It is because we do not live in the open air, that we become near-sighted.
The rose may be improved by cultivation, and the thorns growing on its stalk may become different from what they were; but they are thorns, nevertheless.
(April 15th.)--I have heard the yellow-hammer, for the first time this year. In springtime its notes are far more rapid and short than in summer.
(April 23d.)--The first swallow has come. Now may we softly lull ourselves to rest in the consciousness that sweet spring is with us once again. The uncertain and anxious fluttering from one fair day to another, is at an end.
My little pitchman says: "Swallows and starlings come and go in the night." The idea is quite suggestive.
(End of April.)--We have had a shower. Oh, what fragrant odors it awakened in flowers, grass and trees! And this fragrance floats off into infinite space, while we short-lived children of man imagine that it all exists for us. Everything that exists, exists for itself alone.