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  The storm may be said to have fairly ended last night. I observed yesterday that it was drier in most fields, pastures, and even meadows that were not reached by the flood, immediately after this remarkable fall of water than at the beginning . . .

  The first April showers are even fuller of promise and a certain moist serenity than the sunny days. How thickly the green blades are starting up amid the russet! The tinge of green is gradually increasing in the face of the russet earth.

  Now that the very earliest shrubs are beginning to unfold . . .

  P.M.—To Lee’s Cliff on foot . . .

  Saw my white-headed eagle again, first at the same place, the outlet of Fair Haven Pond. It was a fine sight, lie is mainly—i.e. his wings and body—so black against the sky, and they contrast so strongly with his white head and tail. He was first flying low over the water; then rose gradually and circled westward toward White Pond. Lying on the ground with my glass, I could watch him very easily, and by turns he gave me all possible views of himself . . . Now I see him edgewise like a black ripple in the air, his white head still as ever turned to earth, and now he turns his under side to me, and I behold the full breadth of his broad black wings, somewhat ragged at the edges . . .

  P.M.—To Cedar Swamps via Assabet.

  Warm and pretty still. Even the riversides are quiet at this hour (3 P.M.) as in summer; the birds are neither seen nor heard. The anthers of the larch are conspicuous, but I see no pollen. White cedar to-morrow . . .

  C. says he has seen a yellow-legs.

  I have seen also for some weeks occasionally a brown hawk with white rump, flying low, which I have thought the frog hawk in a different stage of plumage; but can it be at this season? and is it not the marsh hawk? Yet it is not so heavy nearly as the hen-hawk.

  The river risen again, on account of the rain of the last three days, to nearly as high as on the 11th. I can just get over Hosmer’s meadow . . . The white cedar swamp consists of hummocks, now surrounded by water, where you go jumping from one to another. The fans are now dotted with the minute reddish staminate flowers, ready to open. The skunk cabbage leaf has expanded in one open place there; so it is at least as early as the hellebore of yesterday. Returning, when near the Dove Rock saw a musquash crossing in front. He dived without noise in the middle of the river . . .

  The toads ring now by day, but not very loud nor generally.

  I see the large head apparently of a bullfrog, by the riverside. Many middle-sized frogs, apparently bullfrogs, green above and more or less dark-spotted, with either yellow or white throats, sitting along the water’s edge now . . .

  Clears up at 3 P.M., and a very strong south wind blows . . . (Journal, 12:156-158).

  It is now some time since I wrote to you or heard from you but do not suppose that I have forgotten you or shall ever cease to cherish in my mind those days at dear old Concord. The last I heard about you all was from Morton who was in England about a year ago; & I hope that he has got over his difficulties & is now in his own country again. I think he has seen rather more of English country life than most Yankee tourists & appeared to find it curious, though I fear he was dulled by our ways, for he was too full of ceremony & compliments & bows, which is a mistake here; though very well in Spain. I am afraid he was rather on pins & needles; but he made a splendid speech at a volunteer supper, & indeed the very best, some said, ever heard in this part of the country.

  We are here in a state of alarm & apprehension the world being so troubled in the East & west & everywhere. Last year the harvest was bad & scanty. This year, our trade is beginning to feel the events in America. In reply to the northern tariff, of course we are going to smuggle as much as we can. The supply of cotton being such a necessity to us—we must work up India & South Africa a little better.

  There is war even in old New Zealand but not in the same inland where my people are! Besides we are certainly on the eve of a continental blaze. So we are making merry & living while we can: not being sure where we shall be this time year.

  Give my affectionate regards to your father mother & sister & to Mr Emerson & his family, & to Channing Sanborn Ricketson Blake & Morton & Alcott & Parker. A thought arises in my mind whether I may not be enumerating some dead men! Perhaps Parker is! These rumors of wars make me wish that we had got done with this brutal stupidity of war altogether; & I believe, Thoreau, that the human race will at last get rid of it, though perhaps not in a creditable way—but such powers will be brought to bear that it will become monstrous even to the French.

  Dundonald declares to the last that he possessed secrets which from their tremendous character would make war impossible. So peace may be begotten from the machination of evil.

  Have you heard of any good books lately? I think “Burnt Njal” good & believe it to be genuine. “Hast thou not heard (says Steinrora to Thangbrand how Thor challenged Christ to single combat & how he did not dare to fight with Thor” When Gunnar brandishes his sword three swords are seen in air. The account of Ospah & Brodir & Brians battle is the only historical account of that engagement which the Irish talk so much of; for I place little trust in OHallorans authority though the outline is the same in both.

  Emersons Conduct of Life has done me good; but it will not go down in England for a generation or so.

  But these are some of them already a year or two old. The book of the season is DeChaillu’s Central Africa with accounts of the Gorilla, of which you are aware that you have a skeleton at Boston for many years. There is also one in the British Museum; but they have now several stuffed specimens at the Geographical Societys room in Town.

  I suppose you will have seen Sir Emerson Tennet’s Ceylon, which is perhaps as complete a book as every was published; & a better monument to a governors residence in a great providence was never made

  We have been lately astonished by a foreign Hamlet, a supposed impossibility; but Mr Fechter does real wonders. No doubt he will visit America & then you may see the best actor in the world. He has carried out Goethes idea of Hamlet as given in the Wilhelm Meister showing him forth as a fair hair’d & fat man. I suppose you are not fat yet!

Yrs ever truly
Thos Cholmondeley