29 March 1841 – 4 April 1841

I find my life growing slovenly when it does not exercise a constant supervision over itself. Its duds accumulate. Next to having lived a day well is a clear and calm overlooking of all our days.

Methinks all things have travelled since you shined, But only Time, and clouds, Time's team, have moved; Again foul weather shall not change my mind, But in the shade I will believe what in the sun I loved. In reading a work on agriculture, I skip the author's moral reflections, and the words "Providence" and "He" scattered along the page, to come at the profitable level of what he has to say. There is no science in men's religion; it does not teach me so much as the report of the committee on swine. My author shows he has dealt in corn and turnips and can worship God with the hoe and spade, but spare me his morality.

Friends will not only live in harmony, but in melody.

The rattling of the tea-kettle below stairs reminds me of the cow-bells I used to hear when berrying in the Great Fields many years ago, sounding distant and deep amid the birches. That cheap piece of tinkling brass which the farmer hangs about his cow's neck has been more to me than the tons of metal which are swung in the belfry. They who prepare my evening meal below Carelessly hit the kettle as they go, With tongs or shovel, And, ringing round and round, Out of this hovel It makes an Eastern temple by the sound. At first I thought a cow-bell, right at hand 'Mid birches, sounded o'er the open land, Where I plucked flowers Many years ago, Speeding midsummer hours With such secure delight they hardly seemed to flow.