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18 I no hopes to sparkle on the surface of life's current? It is worth while to have our faith revived by seeing where a river swells and eddies about a half-buried rock.

February 27, 1853. A week or two ago I brought home a handsome pitch pine cone, which had freshly fallen, and was closed perfectly tight. It was put into a table-drawer. To-day I am agreeably surprised that it has there dried and opened with perfect regularity, filling the drawer; and from a solid, narrow and sharp cone has become a broad, rounded, open one,—has, in fact, expanded into a conical flower with rigid scales, and has shed a remarkable quantity of delicate winged seeds. Each scale, which is very elaborately and perfectly constructed, is armed with a short spine pointing downward, as if to protect its seeds from squirrels and birds. That hard, closed cone, which defied all violent attempts to open it, and could only be cut open, has thus yielded to the gentle persuasion of warmth and dryness. The expanding of the pine cones, that, too, is a season.

February 27, 1854 I remarked yesterday the rapidity with which water flowing over the icy ground sought its level. All that rain would hardly have produced a puddle in midsummer, but now it produces a freshet, and will perhaps break up the river.