86 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
little past is it and capable of record that it is 
but the hint of a prophecy. It is the history of 
gravitation. It has no history more than God. 
It circulates and resounds forever, and only 
flows like the sea or air.Why, if I should 
sit down to write its story, the west wind would 
rise to refute me. Properly speaking there can 
be no history but natural history, for there is 
no past in the soul, but in nature.I 
might as well write the history of my aspira¬ 
tions. Does not the last and highest contain 
them all ? Do the lives of the great composers 
contain the facts which interested them ? What 
is this music? why, tjhinner and more evanes¬ 
cent than ether ? Subtler than sound, for it is 
only a disposition of sound. It is to sound what 
color is to matter. It is the color of a flame, 
or of the rainbow, or of w r ater. Only one sense 
has known it. The least profitable, the least 
tangible fact, which cannot be bought or cul¬ 
tivated but by virtuous methods, and yet our 
ears ring with it like shells left on the shore. 
March 8, 1853. 10 A. M. Rode to Saxon- 
ville with F. B. to look at a small place for 
sale, via Wayland. Return by Sudbury. On 
wheels in snow. A spring sheen on the snow. 
The melting snow running and sparkling down 
hill in the ruts was quite spring-like. 
Saw a mink run across the road in Sudbury, a 
