EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 63 
unless our loveliness increases also. We must 
securely love each other as we love God, with 
no more danger that our love be unrequited or 
ill-bestowed. There is that in my friend before 
which I must first decay and prove untrue. Love 
is the least moral and the most. Are the best 
good in their love ? or the worst, bad ? 
March 5, 1853. It is encouraging to know 
that though every kernel of truth has been care¬ 
fully swept out of our churches, there yet re¬ 
mains the dust of truth on their walls, so that 
if you should carry a light into them, they 
would still, like some powder-mills, blow up 
at once. 
3 P. M. To the Beeches. A misty after¬ 
noon, but warm, threatening rain. Standing on 
Walden, whose eastern shore is laid waste, men 
walking on the hillside a quarter of a mile off 
are singularly interesting objects seen through 
the mist which has the effect of a mirage. The 
persons of the walkers are black on the snowy 
ground, and the limited horizon makes them 
the more important in the scene. This kind 
of weather is very favorable to our landscape. 
I must not forget the lichen-painted boles of 
the beeches. 
Round to the white bridge where the red-ma¬ 
ple buds are already much expanded, foretell¬ 
ing summer, though our eyes see only winter 
