top like a bird's beak bent 
 over it for its further protection, evidently to 
 keep off wind and frost, and having a sharp 
 angle down its back. These various colors are 
 seen close together, and the beaks are bent in 
 various directions. All along under that bank 
 I heard the hum of honey bees in the air, at- 
 tracted by this flower. Especially the hum of 
 one within a spathe sounds deep and loud. 
 They circle about the bud, at first hesitatingly, 
 then alight and enter at the open door and 
 crawl over the spadix, and reappear laden with 
 the yellow pollen. What a remarkable instinct 
 it is that leads them to this flower. This bee is 
 said to have been introduced by the white man, 
 bat how much it has learned. This is almost 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 173 
 
 the only indigenous flower in bloom in this 
 town at present, and probably I and my com- 
 panion are the only men who have detected it 
 this year. Yet this foreign fly has left its 
 home, probably a mile off, and winged its way 
 to this warm bank to find it. Six weeks hence 
 children will set forth a-maying, and have in- 
 different luck. But the first sunny and warmer 
 day in March the honey-bee comes forth, 
 stretches its wings, and goes forth in search 
 of the earliest flower. 
 
 March 18, 1861. When I pass by a twig of 
 willow, though of the slenderest kind, rising 
 above the sedge in some dry hollow, early in 
 December or midwinter, above the snow, my 
 spirits rise, as if it were an oasis in the desert. 
 The very name, sallow (salix, from the Celtic 
 sal-lis, near water), suggests that there is some 
 natural sap or blood flowing there. It is a di- 
 vining rod that has not failed, but stands with 
 its root in the fountain. The fertile willow- 
 catkins are those green caterpillar-like ones, 
 eommonly an inch or more in length, which 
 develop themselves rapidly after the sterile yel- 
 low ones, which we had so admired, are fallen 
 or effete. Arranged around the bare twigs, 
 they often form green wands trom eight to 
 eighteen inches long. A single catkin consists 
 of from twenty-five to one hundred pods, more 
 
174 EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 or less ovate and beaked, each of which is close- 
 •ly packed - with cotton, in which are numerous 
 seeds, so small that they are scarcely discern- 
 able by ordinary eyes. 
 
 " The willow worn by forlorn paramour." 
 
 Aa if it were the emblem of despairing love I 
 It is rather the emblem of triumphant love and 
 sympathy with all nature. It may droop, — 
 it is so lithe and supple, — but it never weeps. 
 The willow of Babylon blooms not the less 
 hopefully with us though its other half is not 
 in the New England world at all, and never 
 has been. It droops not to represent David's 
 tears, but rather to snatch the crown from Alex- 
 ander's head. (Nor were poplars ever the weep- 
 ing sisters of Phaeton, for nothing rejoices them 
 more than the sight of the sun's chariot, and 
 little reck they who drives it.) No wonder its 
 wood was anciently in demand for bucklers, for, 
 like the whole tree, it is not only soft and pli- 
 ant, but tough and resilient, not splitting at the 
 first blow, but closing its wounds at once, and 
 refusing to transmit its hurts. I know of one 
 foreign species which introduced itself into Con- 
 cord as a withe used to tie up a bundle of trees. 
 A gardener stuck it in the ground, and it lived, 
 and has its descendants. Herodotus says that 
 the Scythians divined by the help of willow 
 
EARLY SPUING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 175 
 
 rods. I do not know any better twigs for this 
 purpose. 
 
 You can't read any genuine history, as that 
 of Herodotus or the Venerable Bede, without 
 perceiving that our interest depends not on the 
 subject, but on the man, or the manner *in 
 which he treats the subject, and the impor- 
 tance he gives it. A feeble writer, and with- 
 out genius, must have what he thinks a great 
 theme, which we are already interested in 
 through the accounts of others; but a genius, 
 — a Shakespeare, for instance, — would make 
 the history of his parish more interesting than 
 another's history of the world. Wherever men 
 have lived there is a story to be told, and it de- 
 pends chiefly on the story-teller, the historian, 
 whether that is interesting or not. 
 
 March 19, 1841. No true and brave person 
 will be content to live on such a footing with his 
 fellows and himself as the laws of every house- 
 hold now require. The house is the very haunt 
 and lair of our vice. I am impatient to with- 
 draw myself from under its roof as an unclean 
 spot. There is no circulation there. It is full 
 of stagnant and mephitic vapors. 
 
 March 19, 1842. When I walk in the fields 
 of Concord and meditate on the destiny of this 
 prosperous slip of the Saxon family, the unex- 
 hausted energies of this new country, I forget 
 
176 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 that this which is now Concord was once Mus- 
 ketaquid, and that the American race has had 
 its destiny also. Everywhere in the fields, in 
 the corn and grain land, the earth is strewn 
 with the relics of a race which has vanished as 
 completely as if trodden in with the earth. Is 
 it not good to remember the eternity behind me 
 as well as the eternity before? Wherever I 
 go I tread in the tracks of the Indian. I pick 
 up the bolt which he has but just dropped at 
 my feet. And if I consider destiny I am on 
 his trail. I scatter his hearth-stones with my 
 feet, and pick out of the embers of his fire the 
 simple but enduring implements of the wigwam 
 and the chase. In planting my corn in the 
 same furrow which yielded its increase to his 
 support so long, I displace some memorial of 
 him. I have been walking this afternoon over 
 a pleasant field planted with winter rye in a 
 region where this strange people once had their 
 dwelling-place. Another species of mortal men 
 but little less wild to me than the musquash 
 they hunted. Strange spirits, demons, whose 
 eye could never meet mine. With another na- 
 ture, and another fate than mine. The crows 
 flew over the edge of the woods, and wheeling 
 over my head, seemed to rebuke, as dark- 
 winged spirits more akin to the Indian than I. 
 Perhaps only the present disguise of the Indian. 
 If the new has a meaning, so has the old. . . . 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 177 
 
 A blithe west wind is blowing over all. In 
 the fine flowing haze, men at a distance seem 
 shadowy and gigantic, as ill-defined and great 
 as men should always be. I do not know if 
 yonder be a man or a ghost. 
 
 What a consolation are the stars to man, so 
 high and out of his reach, as is his own destiny. 
 .... My fate is in some sense linked with 
 theirs, and if they are to persevere to a great 
 end, shall I die who could conjecture it. It 
 surely is some encouragement to know that the 
 stars are my fellow-creatures, for I do not sus- 
 pect but they are reserved for a high destiny. 
 Man's moral nature is a riddle which only eter- 
 nity can solve. 
 
 I see laws which never fail, of whose failure 
 I never conceived. Indeed, I cannot detect 
 failure anywhere but in my fear. I do not fear 
 that right is not right, that good is not good, 
 but only the annihilation of the present exist- 
 ence. But only that can make me incapable 
 of fear. My fears are as good prophets as my 
 hopes. 
 
 March 19, 1852. Observed, as I stood with 
 
 C on the brink of the rill on Conantum, 
 
 where falling a few inches it produced bubbles, 
 our images three quarters of an inch long, and 
 black as imps, appearing to lean towards each 
 other on account of the convexity of the bub 
 
 13 
 
178 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 bles. There was nothing but these two dis- 
 tinct black manikins and the branch of the elm 
 over our heads to be seen. The bubbles rap- 
 idly burst and succeeded one another. 
 
 March 19, 1854. Cold and windy. The 
 meadow ice bears where the water is shallow. 
 .... Saw in Mill Brook three or four shiners* 
 (the first), poised over the sand, with a dis- 
 tinct longitudinal, light-colored line midway 
 along their sides and a darker line below it. 
 This is a noteworthy and characteristic linea- 
 ment, a cypher, a hieroglyphic, or type of 
 spring. You look into some clear, sandy-bot- 
 tomed brook, where it spreads into a deeper 
 bay, yet flowing cold from ice and snow not 
 far off, and see indistinctly poised over the 
 sand, on invisible fins, the outlines of a shiner, 
 scarcely to be distinguished from the sand be- 
 hind it, as if it were transparent, or as if the 
 material of which it was builded had all been 
 picked up from there, chiefly distinguished by 
 the lines I have mentioned. 
 
 March 19, 1856 the snow was con- 
 stantly sixteen inches deep at least on a level 
 in open land from January 13 to March 13. 
 
 March 19, 1858. P. m. To Hill and Grackle 
 Swamp. Another pleasant and warm day. 
 Painted my boat this P. M. These spring im- 
 pressions (as of the apparent waking up of tha 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 179 
 
 meadow described day before yesterday) are 
 not repeated the same year, at least not with 
 the same force, for the next day the same phe- 
 nomenon does not surprise us, our appetite has 
 lost its edge. The other day the face of the 
 meadow wore a peculiar appearance as if it 
 were beginning to wake up under the influence 
 of the southwest wind and the warm sun, but 
 it cannot again this year present precisely that 
 appearance to me. I have taken a step for- 
 ward to a new position and must see something 
 else. We perceive and are affected by changes 
 too subtle to be described. 
 
 I see little swarms of those fine fuzzy gnats 
 in the air. It is their wings which are most 
 conspicuous when they are in the sun. Their 
 bodies are comparatively small and black, and 
 they have two mourning plumes on their fronts. 
 Are not these the winter gnat ? They keep up 
 a circulation in the air like water bugs on the 
 water. Sometimes there is a globular swarm 
 two feet or more in diameter suggesting how 
 genial and habitable the air has become. They 
 people a portion of the otherwise vacant air, 
 being apparently for and of the sunshine, in 
 which they are most conspicuous 
 
 By the river I see distinctly red-wings and 
 hear their conqueree. They are not associated 
 with grackles. They are an age before theit 
 
180 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 cousins, have attained to clearness and liquid- 
 ity, they are officers, epauletted. The others 
 are rank and file. I distinguish one even by its 
 flight, hovering slowly from tree-top to tree-top, 
 as if ready to utter its liquid notes. Their 
 whistle is very clear and sharp, while that of 
 the grackle is ragged and split. 
 
 It is a fine evening, as I stand on the bridge. 
 The waters are quite smooth, very little ice to 
 be seen. The red-wing and song-sparrow are 
 singing, and a flock of tree-sparrows is pleas- 
 antly wajrbling. A new era has come. The 
 red-wing's gurgle-ee is heard where smooth 
 waters begin. One or two boys are out trying 
 their skiffs, even like the fuzzy gnats in the 
 sun, and as often as one turns his boat round 
 on the smooth surface, the setting sun is re- 
 flected from its side. 
 
 I feel reproach when I have spoken with lev- 
 ity, when I have made a jest, of my own exist- 
 ence. The makers have thus secured serious- 
 ness and respect for their work in our very 
 organization. The most serious events have 
 their ludicrous aspects, such as death, but we 
 yannot excuse ourselves when we have taken 
 this view of them only. It is pardonable when 
 we spurn the proprieties, even the sanctities, 
 making them the stepping-stones to something 
 Higher. 
 
EARL? SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 181 
 
 March 19, 1859. The wind makes such a 
 din about your ears that conversation is diffi- 
 cult, your words are blown away and do not 
 strike the ear they were aimed at. If you walk 
 by the water the tumult of the waves confuses 
 you. If you go by a tree or enter the woods 
 the din is yet greater. Nevertheless this uni- 
 versal commotion is very interesting and excit- 
 ing. The white pines in the horizon, either 
 single trees or whole woods, a mile off in the 
 southwest or west, are particularly interesting. 
 You not only see the regular bilateral form of 
 the tree, all the branches distinct like the frond 
 of a fern or a feather (for the pine even at 
 this distance has not merely beauty of outline 
 and color, it is not merely an amorphous and 
 homogeneous or continuous mass of green, but 
 shows a regular succession of flattish leafy 
 boughs or stages in flakes, one above another, 
 like the veins of a leaf, or the leaflets of a 
 frond. It is this richness and symmetry of de- 
 tail which more than its outline charms us), 
 but that fine silvery light reflected from its 
 needles (perhaps their under sides) incessantly 
 in motion. As a tree bends and waves like a 
 feather in the gale, I see it alternately dark 
 and light, as the sides of tne needles which re- 
 flect the cool sheen are alternately withdrawn 
 from and restored to the proper angle. The 
 
182 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 light appears to flash upward from the base of 
 the tree incessantly. In the intervals of the 
 flash it is often as if the tree were withdrawn 
 altogether from sight. I see one large pine 
 wood over whose whole top these cold electric 
 flashes are incessantly passing off harmlessly 
 into the air above. I thought at first of some 
 fine spray dashed upward, but it is rather like 
 broad flashes of pale cold light. Surely you 
 can never, under other circumstances, see a 
 pine wood so expressive, so speaking. This re- 
 flection of light from the waving crests of the 
 earth is like the play and flashing of electricity. 
 No deciduous tree exhibits these fine effects of 
 light. Literally, incessant sheets not of heat, 
 but of cold lightning, you would say, were flash- 
 ing there. Seeing some just over the roof of a 
 house which was far on this side, I thought at 
 first that it was something like smoke even, 
 though a rare kind of smoke, that went up 
 froni the house. In short, you see a play of 
 light over the whole pine, similar in its cause 
 to that seen on a waving field of grain, but far 
 grander in its effects. Seen at mid-day even, 
 it is still the light of dewy morning alone that 
 is reflected from the needles of the pine. This 
 is the brightening and awakening of the pines, 
 a phenomenon, perchance, connected with the 
 flow of sap in them. I feel somewhat like the 
 
EAKLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 183 
 
 young Astyanax at sight of his father's flashing 
 crest. As if in this wind storm of March a 
 certain electricity were passing from earth to 
 heaven through the pines and calling them to 
 life. 
 
 We are interested in the phenomena of na- 
 ture mainly as children are, or as we are in 
 games of chance. They are more or less ex- 
 citing. Our appetite for novelty is insatiable. 
 We do not attend to ordinary things, though 
 they are most important, but to extraordinary 
 ones. While it is only moderately hot, or cold, 
 or wet or dry, nobody attends to it, but when 
 nature goes to an extreme in any of these di- 
 rections we are all on the alert with excitement. 
 Not that we care about the philosophy or the 
 effects of the phenomenon. J8. g., when I went 
 to Boston in the early train the coldest morn- 
 ing of last winter, two topics seemingly occu- 
 pied the attention of the passengers, Morphy's 
 chess victories, and nature's victorious cold that 
 morning. The inhabitants of various towns 
 were comparing notes, and that one whose door 
 opened upon a greater degree of cold than any 
 of his neighbors' doors, chuckled not a little. 
 Nearly every one I met asked me almost be- 
 fore the salutations were over " How the glass 
 stood " at my house or in my town, the Libra- 
 Eian ofsfche college, the Register of Deeds at 
 
184 EAELY SPUING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Cambridgeport, a total stranger to me, .... 
 and each rubbed his hands with pretended 
 horror but real delight, if I named a higher 
 figure than he had yet heard. It was plain 
 that one object which the cold was given us 
 for was our amusement, a passing excitement. 
 It would be perfectly consistent and American 
 to bet on the cold of our respective towns for 
 the morning that is to come. Thus a greater 
 degree of cold may be said to warm us more 
 than a less one. This is a perfectly legitimate 
 amusement, only we should know that each 
 day is peculiar and has its kindred excitements. 
 
 In those wet days like the 12th and 15th, 
 when the browns culminated, the sun being 
 concealed, I was drawn towards and worshipped 
 the brownish light in the sod, the withered 
 grass, etc., on barren hills. I felt as if I could 
 eat the very crust of the earth, I never felt so 
 terrene, never sympathized so with the surface 
 of the earth. From whatever source the light 
 and heat come, thither we look with love. 
 
 March 19, 1860. Going along the turnpike 
 I look over to the pitch pines on Moore's hill- 
 side, and it strikes me that this pine, take the 
 year round, is the most cheerful tree and most 
 living to look at and have about your house, it 
 is so sunny and full of light, in harmony with 
 the yellow sand there and the spring sun. Th« 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 185 
 
 deciduous trees are apparently dead and the 
 white pine is much darker, but the pitch pine 
 has an ingrained sunniness and is especially 
 valuable for imparting warmth to the landscape 
 at this season. Yet men will take pains to cut 
 down these trees, and set imported larches in 
 their places! The pitch pine shines in the 
 spring somewhat as the osiers do. 
 
 March 20, 1840. In society all the inspira- 
 tion of my lonely hours seems to flow back on 
 me, and then first to have expression. 
 
 Love never degrades its votaries, but lifts 
 them up to higher walks of being ; they over- 
 look one another. All other charities are swal- 
 lowed up in this. It is gift and reward both. 
 We will have no vulgar cupid for a go-between, 
 to make us the playthings of each other, but 
 rather cultivate an irreconcilable hatred instead 
 of this. 
 
 March 20, 1841. Even the wisest and best 
 are apt to use their lives as the occasion to do 
 something else in than to live greatly. But we 
 should hang as fondly over this work as the 
 finishing and embellishment of a poem. 
 
 It is a great relief when for a few moments 
 in the day we can retire to our chamber and be 
 completely true to ourselves It leavens the 
 rest of our hours. In that moment I will be 
 nakedly as vicious as I am; this false life of 
 aiine shall have a being at length. 
 
186 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 March 20, 1842. My friend is cold and re- 
 served because his love for me is waxing and 
 not waning. These are the early processes j 
 the particles are just beginning to shoot in 
 crystals. If the mountains came to me I should 
 no longer go to the mountains. So soon as that 
 consummation takes place which I wish, it will 
 be past. Shall I not have a friend in reserve ? 
 Heaven is to come. I hope this is not it. Words 
 should pass between friends as the lightning 
 passes from cloud to cloud. 
 
 I don't know how much I assist in the econ- 
 omy of nature when I declare a fact. Is it not 
 an important fact in the history of a plant that 
 I tell my friend where I found it ? We do not 
 wish friends to feed and clothe our bodies 
 (neighbors are kind enough for that), but to 
 do the like offices for our spirits. We wish to 
 spread and publish ourselves as the sun spreads 
 its rays, and we toss the new thought to the 
 friend, and thus it is dispersed. Friends are 
 those twain who feel their interests to be one. 
 Each knows that the other might as well have 
 said what he said. All beauty, all music, all 
 delight springs from apparent dualism, but real 
 unity. My friend is my real brother. I see 
 his nature groping yonder so like my own. 
 Does there go one whom I know, then I go 
 there. Comparatively speaking I care not for 
 
EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 187 
 
 the man or his designs who would make the 
 very highest use of me short of an all-adventur- 
 ing friendship. The field where friends have 
 met is consecrated forever. Man seeks friend- 
 ship out of the desire to realize a home here. 
 As the Indian thinks he receives into himself 
 the courage and strength of his conquered en- 
 emy, so we add to ourselves all the character 
 and heart of our friend. He is my creation. I 
 can do what I will with him. There is no pos- 
 sibility of being thwarted. The friend is like 
 wax in the rays that fall from our own hearts. 
 My friend does not take my word for anything, 
 but he takes me. He trusts me as I trust my- 
 self. We only need to be as true to others as 
 we are to ourselves that there may be ground 
 enough for friendship. In the beginnings of 
 friendship, for it does not grow, we realize such 
 love and justice as are attributed to God. 
 
 Very few are they from whom we derive any 
 information. The most only announce and tell 
 tales, but the friend in-forms. How simple is 
 the natural connection of events. We complain 
 greatly of the want of flow and sequence in 
 books, but if the journalist only move himself 
 from Boston to New York, and speak as before, 
 there is link enough. And so there would be 
 f he were as careless of connection and order 
 when he stayed at home, and let the incessant 
 
188 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 progress which his life makes be the apology 
 for abruptness. Is not my life riveted to- 
 gether? has not it sequence? Do not my 
 breathings follow each other naturally? 
 
 March 20, 1853. I notice the downy, swad- 
 dled plants now and in the fall, the fragrant 
 life-everlasting and the ribwort, innocents bom 
 in a cloud. Those algae I saw the other day 
 in John Hosmer's ditch were more like sea- 
 weed than anything else I have seen in the 
 country. They made me look at the whole 
 earth as a seashore, reminded me of Nereids, 
 sea-nymphs, Tritons, Proteus, etc., etc., made 
 the ditches tabulate in an older than the arrow- 
 headed character. Better learn this strange 
 character which nature uses to-day than the 
 Sanskrit, "books in the brooks." .... 
 
 It is evident that the English do not enjoy 
 that contrast between winter and summer that 
 we do, that there is too much greenness and 
 spring in the winter, there is no such wonder- 
 ful resurrection of the year. Birds kindred 
 with our first spring ones remain with them all 
 winter, and flowers answering to our earliest 
 spring ones put forth there in January. They 
 have no winter in our sense, only a winter like 
 our spring. The peculiarity of to-day is that 
 now first you perceive that dry, warm, summer- 
 presaging scent from dry oaks and other leaves 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 189 
 
 on the sides of hills and ledges. You smell the 
 summer from afar. The warmth makes a man 
 young again. There is also some dryness, al- 
 most dustiness, in the roads. The mountains 
 are white with snow. When the wind is north- 
 west, it is now wintry, hut at present it is more 
 westerly. The edges of the mountains melt 
 into the sky. It is affecting to be put into com- 
 munication with such distant objects by the 
 power of vision, actually to look into such lands 
 of promise. In this spring breeze, how full of 
 life the silvery pines, probably the under sides 
 of their leaves. The canoe-birch sprouts are 
 red or salmon-colored like those of the common, 
 but soon they cast off their salmon-colored jack- 
 ets, and come forth with a white, but naked 
 look, all dangling with ragged reddish curls. 
 What is that little bird that makes so much 
 use of these curls in its nest lined with coarse 
 grass ? 
 
 In a stubble field started up a bevy (about 
 twenty) of quail which went off to some young 
 pitch pines with a whirr like a shot, the plump 
 round birds. The red polls are still numerous. 
 (Have not seen them again, March 28th.) 
 
 March 20, 1855. It is remarkable by what 
 & gradation of days which we call pleasant and 
 warm, beginning in the last of February, we 
 come at last to real summer warmth. • At first 
 
190 EARLY SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 a sunny, calm, serene winter day is pronounced 
 spring, or reminds us of it. And even the first 
 pleasant spring day, perhaps, we walk with our 
 greatcoat buttoned up, and gloves on. 
 
 Trying the other day to imitate the honking 
 of geese, I found myself flapping my sides with 
 my elbows, and uttering something like mow- 
 ach with a nasal twang and twist of my head, 
 and I produced the note so perfectly in the 
 opinion of the hearers, that I thought I might 
 possibly draw a flock down. 
 
 We notice the color of the water especially at 
 this season, when it is recently revealed (and 
 in the fall), because there is little color else- 
 where. It shows best in a clear air, contrast- 
 ing with the russet shores. 
 
 March 20, 1858. A. M. By river. The tree- 
 sparrow is perhaps the sweetest and most me- 
 lodious warbler at present and for some days. 
 It is peculiar, too, for singing in concert along 
 the hedge-rows, much like a canary, especially 
 in the mornings, very clear, sweet, melodious 
 notes, between a twitter and a warble, of which 
 t is hard to catch the strain, for you commonly 
 hear many at once. The note of the Fringilla 
 hiemalis, or chill-till, is a jingle, with also a 
 shorter and dryer crackling chip as it flits by. 
 
 At Hubbard's wall how handsome the wil- 
 low catkins ! Those wonderfully bright silvery 
 
EAKLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 191 
 
 Duttons so regularly disposed in oval schools in 
 the air, or, if you please, along the seams which 
 the twigs make, in all degrees of forwardness, 
 from the faintest, tiniest speck of silver just 
 peeping from beneath the black scales to lusty 
 pussies which have thrown off their scaly coats., 
 and show some redness at base or on close in- 
 spection. These fixed swarms of arctic buds 
 spot the air very prettily along the hedges. 
 They remind me somewhat by their brilliancy 
 of the snow-flakes, which are so bright by con 
 trast at this season when the sun is high. 
 They are grayish, not nearly so silvery a week 
 or ten days later, when more expanded, show- 
 ing the dark scales. 
 
 The fishes are going up the brooks as they 
 open; they are dispersing themselves through 
 the fields and woods, imparting new life into 
 them. They are taking their places under the 
 shelving banks and in the dark swamps. The 
 water running down meets the fishes running 
 up. They hear the latest news. Spring-aroused 
 fishes are running up our veins too. Little fishes 
 are seeking the sources of the brooks, seeking to 
 disseminate their principles. Talk about a re- 
 vival of religion ! Business men's prayer meet- 
 ings, with which all the country goes mad now I 
 What if it were as true and wholesome a revival 
 as the little fishes feel which come out of the 
 
192 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 sluggish waters, and run up the brooks toward 
 their sources. All nature revives at this season. 
 With her it is really a new life. It cheers me 
 to behold the swarms of gnats which have re- 
 vived in the spring sun. The fish lurks by the 
 mouth of its native brook watching its oppor- 
 tunity to dart up the stream by the cakes of 
 ice. Do the fishes stay to hold prayer-meet- 
 ings in Fair Haven Bay, while some monstrous 
 pike gulps them down? Or is not each one 
 privately, or with kindred spirits, as soon as 
 possible, stemming the course of its native 
 brook, making its way to more ethereal waters, 
 burnishing its scaly armor by its speed ? . . . . 
 No wonder we feel the spring influences. There 
 is a motion in the very ground under our feet. 
 Each rill is peopled with new life rushing up it. 
 In order that a house and grounds may 
 be picturesque and interesting in the highest 
 degree, they must suggest the idea of necessity, 
 proving the devotion of the builder, not of lux- 
 ury. We need to see the honest and naked 
 Hie here and there protruding. What is a fort 
 without any foe before it ? that is not now sus- 
 taining and never has sustained a siege ? The 
 gentleman whose purse is always full, and who 
 can meet all demands, though he employs the 
 most famous artists, can never make a very in- 
 teresting seat. He does not carve from neat 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 193 
 
 enough to the bone. No man is rich enough to 
 keep a poet in his pay. 
 
 March 20, 1859. p. M. I see under the east 
 side of the house, amid the evergreens, where 
 they are sheltered from the cold northwest 
 wind, a company of sparrows, chiefly Fringilla 
 hiemalis, two or three tree-sparrows, and one 
 song-sparrow, quietly feeding together. I watch 
 them through a window within six or eight 
 feet. They evidently love to be sheltered from 
 the wind, and at least are not averse to each 
 other's society. One perches on a bush to sing, 
 while others are feeding on the ground ; but he 
 is very restless on his perch, hopping about and 
 stooping, as if dodging those that fly over. He 
 must perch on some bit of stubble or some twig 
 to sing. The tree-sparrows sing a little. They 
 are evidently picking up the seeds of weeds 
 which lie on the surface of the ground, invisible 
 to our eyes. They suffer their wings to hang 
 rather loose. The Fringilla hiemalis is the 
 largest of the three. It has a remarkably dis- 
 tinct light-colored bill, and when it stretches 
 shows very distinct clear white lateral tail 
 feathers. This stretching seems to be conta- 
 gious among them, like yawning with us. The 
 tree-sparrows are much brighter brown and 
 white than the song-sparrow. The latter alone 
 scratches once or twice, and is more inclined 
 
 13 
 
194 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 to hop or creep close to the ground under the 
 fallen weeds. Perhaps it deserves most to be 
 called the ground-biid. 
 
 March 21, 1840. Our limbs, indeed, have 
 room enough : it is our souls that rust in a cor- 
 ner. Let us migrate interiorly without inter- 
 mission, and pitch our tent each day nearer the 
 western horizon. The really fertile soils and 
 luxuriant prairies lie on this side the Alle- 
 ghanies. There has been no Hanno of the 
 affections. Their domain is untraveled ground 
 to the Mogul's dominions. 
 
 March 21, 1841. To be associated with 
 others by my friend's generosity when he be- 
 stows a gift is an additional favor to be grate- 
 ful for. 
 
 March 21, 1853. P. M. To Kibbe Place. 
 The Stellaria media is fairly in bloom in Mr. 
 
 C 's garden. This, then, is our earliest 
 
 flower, though it is said to have been intro- 
 duced. It may blossom under favorable cir- 
 cumstances in warmer weather than usual any 
 time in the winter. It has been so much opened 
 that you could easily count its petals any month 
 the past winter, and plainly blossoms with the 
 first pleasant weather that brings the robins, 
 etc., in numbers. The bees this morning had 
 access to no flower, so they came to the graft- 
 ing wax on my boat, though it was mixed with 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 195 
 
 tallow and covered with fresh paint. Often 
 they essayed to light on it and retreated in 
 disgust. Yet one got caught. As they de- 
 tected the wax concealed and disguised in this 
 composition, so they will receive the earliest in- 
 telligence of the blossoming of the first flower 
 which contains any sweetness for them. It is a 
 genial and reassuring day ; the mere warmth of 
 the west wind amounts almost to balminess. 
 The softness of the air mollifies our own dry 
 and congealed substance. I sit down by a wall 
 to see if I can muse again. We become, as it 
 were, pliant and ductile again to strange but 
 memorable influences ; we are led a little way 
 by our genius. We are affected like the earth, 
 and yield to the elemental tenderness. Winter 
 breaks up within us. The frost is coming out 
 of me, and I am heaved like the road. Accu- 
 mulated masses of ice and snow dissolve, and 
 thoughts, like a freshet, pour down unwonted 
 channels. A strain of music comes to solace 
 the traveler over earth's downs and dignify his 
 chagrins. The petty men whom he meets are 
 shadows of grander to come. Roads lead else- 
 whither than to Carlisle and Sudbury. The 
 earth is uninhabited, but fair to inhabit, like 
 the old Carlisle road. Is, then, the road so 
 rough that it should be neglected ? Not only 
 narrow, but rough, is the way that leadeth to 
 
196 EAKLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 life everlasting. Our experience does not wear 
 upon us. It is seen to be fabulous or symboli- 
 cal, and tbe future is worth expecting. En- 
 couraged, I set out once more to climb the 
 mountain of the earth, for my steps are sym- 
 bolical steps, and I have not reached the top of 
 tbe earth yet. In two or three places I hear 
 the ground-squirrel's first chirrup or qui-vive 
 in the wall, like a bird or a cricket. Though I 
 do not see him, the sun has reached him too. 
 
 Ah, then ! as I was rising this crowning road, 
 just beyond the old lime-kiln, there leaked into 
 my open ear the faint peep of a hyla from some 
 far pool. One little hyla, somewhere in the fens, 
 aroused by the genial season, crawls up the bank 
 or a bush, squats on a dry leaf, and essays a 
 note or two which scarcely rends the air, does 
 no violence to the zephyr, but yet leaks through 
 all obstacles and far over the downs to the 
 ear of the listening naturalist, as it were the 
 first faint cry of the new-born year, notwith- 
 standing the notes of birds. Where so long I 
 have heard only the prattling and moaning of 
 the wind, what means this tenser, far-piercing 
 sound. All nature rejoices with one joy. If 
 the hyla has revived again, why may not I ? 
 
 Whatever your sex or position, life is a bat- 
 tle in which you are to show your pluck, and 
 woe be to the coward. Whether passed on a 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 197 
 
 bed of sickness or a tented field, it is ever the 
 same fair play, and admits no foolish distinc- 
 tion. Despair and postponement are cowardice 
 and defeat. Men were born to succeed, not to 
 fail. 
 
 March 21, 1854. At sunrise to Clam-shell 
 Hill. River skimmed over at Willow Bay last 
 night. Thought I should find ducks cornered 
 up by the ice. They get behind this hill for 
 shelter. Saw what looked like clods of plowed 
 meadow rising above the ice. Looked with 
 glass and found it to be more than thirty black 
 ducks asleep with their heads in their backs, 
 motionless, thin ice being formed about them. 
 Soon one or two were moving about slowly. 
 There was an open space, eight or ten rods by 
 one or two. At first all were within a space 
 of apparently less than a rod in diameter. It 
 was 6J- A. M. and the sun shining on them, but 
 bitter cold. How tough they are. I crawled 
 far on my stomach and got a near view of them, 
 thirty rods off. At length they detected me 
 and quacked. Some got out upon the ice, and 
 when I rose up, all took to flight in a great 
 straggling flock, looking at a distance like 
 crows, in no order. Yet when you see two or 
 three, the parallelism produced by their necks 
 and bodies steering the same way gives the 
 idea of order. 
 
198 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 March 21, 1855. The tree-sparrow, flitting 
 song-sparrow-like through the alders, utters a 
 sharp metallic tcheep. 
 
 March 21, 1856. 10 A. M. To my red maple 
 sugar camp. Found that after a pint and a half 
 had run from a single tube after 3 P. M. yester- 
 day afternoon, it had frozen about half an inch 
 thick, and this morning a quarter of a pint 
 more had run. Between 10£ and ll£ A. M. this 
 forenoon I caught two and three quarters pints 
 more from six tubes at the same tree, though it 
 is completely overcast, and threatening rain, — 
 four and one half pints in all. The sap is an 
 agreeable drink like iced water, by chance, with 
 a pleasant but slightly sweetish taste. I boiled 
 it down in the afternoon, and it made one and 
 one half ounces of sugar, without any molasses. 
 This appears to be the average amount yielded 
 by the sugar maple in similar circumstances, 
 viz., on the south edge of a wood, and on a tree 
 partly decayed, two feet in diameter. It is 
 worth while to know that there is all this sugar 
 in our woods, much of which might be obtained 
 by using the refuse wood lying about, without 
 damage to the proprietors, who use neither the 
 sugar nor the wood. I put in saleratus and a 
 little milk while boiling, the former to neutral- 
 ize the acid, and the latter to collect the impu- 
 rities in a scum. After boiling it, till I burned 
 
EARLY SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 199 
 
 it a little, and my small quantity would not 
 flow when cool, but was as hard as half-done 
 candy, I put it on again, and in a minute it 
 was softened and turned to sugar. Had a dis- 
 pute with father about the use of my making 
 this sugar when I knew it could be done, and 
 might have bought sugar cheaper at Holden's. 
 He said it took me from my studies. I said I 
 made it my study and felt as if I had been to 
 a university. The sap dropped from each tube 
 about as fast as my pulse beat, and as there 
 were three tubes directed to each vessel it 
 flowed at the rate of about one hundred and 
 eighty drops a minute into it. One maple, 
 standing immediately north of a thick white 
 pine, scarcely flowed at all, while a smaller one, 
 farther in the wood, ran pretty well. The south 
 side of a tree bleeds first in the spring. Had a 
 three quarter inch auger. Made a dozen spouts 
 five or six inches long, hole as large as a pencil, 
 and smoothed with one. 
 
 March 21, 1858. P. M. To Ministerial 
 Swamp, via Little River. I hear the pleasant 
 phebe note of the chickadee. It is, methinks, 
 more like a wilderness note than any other I 
 have heard yet. It is peculiarly interesting 
 that this, which is one of our winter birds also, 
 Bhould have a note with which to welcome the 
 spring. 
 
200 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 March 22, 1840. While I bask in the sun 
 on the shores of Walden Pond, by this heat and 
 this rustle I am absolved from all obligation to 
 the past. The council of nations may recon- 
 sider their votes. The grating of a pebble an- 
 nuls them. 
 
 March 22, 1842. Nothing can be more use- 
 ful to a man than a determination not to be 
 hurried. 
 
 I have not succeeded if I have an antagonist 
 who fails. It must be humanity's success. 
 
 I cannot think nor utter my thoughts unless 
 I have infinite room. The cope of heaven is 
 not too high, the sea is not too deep, for him 
 •who would unfold a great thought. It must 
 feed me, and warm and clothe me. It must be 
 an entertainment to which my whole nature is 
 invited. I must know that the gods are to be 
 my fellow guests. 
 
 March 22, 1853. As soon as those spring 
 mornings arrive in which the birds sing, I am 
 sure to be an early riser, I am waked by my 
 genius, I wake to inaudible melodies, and am 
 Surprised to find myself awaiting the dawn in 
 bo serene and joyful and expectant a mood. I 
 have an appointment with Spring. She comes 
 to the window to wake me, and I go forth an 
 nour or two earlier than usual. It is by es- 
 pecial favor that I am waked, not rudely, but 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 201 
 
 gently, as infants should be waked When 
 
 we wake indeed with a double awakening, not 
 only from our ordinary nocturnal slumbers, but 
 from our diurnal, we burst through the thal- 
 lus of our ordinary life, we wake with empha- 
 sis 
 
 6 A. M. To Cliffs. It affects one's philoso- 
 phy after so long living in winter quarters to 
 see the day dawn from some hill. Our effete, 
 lowland town is fresh as New Hampshire. It 
 is as if we had migrated and were ready to be- 
 gin life again in a new country with new hopes 
 and resolutions. See your town with the dew 
 on it, in as wild a morning mist (though thin) 
 as ever draped it. To stay in the house all day 
 such reviving spring days as the past have been, 
 bending over a stove and gnawing one's heart, 
 seems to me as absurd as for a woodchuck to 
 linger in his burrow. We have not heard the 
 news then! sucking the claws of our philoso- 
 phy when there is game to be had. The tap- 
 ping of the woodpecker, rat-tat-tat, knocking at 
 the door of some sluggish grub to tell him that 
 the spring has arrived, and his fate, this is one 
 of the season sounds, calling the roll of birds 
 and insects, the reveillie. The Cliff woods are 
 comparatively silent. Not yet the woodland 
 birds (except, perhaps, the woodpecker, so far 
 as it migrates), only the orchard and river birds 
 
202 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 have arrived. Probably the improvements of 
 men thus advance the seasons. This is the Ba- 
 hamas and the tropics or turning point to the 
 red poll. Is not the woodpecker (downy ?) our 
 first woodland bird, come to see what effects the 
 frost and snow and rain have produced on the 
 decaying trees, what trunks will drum ? . . . . 
 
 The oak plain is still red. There are no ex- 
 panding leaves to greet and reflect the sun as it 
 first falls over the hill. 
 
 I go along the river side to see the now novel 
 reflections. The invading waters have left a 
 thousand little isles where willows and sweet 
 gale and the meadow itself appears. I hear the 
 phebe note of the chickadee, one taking it up 
 behind another, as in a catch, phe-bee phe-bee. 
 
 That is an interesting morning when one 
 first uses the warmth of the sun instead of fire, 
 bathes in the sun as anon in the river, eschew- 
 ing fire, draws up to the garret window and 
 warms his thoughts at nature's great central 
 fire, as does the buzzing fly by his side. Like 
 it, too, our muse, wiping the dust off her long 
 unused wings, goes blundering through the cob- 
 webs of criticism, more dusty still, and carries 
 away the half of them. What miserable cob- 
 web is that which has hitherto escaped the 
 broom, whose spider is invisible, but the " North 
 American Review.'" 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 203 
 
 Hylodes Pickeringii, a name that is longer 
 than the frog itself ! A description of animals, 
 too, from a dead specimen only, as if in a work 
 on man you were to describe a dead man only, 
 omitting his manners and cnstoms, his institu- 
 tions and divine faculties, from want of oppor 
 tunity to observe them, suggesting, perhaps, 
 that the colors of the eye are said to be much 
 more brilliant in the living specimen, and that 
 some cannibal, your neighbor, who has tried 
 him on his table, has found him to be sweet 
 and nutritious, good on the gridiron, having 
 had no opportunity to observe his habits, be- 
 cause you do not live in the country. Nothing 
 is known of his habits. Food — seeds of wheat, 
 beef, pork, and potatoes. 
 
 I told S the other day that there was an- 
 other volume of De Quincey's "Essays," want- 
 ing to see it in his library. " I know it," says 
 he, " but I shan't buy any more of them, for 
 nobody reads them." I asked what book in his 
 library was most read. He said, " The Wide, 
 Wide World." 
 
 In a little dried and bleached tortoise shell 
 about one and three fourths inches long I can 
 easily study his anatomy and the house he lives 
 in. His ribs are now distinctly revealed under 
 hie lateral scales, slanted like rafters to the 
 ridge ot his roof, for his sternum is so large 
 
204 EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 that his ribs are driven round upon his back. 
 It is wonderful to see what a perfect piece of 
 dovetailing his house is, the different plates of 
 his shell fitting into each other by a thousand 
 sharp teeth or serrations, and the scales always 
 breaking joints over them so as to bind the 
 whole firmly together, all parts of his abode 
 variously interspliced and dovetailed. An ar- 
 chitect might learn much from a faithful study 
 of it. There are three large diamond-shaped 
 openings down the middle of the sternum cov- 
 ered only by the scales, through which perhaps 
 he feels, he breasts the earth. His roof rests 
 on four stout posts. This young one is very 
 deep in proportion to its breadth. 
 
 March 22, 1855. P. m. Fair Haven Pond 
 
 via Conantum On the steep hill-side 
 
 south of the pond I observed a rotten and hol- 
 low hemlock stump about two feet high, and six 
 inches in diameter, and instinctively approached 
 with my right hand ready to cover it. I found 
 a flying squirrel in it, which, as my left hand 
 covered a small hole at the bottom, ran directly 
 into my right hand. It struggled and bit not a 
 little, but my cotton gloves protected me, and I 
 felt its teeth only once or twice. It also uttered 
 three or four dry shrieks at first, something like 
 Cr-r-r-ack cr-r-r-ach cr-r-r-ack. I rolled it up 
 in my handkerchief, and holding the ends tight 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 205 
 
 carried it home in my hand, some three miles. 
 It struggled more or less all the way, especially 
 when my feet made any unusual or louder noise 
 going through leaves, etc. I could count its 
 claws as they appeared through the handker- 
 chief, and once it put its head through a hole. 
 It even bit through the handkerchief. Color, 
 as I remember, a chestnut ash inclining to 
 fawn or cream color, slightly browned. Be- 
 neath, white. The under edge of its wings (?) 
 tinged yellow, the upper, dark, perhaps black, 
 making a dark stripe. It was a very cunning 
 little animal, reminding me of a mouse in the 
 room. Its very large and prominent black eyes 
 gave it an interesting, innocent look. Its very 
 neat, fiat, fawn-colored, distichous tail was a 
 great ornament. Its " sails " were not very ob- 
 vious when it was at rest, merely giving it a 
 flat appearance beneath. It would leap off and 
 upward into the air two or three feet from a 
 table, spreading its " sails," and fall to the floor 
 in vain, perhaps strike the side of the room in 
 its upward spring and endeavor to cling to it. 
 It would run up the window by the sash, but 
 evidently found the furniture and walls and 
 floor too hard and smooth for it, and after some 
 falls}' v eeame quiet. In a few moments it al- 
 lowed me to stroke it, though far from confi- 
 dent. I put it in a barrel and covered it up %*. 
 
206 EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 the night. It was quite busy all the evening 
 gnawing out, clinging for this purpose and gnaw- 
 ing at the upper edge of a sound oak barrel, 
 and then dropping to rest from time to time. 
 It had defaced the barrel considerably by morn- 
 ing, and would probably have escaped, if I had 
 not placed a piece of iron against the gnawed 
 part. I had left in the barrel some bread, ap- 
 ple, shagbarks, and cheese. It eat some of the 
 apple and one shagbark, cutting it quite in two 
 transversely. In the morning it was quiet, and 
 squatted, somewhat curled up, amid the straw, 
 with its tail passing under it and the end curved 
 over its head, very prettily, as if to shield it from 
 the light and keep it warm. I always found it 
 in this position by day when I raised the lid. 
 
 March 23, 1855. Carried my flying squirrel 
 back to the woods in my handkerchief. I placed 
 it on the very stump I had taken it from. It 
 immediately ran about a rod over the leaves 
 and up a slender maple sapling about ten feet, 
 then after a moment's pause sprang off and 
 skimmed downward toward a large maple nine 
 feet distant, whose trunk it struck three or four 
 feet from the ground. This it rapidly ascended 
 on the opposite side from me, nearly thirty feet, 
 and then clung to the main stem with its head 
 downward, eyeing me. After two or three 
 minutes' pause, I saw that it was preparing 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 207 
 
 for another spring by raising its head and 
 looking off, and away it went in admirable 
 style, more like a bird than any quadruped I 
 had dreamed of, and far surpassing the impres- 
 sion I had received from naturalists' accounts. 
 I marked the spot it started from and the place 
 where it struck, and measured the height and 
 distance carefully. It sprang off from the ma- 
 ple at the height of twenty-eight feet and a 
 half, and struck the ground at the foot of a tree 
 fifty and one half feet distant measured horizon- 
 tally. Its flight was not a regular descent. It 
 varied from a direct line both horizontally and 
 vertically. Indeed, it skimmed much like a 
 hawk, and part of its flight was nearly horizon- 
 tal. It diverged from a right line eight or ten 
 feet to the right, making a curve in that direc- 
 tion. There were six trees from six inches to 
 a foot in diameter, one a hemlock, in a direct 
 line between the termini, and these it skimmed 
 partly round, passing through their thinner 
 limbs. It did not, so far as I could perceive, 
 touch a twig. It skimmed its way like a hawk 
 between and around the trees. Though it was 
 a windy day, this was on a steep hillside covered 
 with wood and away from the wind, so it was 
 not aided by that. As the ground rose about two 
 feet, the distance was to the absolute height as 
 fifty and one half feet to twenty-six and one half 
 
208 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 feet, or it advanced about two feet for every 
 foot of descent. After the various attempts in 
 the house I was not prepared for this exhibi- 
 tion. It did not fall heavily as in the house, but 
 struck the ground quietly enough, and I cannot 
 believe that the mere extension of the skin en- 
 abled it to skim so far. It must be still further 
 aided by its organization. Perhaps it fills it- 
 self with air first Kicking over the hem- 
 lock stump, which was a mere shell with holes 
 below, and a poor refuge, I was surprised to find 
 a little nest at the bottom, open above just like 
 a bird's nest, a mere bed. It was composed of 
 leaves, shreds of bark, and dead pine needles. 
 As I remember, this squirrel was not more than 
 an inch and a half broad when at rest, but when 
 skimming through the air I should say it was 
 four inches broad. This is the impression I 
 now have. Captain J. Smith says it is reported 
 to fly thirty or forty yards. One Gideon B. 
 Smith, M. D., of Baltimore, who has had much 
 to do with these squirrels, speaks of their curv- 
 ing upward at the end of their flight to alight 
 on a tree trunk, and of their "flying" into his 
 windows. In order to perform all these flights, 
 to strike a tree at such a distance, etc., etc., it 
 is evident it must be able to steer. I should 
 say that mine steered like a hawk, that moves 
 without flapping its wings, never being able, 
 
EAKLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 209 
 
 however, to get a new impetus after the firat 
 spring. 
 
 March 22, 1860. Some of the phenomena of 
 an average March are increasing warmth, melt- 
 ing the snow and ice, and gradually the frost 
 in the ground ; cold and blustering weather, 
 with high, commonly northwest, winds for many 
 days together ; misty and other rains taking out 
 frosts, whitenings of snow, and winter often back 
 again, both its cold and snow ; bare ground and 
 open waters, and more or less of a freshet ; 
 some calm and pleasant days reminding us of 
 summer, with a blue haze or a thicker mist over 
 the woods at last, in which, perchance, we take 
 off our coats a while, and sit without a fire ; the 
 ways getting settled, and some greenness ap- 
 pearing on south banks ; April-like rains after 
 the frost is chiefly out ; plowing and planting 
 of peas, etc., just beginning, and the old leaves 
 getting dry in the woods. 
 
 March 22, 1861. A driving northeast snow- 
 storm yesterday and last night, and to-day the 
 drifts are high over the fences, and the trains 
 stopped. The Boston train due at 8£ A. M. did 
 not reach here till 5 this P. M. One side of all 
 the houses this morning was one color, i. e., 
 white, with the moist snow plastered over them 
 bo that you could not tell whether they had 
 blinds or not. 
 
 14 
 
210 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 When we consider how soon some plants 
 which spread rapidly by seeds or roots would 
 cover an area equal to the surface of the globe, 
 how soon some species of trees, as the white 
 willow, for instance, would equal in mass the 
 earth itself, if all their seeds became full-grown 
 trees, how soon some fishes would fill the ocean 
 if all their ova became full-grown fishes, we are 
 tempted to say that every organism, whether 
 animal or vegetable, is contending for the pos- 
 session of the planet, and if any one were suffi- 
 ciently favored, supposing it still possible to 
 grow as at first, it would at length convert the 
 entire mass of the globe into its own substance. 
 Nature opposes to this many obstacles, as cli- 
 mate, myriads of brute and also human foes, 
 and of competitors which may preoccupy the 
 ground. Each species suggests an immense 
 and wonderful greediness and tenacity of life, 
 as if bent on taking entire possession of the 
 globe wherever the climate and soil will permit, 
 and each prevails as much as it does, because of 
 the ample preparations it has made for the con- 
 test. It has received a myriad chances, because 
 it never depends on spontaneous generation to 
 save it. 
 
 March 23, 1853. 5 A. M. I hear the robin 
 sing before I rise. 6 A. M. Up the North 
 River. A fresh, cool, spring morning. The 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 211 
 
 white maple may, perhaps, be said to begin to 
 blossom to-day, the male, for the stamens, both 
 anthers and filaments, are conspicuous on some 
 buds. It has opened unexpectedly, and a rich 
 sight it is, looking up through the expanded 
 buds to the sky. This and the aspen are the 
 first trees that ever grow large, I believe, which 
 show the influence of the season thus conspicu- 
 ously. From Nawshawtuck I see the snow is 
 off the mountains. A large aspen by the island 
 is unexpectedly forward. I already see the red 
 anthers appearing. It will bloom in a day or 
 two. 
 
 One studies books of science merely to learn 
 the language of naturalists, to be able to com- 
 municate with them. 
 
 The frost in swamps and meadows makes it 
 good walking there still. Away, away to the 
 swamps where the silver catkins of the swamp 
 willow shine a quarter of a mile off, those south- 
 ward penetrating vales of Rupert's Land. The 
 birds, which are merely migratory or tarrying 
 here for a season, are especially gregarious 
 now, the redpoll, Fringilla hiemalis, fox-col- 
 ored sparrow, etc. I judge by the dead bodies 
 of frogs partially devoured in brooks and ditches 
 that many are killed in their hibernacula. 
 
 Evelyn and others wrote when the language 
 Iras in a tender, nascent state, and could be 
 
212 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 molded to express the shades of meaning, when 
 sesquipedalian words, long since cut and appar- 
 ently dried and drawn to mill, not yet to the 
 dictionary lumber-yard, put forth a fringe of 
 green sprouts here and there along in the angles 
 of their sugared bark, their very bulk insuring 
 some sap remaining ; some florid suckers they 
 sustain at least. These words, split into shin 
 gles and laths, will supply poets for ages to 
 come. A man can't ask properly for a piece 
 of bread and butter without some animal spir- 
 its. A child can't cry without them. 
 
 P. M. To Heywood's Meadow. The tele- 
 graph harp sounds more commonly now that 
 westerly winds prevail. The winds of winter 
 are too boisterous, too violent or rude, and do 
 not strike it at the right angle when I walk, so 
 that it becomes one of the spring sounds. The 
 ice went out of Walden this forenoon ; of Flint's 
 Pond day before yesterday, I have no doubt. 
 
 The buds of the shad-blossom look green. 
 The crimson-starred flowers of the hazel begin 
 to peep out, though the catkins have not opened. 
 The alders are almost generally in full bloom, 
 and a very handsome and interesting show they 
 make with their graceful tawny pendants in- 
 clining to yellow. They shake like ear-drops 
 in the wind, almost the first completed orna- 
 ments with whieh the new year decks herself, 
 
EAELT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 213 
 
 Their yellow pollen is shaken down and colors 
 my coat like sulphur as I pass through them. 
 I go to look for mud-turtles in Heywood's 
 Meadow. The alder catkins just burst open are 
 prettily marked spirally by streaks of yellow, 
 contrasting with alternate rows of rich reddish- 
 brown scales, which make one revolution in the 
 length of the catkin. I hear in Heywood's 
 north meadow the most unmusical low croak 
 from one or two frogs, though it is half ice 
 there yet. A remarkable note with which to 
 greet the new year, as if one's teeth slid off 
 with a grating sound in cracking a nut, but not 
 a frog nor a dimple to be seen. 
 
 Man cannot afford to be a naturalist, to look 
 at nature directly, but only with the side of his 
 eye. He must look through and beyond her. 
 To look at her is as fatal as to look at the head 
 of Medusa. It turns the man of science to 
 stone. I feel that I am dissipated by so many 
 observations. I should be the magnet in the 
 midst of all this dust and filings. I knock the 
 back of my hand against a rock, and as I 
 smooth back the skin I find myself prepared 
 to study lichens there. I look upon man but 
 as a fungus. I have almost a slight, dry head- 
 ache as the result of all this observation. How 
 to observe is how to behave. Oh, for a little 
 Lethe. To crown all, lichens which are so thin 
 
214 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 are described in the dry state, as they are most 
 commonly, not most truly, seen. They are, in« 
 deed, dryly described. 
 
 Without being the owner of any land, I find 
 that I have a civil right in the river, that if I 
 am not a landowner I am a water owner. It 
 is fitting, therefore, that I should have a boat, 
 a cart, for this my farm. Since it is almost 
 wholly given up to a few of us, while the other 
 highways are much traveled, no wonder that I 
 improve it. Such a one as I will choose to 
 dwell in a township where there are most ponds 
 and rivers, and our range is widest. In rela- 
 tion to the river, I find my natural rights least 
 infringed on. It is an extensive " common " 
 still left. Certain savage liberties still prevail 
 in the oldest and most civilized countries. I 
 am pleased to find that in Gilbert White's day, 
 at least, the laborers in that part of England 
 where he lived, enjoyed certain rights of com- 
 mon in the royal forests, so called, where they 
 cut their turf and other fuel, etc., though no 
 large wood, and obtained materials for broom- 
 making, etc., when other labor failed. It is no 
 longer so, according to the editor. 
 
 The cat-tail down puffs and swells in your 
 hand like a mist, or the conjuror's trick of fill- 
 ing a hat with feathers, for when you have 
 rubbed off but a thimble full, and can close and 
 
EAELT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 215 
 
 conceal the wound completely, the expanded 
 down fills your hand to overflowing. Appar- 
 ently there is a spring to the fine elastic threads 
 which compose the down, which, after having 
 been so long closely packed, on being the least 
 relieved, spring open apace into the form of 
 parachutes to convey the seed afar. Where 
 birds, or the winds, or ice have assaulted them, 
 this has spread like an eruption. 
 
 March 23, 1856. I spend a considerable por- 
 tion of my time observing the habits of the wild 
 animals, my brute neighbors. By their various 
 movements and migrations they fetch the year 
 about to me. Very significant are the flight of 
 geese and the migration of suckers, etc. But 
 when I consider that the nobler animals have 
 been exterminated here, the cougar, panther, 
 lynx, wolverene, wolf, bear, moose, deer, beaver, 
 turkey, etc., etc., I cannot but feel as if I lived 
 in a tamed and, as it were, emasculated coun- 
 try. Would not the motions of those larger 
 and wilder animals have been more significant 
 still? Is it not a maimed and imperfect na- 
 ture that I am conversant with ? As if I were 
 to study a tribe of Indians that had lost all its 
 warriors. Do not the forest and the meadow 
 now lack expression ? now that I never see nor 
 think of the moose with a lesser forest on his 
 head in the one, nor of the beaver in the 
 
216 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 other? When I think what were the various 
 sounds and notes, the migrations and works, and 
 changes of fur and plumage which ushered in 
 the spring, and marked the other seasons of the 
 year, I am reminded that this my life in nature, 
 this particular round of natural phenomena 
 which I call a year, is lamentably incomplete. 
 I listen to a concert in which so many parts are 
 wanting. The whole civilized country is, to 
 some extent, turned into a city, and I am that 
 citizen whom I pity. Many of those animal 
 migrations and other phenomena by which the 
 Indians marked the season are no longer to he 
 observed. I seek acquaintance with nature to 
 know her moods and manners. Primitive na- 
 ture is the most interesting to me. I take in- 
 finite pains to know all the phenomena of the 
 spring, for instance, thinking that I have here 
 the entire poem, and then, to my chagrin, I 
 learn that it is but an imperfect copy that I 
 possess and have read, that my ancestors have 
 torn out many of the first leaves and grandest 
 passages, and mutilated it in many places. I 
 should not like to think that some demigod had 
 jome before me and picked out some of the best 
 of the stars. I wish to know an entire heaven 
 and an entire earth. All the great trees and 
 beasts, fishes and fowl are gone; the streams 
 Derchance are somewhat shrunk. 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 217 
 
 P. M. To Walden. I think I may say that 
 jhe snow has not been less than a foot deep on 
 a level in open land until to-day, since January 
 6th, about eleven weeks. I am reassured and 
 reminded that I am the heir of eternal inheri- 
 tances which are inalienable when I feel the 
 warmth reflected from this sunny bank, and see 
 the yellow sand and the reddish subsoil, and 
 hear some dried leaves rustle and the trickling 
 of melting snow in some sluiceway. The eter- 
 nity which I detect in nature I predicate of my- 
 self also. How many springs I have had this 
 same experience ! I am encouraged, for I rec- 
 ognize this steady persistency and recovery of 
 nature as a quality of myself. Now the steep 
 south hill-sides begin to be bare, and the early 
 sedge and the sere, but still fragrant, pennyroyal 
 and rustling leaves are exposed, and you see 
 where the mice have sheared off the sedge, and 
 also made nests of its top during the winter. 
 There, too, the partridges resort, and perhaps 
 you hear the bark of a striped squirrel, and see 
 him scratch toward his hole, rustling the leaves ; 
 "or all the inhabitants of nature are attracted by 
 this bare and dry spot as well as you. 
 
 The musk-rat houses were certainly very few 
 and small last summer, and the river has been 
 remarkably low up to this time, while the pre- 
 vious fall they were very numerous and large, 
 
218 EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 and in the succeeding winter the river rose re- 
 markably high. So much for the muskrat sign. 
 
 March 23, 1859. P. M. Walk to Cardinal 
 Shore, and sail to Well Meadow and Lee's Cliff. 
 As we entered Well Meadow we saw a hen- 
 hawk perch on the topmost plume of the tall 
 pines at the head of the meadow ; soon another 
 appeared, probably its mate, but we looked in 
 vain for a nest there. It was a fine sight, their 
 soaring above our heads, presenting a perfect 
 outline and, as they came round, showing their 
 rust-colored tails with a whitish rump, or, as 
 they sailed away from us, that slight tetering 
 or quivering motion of their dark-tipt wings, 
 seen edgewise, now on this side, now on that, by 
 which they balanced and directed themselves. 
 These are the most eagle-like of our com- 
 mon hawks. They very commonly perch upon 
 the very topmost plume of a pine, and, if mo- 
 tionless, are rather hard to distinguish there. 
 
 While reconnoitering we hear the peep of one 
 hylodes somewhere in the sheltered recess in 
 the woods, and afterward, on the Lee-side shore, 
 a single croak from a wood frog. 
 
 We cross to Lee's shore and sit upon the bare 
 rocky ridge overlooking the flood southwest and 
 northeast. It is quite sunny and sufficiently 
 warm. The prospect thence is a fine one, es« 
 pecially at this season when the water is high. 
 
EARLY SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 219 
 
 The landscape is very agreeably diversified with 
 hill and dale, meadow and cliff. As we look 
 southwest how attractive the shores of russet 
 capes and peninsulas laved by the flood. In- 
 deed that large tract east of the bridge is now 
 an island. How firm that low, undulating, rus- 
 set-land ! At this season and under these cir- 
 cumstances the sun just come out and the flood 
 high around it, russet, so reflecting the light of 
 the sun, appears to me the most agreeable of 
 colors, and I begin to dream of a russet fairy 
 land and elysium. How dark and terrene must 
 be green, but this smooth russet reflects almost 
 all the light. That broad and low, but firm, 
 island, with but few trees to conceal the con- 
 tour of the ground and its outline, with its fine 
 russet sward, firm and soft as velvet, reflecting 
 so much light ; all the undulations of the earth, 
 its nerves and muscles revealed by the light 
 and shade, and the sharper ridgy edge of steep 
 banks where the plow has heaped up the earth 
 from year to year, this is a sort of fairy land 
 and elysium to my eye. The tawny, couchant 
 island I Dry land for the Indian's wigwam in 
 the spring, and still strewn with his arrow- 
 points. The sight of such land reminds me 
 of the pleasant spring days in which I have 
 walked over such tracts looking for these relics. 
 How well, too, the smooth, firm, light-reflecting, 
 
220 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 tawny earth contrasts with the darker watei 
 which surrounds it, or perchance lighter some- 
 times. At this season when the russet colors 
 prevail, the contrast of water and land is more 
 agreeable to behold. What an inexpressibly 
 soft curving line is the shore ! and if the watei 
 is perfectly smooth and yet rising, you seem to 
 see it raised one eighth of an inch with swelling 
 lip above the immediate shore it kisses, as in a 
 cup. Indian isles and promontories. Thus we 
 sit on that rock, hear the first wood-frog's croak, 
 and dream of a russet elysium. Enough for 
 the season is the beauty thereof. 
 
 The qualities of the land that are most attrac- 
 tive to our eyes now are dryness and firmness. 
 It is not the rich, black soil, but warm and 
 sandy hills and plains which tempt our steps. 
 We love to sit on and walk over sandy tracts in 
 the spring, like cicindelas. These tongues of 
 russet land capeing and sloping into the flood do 
 almost speak to one. They are alternately in 
 sun and shade. When the cloud is passed and 
 they reflect their pale brown light to me, I am 
 
 tempted to go to them In the shadow 
 
 of a cloud, and it chances to be a hollow ring 
 with sunlight in its midst, passing over the 
 hilly sproutland toward the Baker house, a 
 sproutland of oaks and birches, owing to the 
 color of the birch twigs, perhaps, the russet 
 
EAKLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 221 
 
 changes to a dark purplish tint as the cloud 
 moves along. And then as I look further along 
 eastward in the horizon, I am surprised to see 
 strong purple and violet tinges in the sun from 
 a hillside a mile off, densely covered with full- 
 grown birches. I would not have believed that 
 under the spring sun so many colors wore 
 brought out. It is not the willows only that 
 shine, but, under favorable circumstances, many 
 other twigs, even a mile or two off. The dense 
 birches, so far that their white stems are not 
 distinct, reflect deep, strong purple and violet 
 colors from the distant hillsides opposite to the 
 sun. Can this have to do with the sap flowing 
 in them ? 
 
 As we sit there, we see coming swift and 
 straight northeast along the river valley, not 
 seeing us and therefore not changing his course, 
 a male goosander, so near that the green reflec- 
 tions of his head and neck are plainly visible. 
 He looks like a paddle-wheel steamer, so oddly 
 painted, black and white and green, and moves 
 along swift and straight, like one. Ere long 
 the same returns with his mate, the red-throated, 
 the male taking the lead. The loud peop (?) 
 of a pigeon woodpecker is heard, and anon the 
 prolonged loud and shrill cackle calling the 
 thin-wooded hillsides and pastures to life. It 
 is like the note of an alarm clock set last fall so 
 
222 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 as to wake nature up at exactly this date, Up 
 up up up up up up up up ! What a rustling 
 
 it seems to make among the dry leaves 
 
 Then I see come slowly flying from the south- 
 west a great gull, of voracious form, which at 
 length, by a sudden and steep descent, alights 
 in Fair Haven Pond, scaring up a crow which 
 was seeking its food on the edge of the ice. 
 
 March 24, 1842. Those authors are success- 
 ful who do not write down to others, but make 
 their own taste and judgment their audience. 
 By some strange infatuation we forget that we 
 do not approve what yet we recommend to 
 others. It is enough if I please myself with 
 writing, I am there sure of all audience. 
 
 It is always singular to meet common sense 
 in the very old books, as in the " Veeshnoo 
 Sarma," as if they could have dispensed with 
 the experience of later times. We had not 
 given space enough to their antiquity for the 
 accumulation of wisdom. We meet even a triv- 
 ial wisdom in them as if truth were already 
 hacknied. The present is always younger than 
 antiquity. A playful wisdom, which has eyes 
 behind as well as before, and oversees itself. 
 
 The wise can afford to doubt in his wisest 
 moment. The easiness of doubt is the ground 
 of his assurance. Faith keeps many doubts in 
 her pay. If I could not doubt I should not 
 believe. 
 
EAELT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 223 
 
 It is seen in the old scripture how wisdom 
 is older than the talent of composition. The 
 story is as slender as the thread on which pearls 
 are strung, it is a spiral line growing more and 
 more perplexed till it winds itself up and dies 
 like the silk-worm in its cocoon. It seems as if 
 the old philosopher could not talk without mov- 
 ing, and each motion were made the apology or 
 occasion for a sentence, but this being found in- 
 convenient, the fictitious progress of the tale 
 was invented. 
 
 The great thoughts of a wise man seem to the 
 vulgar who do not generalize to stand far apart 
 like isolated mounts, but science knows that the 
 mountains which rise so solitary in our midst 
 are parts of a great mountain chain, dividing 
 the earth, and the eye that looks into the hori- 
 zon toward the blue Sierra melting away in 
 the distance may detect their flow of thought. 
 These sentences which take up your common 
 life so easily are not seen to run into ridges 
 because they are the table land on which the 
 spectator stands That they stand frown- 
 ing upon one another or mutually reflecting the 
 Bun's rays, is proof enough of their common 
 basis. 
 
 The book should be found where the sentence 
 is, and its connection be as inartificial. It is 
 the inspiration of a day and not of a moment. 
 
224 EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 The links should be gold also. Better that the 
 good be not united than that a bad man be ad- 
 mitted into their society. When men can select, 
 they will. If there be any stone in the quarry 
 better than the rest they will forsake the rest 
 because of it. Only the good will be quarried. 
 
 March 24, 1853. In many cases I find that 
 the willow cones are a mere dense cluster of 
 loose leaves, suggesting that the scales of cones 
 of all kinds are only modified leaves, a crowd- 
 ing and stinting of the leaves, as the stem be- 
 comes a thorn, and in this view those conical 
 bunches of leaves of so many of the pine family 
 have relation to the cones of the tree in origin 
 as well as in form. The leaf, perchance, be- 
 comes calyx, cone, husk, and nut-shell. 
 
 March 24, 1855. Passing up the Assabet by 
 the hemlocks where there has been a slide and 
 some rocks have slid down into the river, I 
 think I see how rocks came to be found in the 
 midst of rivers. Rivers are continually chan- 
 ging their channels, eating into one bank and 
 adding their sediment to the other, so that fre- 
 quently where there is a great bend, you see a 
 high and steep bank or hill on one side which 
 the river washes, and a broad meadow on the 
 other. As the river eats into the hill, especially 
 in freshets, it undermines the rocks, large and 
 small, and they slide down alone or with the 
 
EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 225 
 
 Band and soil to the water's edge. The river 
 continues to eat into the hill, carrying away all 
 the lighter parts, the sand and soil, to add to its 
 meadows v or islands somewhere, but leaves the 
 rocks where they rested, and thus, in course of 
 time, they occupy the middle of the stream, and 
 later still, the mud of the meadow, perchance, 
 though they may be buried under the mud. 
 But this does not explain how so many rocks 
 lying in streams have been split in the direction 
 of the current. Again rivers appear to have 
 traveled back and worn into the meadows of 
 their own creating, and then they become more 
 meandering than ever. Thus, in the course of 
 ages, the river wriggles in its bed till it feels 
 comfortable. Time is cheap and rather insig- 
 nificant. It matters not whether it is a river 
 which changes from side to side in a geological 
 period, or an eel that wriggles past in an in 
 
 stant 
 
 It is too cold to think of those signs of spring 
 which I find recorded under this date last year. 
 The earliest of such signs in vegetation, noticed 
 thus far, are the maple sap, the willow catkins 
 and those of the poplar (not examined early), the 
 celandine (?), grass on south banks, and perhaps 
 cowslip in sheltered places, alder catkins loosened, 
 *nd also white maple buds loosened. I am not 
 sure that the osiers are decidedly Dngnter yet. 
 
 15 . 
 
226 EARLY SPEING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 March 24, 1857. If you are describing an 
 occurrence or a man, make two or more distinc 
 reports at different times. Though you ma 
 think you have said all, you will to-morrow r< 
 member a whole new class of facts which pei 
 haps interested most of all at the time, but di 
 not present themselves to be reported. If w 
 have recently met and talked with a man an 
 would report our experience, we commonl 
 make a very partial report at first, failing t 
 seize the most significant, picturesque, and dr; 
 matic points. We describe only what we hat 
 had time to digest and dispose of in our mine 
 without being conscious that there were othe 
 things really more novel and interesting to i 
 which will not fail to occur to us and impref 
 us suitably at last. How little that occurs t 
 us, are we prepared at once to appreciate. W 
 discriminate at first only a few features, and w 
 need to reconsider our experience from man 
 points of view and in various moods, to preset 
 the whole force of it. 
 
 March 24, 1858. P. M. To Fairhaven Pom 
 east side. The pond not yet open. A cold nortl 
 by-west wind which must have come over muc 
 snow and ice. The chip of the song sparrc 
 resembles that of the robin, i. e., its expression i 
 the same, only fainter, and reminds me that th 
 robin's peep, which sounds like a note of di 
 tress, is also a chip or call note to its kind. 
 
EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 227 
 
 Returning about 5 P. M. across the Depot 
 Field, I scare up from the ground a flock of 
 about twenty birds which fly low making a short 
 circuit to another part of the field. At first they 
 remind me of bay-wings, except that they are in 
 a flock, show no white in tail, are, I see, a little 
 larger, and utter a faint sveet sveet merely, a 
 sort of sibilant chip. Starting them again, I 
 see that they have black tails, very conspicuous 
 when they pass here. They fly in the flock 
 somewhat like snow-buntings, occasionally one 
 surging upward a few feet in pursuit of another, 
 and they alight about where they first were. It 
 is almost impossible to distinguish them upon 
 the ground, they squat so flat, and so much re- 
 semble it, running amid the stubble. But at 
 length I stand within two rods of one and get 
 a good view of its markings with my glass. 
 They are the Alauda alpestris or shore lark, a 
 quite sizeable and handsome bird. A delicate, 
 pale, lemon-yellow line above, with a dark line 
 through the eye. The yellow again on the 
 sides of the neck and on the throat, with a buff- 
 ash breast and reddish-brown tinges. Beneath, 
 white. Above, rusty brown behind, and darker, 
 ash or slate with purplish -brown reflections, 
 forward. Legs black. Bill blue and black. 
 Common to the old and new world. 
 
 March 24, 1859. Now when the leaves get to 
 
228 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 be dry and rustle under your feet, the peculiar 
 dry note wurrh wurrk wur rrh wurJc, of the 
 wood-frog is heard faintly by ears on the alert, 
 borne up from some unseen pool in a woodland 
 hollow which is open to the influences of the 
 sun. It is a singular sound for awakening na- 
 ture to make, associated with the first warmer 
 days when you sit in some sheltered place in 
 the woods amid the dried leaves. How moder- 
 ate on her first awakening, how little demon- 
 strative ! You may sit half an hour before you 
 will hear another. You doubt if the season 
 will be long enough for such oriental and luxu- 
 rious slowness. But they get on nevertheless, 
 and by to-morrow or in a day or two they croak 
 louder and more frequently. Can you be sure 
 that you have heard the very first wood-frog in 
 the township croak? Ah, how weather-wise 
 must he be ! There is no guessing at the 
 weather with him. He makes the weather in 
 his degree, he ericourages it to be mild. The 
 weather, what is it but the temperament of the 
 earth ? and he is wholly of the earth, sensitive 
 as its skin in which he lives, and of which he is 
 a part. His life relaxes with the thawing 
 ground. He pitches and tunes his voice to 
 ihord with the rustling leaves which the March 
 wind has dried. Long before the frost is quite 
 out he feels the influence of the spring rains 
 
EARLY SPUING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 229 
 
 and the warmer days. His is the very voice of 
 the weather. He rises and falls like quicksil- 
 ver in the thermometer. You do not perceive 
 the spring so surely in the actions of men, their 
 lives are so artificial. They may make more or 
 less fife in their parlors, and their feelings accord- 
 ingly are not good thermometers. The frog far 
 away in the wood, that bums no coal nor wood, 
 perceives more surely the general and universal 
 changes. 
 
 There sits on the bank of the ditch a rana 
 fontinalis. He is mainly a bronze brown, with 
 a very dark greenish snout, etc. ; with the raised 
 line down the side of the back. This, methinks, 
 is about the only frog which the marsh hawk 
 could have found hitherto. 
 
 March 25, 1842. Great persons are not soon 
 learned, not even their outlines, but they change 
 like the mountains in the horizon as we ride 
 along. Comparatively speaking, I care not for 
 the man or his designs who Would make the 
 highest use of me short of an all adventuring 
 friendship. I wish by the behavior of my friend 
 toward me to be led to have such regard for 
 myself as for a box of precious ointment. I 
 shall not be as cheap to myself if I see that 
 another values me. 
 
 We talk much about education, and yet none 
 will assume the office of an educator. I nevei 
 
230 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 gave any one the whole advantage of myself. 
 I never afforded him the culture of my love. 
 How can I talk of charity who at last withhold 
 the kindness which alone makes charity desira- 
 ble. The poor want nothing less than me my- 
 self, and I shirk charity by giving rags and 
 meat. What can I give or what deny to another 
 but myself? 
 
 That person who alone can understand you 
 you cannot get out of your mind. 
 
 The artist must work with indifferency. Too 
 great interest vitiates his work. 
 
 March 25, 1858. P. M. I see many fox- 
 colored sparrows flitting past in a straggling 
 manner into the birch and pine woods on the 
 left, and hear a sweet warble there from time 
 to time. They are busily scratching like hens 
 amid the dry leaves of that wood (not swampy), 
 from time to time the rearmost moving forward 
 one or two at a time, while a few are perched 
 here and there on the lower branches of a birch 
 or other tree, and I hear a very low and sweet 
 whistling strain, commonly half-finished, from 
 one every two or three minutes. 
 
 You might frequently say of a poet away 
 from home that he was as mute as a bird of 
 passage, uttering a mere chip from time to time, 
 but follow him to his true habitat, and you shal' 
 Dot know him, he will sing so melodiously. 
 
EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 231 
 
 March 25, 1859. A score of my townsmen 
 have been shooting and trapping musquash and 
 mink of late. They are gone all day; early 
 and late they scan the rising tide ; stealthily 
 they set their traps in remote swamps, avoid- 
 ing one another. Am not I a trapper, too ? 
 early and late scanning the rising flood, rang- 
 ing by distant woodsides, setting my traps in 
 solitude, and baiting them as well as I know 
 how, that I may catch life and light, that my 
 intellectual part may taste some venison and be 
 invigorated, that my nakedness may be clad in 
 some wild June warmth ? 
 
 As to the color of spring, I should say that 
 hitherto in dry weather it was fawn-colored ; in 
 wet, more yellowish or tawny. When wet, the 
 green of the fawn is supplied by the lichens and 
 the mosses. 
 
 March 26, 1842. I thank God that the 
 cheapness which appears in time and the world, 
 the trivialness of the whole scheme of things, 
 is in my own cheap and trivial moment. I am 
 _time and the world. In me are summer and 
 winter, village life, and commercial routine, pes- 
 tilence and famine, and refreshing breezes, joy 
 and sadness, life and death. 
 
 I must confess I have felt mean enough when 
 asked how I was to act on society, what errand 
 I had to mankind. Undoubtedly I did not feel 
 
232 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 mean without a reason, and yet my loitering is 
 not without a defense. I would fain communi- 
 cate the wealth of my life to men, would really 
 give them what is most precious in my gift. I 
 would secrete pearls with the shellfish and lay 
 up honey with the hees for them. I will sift 
 the sunbeams for the public good. I know no 
 riches I would keep back. I have no private 
 good unless it be my peculiar ability to serve 
 the public. This is the only individual prop- 
 erty. Each one may thus be innocently rich. 
 I enclose and foster the pearl till it is grown. 
 I wish to communicate those parts of my life 
 which I would gladly live again. 
 
 It is hard to be a good citizen of the world in 
 any great sense, but if we do render no interest 
 or increase to mankind out of that talent God 
 gave us, we can at least preserve the principal 
 unimpaired. 
 
 In such a letter as I like there will be the 
 most naked and direct speech, the least circum- 
 locution. 
 
 March 26, 1853. Up the Assabet, scared 
 from his perch a stout hawk, the red-tailed, un- 
 doubtedly, for I saw very plainly the cow-red 
 when he spread his wings from off his tail (and 
 rump?) I rowed the boat three times within 
 gunshot before he flew, twice within four rods, 
 while he sat on an oak over the water ; I think 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 233 
 
 because I had two ladies with me, which was as 
 good as bushing the boat. He was an inter- 
 esting, eagle-like object as he sat upright on his 
 perch with his back to us, now and then look- 
 ing over his shoulder, the broad-backed, flat- 
 headed, curve-beaked bird. 
 
 March 26, 1855. 6 A. M. Still cold and 
 blustering. I see a musk-rat house just erected, 
 two feet or more above the water, and sharp. 
 At the Hubbard Path a mink comes tetering 
 along the ice by the side of the river. I am 
 between bim and the sun, and he does not no- 
 tice me. He seems daintily lifting his feet with 
 a jerk as if his toes were sore. They seem to go 
 a-hunting at night along the edge of the river. 
 Perhaps I notice them more at this season when 
 the shallow water freezes at nighfcf and there is 
 no vegetation along the shore to conceal them. 
 
 The lark sings perched on the top of an ap- 
 ple tree, seel-yah seel-yah, and then perhaps 
 seel-yah— see— e, and several other strains quite 
 sweet and plaintive, contrasting with the cheer- 
 less season and the bleak meadow. Farther off 
 I hear one with notes like ah— tick— seel— yah. 
 
 P. M. Sail down to the Great Meadows. A 
 strong wind with snow driving from the west 
 <wA thickening the air. The farmers pause to 
 Bee me scud before it. At last I land and walk 
 further down on the meadow bank I no- 
 
834 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 tice the paths made by the musk-rats when the 
 water was high in the winter leading from the 
 river up the bank to a bed of grass above or 
 below the surface. When it runs under the sur- 
 face I frequently slump into it, and can trace it 
 to the bed by the hollow sound when I stamp on 
 the frozen ground. They have disfigured the 
 banks very much in some places the past winter. 
 Clams have been carried into these galleries a 
 rod or more under the earth. When the ice 
 still remained thick over the galleries, after the 
 water had gone down, they kept on the surface 
 and terminated, perhaps, at some stump where 
 the earth was a little raised. 
 
 March 26, 1856. The Romans introduced 
 husbandry into England where but little was 
 practiced before, and the English have intro- 
 duced it into America. So we may well read 
 the Roman authors for a history of this art as 
 practiced by us. 
 
 I am sometimes affected by the consideration 
 that a man may spend the whole of his life after 
 boyhood in accomplishing a particular design, 
 as if he were put to a special and petty use, 
 without taking time to look around him and 
 appreciate the phenomenon of his existence. If 
 so many purposes are thus necessarily left un- 
 accomplished, perhaps unthought of, we are re- 
 minded of the transient interest we have in this 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 235 
 
 life. Our interest in our country, the spread 
 of liberty, etc., strong, and as it were, innate 
 as it is, cannot be as transient as our present 
 existence here. It cannot be that all those pa- 
 triots who die in the midst of their career have 
 no further connection with the career of their 
 country. 
 
 March 26, 1857. As I lay on the fine dry 
 sedge in the sun in a deep and sheltered hol- 
 low, I heard one fine, faint peep from over the 
 windy ridge between the hollow in which I lay 
 and the swamp, which at first I referred to a 
 bird, and looked round at the bushes which 
 crowned the brim of this hollow to find it, but 
 erelong a regularly but faintly repeated phe, 
 phe, phe, phe, revealed the Hylodes Pickeringii 
 It was like the light reflected from the moun- 
 tain ridges within the shaded portion of the 
 moon, forerunner and herald of the spring. 
 You take your walk some pretty cold and 
 windy, but sunny, March day through rustling 
 woods, perhaps, glad to take shelter in the hol- 
 .faws or on the south side of hills or woods. 
 When ensconced in some sunny and sheltered 
 hollow with some just melted pool at its bot- 
 tom, as you recline on the fine withered sedge 
 in which the mice have had their galleries, leav 
 ing it pierced with countless holes, and are, per- 
 chance, dreaming of spring there, a single dry 
 
£36 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 hard croak, like a grating twig, comes up from 
 the pool. Where there is a small, smooth sur- 
 face of melted ice bathing the bare button 
 bushes, or water andromeda, or tufts of sedge, 
 such is the earliest voice of the liquid pools, 
 hard and dry and grating. Unless you watch 
 long and closely, not a ripple nor a bubble will 
 be seen, and a marsh hawk will have to look 
 long to find one. The notes of the croaking 
 frog and the hylodes are not only contemporary 
 with, but analogous to, the blossom of the skunk 
 cabbage and white maple. 
 
 March 26, 1860. This dry, whitish, tawny 
 or drab color of the fields, withered grass lit by 
 the sun, is the color of a teamster's coat. It is 
 one of the most interesting effects of light now, 
 when the sun coming out of clouds shines 
 brightly on it. It is the /ore-glow of the year. 
 There is certainly a singular propriety in that 
 color for the coat of a farmer or teamster, a 
 hunter or shepherd, who is required to be much 
 abroad in our landscape at this season. It is in 
 harmony with nature, and you are less conspic- 
 uous in the fields and can get nearer wild ani- 
 mals for it. For this reason I am the better 
 satisfied with the color of my hat, a drab, than 
 with that of my companion, which is black, 
 though his coat is of the exact tint, and better 
 than mine. But again my dusty boots harmon 
 
EARLY SPEING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 237 
 
 ize better with, the landscape than his black 
 and glossy india-rubbers. 1 had a suit once 
 in which, methinks, I could glide across the 
 fields unperceived half a mile in front of a 
 farmer's windows. It was such a skillful mix- 
 ture of browns, dark and light, properly propor- 
 tioned, with even some threads of green in it, 
 by chance. It was of loose texture and about 
 the color of a pasture with patches of withered 
 sweet fern and lechea. I trusted a good deal 
 to my invisibility in it when going across lots, 
 and many a time I was aware that to it I owed 
 the near approach of wild animals. 
 
 No doubt my dusty and tawny cowhides sur- 
 prise the street walkers who wear patent leather 
 congress shoes, but they do not consider how 
 absurd such shoes would be in my vocation to 
 
 thread the woods and swamps in. C was 
 
 saying properly enough the other day, as we 
 were making our way through a dense patch of 
 shrub oak, " I suppose that those villagers 
 think we wear these old, worn hats with holes 
 all along the corners for oddity ; but Coombs, 
 the musquash hunter and partridge and rabbit 
 snarer, knows better. He understands us. He 
 knows that a new and square-cornered hat 
 would be spoiled in one excursion through the 
 shrub oaks." When a citizen comes to take a 
 walk with me, I commonly find that he is lame 
 
238 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 and disabled by his shoeing. He is sure to wet 
 his feet, tear his coat, and jam his hat, and the 
 superior qualities of my boots, coat, and hat 
 appear. I once went into the woods with a 
 party for a fortnight. I wore my old and com- 
 mon clothes, which were of Vermont gray. 
 They wore, no doubt, the best they had for 
 such an occasion, of a fashionable color and 
 quality. I thought that they were a little 
 ashamed of me while we were in the towns. 
 They all tore their clothes badly but myself, 
 and I, who, it chanced, was the only one pro- 
 vided with needles and thread, enabled them to 
 mend them. When we came out of the woods I 
 was the best dressed of the party. One of the 
 most interesting sights this P. M. is the color 
 of the yellow sand in the sun at the bottom of 
 Nut-meadow and Second Division brooks. The 
 yellow sands of a lonely brook, seen through 
 the rippling water, with the shadows of the 
 ripples like films passing over it. 
 
 Tried by various tests this season fluctuates. 
 Thus the skunk-cabbage may flower March 2, as 
 in 1860, or not till April 6 or 8, as in 1854 and 
 1855, a variation of about thirty-six days. 
 
 The bluebird may be seen February 24, as 
 in 1850, 1857, and 1860, or not till March 24, 
 as in 1856, a variation of about twenty-eight 
 days. 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 239 
 
 The yellow-spotted tortoise may be seen Feb- 
 ruary 23, as in 1857, or not till March 28, as in 
 1855, a variation of thirty-three days. 
 
 The wood-frog may be heard March 15, as 
 this year, or not till April 13, as in 1856, a va- 
 riation of twenty-nine days. 
 
 Thus tried by these four tests, March fluctu- 
 ates about a month, receding into February or 
 advancing into April. 
 
 March 27, 1840. Think how finite, after all, 
 the known world is. Money coined at Phila- 
 delphia is a legal tender over how much of it. 
 You may carry ship-biscuit, beef, and pork quite 
 round to the place you set out from. England 
 sends her felons to the other side for safe-keep- 
 ing and convenience. 
 
 March 27, 1841. Magnanimity, though it 
 look expensive for a short course, is always 
 economy in the long run. To make up a great 
 action there are no subordinate mean ones. 
 We can never afford to postpone a true life to- 
 day to any future and anticipated nobleness. 
 We think if by tight economy we can manage 
 to arrive at independence, then indeed we will 
 begin to be generous without stay. We sacri- 
 6ce all nobleness to a little present meanness. 
 If a man charge you $800 pay him $850, and it 
 will leave a clean edge to the sum. It will be 
 like nature, overflowing and rounded like the 
 
240 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 bank of a river, not close and precise like a 
 bank or ditch. 
 
 It is always a short step to peace of mind. 
 
 I must not lose any of my freedom by being 
 a farmer and landholder. Most who enter on 
 any profession are doomed men. The world 
 might as well sing a dirge over them forthwith. 
 The farmer's muscles are rigid ; he can do one 
 thing long, not many well. His pace seems 
 determined henceforth. He never quickens it. 
 A very rigid Nemesis is his fate. When the 
 right wind blows, or a star calls, I can leave 
 this arable and grass ground without making a 
 will or settling my estate. I would buy a farm 
 as freely as a silken streamer. Let me not 
 think my front windows must face east hence- 
 forth because a particular hill slopes that way. 
 My life must undulate still. I will not feel that 
 my wings are dipt when once I have settled on 
 ground which the law calls my own, but find 
 new pinions grown to the old, and talaria to my 
 feet beside. 
 
 Sunday, March 27, 1842. The eye must be 
 firmly anchored to this earth which beholds 
 birches and pines waving in the breeze in a cer- 
 tain light, a serene, rippling light. 
 
 Cliffs. The little hawks have just come out 
 to play, like butterflies rising one above tha 
 other in endless alternation, far below me. 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 241 
 
 They swoop from side to side in the broad basin 
 of the tree-tops, with wider and wider surges, 
 as if swung by an invisible pendulum. They 
 stoop down on this side and scale up on that. 
 Suddenly I look up and see a new bird, prob- 
 ably an eagle, quite above me, laboring with 
 the wind not more than forty rods off. It was 
 the largest bird of the falcon kind I ever saw. 
 I was never so impressed by any flight. She 
 sailed the air, and fell back from time to time 
 like a ship on her beam-ends, holding her talons 
 up as if ready for the arrows. I never allowed 
 before for the grotesque attitude of our national 
 bird. The eagle must have an educated eye. 
 
 See what a life the gods have given us, set 
 round with pain and pleasure. It is too strange 
 for sorrow, it is too strange for joy. One while 
 it looks as shallow, though as intricate as a Cre- 
 tan labyrinth, and again it is a pathless depth. 
 I ask for bread incessantly, that my life sustain 
 me as much as meat my body. No man know- 
 eth in what hour his life may come. Say not 
 that nature is trivial, for to-morrow she will be 
 radiant with beauty. 
 
 March, 27, 1853 P. M. To Martial 
 
 Miles's The hazel is fully out. The 
 
 23d was perhaps full early to date them. It is 
 In some respects the most interesting flower 
 yet, though so minute that only an observer of 
 
 16 
 
242 EARLY SPUING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 nature, or one who looked carefully, would no- 
 tice it. It is the most highly and richly col- 
 ored yet, ten or a dozen little rays at the end 
 of the buds, which are at the ends and along 
 the sides of the bare stems. Some of the 1 
 flowers are a light, some a dark, crimson. The 
 high color of this minute, unobserved flower at 
 this cold, leafless, and almost flowerless season ! 
 It is a beautiful greeting of the spring, when 
 the catkins are scarcely relaxed and there are 
 no signs of life in the bush. Moreover, they 
 are so tender that I never get one home in good 
 condition. They wilt and turn black. Tried 
 to see the faint-croaking frogs at J. P. Brown's 
 pond in the woods. They are remarkably 
 timid and shy ; had their noses and eyes out, 
 croaking, but all ceased, dived, and concealed 
 themselves, before I got within a rod of the 
 shore. Stood perfectly still amid the bushes on 
 the shore before one showed himself ; finally 
 five or six. All eyed me and gradually ap- 
 proached me within three feet to reconnoitre. 
 Though I waited about half an hour, they 
 would not utter a sound nor take their eyes off 
 me, plainly affected by curiosity. Dark brown, 
 and some, perhaps, dark green, about two inches 
 long. Had their noses and eyes out when they 
 croaked. If described at all, they must be either 
 young of Ran a pipiens or Rana palustris. 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 243 
 
 March, 27, 1857 I would fain make 
 
 two reports in my journal, first, the incidents 
 and observations of to-day, and by to-morrow I 
 review the same and record what was omitted 
 before, which will often be the most significant 
 and poetic part. I do not know at first what 
 it is that charms me. The men and things of 
 to-day are wont to be fairer and truer in to- 
 morrow's memory. 
 
 Men talk to me about society, as if I had 
 none, and they had some, as if it were only to 
 be got by going to the sociable or to Boston. 
 
 Compliments and flattery oftenest excite my 
 contempt by the pretension they imply, for 
 who is he that assumes to flatter me ? To com- 
 pliment often implies an assumption of superi- 
 ority in the complimenter. It is in fact a subtle 
 detraction. 
 
 March 27, 1858. p. m. Sail to Bittern Cliff. 
 Scare up a flock of sheldrakes just off Fair Ha- 
 ven Hill, the conspicuous white ducks, sailing 
 
 straight hither and thither Soon after 
 
 we scare up a flock of black ducks. We land 
 and steal over the hill through the woods, ex- 
 pecting to find them under Lee's Cliff, as indeed 
 we do, having crawled over the hill through the 
 woods on our stomachs. There we watched 
 Various waterfowl for an hour. There are a 
 dozen sheldrakes (or goosanders) and among 
 
244 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 them four or five females. They are now pair- 
 ing. I should say one or two pairs are made. 
 At first we see only a male and female quite on 
 the alert, some way out on the pond, tacking 
 back and forth, and looking every way. They 
 keep close together, headed one way, and when 
 one turns the other also turns quickly. The 
 male appears to take the lead. Soon the rest 
 appear, sailing out from the shore into sight. 
 We hear a squeaking note as if made by a 
 pump, and presently see four or five great her- 
 ring gulls wheeling about. Sometimes they 
 make a sound like the scream of a hen hawk. 
 They are shaped somewhat like a very thick 
 white rolling-pin sharpened at both ends. At 
 length they alight near the ducks. The shel- 
 drakes at length acquire confidence, come close 
 
 in shore and go to preening themselves 
 
 They are all busy about it at once 
 
 Among them, or near by, I at length detect 
 three or four whistlers by their wanting the red 
 Dill, being considerably smaller and less white, 
 having a white spot on the head, a black back, 
 and altogether less white. They also keep 
 more or less apart and do not dive when the 
 
 rest do At length I detect two little 
 
 Uppers, as I have called them, though I am 
 not sure that I have ever seen the male before. 
 They are male and female. .... They are in* 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 245 
 
 cessantly diving close to the button bushes. The 
 female is apparently uniformly black, another, 
 dark brown, but the male has a conspicuous 
 crest. Apparently white on the hind head, 
 with a white breast and white line on the lower 
 sides of the neck ; that is, the head and breast 
 are black and white conspicuously. 
 
 The sheldrake has a peculiar long clipper 
 look, often moving rapidly straight forward 
 over the water. It sinks to very various depths, 
 sometimes, as when apparently alarmed, show- 
 ing only its head and neck and the upper part 
 of its back, and at others, when at ease, float- 
 ing buoyantly on the surface, as if it had taken 
 in more air, showing all its white breast and 
 the white along its sides. Sometimes it lifts 
 itself up on the surface and flaps its wings, re- 
 vealing its whole rosaceous breast and its lower 
 
 parts, looking in form like a penguin 
 
 It was a pretty sight to see a pair of them tack- 
 ing about, always within a foot or two of each 
 other, heading the same way, now on this short 
 tack, now on that, the male taking the lead, 
 sinking deep and looking every way. When 
 the whole twelve had come together they 
 would soon break up again, and were continu- 
 ally changing their ground, though not diving, 
 now sailing slowly this way a dozen rods, and 
 now that, and now coming in near the shore. 
 
246 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Then they would all go to preening themselves, 
 thrusting their bills into their backs, and keep- 
 ing up such a brisk motion that you could not 
 get a fair sight of one's head. From time to 
 time you heard a slight note of alarm, or per- 
 haps a breeding note, for they were evidently 
 selecting their mates. Then it was surprising 
 to see how briskly sailing off one side they went 
 to diving, as if they had suddenly come across 
 a school of minnows. A whole company would 
 disappear at once Now for nearly a min- 
 ute there is not a feather to be seen, and then 
 next minute you see a party of half a dozen 
 there chasing one another and making the water 
 fly far and wide. 
 
 March 27, 1859 It is remarkable how 
 
 modest and unobtrusive these early flowers are. 
 The musquash and duck hunter or the farmer 
 might and do commonly pass by them without 
 perceiving them. They steal into the air and 
 light of spring without being noticed for the 
 most part. The sportsman seems to see a mass 
 of weather-stained dead twigs, whose wood is 
 exposed here and there, but nearer the spots 
 are recognized for the pretty bright buttons of 
 the willow ; and the flowers of the alder (now 
 partly in bloom) look like masses of bare, bar- 
 ren twigs, last year's twigs, and would be taken 
 (or such. 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 247 
 
 March 28, 1842. How often must one feel, 
 as he looks back on his past life, that he has 
 gained a talent, but lost a character. My life 
 has got down into my fingers. My inspiration 
 at length is only so much breath as I can 
 breathe. Society affects to estimate men by 
 their talents, but really feels and knows them 
 by their character. What a man does, compared 
 with what he is, is but a small part. To re- 
 quire that our friend possess a certain skill is 
 not to be satisfied till he is something less than 
 our friend. Friendship should be a great prom- 
 ise, a perennial spring-time. I can conceive 
 how the life of the gods may be dull and tame, 
 if it is not disappointed and insatiate. One may 
 well feel chagrined when he finds he can do 
 nearly all he can conceive. How poor is the 
 life of the best and wisest ; the petty side will 
 appear at last. Understand once how the best 
 in society live, with what routine, with what 
 tedium and insipidity, with what grimness and 
 defiance, with what chuckling over an exaggera- 
 tion of the sunshine ! I am astonished, I must 
 confess, that man looks so respectable in nature, 
 that, considering the littlenesses Socrates must 
 descend to in the twenty-four hours, he yet 
 wears a serene countenance and even adorns 
 nature. 
 
 March 28, 1852. 10i P. M. The geese havo 
 
248 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 just gone over making a great cackling and 
 awaking people in their beds. They will prob- 
 ably settle in the river. 
 
 March 28, 1853. asked me to read the 
 
 life of Dr. Chalmers, which, however, I did not 
 promise to do. Yesterday, Sunday, she was 
 
 heard, through the partition, shouting to , 
 
 who is deaf, " Think of it, he stood half an hour 
 to-day to hear the frogs croak, and he wouldn't 
 read the life of Chalmers." 
 
 6 A. M. To Cliffs The woods ring with 
 
 the cheerful jingle of the Fringilla hiemalis. 
 This is a very trig and compact little bird, and 
 appears to be in good condition. The straight 
 edge of slate on their breasts contrasts remark- 
 ably with the white from beneath. The short, 
 light-colored bill is also very conspicuous amid 
 the dark slate, and when they fly from you, the 
 two white feathers in their tails are very dis- 
 tinct at a good distance. They are very lively, 
 pursuing each other from bush to bush. 
 
 P. M. To Assabet. Saw eleven black ducks 
 near the bathing-place in the Assabet flying up 
 stream. Came within three or four rods of me, 
 then wheeled and went down. Their faint 
 quack sounded much like the croak of the frogs 
 occasionally heard now in the pools. As they 
 wheeled and went off they made a very fine 
 whistling sound which yet, I think, was not 
 made by their wings. 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 249 
 
 I saw flying to the alders by the river what 
 I have no doubt was the tree-sparrow, with a 
 ferruginous crown or head, and wings also 
 partly ferruginous ; light beneath. It was in 
 company with a few of the Fringilla hiemalis. 
 Sang sweetly, much like some notes of the ca- 
 nary. One pursued another. It was not large 
 enough for the fox-colored sparrow. Perhaps I 
 have seen it before within the month. 
 
 As near as I can make out, the hawks or fal- 
 cons I am likely to see here are the American 
 Sparrow Hawk, the Fish Hawk, the Goshawk, 
 the Short-winged Buzzard (if this is the same 
 with Browne's stuffed sharp-shinned or slate-col- 
 ored hawk, not slate in his specimen). Is not 
 this the common small hawk that soars ? The 
 Red-tailed Hawk. (Have we the red-shouldered 
 hawk, about the same size and aspect with the 
 last ?) The Hen Harrier. I suppose it is the 
 adult of this, with the slate color, over meadows. 
 
 March 28, 1855. p. m. To Cliffs, along river. 
 .... I run about these cold, blustering days, 
 on the whole, perhaps, the worst to bear in the 
 year (partly because they disappoint expecta- 
 tion), looking almost in vain for some animal 
 or vegetable life stirring. The warmest springs 
 hardly allow me the glimpse of a frog's heel as 
 he settles himself in the mud, and I think I am 
 •ucky if I see one winter-defying hawk or a 
 
250 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 hardy duck or two at a distance on the water. 
 As for the singing of birds, the few that have 
 come to us, it is too cold for them to sing and 
 for me to hear. The bluebird's warble comes 
 feeble and frozen to my ear 
 
 Over a great many acres the meadows have 
 been cut up into neat squares and other figures 
 by the ice of February, as if ready to be re- 
 moved ; sometimes separated by narrow and 
 deep channels like musk-rat paths, but oftener 
 the edges have been raised and apparently 
 stretched, and settling have not fallen into 
 their places exactly, but lodged on their neigh- 
 bors. Even yet you see cakes of ice surmounted 
 by a shell of meadow-crust which has preserved 
 them, while all around is bare meadow. 
 
 March 28, 1856. I think to say to my friend, 
 There is but one interval between us. You are 
 on one side of it, I on the other. You know as 
 much about it as I, how wide, how impassable 
 it is. I will endeavor not to blame you. Do 
 not blame me. There is nothing to be said 
 about it. Recognize the truth, and pass over 
 the intervals that are bridged. 
 
 Farewell, my friends, my path inclines to 
 this side the mountains, yours to that. For a 
 long time you have appeared further and 
 further off to me. I see that you will at length 
 iissappear altogether. For a season my path 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 251 
 
 seems lonely without you. The meadows are 
 like barren ground. The memory of me is 
 steadily passing away from you. My path 
 grows narrower and steeper, and the night is 
 approaching. Yet I have faith that in the in- 
 finite future new suns will rise and new plains 
 expand before me, and I trust I shall therein 
 encounter pilgrims who bear that same virtue 
 that I recognized in you, who will be that very 
 virtue that was you. I accept the everlasting 
 and salutary law which was promulgated as 
 much that spring when I first knew you, as this 
 when I seem to leave you. 
 
 My former friends, I visit you as one walks 
 amid the columns of a ruined temple, you be- 
 long to an era, a civilization and glory long 
 past. I recognize still your fair proportions, 
 notwithstanding the convulsions we have felt, 
 and the weeds and jackals that have sprung up 
 around. I come here to be reminded of the 
 past, to read your inscriptions, the hieroglyph- 
 ics, the sacred writings. We are no longer 
 the representatives of our former selves. 
 
 Love is a thirst that is never slaked. Under 
 the coarsest rind the sweetest meat. If you 
 would read a friend aright you must be able to 
 read through something thicker and opaquer 
 than horn. If you can read a friend, all lan- 
 guages will be easy to you. Enemies publish 
 
252 EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 themselves. They declare war. The friend 
 never declares his love. 
 
 March 28, 1857. At Lee's Cliff and this side, 
 I see half a dozen buff-edged butterflies, Van- 
 essa antiopa, and pick up three dead or dying 
 — two together, the edges of their wings gone. 
 Several are fluttering over the dry rock dSbria 
 under the cliff, in whose crevices probably they 
 have wintered. Two of the three I pick up are 
 not dead, though they will not fly. Verily 
 their day is a short one. What has checked 
 their frail lif e ? Within the buff-edge is black 
 with bright sky-blue spots. Those little oblong 
 spots on the black ground are light as you look 
 directly down on them, but from one side they 
 change through violet to a crystalline rose pur- 
 ple The broad buff edge of the Vanessa 
 
 antiopa's wings harmonizes with the russet 
 ground it flutters over, and as it stands con- 
 cealed in the winter with its wings folded above 
 its back, in a cleft in the rocks, the gray-brown 
 underside of its wings prevents its being distin- 
 guished from the rocks themselves When 
 
 I witness the first plowing and planting I ac- 
 quire a long lost confidence in the earth that it 
 will nourish the seed that is committed to its 
 bosom. I am surprised to be reminded that 
 there is warmth is it. We have not only 
 warmer skies then but a warmer earth. The 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 253 
 
 frost is out of it and we may safely commit these 
 seeds to it in some places. 
 
 Yesterday I walked with a farmer beside his 
 team and saw one furrow turned quite round 
 his field. What noble work is plowing, with 
 the broad and solid earth for material, the ox 
 for fellow-laborer, and the simple, but efficient 
 plow for tool. Work that is not done in any 
 shop, in a cramped position, work that tells, 
 that concerns all men, which the sun shines and 
 the rain falls on, and the birds sing over. You 
 turn over the whole vegetable mould, expose 
 how many grubs, and put a new aspect on the 
 face of the earth. It comes pretty near to mak- 
 ing a world. Redeeming a swamp does, at any 
 rate. A good plowman is a terrse-filius. A 
 plowman, we all know, whistles as he drives his 
 team afield.^ 
 
 Often I can give the truest and most inter- 
 esting account of any adventure I have had, 
 after years have elapsed, for then I am not con- 
 fused, only the most significant facts surviving 
 in my memory. Indeed, all that continues to 
 interest me after such a lapse of time is sure to 
 be pertinent, and I may safely record all that 1 
 remember. 
 
 March 28, 1858. I notice the hazel stigmaa 
 in a warm hollow just beginning to peep forth. 
 This is an unobserved, but very pretty and in- 
 
254 EAKLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 teresting evidence of the progress of the season. 
 I should not have noticed it, if I had not care- 
 fully examined the fertile buds. It is like a 
 crimson star first dimly detected in the twilight. 
 The warmth of the day in this sunny hollow 
 above the withered sedge has caused the stig- 
 mas to show their lips through the scaly shield. 
 They do not project more than the thirtieth of 
 an inch. Some not the sixtieth. The staminate 
 catkins are also considerably loosened. Just 
 as the turtles put forth their heads, so these put 
 forth their stigmas in the spring. How many 
 accurate thermometers there are on every hill 
 and in every valley! Measure the length of 
 the hazel stigmas and you can tell how much 
 warmth there has been this spring. How fitly 
 and exactly any season of the year may be de- 
 scribed by indicating the condition of some 
 
 flower It is surprising that men can be 
 
 divided into those who lead an in-door and those 
 who lead an out-door life, as if birds and quad- 
 rupeds were to be divided into those that lived 
 a within-nest or burrow life, and those that 
 lived without their nests and holes chiefly. How 
 many of our troubles are house-bred ! He lives 
 an out-door life, i. e., he is not squatted behind 
 a door. It is such a questionable phrase as an 
 " honest man," or the " naked eye," as if the 
 eye which is not covered with a spy-glass should 
 properly be called naked. 
 
EABLT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 255 
 
 March 28, 1859. p. M. Paddle to the Bed- 
 ford line. It is now high time to look for ar- 
 rowheads, etc. I spend many hours every spring 
 gathering the crop which the melting snow and 
 rain have washed bare. When at length some 
 island in the meadow or some sandy field else- 
 where has been plowed, perhaps for rye, in the 
 fall, I take note of it, and do not fail to repair 
 thither as soon as the earth begins to be dry in 
 the spring. If the spot chances never to have 
 been cultivated before, I am the first to gather 
 a crop from it. The farmer little thinks that 
 another reaps a harvest which is the fruit of his 
 toil. As much ground is' turned up in a day by 
 the plow as Indian implements could not have 
 turned over in a month, and my eyes rest on 
 the evidences of an aboriginal life which passed 
 here a thousand years ago, perchance. Espec- 
 ially if the knolls in the meadows are washed 
 by a freshet where they have been plowed the 
 previous fall, the soil will be taken away lower 
 down and the stones left, the arrow-heads, etc., 
 and soapstone pottery amid them, somewhat as 
 gold is washed in a dish or torn. I landed on 
 two spots this P. M. and picked up a dozen ar- 
 rowheads. It is one of the regular pursuits of 
 the spring. As sportsmen go in pursuit of 
 ducks and musquash, and scholars of rare books, 
 and travelers of adventures, and poets of ideas, 
 
256 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS.. 
 
 and all men of money, I go in search of arrow- 
 heads when the season comes round again. So 
 I help myself to live worthily, loving my life 
 as I should. It is a good collyrium to look on 
 the bare earth, to pore over it so much, getting 
 strength to all your senses, like Antaeus. You 
 can hardly name a more innocent or wholesome 
 entertainment. As I am thus engaged I hear the 
 rumble of the bowling-alley's thunder, which 
 has begun again in the- village. It comes before 
 the earliest natural thunder. But what its 
 lightning is, and what atmospheres it purifies, I 
 
 do not know I have not decided whether 
 
 I had better publish my experience in searching 
 for arrowheads in three volumes with plates, or 
 try to compress it into one. These durable im- 
 plements seem to have been suggested to the In- 
 dian mechanic with a view to my entertainment 
 in a succeeding period. After all the labor ex- 
 pended on it, the bolt may have been shot but 
 once, perchance, and the shaft, once attached to 
 it, decayed, and there lay the arrowhead, sink- 
 ing into the ground, awaiting me. They lie all 
 over the hills with like expectation, and in due 
 time the husbandman is sent, and, tempted by 
 the promise of corn or rye, he plows the land 
 and turns them up to my view. Many as I 
 have found, methinks the last one gave me about 
 the same delight that the first did. Some time 
 
EABLT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 257 
 
 or other, you would say, it had rained arrow- 
 heads, for they lie all over the surface of Amer- 
 ica. You may have your peculiar tastes, cer- 
 tain localities in your town may seem from 
 association unattractive and uninhabitable to 
 you, you may wonder that the land bears any 
 money value there, and pity some poor fellow 
 who is said to survive in that neighborhood, 
 but plow up a new field there, and you will find 
 the omnipresent arrow point strewn over it, and 
 it will appear that the red man with other 
 tastes and associations lived there too. No 
 matter how far from the modern road or meet- 
 ing-bouse, no matter how near. They lie in 
 the meeting-house cellar, and they lie in the 
 distant cow-pasture. Some collections which 
 were made a cenfiiry ago by the curious like 
 myself have been dispersed again, and they are 
 still as good as new. You cannot tell the third- 
 hand ones (for they are all second-hand) from 
 the others, such is their persistent out-of-doors 
 durability. They were chiefly made to be lost. 
 They are sown like a grain that is slow to 
 germinate, broadcast over the earth. As the 
 dragon's teeth bore a crop of soldiers, so these 
 bear crops of philosophers and poets, and the 
 same seed is just as good to plant again. It is 
 a stone fruit. Each one yields me a thought. 
 I come nearer to the maker of it than if I found 
 
 17 
 
258 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 his bones. They would not prove any art that 
 wielded them, such as this work of his bones 
 does. It is humanity inscribed on the face of 
 the earth, patent to my eyes as soon as the snow 
 is off, not hidden away in some crypt or grave, 
 or under a pyramid. No disgusting mummy, 
 but a clean stone, the best symbol or letter that 
 could have been transmitted to me. The red 
 
 man, his mark ! __f ^^^ At every step I 
 
 see it It L_ — - is no single in- 
 scription on a particular rock, but a footprint 
 or rather a mindprint left everywhere and alto- 
 gether illegible. No Vandals, however van- 
 dalic in their disposition, can be so industrious 
 
 as to destroy them They are not fossil 
 
 bones, but, as it were, fossil thoughts, forever 
 reminding me of the mind that shaped them. 
 I would fain know that I am treading in the 
 tracks of human game, that I am on the trail of 
 
 mind When I see these signs I know 
 
 that the subtle spirits that made them are not 
 far off, into whatever form transmuted. What 
 if you do plow and hoe amid them, and swear 
 that not one stone shall be left upon another, 
 they are only the less likely to break in that 
 case. When you turn up one layer you bury 
 another so much the more securely. They are 
 at peace with rust. This arrow-headed charac- 
 ter promises to outlast all others. The larger 
 
EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 259 
 
 pestles and axes may perchance be broken and 
 grow scarce, but the arrow-head shall perhaps 
 never cease to wing its way through the ages 
 
 to eternity When some Vandal chieftain 
 
 has razed to earth the British Museum, and per- 
 chance, the winged bulls of Nineveh shall have 
 lost most, if not all, of their features, the arrow- 
 heads which the museum contains, may find 
 themselves at home again in familiar dust, and 
 resume their shining in new springs upon the 
 bared surface of the earth, to be picked up for 
 the thousandth time by the shepherd or savage 
 that may be wandering there, and once more 
 
 suggest their story to him They cannot 
 
 be said to be lost or found. Surely their use 
 was not so much to bear its fate to some bird 
 or quadruped, or man, as it was to lie here near 
 the surface of the earth for a perpetual reminder 
 
 to the generations that come after As 
 
 for museums, I think it is better to let nature 
 take care of our antiquities. These are our an- 
 tiquities, and they are cleaner to think of than 
 the rubbish of the Tower of London, and they 
 are a more ancient armor than is there. It is 
 a recommendation that they are so inobvious 
 that they occur only to the eye and thought 
 that chances to be directed toward them. 
 
 When you pick up an arrow-head and put it 
 in your pocket, it may say, " Eh, you think yon 
 
260 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 have got me, do you ? But I shall wear a hole 
 in your pocket at last, or if you put me in your 
 cabinet, your heir or great-grandson will forget 
 me, or throw me out of the window directly, or 
 when the house falls, I shall drop into the cel- 
 lar, and then I shall he quite at home again, 
 ready to be found again. Perhaps some new 
 red man, that is to come, will fit me to a shaft 
 and make me do his bidding for a bow shot ; 
 what reck I ? " 
 
 The meadows, which are still covered far and 
 wide, are quite alive with black ducks. When 
 walking about on the low eastern shore at the 
 Bedford bound, I heard a faint honk, and 
 looked around near the water with my glass, 
 thinking it came from that side or perhaps from 
 a farm-yard in that direction. I soon heard it 
 again, and at last we detected a great flock of 
 geese passing over quite on the other side of us 
 and pretty high up. From time to time one of 
 the company uttered a short note, — that pecu- 
 liarly metallic, clangorous sound. They were 
 in a single undulating line, and, as usual, one 
 or two were from time to time crowded out of 
 the line, apparently by the crowding of those 
 in the rear, and were flying on one side and 
 trying to recover their places. But at last a 
 second short line was formed, meeting the long 
 one at the usual angle, and making a figure 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 261 
 
 gomewhat like a hay-hook. I suspect it will be 
 found there is really some advantage in large 
 birds of passage flying in the wedge form and 
 cleaving their way through the air, — that they 
 really do overcome its resistance best in this 
 way, and perchance the direction and strength 
 of the wind determine the comparative length 
 of the two sides. The great gulls fly generally 
 up and down the river valley, cutting off the 
 bends of the river, and so do these geese. They 
 fly sympathizing with the river, a stream in the 
 air, soon lost in the distant sky. If you scan 
 the horizon at this season you are very likely 
 to detect a flock of dark ducks moving with 
 rapid wing athwart the sky, or see the undulat- 
 ing line of migrating geese. 
 
 Ball's Hill, with its withered oak leaves and 
 its pines, looks very fair to-day, a mile and a 
 half off across the water, through a very thin 
 varnish or haze. It reminds me of the isle 
 which was called up from the bottom of the sea 
 and given to Apollo. How charming the con- 
 trast of land and water, especially where there 
 is a temporary island in the flood with its new 
 and tender shores of waving outline, so with- 
 drawn, yet habitable ; above all, if it rises into 
 a hill high above the water, so contrasting with 
 it the more, and, if that hill is wooded, suggest- 
 ing wildness. Our vernal lakes have a beauty 
 
262 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 to my mind which they would not possess if 
 they were more permanent. Everything is in 
 rapid flux here, suggesting that nature is alive 
 to her extremities and superficies. To-day we 
 sail swiftly on dark rolling waves or paddle 
 over a sea as smooth as a mirror, unable to 
 touch the bottom, where mowers work and hide 
 their jugs in August, coasting the edge of maple 
 swamps where alder tassels and white-maple 
 flowers are kissing the tide that has risen to 
 meet them. But this particular phase of beauty 
 is fleeting. Nature has so many shows for us, 
 she cannot afford to give much time to this. In 
 a few days, perchance, these lakes will all have 
 run away to the sea. Such are the pictures 
 which she paints. When we look at our mas- 
 terpieces we see only dead paint and its vehicle, 
 which suggests no liquid life rapidly flowing off 
 from beneat^t But in nature it is constant sur- 
 prise and novelty As we sweep past the 
 
 north end of Poplar Hill, its now dryish, pale- 
 brown, withered sward, clothing its rounded 
 wlope which was lately saturated with moisture, 
 presents very agreeable hues. In this light, in 
 fair weather, the patches of now dull greenish 
 masses contrast just regularly enough with the 
 pale brown grass. It is like some rich but mod- 
 est-colored Kidderminster carpet, or rather the 
 ekin of a monster python tacked to the hillside 
 
EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 263 
 
 »nd stuffed with earth The earth lies out 
 
 now like 'a leopard drying her lichen and moss 
 spotted skin in the sun, her sleek and varie- 
 gated hide. I know that the few raw spots will 
 heal over. Brown is the color for me, the color 
 of our coats and our daily lives, the color of the 
 poor man's loaf. The bright tints are pies and 
 cakes, good only for October feasts, which would 
 make us sick if eaten every day. .... 
 
 Undoubtedly the geese fly more numerously 
 over rivers which, like ours, flow north-easterly, 
 are more at home with the-water under them. 
 Each flock runs the gauntlet of a thousand gun- 
 ners ; and when you see them steer off from 
 you and your boat, you may remember how 
 great their experience in such matters may be, 
 how many such boats and gunners they have 
 seen and avoided between here and Mexico. 
 Even now (though you, low plodding, little 
 dream it) they may perhaps see one or two 
 more lying in wait ahead. They have an ex- 
 perienced ranger of the air for their guide. The 
 echo of one gun hardly dies away, before they 
 see another pointed at them. How many bul- 
 lets or smaller shot have sped in vain toward 
 their ranks ! 
 
 Ducks fly more irregularly, and shorter dis- 
 tances at a time. Th3 geese rest in fair weather 
 by 4ay only in the midst of our broadest mead* 
 
264 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS, 
 
 ows and ponds. So they go anxious and ear- 
 nest to hide their nests under the pole. The 
 gulls, more used to boats and sails, will often 
 fly quite near without manifesting alarm. 
 
 March 29 and 30, 1842. Though nature s 
 laws are more immutable than any despot's, 
 they rarely seem rigid, but relax with license in 
 summer weather. We are not often nor harshly 
 reminded of the things we may not do. I am 
 often astonished to see how long and with what 
 manifest infringement of the natural laws some 
 men I meet in the highway maintain life. Na- 
 ture does not deny them quarter. They do 
 not die without priest. All the while she re- 
 joices, for if they are not one part of her, they 
 are another. 
 
 I am convinced that consistency is the secret 
 of health. How many a poor man, striving to 
 live a pure life, pines and dies after a life of 
 sickness, and his successors doubt if nature is 
 not pitiless, while the confirmed and consistent 
 sot who is content with his rank life like mush- 
 rooms, a mass of corruption, still dozes comfort- 
 ably under a hedge. He has made his peace 
 with himself; there is no strife. Nature is 
 really very kind and liberal to all persons of 
 vicious habits. They take great licenses with 
 her. She does not exhaust them with many 
 excesses. 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 265 
 
 How hard it is to be greatly related to man- 
 kind. They are only our uncles and aunts and 
 cousins. I hear of some persons greatly re- 
 lated, but only he is so who has all mankind for 
 his friend. Our intercourse with the best grows 
 soon shallow and trivial. They no longer in- 
 spire us. After enthusiasm comes insipidity. 
 The sap of all noble schemes drieth up, and the 
 schemers return again and again in despair to 
 " common sense and labor." If I could help 
 infuse some life and heart into society, should I 
 not do a service ? Why will not the gods mix a 
 little of the wine of nobleness with the air we 
 drink ? let virtue have some firm foothold in 
 the earth ? Where does she dwell ? Who are 
 the salt of the earth ? May not Love have 
 some resting-place on the earth as sure as the 
 sunshine on the rock ? The crystals imbedded 
 in the cliffs sparkle and gleam from afar, as 
 if they did certainly enrich our planet, but 
 where does any virtue permanently sparkle and 
 (fleam ? She was sent forth over the earth too 
 soon, before the earth was prepared for her. 
 Rightfully we are to each other the gate of 
 heaven and redeemers from sin, but how we 
 overlook these lowly and narrow ways. We 
 will go over the bold mountain tops without 
 going through the valleys. Men do not, after 
 all, meet on the ground of their real acquaint* 
 
266 EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 ance and actual understanding of one another, 
 but degrade themselves immediately into the 
 puppets of convention. They do as if, in given 
 circumstances, they had agreed to know each 
 Other only so well. They rarely get so far as 
 to inform one another gratuitously, and use 
 each other like the sea and the woods for what 
 is new and inspiring there. The best inter- 
 course and communion they have is a silence 
 above and behind their speech. We should be 
 very simple to rely on words. What we knew 
 before, always interprets a man's words. I can- 
 not easily remember what any man has said to 
 me, but how can I forget what he is to me ? 
 We know each other better than we are aware. 
 We are admitted to startling privacies with 
 every person we meet. 
 
 March 29, 1853 p. m. To the early 
 
 willow behind Martial Miles's On the 
 
 railroad I hear the telegraph. This is the lyre 
 that is as old as the world. I put my ear to 
 the post and the sound seems to be in its core 
 directly against my ear. This is all of music. 
 The utmost refinements of art, I think, can go 
 no further 
 
 Walking along near the edge of the meadow 
 under Lupine Hill, I slumped through the sod 
 into a musk-rat's nest, for there was only a thick- 
 ness of two inches over it, which was enough 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 267 
 
 when it was frozen. I laid it open with my 
 bands. There were three or four channels or 
 hollowed paths a rod or more in length, not 
 merely worn but made in the meadow centering 
 at the mouth of this burrow. They were three 
 or four inches deep, and finally became indis- 
 tinct, and were lost amid the cranberry vines 
 and grass toward the river. The entrance to 
 the burrow was just at the edge of the upland, 
 here a gentle sloping bank, and was probably 
 just beneath the surface of the water six weeks, 
 ago. It was about twenty-five rods distant from 
 the true bank of the river. From this a straight 
 gallery about six inches in diameter every way 
 sloped upward about eight feet into the bank 
 just beneath the turf, so that the end was about 
 a foot higher than the entrance. Here was 
 a somewhat circular enlargement about one 
 foot in horizontal diameter and of the same 
 depth as the gallery. In it was nearly a peck 
 of coarse meadow stubble, showing the marks 
 of the scythe with which was mixed accident- 
 ally a very little of the moss that grew with it. 
 Three short galleries, only two feet long, were 
 continued from this centre, somewhat like rays, 
 toward the high land, as if they had been pre- 
 pared in order to be ready for a sudden rise of 
 the water, or had been actually made so far 
 under such an emergency. The nest was of 
 
268 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 course thoroughly wet, and, humanly speak- 
 ing, uncomfortable, though the creature could 
 breathe in it. But it is plain that the musk- 
 rat cannot be subject to the toothache. I have 
 no doubt this was made and used last winter, 
 for the grass was as fresh as that in the meadow 
 (except that it was pulled up), and the sand 
 which had been taken out lay partly in a flat- 
 tened heap in the meadow, and no grass had 
 sprung up through it. In the course of the 
 above examination I made a very interesting 
 discovery. When I turned up the thin sod from 
 over the damp cavity of the nest, I was sur- 
 prised to see at this hour of a pleasant day what 
 I took to be beautiful frost crystals of a rare 
 form, frost bodkins I was in haste to name 
 them, for around the fine white roots of the 
 grass, apparently herds grass, which were from 
 one to two or more inches long, reaching down- 
 ward into the dark, damp cavern (though the 
 grass blades had scarcely made so much growth 
 above ; indeed the growth was scarcely visible 
 there), appeared to be lingering still into the 
 middle of this warm afternoon, rare and beau- 
 tiful frost crystals exactly in the form of a 
 bodkin, about one sixth of an inch wide at base, 
 and tapering evenly to the lower end. Some- 
 times the upper part of the core was naked for 
 half an inch, which gave them a slight resem- 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 269 
 
 blance to feathers, though they were not flat, 
 but round. At the abrupt end of the rootlet, 
 as if cut off, was a larger dewdrop. On exam- 
 ining them more closely, feeling and tasting 
 them, I found that it was not frost, but a clear 
 crystalline dew in almost invisible drops, con- 
 centrated from the dampness of the cavern, 
 perhaps melted frost preserving by its fine- 
 ness its original color, thus regularly arranged 
 around the delicate white fibre. Looking again, 
 incredulous, I discerned extremely minute 
 white threads or gossamer standing out on all 
 sides from the main rootlet and affording the 
 core for these drops. Yet on those fibres which 
 had lost their dew, none of these minute threads 
 appeared It impressed me as a wonder- 
 ful piece of chemistry, that the very grass we 
 trample on and esteem so cheap should be thus 
 wonderfully nourished, that this spring green- 
 ness was not produced by coarse and cheap 
 means, but that in the sod out of sight the most 
 delicate and magical processes are going on. 
 
 The half is not shown I brought home 
 
 some tufts of the grass in my pocket, but when 
 I took it out, I could not at first find those 
 pearly white fibres and thought they were lost, 
 for they were shrunk to dry brown threads, 
 <ind as for the still finer gossamer which sup- 
 ported the roscid droplets, with few exceptions 
 
270 EARLY SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 they were absolutely undiscoverable. They no 
 longer stood out around the core, so delicate was 
 their organization. It made me doubt almost 
 if there were not actual, substantial, though in- 
 visible cores to the leaflets and veins of the 
 hoar frost. Can these almost invisible and ten- 
 der fibres penetrate the earth where there is no 
 cavern? Or is what we call the solid earth 
 porous and cavernous enough for them ? 
 
 March 29, 1855. As I stand on Heywood's 
 Peak looking over Walden, more than half its 
 surface already sparkling blue water, I inhale 
 with pleasure the cold but wholesome air, like 
 a draught of cold water, contrasting it in my 
 memory with the wind of summer which I do 
 not thus eagerly swallow. This, which is a 
 chilling wind to my fellow, is decidedly refresh- 
 ing to me. I swallow it with eagerness as a 
 panacea. I feel an impulse also already to jump 
 into the half-melted pond. This cold wind is 
 refreshing to my palate as the warm air of; sun- 
 shine is not, methinks. 
 
 March 29, 1858 P. M. To Ball's 
 
 Hill As I sit two thirds up the sunny 
 
 side of Pine Hill looking over the meadows, 
 now almost completely bare, the crows, by their 
 Bwift flight and scolding, reveal to me some large 
 bird of prey hovering over the river. I per- 
 teive by its marking and size that it cannot be 
 
EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 271 
 
 a hen-hawk, and now it settles on the topmost 
 branch of a white maple, bending it down. Its 
 great armed and feathered legs dangle help- 
 lessly in the air for a moment, as if feeling for 
 the perch, while its body is tipping this way 
 and that. It sits there facing me some forty or 
 fifty rods off, pluming itself, but keeping a good 
 look-out. At this distance and in this light it 
 appears to have a rusty-brown head and breast, 
 and is white beneath, with rusty leg feathers 
 and a tail black beneath. When it flies again, 
 it is principally black varied with white, regu- 
 lar light spots on its tail and wings beneath, 
 but chiefly a conspicuous white space on the 
 forward part of the neck. Also some of the 
 upper side of the tail or tail-coverts is white. 
 It has broad, ragged, buzzard-like wings. I 
 think it must be an eagle (?) It lets itself 
 down, with its legs somewhat helplessly dang- 
 ling, as if feeling for something on the bare 
 meadow, and then gradually flies away soaring 
 and circling higher and higher until lost in the 
 downy clouds. This lofty soaring is at least a 
 grand recreation, as if it were nourishing sub- 
 lime ideas. I should like to know why it soars 
 higher and higher so, whether its thoughts are 
 really turned to earth, for it seems to be more 
 nobly as well as highly employed than the la- 
 borers ditching in the meadows beneath, or any 
 others of my fellow townsmen. 
 
272 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 With many men their fine manners are a lie 
 all over, a skin coat or finish of falsehood. They 
 are not brave enough to do without this sort of 
 armor which they wear night and day. 
 
 March 30, 1840. Pray what things interest 
 me at present ? A long soaking rain, the drops 
 trickling down the stubble, while I lay drenched 
 on a last year's bed of wild oats by the side of 
 some bare hill, ruminating. These things are 
 of moment. To watch tnis crystal globe just 
 sent from heaven to associate with me. While 
 these clouds and this sombre drizzling weather 
 shut all in, we two draw nearer and know one 
 another. The gathering in of the clouds with 
 the last rush and dying breath of the wind, and 
 then the regular dripping of twigs and leaves 
 the country over, give the impression of inward 
 comfort and sociableness. The drenched stub- 
 ble and trees that drop beads on you as you 
 pass, their dim outline seen through the rain on 
 all sides drooping in sympathy with yourself, 
 these are my undisputed territory, this is na- 
 ture's English comfort. The birds draw closer 
 and are more familiar under the thick foliage, 
 composing new strains on their roosts against 
 the sunshine. 
 
 March, 30, 1841. I find my life growing slov- 
 enly when it does not exercise a constant super- 
 vision over itself. Its deeds accumulate. Next 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 273 
 
 to having lived a day well, is a clear and calm 
 overlooking of all our days. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 Now we are partners in such legal trade, 
 We '11 look to the beginnings, not the ends, 
 Nor to pay-day, knowing true wealth is made 
 For current stock, and not for dividends. 
 
 March 30, 1853. Ah, those youthful days, 
 are they never to return? when the walker 
 does not too enviously observe particulars, but 
 sees, hears, scents, tastes, and feels only him- 
 self, the phenomena that showed themselves in 
 him, his expanding body, his intellect and 
 heart. No worm or insect, quadruped or bird 
 confined his view, but the unbounded universe 
 was his. A bird has now become a mote in his 
 eye. 
 
 Dug into what I take to be a woodchuck's 
 burrow in the low knoll below the cliffs. It 
 was in the side of the hill, and sloped gently 
 downward at first diagonally into the hill about 
 five feet, perhaps westerly, then turned and ran 
 north about three feet, then northwest further 
 into the hill four feet, then north again four 
 feet, then northeast I know not how far, the 
 last five feet, perhaps, ascending. It was the 
 full length of the shovel from the surface of the 
 ground to the bottom of the hole when I left 
 offi owing, perhaps, to the rise of the hill. The 
 
 18 
 
274 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 hole was arched above and flat on the bottom 
 like an oven, o about five inches in diameter 
 at the base. It seemed to have a pretty hard 
 crust as I probed into it. There was a little 
 enlargement, perhaps ten inches in diameter, in 
 the angle at the end of twelve feet. It was thus, 
 r ,«** It was a wonder where the sand was 
 •». conveyed to, for there was not a wheel- 
 
 * ' Entrance. 
 
 barrow load at the entrance. 
 
 March 30, 1854 Eead an interest- 
 ing article on Etienne Geoffroy St. Hilaire, the 
 friend and contemporary of Cuvier, though op- 
 posed to him in his philosophy. He believed 
 species to be variable. In looking for anatomi- 
 cal resemblances he found that he could not 
 safely be guided by function, form, structure, 
 Bize, color, etc., but only by the relative position 
 and mutual dependence of organs. Hence his 
 " Le Principe des Connexions " and his maxim, 
 "An organ is sooner destroyed than trans- 
 posed," " Un organ est plutfit alterd, atropine", 
 ane"anti, que transpose - ." A principal formula 
 of his was, " Unity of Plan, Unity of Composi- 
 tion." " Westminster Review," January, 1854. 
 
 March 30, 1855. .... He must have a 
 great deal of life in him to draw upon, who can 
 pick up a subsistence in November and March. 
 Man comes out of his winter quarters this month 
 as lean as a woodchuck. Not till late could the 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 275 
 
 Bkunk find a place where the ground was thawed 
 on the surface. Except for science do not travel 
 in such a climate as this, in November and 
 March. I tried if a fish would take the bait to- 
 day, but in vain, I did not get a nibble. Where 
 are they ? 
 
 March 30, 1856. P.M. To Walden and 
 Fair Haven. Still cold and blustering. I came 
 out to see the sand and subsoil in the deep cut 
 as I would to see a spring flower, some redness 
 
 on the cheek of earth I go to Fair 
 
 Haven via the Andromeda Swamp. The river 
 is a foot and more in depth there still. There 
 is a little bare ground in and next to the 
 swampy woods at the head of Well Meadow, 
 where the springs and little black rills are flow- 
 ing. I see already one blade, three or four 
 inches long, of that purple or lake grass, lying . 
 flat on some water between snow-clad banks, 
 the first leaf with a rich bloom on it. How si- 
 lent are the footsteps of spring ! There, too, 
 where there is a fraction of the meadow, two 
 rods over, quite bare under the bank, in this 
 warm recess at the head of the meadow, though 
 the rest is covered with snow a foot or more in 
 depth, I was surprised to see the skunk-cabbage, 
 with its great spear-heads, open and ready to 
 blossom, and the Oaltha palustris bud, which 
 »hows yellowish, and the golden saxifrage green 
 
276 EAELT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 and abundant, all surrounded and hemmed in 
 by snow which has covered the ground since 
 Christmas, and stretches as far as you can see 
 on every side. The spring advances in spite of 
 snow and ice and cold even. The ground un- 
 der the snow has loDg since felt the influence of 
 the spring sun whose rays fell at a more favor- 
 able angle. The tufts or tussocks next the 
 edge of the snow were crowned with dense 
 phalanxes of spears of the stiff, triangularish 
 sedge grass five inches high, but quite yellow, 
 with a very slight greenness at the tip, showing 
 that they pushed up through the snow, and, 
 though it had melted, had not yet acquired 
 color. In warm recesses in meadows and clefts, 
 in rocks in the midst of ice and snow, nay, even 
 under the snow, vegetation commences and 
 steadily advances. 
 
 March 30, 1858. P. M. To my boat at Car- 
 dinal Shore and thence to Lee's Cliff 
 
 Landing at Bittern Cliff I went round through 
 the woods to get sight of ducks on the pond. 
 Creeping down through the woods I reached 
 the rocks and saw fifteen or twenty sheldrakes 
 scattered about. The full-plumaged males, con- 
 spicuously black and white, and often swim- 
 ming in pairs, appeared to be the most wary, 
 keeping farthest out. Others, with much less 
 white, and duller black, were very busily fishing 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 277 
 
 just north of the inlet of the pond, where there 
 is about three feet of water, and others still 
 playing and preening themselves. These ducks, 
 whose tame representatives are so sluggish and 
 deliberate in their motions, were full of activ- 
 ity. A party of them fishing and playing is a 
 7ery lively scene. On one side, for instance, you 
 will see eight or ten busily diving and most of 
 the time under water, not rising high when 
 they come up, and soon plunging again. The 
 whole surface will be in commotion, though no 
 ducks are to be seen. I saw one come up with 
 a large fish, whereupon all the rest, as they 
 successively came to the surface, gave chase to 
 it, while it held its prey over the water in its bill. 
 They pursued it with a great rush and clat- 
 ter a dozen or more rods over the surface, mak- 
 ing a great furrow in the water, but there be- 
 ing some trees in the way I could not see the 
 issue. I saw seven or eight all dive together, 
 as with one consent, remaining under, half a 
 minute or more. On another side you see a 
 party which seem to be playing and pluming 
 themselves. They will swim rapidly and dive, 
 and come up and dive again every three or four 
 feet, occasionally one pursuing another, will flut- 
 ter in the water, making it fly, or erect them- 
 selves at full length on the surface like a pen- 
 guin, and flap their wings. This party make an 
 
278 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 incessant noise. Again, you will see some stead- 
 ily tacking this way or that in the middle of the 
 pond, and often they rest there asleep with 
 their heads in their backs. They readily cross 
 the pond, swimming from this side to that. 
 -" March 30, 1859. 6 A. M. To Hill (across 
 water). Hear a red squirrel chirrup at me 
 by the hemlocks. It is all for my benefit, not 
 that he is excited by fear, I think, but so full 
 is he of animal spirits that he makes a great 
 ado about the least event. At first he scratches 
 on the bark very rapidly with his hind feet, 
 without moving the fore feet. He makes so 
 many queer sounds, and so different from one 
 another, that you would think they came from 
 half a dozen creatures. I hear now two sounds 
 from him of a very distinct character, a low or 
 base internal, worming, screwing kind of sound 
 (very like that, by the way, which an anxious 
 partridge mother makes), and at the same time 
 a very sharp and shrill bark, clear, and on a 
 very high key, totally distinct from the last, 
 while his tail is flourishing incessantly. You 
 might say that he successfully accomplished the 
 difficult feat of singing and whistling at the 
 same time. 
 
 p. M. To Walden via Hubbard's Close. 
 .... See on Walden two sheldrakes, male 
 fend female (as is common), so they have for 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 279 
 
 gome time paired. They are a hundred rods 
 off, the male, the larger, with his black head 
 and white breast ; the female with a red head. 
 With my glass I see the long red bills of both. 
 They swim, at first one way near together, 
 then tack and swim the other, looking around 
 incessantly, never quite at their ease, wary and 
 watchful for foes. A man cannot walk down 
 to the shore, or stand out on a hill overlook- 
 ing the pond, without disturbing them. They 
 will have an eye upon him. The locomotive 
 whistle makes every wild duck start that is 
 floating within the limits of the town. I see 
 that these ducks are not here for protection 
 alone, for at last they both dive and remain 
 beneath about forty pulse-beats, and again and 
 again. I think they are looking for fishes. 
 Perhaps, therefore, these divers are more likely 
 to alight in Walden than the black ducks are. 
 Hear the hovering note of a snipe. 
 
 March 31, 1842. I cannot forget the majesty 
 of that bird at the Cliff. It was no sloop or 
 smaller craft hove in sight, but a ship of the 
 line, worthy to struggle with the elements. It 
 was a great presence, as of the master of river 
 and forest. His eye would not have quailed 
 before the owner of the soil, none could chal- 
 lenge his rights. And then his retreat, sailing 
 bo steadily away, was a kind of advance. How 
 
280 EAELT SPRING TS MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 is it that man always feels like an interloper in 
 nature, as if he had intruded on the domains of 
 bird and beast. 
 
 The really efficient laborer -will be found not 
 to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to 
 his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and 
 leisure. There will be a wide margin for re- 
 laxation to his day. He is only earnest to se- 
 cure the kernels of time, and does not exagger- 
 ate the value of the husk. Why should the 
 hen sit all day ? She can lay but one egg, and 
 besides she will not have picked up materials 
 for a new one. Those who work much do not 
 work hard. 
 
 Nothing is so sure as sense. Very uncommon 
 sense is poetry, and has a heroic or sweet music. 
 But in verse, for the most part, the music now 
 runs before and now behind the sense, is not 
 coincident with it. Given the metre, and one 
 will make music while another makes sense. 
 But good verse, like a good soldier, will make 
 its own music, and it will march to the same 
 with one consent. In most verse there is no in- 
 herent music. The man should not march, but 
 
 walk like a citizen Lydgate's " Story 
 
 of Thebes," intended for a Canterbury tale, is 
 a specimen of most unprogressive, unmusical 
 verse. Each line rings the knell of its brother, 
 as if it were introduced but to dispose of him. 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 281 
 
 No mortal man could have breathed to that 
 cadence without long intervals of relaxation. 
 The repetition would have been fatal to the 
 lungs. No doubt there was much healthy ex- 
 ercise taken in the meanwhile. He should forget 
 his rhyme and tell his story, or forget his story 
 and breathe himself. In Shakespeare and else- 
 where the climax may be somewhere along the 
 line which runs as varied and meandering as a 
 country road ; but in Lydgate it is nowhere but 
 in the rhyme. The couplets slope headlong to 
 their confluence. 
 
 March 31, 1852. Intended to get up early 
 this morning and commence a series of spring 
 walks, but clouds and drowsiness prevented. 
 Early, however, I saw the clouds in the west, 
 for my window looks that way, suffused with 
 rosy light, but that flattery is all forgotten now. 
 How can one help being an early riser and 
 walker in that season when the birds begin to 
 twitter and sing in the morning. 
 
 The expedition in search of Sir John Frank- 
 lin, in 1850, landed at Cape Riley, on the north 
 side of Lancaster Sound, and one vessel brought 
 off relics of Franklin, viz., " five pieces of beef, 
 mutton, and pork bones, together with a bit of 
 rope, a small rag of canvas, and a chip of wood 
 cut by an axe." Richardson says, "From a 
 careful examination of the beef bones, I came 
 
882 EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 to the conclusion that they had belonged to 
 pieces of salt beef ordinarily supplied to the 
 navy, and that probably they and the other 
 bones had been exposed to the atmosphere and 
 friction in rivulets of melted snow for four or 
 five summers. The rope was proved by the 
 ropemaker who examined it to have been made 
 at Chatham, of Hungarian hemp, subsequent to 
 1841. The fragment of canvas which seemed to 
 have been part of a boat's swab, had the Queen's 
 broad arrow painted on it, and the chip of wood 
 was of ash, a tree which does not grow on the 
 banks of any river that falls into the Arctic 
 sea. It had, however, been long exposed to the 
 weather, and was likely to have been cut from 
 a piece of drift timber found lying on the spot, 
 as the mark of an axe was recent compared to 
 the surface of the wood, which might have been 
 exposed to the weather for a century." " The 
 grounds of these conclusions were fully stated 
 in a report made to the Admiralty by Sir Ed- 
 ward Parry, myself, and other officers." Is not 
 here an instance of the civilized man's detect- 
 ing the traces of a friend or foe with a skill at 
 least equal to that of the savage ? Indeed it 
 is in both cases but a common sense applied to 
 the objects, and in a manner most familiar to 
 both parties. The skill of the savage is just 
 Buch a science, though referred sometimes to in- 
 stinct. 
 
EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 283 
 
 Perchance, as we grow old, we cease to spring 
 with the spring, we are indifferent to the suc- 
 cession of years, and they go by without epoch 
 as months. Woe be to us when we cease to 
 form new resolutions on the opening of a new 
 year. 
 
 It would be worth while to tell why a swamp 
 pleases us, why a certain kind of weather pleases 
 us, etc., analyze our impressions. Why does the 
 moaning of the storm give me pleasure ? Me- 
 thinks because it puts to rout the trivialness 
 of our fair-weather life, and gives it, at least, a 
 tragic interest. The sound has the effect of a 
 pleasing challenge to call forth our energy to 
 resist the invaders of our life's territory. It is 
 musical and thrilling as the sound of an ene- 
 my's bugle. Our spirits revive like lichens in al 
 storm. There is something worth living for 
 when we are resisted, threatened. As at the 
 last day we might be thrilled with the prospect 
 of the grandeur of our destiny, so in these first 
 days, our destiny appears grander. What would 
 the days, what would our life, be worth, if some 
 nights were not dark as pitch, of darkness tangi- 
 ble, that you can cut with a knife ! How else . 
 could the light in the mind shine ! How should-* 
 We be conscious of the light of reason ? If it 
 were not for physical cold how should we have 
 discovered the warmth of the affections. I some- 
 
284 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 times feel that I need to sit in a far-away cave 
 through a three weeks' storm, cold and wet, to 
 give a tone to my system. The spring has its 
 windy March to usher it in, with many soaking 
 rains reaching into April. 
 
 Methinks I would share every creature's suf- 
 fering for the sake of its experience and joy. 
 The song-sparrow and the transient fox-colored 
 sparrow, have they brought me no message this 
 year? Is not the coming of the fox-colored 
 sparrow something more earnest and significant 
 than I have dreamed of? Have I heard what 
 this tiny passenger has to say while it flits thus 
 from tree to tree ? Can I forgive myself if I let 
 it go to Rupert's Land before I have appreciated 
 it ? God did not make this world in jest, no, 
 nor in indifference. These migratory sparrows 
 all bear messages that concern my life. I do 
 not pluck the fruits in their season. I love the 
 birds and beasts because they are mythologi- 
 cally in earnest. I see that the sparrow cheeps, 
 and flits, and sings adequately to the great de- 
 sign of the universe, that man does not com- 
 • municate with it, understand its language, be- 
 cause he is not at one with nature. I reproach 
 myself because I have regarded with indiffer- 
 ence the passage of the birds, I have thought 
 them no better than I. 
 
 What philosopher can estimate the different 
 values of a waking thought and a dream ? 
 
EARLY SPRING W MASSACHUSETTS. 285 
 
 I hear late to-night the unspeakable rain min- 
 gled with rattling snow against the windows, 
 preparing the ground for spring. 
 
 March 31, 1853. The robins sing at the Tery 
 earliest dawn. I wake with their note ringing 
 
 in my ear. 6 A. M. to Island by boat 
 
 9 A. M. To Lincoln surveying for Mr. Austin. 
 The catkins of the hazel are now trembling in 
 the wind and much lengthened, showing yel- 
 lowish and beginning to shed pollen. Saw and 
 heard sing in a peach orchard my warbling vireo 
 of the morning. It must be the fox-colored 
 sparrow. It is plumper than a bluebird, tail 
 fox-colored, a distinct spot on the breast, no 
 bars visible on wings, beginning with a clear, 
 rich, deliberate note, jingling more rapidly, 
 much like the warbling vireo, at the end. I 
 afterwards heard a fine concert of little song- 
 sters along the edge of the meadow, approached 
 and watched and listened for more than half an 
 hour. There were many little sparrows, diffi- 
 cult to detect, flitting and hopping along, and 
 scratching the ground like hens under the al- 
 ders, willows, and cornels, in a wet leafy place, 
 occasionally alighting and preening themselves. 
 They had bright bay crowns, two rather dis- 
 tinct white bars on wings, an ashy breast and 
 dark tail. These twittered sweetly, in some 
 parts very much like a canary and many to- 
 
286 EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 gether, making the fullest and sweetest concert 
 I have heard yet. Like a shopfull of canaries. 
 About the size of a song-sparrow. I think 
 these are the tree-sparrow. Also mixed with 
 them, and puzzling me to distinguish for a long 
 time, were many of the fox-colored (?) sparrows 
 mentioned above, with a creamy, cinnamon- 
 tinged, ashy breast, cinnamon shoulder-let, and 
 ashy about side-head and throat, with a fox-col- 
 ored tail. A size larger than the others, the 
 spot on breast very marked. Here were evi- 
 dently two birds intimately mixed. Did not 
 Peabody confound them when he mentioned 
 the mark on the breast of the tree-sparrow? 
 The rich strain of the fox-colored sparrow, as I 
 think it, added much to the choir. .The latter, 
 solos, the former, in concert. I kept off a hawk 
 by my presence. They were a long time invis- 
 ible to me except when they flitted past 
 
 Mount Tabor It is affecting to see a 
 
 distant mountain top like the summits of Un- 
 cannunuc, well seen from this hill, whereon you 
 camped for a night in your youth, which you 
 have never revisited, still as blue and ethereal 
 to your eyes as is your memory of it. It lies 
 like an isle in the far heavens, a part of earth 
 unprofaned, which does not bear a price in the 
 market, is not advertised by the real estate 
 broker. 
 
EAKLY SPEING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 287 
 
 March 31, 1854. In criticising your writing, 
 trust your finest instinct. There are many 
 things which we come very near questioning, 
 but do not question.. When I have sent off my 
 manuscripts to the printer, certain objectionable 
 sentences or expressions are sure to obtrude 
 themselves on my attention with force, though 
 I had not consciously suspected them before. 
 My critical instinct then at once breaks the ice 
 and comes to the surface. 
 
 March 31, 1855. I see through the window 
 that it is a very fine day, the first really warm 
 one. I did not know the whole till I came out 
 at 3 P. M. and walked to the Cliffs. The slight 
 haze of yesterday has become very thick, with 
 a southwest wind, concealing the mountains. I 
 can see it in the air within two or three rods as 
 I look against the bushes. The fuzzy gnats are 
 in the air, and bluebirds whose warble is thawed 
 out ; I am uncomfortably warm, gradually un- 
 button both my coats, and wish that I had left 
 the outside one at home. I go listening for the 
 croak of the first frog or peep of a hylodes. It 
 is suddenly warm and this amelioration of the 
 weather is incomparably the most important 
 fact in this vicinity. It is incredible what a 
 revolution in our feelings and in the aspect of 
 nature this warmer air alone has produced. 
 Yesterday the earth was simple to barrenness, 
 
288 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 and dead, bound out. Out of doors there was 
 nothing but the wind and the withered grass, 
 and the cold though sparkling blue water, and 
 you were driven in upon yourself. Now, you 
 would think there was a sudden awakening in 
 the very crust of the earth, as if flowers were 
 expanding and leaves putting forth ; but not so. 
 I listen in vain to hear a frog or a new bird as 
 yet. Only the frozen ground is melting a little 
 deeper, and the water is trickling from the hills 
 in some places. No, the change is mainly in 
 us. We feel as if we had obtained a new lease 
 of life. 
 
 March 31, 1856. I see the scarlet tops of 
 white maples nearly a mile off down the river, 
 the lusty shoots of last year. Those of the red 
 maple do not show thus. I see many little 
 holes in the old and solid snow where leaves 
 have sunk down gradually and perpendicularly 
 eleven or twelve inches, the hole no larger at 
 the top than at the bottom, nay, often partly 
 closed at top by the drifting, and exactly the 
 form and size of the leaf. It is as if the sun 
 had driven this thin shield like a bullet thus 
 deep into the solid snow. 
 
 March 31, 1857. A very pleasant day. Spent 
 a part of it in the garden preparing to set out 
 fruit trees. It is agreeable once more to put a 
 spade into the warm mould. The victory "ii 
 
EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 289 
 
 ours at last, for we remain and take possession 
 of the field. In this climate in which we do 
 not commonly bury our dead in the winter on 
 account of the frozen ground, and find ourselves 
 exposed on a hard, bleak crust, the coming out 
 of the frost and the first turning up of the soil 
 with a spade or plow, is an event of importance. 
 P. M. To Hill. As I ascend the east side of 
 the hill I hear the distant faint peep of the hy- 
 lodes and the tut tut of the croaking frogs from 
 the west. How gradually and imperceptibly the 
 peep of the hylodes mingles with and swells the 
 volume of sound which makes the voice of awak- 
 ening nature ! If you do not listen carefully for 
 its first note you probably will not hear it ; and 
 not having heard that, your ears become used 
 to the sound, so that you will hardly notice it 
 at last, however loud and universal. I hear it 
 now faintly from through and over the bare 
 gray twigs and the sheeny needles of an oak 
 and pine wood, and from over the russet fields 
 beyond. It is so intimately mingled with the 
 murmur or roar of the wind as to be wellnigh 
 inseparable from it. It leaves such a lasting 
 trace on the ear's memory that often I think I 
 hear the peeping when I do not. It is a singu- 
 larly emphatic and ear-piercing proclamation of 
 animal life, when, with a very few and slight 
 exceptions, vegetation is yet dormant. The dry 
 19 
 
290 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 croaking and tut tut of the frogs (a sound which 
 ducks seem to imitate, a kind of quacking, and 
 they are both of the water), is plainly enough 
 down there in some pool in the woods. But 
 the shrill peeping of the hylodes locates itself 
 nowhere in particular. It seems to take its rise 
 at an indefinite distance over wood and hill and 
 pasture, from clefts or hollows, in the March 
 wind. It is not so much of the earth, earthy, 
 as of the air, airy. It rises at once on the wind 
 and is at home there and we are incapable of 
 tracing it farther back. What an important 
 part to us the little peeping hylodes acts, filling 
 all our ears with sound in the spring afternoons 
 and evenings, while the existence of the otter, 
 our largest wild animal, is not betrayed to any 
 of our senses, or at least not to more than one 
 in a thousand. 
 
 An Irishman is digging a ditch for a founda- 
 tion wall of a new shop where James Harris's 
 shop stood. He tells me that he dug up three 
 cannon balls just in the rear of the shop within 
 a foot of each other and about eighteen inches 
 beneath the surface. I saw one of them which 
 was about three and one half inches in diame- 
 ter and somewhat eaten with rust on one side. 
 These were probably thrown into the pond by 
 the British on the 19th of April, 1775. Shat- 
 *uck says that five hundred pounds of balls wen 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 291 
 
 thrown into the pond and wells. These may 
 have been dropped out of the back window. 
 
 March 31, 1858 I see about a dozen 
 
 black ducks on Flint's Pond asleep with their 
 beads on their backs and drifting across the 
 pond before the wind. I suspect that they are 
 nocturnal in their habits and therefore require 
 much rest by day. So do the seasons revolve 
 and every chink is filled. While the waves toss, 
 this bright day, the ducks asleep are drifting 
 before the wind across the ponds. Every now 
 and then one or two lift their heads and look 
 
 about, as if they watched by turns Just 
 
 after sundown I see a large flock of wild geese 
 in a perfect harrow cleaving their way toward 
 the northeast, with Napoleonic tactics splitting 
 the forces of winter. 
 
 March 31, 1860 The small red butterfly 
 
 in the woodpaths and sproutlands, and I hear 
 at mid P. m. a very faint but positive ringing 
 sound rising above the susurrus of the pines, of 
 the breeze, which I think is the note of a distant 
 and perhaps solitary toad, not loud and ringing 
 as it will be. Toward night I hear it more dis- 
 tinctly and am more confident about it. I hear 
 ihis faint first reptilian sound added to the 
 sound of the winds thus, each year a little in ad- 
 vance of the unquestionable note of the toad. 
 Of constant sounds in the warmer parts of warm 
 
292 EARLY SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 days there now begins to be added to the rust- 
 ling or washing water-fall like sound of the 
 wind, this faintest imaginable prelude of the 
 toad. I often draw my companion's attention 
 to it, and he fails to hear it at all, it is so slight 
 a departure from the previous monotony of 
 March. This morning you walked in the warm 
 sproutland, the strong but warm southwest 
 wind blowing, and you heard no sound but the 
 dry and mechanical susurrus of the wood ; now 
 there is mingled with or added to it, to be de- 
 tected only by the sharpest ears, this first and 
 faintest imaginable voice. I heard this under 
 Mount Misery. Probably the toads come forth 
 earlier under the warm slopes of that hill. . . . 
 At evening I hear the first real robin's song. 
 
 April 5, 1841. This long series of desultory 
 mornings does not tarnish the brightness of the 
 prospective days. Surely faith is not dead. 
 Wood, water, earth, air are essentially what 
 they are. Only society has degenerated. This 
 lament for a golden age is only a lament for 
 golden men. 
 
 April 5, 1854. This morning heard a famil- 
 iar twittering over the house, looked up and saw 
 white-bellied swallows. Another saw tbem 
 yesterday. Surveying all day. In Carlisle. 
 I have taken off my outside coat, perhaps for 
 the first time, and hung it on a tree. The 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 293 
 
 Eephyr is positively agreeable on my cheek. 
 I am thinking what an elysian day it is, and 
 how I seem always to be keeping the flocks of 
 Admetus such days, that is my luck, when I 
 hear a single short stertorous croak from some 
 pool half-filled with dry leaves. You may see 
 anything now, the buff-edged butterfly and 
 many hawks along the meadow, and hark I 
 while I was writing down that field note, the 
 shrill peep of the hylodes was borne to me from 
 afar through the woods. 
 
 I rode with my employer a dozen miles to- 
 day, keeping a profound silence almost all the 
 way, as the most simple and natural course. I 
 treated him simply as if he had bronchitis and 
 could not speak, just as I would a sick man, a 
 crazy man, or an idiot. The disease was only 
 an unconquerable stiffness in a well-meaning 
 and sensible man. 
 
 Begin to look off the hills and see the land- 
 scape again through a slight haze, with warm 
 wind on the cheek. 
 
 April 5, 1855. 9 A. M. To Sudbury line by 
 
 boat It is a smooth April morning water, 
 
 and many sportsmen are out in their boats. I 
 see a pleasure boat on the smooth surface away 
 by the Rock, resting lightly as a feather in the 
 air. Scare up a snipe close to the water's edge, 
 and soon after a hen-hawk from the Clam-shell 
 
294 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 oaks. The last looks larger on his perch than 
 flying. The snipe, too, then, like crows, robins, 
 black-birds, and hens, is found near the water- 
 side where is the first spring (alders, white ma- 
 ples, etc., etc.), and there, too, especially, are 
 heard the song- and tree-sparrows and pewees, 
 and even the hen-hawk, at this season, haunts 
 these for his prey. Inland, the groves are al- 
 most completely silent as yet. The concert of 
 song- and tree-sparrows at Willow Row is now 
 very full, and their different notes are com- 
 pletely mingled. See a single white-bellied 
 swallow dashing over the river. He, too, is at- 
 tracted by the early insects that begin to be 
 seen over the water. It being Fast Day, we on 
 the water hear the loud and musical sound of 
 bells ringing for -church in the surrounding 
 towns. 
 
 April 6, 1853. 6 A. M. To Cliffs. The robin 
 is the singer at present, such is its power and 
 universality, being heard both in garden and 
 wood. Morning and evening he does not fail, 
 perched on some elm or the like, and in rainy 
 days it is one long morning or evening. The 
 song-sparrow is still more universal, but not so 
 powerful. The lark, too, is equally constant 
 morning and evening, but confined to certain 
 localities, as is the blackbird to some extent. 
 The bluebird with feebler, but not less sweet, 
 
EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 295 
 
 warbling, helps fill the air, and the phebe does 
 her part. The tree-sparrow, Fringilla hiemalis, 
 and fox-colored sparrows make the meadow- 
 sides or gardens where they are flitting, vocal, 
 the first with its canary-like twittering, the sec- 
 ond, with its lively ringing trills or jingle. 
 ■ The third is a very sweet and more powerful 
 singer, which would be memorable if we heard 
 him long enough. The woodpecker's tapping, 
 though not musical, suggests pleasant associa- 
 tions in the cool morning, is inspiriting, enliv- 
 ening. I hear no hylas nor croakers in the 
 morning. Is it too cool for them ? The gray 
 branches of the oaks, which have lost still more 
 of their leaves, seen against the pines when the 
 sun is rising and falling on them, how rich and 
 interesting! Hear the faint, swelling, far-off 
 beat of a partridge. 
 
 p. M. To Second Division Brook All 
 
 along on the south side of this hill, on the edge 
 of the meadow, the air resounds with the hum 
 of honey bees, attracted by the flower of the 
 skunk-cabbage. I first heard the fine, peculiarly 
 sharp hum of the honey bee before I thought 
 of them. Some hummed hollowly within the 
 spathe, perchance to give notice to their fellows 
 that the plant was occupied, for they repeatedly 
 looked in and backed out on finding another. 
 It was surprising to see them directed by their 
 
296 EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 instincts to these localities, while the earth has 
 still but a wintry aspect, so far as vegetation is 
 concerned, buzz around some obscure spathe 
 close to the ground, well knowing what they are 
 about, then alight and enter. As the plants 
 were very numerous for thirty or forty rods, 
 there must have been some hundreds, at least, of 
 bees there at once. I watched many when they 
 entered and came out, and they all had little 
 yellow pellets of pollen at their thighs. As the 
 skunk-cabbage comes out before the willow, it 
 is probable that the former is the first flower 
 they visit. It is the more surprising, as the 
 flower is, for the most part, invisible within the 
 spathe. Some of these spathes are now quite 
 large and twisted up like cows' horns, not 
 curved over, as usual. Commonly they make 
 a pretty little crypt or shrine for the flower. 
 Lucky that this flower does not flavor their 
 honey. 
 
 One cowslip, though it shows the yellow, is 
 not fairly out, but will be by to-morrow. How 
 they improve their time. Not a moment of 
 sunshine is lost. One thing I may depend on, 
 there has been no idling with the flowers. Na- 
 ture loses not a moment, takes no vacation. 
 They advance as steadily as a clock. These 
 plants, now protected by the water, are just 
 peeping forth. I should not be surprised to find 
 that they drew in their heads in a frosty night. 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 297 
 
 Returning. Saw a pigeon woodpecker flash 
 away, showing the rich golden underside of its 
 glancing wings and the large whitish spot on 
 its back, and presently I heard its familiar, 
 long-repeated, loud note, almost as familiar as 
 that of a barn-door fowl, which it somewhat re- 
 sembles. The robins, too, now toward sunset, 
 perched on the old apple trees in Tarbel's or- 
 chard, twirl forth their evening lays unwea- 
 
 riedly To-night, for the first time, I 
 
 hear the hylas in full blast. 
 
 April 6, 1854. A still warmer day than yes- 
 terday, a warm, moist, rain-smelling, west wind. 
 I- am surprised to find so much of the white 
 maples already out. The light-colored stamens 
 show some rods. Probably they began as early 
 as day before yesterday. They resound with 
 the hum of honey bees heard a dozen rods off, 
 and you see thousands of them about the flow- 
 ers against the sky. They know where to look 
 for the white maple and when. Their susurrus 
 carries me forward some months toward sum- 
 mer. I was reminded before of those still, 
 warm, summer noons when the breams' nests are 
 left dry, and the fishes retreat from the shal- 
 lows into the cooler depths, and the cows stand 
 up to their bellies in the rivers The al- 
 ders, both kinds, just above the hemlocks, have 
 just begun to shed their pollen. They are 
 
298 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 hardly as forward as the white maples, but 
 they are not in so warm a position as some. 
 .... In clearing out the Assabet spring, dis- 
 turbed two small speckled (palustris) frogs, 
 
 just beginning to move Heard the snipe 
 
 over the meadows this evening. Probably was 
 to be heard for a night or two. Sounds on 
 different keys, as if approaching or receding 
 over the meadows recently become bare. 
 
 April 6, 1855 I go up the Assabet in 
 
 my boat. The blackbirds have now begun to 
 frequent the water's edge in the meadow, the 
 ice being sufficiently out. The aspect of April 
 waters, smooth and commonly high, before many 
 flowers (none yet), or any leafing, while the 
 landscape is still russet, and frogs are just awak- 
 ening, is peculiar. It began yesterday. A very 
 few white-maple stamens stand out already 
 loosely enough to blow in the wind, and some 
 alder catkins look almost ready to shed pollen. 
 On the hillsides I smell the dried leaves, and 
 hear a few flies buzzing over them. The banks 
 of the river are alive with song-sparrows and 
 tree-sparrows. They now sing in advance of 
 vegetation, as the flowers will blossom. Those 
 slight tinkling, twittering sounds, called the 
 singing of birds, they have come to enliven the 
 bare twigs before the buds show any signs of 
 starting, i . . . You can hear all day, from time 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 299 
 
 to time, in any part of the village, the sound of 
 a gun fired at ducks. Yesterday I was wishing 
 that I could find a dead duck floating in the 
 water, as I had found musk-rats and a hare, and 
 now I see something bright and reflecting the 
 light from the edge of the alders five or six rods 
 off. Can it be a duck ? I can hardly believe 
 my eyes. I am near enough to see its green 
 head and neck. I am delighted to find a per- 
 fect specimen of the Mergus, merganser, or 
 goosander, undoubtedly shot yesterday by the 
 Fast Day sportsmen. I take a small flattened 
 shot from its wing, flattened against the wing- 
 bone, apparently. The wing is broken, and it 
 is shot through the head. It is a perfectly 
 fresh and very beautiful bird. As I raise it, I 
 get sight of its long, slender vermilion bill (color 
 of red sealing-wax), and its clean, bright orange 
 legs and feet, and then of its perfectly smooth 
 and spotlessly pure white breast and belly, 
 tinged with a faint salmon, or a delicate buff 
 
 inclining to salmon I afterwards took 
 
 three small shot from it which were flattened 
 against the bill's base and perhaps the quills' 
 shafts. This, according to Wilson, is one of 
 the mergansers or fisher-ducks, of which there 
 are nine or ten species, and we have four in 
 America. It is the largest of these four, .... 
 called water pheasant, sheldrake, fisherman 
 
800 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 diver, etc., as well as goosander. .... My 
 bird is twenty-five and seven eighths inches 
 long and thirty-five in alar extent. From point 
 of wing to end of primaries, eleven inches. It 
 is a great diver, and does not mind the cold. 
 It appears admirably adapted for diving and 
 swimming. Its body is flat, and its tail short, 
 flat, compact and wedge-shaped. Its eyes peer 
 out from a slight slit or semicircle in the skin 
 of the head, and its legs are flat and thin in 
 one direction, and the toes shut up compactly 
 so as to create the least friction when drawing 
 them forward, but their broad webs spread three 
 inches and a half when they take a stroke. 
 The web is extended three eighths of an inch 
 beyond the inner toe of each foot. There are 
 very conspicuous black teeth, like serrations, 
 along the edges of its bill, and this also is 
 roughened so that it may hold its prey securely. 
 The breast appeared quite dry when I raised it 
 from the water. The head and neck are, as 
 Wilson says, black, glossed with green, but the 
 lower part of the neck pure white, and these 
 colors bound on each other so abruptly that one 
 appears to be sewed on to the other. It is a 
 perfect wedge from the middle of its body to 
 the end of its tail, is only three and one fourth 
 inches deep from back to breast at the thickest 
 part, while the greatest breadth horizontally 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 301 
 
 (at the base of the legs) is five inches and a 
 half. I suspect that I have seen near one hun- 
 dred of these birds this spring, but I never got 
 
 so near one before Yarrell says it is the 
 
 largest of the British mergansers, is a winter 
 visitor, though a few breed in the north of Brit- 
 ain ; are rare in the southern counties. 
 
 April 7, 1839. The tediousness and detail 
 of execution never occur to the genius project- 
 ing ; it always antedates the completion of its 
 work. It condescends to give time a few hours 
 to do its bidding in. 
 
 Most have sufficient contempt for what is 
 mean to resolve that they will abstain from it, 
 and a few, virtue enough to abide by their res- 
 olution, but not often does one attain to such 
 lofty contempt as to require no resolution to be 
 made. 
 
 April 7, 1841. My life will wait for nobody, 
 but is being matured still irresistibly while I go 
 about the streets, and chaffer with this man 
 and that to secure it a living. It will cut its 
 own channel, like the mountain stream, which, 
 by the longest ridges and by level prairies, is 
 not kept from the sea finally. So flows a man's 
 life, and will reach the sea water, if not by an 
 earthly channel, yet in dew and rain, overleap- 
 ing all barriers, with rainbows to announce its 
 victory. It can wind as cunningly and uner- 
 
302 EABLY SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 ringly as water that seeks its level, and shall I 
 complain if the gods make it meander? This 
 staying to buy me a farm is as if the Missis- 
 sippi should stop to chaffer with a clam-shell. 
 
 If from your price ye will not swerve, 
 Why then I '11 think the gods reserve 
 A greater bargain there above, 
 Ont of their superabundant love 
 Have meantime better for me cared, 
 And so will get my stock prepared, 
 And sow my seed broadcast in air, 
 Certain to reap my harvest there. 
 
 April 7, 1853. 10 A. M. Down the river 
 
 in boat to Bedford How handsome the 
 
 river from those hills, southwest over the Great 
 Meadows, a sheet of sparkling, molten silver, 
 with broad lagoons parted from it by curving 
 lines of low bushes, to the right or northward 
 now at 2 or 3 P. M., a dark blue, with small, 
 smooth, light edgings, firm plating, under the 
 
 lee of the shore As we stand on Naw- 
 
 Bhawtuck at 5 P. M., looking over the meadows, 
 I doubt if there is a town more adorned by its 
 river than ours. Now, while the sun is low in 
 the west, the northeasterly water is of a pecul- 
 iarly ethereal, light blue, more beautiful than 
 the sky, and this broad water, with innumerable 
 bays and inlets running up into the land on 
 either side, and often divided by bridges and 
 causeways, as if it were the very essence and 
 
EABLT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 303 
 
 richness of the heavens distilled and poured 
 upon the earth, contrasting with the clear rus- 
 set land and the paler sky from which it has 
 been subtracted, nothing can be more elysian. 
 Is not the blue more ethereal when the sun is 
 at this angle ? The river is but a long chain of 
 flooded meadows. I think our most distant, ex- 
 tensive low horizon must be that northeast from 
 this hill over Ball's Hill. It is down the river 
 valley partly, at least, toward the Merrimack, 
 as it should be. 
 
 April 7, 1854. 6 A. M. Down railroad to 
 Cliffs. The Populus tremuloides in a day or 
 two. The hazel stigmas are well out and the 
 catkins loose, but no pollen shed yet. On the 
 Cliff I find after long and careful search one 
 sedge above the rocks low amid the withered 
 blades of last year, out, its little yellow beard 
 amid the' dry blades and a few green ones, the 
 first herbaceous flowering I have detected. Fair 
 Haven is completely open. 
 
 April 7, 1855. At six this morning to Clam- 
 shell See thirty or forty goldfinches in 
 
 a dashing flock, in all respects, notes and all, 
 
 like lesser red-polls On the trees and on 
 
 the railroad bank there is a general twittering 
 and an occasional mew. Then they alight on 
 the ground to feed, along with the Fringilla 
 hiemalis and fox-colcred sparrows. They are 
 
304 EABLY SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 merely olivaceous above, dark about the base of 
 the bill, but bright lemon-yellow in a semicir- 
 cle on the breast, black wings and tail, with 
 white bar on wings and white vanes to tail. I 
 never saw them here so early before, or probably 
 one or two olivaceous birds I have seen and 
 heard of in other years were this. 
 
 April 7, 1860. The purple finch (if not be- 
 fore). This is therana halecina day, awakening 
 of the meadows, though not very warm. The 
 thermometer in Boston is said to be 49°-f-. Prob- 
 ably, then, when it is about 50°+ at this sea- 
 son, the river being low, they are to be heard 
 in calm places. Fishes now lie up abundantly 
 in shallow water in the sun ; pickerel, and I see 
 several bream. What was lately motionless 
 and lifeless ice is a transparent liquid in which 
 the stately pickerel moves along. A novel sight 
 is that of the first bream that has come forth 
 from I know hot what hibernaculum, moving 
 gently over the still, brown river bottom where 
 scarcely a weed has started. Water is as yet 
 only melted ice, or like that of November, which 
 is ready to become ice. 
 
 April 8, 1840. How shall I help myself ? 
 By withdrawing into the garret and associating 
 with spiders and mice, determining to meet my- 
 self face to face sooner or later ? Completely 
 silent and attentive I will be this hour and the 
 
EARLY SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 305 
 
 next and forever. The most positive life that 
 history notices has heen a constant retiring out 
 of life, a wiping one's hands of it, seeing how 
 mean it is, and having nothing to do with it. 
 
 April 8, 1841. Friends are the ancient and 
 honorable of the earth. The oldest men did 
 not begin friendship. It is older than Hindo- 
 stan and the Chinese Empire. How long has it 
 been cultivated, and still it is the staple article. 
 It is a divine league struck forever. Warm 
 days only bring it out to the surface. There is 
 a friendliness between the sun and the earth in 
 pleasant weather. The gray content of the 
 land is its color. 
 
 You can tell what another's suspicions are 
 by what you feel forced to become. You will 
 wear a new character, like a strange habit, in 
 his presence. 
 
 April 8, 1852 I notice the alder in 
 
 blossom, its reddish-brown catkins now length- 
 ened and loose. What mean the apparently 
 younger small red (catkins ?) ? They are the 
 female aments. 
 
 April 8, 1853 Saw and heard my 
 
 small pine warbler shaking out his trills or jin- 
 gle, even like money coming to its bearing. 
 They appear so much the smaller from perch- 
 ing high in the tops of white pines, and flitting 
 from tree to tree at that height. Is not my 
 so 
 
806 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 night warbler the white-eyed vireo? not yet 
 here. 
 
 April 8, 1854 At Nut Meadow Brook, 
 
 saw or rather heard a musk-rat plunge into the 
 brook before me, and saw him endeavoring in 
 vain to bury himself in the sandy bottom, look- 
 ing like an amphibious animal. I stooped and 
 taking him by the tail, which projected, tossed 
 him ashore. He did not lose the points of the 
 compass, but turned directly to the brook again, 
 though it was toward me, and plunging in 
 buried himself in the mud, and that was the 
 last I saw of him. Saw a large bird sail along 
 over the edge of Wheeler's cranberry meadow 
 just below Fair Haven, which I at first thought 
 a gull. But with my glass I found it appeared 
 like a hawk and had a perfectly white head and 
 tail, and broad black or blackish wings. It 
 sailed and circled along over the low cliff and 
 the crows dived at it in the field of my glass. 
 I saw it well both above and beneath as it 
 turned, and then it passed off to hover over the 
 cliffs at a greater height. It was undoubtedly 
 a white-headed eagle, though to the eye it was 
 but a large hawk. 
 
 I find that I can criticise my composition best 
 v hen I stand at a little distance from it, when 
 I do not see it, for instance. I make a little 
 chapter of contents which enables me to recall 
 
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 307 
 
 it page by page to my mind and judge it more 
 impartially when my manuscript is out of the 
 way. The distraction of surveying enables me 
 rapidly to take new points of view. A day or 
 two of surveying is equal to a journey. 
 
 Some poets mature early and die young. 
 Their fruits have a delicious flavor like straw- 
 berries, but do not keep till fall or winter. 
 Others are slower in coming to their growth. 
 Their fruits may be less delicious, but are a 
 more lasting food, and are so hardened by the 
 sun of summer and the coolness of autumn that 
 they keep sound over winter. 
 
 April 8, 1859. As I stood by the foot of a 
 middling-sized white pine the other day, on 
 Fair Haven hill, one of the very windy days, I 
 felt the ground rise and fall under my feet, be- 
 ing lifted by the roots of the pine, which was 
 waving in the wind, so loosely are they planted. 
 .... What a pitiful business is the fur trade, 
 which has been pursued now for so many ages, 
 for so many years, by famous companies, which 
 enjoy a profitable monopoly, and control a large 
 part of the earth's surface. Unweariedly they 
 pursue and ferret out small animals by the aid 
 of all the loafing class, tempted by rum and 
 money, that they may rob some little fellow- 
 creature of its coat to adorn or thicken their 
 own, that they may get a fashionable covering 
 
808 EARLY SPKING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 in which to hide their heads, or a suitable robe 
 in which to dispense justice to their fellow-men ! 
 Regarded from the philosopher's point of view 
 it is precisely on a level with rag and bone 
 picking in the streets of cities. The Indian led 
 a more respectable life before he was tempted 
 to debase himself so much by the white man. 
 Think how many musquash and weasel skins 
 the Hudson's Bay Company pile up annually 
 in their warehouses, leaving the bare red car- 
 casses on the banks of the streams throughout 
 all British America, and this it is chiefly which 
 makes it British America. It is the place 
 where Great Britain goes a-mousing. When 
 we see men and boys spend their time shooting 
 and trapping musquash and mink, we cannot 
 but have a poorer opinion of them, unless we 
 thought meanly of them before. Yet the world 
 is imposed on by the fame of the Hudson Bay 
 and Northwest Fur Companies, who are only so 
 many partners, more or less, in the same sort 
 of business, with thousands of just such loafing 
 men and boys in their service to abet them. On 
 the one side is the Hudson Bay Company, on 
 the other the company of scavengers who clear 
 the sewers of Paris of their vermin. There is 
 a good excuse for smoking out or poisoning rats 
 which infest the house, but when they are as 
 far off as Hudson's Bay, I think that we had bet- 
 
EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 809 
 
 ter let them alone. To such an extent do time 
 and distance, and our imaginations, consecrate 
 at last not only the most ordinary, but even 
 the vilest pursuits. The efforts of legislation 
 from time to time to stem the torrent are sig- 
 nificant, as showing that there is some sense and 
 conscience left, but they are insignificant in 
 their effects 
 
 It will not do to be thoughtless with regard 
 to any of our valuables or property. When 
 you get to Europe you will meet the most ten- 
 der-hearted and delicately-bred lady, perhaps 
 the President of the Anti-Slavery Society, or of 
 that for the encouragement of humanity to ani- 
 mals, marching or presiding with the scales 
 from a tortoise's back, obtained by laying live 
 coals on it to make them curl up, stuck in her 
 hair, rat-skins fitting as close to her fingers 
 as erst to the rats ; and her cloak, perchance, 
 adorned with the spoils of a hundred skunks. 
 Could she not wear other armor in the war of 
 humanity ? 
 
 Cold as it is, and has been for several weeks, 
 in all exposed places, I find it unexpectedly 
 warm in perfectly sheltered places where the 
 Bun shines, and so it always is in April. The 
 cold wind from the northwest seems distinct 
 and separable from the air here warmed by the 
 sun, and when I sit in some warm and sheltered 
 
810 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 hollow in the woods, I feel the cold currents 
 drop into it occasionally, just as they are seen 
 to ripple a small lake in such a situation from 
 time to time. 
 
 The epigcea is not quite out. The earliest 
 peculiarly woodland herbaceous flowers are epi- 
 gcea, anemone, thalictrum, and (by the first of 
 May) viola pedata. These grow quite in the 
 woods amid dry leaves, nor do they depend so 
 much on water as the very earliest flowers. I 
 am perhaps more surprised by the growth of the 
 viola pedata leaves by the side of paths amid 
 the shrub oaks, and half covered with oak 
 leaves, than by any other growth, the situation 
 is so dry and the surrounding bushes so appar- 
 ently lifeless. 
 
 April 9, 1841. The brave man does not mind 
 the call of the trumpet, nor hear the idle clash- 
 ing of swords without, for the infinite din 
 within. War is but a training compared with 
 the active service of his peace. Is he not at 
 war ? Does he not resist the ocean swell within 
 him, and walk as gently as the summer's sea ? 
 Would you have him parade in uniform and 
 manoeuver men, whose equanimity is his uni- 
 form, and who is himself manoeuvered? 
 
 April 9, 1853. P. M. To Second Division. 
 The chipping sparrow, with its ashy white 
 breast, white streak over eye, and undivided 
 
EABLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 311 
 
 chestnut crown, holds up its head and pours 
 
 forth its che che che che che che Saw a 
 
 pine warbler, by ventriloquism sounding further 
 off than it was, which was seven or eight feet, 
 hopping and flitting from twig to twig, appar- 
 ently picking the small flies at and about the 
 base of the needles at the extremities of the 
 
 twigs A warm and hazy, but breezy, 
 
 day. The sound of the laborers striking the 
 iron nails of the railroad with their sledges is 
 as in the sultry days of summer, — resounds, 
 as it were, from the hazy sky as from a roof, a 
 more confined, and in that sense more domestic, 
 sound echoing along between the earth and the 
 low heavens. The same strokes would produce 
 a very different sound in the winter Be- 
 yond the desert, hear the hooting owl whieh, as 
 formerly, I at first mistook for the hounding 
 of dog, a squealing sound followed by hoo hoo 
 hoo deliberately, and particularly sonorous and 
 ringing. This at 2 P. if. ... . 
 
 The cowslips are well out, the first conspicu- 
 ous herbaceous flower, for that of the skunk's- 
 cabbage is concealed in its spathe. 
 
 April 9, 1855. 5i A. M. To red bridge just 
 
 before sunrise Hear the coarse, rasping 
 
 cluck or chatter of crow blackbirds, and distin- 
 guished their long, broad tails. "Wilson says 
 that the only note of the rusty grackle is a 
 
312 EAELT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 cluck, though he is told that at Hudson's Bay 
 at the breeding time they sing with a fine note. 
 Here they utter not only a cluck, but a fine 
 shrill whistle. They coyer the top of a tree 
 now, and their concert is of this character. 
 They all seem laboring together to get out a 
 clear strain, as it were wetting their whistles 
 against their arrival at Hudson's Bay. They 
 begin, as it were, by disgorging or spitting it 
 out like so much tow, from a full throat, and 
 conclude with a clear, fine, shrill, ear-piercing 
 whistle. Then away they go all chattering to- 
 gether. 
 
 April 9, 1858 I doubt if men do ever 
 
 simply and naturally glorify God in the ordi- 
 nary sense, but it is remarkable how sincerely 
 in all ages they glorify nature. The praising 
 of Aurora, for instance, under some form in all 
 ages is obedience to as irresistible an instinct as 
 that which impels the frogs to peep. 
 
 April 9, 1859. P. M We go seeking 
 
 the south sides of hills and woods, or deep hol- 
 lows to walk in, this cold and blustering day. 
 We sit by the side of little Goose Pond to 
 watch the ripples on it. Now it is merely 
 smooth, and then there drops down upon it, 
 deep as it lies amid the hills, a sharp and nar- 
 tow blast of the icy north wind careering above, 
 striking it perhaps by a point or an edge, and 
 
EARLY SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 313 
 
 swiftly spreading along it, making a dark blue 
 tipple. "Now four or five windy bolts, sharp 
 or blunt, strike it at once and spread different 
 ways. The boisterous but playful north wind 
 evidently stoops from a considerable height to 
 dally with this fair pool which it discerns be- 
 neath. You could ait there and watch these 
 blue shadows playing over the surface like 
 light and shade on changeable silk, for hours. 
 It reminds me, too, of swift Camilla on a field 
 of grain. The wind often touches the water 
 only by the finest points or edges. It is thus 
 when you look in some measure from the sun, 
 but if you move round so as to come more 
 nearly opposite to him, then these dark blue 
 ripples are all sparkles too bright to look at, for 
 now you see the sides of the wavelets which re- 
 flect the sun to you Watching the rip- 
 ples fall and dart across the surface of low lying 
 and small woodland lakes is one of the amuse- 
 ments of these windy March and April days. 
 It is only on small lakes deep sunk in hollows 
 in the woods that you can see or study them 
 these days, for the winds sweep over the whole 
 breadth of larger lakes incessantly, but they 
 only touch these sheltered lakelets by fine 
 points and edges from time to time. 
 
 And then there is such a fiddling in the 
 woods, such a viol creaking of bough on bough 
 
314 EAKLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 that you would think music was being born 
 again as in the days of Orpheus. Orpheus and 
 Apollo are certainly there taking lessons ; aye, 
 and the jay and the blackbird, too, learn now 
 where they stole their " thunder." They are, 
 perforce, silent, meditating new strains. 
 
 When the playful breeze drops on the pool, 
 it springs to right and left quick as a kitten 
 playing with dead leaves, clapping her paw 
 
 on them These ripple lakes lie now in 
 
 the midst of mostly bare brown or tawny dry 
 woodlands, themselves the most living objects. 
 They may say to the first woodland flowers, We 
 played with the north winds here before you 
 were born. 
 
 April 10, 1841. How much virtue there is in 
 Bimply seeing. We may almost say that the 
 hero has striven in vain for his preeminency, if 
 the student oversees him. The woman who 
 sits in the house and sees is a match for a stir- 
 ring captain. Those still piercing eyes, as faith- 
 fully exercised as their talent, will keep her 
 even with Alexander or Shakespeare. They 
 may go to Asia with parade, or to fairyland, 
 but not beyond her ray. We are as much as 
 we see. Faith is sight and knowledge. The 
 hands only serve the eyes. The farthest blue 
 utreak in the horizon I can see, I may reach be- 
 fore many sunsets. What I saw alters not. In 
 
EAELT SPBING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 315 
 
 my night when I wander, it is still steadfast as 
 the star which the sailor steers by. Whoever 
 has had one thought quite lonely, and could con- 
 tentedly digest that, knowing that none could 
 accept it, may rise to the heights of humanity 
 and overlook all living men as from a pinnacle. 
 Speech never made man master of men, but the 
 eloquently refraining from it. 
 
 April 10, 1853 The saxifrage is be- 
 ginning to be abundant, elevating its flowers 
 somewhat, pure trustful white amid its pretty 
 notched and reddish cup of leaves. The white 
 saxifrage is a response from earth to the in- 
 creased light of' the year, the yellow crowfoot, 
 to the increased heat of the sun 
 
 When the farmer cleans out his ditches, I 
 mourn the loss of many a flower which he calls 
 a weed. The main charm about the lower road, 
 just beyond the bridge, to me has been in the 
 little grove of locusts, sallows, birches, etc., 
 which has sprung up on the bank as you rise the 
 hill. Yesterday I saw a man who is building a 
 house near by cutting them down. Finding he 
 was going to cut them all, I said if I were in 
 his place 1 would not have them cut for a hun- 
 dred dollars. " Why," said he, " they are noth- 
 ing but a parcel of prickly bushes and are not 
 worth anything. I 'm going to build a new 
 (rail here." And so to ornament the approach 
 
316 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 to his house he substituted a bare ugly wall for 
 an interesting grove. 
 
 April 10, 1854. April rain. How sure a 
 rain is to bring the tree-sparrows into the yard, 
 to sing sweetly, canary-like. 
 
 I bought me a spy-glass some weeks since. I 
 buy but few things, and those not till long after 
 I begin to want them, so that when I do get 
 them I am prepared to make a perfect use of 
 them and extract their whole sweetness. 
 
 April 11, 1841. A greater baldness my life 
 seeks, as the crest of some bare hill, which 
 towns and cities do not afford. I want a di- 
 recter relation with the sun. 
 
 April 11, 1852 The sight of Nut 
 
 Meadow Brook in Brown's land reminds me 
 that the attractiveness of a brook depends much 
 on the character of its bottom. I love just now 
 to see one flowing through soft sand like this 
 where it wears a deep but irregular channel, 
 now wider and shallower with distinct ripple 
 marks, now shelving off suddenly to indistinct 
 depths, meandering as well up and down as 
 from side to side, deepest where narrowest, and 
 ever gullying under this bank or that, its bot- 
 tom lifted up to one side or the other, the cur- 
 rent inclining to one side. I stop to look at the 
 circular shadows of the dimples, over the yellow 
 Band, and the dark brown clams on their edge* 
 
EAELY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 317 
 
 in the sand at the bottom. [I hear the sound 
 of the piano below as I ■write this and feel as if 
 the winter in me were at length beginning to 
 thaw, for my spring has been even more back- 
 ward than nature's. For. a month past life has 
 been a thing incredible to me. None but the 
 kind gods can make me sane. If only they will 
 let their south winds blow on me. I ask to be 
 melted. You can only ask of the metals that 
 they be tender to the fire that melts them. To 
 nought else can they be tender.] 
 
 The sweet flags are now starting up under 
 water two inches high, and minnows dart. 
 
 A pure brook is a very beautiful object to 
 study minutely. It will bear the closest inspec- 
 tion, even to the fine air-bubbles, like minute 
 globules of quicksilver, that lie on its bottom. 
 The minute particles or spangles of golden mica 
 in these sands, when the sun shines on them, re- 
 mind one of the golden sands we read of. Ev- 
 erything is washed clean and bright, and the 
 water is the best glass through which to see 
 it 
 
 If I am too cold for human friendship, I trust 
 I shall not soon be too cold for natural influ- 
 ences. It appears to be a law that you cannot 
 have a deep sympathy with both man and nat- 
 ure. Those qualities which bring you near to 
 the one estrange you from the other 
 
318 EAELT SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Every man will be a poet if he can, otherwise 
 a philosopher or man of science. This proves 
 the superiority of the poet. 
 
 It is hard for a man to take money from his 
 friends for any service. This suggests how all 
 men should be related. 
 
 Ah ! when a man has traveled, and robbed 
 the horizon of his native fields of its mystery 
 and poetry, its indefinite promise, tarnished the 
 blue of distant mountains with his feet, when 
 he has done this, he may begin to think of an- 
 other world. What is this longer to him ? . . . . 
 
 At what an expense any valuable work is 
 performed ! at the expense of a life I If you 
 do one thing well, what else are you good for 
 meanwhile ? 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Aimer Butfcriek'e mil, 20, 66, 124. 
 
 Actions, 189. 
 
 Agamemnon, 46. 
 
 Age, advancing, 2, 283. 
 
 Agriculture, 36. 
 
 Air, 37, 270. 
 
 Alauda ulpestris (shore lark), 227. 
 
 Alders, 213, 297, 305. 
 
 Algte, 188. 
 
 Alternation, 130. 
 
 Amusement, 13. 
 
 Anacreon, 1, 171. 
 
 Andromeda, panicled, 6. 
 
 Andromeda Ponds, 96. 
 
 Anemone, 310. 
 
 Animals, the larger and wilder, 215 ; 
 
 unworthily described from dead 
 
 specimens, 203. 
 Anursnack, 79. 
 
 April, rain, 316 ; waters, 298 ; 309. 
 Arborescence, of plants, 119. 
 Argument, 56. 
 Arrow-heads, 39, 132, 255. 
 Artist, the, 230. 
 Arvida Emmonsii (Mas Leucopus), 
 
 130. 
 Aspen, 21. 
 
 Assabet river, 232, 248, 298. 
 Assabet spring, 298. 
 Aster undulatus, 89. 
 Awakening, a true, 200. 
 
 Ball's mil, 124, 153, 154. 
 
 Barberry, 5. 
 
 Bear, 104. 
 
 Beeches, the, 63. 
 
 Bees, 165, 194. 
 
 Being, the explainer, 9. 
 
 Ben Jongon, 55. 
 
 Birches, their seed, 40. 
 
 Birds, of the winter, 31 ; 112. 
 
 Bittern Cliff, 243. 276. 
 
 Blackbird, 43, 74, 91, 123, 130, 161, 
 
 169 294 
 Bluebird, 3, 27, 33, 39, 42, 43. 112, 
 
 139, 159, 166, 169, 294. 
 
 Blue curls, 135. 
 Boarding, 48. 
 
 Books, 6, 10, 137, 176, 187, 203, 211. 
 Botanizing, 120. 
 Bream, 304. 
 Brook, 101, 307- 
 Bubbles, reflections from, 177. 
 Buds, 63. 
 
 Butterfly, small red, 291; buff- 
 edged, 293. 
 Buzzard, short-winged, 249. 
 
 C. Miles road, 104. 
 
 Caltha palnstris (marsh marigold), 
 
 275. 
 Cambridge, its library, 148. 
 Cannon balls, 290. 
 Cap, of woodchuck's skin, 25. 
 Cardinal Shore, 218, 276. 
 Carpenter, William Benjamin, 83. 
 Catkins, 33, 103, 106, 190, 211. 
 Cat-tail, its down, 214. 
 Chalmers, Br. Thomas, 248. 
 Character, 22, 247. 
 Charity, 230. 
 
 Cheapness, in ourselves, 231. 
 Chicadees, 4, 6, 30, 34, 88, 99, 123. 
 
 199,202. 
 Chrysalids, 113. 
 Cicindelas (glow worms), 220. 
 Civilization, 10. 
 Cladonias, 79, 100. 
 Clams, 11. 
 Clamshell Hill, 11, 23, 50, 104, 132, 
 
 197, 303. 
 Clergymen, 24. 
 Cliffs, 20, 91, 113, 129, 201, 240, 248, 
 
 249, 279, 287, 294, 303. 
 Clothing, 236. 
 Clouds, 59, 75. 
 Cocciferae (lichens), 79. 
 Cocks, ushering in the dawn, 147. 
 Compliments, 243. 
 Communities, 48. 
 Concord, its Indian inhabitants. 
 
 176. 
 
320 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Cones, willow and other, their 
 origin, 224. 
 
 Consistency, the secret of health, 
 264. 
 
 Convention, 266. 
 
 Correction of MSS., 32. 
 
 Country, living in the, 72. 
 
 Cowslips, 103, 296, 811. 
 
 Cranberry, mountain, 88. 
 
 Creepers, brown, 32. 
 
 Criticism, 7 ; the most effective, 141 ; 
 cobwebs of, 202 ; 287, 306. 
 
 Crow blackbirds, their note de- 
 scribed, 311. 
 
 Crowfoot (buttercup), 315. 
 
 Crows, 31, 62. 
 
 Crystals, frost, 268. 
 
 Cup-lichens (cladonias), 100. 
 
 Cuvier, 274. 
 
 Day, an elysian, 293. 
 
 Days, their aerial differences, 162. 
 
 Death, without continuance, 119. 
 
 Deep Cut, 1, 4, 275. 
 
 Dippers, 244. 
 
 Discontent, 116. 
 
 Diversion, 13. 
 
 Dog-wood, 96. 
 
 Doubt, can be afforded by the wise, 
 
 3991 
 
 Bucks, 65, 77, 95, 145, 149, 197, 243, 
 260, 263, 291, 299. 
 
 Eagle, 241, 271 (?) ; white-headed, 
 
 306. 
 Eagle Field, 26. 
 Earth, 30, 61, 112, 252, 263. 
 Education, 229. 
 Emys 102, 103. See Tortoise. 
 Epigsea, 310. 
 
 Epilobium coloratum, 89. 
 Etruisetmn, 102. 
 Evelyn, John, 211. 
 Events, 8, 30. 
 Expensiveness of valuable work, 
 
 318. 
 Eye, the human, its nobleness, 138 ; 
 
 Failure, 177. 
 
 Fair Haven, 2, 276. 
 
 Fair Haven Hill, 243. 
 
 Fair Haven Pond, 57, 75, 204, 222. 
 
 Fame, 128. 
 
 Farm, 20. 
 
 Farmer, 141. 
 
 Fields, their color, 236. 
 
 ••Fildel'eau," 4. 
 
 Finch, purple, 804. 
 
 Fishes, their revival, 191. 
 
 Fishhawk, 249. 
 
 Flattery. 243. 
 
 Flicker (pigeon woodpecker), 160. 
 
 Flint's Bridge, 154, 161. 
 
 Flint's Pond, 33, 291. 
 
 Foxes, 75, 151. 
 
 Franklin, Sir John, 281. 
 
 Freedom, 240. 
 
 Freshet, 18. 
 
 Friendship, 4, 9, 28, 66, 112, 186, 229, 
 
 247,251,278,305. 
 FringUla hiemalis (snow-bird), 77, 
 
 135, 190, 198, 248, 295, 303. 
 Frog, wood, 144, 218. 
 Frogs, 213, 289. 
 Frog spittle, 65. 
 
 Geese, wild, 135, 247, 260, 263, 291. 
 
 Genius, 301. 
 
 Gentlemen, 107. 
 
 Gnaphalium, 123. 
 
 Gnats, 122, 179. 
 
 God, false view of, 91. 
 
 Golden age, 292. 
 
 Goldfinches, 303. 
 
 Goosanders, 221, 243. 
 
 Goose Pond, little, 312. 
 
 Goshawk, 249. 
 
 Grackles (blackbirds), 91, 179, 311. 
 
 Grape cuttings, 65. 
 
 Grass, 142. 
 
 Grass finch (white-in-tail), 123. 
 
 Gratitude, 194. 
 
 Great Fields, 39, 132, 139. 
 
 Great Meadows, 37, 55, 95, 141, 155, 
 
 233. 
 Great questions, 72. 
 Greatness, unstrained, 9. 
 Grebe, 31. 
 Greece, 1. 
 
 Greenness, beginning, 157. 
 Grubs, 122. 
 
 Gulls, 77, 146, 222, 264. 
 Gyrinus, 75. 
 
 Hare, 73. 
 
 Hawks. 81, 39, 40, 75, 88, 98, 143, 
 
 218, 232, 240, 249. 
 Haze, 177. 
 
 Hazel, 212, 241, 253, 285. 
 Hearing, good, 52. 
 Hen harrier, 249. 
 Hens. 83, 60. 
 " Herbatio," 120. 
 Heywood's Peak, 270. 
 Hill, the, 159, 289. 
 Hillside, russet, its beauty, 127, 131 
 Homer, 46. 
 Honey bees, 295, 297. 
 Horizon, 129. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 321 
 
 Horse, 60. 
 
 House, 176, 192. 
 
 Hubbard Path, 233. 
 
 Hubbard's Close, 129, 142, 2T8. 
 
 Hue, of the mind, 9. 
 
 Hurry, 200. 
 
 Hy la, its piercing note, 190 ; 297. 
 
 See Hylodes. 
 Hylodes, 203, 218, 289. See Hyla. 
 
 Ice, 15 ; a study of, 38 ; 19, 56, 75, 
 84, iia, 141, 212: 
 
 Iliad, 46. 
 Indians. 92, 152. 
 Indigo bird, 76. 
 Indigo weed, 26. 
 Information, 166, 187. 
 Intercourse, 265: 
 Island, 285. 
 
 Jay, 30, 31, 123. 
 
 Kibbe Place, 194. 
 
 Knowledge, its nature, 14 ; of each 
 other, 266. 
 
 Laborer, the efficient, 280. 
 
 Lakes, vernal, 262. 
 
 LambkiU, 59. 
 
 Landscape, 43, 58, 69, 63, 219. 
 
 Lark, 123, 233, 294. 
 
 Latebra?, 113. 
 
 Law, 16, 147. 
 
 Leaves, radical, 100. 
 
 Leoturer, his success, 109. 
 
 Lee's Cliff, 143, 218, 243, 252, 276. 
 
 Lee's Hill (Nawshawtuck). 72. 
 
 Lichens, 50, 64. 79, 122, 127. 
 
 Life, 12, 82, 107, 111, 119, 128, 129, 
 
 133,186. 
 Light, 21, 184. 
 
 Linanas, 77. See Bed-polls. 
 LinnsBus (Linn6, Earl von), 120. 
 Little River, 199. 
 Love, 35, 62, 133, 139, 185, 266. 
 Lupine Hill, 266. 
 Lupine promontory, 43, 71. 
 Luxuries, intellectual, 114. 
 Lydgate, John, 280. 
 
 Magnanimity, 239. 
 Majesty, in a bird, 279. 
 Manners, 272. 
 
 Maple, 74, 198, 211, 288, 297. 
 Maple sap, 49, 74, 198. 
 Maple sugar, 58. 
 March, 125, 209, 274, 288, 297. 
 Marten, pine (?), 107. 
 Martial Miles's. 241. 266. 
 Meadows, 159, 179, 250. 
 21 
 
 Meanness, 301. 
 
 Menander, 1. 
 
 Mice, 74, 130, 142. 
 
 Migration, interior, 194. 
 
 Mimnermus, 1. 
 
 Mink, 86, 122, 233. 
 
 Minott, 32, 95, 103. 
 
 Misunderstanding, honest, 72. 
 
 Mole, 8. 
 
 Money, lending, 36. 
 
 Moonlight, walk by, 78. 
 
 Moose, 104. 
 
 Morning, 98, 157, 200-202. 
 
 Moth, emperor, 5. 
 
 Mount Misery, 292. 
 
 Mount Tabor, 286. 
 
 Mus Leucopus (Arvida Emmonsii), 
 
 130. 
 Music, 85, 124. 
 Muskrat, 95, 113, 217, 233, 234, 266, 
 
 306. See Musquash. 
 Musquash, 11, 69, 76, 109, 161. See 
 
 Muskrat. 
 
 Nacre, 11. 
 
 Nature, 16, 26, 128, 138, 166, 170, 
 
 183, 216, 264, 312. 
 Nawshawtuck (Lee's Hill), 116 ; 
 
 view of river from, 302. 
 Nessea (swamp loosestrife), 76. 
 News, trivial, 78. 
 Night warbler. 306. 
 November, 274:. 
 Nuthatch, 2, 6, 31, 70. 
 Nut Meadow Brook, 101, 238, 306. 
 Nutting, Sam or Fox, 103. 
 
 Observation, excessive, 213, 273. 
 Originality, 25. 
 Ornithology, 55. 
 Osiers, 2, 65, 162. 
 Owls, 31, 311. 
 
 Paradox, 124. 
 
 Parry, Sir Edward. 282. 
 
 Partridge, 2, 81, 73, 89, 109, 296. 
 
 Peabody.W. B. O.. 286. 
 
 Peace of mind, 240. 
 
 Persons, 229, 230. 
 
 Phebe, 187, 160, 295. 
 
 " Philosophia Botanica," 120. 
 
 Piano, 817. 
 
 Pickerel, 304. 
 
 Pine, 170, 181, 182. 
 
 Pine, pitch, 18, 113. 184. 
 
 Pine, white, 8, 88, 97. 
 
 Pine Hill, 29, 270. 
 
 Pine warbler, 306, 311. 
 
 Pinweed, 127. 
 
 Pitcher plant, 61. 
 
322 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Plantain, rattlesnake, 99. 
 
 Pleasures, cheap, 116. 
 
 Plowing, 253. 
 
 Poet, the, 47, 230, 807, 318. 
 
 Poetry, 20. 
 
 Potato-vine, 83. 
 
 Press, not free, 41. 
 
 Property, sense of, 14. 
 
 Pursuits, what are essential, 121. 
 
 Quail, 31, 189. 
 
 Babbit, 75, 96. 
 
 Railroad, attractive for walking, 
 
 93 
 Bain, enjoyment of, 126, 272 ; 286. 
 Baiubow, 130. 
 Baleigh, Sir Walter, 146. 
 Rana fontinalis, 229 
 Bana halecina, 304. 
 Bana palustris, 242. 
 Bana pipiens, 242. 
 Ravine, how formed, 23. 
 Reading, good, 52. 
 Red bridge, 311. 
 Red-eye, 5. 
 Red-polls, 64, 79, 189. See Lina- 
 
 rias. 
 Red-wings, 164, 179. 
 Relics, Indian, 124. 
 Religion, incommunicable, 137. 
 Reports of experience, how best 
 
 made, 226, 243, 263. 
 Retirement, 185. 
 Rhodora, 5. 
 
 Rice, bis life poetic, 115. 
 Richardson, Sir John, 281. 
 
 See Frogs. 
 
 River, 17, 97, 109, 214. 
 
 Robins. 19, 31, 82, 123,137, 161, 166, 
 
 226, 286, 294, 297. 
 Rock, the, 293. 
 Rook tripe (Umbilicaria Muhlenber- 
 
 gii), 95. 
 Russet (coloring), 220. 
 
 St. Hilaire, litienne Oeoffroy, 274. 
 
 St. Johnswort, 61. 
 
 Salix, 173. 
 
 Salix alba, 
 
 Salix humilis, 
 
 Salix lucida, 
 
 Salix nigra, 
 
 Salix pedicellaris, 
 
 Salix petiolaris, 
 
 Salix Torreyana, 
 
 Sap, alder and willow, 113. 
 
 Sarothra (pine weed), 126. 
 
 Satisfactions, simple, 114. 
 
 Saw-mill, its simplicity, 23. 
 
 118. See Wil- 
 lows. 
 
 Saxifrage, water, 103 ; golden, 275 ; 
 
 316. 
 Scent, summer-presaging, 188. 
 Scholar, 121. 
 Science, 67. 
 Scripture, old, 223. 
 Second Division Brook, 74, 103, 238, 
 
 295. 
 Seeing, the virtue of, 314. 
 Senecio, 61, 103. 
 Sense, 280. 
 Sermons, 136. 
 
 Settlers, paint the landscape, 146. 
 Sex, 60. 
 
 Shad-blossom, 212. 
 Shattuck, Lemuel, 290. 
 Sheldrake, 21. 34.55, 77, 149,243, 
 
 244, 245, 276, 278. 
 Shells, 113. 
 Shiners, 178. 
 Shrike, 31 ; its notes, 81. 
 Silence, the virtue of, 316. 
 Simplicity in living, 27 ; the law of 
 
 nature, 28. 
 Skating, 74. 
 Skunk, 104, 275. 
 Skunk cabbage, 74, 88. 
 Sleepy Hollow, 139. 
 Snipe, 279, 293, 294. 
 Snow, 22, 49, 87, 125, 178, 209, 288. 
 Snow-buntings, 20,41, 60. 
 Society, 185, 243. 
 Solidago (golden-rod), 89. 
 Sound, 47, 110, 311. 
 Sparrow, chipping described, 810. 
 Sparrows, fox-colored, 134, 157, 239, 
 
 284, 285, 294, 303. 
 Sparrows, migratory, 284. 
 Sparrows, song, 3, 65, 80, 99, 112, 
 
 125, 134, 149, 166, 169, 193, 226, 
 
 294. 
 Sparrows, tree, 31, 249. 
 Species, struggle of, 210. 
 Spirits, animal, 212. 
 Spring. 1, 29. 30, 42, 61, 79,225, 231, 
 
 276, 281, 284. 
 Squirrels, 99, 196. 
 Squirrels, red, 73, 116, 126, 278. 
 Squirrels, striped, 95, 163. 
 Stars, 177. 
 
 Stellaria media (chickweed), 194. 
 " Story of Thebes," 280. 
 Style, literary, the result of char- 
 after, 22. 
 Success, 200. 
 Sudbury Meadows, 87. 
 Superhuman , the, 60. 
 Surveying, 292. 
 Suspicion, 306. 
 Swallows, white-bellied, 292, 291. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 323 
 
 Swamp, 233; Ministerial, 126, 199 ; 
 
 Grackle, 178. 
 Sweet flags, 317. 
 
 Talent, 247. 
 
 Tarbell Hill, 55. 
 
 Technical terms, 35. 
 
 Telegraph harp, 1, 91, 121, 212, 266. 
 
 Temperature, effect of changes in, 
 166. 
 
 Thoreau, his relation to nature, 65, 
 284 ; resolves to be unanimous, 
 134; aspirations, 140 ; views of life, 
 166 ; imitation of wild geese, 190 ; 
 philanthropy, 231; what he likes 
 in a letter, 232 ; his purchases, 
 816. 
 
 Thoughts, 16, 34, 200, 223, 315. 
 
 Tinder, 76. 
 
 Toad, its ringing note, 291. 
 
 Tortoise, 103, 203. Sec Emys. 
 
 Trapping, 7, 23. 
 
 Traveling, 114, 318. 
 
 Trout, 74, 142. 
 
 Truth, 63, 139. 
 
 Umbilicaria Muhlenbergii (rock 
 
 tripe), 96. 
 TJncannunuc, 286* 
 
 Vanessa antiopa (Mourning cloak 
 butterfly), 252. 
 
 " Yeeshnoo Sarma," 222. 
 
 Vegetation, unceasing in our cli- 
 mate, 91 j 2/6. 
 
 Verse, 280. 
 
 Viola pedata, 310. 
 
 Vireo, white-eyed, 306. 
 Virtue, 265. 
 
 Walden, 28, 32, 33, 61, 91, 275, 
 
 278. 
 Walking, in stormy weather, 90. 
 Walks, circumscribed, 171. 
 War, 19. 
 
 Warmth, spring, 61. 
 Water, 20, 43-45, 87, 96, 98, 109. 
 
 118, 124, 125, 135, 164, 220, 261. 
 Waxwork, 126. 
 Weather, its gradations, 189 J its 
 
 effect upon us, 283. 
 Weatherwise, the, 145. 
 Well Meadow, 276. 
 Whistlers, 244. 
 
 White-in-tail (grass finch), 123. 
 Willow Bay, 197. 
 Willow Row, 294. 
 Willows, 2, 117, 118, 119. Set 
 
 Salix. 
 Wilson, Alexander, 299, 300. 
 Wind, 181 ; playing on water, 812. 
 Winter, short days of, 29, 58 ; Eng- 
 lish, 188 ; its breaking up within 
 
 us, 195. 
 Wood, its colors, 72. 
 Woodchuck, 115, 116, 130, 160, 273. 
 Woodis Park, 89. 
 Woodpeckers. 81, 81, 168, 160,201, 
 
 202,221,297. 
 Words, poetic, 212. 
 World, how finite, 239. 
 Writer, the, 164, 222. 
 
 Yellow Birch Swamp, 76. 
 
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