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EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS.

clared that we did not live in the country as long as we lived in that village street and only took walks into the fields, any more than if we lived in Boston or New York. We enjoyed none of the immortal quiet of the country as we might here, for instance, but, perchance, the first sound that we hear in the morning, instead of the note of a bird, is some neighbor's hawking and spitting.

March 6, 1840. There is no delay in answering great questions; for them all things have an answer ready. The Pythian priestess gave her answers instantly, and ofttimes before the questions were fairly propounded. Great topics do not wait for past or future to be determined; but the state of the crops or Brighton market, no bird concerns itself about.

March 6, 1841. An honest misunderstanding is often the ground of future intercourse.

March 6, 1853. p. m. To Lee's Hill. I am pleased to cut the small woods with my knife to see their color. The high blueberry, hazel, and swamp pink are green. I love to see the clear green sprouts of the sassafras, and its large and fragrant buds and bark. The twigs and branches of young trees twenty feet high look as if scorched and blackened.

The water is pretty high on the meadows (though the ground is covered with snow) so