6–12 February 1843

I am greatly pleased with the merchants. In rail car and hotel it is common to meet only the successful class, and so we have favorable speci- mens: but these discover more manly power of all kinds than scholars ; behave a great deal bet- ter, converse better, and have inexpensive and sufficient manners.

Nature. Nature asked, "Whether troop and baggage be two things ; whether the world is all troop or all baggage, or whether there be any troop that shall not one day be baggage? Easy, she thinks it, to show you the Universal Soul : we have all sucked that orange ; but would you please to mention what is an Individual? She apologized for trifling with you in your nonage, and adding a little sugar to your milk that you might draw the teat, and a little glory afterward to important lessons, but declared she would never tell you another fib, if you had quite set- tled that Buddhism was better than hands and feet, and would keep that conviction in the pre- sence of two persons. As ior far and too far, she wondered what it meant. She admires people who read, and people who look at pictures, but if they read until they write, or look at pictures until they draw them, she curses them up and down. She has the oddest tastes and behavior. An onion, which is all coat, she dotes on ; and among birds she admires the godwit ; but when I hinted that a blue weed grew about my house called Self-heal,^ she said, — a coxcomb named it; but she teaches cobwebs to resist the tempest, and when a babe's cries drove away a lion, she almost devoured the darling with kisses.. She says her office of Dragoman is vacant, though she has been much pestered with applications, and if you have a talent of asking questions, she will play with you all your life ; but if you can answer questions, she will propose one, which, if you answer, she will die first. She hates au- thors, but likes Montaigne.

As we go along the street, the eyes of all the passengers either ask, ask, continually of all they meet, or else assert, assert to all. Only rarely do we meet a face which has the balance of expres- sion, neither asking leave to be, nor rudely ego- tistic, but equally receptive and affirmative. W. A. Tappan says, that when a man Is looked at, he Instantly assumes a new expression, and strangers whom he meets every day in the street grow angry at being regarded.'