Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI.

lve years old. My relative enjoyed a handsome annuity, which he spent with the utmost liberality. As I was rather a thoughtful, though not very studious boy, it w

been said to exist a tendency to eccentric independence of action, which vulgarly, perhaps justly, passed for insanity. His father, who died soon after Herbert entered college, had given much uneasiness to the wealthy and respectable city-circle with which he was socially connected. Upon the death of his wife he had retired to the Vannelle homestead in the northwestern par

udents had been very slight. He had never cared to acquire that fluency in retailing the thoughts of others upon which college-rank depends. An access to the library was all that he seemed to value in his connection wi

lated in a pathos and sweetness that I have heard in no other person. His influence upon me at this time was not unlike that which the mesmerists had just begun to exercise. Yet, while he showed an interest in directing my inquiries along the paths to which they naturally tended, he never communicated the results of his own studies, or offered me the slig

ssed the privilege of friendly intercourse with men most distinguished for knowledge in the Old World. Just before Class-Day, I received a letter dated from X--, in Connecticut, inviting me, in terms which seemed almost a command, to spend the summe

--; there were also six rough miles of carriage-conveyance before the traveller could attain the old house

ome studied speech,-"we have six months' concern together; then we may stand a

m (so called by those able to live in it) loomed a rusty air-tight stove of cathedral proportion,-a ghastly altar which the bitterest enemy of the family might feel fully justified in protecting. A square, cellarless room, about twenty feet from the house, had been the study of the elder Vannelle. Tables cov

esist the feminine itch to put things to rights. She was always contriving to arrange papers and books in symmetrical piles where nothing could be found. My father could never turn his back but she was sure to annihilate importan

arity. In some occult state of spiritual existence I seemed to have known them all. I have learned that the soul may enter into communion with other minds otherwise than through the senses,-nay, more,

y club-houses and family-dinners,-but the man as you knew him here, how little does it resemble! As for the Chinese cabinet which stands between the windows, it has associations, no doubt, but it is sadly out of repair. Those

painfully forced. Vannelle t

been her

N

bed to you this hou

N

to mind in unconditioned purity. It is a

seemed in strange contrast with the exquisitely neat and even fashionable attire of its proprietor. A smile of proud pity touched the

lling the race from slavery and folly to wisdom and freedom? Behold, in one bound, the hovels and palaces of earth shall be alike, and, float

ed. It was with awe that this mystic correspondence between mind and mind was made plain to me. One man out of this myriad-bodied humanity had s

h Herber

ver to leave it till I go to join my father, with his great work more nearly completed than when it came to my hands.

rance of the heart, but rather a dry rattling of suc

it in their power to choose? You know, you must know, the wonderful gifts which you posse

atural from the spiritual. My father firmly believed in the possibility of obtaining an absolute ground for the philosophy which should include all things human and divine. He passed onward before the inestimable gift he seemed to have won could be set forth in the symbols of the world. To see is not difficult, but only to contrive a popular adaptation through which others may discern the thought. I seek the means to express the truth which he saw, and of which I can c

oice, not the aspiring courage that struck me from his eye. Almost against my will there was produced in me a plasticity of mind that seemed to demand the impress of some foreign mould.

ately attained by a thoroughly conscientious thinker-some new light must break upon the mind. His was no shrinking from the conflict with real things to indulge in vague yearnings after the inaccessible, but a definite effort so to place the soul and discipline the understanding that wisdom could be realized without process or media. Unlike most inquirers of that time, he had no love for the abstract and the controversial, but entertained them freely as finally discovering some path to the concrete an

to attain? We read together certain manuscripts of the elder Vannelle, in which, wrapt in a gorgeous symbolism, seemed dimly to approach a great truth, which, at times, co

pon it from a position whence its basest moral corruptions and most detestable oppressions marked the rhythm in a majestic poem. The infinite vagaries of crime, the unspeakable ecstasies of blessedness, were equally wholesome as equally full of Law. At times it seemed impossible that any words could so mould themselves as to give distinctness to the thought which flashed through our minds. At times a representation corresponding to what Vannelle so eloquently uttered seemed embodied in every phase of opinion man had known. But, alas, there were also

bly real was the delusion (the world would so call it, and

say that I must abandon him forever. Let me forget the bitter temptation. Of course my friend begged to provide for my sister from his own ample means, and even offered her an asylum at his house. I still retained sufficient sanity to perceive the wrong of bringing a young child to that dismal place to wither removed from all human companionship and sympathy. A spirit not in a condition to be sustained and elevated by the society of Herbert would be confused, and finally petrified. Had this refined probing and questioning deadened all sense of duty? Was this the end of my Absolut

hadowing divine things, symbols adapted to the limitations of the popular mind, and with these I might do an honest work for the souls of men. Honest? Yes,-unless Augustine was a hypocrite, when he declared that he spoke of the Unseen as unity in three persons,

. I knew that the sort of society to be found in that place would minister to my most urgent need. I craved some intellectual clanship which should never seek to rise to an equal spiritual companionship. For there was only one man to whom I might speak freely, and from him my path ever diverged. How far apart the years had led us! Sometimes there came a whisper that I had been s

e from that in which the congregation received them. I found it difficult to poise in tremulous balance between Truth and its available representation to common men. It is my custom to preach extemporaneously in the afternoon. Upon rising, after the introductory services, I could perceive that my pulse and breathing were accelerated. A certain nu

ewith the unhappiness of our knowledge too nearly acquainteth us. More of these no man hat

ce unknown to them before. Indeed, I was conscious of a capacity to receive and convey such portions of divine wisd

den things, worked their abnormal invigoration in the brain. I became conscious that a carriage miles off was rolling nearer and nearer; I knew that it would stop at my door. I waited, waited long into the night. One by one went out the scattered village-lights. Another c

spectral,-blanched and dried with the white flames of his exalted vigils. Ah, black eyes, well may you shine in terrible triumph! The old idolatry this man demanded of me would not be repelled.

o your world of passion and sense. The impulses with which you vainly strive and wrestle are behind me. Alone,

this man had cut away the lusts for pleasure, fame, and influence. What woman would kiss that ghastly cheek? What sycophant could

your liberal clergy help them to anything but a plasticity of mind to be moulded into artistic forms of skepticism? How can you feel the delight of a definite, positive affirmation which accounts for and includes all creeds and lives of men? How

fe sets so in favor of Utility and the Practical; men lo

I judge you not. Perchance your weakness is the pardonable weakness of one who has done his b

late?" I as

sult of two lives. Here is written, as clearly as can be written in gross symbols of human language, that which may su

had been placed upon

ou. But if these twenty years have only filled you with the pride of inventing arguments and detecting analogies, if they have only given you the petty skill of

ted me too long. What you may have foun

hood is indeed complete, but the shell which enclosed it totters towards e

t the energy of Vannelle seemed to have transfused itself through every fibre. An unquenchable thirst that I had never summoned struck into my brain. I seized the manuscript, and devoured page after page. Then I felt the approaches of a supreme despotism that might annihilate all I had been, all I hoped to be,-that might compel me to denounce all that I had taught, to hear all that was respe

light of mornin

p every muscle of my feeble will, I closed the manuscript forever. Hereditary imperfections of body and mind confine me to a sphere of reputable usefulness. If I have sinned

ard of the death o