Emerson's days go by

I haven't done an entry from the journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson in quite a while. Here is what he wrote on April 4, 1831:

The days go by, griefs, & simpers, & sloth, & disappointments. The dead do not return, & sometimes we are negligent of their image. Not of you Ellen -- I know too well who is gone from me. And here come on the formal duties which are to be formally discharged, and in our sluggish minds no sentiment rises to quicken them.

Emerson is 28. His beloved Ellen had died in February. Still studying for a diviity degree, he has doubts about his calling to follow his father in serving the Unitarian Church.