Reciprocity of good-will, and not compatibility of tastes, is the first requisite of friendship.
How singularly fresh and sweet is Mozart's music!—like the cadence of waters over a rocky bed, or the bird-chorus of a May morning. His melodies and those of Nature have always some subtle association. It is as if we knew the noble mother, and walked often by her side, and some fine day we meet the intelligent and sportive child, finding in his voice, his gestures, his salutation, something foreshadowed to us in that other, and beautiful in both.
Life is a breathing-space between two eternities, a holiday with appalling realities behind and before.
Barbarians "speak with naked hearts together:" we have polite conversation.
I am fond of smelling the spring,—detecting growth before it shows itself by the delicious damp odor in the fields. Snow and rain have their separate fragrance. I know at a distance the aromatic pine, the eatable whiff of birch-bark, the oily sweetness of sappy maples, the tart goodness of a sorrel-patch, and the scent of crushed tansy.