May 2.

Especial I remember thee, Wachusett, who like me Standest alone without society. Thy far blue eye, A remnant of the sky, Seen through the clearing or the gorge, Or from the windows of the forge, Doth leaven all it passes by. Nothing is true But stands 'tween me and you, Thou western pioneer, Who know'st not shame nor fear, By venturous spirit driven Under the eaves of heaven; And canst expand thee there, And breathe enough of air? Upholding heaven, holding down earth, Thy pastime from thy birth, Not steadied by the one, nor leaning on the other; May I approve myself thy worthy brother!

May 3. Monday. We are all pilots of the most intricate Bahama channels. Beauty may be the sky overhead, but Duty is the water underneath. When I see a man with serene countenance in the sunshine of summer, drinking in peace in the garden or parlor, it looks like a great inward leisure that he enjoys; but in reality he sails on no summer's sea, but this steady sailing comes of a heavy hand on the tiller. We do not attend to larks and bluebirds so leisurely but that conscience is as erect as the attitude of the listener. The man of principle gets never a holiday. Our true character silently underlies all our words and actions, as the granite underlies the other strata. Its steady pulse does not cease for any deed of ours, as the sap is still ascending in the stalk of the fairest flower.

May 6. Thursday. The fickle person is he that does not know what is true or right absolutely,—who has not an ancient wisdom for a lifetime, but a new prudence for every hour. We must sail by a sort of dead reckoning on this course of life, not speak any vessel nor spy any headland, but, in spite of all phenomena, come steadily to port at last. In general we must have a catholic and universal wisdom, wiser than any particular, and be prudent enough to defer to it always. We are literally wiser than we know. Men do not fail for want of knowledge, but for want of prudence to give wisdom the preference. These low weathercocks on barns and fences show not which way the general and steady current of the wind sets,—which brings fair weather or foul,—but the vane on the steeple, high up in another stratum of atmosphere, tells that. What we need to know in any case is very simple. I shall not mistake the direction of my life; if I but know the high land and the main,—on this side the Cordilleras, on that the Pacific,—I shall know how to run. If a ridge intervene, I have but to seek, or make, a gap to the sea.

May 9. Sunday. The pine stands in the woods like an Indian,—untamed, with a fantastic wildness about it, even in the clearings. If an Indian warrior were well painted, with pines in the background, he would seem to blend with the trees, and make a harmonious expression. The pitch pines are the ghosts of Philip and Massasoit. The white pine has the smoother features of the squaw.