as to wake nature up at exactly this date, Up up up up up up up up up! What a rustling it seems to make among the dry leaves. . . . . Then I see come slowly flying from the southwest a great gull, of voracious form, which at length, by a sudden and steep descent, alights in Fair Haven Pond, scaring up a crow which was seeking its food on the edge of the ice.
March 24, 1842. Those authors are successful who do not write down to others, but make their own taste and judgment their audience. By some strange infatuation we forget that we do not approve what yet we recommend to others. It is enough if I please myself with writing, I am there sure of all audience.
It is always singular to meet common sense in the very old books, as in the "Veeshnoo Sarma," as if they could have dispensed with the experience of later times. We had not given space enough to their antiquity for the accumulation of wisdom. We meet even a trivial wisdom in them as if truth were already hacknied. The present is always younger than antiquity. A playful wisdom, which has eyes behind as well as before, and oversees itself.
The wise can afford to doubt in his wisest moment. The easiness of doubt is the ground of his assurance. Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt I should not believe.
