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“As for Waldo, he died as the mist rises from the brook which the sun will soon dart his rays through. Do not the flowers die every autumn? He had not even taken root here. I was not startled to hear that he was dead, it seemed the most natural event that could happen. His fine organization demanded it, and Nature gently yielded its request. It would have been strange if he had lived.
Neither will Nature manifest any sorrow at his death, but soon the note of the lark will be heard down in the meadow, and fresh dandelions will spring from the old stock where he plucked them last summer.”

  I have invited Henry to send you a letter by this opportunity—and he seems quite ready so to do. He had a sick headache about the time you went away, and has not been quite well since,—has had a cold & weak eyes—and some return of spasmodic affection. But is very bright & interesting and beguiles what time he can do nought else in with playing on the flute. He finds that exercise, which he hoped would be a relief—only increases his ails—so that I have begged him not to feel the care of the wood—and have had Colombe [Antoine Colombe] to work one day upon it—as we were in need both of green & dry hard wood . . .

  Henry was yesterday told by G. Minott [George Minot]—that Mr E. had gone to N.Y. to lecture, with the object of raising money to send Mr A. [Amos Bronson Alcott] to England.

  The mingled sand and water flowing down the bank, the water inclines ever to separate from the sand, and while the latter is detained by its weight and by friction beneath and on the sides, the water flows in a semicylindrical channel which it makes for itself, still carrying much sand with it . When the flowing drop of sand and water in front meets with new resistance, or the impetus of the water is diminished, perhaps by being absorbed, the drop of sand suddenly swells out laterally and dries, while the water, accumulating, pushes out a new sandy drop on one side and forms a new leafy lobe, and by other streams one is piled upon another . . .

  Misty amd mizzling . . . 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 . . .

  Miss Minott says that Dr. Spring told her that when the sap began to come up into the trees, i.e. about the middle of February (she says) then the diseases of the human body come out. The idea is that man’s body sympathizes with the rest of nature, and his pent-up humors burst forth like the sap from wounded trees. This with the mass may be that languor or other weakness commonly called spring feelings.

  P.M.—Up River to Hubbard’s Bridge.

  Thermometer +9º at 3.30 P.M. (the same when I return at five). The snow hard and dry, squeaking under the feet; excellent sleighing. A biting northwest wind compels to cover the ears. It is one of the hardest days of the year to bear . . .

  Think of the art of printing, what miracles it has accomplished! Covered the very waste paper which flutters under our feet like leaves and is almost as cheap, a stuff now commonly put to the most trivial uses, with thought and poetry! The woodchopper reads the wisdom of ages recorded on the paper that holds his dinner, then lights his pipe . . .

  I sec at near [sic] the stone bridge where the strong northwest wind of last night broke the thin ice just formed, and set the irregular triangular pieces on their edges quite perpendicular and directed northwest and southeast and pretty close together . . .

  P.M.—To Witherell Vale.

  There are some who never do nor say anything, whose life merely excites expectation. Their excellence reaches no further than a gesture or mode of carrying themselves. They are a sash dangling from the waist, or a sculptured war-club over the shoulder. 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 bush-whack in a man’s hand . . .