_April 30._ What is a chamber to which the sun does not rise in the morning? What is a chamber to which the sun does not set at evening? Such are often the chambers of the mind, for the most part. Even the cat which lies on a rug all day commences to prowl about the fields at night, resumes her ancient forest habits. The most tenderly bred grimalkin steals forth at night,—watches some bird on its perch for an hour in the furrow, like a gun at rest. She catches no cold; it is her nature. Caressed by children and cherished with a saucer of milk. Even she can erect her back and expand her tail and spit at her enemies like the wild cat of the woods. Sweet Sylvia! What is the singing of birds, or any natural sound, compared with the voice of one we love? To one we love we are related as to nature in the spring. Our dreams are mutually intelligible. We take the census, and find that there is one. Love is a mutual confidence whose foundations no one knows. The one I love surpasses all the laws of nature in sureness. Love is capable of any wisdom. “He that hath love and judgment too Sees more than any other doe.” By our very mutual attraction, and our attraction to all other spheres, kept properly asunder. Two planets which are mutually attracted, being at the same time attracted by the sun, preserve equipoise and harmony. Does not the history of chivalry and knight-errantry suggest or point to another relation to woman than leads to marriage, yet an elevating and all-absorbing one, perchance transcending marriage? As yet men know not one another, nor does man know woman. I am sure that the design of my maker when he has brought me nearest to woman was not the propagation, but rather the maturation, of the species. Man is capable of a love of woman quite transcending marriage. I observe that the _New York Herald_ advertises situations wanted by “respectable young women” by the column, but never by respectable young men, rather “intelligent” and “smart” ones; from which I infer that the public opinion of New York does not require young men to be respectable in the same sense in which it requires young women to be so. May it consist with the health of some bodies to be impure? IV MAY, 1851 (ÆT. 33) _May 1._ Observed the _Nuphar advena_, yellow water-lily, in blossom; also the _Laurus Benzoin_, or fever-bush, spice-wood, near William Wheeler’s in Lincoln, resembling the witch-hazel. It is remarkable that this aromatic shrub, though it grows by the roadside and does not hide itself, may be, as it were, effectually concealed, though it blossoms every spring. It may be observed only once in many years. The blossom-buds of the peach have expanded just enough to give a slight peach tint to the orchards.