's birthday,
J.'s wedding-day, and the day of ----'s death, and we set out
on this journey. Perhaps there is something about it on the
purse. The "number five which nature loves," is repeated on
it.
'Carlyle's book I have, in some sense, read. It is witty, full
of pictures, as usual. I would have gone through with it, if
only for the sketch of Samson, and two or three bits of fun
which happen to please me. No doubt it may be of use to rouse
the unthinking to a sense of those great dangers and sorrows.
But how open is he to his own assault. He rails himself out of
breath at the short-sighted, and yet sees scarce a step before
him. There is no valuable doctrine in his book, except the
Goethean, _Do to-day the nearest duty_. Many are ready for
that, could they but find the way. This he does not show. His
proposed measures say nothing. Educate the people. That cannot
be done by books, or voluntary effort, under these paralyzing
circumstances. Emigration! According to his own estimate of
the increase of population, relief that way can have very
slight effect. He ends as he began; as he did in Chartism.
Everything is very bad.
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