'
She was at this time, too, much drawn also to a man of poetic
sensibility, and of much reading,--which he took the greatest pains to
conceal,--studious of the art of poetry, but still more a poet in his
conversation than in his poems,--who attracted Margaret by the flowing
humor with which he filled the present hour, and the prodigality with
which he forgot all the past.
'Unequal and uncertain,' she says, 'but in his good moods,
of the best for a companion, absolutely abandoned to the
revelations of the moment, without distrust or check of any
kind, unlimited and delicate, abundant in thought, and free of
motion, he enriches life, and fills the hour.'
'I wish I could retain ----'s talk last night. It was
wonderful; it was about all the past experiences frozen down
in the soul, and the impossibility of being penetrated by
anything. "Had I met you," said he, "when I was young!--but
now nothing can penetrate." Absurd as was what he said, on
one side, it was the finest poetic-inspiration on the other,
painting the cruel process of life, except where genius
continually burns over the stubble fields.
"Life," he said, "is continually eating us up.
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