10 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
book helps the^sun shine in my chamber. The 
rays fall on its page as if to explain and illus¬ 
trate it. I, who have been sick, hear cattle 
low in the street with such a healthy ear as 
prophesies my cure. These sounds lay a finger 
on my pulse to some purpose. A fragrance 
comes in at all my senses which proclaims that 
I am still of nature, the child. The threshing 
in yonder barn, and the tinkling of the anvil 
come from the same side of Styx with me. If 
I were a physician I would try my patients 
thus : I would wheel them to a window and let 
nature feel their pulses. It will soon appear 
if their sensuous existence is sound. These 
sounds are but the throbbing of some pulse in 
me. Nature seems to have given me these 
hours to pry into her private drawers. I watch 
the insensible perspiration rising from my coat 
or hand on the wall. I go and feel my pulse in 
all the recesses of the house, and see if I am 
of force to carry a homely life and comfort into 
them. 
February 26, 1852. We are told to-day that 
civilization is making rapid progress; the ten¬ 
dency is ever upward, substantial justice is done 
even by human courts. You may trust the good 
intentions of mankind. We read to-morrow in 
the newspapers that France is on the eve of go¬ 
ing to war with England to give employment 
