as no rest for man--if earth be all.
Yet oft there dwell, in temples frail and mortal,
Souls that partake immortal life the while;
Nor wait till death unbar heaven's pearly portal,
For heaven's own essence, their Redeemer's smile.
_--12th Month_, 1844.
* * * * *
From the Journal relating to daily affairs, at this time, kept
distinct from her spiritual diary, the following, and a few other
extracts, have been taken. Never suspecting that this would see the
light, she left it in an unfinished state. Had it been reconsidered,
portions of it would probably have been altered; but it sufficiently
shows her desire to understand the agencies of intellectual action,
and the philosophy of knowing and acquiring. She recognizes the
importance of systematic knowledge, questions the purpose and use
of every attainment, and manifests throughout a desire that all
the operations of the intelligence may subserve a nobler aim than
knowledge in itself possesses:--
_5th Mo. 16th_. That life is a real, earnest thing,
and to be employed for our own and others' real and
earnest good, is a fact which I desire may be more
deeply engraven on my heart. It is certainly a
matter of spiritual duty, to look well to the outward
state of our own house. There are already many
revolutions in my mental history, passed beyond the
reach of any thing but regrets. As a child, play
was not my chief pleasure, but a sort of mingled
play and constructiveness; then reading and learning;
I well remember the coming on of the desire
to _know_. In a tale, false or true, I had by no
means, the common share of pleasure--Smith's Key
to Reading was more to my taste. Poetry I have
ever loved. History I am very dull at; a chain of
events is far more difficult to follow, than a chain of
ideas--causality comes more to my aid than eventuality.
Well, the age of learning came: in it I
learned this, that, and the other; but, alas! order,
the faculty in which I am so deficient, was wanting,
I had not an appointed place for each fact or idea:
so they were lost as they fell into the confused mass.
I am full of dim apprehensions on almost all subjects,
but _know little_ of any. However, it may be
that this favors new combinations of things. I
would rather have all my ideas in a mass, than have
them in separate locked boxes, where they must each
remain isolated; but
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