EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS* 85 
woodman’s team and the fox, sometimes with 
the tracks of the skaters still fresh upon it, and 
the holes cut for pickerel. Town committees 
inspect the bridges and causeways as if by mere 
eye-force to intercede with the ice and save the 
treasury. In the brooks the floating of small 
cakes of ice with various speed, is full of con¬ 
tent and promise, and when the water gurgles 
under a natural bridge you may hear these hasty 
rafts hold conversation in an undertone. Every 
rill is a channel for the juices of the meadow. 
Last year’s grasses and flower stalks have been 
steeped in rain and snow, and now the brooks 
flow with meadow tea, thorough wort, mint, flag- 
root, and pennyroyal, all at one draught. In 
the ponds the sun makes encroachments around 
the edges first, as ice melts in a kettle on the 
fire, darting his rays through this crevice, and 
preparing the deep water to act simultaneously 
on the under side. 
March 8,1842. Most lecturers preface their 
discourses on music with a history of music, but 
as well introduce an essay on virtue with a his¬ 
tory of virtue. As if the possible combinations 
of sound, the last wind that sighed or melody 
that waked the wood, had any history other 
than a perceptive ear might hear in the least 
and latest sound of nature. A history of music 
would be like the history of the future, for so 
