1–7 January 1866

I thought, last night, as so often before, that when one has a task before him in which liter- ary work becomes business, — undertaken, that is, for money, — any hearing of poetry or any intellectual suggestion (as e. g. out of J. Hutch- ison Stirling's took lately) brings instant pen- itence, and the thoughts revert to the Muse, and, under this high invitation, we think we will throw up our undertaking, and attempt once more this purer, loftier service. But if we obey this suggestion, the beaming goddess presently hides her face in clouds again. We have not learned the law of the mind, cannot control and bring at will or domesticate the high states of contemplation and continuous thought. " Nei- ther by sea nor by land canst thou find the way to the Hyperboreans." Neither by idle wishing, nor by rule of three or of thumb. Yet I find a mitigation or solace of the alternative which I accept (of the paid lectures, for instance) by providing always a good book for my journey, as Horace, or Martial, or the Secret of Hegel, some book which lifts quite out of prosaic sur- roundings, and from which you draw some last- ing knowledge.