310 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
hollow in the woods, I feel the cold currents 
drop into it occasionally, just as they are seen 
to ripple a small lake in such a situation from 
time to time. 
The epigcea is not quite out. The earliest 
peculiarly woodland herbaceous flowers are epi - 
gcea , anemone, thalictrum, and (by the first of 
May) viola pedata. These grow quite in the 
woods amid dry leaves, nor do they depend so 
much on water as the very earliest flowers. I 
am perhaps more surprised by the growth of the 
viola pedata leaves by the side of paths amid 
the shrub oaks, and half covered with oak 
leaves, than by any other growth, the situation 
is so dry and the surrounding bushes so appar¬ 
ently lifeless. 
April 9,1841. The brave man does not mind 
the call of the trumpet, nor hear the idle clash¬ 
ing of swords without, for the infinite din 
within. War is but a training compared with 
the active service of his peace. Is he not at 
war ? Does he not resist the ocean swell within 
him, and walk as gently as the summer’s sea? 
Would you have him parade in uniform and 
manoeuver men, whose equanimity is his uni¬ 
form, and who is himself manoeuvered? 
April 9, 1853. P. m. To Second Division. 
The chipping sparrow, with its ashy white 
breast, white streak over eye, and undivided 
