aordinary gripe and
unexpected resources of statement. His startling piece of advice, "Hitch
your wagon to a star," is typical of the man, as combining the most
unlike and widely separate qualities. Because not less marked than his
idealism and mysticism is his shrewd common sense, his practical bent,
his definiteness,--in fact, the sharp New England mould in which he is
cast. He is the master Yankee, the centennial flower of that thrifty and
peculiar stock. More especially in his later writings and speakings
do we see the native New England traits,--the alertness, eagerness,
inquisitiveness, thrift, dryness, archness, caution, the nervous energy
as distinguished from the old English unction and vascular force. How he
husbands himself,--what prudence, what economy, always spending up, as
he says, and not down! How alert, how attentive; what an inquisitor;
always ready with some test question, with some fact or idea to match
or to verify, ever on the lookout for some choice bit of adventure or
information, or some anecdote that has pith and point! No tyro basks and
takes his ease in his presence, but is instantly put on trial and must
answer or be disgraced. He strikes at an idea like a falcon at a bird.
His great fear seems to be lest there be some fact or point worth
knowing that will escape him. He is a close-browed miser of the
scholar's gains. He turns all values into intellectual coin. Every book
or person or experience is an investment that will or will not warrant
a good return in ideas. He goes to the Radical Club, or to the literary
gathering, and listens with the closest attention to every word that is
said, in hope that something will be said, some word dropped, that has
the ring of the true metal. Apparently he does not permit himself a
moment's indifference or inattention. His own pride is always to have
the ready change, to speak the exact and proper word, to give to every
occasion the dignity of wise speech. You are bartered with for your
best. There is no profit in life but in the interchange of ideas, and
the chief success is to have a head well filled with them. Hard cash at
that; no paper promises satisfy him; he loves the clink and glint of the
real coin.

His earlier writings were more flowing and suggestive, and had reference
to larger problems; but now everything has got weighed and stamped and
converted into the medium of wise and scholarly conversation. It is of
great value; these later essays a