March 27, 1857. . . . . I would fain make two reports in my journal, first, the incidents and observations of to-day, and by to-morrow I review the same and record what was omitted before, which will often be the most significant and poetic part. I do not know at first what it is that charms me. The men and things of to-day are wont to be fairer and truer in tomorrow's memory.
Men talk to me about society, as if I had none, and they had some, as if it were only to be got by going to the sociable or to Boston.
Compliments and flattery oftenest excite my contempt by the pretension they imply, for who is he that assumes to flatter me? To compliment often implies an assumption of superiority in the complimenter. It is in fact a subtle detraction.
March 27, 1858. p. m. Sail to Bittern Cliff. Scare up a flock of sheldrakes just off Fair Haven Hill, the conspicuous white ducks, sailing straight hither and thither. . . . . Soon after we scare up a flock of black ducks. We land and steal over the hill through the woods, expecting to find them under Lee's Cliff, as indeed we do, having crawled over the hill through the woods on Our stomachs. There we watched various waterfowl for an hour. There are a dozen sheldrakes (or goosanders) and among
