25 February–3 March 1839

Yesterday morning, 24 February at 8 o'clock, a daughter was born to me, a soft, quiet, swarthy little creature, apparently perfect and healthy.

The memory plays a great part in settling the intellectual rank of men. A seneschal of Parnassus is Mnemosyne. Thus, am I a better scholar than one of my neighbors who visited me ? I see how it is. We read the same books a year, two years, ten years ago ; we read the same books this month. Well, that fact which struck us both, then, with equal force, I still contemplate. He has lost it. He and the world have only this fact. I have that and this.