EXTRACT FROM MY PRIVATE JOURNAL.
(To be burned unread.)
I am afraid I have been a fool; for I have told as much of myself
to this young person as if she were of that ripe and discreet age
which invites confidence and expansive utterance. I have been low-
spirited and listless, lately,--it is coffee, I think,--(I observe
that which is bought READY-GROUND never affects the head,)--and I
notice that I tell my secrets too easily when I am downhearted.
There are inscriptions on our hearts, which, like that on Dighton
Rock, are never to be seen except at dead-low tide.
There is a woman's footstep on the sand at the side of my deepest
ocean-buried inscription!
- Oh, no, no, no! a thousand times, no!--Yet what is this which has
been shaping itself in my soul?--Is it a thought?--is it a dream?--
is it a PASSION?--Then I know what comes next.
- The Asylum stands on a bright and breezy hill; those glazed
corridors are pleasant to walk in, in bad weather. But there are
iron bars to all the windows. When it is fair, some of us can
stroll outside that very high fence. But I never see much life in
those groups I sometimes meet;--and then the careful man watches
them so closely! How I remember that sad company I used to pass on
fine mornings, when I was a schoolboy!--B., with his arms full of
yellow weeds,--ore from the gold mines which he discovered long
before we heard of California,--Y.
Pages:
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280