I take mine in at the level of the ground, and
send them off from my doorstep almost without lifting. I tell you,
the higher a man has to carry the raw material of thought before he
works it up, the more it costs him in blood, nerve, and muscle.
Coleridge knew all this very well when he advised every literary
man to have a profession.
- Sometimes I like to talk with one of them, and sometimes with the
other. After a while I get tired of both. When a fit of
intellectual disgust comes over me, I will tell you what I have
found admirable as a diversion, in addition to boating and other
amusements which I have spoken of,--that is, working at my
carpenter's-bench. Some mechanical employment is the greatest
possible relief, after the purely intellectual faculties begin to
tire. When I was quarantined once at Marseilles, I got to work
immediately at carving a wooden wonder of loose rings on a stick,
and got so interested in it, that when we were set loose, I
"regained my freedom with a sigh," because my toy was unfinished.
There are long seasons when I talk only with the Professor, and
others when I give myself wholly up to the Poet. Now that my
winter's work is over and spring is with us, I feel naturally drawn
to the Poet's company. I don't know anybody more alive to life
than he is. The passion of poetry seizes on him every spring, he
says,--yet oftentimes he complains, that, when he feels most, he
can sing least.
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