reading. She was twenty-three years old when the
journal opens. Here are a few extracts from it:

BOSTON, Nov. 18, 1835.

Last evening I passed in company with Mr. Dana. [1] I conversed with him
only for a few moments about Mr. Alcott's school, and had not time to
ask one of the ten thousand questions I wished to ask. I have been
trying to analyse the feeling I have for men of genius, Coleridge,
Wordsworth and Dana, for example. I can understand why I feel for them
unbounded admiration, reverence and affection, but I hardly know why
there should be so much excitement--painful excitement--mingled with
these emotions. Next to possessing genius myself would be the pleasure
of living with one who possessed it.

_Nov. 19th._--I have read to-day one canto of Dante's Inferno and eight
or ten pages of Cicero de Amicitia. In this, as well as in de Senectute
which I have just finished, I am much interested. I confess I am not a
little surprised to find how largely the moderns are indebted to the
ancients; how many wise observations on life, and death, the soul, time,
eternity, etc, have been repeated by the sages of every generation since
the days of Cicero.

_Jan. 14th, 1836._--I spent last evening with Mr. Dana, and the
conversation was, of course, of great interest. We talked of some of the
leading Reviews of the day, and then of the character of our literature
as connected with our political institutions. This led to a long
discussion of the latter subject, but as the same views are expressed in
Mr. D.'s article on Law, I shall pass it over. [2] I differed from him
in regard to the French comedies, especially those of Moliere; however,
he allowed that they contain genuine humor, but they are confined to the
exhibition of _one_ ridiculous point in the character, instead of giving
us the whole man as Shakespeare does.

_Sept, 22d._--This morning I have had one of the periods of _insight,_
when the highest spiritual truths pertaining to the divine and human
natures, become their own light and evidence, as well as the evidence of
other truths. No speculations, no ridicule can shake my faith in that
which I thus see and feel. I was particularly interested in thinking of
the regeneration of the spirit and the part which Faith, Hope, and Love,
have in effecting it.

_Sab. 23d._--It seems to me that this truth alone, there is a God, is
sufficient, rightly believed, to make every human being absolutely and
perfectly happy.