I was invited to dine at Mr. Baucroft's yesterday with Miss Margaret
Fuller; but Providence had given me some business to do, for which I was
very thankful.
Is not this a beautiful morning? The sun shines into my soul.
April, 1841.--. . . . I have been busy all day, from early breakfast-time
till late in the afternoon; and old Father Time has gone onward somewhat
less heavily than is his wont when I am imprisoned within the walls of
the Custom-House. It has been a brisk, breezy day, an effervescent
atmosphere, and I have enjoyed it in all its freshness,--breathing air
which had not been breathed in advance by the hundred thousand pairs of
lungs which have common and indivisible property in the atmosphere of
this great city. My breath had never belonged to anybody but me. It
came fresh from the wilderness of ocean. . . . . It was exhilarating to
see the vessels, how they bounded over the waves, while a sheet of foam
broke out around them. I found a good deal of enjoyment, too, in the
busy scene around me; for several vessels were disgorging themselves
(what an unseemly figure is this,--"disgorge," quotha, as if the vessels
were sick) on the wharf, and everybody seemed to be working with might
and main.
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