borne on the cutting March wind, or through sleet 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 nature, a good appetite for his food, which is constantly 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 Buttrick' 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 surface of the earth is exciting. I must now walk where I can see the most water, as to the most living part of nature. This is the blood of the
