make fritters of English but I wish I could, without sacrificing polish, write with that exuberant and hearty zeal . . . Shakespeare may have written as the birds sing, though I doubt it—but minor writers at least have to labor for form as the painter labors—the mere inspiration of thought is not enough. . . . There must be a golden moment but also much labor within that moment.
At least it is so with me, and I cannot help suspecting that it is even so with the Shakespeares.
On New Year's Day, 1866, the thought first came to Colonel Higginson, while reading Hawthorne's Marble Faun, that he might write a romance, a project always before rejected.
The thought rapidly took shape in his mind, too rapidly, he wrote in his diary, for his own comfort, being overworked as editor of the Harvard Memorial Biographies.
In March, he reports himself as still crushed under letters and memoirs, having himself written thirteen of the biographies for these volumes.
But on his long solitary wal
cter of that Portuguese precedent.
Mr. hunter has had a search at the state department, and then at the treasury, without finding any trace of the paper you desire.
He has sent to the New York custom-house, where it may be. The treasury papers were all destroyed by fire in 1830, or thereabout.
Perhaps this paper perished then.
But finish your article, and then gather all your sheaves together in a big pamphlet.
Remember me kindly to Judge Fletcher when you see him.
To Mr. Bright, Jan. 1, 1866:—
I have just read your magnificent speech,
At Birmingham, Dec. 14, 1865, chiefly on the enlargement of the franchise. I need not say, with perfect sympathy.
I wish I had good news from our side.
The President is perverse, and not well-informed.
He is also fired with the idea of carrying through his experiment, which thus far is a terrible failure.
It is very hard that we should have this new controversy.
But 1 have no doubt with regard to my course; the way was never clear
