SPRING. 
337 
“A return to goodness produced each day in the 
tranquil and beneficent breath of the morning, causes 
that in respect to the love of virtue and the hatred of 
vice, one approaches a little the primitive nature of 
man, as the sprouts of the forest which has been felled. 
In like manner the evil which one does in the interval 
of a day prevents the germs of virtues which began to 
spring up again from developing themselves and de¬ 
stroys them. 
“ After the germs of virtue have thus been prevented 
many times from developing themselves, then the be¬ 
neficent breath of evening does not suffice to preserve 
them. As soon as the breath of evening does not suf¬ 
fice longer to preserve them, then the nature of man 
does not differ much from that of the brute. Men 
seeing the nature of this man like that of the brute, 
think that he has never possessed the innate faculty of 
reason. Are those the true and natural sentiments 
of man ? ” 
“ The Golden Age was first created, which without any avenger 
Spontaneously without law cherished fidelity and rectitude. 
Punishment and fear were not; nor were threatening words read 
On suspended brass ; nor did the suppliant crowd fear 
The words of their judge ; but were safe without an avenger. 
Not yet the pine felled on its mountains had descended 
To the liquid waves that it might see a foreign world, 
And mortals knew no shores but then own. 
* * * * 
There was eternal spring, and placid zephyrs with warm 
Blasts soothed the flowers born without seed.” 
On the 29th of April, as I was fishing from the bank 
of the river near the Nine-Acre-Corner bridge, standing 
on the quaking grass and willow roots, where the muskrats 
22 
