Not only are we late to find our friends, but mankind are late, and there is no record of a great success in history. * * * * * My friend is not chiefly wise or beautiful or noble. At least it is not for me to know it. He has no visible form nor appreciable character. I can never praise him nor esteem him praiseworthy, for I should sunder him from myself and put a bar between us. Let him not think he can please me by any behavior or even treat me well enough. When he treats, I retreat.[491] * * * * * I know of no rule which holds so true as that we are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect. There can be no fairer recompense than this. Our suspicions exercise a demoniacal power over the subject of them. By some obscure law of influence, when we are perhaps unconsciously the subject of another's suspicion, we feel a strong impulse, even when it is contrary to our nature, to do that which he expects but reprobates. * * * * * No man seems to be aware that his influence is the result of his entire character, both that which is subject and that which is superior to his understanding, and what he really means or intends it is not in his power to explain or offer an apology for. * * * * * No man was ever party to a secure and settled friendship. It is no more a constant phenomenon than meteors and lightning. It is a war of positions, of silent tactics. * * * * * I mark the summer's swift decline; The springing sward its grave-clothes weaves.[492] Oh, could I catch the sounds remote! Could I but tell to human ear The strains which on the breezes float And sing the requiem of the dying year! * * * * * _Sept. 29, 1842._ To-day the lark sings again down in the meadow, and the robin peeps, and the bluebirds, old and young, have revisited their box, as if they would fain repeat the summer without the intervention of winter, if Nature would let them. * * * * * Beauty is a finer utility whose end we do not see. * * * * * _Oct. 7, 1842._ A little girl has just brought me a purple finch or American linnet. These birds are now moving south. It reminds me of the pine and spruce, and the juniper and cedar on whose berries it feeds. It has the crimson hues of the October evenings, and its plumage still shines as if it had caught and preserved some of their tints (beams?). We know it chiefly as a traveller. It reminds me of many things I had forgotten. Many a serene evening lies snugly packed under its wing.