27 July–2 August 1857

Yesterday, the best day of the year, we spent in the afternoon on the river. A sky of Calcutta ; light, air, clouds, water, banks, birds, grass, pads, lilies, were in perfection, and it was deli- cious to live, Ellery and I went up the South Branch, and took a bath from the bank behind Cyrus Hubbard's, where the river makes a bend. Blackbirds in hundreds ; swallows in tens sitting on the telegraph lines; and one heron {ardea minor) assisted. In these perfect pictures, one thinks what weary nonsense is all this painful col- lection of rubbish, — pictures of rubbish masters, — in the total neglect of this and every lovely river valley, where the multitudinous life and beauty make these pictures ridiculous, cold chalk and ochre.