25 November–1 December 1839

Ward has given me the Endymion with friendliest letter.' It shall hang by Carlyle's Guido.

Unconsciousness. — Happy is he who in look- ing at the compositions of an earlier date knows that the moment wrote them, and feels no more call or right to alter them than to alter his re- collections of a day or a fact. We pretend some- times to find somewhat of this sacredness in our scrolls; but I speak of one who should know it.

It seems a matter of indifference what, and how, and how much, you write, if you write poetry. Poetry makes its own pertinence, and a single stanza outweighs a book of prose. One stanza is complete. But one sentence of prose is not. But it must be poetry.