SUNDAY, JAN. 3. The deceased year is in its grave, but its deeds remain. But few of them, it is true, are to be found in the archives of earth; they have been sealed up and transmitted, by invisible hands, to Heaven’s high chancery. There they will remain, above the ranges of time and the wreck of worlds. When the sun’s last ray has expired, every line and letter will flash out in characters of living light. It will then be seen that our minutest action here touches a string that will vibrate forever in the soul; and that issues of happiness or woe, vast as eternity, take their rise in the silent pulses of a hidden thought. We live between two worlds; every impulse we take from this throws an action into the infinitude of the next; we follow it ourselves soon and fast: once beyond the dim veil, we return no more; not a whisper comes back to those we love. We have gone like a shooting-star over the steep verge of night. MONDAY, JAN. 4. It is mid-winter, and yet the robins are all out, singing as if the buds of May were bursting around them. You miss none of your favorites in meadow or grove. Hill and vale are echoing with their wild numbers. This is not a gush of music that is to be followed soon by silence; it is not an interval of sunlight that is to be succeeded by cloud and hail. All these charms belong to the season, and make you forget that it is winter. You look to the sun, and see that he circles indeed far to the south; but you look around you and find the sparkling streams unfettered by frost, and hear the whistle of the ploughman as he breaks the glebe. You say to yourself, there is no winter in California.