April 30th.--. . . . I arose this morning feeling more elastic than I
have throughout the winter; for the breathing of the ocean air has
wrought a very beneficial effect. . . . . What a beautiful, most
beautiful afternoon this has been! It was a real happiness to live.
If I had been merely a vegetable,--a hawthorn-bush, for instance,--
I must have been happy in such an air and sunshine; but, having a mind
and a soul, . . . . I enjoyed somewhat more than mere vegetable
happiness. . . . . The footsteps of May can be traced upon the islands in
the harbor, and I have been watching the tints of green upon them
gradually deepening, till now they are almost as beautiful as they ever
can be.
May 19th.--. . . . Lights and shadows are continually flitting across my
inward sky, and I know neither whence they come nor whither they go; nor
do I inquire too closely into them. It is dangerous to look too minutely
into such phenomena. It is apt to create a substance where at first
there was a mere shadow. . . . . If at any time there should seem to be
an expression unintelligible from one soul to another, it is best not to
strive to interpret it in earthly language, but wait for the soul to make
itself understood; and, were we to wait a thousand years, we need deem it
no more time than we can spare.
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