if I had no more concern with what other people trouble themselves about
than if I dwelt in another planet.


May 1st.--. . . . Every day of my life makes me feel more and more how
seldom a fact is accurately stated; how, almost invariably, when a story
has passed through the mind of a third person, it becomes, so far as
regards the impression that it makes in further repetitions, little
better than a falsehood, and this, too, though the narrator be the
most truth-seeking person in existence. How marvellous the tendency
is!. . . . Is truth a fantasy which we are to pursue forever and never
grasp?

* * * * * *

My cold has almost entirely departed. Were it a sunny day, I should
consider myself quite fit for labor out of doors; but as the ground is so
damp, and the atmosphere so chill, and the sky so sullen, I intend to
keep myself on the sick-list this one day longer, more especially as I
wish to read Carlyle on Heroes.

* * * * * *

There has been but one flower found in this vicinity,--and that was an
anemone, a poor, pale, shivering little flower, that had crept under a
stone-wall for shelter. Mr. Farley found it, while taking a walk with
me.

. . . . This is May-day! Alas, what a difference between the ideal and
the real!