ir original
picture-meaning. 3. Search for a type or symbol in nature of every
spiritual fact. Under the head of poetry I mean, to study the great
masters of epic and dramatic poetry, especially Shakspeare and Milton,
and from them make out a science of criticism. Alas!

_April 5, 1838._--I have been thinking about myself--what a strange,
wayward, incomprehensible being I am, and how completely misunderstood
by almost everybody. Uniting excessive pride with excessive
sensitiveness, the greatest ardor and passionateness of emotion with
an irresolute will, a disposition to _distrust_, in so far only as the
affection of others for me is concerned, with the extreme of confidence
and credulity in everything else--an incapability of expressing, except
occasionally as it were in gushes, any strong feeling--a tendency
to melancholy, yet with a susceptibility of enjoyment almost
transporting--subject to the most sudden, unaccountable and irresistible
changes of mood--capable of being melted and moulded to anything by
kindness, but as cold and unyielding as a rock against harshness and
compulsion--such are some of the peculiarities which excellently prepare
me for un-happiness. It is true that sometimes I am conscious of none of
them--when for days together I pursue my regular routine of studies and
employments, half mechanically--or when completely under the influence
of the outward, I live for a time in what is around me. But this never
lasts long. One of the most painful feelings I ever know is the sense of
an unappeasable craving for sympathy and appreciation--the desire to be
understood and loved, united with the conviction that this desire can
never be gratified. I feel _alone_, different from all others and
of course misunderstood by them. The only other feeling I have more
miserable than this is the sense of being _worse_ than all others, and
utterly destitute of anything excellent or beautiful. Oh! what mysteries
are wrapped up in the mind and heart of man! What a development will
be made when the light of another world shall be let in upon these
impenetrable recesses!

BOSTON, _Jan. 7, 1839._--I came here on the last day of the last
year, and have since then been very much occupied in different ways.
Yesterday, I heard President Hopkins all day, and in the evening,
a lecture from Dr. Follen on Pantheism. The most abstract of all
pantheistic systems he described to be that of the Brahmans, as taught
in the Vedas and Ve