’Aug. 7, 1832.—­I feel quite lost; it is so long since I have talked myself.  To see so many acquaintances, to talk so many words, and never tell my mind completely on any subject—­to say so many things which do not seem called out, makes me feel strangely vague and movable.

’’Tis true, the time is probably near when I must live alone, to all intents and purposes,—­separate entirely my acting from my thinking world, take care of my ideas without aid,—­except from the illustrious dead,—­answer my own questions, correct my own feelings, and do all that hard work for myself.  How tiresome ’tis to find out all one’s self-delusion!  I thought myself so very independent, because I could conceal some feelings at will, and did not need the same excitement as other young characters did.  And I am not independent, nor never shall be, while I can get anybody to minister to me.  But I shall go where there is never a spirit to come, if I call ever so loudly.

’Perhaps I shall talk to you about Koerner, but need not write.  He charms me, and has become a fixed star in the heaven of my thought; but I understand all that he excites perfectly.  I felt very ’new about Novalis,—­“the good Novalis,” as you call him after Mr. Carlyle.  He is, indeed, good, most enlightened, yet most pure; every link of his experience framed—­no, beaten—­from the tried gold.

’I have read, thoroughly, only two of his pieces, “Die Lehrlinge zu Sais,” and “Heinrich von Ofterdingen.”  From the former I have only brought away piecemeal impressions, but the plan and treatment of the latter, I believe, I understand.  It describes the development of poetry in a mind; and with this several other developments are connected.  I think I shall tell you all I know about it, some quiet time after your return, but if not, will certainly keep a Novalis-journal for you some favorable season, when I live regularly for a fort night.’

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’June, 1833.—­I return Lessing.  I could hardly get through Miss Sampson.  E. Galeotti is good in the same way as Minna.  Well-conceived and sustained characters, interesting situations, but never that profound knowledge of human nature, those minute beauties, and delicate vivifying traits, which lead on so in the writings of some authors, who may be nameless.  I think him easily followed; strong, but not deep.’

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’May, 1833.—­Groton.—­I think you are wrong in applying your artistical ideas to occasional poetry.  An epic, a drama, must have a fixed form in the mind of the poet from the first; and copious draughts of ambrosia quaffed in the heaven of thought, soft fanning gales and bright light from the outward world, give muscle and bloom,—­that is, give life,—­to this skeleton.  But all occasional poems must be moods, and can a mood have a form fixed and perfect, more than a wave of the sea?’

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