Log Search Results

 P.M.—To Deep Cut.

  A shower, heralded only by thunder and lightning, has kept me in till late in the afternoon . . .

  Twilight on river.

  The reddish white lily pads here and there and the heart-leaves begin to be seen. A few pontederias, like long-handled spoons. The water going rapidly down, that often purplish bent grass is seen lying flat . . .

  Salix nigra leafs. Is that plump blue-backed, rufous-rumped swallow the cliff swallow, flying with barn swallows, etc., over the river? Nuttall apparently so describes it,—5 1/2 by 12. It dashes within a foot of me . . .

  The buck-bean in Everett’s Pool abundantly out, say four or five days. It is earlier than at B. Stowe’s.

  I have not for a long time been putting such thoughts together as I should like to read to the company you speak of. I have enough of that sort to say, or even read, but not time now to arrange it. Something I have prepared might prove for their entertainment or refreshment perchance, but I would not like to have a hat carried round for it. I have just been reading some papers to see if they would do for your company; but I thought pretty well of them as long as I read them to myself, when I got an auditor to try them on, I felt that they would not answer. How could I let you drum up a company to hear them?—In find, what I have is either too scattered or loosely arranged, or too light or else is too scientific and matter of fact (I run a good deal into that of late) for so hungry a company.

  I am still a learner, not a teacher, feeding somewhat omnivorously browsing both stalk & leaves—but I shall perhaps be enabled to speak with the more precision & authority by & by—if philosophy & sentiment are not buried under a multitude of details.

  I do not refuse, but accept your invitation—only changing the time—I consider myself invited to Worcester once for all & many thanks to the inviter.

  As for the Harvard excursion, will you let me suggest another? Do you & Brown come to Concord on Saturday, if the weather promises well, and spend the Sunday here on the river or hills or both. So we shall save some of our money, (which is of next importance to our souls) and lose—I do not know what. You say you talked of coming here before, now do it. I do not propose this because I think that I am worth your spending time with—but because I hope that we may prove flint & steel to one another. It is at most only an hour’s ride further, & you can at any rate do what you please when you get here.

  Then we will see if we have any apology to offer for our existence. So come to Concord!—come to Concord!—come to Concord! or————————————your suit shall be defaulted.

  As for the dispute about solitude & society any comparison is impertinent. It is an idling down on the plain at the base of a mountain instead of climbing steading to its top. Of course you will be glad of all the society you can get to go up with. Will you go to glory with me? is the burden of the song. I love society so much that I swallowed it all at a gulp -i.e. all that came in my way. It is not that we love to be alone, but that we love to soar, and when we do soar, the company grows thinner & thinner till there is none at all. It is ither the Tribune on the plain, a sermon on the mount, or a very private exactly still higher up. We are not the less to aim at the summits, though the multitude does not ascend them. Use all the society that will abet you. But perhaps I do not enter into the spirit of your talk.

  H.D.T

  P.M.—To Hill.

  Sassafras (fertile) will apparently bloom to-morrow. These, too,—the Young trees,—have been killed the past winter, like the fever-bush.

  There is, leaning over the Assabet at the Grape Bower, an amelanchier variety Botryapium about five inches in diameter and some twenty-eight feet long, a light and graceful tree . . .

  Horse-chestnut in bloom. Actæa spicata var. ruba will bloom, apparently, in four or five days. It is now fifteen inches high. Lilac in bloom. Pratt shows me what I take to be Genista tinctoria from the Boulder Field. It has leafed; when? . . .

  P.M.—To Cambridge.

  All vegetation is refreshed by the rain. The grass appears to stand perfectly erect and on tiptoe, several inches higher. . .