1886 
Jan 15. The stillness, the brightness, the sharpness continue [crossed out: s]. Below zero this morning. Yet the sky and air look as warm as mid-summer. A warm haze fills all the distance and gives a softness and tenderness to the sky. 
-An oracle, says Pliny, [crossed out: had] predicted that upon a certain day Aeschylus would be killed by the fall of a house; so upon that day the poet would trust himself only under the canopy of heaven, when an eagle flying over let drop a tortoise upon his head and killed him. 
-Dr. Holmes as a writer, is like a stove that always draws well; the fire is very bright and lively and the combustion is complete, but then, the heat is not great, often no more than the heat of rushes or straw. If his profundity and seriousness were equal to his wit and brightness, he would take rank among the great ones. No smoke in our genial Doctor, no smouldering embers, but always the clearest and quickest of flame. 
-Mr Sanborn thinks John Brown caused the war. Not so: that which caused Brown, caused the war. He only fanned for a moment the fire that was already deeply kindled. 
-Various reasons are given why the Greek architects fluted their columns; some say it was to preserve the crystalic effect of the marble. Dr. Curtis says it was to carry the eye upward and to identify the column with the building. But the most obvious reason is that it so enhances the expession of strength; it gives the column an athletic, even muscular look. A smooth polished column looks tame and dull; it might be of tallow for all the eye sees; one almost expects to see it crushed; but add these sharp long slender lines, and what life and activity [crossed out: is] are infused into it! 
-I look upon that man as lucky who feels a want which the Church can supply. It puts him in relation with the world, [crossed out: with com] gives him an interest with communities far outside of [crossed out: himself] his own neighborhood, that is wholesome and desirable. The name of his Church and his heart throbs with a home feeling wherever he is. It doubtless awakens a more personal and intimate a feeling in him than that of patriotism. The success of the church as an organization and of such societies as the Oddfellows is probably owing largely to this desire which we all have for a closer bond of union with our fellow man. We do not like to feel isolated and alone. A common race, a common country is not enough; there are those who belong peculiarly to us, [crossed out: they] who think and feel as we do; let us in some way unite ourselves to them; let us find our bretheren - put all our hearts together and see if we cannot warm one little spot in this cold universe What comfort my father had in his church, and in it organ The Signs of the Times. These were the voices of his brothers and sisters who spoke here, though they lived in Oregon or in Texas; their words warmed him. That they had had the same experience as he had, the same struggles and doubts and despairs, touched him in a way peculiarly close and precious. None of his degenerate sons belong to the church, and none of them are as worthy as he - none of them stand as well as men in the community as he did. I do not speak so much of myself. I know I am fathers superior in some ways, and his inferior in others. I have not his self-reliance, nor his innocence. He was as unsophisticated as a child. [crossed out: And] I cannot accept my [crossed out: lot] place and lot in the world as cheerfully as he did, and I doubt much if I could have fought the same battles as he did, under the same conditions, with the same success. I look back at the work he did - he and Mother - the farm they improved and paid for, the family they reared, with unspeakable longing. How idle and trivial seem my own days! Much of this feeling I know is the passion of the past. 
Jany 29. Cloudywith some fine rain for three days past. Robins here to-day, going north. 
-Religion as a special and peculiar or miraculous gift - some-thing entirely outside and independent of a man's natural goodness and practice of of virtue, 
-something which an upright and blameless man may live and die without and which a cut-throat during his last moment of life upon the scaffold may have - this view of religion has had its day. 
-Yet, as a rule, the most desperate sinners are the most easily converted. Men who have lived fairly correct and conscientious lives, are less likely to be suddenly smitten with terror and remorse. Just as it seems easier for a man to win the love of a woman who hates him, than the love of one who is indifferent to him. 
Feb 7. A severe cold wave has just passed over us; thermometer down to 8 or 10 below; ice on the river 13 inches thick. A flock of 25 robins yesterday. 
-What is great thought but the expression of a great man. Without great men there are no great thoughts. 
Small men may have bright and entertaining thoughts, but only a truly great man can give one the impression of greatness. 
Feb 13. Home from N.Y. last night after a 5 days visit. Nothing of note to report. Visited the Morgan collection of pictures; saw a picture by Jules Breton, "The Communicants," that pleased me much. Am convinced that Millet ran his theory into the ground at times. In the Wood Splitter, you cannot tell whether the back ground is woods or tied up bunches of corn stalks, or sugar cane. His figures are great because of their seriousness, and the force of nature they hold or express At the Water Color exhibition saw little that took me, tho' I am no judge of pictures. 
Stayed two nights with Gilder and went with him to the authors Club, a slim turn-out, a pretty slim set of authors at best, when all are there. They blackballed Walt Whitman not long since. Think what the hope of American letters is in the hands of such men! I sincerely pity them. They are mostly the mere mice of literature. Such men as Gilder and Stedman and DeKay recognize Whitmen, but probably the least one of the remainder believes himself a greater man. 
J.W. Alexander makes a sketch of me for the Century - a good picture I should say, but not a good likeness. A pouring rain on Thursday 4 1/2 inches of water in 24 hours. Rain continued on Friday and Saturday. 
-14. Warm; Snow nearly all gone; bees out of the hive; ground overflowing with water again. Killed two native mice in my bee-hive where they had feasted on bees and honey all winter. Blue-birds call as in spring. Feels and looks like spring. 
Feb 18. Clear; ground bare, signs of spring. Pretty good sap weather. Purple finch in song this morning; song sparrow, in song yesterday; robins eating the frozen apples on the tree. 
Etta, our Clintondale girl, one of the best we ever had, left last night for home, and the dish-towel is again taken up by me. Mrs. B's ill temper, the cause as usual. No girl of spirit can stand it here more than three months. 
28. To Millerton on the 24th to examine the bank. Heavy rains on Thursday [crossed out: Friday], the 25th Friday, Saturday and to-day, bright, hard, sharp and very windy. The roaring winds of March. Thermometer down to 7 or 8. Ground bare and hard as iron. Ice on river smooth and firm. 
-The last of the proof of new book to-day; probably the least valuable of my books. Mch 1st Days of polished iron, cold, windy, hard and sharp. Mercury at 8 this morning. 
7. The blizzard has tapered off into calm, clear, remarkably bright days. Not a cloud in the sky yesterday or today. Sharp and dry; ice on the river like a plain of burnished steel; roads getting dry. 
No thoughts for a month past, still reading Gibbon, began last July. Am determined to finish him by April. Carlyle read him in 12 days; I cannot do it in 12 months at least. 
-Whole seasons pass and I make not one new observation, gather not one new fact; other seasons again I make many of them. It all depends upon your temper or frame of mind. If you are not in the mood for the new facts you will not find them. The new facts are always there before you; the question is, will you, or can you, see them. Some conditions of the mind and heart attract facts as a magnet attracts iron filings; other conditions repel them, or pass them by indifferently. When I am intent upon any particular phase of natural history, I meet with new facts and confirmations everywhere. If a man thinks about arrow heads in his walk, he will be surprised at the number he will find. Train your eye to pick out four-leafed clovers, and you find them everywhere. 
Mch 10. Sharp, bright day. Ice moved up last night on the river. To-day it is in motion (very slow and entire) below the ice house. Days a perfect plank to me so far as original thought or observation goes. 
17 Much bright mild weather, sap weather so far. Julian and I have boiled three day out under the trees by the spring. 
-The religion of the great mass of people is only a matter of prudence, a form of their present world.-liness. They look out ahead, they invest in the securities of the Church because they believe the returns will be ample by and by. How rash, how imprudent to run the risk of going to Hell when a little caution and self-denial now will make all secure! Take the great body of the Catholics, for instance, what are they looking out for but the safety of their bacon, of high spiritual things, what do they know or care? 
Our methodist bretheren, for the most part, invest in religion from motives of prudence; they do it after duly considering it, as they would a business venture. 
That which a man can choose or reject is not religion; that is an opinion, or a theory; religion is as vital to him as the color of his blood; he has it, or he has it not, and there is no choice about it. Who would not say that Julian, the Apostate, had more religion than any known Roman of his time - more than of the real essence of Christianity. 
-Lowell is not a healing or helpful writer; he does not touch the spirit, the soul; but reaches only the wit, the fancy, the intelligence. He has no religion, none of that subtle piety and goodness and lovingness that mark the great teachers and founders. 
Writers and poets might well be divided into two classes; those who rest with the mind, and those who penetrate to the spirit. Poets like Pope and his school, men of quick and keen intelligence, and prose writers like Lowell, belong to the former class; while Wordsworth, Emerson, Carlyle, and men of this stamp belong to the latter, and address the soul. 
The Westminster Review praises my style etc; says language in my hands is like a violin in the hands of a master. But really I have no dexterity as a writer; I can only walk along a straight, smooth path. Of the many nice and difficult things I see done in prose by dozens of writers I am utterly incapable. What I see and feel I can express, but it must be all plain sailing. I do not know how to utter platitudes, if I wanted to, and the other things come only at rare intervals. 
Mch 19. Finished Gibbons Decline and a Fall this morning, began last summer; my principal reading during all these months. Not easy reading to me. Gibbon's sentences are like spheres - there is only a smooth curved surface for a mind to grasp. Carlyle groaned over Frederick, but how much more reason had Gibbon to groan over his task; and yet he says it "amused and exercised twenty years." His work is like a piece of masonry of dressed stone. Every sentence fits its place; there is not a jagged line or an unfinished spot anywhere. And it is plain to see that he tore his material from the rocks and mountains as it were, and set it in this smooth, compact order. A splendid bridge as Carlyle said to Emerson, leading from the old world to the new. 
-To read Gibbon is to be present at the creation of the world - the modern world. We see the chaos out of which it came; we see the breaking up of old worlds, old conditions and races and the slow formation of the new. The most astonishing and impressive thing in the history of the world are those swarms upon swarms of barbarians, from the North from the East, from the South perpetually breaking in and over-running the old Empire. One comes to think of the Empire as a circle more or less filled with light; all around it on all sides is darkness, and out of this darkness come [crossed out: rid] fiercely riding these savage hords; as soon as they cross the line made visible to us, out of this fierce volcanic lava of humanity the modern races and worlds have arisen. The main push and impulse comes always from the plains of Central Asia; this seems to be the well-head of mankind. What we see in Roman history is doubtless but a continuation of a process which had been going on for many ages; it is agreed by all that our Aryan ancestors were an eruption from the same fertile source. 
Mch 27. Much bright cold weather so far in March, much good sap-weather. Roads getting quite dry. Frost about out of the ground, a little rain and snow last night. Bright to-day. 
Mch 28. Bright day, Sunday. Julian and I walk to the woods and burn an old pine stub, much fun for J and for me too. Hear the first little frog not in the swamp, but in the woods. Newts getting ready to spawn in the water. Van B reports the wood-frog lively in a little pool in the woods beside the road. 
29.
 Go home to-day; reach there at noon. Go up with Hiram from Depot. No sugar weather - rainy. 

30.
 Rainy, but tap part of the bush in afternoon. 

31.
 Still wet; finish the bush to-day. 


April 1st Heavy rain last night with thunder - the second thunder storm of March, both followed by warm weather instead of cold, as the sign indicates. Bright and windy to-day. All day I boil sap in the old bush; reduce 160 pails to 4 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Enjoy it much. 
2nd Still bright and cool; wander about the old place in fore noon with long, long thoughts. Oh, the pathos of the old scenes where my youth was passed where father and mother lived and died, and where my heart has always been. 
When I come home a sort of perpetural fever I have 
subsides, the old place soothes and satisfies me, and yet there is pain too amid it all, the pain one has in walking amid graves. 
During the rain I sat in the house and read Caesar's Commentaries and the Bible. 
3rd My 49th birth-day. Came back from home last night; little frogs in full chorus near depot; Snow on the ground this morning, but bright and mild this P.M. Now for the annual inventory of health symptons: Health probably better than one year ago, except sleeplessness; been nearly free of it for past two months, till I went out home, when it came back. Strength good in both arms and both legs; left-leg about as good as the other, harmonize very well. Less pricking and smarting in ends of fingers and toes than one year ago. Heart still flutters at times, probably indigestion. But little head ache since last fall. Sense of touch better than last spring. 
6. Another destructive and damnable rain from the North and East, one of the series of down pours that began last August and have continued every two or three weeks ever since. Everything 
afloat. Folly and excess on the part of the weather like that of a drunken man. 
9. A perfect spring day at last, one expanse of blue and one flood of light. Bees carrying their first pollen; no wild flowers yet. 
11 Sunday - a fine day. Julian and I walk to the woods. See a partridge drum; gather the first arbutus; no hepaticas yet in those woods. 
14 A delicious day; warm as May. This to me is the most bewitching part of the whole year. Ones relish is so keen and the bites are so few and 
so tender. How the fields of winter rye stand out! They call up a vision of England. A perfect day in April, far excels a perfect day in June. How busy the bees are to-day carrying pollen - every bee in a hurry. The river crinkles and stirs slowly and lazily, as if it too enjoyed the warmth and the blue sky. How clearly and singly the bush-sparrows song is projected upon the fresh warm [crossed out: side] quiet. Phoebe and song sparrow building yesterday and to-day. 
Such days have all the peace and geniality of summer without any of its satiety or enervating heat. 
April 15. Not much cloud this morning, but much vapor in the air. A cool south wind with streaks of pungent vegetable odor. When I smell too determinedly for it I miss it, but when I let my nose have its own way and take in the air slowly, I get it. An odor of a myriad swelling buds. 
16 The fair days continue, tranquil, peaceful, brooding April days, the most delicious of the year. Soft vapory moon.light nights too. In the morning the long drawn call of the highhole comes up, then the tender rapid thrill of the little bush or russet sparrow, then the piercing sword like note of the meadow starling. 
I am content to sit about all day and dream and muse, and let my eye roam over the landscape, lingering long on the emerald spots. 
-Always on the extreme verge of time; this moment that now passes is the latest moment of all eternities. New time always; the time we have lived and mellowed and that has been hallowed by [crossed out: ?] the presence of friends or parents, or great events, is forever gone; this we keep only in memory. The day is always new, hence the crudeness and rawness and prosiness of the present. We can keep the old, all except the old times. The old house, the old fields, and in a measure the old friends, but the atmosphere that bathed it all, the past days, this we cannot keep. Time does not become sacred to us until we have lived it, until it has passed over us and taken with it a part of ourselves. While it is here we value it not; but the instant it is gone and become yesterday or last week, how tender and poetic it looks to us. Oh, the power of the past! How the days accumulate behind us, and turn their beautiful sad faces toward us. Here we stand upon the verge, the shore of time, with all that growing past back of us, like a fair land idealized by distance into which we may not enter, or to which we may not return. The future is unknwon to us, [crossed out: does] in fact, does not exist, but the past is a part of ourselves. The days are our children which we have for a little time and then they are taken from us; one by one they step across the line into that land from which there is no returning, and not till they are gone do we see how beautiful and pathetic they were and how deeply we loved them. If our friends should come back from the grave they [crossed out: would] could not be what they were to us, unless our dead selves came back also. How precious and pathetic the thought of father and mother yet the enchantment of the past is over them also. [crossed out: The pathos of the memory of them blends with and is enhanced by the deep pathos of the past.] They are in that sacred land, their faces shine with its hallowed light, their voices come to us with its moving tones. Probably the last time you looked upon your aged father and mother in life, you said now let me forestall the grief which I shall feel when he is gone, let me feel it now; I know it must soon come; let me look upon him as with the eyes of the future when he shall be taken away. But you cannot, you cannot anticipate the past; you cannot see the present as you will see the past; beyond the impassable gulf all things assume new and strange features. 
Probably there is no clew to the past like music, or like a closely allied sensation, that produced by odor. Music and perfume bring back the past to us vividly; a whiff of a certain fragrance, the smell of a room of a flower, the breath of a wandering breeze, or a long forgotten air, or melody, a snatch of a song etc, and [crossed out: for a] like a flash the past is resurrected, for a brief moment we live the life of other days, and live it as it is to the imagination, not as it was to the dull sense. It comes over us like a wave and is gone. We can never see the color of the present; we do not know what it is like until it is gone, and this because it is not complete until it is gone; then it detaches itself, like a fruit. A glimpse of a day, a year, or several years ago, set in the midst of this, [crossed out: thereby] and then you see what it was like. I met a friend I had not seen for a quarter of a century; the sight of his face did not restore him to me, but his voice, that brought it all back; that made the dead alive 
The great power of music is this power it has to restore the past, and restore it idealized and complete. 
April 21. The enchanting days continue without a break. Ones senses are not large enough to take them all in. Maple buds just bursting, apple trees full of infantile leaves. How the poplars and willows stand out. A moist warm, brooding haze over all the Earth. All day my little rustic or bush sparrow sings and trills divinely. The most pronounced bird music in April is from the sparrows. The yellow birds are lust getting on their yellow coats. I saw some yesterday that had a smutty, unwashed look from the new yellow shining through the old drab webs of the feathers. 
Thermometer ranges from 75 to 78. 
24. The warm tranquil weather confined till noon to-day when the change came from the north, wind and cloud and rain and thunder. Much cooler. Plumb and cherry trees in bloom. All the groves and woods lightly touched with new foliage. Looks like May. Violets and dandelions in bloom. Sparrows nest with two eggs. Maples hanging out their delicate fringe-like bloom. This period of sunshine and calm, this peace and repose and repose of the weather, just ended, corresponds to the October calm, which we call the Indian summer. The vernal equipoise. 
27. Cool, overcast. Go to Northampton to-day. Spend an hour in Hudson walking the streets. Look across to the Catskills and think of father and the many times he crossed the mountain in spring and fall. Long, long thoughts. When father was a boy of 12 or 13 he came to Hudson with his father in a lumber wagon all the way thence into Columbia Co. to visit friends; must be 70 years ago. Reach Northampton at 2 P.M. beautiful country; the heart of New England, a ripe mellow country. The meadows a great feature. So many colleges all about seem to give an air of culture which our state lacks. 
Great enthusiasm among the college girls. I lead great packs of them (40 or 50) to the fields and woods and help them ideftify the birds by their calls and songs. Two or three times a day we go forth once to the top of Mt.Tom. On Wednesday the President drives me to Amherst, a beautiful place, a sort of high island in a great rolling plain. 
30 Home to day via Hartford and Fishkill, a fine day; good view of the country. 
May 3rd Lovely day. Apple-trees in bloom. Cherry trees have dropped their bloom. Maple tree cast quite a shadow. Ash and chestnut brushed with tender green. Season very early. 
4 No May birds till this morning when wren and warbling vireo appeared. Air full of white vapor, warm and bright. Expect to start on my trip South and West to-night. 
May 4 9 1/2 A.M. 
-How it comes over me at times, that ones father and mother saw just such a day, saw spring come in the same way, the same feeling in the air, the same hopes and thoughts in their hearts. They saw the apple bloom come, heard the hum of bees, the voice of birds, and the world seemed young and fresh to them. How busy they were, he with his [crossed out: crops] "springs work" she with house hold affairs. Now alas, it is all over with them as soon it will be all over with us, and others will take our places. 
June 22nd The summer solstice finds me back from my seven weeks wanderings, apparently a sadder but not a wiser man. One cannot long run away from his sadness, nor easily overtake wisdom. All my sad moods and thoughts I find here on my return; a pale sisterhood of regrets and longings and remembrances; here they are again to bear me company. They could not follow me through the din and dust and excitement of my journeyings; only occasionally did I get a glimpse of them; they love solitude, and here they are. Well, welcome drooping and melancholy friends. I could not well do without you after all; I am glad to be back with you again, and to taste your bitter-sweet draught. Thoughts of father and mother, how could I part with you, and how far off you seemed to me in busy Chicago, or [crossed out: in] riding about Kentucky. Now you shall be near me again, the one on my right hand and the other on my left. And the domestic imps and furies, you too can now have your day; you have had but little chance at me for many weeks; now lay on. 
-Find the country very green and fresh; a cool wet June in this section 
On Wednesday May 5th I saw Walt Whitman; spent two or three hours at his home in C. He was not very well and I was myself dull. He looked as fine as usual, sitting there by the window. 
On Thursday I went to Washington whither Mrs. B and Julian had gone the day before. Was in W. from May 6th till May 16th when I set out for KY. Arrived at Frankfurt, May 18, and drove about the Blue Grass region with Mr. Proctor till Friday 28th when I went to the Mammoth Cave; spent the Sunday at the Cave. Monday left for St. Louis; spent part 
of June 1st in St. Louis; then up the river by steamer to Quincy; then to Payson to meet the Allabens, friends of 30 years ago. Spend 2nd, 3rd and 4th of June with them; then to Chicago where we stay till June 15th stopping with Dr Burroughs - one of the best men I have yet known. From Chicago to Cleveland where we spend 3 days with the Pecks; then to Niagara on the 18th, then to Utica, where we pass Sunday, then home on the 21st. The fruits of the trip not yet obvious; whether I absorbed anything or not, remains to be determined. 
July 1st Still bright, cool, translucent days, remarkable. Currants all shipped yesterday, very listless and inactive; too much so at times; something wrong physically. Probably the re-action after the strain of travel. 
3rd Soft, cool, hazy; a slight breeze from the river gently lifting the leaves. The smell of the blooming timothy upon the air; the rye fields nearly ready for the cradle 
7th The first terrible heat of July: 96 degrees in the coolest shade sparrows and robins in full song. Chestnut trees hoary with bloom, strawberries yet hold out. No thoughts, no observations - dull - dull. 
July 12. Cool and dry. How the sunbeams dance upon the water this morning. A blue bird (male) with a note suggestive of a thrush - the olive-backed thrush; never hear it but I think of a thrush. No doubt but the progenitor of the blue-bird was a thrush. The speckled breast of the young, indicates this according to Darwins law. 
-Am reading Drummonds "Natural Law in the Spiritual World", the most [crossed out: amazing] transparent piece of sophistry I ever dipped into. An attempt to show that Calvinism, Scotch Presbyterianism, is scientifically true, or capable of scientific 
verification. By "Spiritual world" - he means the world of Scotch Presbyterianism. 
-"Christopher North" said finely that is is not necessary that we should understand fine poetry in order to feel and enjoy it, any more than fine music." 17 The middle of Summer. A fine rain at last from the south west, mainly at night. 
Strawberries yet to-day; raspberries nearly finished. Laddie kills a wood-chuck to-day upon the door stone, while we are at dinner. The varmints getting very bold; he killed one the other day near my study. Meditating an article on Drummonds Natural Law in the Spiritual 
World" - a book that will not hold water. 
22 Cool, delicious summer weather, never saw a pieasanter July; only three or four very hot days so far. Spent most of day in the woods near P. a most delicious day long to be remembered. Walked up at 5 P.M. to Hyde Park along that beautiful and stately road. 
27 Damp and muggy. Walked across country to Salt Point most of the way in a slow rain - 10 miles. A pleasant visit. Return next day. 
Aug 3rd Light rains the past week and much heat. But to-day is quite autumnal 
overcast and windy; real autumn clouds; thermometer about 64 degrees at noon. 
13. August days of great tranquility; pretty hot: 86 degrees in shade and dry. The little russet or rustic bush sparrow still in full song. Soon squally domestic skies. 
15 A clear, hard, brilliant, dry day, rather cool; ground getting very dry. 
"Papa" says Julian, "What is born with you won't grow again if it is cut off, will it?" Had a scare over the dear boy to day from the results of a bee sting on back of his neck. But he is all right again. 
-I notice that as one grows older he is less and less disposed to go cross lots. He finds that it is but little farther around the beaten way and that he can make the distance about as quick and a good deal easier. In taking the short cut one has fences to climb and ditches to leap, and he [crossed out: wants] needs the blood of youth. Hence, if we begin as radicals and revolutionists we generally end as conservatives and old fogies. 
-Discovered in Roxbury the other day that the solitary bee carries pollen on the under side of its body. The abdomen is covered with short hairs which hold the pollen. One of the bees stung me after provocation, but did not leave its stinger. 
Aug 22 Home to day, called by a telegram, expecting to find Curtis dead. Found him better, and not seriously ill. Up to Hirams in afternoon. 
23. Up through the woods and down through the fields where old Sylvester Preston used to live when father first came upon the farm. Drank at his spring and tasted his sour hard apples. Then to Curtises. Find him dressed and walking about the house. Give him $10. He has a hard struggle and his boys are no help to him. He was the best worker while at home that father had, but he has done poorly for himself; mainly his wifes fault. 
25 A day among the graves. 
In the forenoon go down to the graves of father and mother, and then stroll through the gounds, reading the names of the old residents once so familiar to me. Walk into the old church and stand in the pulpit and look over the empty seats where father and mother sat so often and where I have sat on many sad occasions. Oh, the pathos and the ugliness of the place to me! Why do the old scenes repel us as well as attract us? There is something even about the old home, and about my brothers and sisters, and the old neighbors, that makes an unpleasant impression. What is it? In the afternoon I walked through the Presbyterian burying ground and was astonished at the familiar names on every side staring at me from the cold marble. 
I seemed to have known in my youth half the people buried there. Here lie five of John Lee's family, all died in a few weeks in the fall of 1850. I remember the circumstances well. We were digging potatoes those days on the side hill above Chases. They all died of bloody dysentery. Here is the grave of Uncle Krum, aged 85, a hard drinker all his old age at least much exposed to wet and cold, and yet he lived thus long. A gruff swaggering kind of man, like a character on the stage. Sadly and long I mused amid the tombs. I seem to have seen all the old people, many of them nearly forgotton, in the flesh once more. I could recall their very looks and voices. If any of them had called out to me, I should have recognized the voice 26 To Edens last night, find him and all of them pretty well. To Homer Lynchs in afternoon. In the evening tell them about my Kentucky trip. Jane advises me to give up writing - not to puzzle my head over such things; it is bad for the head! Poor Jane, I fear she has never read a dozen printed words of mine in her life, or shall I say, lucky Jane? But how little she knows of what is going on in this world! 
27 Back home to-day. Weather very dry and hot. 
28 Thermometer 90 degrees. 
30 Slight rain. Last year every rain from August to Jany was very heavy. This year beginning in June, they are invariably light and slow. 
Sept 1st Cool and clear, very charming day. Finished the paper on Science and Theology. 
4 To Olive today and a few hours with father North. The old man still hardy with a good color in his face. Go out to the barn and hunt hens eggs for him on the hay mow, lose my spectacles in the hay. 
-How characteristic these first September mornings, if one could only describe them. How still and meticulous, but how unlike the stillness of spring or summer. The air is resonant or hollow as the farmer says, and every sound distant or near is noticeable. The cawing of crows makes the larger strokes, with an occasional distant low of a cow. Then the call of the jay is a finer stroke; the plaintive call of the young yellow birds Still finer, while a steady unobtrusive under-tone of sound is furnished by the various crickets. Bird songs have ceased; the snicker of a red squirrel is now and then heard, and the piping of a chickadee, or the call of the migrating bobolinks high in the air. One would know it was the first week in Sept. if he were to wake up six months sleep, by the sounds alone. 
9. Hot and dry. Oh, so dry! Thermometer 84 degrees 
11 All day in the woods beneath the evergreens. An idyllic time. Clear and dry and hot.