his finger, make the incomprehensible as clear
as daylight. The merchants valued him not less than we, his esoteric friends.
His integrity was perfect; it was a law of nature with him, rather than a choice
or a principle; nor can it be otherwise than the main condition of an intellect
so remarkably clear and accurate as his, to be honest and regular in the
administration of affairs. A stain on his conscience, as to any thing that came
within the range of his vocation, would trouble such a man very much in the same
way, though to a far greater degree, than an error in the balance of an account,
or an ink-blot on the fair page of a book of record. Here, in a word, - and it
is a rare instance in my life, - I had met with a person thoroughly adapted to
the situation which he held.
    Such were some of the people with whom I now found myself connected. I took
it in good part at the hands of Providence, that I was thrown into a position so
little akin to my past habits; and set myself seriously to gather from it
whatever profit was to be had. After my fellowship of toil and impracticable
schemes, with the dreamy brethren of Brook Farm; after living for three years
within the subtile influence of an intellect like Emerson's; after those wild,
free days on the Assabeth, indulging fantastic speculations beside our fire of
fallen boughs, with Ellery Channing; after talking with Thoreau about pine-trees
and Indian relics, in his hermitage at Walden; after growing fastidious by
sympathy with the classic refinement of Hillard's culture; after becoming imbued
with poetic sentiment at Longfellow's hearth-stone; - it was time, at length,
that I should exercise other faculties of my nature, and nourish myself with
food for which I had hitherto had little appetite. Even the old Inspector was
desirable, as a change of diet, to a man who had known Alcott. I looked upon it
as an evidence, in some measure, of a system naturally well balanced, and
lacking no essential part of a thorough organization, that, with such associates
to remember, I could mingle at once with men of altogether different qualities,
and never murmur at the change.
    Literature, its exertions and objects, were now of little moment in my
regard. I cared not, at this period, for books; they were apart from me. Nature,
- except it were human nature, - the nature that is developed in earth and sky,
was, in one