ove home better than persons _can_
do, who have been always encompassed by the excitements and artificial
enjoyments of society. These lose individual consciousness amid the
throng of recollections; they cannot trace the progress of their
being, nor retain the self-portraying vividness of memory. I am sure
that no dweller in cities can feel as I do, when I return to this
tranquil village; I can almost imagine I have stepped back into my
childhood. Yet, loving this place as I do, I am still anxious to leave
it; home, and especially a quiet one, is no place for great successes.
Too much of the childish past hangs over it, and discourages exertion,
and those who have loved us best and earliest, know least of what we
are capable. Every day intercourse fetters judgment, and thought lives
in the domestic circle with sealed lips. My kind friends do not
comprehend my wishes or emotions; my mother deems them folly, and
Gerald, instead of sympathy, tenders me only doubts and fears. But I
repel silently such depressing influence; surely the motto of youth
should be, _aide-toi_, _et Dieu t'aidera_. . . . . I have been reading
that tearful book, the Diary of an Ennuye. What a vivid picture it
presents of mental and physical suffering, too intense to be wholly
conquered, yet half subdued by the strong power of a thoughtful will.
Such depictings of sorrow must be exaggerated, there cannot be so much
of grief in a world where hope still liveth. . . . . I have been
amusing myself this morning by scribbling verses, and as I gradually
became absorbed in my employment, I felt I would willingly relinquish
half the future in store for me, could I win a poet's fame. I have
been endeavoring to determine which is the most desirable, the
celebrity of a poet or a painter. Perhaps the distinction an artist
obtains satisfies the mind more wholly, and it must be a more
universal thing, than that of a writer. He appeals to the senses; his
work is the visible presence of what is immaterial, the palpable
creation of a thought. He gazes on his production, until his being
revels in the witchery of his own reality; and the ideal that had
haunted his spirit so long, smiles and blesses him from that glowing
canvas. But the poet, he who from the well of thought hath drawn forth
such golden truths; who heareth within his heart the echo of whatever
is beautiful around him; he who is the interpreter of nature, and
translateth into burning words whatsoever things