CONCORD, April 26, 1857.
MR. WILEY,--I see that you are turning a broad furrow among the books,
but I trust that some very private journal all the while holds its own
through their midst. Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as
often as they do us this service we lay them aside. I should say, read
Goethe's autobiography, by all means, also Gibbon's, Haydon the
painter's, and our Franklin's of course; perhaps also Alfieri's,
Benvenuto Cellini's, and De Quincey's "Confessions of an
Opium-Eater,"--since you like autobiography. I think you must read
Coleridge again, and further, skipping all his theology, _i. e._, if
you value precise definitions and a discriminating use of language. By
the way, read De Quincey's Reminiscences of Coleridge and Wordsworth.
How shall we account for our pursuits, if they are original? We get
the language with which to describe our various lives out of a common
mint. If others have their losses which they are busy repairing, so
have I mine, and their hound and horse may _perhaps_ be the symbols of
some of them.[76] But also I have lost, or am in danger of losing, a
far finer and more ethereal treasure which commonly no loss, of which
they are conscious, will symbolize. This I answer hastily and with
some hesitation, according as I now understand my words....
Methinks a certain polygamy with its troubles is the fate of almost
all men. They are married to two wives: their genius (a celestial
muse), and also to some fair daughter of the earth. Unless these two
were fast friends before marriage, and so are afterward, there will be
but little peace in the house.