60 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
the snow. The snow is melting on the rocks, 
the water trickles down in shining streams, the 
mosses look bright; the first awakening of veg¬ 
etation is at the root of the saxifrage. As I go 
by the farmer’s yard the hens cackle more sol¬ 
idly, as if eggs were the burden of the strain. 
A horse’s fore legs are handier than his hind 
ones, the latter but fall into the place which the 
former have found. They have the advantage 
of being nearer the head, the source of intelli¬ 
gence. He strikes and paws with them. It is 
true he kicks with the hind legs. But that is 
a very simple and unscientific action, as if his 
whole body were a whip lash and his heels the 
snapper. 
The constant reference in our lives, even in 
the most trivial matters, to the superhuman is 
wonderful. If a portrait is painted, neither the 
wife’s opinion of the husband, nor the husband’s 
opinion of the wife, nor either’s opinion of the 
artist, not man’s opinion of man, is final and 
satisfactory. Man is not the final judge of the 
humblest work, though it be piling wood. The 
queen and the chambermaid, the king and the 
hired man, the Indian and the slave, alike ap¬ 
peal to God. 
Each man’s mode of speaking of the sexual 
relation proves how sacred his own relations of 
that kind are. We do not respect the mind 
that can jest on this subject. 
