the arrangement of the parts of
the external universe, and the substance, modes of operation, and
ultimate destiny of human {396} intelligence were enigmas unsolved and
insoluble by her."

Brown frequently raises a superstructure of mystery on a basis
ludicrously weak. Thus the hero of his first novel, _Wieland_ (whose
father anticipates "Old Krook," in Dickens's _Bleak House_, by dying of
spontaneous combustion), is led on by what he mistakes for spiritual
voices to kill his wife and children; and the voices turn out to be
produced by the ventriloquism of one Carwin, the villain of the story.
Similarly in _Edgar Huntley_, the plot turns upon the phenomena of
sleep-walking. Brown had the good sense to place the scene of his
romances in his own country, and the only passages in them which have
now a living interest are his descriptions of wilderness scenery in
_Edgar Huntley_, and his graphic account in _Arthur Mervyn_ of the
yellow-fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793. Shelley was an admirer
of Brown, and his experiments in prose fiction, such as _Zastrozzi_ and
_St. Irvyne the Rosicrucian_, are of the same abnormal and speculative
type.

Another book which falls within this period was the _Journal_, 1774, of
John Woolman, a New Jersey Quaker, which has received the highest
praise from Channing, Charles Lamb, and many others. "Get the writings
of John Woolman by heart," wrote Lamb, "and love the early Quakers."
The charm of this journal resides in its singular sweetness and
innocence cf feeling, the "deep inward stillness" peculiar to the
people called Quakers. {397} Apart from his constant use of certain
phrases peculiar to the Friends, Woolman's English is also remarkably
graceful and pure, the transparent medium of a soul absolutely sincere,
and tender and humble in its sincerity. When not working at his trade
as a tailor, Woolman spent his time in visiting and ministering to the
monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings of Friends, traveling on
horseback to their scattered communities in the backwoods of Virginia
and North Carolina, and northward along the coast as far as Boston and
Nantucket. He was under a "concern" and a "heavy exercise" touching
the keeping of slaves, and by his writing and speaking did much to
influence the Quakers against slavery. His love went out, indeed, to
all the wretched and oppressed; to sailors, and to the Indians in
particular. One of his most perilous journeys was made to