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  The constant inquiry which nature puts is: “Are you virtuous? Then you can behold me.” Beauty, fragrance, music, sweetness, and joy of all kinds are for the virtuous. That I thought when I heard the telegraph harp to-day . . .

  For the most part we are inclined to doubt the prevalence of gross superstition among the civilized ancients,—whether the Greeks, for instance, accepted literally the mythology which we accept as matchless poetry,—but we have only to be reminded of the kind of respect paid to the Sabbath as a holy day here in New England, and the fears which haunt those who break it, to see that our neighbors are the creatures of an equally gross superstition with the ancients. I am convinced that there is no very important difference between a New-Englander’s religion and a Roman’s. We both worship in the shadow of our sins : they erect the temples for us. Jehovah has no superiority to Jupiter . . .

  P.M.—To Mason’s pasture.

  The world now full of verdure and fragrance and the air comparatively clear (not yet the constant haze of the dog-days), through which the distant fields are seen, reddened with sorrel, and the meadows wetgreen, full of fresh grass, and the trees in their first beautiful, bright, untarnished and unspotted green. May is the bursting into leaf and early flowering, with much coolness and wet and a few decidedly warm days, ushering in summer; June, verdure and growth with not intolerable, but agreeable, heat.

  Large yellow butterflies with black spots since the 3d. Carrion-flower, maybe a day. Dangle-berry, probably June 3d at Trillium Woods. Now, just before sundown, a nighthawk is circling . . . I have come to this hill to see the sun go down, to recover sanity and put myself again in relation with Nature. I would fain drink a draft of Nature’s serenity. Let deep answer to deep. Already I see reddening clouds reflected in the smooth mirror of the river, a delicate tint, far off and elysian, unlike anything in the sky . . .

  Walking along the upper edge of the flat Clamshell meadow, a bird, probably a song sparrow (for I saw two chipping about immediately after), flew up from between my feet, and I soon found its nest remarkably concealed . . .

  I am much interested to see how Nature proceeds to heal the wounds where the turf was stripped off this meadow. There are large patches where nothing remained but pure black mud . . .

  Achillea Millefolium. Black cherry, apparently yesterday. The Muscicapa Cooperi sings pe pe pe’, sitting on the top of a pine, and shows white rump (?), etc., unlike kingbird.

  Return by J. Hosmer Desert.

  Everywhere now in dry pitch pine woods stand the red lady’s-slippers over the red pine leaves on the forest floor, rejoicing in June, with their two broad curving green leaves,—some even in swamps. Uphold their rich, striped red, drooping sack . . .

  The shad-flies were very abundant probably last evening about the house, for this morning they are seen filling and making black every cobweb on the side of the house, blinds, etc. All freshly painted surfaces are covered with them . . .

  At evening, travel up Assabet. There are many ephemerae [mayflies] in the air; but it is cool, and their great fight is not yet. Pincushion gall on oak.

  I am interested in each contemporary plant in my vicinity, and have attained to a certain acquaintance with the larger ones. They are cohabitants with me of this part of the planet . . .

  P.M.—Surveying, for Warner, wood bought of John Brown near Concord line . . .

  Cat-briar in flower, how long? Allium not out . . . (Journal, 12:199).

  Catch fish—bream & bass. Hear snipe & loon & new(?) oriole (Thoreau’s Minnesota Journey, 14).