EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 19 
February 27, 1856. The papers are talking 
about the prospect of war between England 
and America. Neither side sees how its coun¬ 
try can avoid a long and fratricidal war without 
sacrificing its honor. Both nations are ready 
to take a desperate step, to forget the interests 
of civilization and Christianity and their com¬ 
mercial prosperity, and fly at each other’s 
throats. When I see an individual thus be¬ 
side himself, thus desperate, ready to shoot or 
be shot like a blackleg, who has little to lose, 
no serene aims to accomplish, I think he is a 
candidate for bedlam. What asylum is there 
for nations to go to ? # 
Nations are thus ready to talk of wars and 
challenge one another because they are made 
up, to such an extent, of poor, low-spirited, de¬ 
spairing men, in whose eyes the chance of 
shooting somebody else without being shot 
themselves, exceeds their actual good fortune. 
Who, in fact, will be the first to enlist but the 
most desperate class, they who have lost all 
hope; and they may at last infect the rest. Will 
not war, at length, be thought disreputable like 
duelling between individuals ? 
February 27,1857. Before I opened the win¬ 
dow this cold morning I heard the peep of a 
robin, that sound which is often heard in cheer¬ 
less or else rainy weather, so often heard first 
