The revolution and Napoleon's wars dwarf'd the standard of
human size, but it will come up again. If for nothing else, I should
dwell on my brief Boston visit for opening to me the new world of
Millet's pictures. Will America ever have such an artist out of her
own gestation, body, soul?
_Sunday, April 17._--An hour and a half, late this afternoon, in
silence and half light, in the great nave of Memorial hall, Cambridge,
the walls thickly cover'd with mural tablets, bearing the names of
students and graduates of the university who fell in the secession
war.
_April 23._--It was well I got away in fair order, for if I had staid
another week I should have been killed with kindness, and with eating
and drinking.
BIRDS--AND A CAUTION
_May 14._--Home again; down temporarily in the Jersey woods. Between
8 and 9 A.M. a full concert of birds, from different quarters, in
keeping with the fresh scent, the peace, the naturalness all around
me. I am lately noticing the russet-back, size of the robin or
a trifle less, light breast and shoulders, with irregular dark
stripes--tail long--sits hunch'd up by the hour these days, top of
a tall bush, or some tree, singing blithely. I often get near and
listen, as he seems tame; I like to watch the working of his bill and
throat, the quaint sidle of his body, and flex of his long tail. I
hear the woodpecker, and night and early morning the shuttle of the
whip-poor-will--noons, the gurgle of thrush delicious, and _meo-o-ow_
of the cat-bird.
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