In the great temple raised by his genius to his
own undying glory, one narrow door opens into a secret, silent crypt,
where his image, blurred and indistinct, is hardly discernible through
the gloomy atmosphere, heavy and dim as if with sighs and tears. Here is
no clew, no issue, and we return to the shrine filled with light and
life and warmth and melody; with knowledge and love of man, and worship
of God and nature. There is our benefactor and friend, simplest and most
lovable, though most wonderful of his kind; other image of him than that
bright one may the world never know!
The extraordinary development of the taste for petty details of personal
gossip which our present literature bears witness to makes it almost a
duty to destroy all letters not written for publication; and yet there
is no denying that life is essentially interesting--every life, any
life, all lives, if their detailed history could be given with truth and
simplicity. For my own part, I confess that the family correspondence,
even of people utterly unknown to me, always seems to me full of
interest. The vivid interest the writers took in themselves makes their
letters better worth reading than many books we read; they are life, as
compared with imitations of it--life, that mystery and beauty surpassing
every other; they are morsels of that profoundest of all secrets, which
baffles alike the man of science, the metaphysician, artist, and poet.
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