It is in fact a January thaw. The channel of the river is quite open in many places, and in others I remark that the ice and water alternate like waves and the hollow between them. There are long reaches of open water where I look for muskrats and ducks as I go along to Clamshell Hill. I hear the pleasant sound of running water. . . . The delicious, soft, spring-suggesting air, how it fills my veins with life. Life becomes again credible to me. A certain dormant life awakes in me, and I begin to love nature again. Here is my Italy, my heaven, my New England. I understand why the Indians hereabouts placed heaven in the S. W. The soft south. On the slopes, the ground is laid bare, and radical leaves revealed, crowfoot, shepherd s purse, clover, etc., a fresh green, and, in the meadow, the skunk-cabbage buds with a bluish bloom, and the red leaves of the meadow saxifrage. These and the many withered plants laid bare remind me of spring and of botany.—On the same bare sand is revealed a new crop of arrow heads. I pick up two perfect ones of quartz, sharp as if just from the hand of the maker. Still, birds are very rare. Here comes a little flock of titmice plainly to keep me company, with their black caps and throats making them look top-heavy, restlessly hopping along the alders with a sharp, clear, lisping note.
