EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 157 
March 17, 1852, I catch myself philosophiz¬ 
ing most abstractly when first returning to con¬ 
sciousness in the night or morning. I make 
the truest observations and distinctions then, 
when the will is yet wholly asleep, and the 
mind works like a machine without friction. I 
am conscious of having in my sleep transcended 
the limits of the individual, and made observa¬ 
tions and carried on conversations which in my 
waking hours I can neither recall nor appre¬ 
ciate. As if in sleep our individual fell into the 
infinite mind, and at the moment of awakening 
we found ourselves on the confines of the latter. 
On awakening we resume our enterprises, take 
up our bodies, and become limited mind again. 
We meet and converse with those bodies which 
we have previously animated. There is a mo¬ 
ment in the dawn when the darkness of the 
night is dissipated and before the exhalations of 
the day begin to rise, when we see things more 
truly than at any other time. The light is 
more trustworthy, since our senses are purer 
and the atmosphere is less gross. By afternoon 
all objects are seen in mirage. 
To-day the fox-colored sparrow is on its way 
to Hudson’s Bay. 
March 17, 1854.The grass is slightly 
greened on south bank-sides, on the south side 
of the house. The first tinge of green appears 
