If, at any time, it comes into my head, that a present is due from me to somebody, I am puzzled what to give, until the opportunity is gone. Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because they are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.

GIFTS

DECEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH

Whilst a man seeks good ends, he is strong by the whole strength of Nature. In so far as he roams from these ends, he bereaves himself of power, of auxiliaries; his being shrinks out of all remote channels, he becomes less and less, a mote, a point, until absolute badness is absolute death.

AN ADDRESS

DECEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH

The Eden of God is bare and grand; like the outdoor landscape remembered from the evening fireside, it seems cold and desolate whilst you cower over the coals; but once abroad again, we pity those who can forego the magnificence of nature for candle-light and cards.

SWEDENBORG; OR, THE MYSTIC

DECEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH

Let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl in the face of custom and trade and office, the

fact which is the upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor moving wherever moves a man; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the centre of all things. Where he is, there is nature.

SELF-RELIANCE

DECEMBER TWENTY-NINTH

I look for the new Teacher, that shall follow so far those shining laws, that he shall see them come full circle; shall see their rounding complete grace; shall see the world to be the mirror of the soul; shall see the identity of the law of gravitation with purity of heart; and shall show that the Ought, that Duty, is one thing with Science, with Beauty, and with Joy.

AN ADDRESS

DECEMBER THIRTIETH

And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity and has ventured to trust himself for a task-master. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others.

SELF-RELIANCE

DECEMBER THIRTY-FIRST

On him the light of star and moon
Shall fall with purer radiance down;

All constellations of the sky
Shed their virtue through his eye.
Him nature giveth for defence
His formidable innocence,

The mountain sap, the shells, the sea,

All spheres, all stones, his helpers be.

He shall see the speeding year,

Without waiting, without fear.

WOOD NOTES