How every failure of tenderness and perfect appreciation on my part comes back to pain me now! Why have I not written to her? Why have I waited for her to write to me? Oh, what is worse than to fail of loving truly? February 13. I had decided to go to her funeral, and went to Boston for the purpose, but a sleepless night left me too wretched to undertake the journey, and I spent the days in Boston feeling too miserable to come back here, or to stay there. How much of my life is gone with this friend!--gone? no; translated, lifted up with her to her new estate! Yet much _is_ gone from the world: the beauty of the walks about here, of the studies we have loved and pursued together,--I hardly knew how much this young life had woven itself into mine. And it was the deeper, spiritual sympathies fusing all love into one deep harmony of life,--it was the love of the all-loving One that brought us closest together; and that makes “_was_” the wrong word to use, in speaking of her; she _is_ my friend still, and the light of her new life will enter into mine. One after another, those who have come nearest to me to love, to sympathize, to guide, pass on into purer air, and make me feel that my life is not here; my _home_ is with the beloved. February 17. There is news to-day of great victories in progress for us. Fort Donelson is surrounded; there has been a deadly fight, and our flag waves upon the outer fortifications. It is said that the rebels must yield, as all approaches are cut off, but it is the struggle of desperation with them, as this is the key to the whole Southwest. There are victories in Missouri and in North Carolina also; more prisoners taken than our generals know what to do with; but all this is purchased at _such_ a price of blood! In the days I stayed in Boston last week I visited two galleries of paintings, ancient and modern. The old paintings are chiefly curious, not beautiful, often very coarse in conception. I should like to see something really great by the “old masters;” but I suppose such things are only to be seen in Europe. I believe I love landscape more than figures, unless these latter are touched by a master’s hand. To be commonplace in dealing with nature does not seem quite so bad as in dealing with human beings. I heard Ralph Waldo Emerson speak too. “Civilization” was his subject; nobly treated, except that the part of Hamlet was left out of Hamlet. What is civilization without Christianity? There was a kind of religion in what he said; an acknowledging of all those elements which are the result of Christianity; indeed, Emerson’s life and character are such as Christianity would shape. He only refuses to call his inspiration by its right name. The source of all great and good thought is in Christ; so I could listen to the Sage of Concord and recognize the voice of the Master he will not own in words.