_Dec. 5._ My friend tells me he has discovered a new note in nature, which he calls the Ice-Harp. Chancing to throw a handful of pebbles upon the pond where there was an air chamber under the ice, it discoursed a pleasant music to him. Herein resides a tenth muse, and as he was the man to discover it probably the extra melody is in him. GOETHE _Dec. 8._ He is generally satisfied with giving an exact description of objects as they appear to him, and his genius is exhibited in the points he seizes upon and illustrates. His description of Venice and her environs as seen from the Marcusthurm is that of an unconcerned spectator, whose object is faithfully to describe what he sees, and that, too, for the most part, in the order in which he saw it. It is this trait which is chiefly to be prized in the book; even the reflections of the author do not interfere with his descriptions. It would thus be possible for inferior minds to produce invaluable books.[13] MEASURE _Dec. 10._ Not the carpenter alone carries his rule in his pocket. Space is quite subdued to us. The meanest peasant finds in a hair of his head, or the white crescent upon his nail, the unit of measure for the distance of the fixed stars. His middle finger measures how many _digits_ into space; he extends a few times his thumb and finger, and the continent is _spanned_; he stretches out his arms, and the sea is _fathomed_. THOUGHT _Dec. 12._ There are times when thought elbows her way through the underwood of words to the clear blue beyond; "O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues _her_ way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies;..." but let her don her cumbersome working-day garment, and each sparkling dewdrop will seem a "slough of despond." PECULIARITY When we speak of a peculiarity in a man or a nation, we think to describe only one part, a mere mathematical point; but it is not so. It pervades all. Some parts may be further removed than others from this centre, but not a particle so remote as not to be either shined on or shaded by it. THORNS No faculty in man was created with a useless or sinister intent; in no respect can he be wholly bad, but the worst passions have their root in the best,—as anger, for instance, may be only a perverted sense of wrong which yet retains some traces of its origin.[14] So a spine is proved to be only an abortive branch, "which, notwithstanding, even as a spine, bears leaves, and, in _Euphorbia heptagona_, sometimes flowers and fruit." JACK FROST