A blithe west wind is blowing over all. In the fine flowing haze, men at a distance seem shadowy and gigantic, as ill-defined and great as men should always be. I do not know if yonder be a man or a ghost.
What a consolation are the stars to man, so high and out of his reach, as is his own destiny. . . . . My fate is in some sense linked with theirs, and if they are to persevere to a great end, shall I die who could conjecture it. It surely is some encouragement to know that the stars are my fellow-creatures, for I do not suspect but they are reserved for a high destiny. Man's moral nature is a riddle which only eternity can solve.
I see laws which never fail, of whose failure I never conceived. Indeed, I cannot detect failure anywhere but in my fear. I do not fear that right is not right, that good is not good, but only the annihilation of the present existence. But only that can make me incapable of fear. My fears are as good prophets as my hopes.
March 19, 1852. Observed, as I stood with C on the brink of the rill on Conantum, where falling a few inches it produced bubbles, our images three quarters of an inch long, and black as imps, appearing to lean towards each other on account, of the convexity of the bub-
