[Boston—Saturday, 16 March 1867]
Saturday. The week has passed with little marked progress. I sometimes think that must be lost for us in this world since with all our doing so little is accomplished.
Richard H. Dana is delivering a course of lectures on International Law. We know the one on the Monroe doctrine—perspiccuous [sic] and valuable—it was spirited too such as all could be warmed by to new patriotism and listen to with interest. Miss Dana told us of a speech “Ned Soheir” made to his children who were all trying to talk together—“Children I wish you would be still, and always remember children that nothing you can say is of the slightest consequence to anybody!”
Longfellow is delighted with his son’s engagement and says there is no body else he could have liked so well for a daughter-in-law.
I feel it impossible to write. I sit before the clock which hurries on and I feel the sacredness of twice the responsibility of the moments and a hatred of self-occupation—yet I know the little seed, the tender shoot which springs up into the lovely flower of love and truest life is nourished in the quiet hours when we review deeds, and build our hopes, and nurse holy desires—these must be hours of silence and self-communion. How unhaply is restlessness of the spirit, not that I would have contentment with what is, but that short-sighted restlessness which leads us to chase up and down over the earth for we know not what is melancholy indeed—let us cherish the example and words of Montaigne who believed in travel, after forty.
