_February 7, 1878_.--Glistening sun today, with slight haze, warm
enough, and yet tart, as I sit here in the open air, down in my country
retreat, under an old cedar. For two hours I have been idly wandering
around the woods and pond, lugging my chair, picking out choice spots to
sit awhile--then up and slowly on again. All is peace here. Of course,
none of the summer noises or vitality; to-day hardly even the winter
ones. I amuse myself by exercising my voice in recitations, and in
ringing the changes on all the vocal and alphabetical sounds. Not even
an echo; only the cawing of a solitary crow, flying at some distance.
The pond is one bright, flat spread, without a ripple--a vast Claude
Lorraine glass, in which I study the sky, the light, the leafless trees,
and an occasional crow, with flapping wings, flying overhead. The brown
fields have a few white patches of snow left.
_Feb. 9_.--After an hour's ramble, now retreating, resting, sitting
close by the pond, in a warm nook, writing this, shelter'd from the
breeze, just before noon. The _emotional_ aspects and influences of
Nature! I, too, like the rest, feel these modern tendencies (from all
the prevailing intellections, literature and poems,) to turn everything
to pathos, ennui, morbidity, dissatisfaction, death. Yet how clear it is
to me that those are not the born results, influences of Nature at all,
but of one's own distorted, sick or silly soul. Here, amid this wild,
free scene, how healthy, how joyous, how clean and vigorous and sweet!
_Mid-afternoon_.--One of my nooks is south of the barn, and here I am
sitting now, on a log, still basking in the sun, shielded from the wind.
Near me are the cattle, feeding on corn-stalks. Occasionally a cow or
the young bull (how handsome and bold he is!) scratches and munches
the far end of the log on which I sit. The fresh milky odor is quite
perceptible, also the perfume of hay from the barn. The perpetual rustle
of dry corn-stalks, the low sough of the wind round the barn gables, the
grunting of pigs, the distant whistle of a locomotive, and occasional
crowing of chanticleers, are the sounds.
_Feb. 19._--Cold and sharp last night--clear and not much wind--the full
moon shining, and a fine spread of constellations and little and big
stars--Sirius very bright, rising early, preceded by many-orb'd Orion,
glittering, vast, sworded, and chasing with his dog. The earth hard
frozen, and a stiff glare of ice over the pond. Attracted by the calm
splendor of the night, I attempted a short walk, but was driven back
by the cold. Too severe for me also at 9 o'clock, when I came out this
morning, so I turn'd back again. But now, near noon, I have walk'd
down the lane, basking all the way in the sun (this farm has a pleasant
southerly exposure,) and here I am, seated under the lee of a bank,
close by the water. There are bluebirds already flying about, and I
hear much chirping and twittering and two or three real songs, sustain'd
quite awhile, in the mid-day brilliance and warmth. (There! that is a
true carol, coming out boldly and repeatedly, as if the singer meant
it.) Then as the noon strengthens, the reedy trill of the robin--to my
ear the most cheering of bird-notes. At intervals, like bars and breaks
(out of the low murmur that in any scene, however quiet, is never
entirely absent to a delicate ear,) the occasional crunch and cracking
of the ice-glare congeal'd over the creek, as it gives way to the
sunbeams--sometimes with low sigh--sometimes with indignant, obstinate
tug and snort.
(Robert Burns says in one of his letters: "There is scarcely any earthly
object gives me more--I do not know if I should call it pleasure--but
something which exalts me--something which enraptures me--than to walk
in the shelter' d side of a wood in a cloudy winter day, and hear the
stormy wind howling among the trees, and raving over the plain. It is
my best season of devotion." Some of his most characteristic poems were
composed in such scenes and seasons.)