EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 185 
deciduous trees are apparently dead and the 
white pine is much darker, but the pitch pine 
has an ingrained sunniness and is especially 
valuable for imparting warmth to the landscape 
at this season. Yet men will take pains to cut 
down these trees, and set imported larches in 
their places! The pitch pine shines in the 
spring somewhat as the osiers do. 
March 20, 1840. In society all the inspira¬ 
tion of my lonely hours seems to flow back on 
me, and then first to have expression. 
Love never degrades its votaries, but lifts 
them up to higher walks of being; they over¬ 
look one another. All other charities are swal¬ 
lowed up in this. It is gift and reward both. 
We will have no vulgar cupid for a go-between, 
to make us the playthings of each other, but 
rather cultivate an irreconcilable hatred instead 
of this. 
March 20, 1841. Even the wisest and best 
are apt to use their lives as the occasion to do 
something else in than to live greatly. But we 
should hang as fondly over this work as the 
finishing and embellishment of a poem. 
It is a great relief when for a few moments 
in the day we can retire to our chamber and be 
completely. true to ourselves. It leavens the 
rest of our hours. In that moment I will be 
nakedly as vicious as I am; this false life of 
mine shall have a being at length. 
