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EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS.

and horns are heard from over the fields. And now I see the full meaning and beauty of that word, sound. Nature always possesses a certain sonorousness, as in the hum of insects, the booming of ice, the crowing of cocks in the morning, and the barking of dogs in the night, which indicates her sound state. God's voice is but a clear bell sound. I drink in a wonderful health, a cordial, in sound. The effect of the slightest tinkling in the horizon measures my own soundness. I thank God for sound. It always mounts and makes me mount. I think I will not trouble myself for any wealth when I can be so cheaply enriched. Here I contemplate to drudge that I may own a farm, and may have such a limitless estate for the listening. All good things are cheap, all bad are very dear.

As for these communities, I think I had rather keep bachelor's hall in hell than go to board in heaven. Do not think your virtue will be boarded with you. It will never live on the interest of your money, depend upon it. The boarder has no home. In heaven I hope to bake my own bread and clean my own linen. The tomb is the only boarding-house in which a hundred are served at once. In the catacombs we may dwell together and prop one another up without loss.