5–11 October 1840

On Saturday evening I attended the wedding of Samuel Gray Ward and Anna Hazard Barker at the house of Mr. Farrar in Cambridge. Peace go with you, beautiful, pure, and happy friends, — peace and beauty and power and the perpe- tuity and the sure unfolding of all the buds of joy that so thickly stud your branches.

Circumstances are dreams, which, springing unawares from ourselves, amuse us whilst we doze and sleep, but when we wake, nothing but causes can content us. The life of man is the true romance which, when it is valiantly con- ducted and all the stops of the instrument opened, will go nigh to craze the reader with anxiety, wonder and love. I am losing all relish for books and for feats of skill in my delight in this Power.