1–7 February 1841

I am dispirited by the lameness of an organ : if I have a cold, and the thought I would utter to my friend comes forth in stony, sepulchral tones, I am disgusted, and I will not speak more. But, as the drunkard who cannot walk can run, so I can speak my oration to an assembly, when I cannot without pain answer a question in the parlor. But lately it is a sort of general winter with me. I am not sick that I know, yet the names and projects of my friends sound far off and faint and unafFecting to my ear, as do, when I am sick, the voices of persons and the sounds of labor which I overhear in my solitary bed. A puny, limitary creature am I, with only a small annuity of vital force to expend, which if I squander in a few feast-days, I must feed on water and moss the rest of the time.