The light from the western sky is stronger still than that of the moon, and when I hold up my hand, the west side is lighted while the side toward the moon is comparatively dark. But now that I have put this dark wood (Hubbard’s) between me and the west, I see the moonlight plainly on my paper; I am even startled by it. One star, too,—is it Venus?—I see in the west. Starlight! that would be a good way to mark the hour, if we were precise. Hubbard’s Brook. How much the beauty of the moon is enhanced by being seen shining between two trees, or even by the neighborhood of clouds! I hear the clock striking eight faintly. I smell the late shorn meadows. One will lose no music by not attending the oratorios and operas. The really inspiring melodies are cheap and universal, and are as audible to the poor man’s son as to the rich man’s. Listening to the harmonies of the universe is not allied to dissipation. My neighbors have gone to the vestry to hear “Ned Kendal,” the bugler, to-night, but I am come forth to the hills to hear my bugler in the horizon. I can forego the seeming advantages of cities without misgiving. No heavenly strain is lost to the ear that is fitted to hear it, for want of money or opportunity. I am convinced that for instrumental music all Vienna cannot serve me more than the Italian boy who seeks my door with his organ. And now I strike the road at the causeway. It is hard, and I hear the sound of my steps, a sound which should never be heard, for it draws down my thoughts. It is more like the treadmill exercise. The fireflies are not so numerous as they have been. There is no dew as yet. The planks and railing of Hubbard’s Bridge are removed. I walk over on the string-pieces, resting in the middle until the moon comes out of a cloud, that I may see my path, for between the next piers the string-pieces also are removed and there is only a rather narrow plank, let down three or four feet. I essay to cross it, but it springs a little and I mistrust myself, whether I shall not plunge into the river. Some demonic genius seems to be warning me. Attempt not the passage; you will surely be drowned. It is very real that I am thus affected. Yet I am fully aware of the absurdity of minding such suggestions. I put out my foot, but I am checked, as if that power had laid a hand on my breast and chilled me back. Nevertheless, I cross, stooping at first, and gain the other side. (I make the most of it on account of the admonition, but it was nothing to remark on. I returned the same way two hours later and made nothing of it.) It is easy to see how, by yielding to such feelings as this, men would reëstablish all the superstitions of antiquity. It is best that reason should govern us, and not these blind intimations, in which we exalt our fears into a genius. On Conantum I sit awhile in the shade of the woods and look out on the moonlit fields. White rocks are more remarkable than by day.[277]