24–30 July 1837

Yesterday I went to the Athenaeum and looked through journals and books — for wit, for excite- ment, to wake in me the muse. In vain, and in vain. And am I yet to learn that the God dwells within ? That books are but crutches, the re- sorts of the feeble and lame, which, if used by the strong, weaken the muscular power, and become necessary aids. I return home. Nature still so- licits me. Overhead the sanctities of the stars shine forevermore, and to me also, pouring sa- tire on the pomppus business of the day which they close, and making the generations of men show slight and evanescent. A man is but a bug, the earth but a boat, a cockle, drifting under their old light.

A letter from Carlyle to-day rejoiced me.

If the All-wise would give me light, I should write for the Cambridge men a theory of the Scholar's oiEce.' It is not all books which it be- hooves him to know, least of all to be a book- worshipper, but he must be able to read in all books that which alone gives value to books — in all to read one, the one incorruptible text of truth. That alone of their style is intelligible, acceptable to him.