164 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
over my head in the woods, a dozen large and 
compact birds flying with great force and rapid¬ 
ity, spying out the land, eyeing every traveler. 
Now you hear the whistling of their wings, 
and in a moment they are lost in the horizon. 
What health and vigor they suggest! The 
life of man seems slow and puny in comparison, 
reptilian. 
How handsome a flock of red-wings, ever 
changing its oval form as it advances, from the 
rear birds pursuing the others. 
March 18, 1842. Whatever book or sentence 
will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was 
thought twice. I say this thinking of -■, 
who whites pictures or first impressions merely, 
which consequently will only bear a first read¬ 
ing. As if any transient, any new, mood of the 
best man deserved to detain the world long. I 
should call his waiting essentially dramatic, ex¬ 
cellent acting, entertaining especially to those 
who see rather than those who hear, not to be 
repeated, more than a joke. If he did not think 
who made the joke, how shall he think who 
hears it. He never consults the oracle, but 
thinks to utter oracles himself. There is noth¬ 
ing in his book for which he is not and does not 
feel responsible. He does not retire behind the 
truth he utters, but stands in the fore-ground. 
I wish he would just think, and tell me what he 
