_October 27._--Mrs.---- gave a black woman six dollars for a dress of pine-apple cloth, sixteen yards, perhaps worth ten times as much,--the owner being ignorant of the value. * * * * * To inherit a great fortune.--To inherit a great misfortune. * * * * * Reflections in a mud-puddle;--they might be pictures of life in a mean street of a city. * * * * * _February 16, 1850._--The sunbeam that comes through a round hole in the shutter of a darkened room, where a dead man sits in solitude. * * * * * The hoary periwig of a dandelion gone to seed. * * * * * _Lenox, July 14, 1850._--Language,--human language,--after all, is but little better than the croak and cackle of fowls, and other utterances of brute nature, sometimes not so adequate. * * * * * The queer gestures and sounds of a hen looking about for a place to deposit her egg, her self-important gait, the sideway turn of her head and cock of her eye, as she pries into one and another nook, croaking all the while, evidently with the idea that the egg in question is the most important thing that has been brought to pass since the world began. A speckled black and white and tufted hen of ours does it to most ludicrous perfection. * * * * * _July 25._--As I sit in my study, with the windows open, the occasional incident of the visit of some winged creature,--wasp, hornet, or bee,--entering out of the warm, sunny atmosphere, soaring round the room with large sweeps, then buzzing against the glass, as not satisfied with the place, and desirous of getting out. Finally, the joyous uprising curve with which, coming to the open part of the window, it emerges into the cheerful glow outside. * * * * * _August 4._--Dined at hotel with J.T. Fields. Afternoon drove with him to Pittsfield, and called on Dr. Holmes. * * * * * _August 5._--Drove with Fields to Stockbridge, being thereto invited by Mr. Field of Stockbridge, in order to ascend Monument Mountain. Found at Mr. Field's, Dr. Holmes, Mr. Duyckink of New York; also Mr. Cornelius Matthews and Herman Melville. Ascended the mountain,--that is to say, Mrs. Fields and Miss Jenny Field, Mr. Field and Mr. J.T. Fields, Dr. Holmes, Mr. Duyckink, Matthews, Melville, Mr. Harry Sedgwick, and I,--and were caught in a shower. Dined at Mr. Field's. Afternoon, under guidance of J.F. Headley, the party scrambled through the Ice Glen. Left Stockbridge and arrived at home about eight P.M. * * * * * _August 7._--Messrs. Duyckink, Matthews, and Melville called in the forenoon. Gave them a couple of bottles of Mr. Mansfield's champagne, and walked down to the lake with them. At twilight Mr. Edwin P. Whipple and wife called from Lenox.