the rushing together of air to fill a vacuum which makes a noise. The great events to which all things consent, and for which they have prepared the way, produce no explosion, for they are gradual, and create no vacuum which requires to be filled. As a birth takes place in silence, and is whispered about the neighborhood, but an assassination, which, is at war with the constitution of things, creates a tumult immediately.
February 26, 1841. My prickles or smoothness are as much a quality of your hand as of myself. I cannot tell you what I am more than a ray of the summer's sun. What I am, I am, and say not. Being is the great explainer. In the attempt to explain, shall I plane away all the spines till it is no thistle, but a cornstalk. If my world is not sufficient without thee, my friend, I will wait till it is, and then call thee. You shall come to a palace, not to an almshouse. To be great we do as if we would be tall merely, longer than we are broad, stretch ourselves and stand on tiptoe. But greatness is well-proportioned, unstrained, and stands on the soles of the feet.
In composition I miss the hue of the mind, as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning and evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure. This good
