SPRING JOTTINGS 161 



of air and sun, with wind north or northwest. The 

 least film, the least breath from the south, the least 

 suggestion of growth, and the day is marred as a sap 

 day. Maple sap is maple frost melted by the sun. 

 (9 p. M.) A soft, large-starred night; the moon in 

 her second quarter; perfectly still and freezing; 

 Venus throbbing low in the west. A crystalline 

 night. 



March 21, 1884. The top of a high barometric 

 wave, a day like a crest, lifted up, sightly, spark- 

 ling. A cold snap without storm issuing in this 

 clear, dazzling, sharp, northern day. How light, as 

 if illuminated by more than the sun; the sky is full 

 of light; light seems to be streaming up all around 

 the horizon. The leafless trees make no shadows; 

 the woods are flooded with light; everything shines; 

 a day large and imposing, breathing strong mascu- 

 line breaths out of the north ; a day without a speck 

 or film, winnowed through and through, all the 

 windows and doors of the sky open. Day of crum- 

 pled rivers and lakes, of crested waves, of bellying 

 sails, high-domed and lustrous day. The only typi- 

 cal March day of the bright heroic sort we have yet 

 had. 



March 24, 1884. Damp, still morning, much fog 

 on the river. All the branches and twigs of the 

 trees strung with drops of water. The grass and 

 weeds beaded with fog drops. Two lines of ducks 

 go up the river, one a few feet beneath the other. 

 On second glance the under line proves to be the 

 reflection of the other in the still water. As the 



