March 28, 1842. How often must one feel, as he looks back on his past life, that he has gained a talent, but lost a character. My life has got down into my fingers. My inspiration at length is only so much breath as I can breathe. Society affects to estimate men by their talents, but really feels and knows them by their character. What a man does, compared with what he is, is but a small part. To require that our friend possess a certain skill is not to be satisfied till he is something less than our friend. Friendship should be a great promise, a perennial spring-time. I can conceive how the life of the gods may be dull and tame, if it is not disappointed and insatiate. One may well feel chagrined when he finds he can do nearly all he can conceive. How poor is the life of the best and wisest; the petty side will appear at last. Understand once how the best in society live, with what routine, with what tedium and insipidity, with what grimness and defiance, with what chuckling over an exaggeration of the sunshine! I am astonished, I must confess, that man looks so respectable in nature, that, considering the littlenesses Socrates must descend to in the twenty-four hours, he yet wears a serene countenance and even adorns nature.
March 28, 1852. 1014 p. m. The geese have
