innermost reason in things, the full knowledge of which is held in
reserve; all the varied stuff, that is, of which genuine essays are
made.

And with him, as with Montaigne, the desire of self-portraiture is,
below all more superficial tendencies, the real motive in writing at
all--a desire closely connected with that intimacy, that modern
subjectivity, which may be called the _Montaignesque_ element in
literature. What he designs is to give you himself, to acquaint you with
his likeness; but must do this, if at all, indirectly, being indeed
always more or less reserved, for himself and his friends; friendship
counting for so much in his life, that he is jealous of anything that
might jar or disturb it, even to the length of a sort of insincerity, to
which he assigns its quaint "praise;" this lover of stage plays
significantly welcoming a little touch of the artificiality of play to
sweeten the intercourse of actual life.

And, in effect, a very delicate and expressive portrait of him does put
itself together for the duly meditative reader. In indirect touches of
his own work, scraps of faded old letters, what others remembered of his
talk, the man's likeness emerges; what he laughed and wept at, his
sudden elevations, and longings after absent friends, his fine
casuistries of affection and devices to jog sometimes, as he says, the
lazy happiness of perfect love, his solemn moments of higher discourse
with the young, as they came across him on occasion, and went along a
little way with him, the sudden surprised apprehension of beauties in
old literature, revealing anew the deep soul of poetry in things, and
withal the pure spirit of fun, having its way again; laughter, that most
short-lived of all things (some of Shakespeare's even being grown
hollow) wearing well with him. Much of all this comes out through his
letters, which may be regarded as a department of his essays. He is an
old-fashioned letter-writer, the essence of the old fashion of
letter-writing lying, as with true essay-writing, in the dexterous
availing oneself of accident and circumstance, in the prosecution of
deeper lines of observation; although, just as with the record of his
conversation, one loses something, in losing the actual tones of the
stammerer, still graceful in his halting, as he halted also in
composition, composing slowly and by fits, "like a Flemish painter," as
he tells us, so "it is to be regretted," says the editor of his letters,