23–29 October 1848

Yesterday, another walk with Ellery well worth commemoration, if that were possible; but no pen could write what we saw : it needs the pencils of all the painters that ever existed to aid the description. We went to White Pond; a pretty little Indian basin, lovely now as Wal- den once was; we could almost see the sachem in his canoe in a shadowy cove. But making the circuit of the lake on the shore, we came at last to see some marvellous reflections of the colored woods in the water, which held us fast to the ef- feet, almost to the going down of the sun. The water was very slightly rippled, which took the proper character from the pines, and the birches, and a few oaks, which composed the grove; and the submarine wood seemed all made of Lom- bardy poplar, with such delicious green, stained by gleams of mahogany from the oaks, and streaks of white from the birches, every moment growing more excellent. It was the world seen through a prism, and set Ellery on wonderful Lucretian theories of "law" and "design."