He liked large
things,--mountains, elms, great oaks, mighty bulls and oxen, wide
fields, the ocean, the Union, and all things of magnitude. He liked
great Rome far better than refined Greece, and revelled in the immense
things of literature, such as Paradise Lost, and the Book of Job,
Burke, Dr. Johnson, and the Sixth Book of the Aeneid. Homer he never
cared much for,--nor, indeed, anything Greek. He hated, he loathed,
the act of writing. Billiards, ten-pins, chess, draughts, whist, he
never relished, though fond to excess of out-door pleasures, like
hunting, fishing, yachting. He liked to be alone with great
Nature,--alone in the giant woods or on the shores of the resounding
sea,--alone all day with his gun, his dog, and his thoughts,---alone
in the morning, before any one was astir but himself, looking out upon
the sea and the glorious sunrise. What a delicious picture of this
large, healthy Son of Earth Mr. Lanman gives us, where he describes
him coming into his bedroom, at sunrise, and startling him out of a
deep sleep by shouting, "Awake, sluggard! and look upon this glorious
scene, for the sky and the ocean are enveloped in flames!" He was akin
to all large, slow things in nature.
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