What is happiness, anyhow? Is this one of its hours, or the like of it?--so impalpable--a mere breath, an evanescent tinge? I am not sure--so let me give myself the benefit of the doubt. Hast Thou, pellucid, in Thy azure depths, medicine for case like mine? (Ah, the physical shatter and troubled spirit of me the last three years.) And dost Thou subtly mystically now drip it through the air invisibly upon me? _Night of Oct. 28._--The heavens unusually transparent--the stars out by myriads--the great path of the Milky Way, with its branch, only seen of very clear nights--Jupiter, setting in the west, looks like a huge hap-hazard splash, and has a little star for companion. Clothed in his white garments, Into the round and clear arena slowly entered the brahmin, Holding a little child by the hand, Like the moon with the planet Jupiter in a cloudless night-sky. _Old Hindu Poem._ _Early in November._--At its farther end the lane already described opens into a broad grassy upland field of over twenty acres, slightly sloping to the south. Here I am accustom'd to walk for sky views and effects, either morning or sundown. To-day from this field my soul is calm'd and expanded beyond description, the whole forenoon by the clear blue arching over all, cloudless, nothing particular, only sky and daylight. Their soothing accompaniments, autumn leaves, the cool dry air, the faint aroma--crows cawing in the distance--two great buzzards wheeling gracefully and slowly far up there--the occasional murmur of the wind, sometimes quite gently, then threatening through the trees--a gang of farm-laborers loading cornstalks in a field in sight, and the patient horses waiting. COLORS--A CONTRAST Such a play of colors and lights, different seasons, different hours of the day--the lines of the far horizon where the faint-tinged edge of the landscape loses itself in the sky. As I slowly hobble up the lane toward day-close, an incomparable sunset shooting in molten sapphire and gold, shaft after shaft, through the ranks of the long-leaved corn, between me and the west. _Another day_--The rich dark green of the tulip-trees and the oaks, the gray of the swamp-willows, the dull hues of the sycamores and black-walnuts, the emerald of the cedars (after rain,) and the light yellow of the beeches. NOVEMBER 8, '76 The forenoon leaden and cloudy, not cold or wet, but indicating both. As I hobble down here and sit by the silent pond, how different from the excitement amid which, in the cities, millions of people are now waiting news of yesterday's Presidential election, or receiving and discussing the result--in this secluded place uncared-for, unknown. CROWS AND CROWS