without the thought of being cut down for a
sidewalk, or trimmed until they were frivolous nothings.
Small stones and shells could lie down on a bed of moss at
the feet of these trees and ask questions that _disgraced_
Mr. Beech. (But of course they were young.) The flower
fairies could sit in the sunlight and laugh at the simple
little stones.

Oh! dear, I just read this through and it's silly. It sounds
like some kind of a myth, written in the Fifteenth Century
instead of the Twentieth, but I am not going to tear it up.
The thing I _really_ wanted to write about this morning was
the goodness of being alive here in winter.

After a long, lovely sleep at night, in a room with wide-open windows
and plenty of covers, you wake up fresh and happy. From the East comes
up over the frozen Lake, the sun sending streaks of orange, red, yellow,
all through the sky.

Here and there are little clouds of soft greys and pinks, which look
like the fluffy heads of young lettuce.

Venus in the south, big and wonderful, fades out of sight when the last
shades of night pass out of the sky.

Dress, every minute the sky growing more brilliant, until you cannot
look at it. A breakfast of toast and jam--just enough to make you feel
like work.

A short walk to the Study with the sweet smell of wood-smoke sharpening
the air. Then in the Study, reading essays by great men, especially of
our favourite four Americans, Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman, and Lincoln. A
wonderful Nature essay from Thoreau!

* * * * *

So many things of Nature are spoiled to make more money for men; so many
lambs and horses and birds are killed to make coats and hats. Horses are
killed and sold as beef, and the animals are slaughtered in such hideous
and vulgar ways--maddened with fear in butchers' pens before the end.
Wise people know that fears are poison. Day by day and year by year
these poisons are being worked into our bodies until we get used to them
and then we find it hard to stop eating meat. A person in this condition
is never able to associate with the mysteries of earth, such as fairies
and nymphs of flowers, water and fire, nor with the real truths of
higher Nature, which men should know.

In among the rocks and mountains I can imagine cross, ugly little gnomes
going about their work--I mean their _own_ work and affairs. To me it
seems that gnomes are not willing t