Come again into my study, having sat some time for greater comfort
in the sunnier east room by an open fire, as needful in our climate,
almost, as in that of changeable England. Busy days these last, with a
little something to show for them. After all, I am here most at home,
and myself surrounded by friendly pictures and books, free to follow
the mood of the moment,--read, write, recreate. I wish more came of
it all. Here are these voluminous diaries, showy seen from without,
with far too little of life transcribed within. Was it the accident of
being shown, when a boy, in the old oaken cabinet, my mother's little
journal, that set me out in this chase of myself, continued almost
uninterruptedly, and now fixed by habit as a part of the day, like the
rising and setting of the sun? Yet it has educated me into whatever
skill I possess with the pen, I know not to how much besides; has made
me emulous of attaining the art of portraying my thoughts, occupations,
surroundings, friendships; and could I succeed in sketching to the life
a single day's doings, should esteem myself as having accomplished the
chiefest feat in literature. Yet the nobler the life and the busier,
the less, perhaps, gets written, and that which is, the less rewards
perusal.
"Life's the true poem could it be writ,
Yet who can live at once and utter it."
All is in the flowing moments. But who shall arrest these and fix the
features of the passing person behind the pageantry, and write the
diary of one's existence?