Dec. 10 — (Sunday.)
— Again spending a good part of the day at Harewood. As I
write this, it is about an hour before sundown. I have walk'd out for a few minutes to the edge of
the woods to soothe myself with the hour and scene. It is a glorious, warm, golden-sunny, still
afternoon. The only noise here is from a crowd of cawing crows, on some trees three hundred
yards distant. Clusters of gnats swimming and dancing in the air in all directions. The oak leaves
are thick under the bare trees, and give a strong and delicious perfume.......Inside the Wards every
thing is gloomy. Death is there. As I enter'd, I was confronted by it, the first thing. A corpse of a
poor soldier, just dead, of typhoid fever. The attendants had just straighten'd the limbs, put
coppers on the eyes, and were laying it out.
