_Feb. 22_.--Last night and to-day rainy and thick, till mid-afternoon,
when the wind chopp'd round, the clouds swiftly drew off like curtains,
the clear appear'd, and with it the fairest, grandest, most wondrous
rainbow I ever saw, all complete, very vivid at its earth-ends,
spreading vast effusions of illuminated haze, violet, yellow,
drab-green, in all directions overhead, through which the sun beam'd--an
indescribable utterance of color and light, so gorgeous yet so soft,
such as I had never witness'd before. Then its continuance: a full hour
pass'd before the last of those earth-ends disappear'd. The sky behind
was all spread in translucent blue, with many little white clouds and
edges. To these a sunset, filling, dominating the esthetic and soul
senses, sumptuously, tenderly, full. I end this note by the pond,
just light enough to see, through the evening shadows, the western
reflections in its water-mirror surface, with inverted figures of trees.
I hear now and then the _flup_ of a pike leaping out, and rippling the
water.