n. It will sound
like some great glass thing which will fall down and break all to
pieces; it will be louder than a thousand hawks; it will be heard across
the water and in all the countries, it will be heard all over the
world.'

"I like this, because it was exactly so he talked, spinning away without
end and with large, beautiful, earnest eyes. But most of the stories are
of short sayings.

"This is good in M. Russell's journal of him. She had been telling him a
story that excited him, and then he told her this: 'How his horse went
out into a long, long wood, and how he looked through a squirrel's eyes
and saw a great giant, and the giant was himself.'

* * * * *

"Went to see the Hawthornes; it was very pleasant, the poplars whisper
so suddenly their pleasant tale, and everywhere the view is so peaceful.
The house within I like, all their things are so expressive of
themselves and mix in so gracefully with the old furniture. H. walked
home with me; we stopped some time to look at the moon. She was
struggling with clouds. He said he should be much more willing to die
than two months ago, for he had had some real possession in life; but
still he never wished to leave this earth, it was beautiful enough. He
expressed, as he always does, many fine perceptions. I like to hear the
lightest thing he says.

"Waldo and I have good meetings, though we stop at all our old places.
But my expectations are moderate now; it is his beautiful presence that
I prize far more than our intercourse. He has been reading me his new
poems, and the other day at the end he asked me how I liked the 'little
subjective twinkle all through.'

* * * * *

"_Saturday._ Dear Richard has been here a day or two, and his common
sense and homely affection are grateful after these fine people with
whom I live at sword's points, though for the present turned downwards.
It is well to 'thee' and 'thou' it after talking with angels and
geniuses. Richard and I spent the afternoon at Walden and got a great
bunch of flowers. A fine thunder-shower gloomed gradually up and turned
the lake inky black, but no rain came till sunset.

"_Sunday._ A heavy rain. I must stay at home. I feel sad. Mrs. Ripley
was here, but I only saw her a while in the afternoon and spent the day
in my room. Sunday I do not give to my duty writing, no indeed. I
finished yesterday, after a rest, the article on ballads. Th