A man's high-water mark is his
calibre; and at high-water mark Mr. Channing's sea was to us buoyant,
rich-tinted, sunlit; a great force, darkening and dazzling with
beautiful emotions. He was in those days devoted to the outer air,
and to the wonders of the nature we do not often understand, even when
we trap it and classify it. He always invited his favorites to walk
with him, and I once had the honor of climbing a very high hill by his
side, in time to look at a Concord sunset, which I myself realized was
the finest in the world.
Another peculiar spirit now and then haunted us, usually sad as a
pine-tree--Thoreau. His enormous eyes, tame with religious intellect
and wild with the loose rein, making a steady flash in this strange
unison of forces, frightened me dreadfully at first. The unanswerable
argument which he unwittingly made to soften my heart towards him was
to fall desperately ill. During his long illness my mother lent him
our sweet old music-box, to which she had danced as it warbled at the
Old Manse, in the first year of her marriage, and which now softly
dreamed forth its tunes in a time-mellowed tone. When he died, it
seemed as if an anemone, more lovely than any other, had been carried
from the borders of a wood into its silent depths, and dropped, in
solitude and shadow, among the recluse ferns and mosses which are so
seldom disturbed by passing feet. Son of freedom and opportunity that
he was, he touched the heart by going to nature's peacefulness like
the saints, and girding upon his American sovereignty the hair-shirt
of service to self-denial.
Pages:
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402