138 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
then I go. I hear a spring bubbling near where 
I drank out of a can in my earliest youth. The 
birds, the squirrels, the alders, the pines, they 
seem serene and in their places. I wonder if 
my life looks as serene to them too. Does no 
creature, then, see, not only with the eyes of its 
own narrow destiny, but with God’s ? When 
God made man, he reserved some parts and 
some rights to himself. The eye has many 
qualities which belong to God more than man. 
It is his lightning which flashes therein. When 
I look into my companion’s eye, I think it is 
God’s private mine. It is a noble feature; it 
cannot be degraded. For God can look on all 
things undefiled. 
Pond. Nature is constantly original and in¬ 
venting new patterns, like a mechanic in his 
shop. When the overhanging pine drops into 
the water, by the action of the sun and of the 
wind rubbing it on the shore, its boughs become 
white and smooth, and assume fantastic forms, 
as if turned by a lathe. All things, indeed, are 
subjected to a rotary motion, either gradual 
and partial, or rapid and complete, from the 
planet and system to the simplest shell-fish and 
pebbles on the beach. As if all beauty resulted 
from an object’s turning on its own axis, or 
from the turning of others about it. It estab¬ 
lishes a new centre in the universe. As all 
