ot dreamt of, over in that Transoceanic Parish! I shall
cordially wish well to this thing; and hail it as the sure
forerunner of things better. The Visible becomes the Bestial
when it rests not on the Invisible. Innumerable tumults of
Metaphysic must be struggled through (whole generations perishing
by the way), and at last Transcendentalism evolve itself (if I
construe aright), as the _Euthanasia_ of Metaphysic altogether.
May it be sure, may it be speedy! Thou shalt open thy _eyes,_ O
Son of Adam; thou shalt _look,_ and not forever jargon about
_laws_ of Optics and the making of spectacles! For myself, I
rejoice very much that I seem to be flinging aside innumerable
sets of spectacles (could I but _lay_ them aside,--with
gentleness!) and hope one day actually to see a thing or two.
Man _lives_ by Belief (as it was well written of old); by logic
he can only at best long to live. Oh, I am dreadfully, afflicted
with Logic here, and wish often (in my haste) that I had the
besom of destruction to lay to it for a little!

"Why? and WHEREFORE? God wot, simply THEREFORE! Ask not WHY;
't is SITH thou hast to care for."

Since I wrote last to you, (which seems some three months ago,)
there has a great mischance befallen me: the saddest, I think,
of the kind called Accidents I ever had to front. By dint of
continual endeavor for many weary weeks, I had got the first
volume of that miserable _French Revolution_ rather handsomely
finished: from amid infinite contradictions I felt as if my head
were fairly above water, and I could go on writing my poor Book,
defying the Devil and the World, with a certain degree of
assurance, and even of joy. A Friend borrowed this volume of
Manuscript,--a kind Friend but a careless one,--to write notes on
it, which he was well qualified to do. One evening about two
months ago he came in on us, "distraction (literally) in his
aspect"; the Manuscript, left carelessly out, had been torn up
as waste paper, and all but three or four tatters was clean gone!
I could not complain, or the poor man seemed as if he would have
shot himself: we had to gather ourselves together, and show a
smooth front to it; which happily, though difficult, was not
impossible to do. I began again at the beginning; to such a
wretched paralyzing torpedo of a task as my hand never found to
do: at which I have worn myself these two months to the hue of
saffron, to the humor of incipient desperation; and