What he designs is to give you himself, to acquaint you with
his likeness; but must do this, if at all, indirectly, being indeed
always more or less reserved, for himself and his friends; friendship
counting for so much in his life, that he is jealous of anything that
might jar or disturb it, even to the length of a sort of insincerity, to
which he assigns its quaint "praise;" this lover of stage plays
significantly welcoming a little touch of the artificiality of play to
sweeten the intercourse of actual life.
And, in effect, a very delicate and expressive portrait of him does put
itself together for the duly meditative reader. In indirect touches of
his own work, scraps of faded old letters, what others remembered of his
talk, the man's likeness emerges; what he laughed and wept at, his
sudden elevations, and longings after absent friends, his fine
casuistries of affection and devices to jog sometimes, as he says, the
lazy happiness of perfect love, his solemn moments of higher discourse
with the young, as they came across him on occasion, and went along a
little way with him, the sudden surprised apprehension of beauties in
old literature, revealing anew the deep soul of poetry in things, and
withal the pure spirit of fun, having its way again; laughter, that most
short-lived of all things (some of Shakespeare's even being grown
hollow) wearing well with him.
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