August 25, 1840. I have just finished reading Goethe’s correspondence with a child, Bettina Brentano. I had long tried (rather wished) to get it, the more so from some beautiful extracts which M. W. read to me, but had never seen it till now. It is _beautiful_. It is wonderful when we think that Bettina was a child. It is like sunshine on grass newly rained upon--like the smell of a flower--like the song of a bird. We are given to look into the very core of the most loving heart that ever came directly from God and _forgot not whence it came_. But it was mournful to think that all this love should have been given to the cold, hard Goethe.[25] I wanted such a soul for myself. M. W.’s is nearer to it than any I have ever seen. But I should have seen her three years ago. If that other love could raise such a tempest in my soul as to fling up the foul and slimy weeds from the bottom, and make it for so long sluggish and muddy, a disappointment from her would I think have broken my heart. George, twice lately I have had a very strange dream. Byron says that dreams “shake us with the vision of the past.” Do they not also shake us with the vision of what is to come? I dreamed that I went to see M. W., that I saw her walking just before me, and that when I strove to overtake her, she vanished. I asked a man whom I met if he had seen her (describing her). He said “yes, she has gone down the happy road.” I followed, but could get no glimpse of her. Does this mean that I shall love M. W. and that she will die? Homer says that there are two gates of quickly fading dreams, one of sawn ivory, and the other of polished horn. Those dreams that pass thro’ the ivory gate are liars, but those that forth issue from the polished horn tell truth to any one of mortals who sees them. Did my dream come thro’ the horn or the ivory? Are you oneirocritical enough to say? At any rate, remember this. M. W. lent me a “sweet” book (_she_ did not call it so and I don’t know why _I_ did), “Philothea,” by Mrs. Child. If you ever come across it, read it. It is, as Mr. Emerson called it, “a divine book.”... To-day is (or was) Commencement. I was standing in the pew listening to the music when I looked round and saw a pair of eyes fixed on me that made me feel glad; they were M. W.’s. I thought she was in Beverly. I managed to squeeze my way up to her at last and walked with her to Judge Fay’s, stayed there a little while and then went to take my degree of LL. B. After dining with the alumni, I walked round to the President’s in the faint hope of seeing her again. Just as I got nearly there, I saw her go in. I went in after. The man she was with left her, and I enjoyed her for more than two hours. Scates made his appearance here to-day, so that my day has been a very