The best of their men and women--so merely natural, with the
nature found every day--do not meet our hopes. Sometimes the
simple picture, warm with life and the light of the common
sun, cannot fail to charm,--as in the wedded love of
Fielding's Amelia,--but it is at a later day, when the mind is
trained to comparison, that we learn to prize excellence like
this as it deserves. Early youth is prince-like: it-will bend
only to "the king, my father." Various kinds of excellence
please, and leave their impression, but the most commanding,
alone, is duly acknowledged at that all-exacting age.
'Three great authors it was my fortune to meet at this
important period,--all, though of unequal, yet congenial
powers,--all of rich and wide, rather than aspiring
genius,--all free to the extent of the horizon their eye took
in,--all fresh with impulse, racy with experience; never to
be lost sight of, or superseded, but always to be apprehended
more and more.
'Ever memorable is the day on which I first took a volume of
SHAKSPEARE in my hand to read. It was on a Sunday.
'--This day was punctiliously set apart in our house.
Pages:
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35