May 1st [1841]
. . . . Every day of my life makes me feel more and more how seldom a fact is accurately stated; how, almost invariably, when a story has passed through the mind of a third person, it becomes, so far as regards the impression that it makes in further repetitions, little better than a falsehood, and this, too, though the narrator be the most truthseeking person in existence. How marvellous the tendency is. . . . Is truth a fantasy which we are to pursue for ever, and never grasp?
* * *
My cold has almost entirely departed. Were it a sunny day, I should consider myself quite fit for labour out of doors; but as the ground is so damp, and the atmosphere so chill, and the sky so sullen, I intend to keep myself on the sick list this one day longer, more especially as I wish to read Carlyle on Heroes.
There has been but one flower found in this vicinity, and that was an anemone, a poor, pale, shivering little flower, that had crept under a stone wall for shelter. Mr. Farley found it, while taking a walk with me.
. . . This is May-day! Alas, what a difference between the ideal and the real!
. . . . Every day of my life makes me feel more and more how seldom a fact is accurately stated; how, almost invariably, when a story has passed through the mind of a third person, it becomes, so far as regards the impression that it makes in further repetitions, little better than a falsehood, and this, too, though the narrator be the most truthseeking person in existence. How marvellous the tendency is. . . . Is truth a fantasy which we are to pursue for ever, and never grasp?
* * *
My cold has almost entirely departed. Were it a sunny day, I should consider myself quite fit for labour out of doors; but as the ground is so damp, and the atmosphere so chill, and the sky so sullen, I intend to keep myself on the sick list this one day longer, more especially as I wish to read Carlyle on Heroes.
There has been but one flower found in this vicinity, and that was an anemone, a poor, pale, shivering little flower, that had crept under a stone wall for shelter. Mr. Farley found it, while taking a walk with me.
. . . This is May-day! Alas, what a difference between the ideal and the real!
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