I have been spending a Sunday of retirement in the woods.  I came out with a strange, deep sense of depression, and though I knew it was myself and not the world that was sad, yet I could not put it away from me. ...  As I write, the wood seems full of voices, the little rustling of leaves, the minute sounds of twigs chafing together, the cry of frogs from the swamp so steady and monotonous that it scarcely arrests attention.  Of odours, a-plenty!  Just behind me, so that by turning my head I can see into their cool green depths, are a number of hemlock trees, the breath of which is incalculably sweet.  All the earth the very earth itself has a good rich growing odour, pleasant to smell.

These things have been here a thousand years a million years and yet they are not stale, but are ever fresh, ever serene, ever here to loosen one’s crabbed spirit and make one quietly happy.  It seems to me I could not live if it were not possible often to come thus alone to the woods.

...On later walking I discover that here and there on warm southern slopes the dog-tooth violet is really in bloom, and worlds of hepatica, both lavender and white, among the brown leaves.  One of the notable sights of the hillsides at this time of the year is the striped maple, the long wands rising straight and chaste among thickets of less-striking young birches and chestnuts, and having a bud of a delicate pink—­a marvel of minute beauty.  A little trailing arbutus I found and renewed my joy with one of the most exquisite odours of all the spring; Solomon’s seal thrusting up vivid green cornucopias from the lifeless earth, and often near a root or stone the red partridge berries among their bright leaves.  The laurel on the hills is sharply visible, especially when among deciduous trees, and along the old brown roads are patches of fresh wintergreen.  In a cleft of the hills near the top of Norwottuck, though the day is warm, I found a huge snowbank—­the last held trench of old winter, the last guerilla of the cold, driven to the fastnesses of the hills....  I have enjoyed this day without trying.  After the first hour or so of it all the worries dropped away, all the ambitions, all the twisted thoughts—­

It is strange how much thrilling joy there is in the discovery of the ages-old miracle of returning life in the woods:  each green adventurer, each fragrant joy, each bird-call—­and the feel of the soft, warm sunshine upon one’s back after months of winter.  On any terms life is good.  The only woe, the only Great Woe, is the woe of never having been born.  Sorrow, yes; failure, yes; weakness, yes the sad loss of dear friends—­yes!  But oh, the good God:  I still live!

Being alone without feeling alone is one of the great experiences of life, and he who practises it has acquired an infinitely valuable possession.  People fly to crowds for happinesss not knowing that all the happiness they find there they must take with them.  Thus they divert and distract that within them which creates power and joy, until by flying always away from themselves, seeking satisfaction from without rather than from within, they become infinitely boresome to themselves, so that they can scarcely bear a moment of their own society.