2–8 December 1839

My Friends. — I read with joy Sterling's noble critique on Carlyle in the Westminster Review. All intellectual ability seems to have somewhat impersonal and destructive of personality ; and yet I read with warm pride because a man who has offered me friendship gives this unequivocal certificate of his equality to that office. O friend ! you have given me that sign which high friend- ship demands, namely, ability to do without it. Pass on, we shall meet again. ... I woke this morn with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new. I think no man in the planet has a circle more noble. They have come to me unsought : the great God gave them to me. Will they separate themselves from me again, or some of them ? I know not, but I fear it not, for my relation to them is so pure that we hold by simple affinity ; and the Genius of my life being thus social, the same affinity will exert its energy on whosoever is as noble as these men and women, wherever I may be.'