The aspect of things here impresses me mainly with the absolute necessity
and duty of making our place good. The stern, stirring activity around me
compels me to give account to myself of my silence and repose. The answer
is always clear and steady. I have not heard the voice. Yet my mind begins
to shape some outline of life. Of this I am assured, that in this world of
work, where the hum of business makes music with the stars, I must work
too. And how I must work, by what handle I shall grasp the world and
justify my consumption of its food, that begins to appear. My Genius is
not decided enough to lead me unquestioning in any one direction, and my
taste is so equally cultivated and developed that choice seems somewhat
arbitrary. Yet it is not so. Above all, I regret no culture, tho' it may
have thus multiplied the roads to be chosen. It is a tinge and charm to
whatever is performed.

A gentleman in never so ragged clothes is a gentleman still. You may be
sure nothing has charmed me more than my meeting with Isaac in his mealy
clothes and brown-paper cap. His manner had a grand dignity, because he
was universally related by his diligent labor, and my conversation with
him was as earnest and happy as any intercourse I have had with him. This
general activity does not reprove me, for my silence respects itself and
gives good reasons why judgment should not proceed. And therefore it views
more lovingly what surrounds it. The God stirs within, and presently will
say something. Let us plant ourselves there and be lawyers that we may so
dispense justice, not that we may get bread; and priests, because the
Divine will speaks thro' us; and merchants and doctors and shoemakers and
bakers, from the same reason. If we honestly serve in any such profession,
bread will come of course.

Your letter has quickened my thought upon these things, quite active