his depth
in Spinoza. None of the divines, whom I first tried, did him the least
good in that state; so I turned over a new leaf, and doctored him gently
upon the chapters of faith in Abraham Tucker's book (you should read it,
Sisty); then I threw in strong doses of Fichte; after that I put him
on the Scotch inetaphy sicians, with plunge-baths into certain German
transcendentalists; and having convinced him that faith is not an
unphilosophical state of mind, and that he might believe without
compromising his understanding,--for he was mightily conceited on that
score,--I threw in my divines, which he was now fit to digest; and his
theological constitution, since then, has become so robust that he has
eaten up two livings and a deanery! In fact, I have a plan for a library
that, instead of heading its compartments, 'Philology, Natural Science,
Poetry,' etc., one shall head them according to the diseases for which
they are severally good, bodily and mental,--up from a dire calamity or
the pangs of the gout, down to a fit of the spleen or a slight catarrh;
for which last your light reading comes in with a whey-posset and
barley-water. But," continued my father, more gravely, "when some one
sorrow, that is yet reparable, gets hold of your mind like a monomania;
when you think because Heaven has denied you this or that on which you
had set your heart that all your life must be a blank,--oh! then diet
yourself well on biography, the biography of good and great men. See
how little a space one sorrow really makes in life. See scarce a page,
perhaps, given to some grief similar to your own; and how triumphantly
the life sails on beyond it! You thought the wing was broken! Tut, tut,
it was but a bruised feather! See what life leaves behind it when all is
done!--a summary of positive facts far out of the region of sorrow
and suffering, linking themselves with the being of the world. Yes,
biography is the medicine here! Roland, you said you would try my
prescription,--here it is;" and my father took up a book and reached it
to the Captain.

My uncle looked over it,--"Life of the Reverend Robert Hall."

"Brother, he was a Dissenter; and, thank Heaven! I am a Church-and-State
man to the backbone!"

"Robert Hall was a brave man and a true soldier under the Great
Commander," said my father, artfully.

The Captain mechanically carried his forefinger to his forehead in
military fashion, and saluted the book respectfully.

"I have