a beautiful, most beautiful afternoon

April 30th 1840

I arose this morning feeling more elastic than I have throughout the winter; for the breathing of the ocean air has wrought a very beneficial effect... What a beautiful, most beautiful afternoon this has been! It was a real happiness to live. If I had been merely a vegetable, a hawthorn-bush, for instance, I must have been happy in such an air and sunshine; but, having a mind and a soul, ... I enjoyed somewhat more than mere vegetable happiness... The footsteps of May can be traced upon the islands in the harbour, and I have been watching the tints of green upon them gradually deepening, till now they are almost as beautiful as they ever can be.

Blessed be God for this green tract

April 19th 1840

What a beautiful day was yesterday! My spirit rebelled against being confined in my darksome dungeon at the Custom House. It seemed a sin, a murder of the joyful young day, a quenching of the sunshine. Nevertheless, there I was kept a prisoner till it was too late to fling myself on a gentle wind, and be blown away into the country... When I shall be again free, I will enjoy all things with the fresh simplicity of a child of five years old. I shall grow young again, made all over anew. I will go forth and stand in a summer shower, and all the worldly dust that has collected on me shall be washed away at once, and my heart will be like a bank of fresh flowers for the weary to rest upon...

6 P.M. I went out to walk about an hour ago, and found it very pleasant, though there was a some what cool wind. I went round and across the Common, and stood on the highest point of it, where I could see miles and miles into the country. Blessed be God for this green tract, and the view which it affords, whereby we poor citizens may be put in mind, sometimes, that all his earth is not composed of blocks of brick houses, and of stone or wooden pavements. Blessed be God for the sky too, though the smoke of the city may somewhat change its aspect, but still it is better than if each street were covered over with a roof. There were a good many people walking on the mall, mechanics apparently, and shopkeepers clerks, with their wives; and boys were rolling on the grass, and I would have liked to lie down and roll too.

the wind has blown my brains into such confusion

April 7th 1840

It appears to me to have been the most uncomfortable day that ever was inflicted on poor mortals. . . . Besides the bleak, unkindly air, I have been plagued by two sets of coal-shovellers at the same time, and have been obliged to keep two separate tallies simultaneously. But I was conscious that all this was merely a vision and a phantasy, and that, in reality, I was not half frozen by the bitter blast, nor tormented by those grimy coalheavers, but that I was basking quietly in the sunshine of eternity. . . . Any sort of bodily and earthly torment may serve to make us sensible that we have a soul that is not within the jurisdiction of such shadowy demons, it separates the immortal within us from the mortal. But the wind has blown my brains into such confusion that I cannot philosophize now.