ll of intellectual life; his mind has not
been fettered by dogmas, and the worship of beauty finds
a place there. I am much interested in this truly animated
being.'

* * * * *

'Mr. R.H. DANA has been giving us readings in the English
dramatists, beginning with Shakspeare. The introductory was
beautiful. After assigning to literature its high place in
the education of the human soul, he announced his own view
in giving these readings: that he should never pander to a
popular love of excitement, but quietly, without regard to
brilliancy or effect, would tell what had struck him in
these poets; that he had no belief in artificial processes
of acquisition or communication, and having never learned
anything except through love, he had no hope of teaching any
but loving spirits, &c. All this was arrayed in a garb of
most delicate grace; but a man of such genuine refinement
undervalues the cannon-blasts and rockets which are needed
to rouse the attention of the vulgar. His naive gestures,
the rapt expression of his face, his introverted eye, and the
almost childlike simplicity of his pathos, carry one back into
a purer atmosphere, to live over again youth's fresh emotions.
I greatly enjoyed his readings in Hamlet, and have reviewed
in connection what Goethe and Coleridge have said. Both have
successfully seized on the main points in the character of
Hamlet, and Mr. D. took nearly the same range. His views of
Ophelia, however, are unspeakably more just than are those of
Serlo in Wilhelm Meister. I regret that the whole course is
not to be on Shakspeare, for I should like to read with him
all the plays.

'I never have met with a person of finer perceptions. He
leaves out nothing; though he over-refines on some passages.
He has the most exquisite taste, and freshens the souls of his
hearers with ever new beauty. He is greatly indebted to the
delicacy of his physical organization for the delicacy of his
mental appreciation. But when he has told you what _he_
likes, the pleasure of intercourse is over: for he is a man of
prejudice more than of reason, and though he can make a lively
_expose_ of his thoughts and feelings, he does not justify
them. In a word, Mr. Dana has the charms and the defects
of one whose object in life has been to pres