" More precious than gold
to me that dissertion--it afforded me, ever after, this strange and
paradoxical lesson; each point of E.'s statement was unanswerable, no
judge's charge ever more complete or convincing, I could never hear
the points better put--and then I felt down in my soul the clear and
unmistakable conviction to disobey all, and pursue my own way. "What
have you to say then to such things?" said E., pausing in conclusion.
"Only that while I can't answer them at all, I feel more settled than
ever to adhere to my own theory, and exemplify it," was my candid
response. Whereupon we went and had a good dinner at the American
House. And thenceforward I never waver'd or was touch'd with qualms,
(as I confess I had been two or three times before.)
AN OSSIANIC NIGHT--DEAREST FRIENDS
Nov., '81_.--Again back in Camden. As I cross the Delaware in long
trips tonight, between 9 and 11, the scene overhead is a peculiar
one--swift sheets of flitting vapor-gauze, follow'd by dense clouds
throwing an inky pall on everything. Then a spell of that transparent
steel-gray black sky I have noticed under similar circumstances, on
which the moon would beam for a few moments with calm lustre, throwing
down a broad dazzle of highway on the waters; then the mists careering
again. All silently, yet driven as if by the furies they sweep along,
sometimes quite thin, sometimes thicker--a real Ossianic night--amid
the whirl, absent or dead friends, the old, the past, somehow
tenderly suggested--while the Gael-strains chant themselves from
the mists--"Be thy soul blest, O Carril! in the midst of thy eddying
winds.
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