What am I writing?
Sometimes I throw down the pen, saying to myself, "it is all folly, all verbiage.

There is a history within worth perusing, but I cannot bring it forth to light.

I turn over page after page with the fingers of thought.

I see characters glowing or darkened with passion,--lines alternately bright and shadowy, distinct and obscure, and it seems an easy thing to make a transcript of these for the outward world." Easy! it requires the recording angel's pen to register the history of the human heart.

"The thoughts that breathe, the thoughts that burn," how can they be expressed?
The mere act of clothing them in words makes them grow cold and dull.