[Manchester—Friday, 23 August 1867]
Friday 23d The rain pours heavily in a long persistent way. J. has gone to town and left the house to quietness. The drops stand thick all over the leaves of the tulip tree and a low watery plash comes in at the windows. I sit reading Chaucer’s Court of Love. His works are a necessary study to the poet and to the historian, but hardly pleasurable reading to any one taking them from end to end. I am often reminded of Dr Johnson’s saying with regard to Milton’s Paradise Lost that there was never a reader who was not glad when he had finished the reading of it, however great the enjoyment might be, for it was unnatural to keep the mind strained to so high a pitch for any length of time. Certainly Chaucer does not keep forever at the height of a great argument but he possesses the “compendious brevity” of all great writers and demands constant attention which the condition of the English tongue at the period he wrote makes still more difficult.
It is early and I keep reflecting “love is a whole day” but it melts as fast as my airiest dream! I long to keep it till something shall be made permanent. Ah! what is permanent, and why should I long!
J. has made my room very pleasant. The finest photograph of Mr R.W. Emerson hangs by the side of my table. It is almost like gathering force and magneticism from his very presence to look at it. Lissie Green’s owl hangs just in front of me and a pretty canopy over our couch nearby, to keep away mosquitoes, gives an aspect of grace to the apartment very pleasant to one who is to sit here all day long.
