_April 20._ The universe will not wait to be explained. Whoever seriously attempts a theory of it is already behind his age. His yea has reserved no nay for the morrow. The wisest solution is no better than dissolution. Already the seer _whispers_ his _convictions_ to bare walls; no audience in the land can attend to them. * * * * * An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. To my neighbors who have risen in mist and rain I tell of a clear sunrise and the singing of birds as some traditionary mythus. I look back to those fresh but now remote hours as to the old dawn of time, when a solid and blooming health reigned and every deed was simple and heroic. _April 22._ Thales was the first of the Greeks who taught that souls are immortal, and it takes equal wisdom to discern this old fact to-day. What the first philosopher taught, the last will have to repeat. The _world_ makes no progress. * * * * * I cannot turn on my heel in a carpeted room. What a gap in the morning is a breakfast! A supper supersedes the sunset. * * * * * Methinks I hear the _ranz des vaches_ and shall soon be tempted to desert. * * * * * Will not one thick garment suffice for three thin ones? Then I shall be less compound, and can lay my hand on myself in the dark. _May 14._ A kind act or gift lays us under obligation not so much to the giver as to Truth and Love. We must then be truer and kinder ourselves. Just in proportion to our sense of the kindness, and pleasure at it, is the debt paid. What is it to be _grateful_ but to be _gratified_,—to be _pleased_? The nobly poor will dissolve all obligations by nobly accepting a kindness. * * * * * If we are not sensible of kindness, then indeed we incur a debt. Not to be pleased by generous deeds at any time, though done to another, but to sit crabbedly silent in a corner, what is it but a voluntary imprisonment for debt? It is to see the world through a grating. Not to let the light of virtuous actions shine on us at all times, through every crevice, is to live in a dungeon. * * * * *