happiness and quietness. The only question is: Do I live so? I'm
afraid I make religion seem too grave a thing to my watching maidens
down-stairs; but, oh, I'm afraid to rush into _their_ pleasures.

_25th._-- ... I've been "our Lizzy" all my life and have not had to
display my own private feelings and opinions before folks, but have sat
still and listened and mused and lived within myself, and shut myself up
in my corner of the house and speculated on life and the things thereof
till I've got a set of notions of my own which don't _fit into_ the
notions of anybody I know. I don't open myself to anybody on earth; I
can not; there is a world of something in me which is not known to those
about me and perhaps never will be; but sometimes I think it would be
_delicious_ to love a mind like mine in some things, only better, wiser,
nobler. I do not quite understand life. People don't live as they were
made to live, I'm sure ... I want _soul._ I want the gracious, glad
spirit that finds the good and the beautiful in everything, joined to
the manly, exalted intellect--rare unions, I am sure, yet possible ones.
Little girl! Do you suppose such a soul would find anything in yours to
satisfy it? No--no--no--I do not. I know I am a poor little goose which
ought to be content with some equally poor little gander, but I _won't._
I'll never give up one inch of these the demands of my reason and of my
heart for all the truths you tell me about myself--never! But descend
from your elevation, oh speculating child of mortality, and go down to
school. Oh, no, no school for a week, and I guess I'll spend the week in
fancies and follies. It won't hurt me. I've done it before and got back
to the world as satisfied as ever, indeed I have.

_Jan. 1, 184l._--We've been busy all the week getting our presents ready
for the servants, and a nice time I've had this morning, seeing them
show their ivory thereat. James made a little speech, the amount of