_April 23._--Off to New York on a little tour and visit. Leaving the
hospitable, home-like quarters of my valued friends, Mr. and Mrs. J. H.
Johnston--took the 4 P. M. boat, bound up the Hudson, 100 miles or so.
Sunset and evening fine. Especially enjoy'd the hour after we passed
Cozzens's landing--the night lit by the crescent moon and Venus, now
swimming in tender glory, and now hid by the high rocks and hills of the
western shore, which we hugg'd close. (Where I spend the next ten days
is in Ulster county and its neighborhood, with frequent morning and
evening drives, observations of the river, and short rambles.)
_April 24--Noon._--A little more and the sun would be oppressive. The
bees are out gathering their bread from willows and other trees. I watch
them returning, darting through the air or lighting on the hives, their
thighs covered with the yellow forage. A solitary robin sings near. I
sit in my shirt sleeves and gaze from an open bay-window on the indolent
scene--the thin haze, the Fishkill hills in the distance--off on
the river, a sloop with slanting mainsail, and two or three little
shad-boats. Over on the railroad opposite, long freight trains,
sometimes weighted by cylinder-tanks of petroleum, thirty, forty, fifty
cars in a string, panting and rumbling along in full view, but the sound
soften'd by distance.