12 February 1838 – 18 February 1838

It is hard to subject ourselves to an influence. It must steal upon us when we expect it not, and its work be all done ere we are aware of it. If we make advances, it is shy; if, when we feel its presence, we presume to pry into its free-masonry, it vanishes and leaves us alone in our folly,—brimful but stagnant,—a full channel, it may be, but no inclination.

The true student will cleave ever to the good, recognizing no Past, no Present; but wherever he emerges from the bosom of time, his course is not with the sun,—eastward or westward,—but ever towards the seashore. Day and night pursues he his devious way, lingering by how many a Pierian spring, how many an Academus grove, how many a sculptured portico!—all which—spring, grove, and portico—lie not so wide but he may take them conveniently in his way.

In imagination I hie me to Greece as to enchanted ground. No storms vex her coasts, no clouds encircle her Helicon or Olympus, no tempests sweep the peaceful Tempe or ruffle the bosom of the placid Ægean; but always the beams of the summer's sun gleam along the entablature of the Acropolis, or are reflected through the mellow atmosphere from a thousand consecrated groves and fountains; always her sea-girt isles are dallying with their zephyr guests, and the low of kine is heard along the meads, and the landscape sleeps—valley and hill and woodland—a dreamy sleep. Each of her sons created a new heaven and a new earth for Greece.

Rightly named Suna-day, or day of the sun. One is satisfied in some angle by wood-house and garden fence to bask in his beams—to exist barely—the livelong day.