And, knowing more may yet appear,
Unto one’s latest breath to fear
The premature result to draw,—
Is this the object, end, and law
And purpose of our being here?
Nevertheless, to say something, to talk to one’s fellow-creatures, to relieve oneself by a little exchange of ideas, is there no good, is there no harm, in that? Prove to the utmost the imperfection of our views, our thoughts, our conclusions; yet you will not have established the uselessness of writing.
Most true, indeed, by writing we relieve ourselves, we unlearn; it is the one best recipe for facilitating that needful process.
Each day write something, and unlearn it so.
Most true, indeed! The observations that we can make nothing of, the maxims that have ceased to be serviceable to us, our spent theories, our discarded hypotheses, the wit that has become stale to us, the wisdom that has grown fusty with us, the imaginations that molest us, the illhumours that fret us, our follies, fancies, falsities; oh, happy relief!—away with them to the magazine!
Yes, methinks I see it so, through the long series of ages. The ‘Iliad’ is but the scum of the mind of Homer, and Plato’s dialogues the refuse of his thought. Who that reads the ‘Odyssey’ perceives not that it is an act of penitence for the ‘Iliad,’ and feels not that, had the poet lived, the ‘Odyssey’ also would have had its Palinode? In the divine eloquence of Plato there are intonations in which I hear him saying to me, ‘You know I don’t quite mean all this.’