42 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
enough and more than enough to itself. Vir¬ 
tually the community must have come together 
and agreed what things shall be uttered, have 
agreed on a platform and to excommunicate 
him who departs from it, and not one in a 
thousand dares utter anything else. There are 
plenty of journals brave enough to say what 
they think about the government, this being a 
free one; but I know of none widely circulated 
or well conducted that does say what it thinks 
about the Sunday or the Bible. They have 
been bribed to keep dark. They are in the 
service of hypocrisy. 
March 2, 1859. We talk about spring as at 
hand before the end of February, and yet it 
will be two good months, one sixth part of the 
whole year, before we can go a-Maying. There 
may be a whole month of solid and uninter¬ 
rupted winter yet, plenty of ice and good sleigh 
ing. We may not even see the bare ground, 
and hardly the water ; and yet we sit down 
and warm our spirits annually with the distant 
prospect of spring. As if a man were to warm 
his hands by stretching them towards the ris¬ 
ing sun and rubbing them. We listen to the 
February cock-crowing and turkey, gobbling as 
to a first course or prelude. The bluebird, 
which some wood-chopper or inspired walker 
is said to have seen in that sunny interval be- 
