EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 181 
March 19, 1859. The wind makes such a 
din about your ears that conversation' is diffi¬ 
cult, your words are blown away and do not 
strike the ear they were aimed at. If you walk 
by the water the tumult of the waves confuses 
you. If you go by a tree or enter the woods 
the din is yet greater. Nevertheless this uni¬ 
versal commotion is very interesting and excit¬ 
ing. The white pines in the horizon, either 
single trees or whole woods, a mile off in the 
southwest or west, are particularly interesting. 
You not only see the regular bilateral form of 
the tree, all the branches distinct like the frond 
of a fern or a feather (for the pine even at 
this distance has not merely beauty of outline 
and color, it is not merely an amorphous and, 
homogeneous or continuous mass of green, but 
shows a regular succession of flattish leafy 
boughs or stages in flakes, one above another, 
like the veins of a leaf, or the leaflets of a 
frond. It is this richness and symmetry of de¬ 
tail which more than its outline charms us), 
but that fine silvery light reflected from its 
needles (perhaps their under sides) incessantly 
in motion. As a tree bends and waves like a 
feather in the gale, I see it alternately dark 
and light, as the sides of the needles which re¬ 
flect the cool sheen are alternately withdrawn 
from and restored to the proper angle. The 
