rcle of three or four miles, and rendering the view much finer
than in summer, had there only been foliage. It seemed like the
formation of a new world; for islands were everywhere emerging, and
capes extending forth into the flood; and these tracts, which were thus
won from the watery empire, were among the greenest in the landscape.
The moment the deluge leaves them, Nature asserts them to be her
property, by covering them with verdure; or perhaps the grass had been
growing under the water. On the hill-top where I stood, the grass had
scarcely begun to sprout; and I observed that even those places which
looked greenest in the distance were but scantily grass-covered when I
actually reached them. It was hope that painted them so bright.

Last evening we saw a bright light on the river, betokening that a
boat's party were engaged in spearing fish. It looked like a descended
star,--like red Mars,--and, as the water was perfectly smooth, its gleam
was reflected downward into the depths. It is a very picturesque sight.
In the deep quiet of the night I suddenly heard the light and lively
note of a bird from a neighboring tree,--a real song, such as those
which greet the purple dawn, or mingle with the yellow sunshine. What
could the little bird mean by pouring it forth at midnight? Probably the
note gushed out from the midst of a dream, in which he fancied himself
in Paradise with his mate; and, suddenly awaking, he found he was on a
cold, leafless bough, with a New England mist penetrating through his
feathers. That was a sad exchange of imagination for reality; but if he
found his mate beside him, all was well.

This is another misty morning, ungenial in aspect, but kinder than it
looks; for it paints the hills and valleys with a richer brush than the
sunshine could. There is more verdure now than when I looked out of the
window an hour ago. The willow-tree opposite my study-window is ready to
put forth its leaves. There are some objections to willows. It is not a
dry and cleanly tree; it impresses me with an association of sliminess;
and no trees, I think, are perfectly satisfactory, which have not a firm
and hard texture of trunk and branches. But the willow is almost the
earliest to put forth its leaves, and the last to scatter them on the
ground; and during the whole winter its yellow twigs give it a sunny
aspect, which is not without a cheering influence in a proper point of
view. Our old house would lose much were t