Celestia Colby notebook 1844-1857

To make chloride of lime Dissolve a bushel of salt in a barrel of water, and with this salt water slake a barrel of lime

E/R [Quire?]

R/

"Now fired by wrath and now by reason cooled" Illiad

Cynthia L Weeks [all words underlined twice] Celestia M. Rice's Book [Cherry Valley - underlined twice]

Cyntha Vine Colby

[pressed flowers] Plummer

Mrs. Cordelia R. Davis Geneva Kane So. Ill. May 22ond 1852

C.R.C.

[AA?] Mass [Mn C?] [Celes? C]

celestia M. Rices

To S.L.C. March 22ond 1857

What a curse is ignorance! How destructive to enjoyment! I've been reading "Nile Notes of a Howadji," but my ignorance prevents a full appreciation of its beauty. A [haze?] the sense in many places by not understanding the classical [po- erased] historical and poetical references and allusions with which it abounds, yet it is interesting, dreamy, and practical.

I feel while reading it as I can imagine I should if roaming among the scenes described. I could gaze upon the tropical splendar of the earth and sky, could admire the strange rare beauty of the floral lace, and the majestic grandeur of the palm, could stand in breathless awe amid the awful solotude[s-crossed out] of the desert , but no voice would come to me [underlined] from the sacred shrine of Memnon to thrill my soul with the mighty music of the past, and from the pryamids no shadowy forms of ancient greatness should look down on me [underlined] with wisdom in its glance, "Each palm is a poet "Says the Howadji; but the melody of the poem would be lost on my [minstructed?] ear.

Thus it is that the dark veil of ignornce shuts out the sunlight of enjoyment from the mind, closes a thousand avenues of exquisite pleasure which, are open to the favored few who possess the golden [?] and I [most - crossed out] can only gaze wistfully at the flowery path I cannot enter as Moses from Pisgah's top viewed the promised land which he was forbidden to enter,

Loose Papers

On the Death of C A Weeds August 1847.

I saw a flower untimely blasted By the cruel frost of spring Yet beautiful while it lasted And lovely when withering. - - - - - - - - - - - - I like the leaf that decays When the forest is green When the bright fair days Of summer are seen. So then dear friend has perished In innocense and truth, like the hopes that are cherished In the first days of youth. - - - - - - - - - 4 Go thou from earth lost fade Away In thy early youthful bloom Thy soul hath gave to realms of day Thy body to the tomb.

To the Spring Breeze. April 24th 1846

Blow ye spring breezes, blow ye scented gales, Strong wild in your mirth o'er hills and dales, Go to your love cottage and carry tales of joy, Go tell them of their long lost absent boy. Say that in your wanderings him you've seen, Kissed his cheek and marked his noble mein. Go to that son, and tell him of his parents old and gray Tell him of that house far, far away, Of that love cot, cheek hid among the trees. Of each familiar flower, and the hum of the bees, Where once his own merry voice rung wild and free In those innocent days of boyish glee. Go bid his return to his childhood sweet home. Bid him in foreign climes no log hre to sanger roam But to go and cheer that father and mother, And to be to that sister as once he was - a brother.

Aspirations I scrap.

There are in the human heart high and holy aspirations, that sleep there in its hidden recesses like pearls in the bossoms of an shell because their home is not on earth, and they meet with nothing here to satisfy them.

Loose Papers.

To H. H. For her Album

Learn not a strangers wish fair maiden Nor grudge the pages that bears her name, For she would wish thy life with blossoms laden And thy memory live in fame. May the fire of thine eye ne'er be quenched in sorrow Nor the bloom of they cheek be less lovely than now May each day be happy, but happier thy morrow, And the gems of Content encircle thy brow. May thy life be like a long summers day And thy death like the close of the same, As useful in thy own happy way, And blessings be breathed on thy name. One hour for herself, the stranger would crave Thy pardon for sullying this page The pleasures now, to thee who has pardon gave And blessings on thy age.

To a Friend August 1844

When in its wild majesty the storm is roaring by And Nature's pall is spread o'er all the darkened sky And each element in wild confusion blending And sheets of liquid fire to earth descending Then think of me.

When morning dawns and freshly fair, The sun breaks forth on the fragrant air, And flowerets ope their face to the day, To drink the light of the suns first ray Then think of me.

A world which cannot furnish aught to satisfy the longings of the soul.