He loved to write at 'large leisure in noble mornings, opened by prayer
or by readings of Plato, or whatsoever else is dearest to the Morning
Muse.' Yet he could not wholly escape the recluse's malady. He confesses
that he sometimes craves 'that stimulation which every capricious,
languid, and languescent study needs.' Carlyle's potent concentration
stirs his envy. The work of the garden and the orchard he found very
fascinating, eating up days and weeks; 'nay, a brave scholar should shun
it like gambling, and take refuge in cities and hotels from these
pernicious enchantments.'
In the doings of his neighbourhood he bore his part; he took a manly
interest in civil affairs, and was sensible, shrewd, and helpful in
matters of practical judgment. Pilgrims, sane and insane, the beardless
and the gray-headed, flocked to his door, far beyond the dozen persons
good and wise whom he had mentioned to Carlyle. 'Uncertain, troubled,
earnest wanderers through the midnight of the moral world beheld his
intellectual fire as a beacon burning on a hill-top, and climbing the
difficult ascent, looked forth into the surrounding obscurity more
hopefully than hitherto' (_Hawthorne_). To the most intractable of
Transcendental bores, worst species of the genus, he was never
impatient, nor denied himself; nor did he ever refuse counsel where the
case was not yet beyond hope. Hawthorne was for a time his neighbour
(1842-45).
Pages:
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26