Another virtue, one that is very difficult to spell out, Billy kept my inkwell full.
November 12, 1863
Evening
Today has been a day of war problems. Telegrams contradict telegrams. In my bedroom I opened my Shakespeare to Julius Caesar:
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.