28 October–3 November 1839

The world can never be learned by learning all its details.

In Boston I visited the gallery of Sculpture and saw the Day and Night of Michel Angelo. I find in Michel more abandon than in Mil- ton. . . . Wonderful figure and head of Day. The head suggests not only, as when I first saw it in Florence, the sun new risen resting over the brow of a hill, but, when better seen, a whole rough landscape of woods and mountains. I see reason for this figure being called Day : and I called the Night, Night.