I try
to exercise it, I can only produce vague textures of modulated
thoughts--things melodious in themselves, but ineffective because they
are isolated effects, instead of effects emphasising points, crises,
climaxes. I have strained some mental muscle, I suppose; but the
unhappy part of the situation is that I have not lost the desire to use
it.

It would be a piece of good fortune for me now if I could fall in with
some vigorous mind who could give me a lead, indicate a subject. But
then the work that resulted would miss unity, I think. What I ought to
be content to do is to garner more impressions; but I seem to be
surfeited of impressions.

December 10, 1888.

To-day I stumbled upon one of my old childish books--Grimm's Household
Stories. I am ashamed to say how long I read it. These old tales, which
I used to read as transcripts of marvellous and ancient facts, have,
many of them, gained for me, through experience of life, a beautiful
and symbolical value; one in particular, the tale of Karl Katz.

Karl used to feed his goats in the ruins of an old castle, high up
above the stream. Day after day one of his herd used to disappear,
coming back in the evening to join the homeward procession, very fat
and well-liking. So Karl set himself to watch, and saw that the goat
slipped in at a hole in the masonry. He enlarged the hole, and
presently was able to creep into a dark passage. He made his way along,
and soon heard a sound like a falling hailstorm. He groped his way
thither, and found the goat, in the dim light, feeding on grains of
corn which came splashing down from above. He looked and listened, and,
from the sounds of stamping and neighing overhead, he became aware that
the grain was failing through the chinks of a paved floor from a stable
inside the hill. I forget at this moment what happened next--the story
is rich in inconsequent details--but Karl shortly heard a sound like
thunder, which he discerned at last to be persons laughing and shouting
and running in the vaulted passages. He stole on, and found, in an
open, grassy place, great merry men playing at bowls. He was welcomed
and set down in a chair, though he could not even lift one of the bowls
when invited to join in the game. A dwarf brought him wine in a cup,
which he drank, and presently he fell asleep.

When he woke, all was silent and still; he made his way back; the goats
were gone, and it was the early morning, all misty and dewy among