Yet if we had a keen insight we
should detect even in his quiet talk the marks of an original mind. We
could not, of course, divine, without evidence, how deep and clear his
insight, how mighty his power over grand representative symbols, how
prodigal his genius: these only could appear on adequate occasions. But
we should notice that he had an independent way of looking at things.
He would constantly bring before us some latent fact, some unsuspected
relation, some resemblance between dissimilar things. We should feel
that his utterances were not echoes. If therefore, in these moments of
equable serenity, his mind glancing over trivial things saw them with
great clearness, we might infer that in moments of intense activity his
mind gazing steadfastly on important things, would see wonderful
visions, where to us all was vague and shifting. During our quiet walk
with him across the fields he said little, or little that was
memorable; but his eye was taking in the varying forms and relations of
objects, and slowly feeding his mind with images. The common hedge-row,
the gurgling brook, the waving corn, the shifting cloud-architecture,
and the sloping uplands, have been seen by us a thousand times, but
they show us nothing new; they have been seen by him a thousand times,
and each time with fresh interest, and fresh discovery.
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