from disturbing.  I found them perfect, and unrolled them....  Fearing that I might not succeed in managing them, I procured some hairs from C.’s head.  C. being not quite a year old, his hair is remarkably fine and sufficiently long....  I made the perpendicular wires of the spider’s webs, breaking them and doing the work over again a great many times....  I at length got all in, crossing the five perpendicular ones with a horizontal one from C.’s spinning-wheel....  After twenty-four hours’ exposure to the weather, I looked at them.  The spider-webs had not changed, they were plainly used to a chill and made to endure changes of temperature; but C.’s hair, which had never felt a cold greater than that of the nursery, nor a change more decided than from his mother’s arms to his father’s, had knotted up into a decided curl!—­N.B.  C. may expect ringlets.

“January 22.  Horace Greeley, in an article in a recent number of the ‘Tribune,’ says that the fund left by Smithson is spent by the regents of that institution in publishing books which no publisher would undertake and which do no good to anybody.  Now in our little town of Nantucket, with our little Atheneum, these volumes are in constant demand....

“I do not suppose that such works as those issued by the Smithsonian regents are appreciated by all who turn them over, but the ignorant learn that such things exist; they perceive that a higher cultivation than theirs is in the world, and they are stimulated to strive after greater excellence.  So I steadily advocate, in purchasing books for the Atheneum, the lifting of the people.  ’Let us buy, not such books as the people want, but books just above their wants, and they will reach up to take what is put out for them.’

“Sept. 10, 1855.  To know what one ought to do is certainly the hardest thing in life.  ‘Doing’ is comparatively easy; but there are no laws for your individual case—­yours is one of a myriad.

“There are laws of right and wrong in general, but they do not seem to bear upon any particular case.

“In chess-playing you can refer to rules of movement, for the chess-men are few, and the positions in which they may be placed, numerous as they are, have a limit.

“But is there any limit to the different positions of human beings around you?  Is there any limit to the peculiarities of circumstances?

“Here a man, however much of a copyist he may be by nature, comes down to simple originality, unless he blindly follows the advice of some friend; for there is no precedent in anything exactly like his case; he must decide for himself, and must take the step alone; and fearfully, cautiously, and distrustingly must we all take many of our steps, for we see but a little way at best, and we can foresee nothing at all.

“September 13.  I read this morning an article in ‘Putnam’s Magazine,’ on Rachel.  I have been much interested in this woman as a genius, though I am pained by the accounts of her career in point of morals, and I am wearied with the glitter of her jewelry.  Night puts on a jewelled robe which few admire, compared with the admiration for marketable jewelry.  The New York ‘Tribune’ descends to the rating of the value of those worn by her, and it is the prominent point, or rather it makes the multitude of prominent points, when she is spoken of.