“He brought an eye for all he saw.”
Was ever anything more beautiful said of any one than that? And that is what I pray for—the seeing eye; that, whether my body be well or ill, I may enter in at the open doors which swing wide on every hand, and see, and love, and rejoice; understanding where I may, and happy where I may not to watch, to learn, to wonder like a child.
January 15th. The real freedom of life is measured not by one’s liberty to do as one likes, but by the things one can afford to do without. And there is no poverty in such freedom: it is through the enrichment of the inner life that one’s resources grow great enough to enable one to dispense with the outward things once so necessary.
V
Premonitions
January 21st. This is one of those beautiful, balmy days which sometimes come, late in January, to convince the veriest blind pessimist that spring is on the way. The chickadees are half mad, flying headlong from tree to tree, and singing their gay little winter score with an abandon unknown before. The titmice are whistling cheerily; and the jays, though not a hint of spring sweetness softens their harsh tones, are dancing a little in the hackberry as they squawk. The wren is singing rapturously, as he has done all these sunless weeks, not because of spring-time and April air, but because love and life are always present with him, and nothing else matters.
The mocking-bird is still solitary, wrapped in contemplation, like some prophet of old. Nor is the cardinal singing yet. But his not singing is no sign of faint-heartedness. Yesterday he perched in the tulip-tree and said “Cheer! Cheer! Cheer!” soberly, decidedly, as if the sweet reasonableness of good cheer had grown upon him through the dark January weather. He will be singing it soon.
There! I’ve been out on the porch, and written in my note-book on a bad day—the best bad day I’ve had yet; and when bad days are best bad days Grumpy may as well take a back seat.
January 28th. Best bad days are all very well; but a combination of best bad days and Cousin Jane is more grandeur than my feeble frame can live up to. It has taken me a week to catch up.