Oh, if I could be intoxicated on air and water![60] on hope and memory! and always see the maples standing red in the midst of the waters on the meadow!
Those have met with losses, who have lost their children. I saw the widow this morning whose son was drowned.
That I might never be blind to the beauty of the landscape! To hear music without any vibrating cord!
A family in which there was singing in the morning. To hear a neighbor singing! All other speech sounds thereafter like profanity. A man cannot sing falsehood or cowardice; he must sing truth and heroism to attune his voice to some instrument. It would be noblest to sing with the wind. I have seen a man making himself a viol, patiently and fondly paring the thin wood and shaping it, and when I considered the end of the work he was ennobled in my eyes. He was building himself a ship in which to sail to new worlds. I am much indebted to my neighbor who will now and then in the intervals of his work draw forth a few strains from his accordion. Though he is but a learner, I find when his strains cease that I have been elevated.
The question is not whether you drink, but what liquor.
Plucked a wild rose the 9th of October on Fair Haven Hill.
Butter-and-eggs, which blossomed several months ago, still freshly [in] bloom (October 11th).
He knew what shrubs were best for withes.
This is a remarkable year. Huckleberries are still quite abundant and fresh on Conantum. There have been more berries than pickers or even worms. (October 9th.)
I am always exhilarated, as were the early voyagers, by the sight of sassafras (Laurus Sassafras). The green leaves bruised have the fragrance of lemons and a thousand spices. To the same order belong cinnamon, cassia, camphor.