![]() ![]() ![]() The vessel lying deep between two wharves there was no more delightful prospect on the right hand and on the left than the posts and timbers, half immersed in the water, and covered with ice which the rising and falling of successive tides had left upon them, so that they looked like immense icicles. Most of the time, I paced the deck to keep myself warm, for the wind (northeast, I believe) blew up through the dock as if it had been the pipe of a pair of bellows. February 11.-I have been measuring coal all day on board of a black little British schooner, in a dismal dock at the north-end of the city. ![]() How much mud and mire, how many pools of unclean water, how many slippery footsteps, and perchance heavy tumbles, might be avoided, if we could but tread six inches above the crust of this world! Physically, we cannot do this our bodies cannot but it seems to me that our hearts and minds may keep themselves above moral mud-puddles and other disconmforts of the soul's pathway. February 7, 1840.-What beautiful weather this is!-beautiful, at least, so far as sun, sky, and atmosphere are concerned, though a poor, wingless biped is sometimes constrained to wish that he could raise himself a little above the earth. And there were clouds floating all about, great clouds and small, of all glorious and lovely hues (save that imperial crimson which was revealed to our united gaze),-so glorious, indeed, and so lovely, that I had a fantasy of heaven's being broken into fleecy fragments and dispersed through space, with its blest inhabitants dwelling blissfully upon those scattered islands. Then there was a rainbow, or a large segment of one, so exceedingly brilliant, and of such long endurance, that I almost fancied it was stained into the sky, and would continue there permanently. Late in the afternoon there was a sunny shower, which came down so like a benediction, that it seemed ungrateful to take shelter in the cabin or to put up an umbrella. I was aware that it must be intensely hot in the midst of the city but there was only a short space of uncomfortable heat in my region, half-way towards the centre of the harbor and almost all the time there was a pure and delightful breeze, fluttering and palpitating, sometimes shyly kissing my brow, then dying away, and then rushing upon me in livelier sport, so that I was fain to settle my straw hat more tightly upon my head. August 27.-I have been stationed all day at the end of Long Wharf, and I rather think that I had the most eligible situation of anybody in Boston. Years hence, perhaps, the experience that, my heart is acquiring now will flow out in truth and wisdom. But henceforth forever I shall be entitled to call the sons of toil my brethren, and shall know how to sympathize with them seeing that I likewise have risen at the dawn, and borne the fervor of the midday sun, nor turned my heavy footsteps homeward till eventide. My life only is a burden in the same way that it is to every toilsome man, and mine is a healthy weariness, such as needs only a night's sleep to remove it. BOSTON, July 3, 1839.-I do not mean to imply that I am unhappy or discontented for this is not the case. ![]()
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