EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 243 
March 27, 1857.I would fain make 
two reports in my journal, first, the incidents 
and observations of to-day, and by to-morrow I 
review the same and record what was omitted 
before, which will often be the most significant 
and poetic part. I do not know at first what 
it is that charms me. The men and things of 
to-day are wont to be fairer and truer in to¬ 
morrow’s memory. 
Men talk to me about society, as if I had 
none, and they had some, as if it were only to 
be got by going to the sociable or to Boston.. 
Compliments and flattery oftenest excite my 
contempt by the pretension they imply, for 
who is he that assumes to flatter me ? To com¬ 
pliment often implies an assumption of superi¬ 
ority in the complimenter. It is in fact a subtle 
detraction. 
March 27, 1858. P. m. Sail to Bittern Cliff. 
Scare up a flock of sheldrakes just off Fair Ha¬ 
ven Hill, the conspicuous white ducks, sailing 
straight hither and thither.Soon after 
we scare up a flock of black ducks. We land 
and steal over the hill through the woods, ex¬ 
pecting to find them under Lee’s Cliff, as indeed 
we do, having crawled over the hill through the 
woods on our stomachs. There we watched 
various waterfowl for an hour. There are a 
dozen sheldrakes (or goosanders) and among 
