"
Yesterday afternoon Mr. Miller left us. Oh, dear, how the little man
talked! I do not know as the Cataract of Lodore is an adequate
exemplification, for that has some airy, fairy jets and overfalls. But
the good faith and earnestness with which Mr. Miller coined the air
into words were more like the noise and pertinacity of a manufactory.
He was certainly a new phase of man to me. When he finally vanished,
with his portfolio under his arm, my wings sprang up as if an iron
band had been holding them down. It was with a truly divine patience
that my husband gave ear to this personated Paper-Mill, because he saw
that he was good and true and honest. (I might have only said
"good.") Into those depths of misty gray light which stand for eyes
under my husband's brow, the little man was drawn as by a line. Miss
Bremer said to me of Mr. Hawthorne's eyes, "Wonderful, wonderful eyes!
They give, but receive not." But they do draw in. Mr. Miller kept his
face turned to him, as the sunflower to the sun; and when I spoke, and
he tried to turn to me, his head whirled back again. It really is
marvelous, how the mighty heart, with its charities, and comprehending
humanity, which glows and burns beneath the grand intellect, as if to
keep warm and fused the otherwise cold abstractions of thought,--it is
marvelous how it opens the bosoms of men. I have seen it so often, in
persons who have come to him. So Mr. Melville, generally silent and
incommunicative, pours out the rich floods of his mind and experience
to him, so sure of apprehension, so sure of a large and generous
interpretation, and of the most delicate and fine judgment.
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