EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
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each other one quarter of a mile off, appears a 
mountain pass, so much nearer is it to heaven. 
We are compelled to call it something which 
relates it to the heavens rather than the earth. 
Now at eleven and a half, perhaps, the sky 
begins to be slightly overcast. The northwest 
is the god of the winter, as the southwest of 
the summer. The forms of clouds are inter¬ 
esting, often, as now, like flames, or more like 
the surf curling before it breaks, reminding 
me of the prows of ancient vessels which have 
their pattern or prototype again in the surf, as 
if the wind made a surf of the mist. Thus as 
the fishes look up at the waves, we look up at 
the clouds. It is pleasant to see the reddish- 
green leaves of the lambkill still hanging with 
fruit above the snow, for I am now crossing the 
shrub oak plain to the Cliffs. I find a place 
on the south side of this rocky hill where the 
snow is melted and the bare gray rock appears 
covered with mosses and lichens and beds of 
oak leaves in the hollows, where I can sit, and 
an invisible flame and smoke seem to ascend 
from the leaves, and the sun shines with a gen¬ 
ial warmth, and you can imagine the hum of 
bees amid flowers. The heat reflected from the 
dry leaves reminds you of the sweet fern and 
those summer afternoons which are longer than 
a winter day, though you sit on a mere oasis in 
