more
frequently than others "the gayest, happiest attitude of things;" a
casual writer for dreamy readers, yet always giving the reader so much
more than he seemed to propose. There is something of the follower of
George Fox about him, and the Quaker's belief in the inward light
coming to one passive, [117] to the mere wayfarer, who will be sure at
all events to lose no light which falls by the way--glimpses,
suggestions, delightful half-apprehensions, profound thoughts of old
philosophers, hints of the 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,
[118] 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-write