My father never imitated the men and women he
met, nor man nor woman, and such conceptions of his way would bring us
to a dense forest of mistake.
In the afternoon my father went, if practicable, into the open spaces
of nature, or at least into the fresh air, to gather inspiration for
his work. He had no better or stronger or more lavish aids than air
and landscape, unless I except his cigar. He never, I think, smoked
but one cigar a day, but it was of a quality to make up for this
self-denial, and I am sure that he reserved his most puzzling literary
involutions for the delicious half-hour of this dainty enjoyment.
In 1861 and thereafter he traversed, as has been said, the wooded
hilltop behind his home, which was reached by various pretty climbing
paths that crept under larches and pines, and scraggy, goat-like
apple-trees. We could catch sight of him going back and forth up
there, with now and then a pale blue gleam of sky among the trees,
against which his figure passed clear. Along this path, made by his
own steps only, he thought out the tragedy of "Septimius Felton," who
buried the young English officer at the foot of one of the large pines
which my father saw at each return. At one end of the hilltop path was
a thicket of birch and maple trees; and at the end towards the west
and the village was the open brow of the hill, sloping rapidly to the
Lexington Road, and overlooking meadows and distant wood-ranges, some
of the cottages of humble folk, and the neighboring huge,
owlet-haunted elms of Alcott's lawn.
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