Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/142

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EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS.

neath, a few blackish huckleberry bushes scattered about, and bright, white patches of snow here and there in the ravines, the hill running east and west, and seen through the storm from a point twenty or thirty rods south.

March 13, 1841. How alone must our life be lived. We dwell on the sea-shore, and none between us and the sea. Men are my merry companions, my fellow-pilgrims, who beguile the way, but leave me at the first turn in the road, for none are traveling one road so far as myself. Each one marches in the van. The weakest child is exposed to the fates henceforth as barely as its parents. Parents and relatives but entertain the youth. They cannot stand between him and his destiny. This is the one bare side of every man. There is no peace. It is clear before him to the bounds of space.

What is fame to a living man? If he live aright the sound of no man's voice will resound through the aisles of his secluded life. His life is a hallowed silence, a pool. The loudest sounds have to thank my little ear that they are heard.

March 13, 1842. The sad memory of departed friends is soon incrusted over with sublime and pleasing thoughts, as their monuments are overgrown with moss. Nature doth thus kindly heal every wound. By the mediation of a thousand little mosses and fungi the most