peculiarly sentimental and homesick just now, because I want my dinner. George and Ida, I suppose, reached home yesterday. Next Tuesday school begins again. I am surprised, Helen, that you should not like Howells. I think he is a good writer, and a true artist. James is no favorite of mine. They are not, of course, men to receive the mantle which Dickens and Thackeray left to George Eliot, and to which, since she is gone, no worthy successor is found. They are not giants, but neither are they pigmies. They are not men of genius, but they are men of talent. As to the Fair Barbarian, it has made some stir in the world of books, but I confess that I do not admire it in the least. I must confess, however, in addition, that I never finished it. Dr Breen’s Practice I have not read. Let us read together Howells’ new story beginning in the January Scribner, “A Modern Instance,” and see how we like it. George W. Cable is the new writer who has made the most stir. He is very highly praised, is called the most promising American writer, and is boldly compared to Hawthorne. He has had several stories in Scribner, “Old Creole Days,” “The Grandissimes,” etc. He is a Southern man. I have not read any of his books, have you? I have finished Green’s History of the English People, the larger one, and do not hesitate to pronounce it the best history I ever read. It is inferior to Gibbon, indeed, in every respect save one, but that single one places it ahead of them all. That is, it is not a history of kings, or of wars, but of the people. It gave me some little insight into history. More certainly, than all the history I have ever read before. It doesn’t really begin to be interesting, in my opinion, till the time of Henry the Eighth. I wouldn’t read the short one if I could possibly get the larger, as the one objection which I have to find to the latter is, that it is too short. So read the long one if you can. Its length is to the other as a little more than 3 to 2.
January 1, 1882.—The first day of the New Year. I am somewhat more cheerfully disposed than I was one week ago to-day. I have recovered my health, and in fact am feeling better than usual, and happier than usual too. And I hope and intend to keep in both conditions. I am better than usual because I have slept a great deal this vacation. I am happier than usual, because I am in the first flush of New Year’s good resolutions. Sleep will be lost again, and good resolutions will be broken. What are my chances for keeping well and happy? For the first, excellent; for the second, poor. My health I have no fears for, but as for my good resolutions, they of course will go the way of the hosts which have preceded them. However, it is a comfort to think that I have had the grace to make them. No one is past hope as long as he can make good resolutions, notwithstanding their popularity as paving-stones in the lower world. For we know that a good resolution is occasionally kept. And why should it not be mine as well as my neighbor’s. It is, indeed, demoralizing to make and break good resolutions. But then it is more demoralizing not to make them at all. It is best of all, of course, not to need to make any, to have one’s life all one good big resolution. But such is not the case of most of us. And we must take the world just as we find it, alas! which is generally in a somewhat tangled shape, not without good hope of disentanglement however, thank God, for deft fingers and a brave heart. I received your letter, Helen, by the W. H. Dimond, for which I thank you. Auntie told me that she had one from Bowen, whereupon Reky and I both thought that there was probably one lying in our box from my dear sister Helen for me. So it turned out. Thank you more than I can tell, for justifying the prediction. You’ve no idea what a treasure my regular inter-steamer mail is. I can depend upon it, it has become so regular. My only fear now is lest you will send postals instead of letters by the sailing vessels. Of course I don’t want to burden you, and I am keenly alive to the fact that you write to me now considerably more than I deserve, yet so grasping is love that I am never satisfied. My plan is this, that you send me letters on every occasion when you do now, and then, in addition, send off a closely-written postal on every sailing vessel that goes. I haven’t got any cheek, have I? One advantage of the new arrangement is that members of the family from whom I now rarely or never hear, can write me a postal occasionally. For instance, how long will it take Jamie to scribble a postal when he is at his desk at the store, where his pen and ink are all handy? Not more than a minute, would it? Of course I don’t want to burden anybody, but a minute a month isn’t much, is it? If this arrangement is adopted I shan’t forget George’s handwriting, which I hardly know by light now, only by faith; though just now I am the last person in the world to complain of not hearing from dear George.
Tuesday Morning, January 3, ’82.—School begins with prayers this evening. And as I want to go to work unencumbered, I shall try and get considerable of my writing done to-day. I have already got six sheets written, and a few months ago, that would have seemed a mail in itself. But as I write more my ideas of what a mail should be arise proportionately. I now think that if I write ten sheets, I have done all that can be desired. But I shall probably overstep that boundary this month. The “discouraged feeling” that you speak of, Helen, in reference to your reading and studying, arising from the numberless new fields of knowledge which rise so fast before you, should not trouble you. It is a good sign. There can be none better. In fact, not much is to be hoped of any one as a scholar if they have not had that feeling. The very basis of all true progress is in a correct understanding of our real relation to the universe of things. Until we know, and more than know, until we feel, that the fields of study for man are as infinite as the ocean of space which surrounds him, and that the knowledge of the very wisest of men is but a judicious selection, more, that the combined knowledge of the whole human race is to what they do not know, as an infinitesimal to infinity, until we feel, I say, these things so that our spirits are humbled in the very dust, until that point is reached there can be no true progress. The days are gone by when we could look upon our elders with awe and reverence, and say, they know everything. In view of these awful heights all human distinctions are annihilated. What is the difference between Pres. Fairchild’s knowledge and mine in comparison to the mighty field which is unknown to both of us alike? So, Helen, your “discouraged feeling” is a ground for encouragement. Your feeling troubled at not being able to express yourself clearly, is also another thing to make you feel encouraged rather than otherwise. It simply proves that you have things to say more and more worth saying every day. It is not easy to say things that are really well worth saying. Language is an excellent medium to express common and surface ideas, and in general almost all facts of universal experience. “I liked my breakfast,” “It is a cold day,” are not ambiguous. Every one has enjoyed a good meal, or experienced the keenness of the weather, and know that they have done so, because these are facts of obvious experience, and are noticed by the child in the cradle. But when you come to express feelings and emotions of the soul, language becomes comparatively inadequate. The real fault is partly in the language and partly in your auditor. If your auditor has never had the experience you are trying to express, he cannot understand you, never mind how clearly you put it. If you should say it is a cold day to a man who had no sense of feeling, he would never understand you, although you repeated the sentiment in every variety of form for a thousand years. Because he has never had any experience corresponding to your expression. So when you try to express an abstruse idea do not be discouraged if your language seems faulty and inadequate. If your auditor has sympathy with you he will understand you, and if he does not understand you, you may lay the blame to him as much as to yourself. Emerson, for instance, to any one who cannot sympathise with him, must seem positively senseless and meaningless. The ideas which he has are really (I think) in the literal meaning of words, inexpressible. But he manages to suggest them, so that if you are in sympathy with him, by reading between the lines, you can be made to share his thought. I confess there are passages in Emerson which are perfectly incomprehensible to me. They might just as well be in Chaldaic for all the good they do me. And yet I do not lay the fault to Emerson or think they could be much more clearly expressed (without of course enormous expansiveness. No doubt a sentence could be made clear by being written out into a page). The real difficulty is that I have not yet had any experience corresponding to the passage. Language is a medium well fitted for the communication of material ideas, but when it comes to the deeper feelings and experiences of the soul, it is faulty indeed. Its very formation illustrates this truth. Every word is originally derived from and expresses some object, or experience of sense, and then is transferred by analogy or metaphor to immaterial ideas. Without the five senses, where would language be? How could I say, “Your thought is clear” or “I see
