ly
distrusted me in every region of my life with which he was
unacquainted. The same trait I detected in his relations
with others. He had faith in the Universal, but not in the
Individual Man: he met men, not as a brother, but as a critic.
Philosophy appeared to chill instead of exalting the poet.

'But now I am better acquainted with him. His "accept"
is true; the "I shall learn," with which he answers every
accusation, is no less true. No one can feel his limitations,
in fact, more than he, though he always speaks confidently
from his present knowledge as all he has yet, and never
qualifies or explains. He feels himself "shut up in a crystal
cell," from which only "a great love or a great task could
release me," and hardly expects either from what remains in
this life. But I already see so well how these limitations
have fitted him for his peculiar work, that I can no longer
quarrel with them; while from his eyes looks out the angel
that must sooner or later break every chain. Leave him in his
cell affirming absolute truth; protesting against humanity,
if so he appears to do; the calm observer of the courses of
things. Surely, "he keeps true to his thought, which is the
great matter." He has already paid his debt to his time; how
much more he will give we cannot know; but already I feel how
invaluable is a cool mind, like his, amid the warring elements
around us. As I look at him more by his own law, I understand
him better; and as I understand him better, differences melt
away. My inmost heart blesses the fate that gave me birth in
the same clime and time, and that has drawn me into such a
close bond with him as, it is my hopeful faith, will never be
broken, but from sphere to sphere ever more hallowed. * * *

'What did you mean by saying I had imbibed much of his way
of thought? I do indeed feel his life stealing gradually into
mine; and I sometimes think that my work would have been more
simple, and my unfolding to a temporal activity more rapid and
easy, if we had never met. But when I look forward to eternal
growth, I am always aware that I am far larger and deeper for
him. His influence has been to me that of lofty assurance and
sweet serenity. He says, I come to him as the European to the
Hindoo, or the gay Trouvere to the Puritan in his steeple hat.
Of