upon every one seemed full of happiness.

I am very sorry that I am again unable to accompany them to church. The
festal feeling reaches its climax in church-going, but, even at home,
the air is laden with the fragrant odor of the birch and holiday cake.

*

(May 24th.)--We have had a furious spring storm, accompanied by thunder
and lightning. The trees swayed to and fro and bent as if they would
break.

"That's bad," said my little pitchman, "though it's good for the rye. A
storm in springtime brings cold weather, while one in midsummer makes
the days warmer than before."

How well this symbolizes precocious passion.

The bright sunshine has returned. I have been out of doors. Millions of
blossoms are strewn about the ground and, in the forest, lay many dead
young birds. They had ventured out of their nests too soon; the rain
had wet their young wings and they could not return. Besides that, the
nest no longer contained room for them. Forsaken and hungry, there was
nothing left them but death!

Nature is terrible. It labors long and patiently to bring forth a being
which it suddenly and wantonly suffers to die.

*

Sundays go hardest with me. One is used to look for something unusual
on that day. We put on a particular dress and expect the world to do
the same. On that day, more than on all others, I feel that I am in a
strange world.

The brook murmurs and the birds sing, just as they did yesterday. What
right have I to ask them to sing me a different song to-day?

Nature has no moods; they belong to man alone.

In this lies a heavy burden.

*

In former days, while watching the forms and colors of the clouds, I
was obliged to look up into the sky. But now I see them resting on the
earth below me.

I can pass hours, watching the passing clouds and their ever-changing
forms as reflected on the mountains. The earth itself was fashioned
from such fluid masses. No artist can realize the extent of this
cloud-world, or its wealth of form. Before our thoughts attain fixed
shape, they, too, must pass through this nebulous state, in which,
however, we are unable to perceive them.

*

Singing birds, in great variety, have clustered at the edge of the
forest. The notes of the lark, the yellowhammer, the green finch, the
blackbird, the thrush, the red-tail, and the titmo