EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 229 
and the warmer days. His is the very voice of 
the weather. He rises and falls like quicksil¬ 
ver in the thermometer. You do not perceive 
the spring so surely in the actions of men, their 
lives are so artificial. They may make more or 
less fire in their parlors, and their feelings accord¬ 
ingly are not good thermometers. The frog far 
away in the wood, that burns no coal nor wood, 
perceives more surely the general and universal 
changes. 
There sits on the bank of the ditch a rana 
fontinalis. He is mainly a bronze brown, with 
a very dark greenish snout, etc.; with the raised 
line down the side of the back. This, methinks, 
is about the only frog which the marsh hawk 
could have found hitherto. 
March 25,1842. Great persons are not soon 
learned, not even their outlines, but they change 
like the mountains in the horizon as we ride 
along. Comparatively speaking, I care not for 
the man or his designs who would make the 
highest use of me short of an all adventuring 
friendship. I wish by the behavior of my friend 
toward me to be led to have such regard for 
myself as for a box of precious ointment. I 
shall not be as cheap to myself if I see that 
another values me. 
We talk much about education, and yet none 
will assume the office of an educator. I never 
