A person to be writing a tale, and to find that it shapes itself against
his intentions; that the characters act otherwise than he thought; that
unforeseen events occur; and a catastrophe comes which he strives in vain
to avert. It might shadow forth his own fate,--he having made himself
one of the personages.

It is a singular thing, that, at the distance, say, of five feet, the
work of the greatest dunce looks just as well as that of the greatest
genius,--that little space being all the distance between genius and
stupidity.

Mrs. Sigourney says, after Coleridge, that "poetry has been its own
exceeding great reward." For the writing, perhaps; but would it be so
for the reading?

Four precepts: To break off customs; to shake off spirits ill-disposed;
to meditate on youth; to do nothing against one's genius.


Salem, August 31st, 1836.--A walk, yesterday, down to the shore, near the
hospital. Standing on the old grassy battery, that forms a semicircle,
and looking seaward. The sun not a great way above the horizon, yet so
far as to give a very golden brightness, when it shone out. Clouds in
the vicinity of the sun, and nearly all the rest of the sky covered with
clouds in masses, not a gray uniformity of cloud. A fresh breeze blowing
from land seaward. If it had been blowing from the sea, it would have
raised it in heavy billows, and caused it to dash high against the rocks.
But now its surface was not at all commoved with billows; there was only
roughness enough to take off the gleam, and give it the aspect of iron
after cooling. The clouds above added to the black appearance. A few