Thursday August 25.
If this should be the day fixed on for the sale,—& I very much suspect—but I wont think or hear any certainty about it. The feeling has weighed on my brain & heart all day; yet I cant dwell on it by reflection.— Mr. Boyd said in his letter yesterday that he “cannot help indulging the idea of everything ending happily”. I have prayed that it may end happily, not that it may end in a particular way, by our leaving Hope End or retaining Hope End; but that we may be led to do or suffer what is best for us. Lord Jesus hear this prayer!--
Since Mr. Boyd expressed his hope to me, mine has risen up in a presentimental form; but whether it be a spirit of health or Goblin damned,[1] there is no saying, or thinking! Well: all things will be wisely ordered—if not happily for the very present moment.
I have dogged myself on in study today, that I might not be dogged by less pleasant thoughts than studious ones. I have finished Theophrastus, who is a spirited amusing writer. Something in his manner, might catch the popular ear, at least as well as the tinkling of certain fools’ bells! Shall I try? There is time enough to think of it.
I have read also Callimachus’s Hymn to Jupiter. Is there anything fine in this hymn? Nothing, that I can discover; & it does not bribe my ear high enough for it to render up the key of my judgment. No harmony. Too many pauses & breaks in the lines!— The Greek is not very easy. Such is my sentence on Callimachus’s first hymn. Si sic omnia, I shall have to wear a black cap all my life, as far as he is concerned.
I have read too a part of the panegyric of Isocrates. The rhythm is very flowing & harmonious, fuller to the ear than Plato’s: but I have, as yet, met with nothing in the matter particularly striking or beautiful.
1. Hamlet I.iv.39–40.
