EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 305 
next and forever. The most positive life that 
history notices has been a constant retiring out 
of life, a wiping one’s hands of it, seeing how 
mean it is, and having nothing to do with it. 
April 8, 1841. Friends are the ancient and 
honorable of the earth. The oldest men did 
• 
not begin friendship. It is older than Hindo- 
stan and the Chinese Empire. How long has it 
been cultivated, and still it is the staple article. 
It is a divine league struck forever. Warm 
days only bring it out to the surface. There is 
a friendliness between the sun and the earth in 
pleasant weather. The gray content of the 
land is its color. 
You can tell what another’s suspicions are 
by what you feel forced to become. You will 
wear a new character, like a strange habit, in 
his presence. 
April 8, 1852.I notice the alder in 
blossom, its reddish-brown catkins now length¬ 
ened and loose. What mean the apparently 
younger small red (catkins ?) ? They are the 
female aments. 
April 8, 1853.Saw and heard my 
small pine warbler shaking out his trills or jin¬ 
gle, even like money coming to its bearing. 
They appear so much the smaller from perch¬ 
ing high in the tops of white pines, and hitting 
from tree to tree at that height. Is not my 
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