I have engaged a companion for the winter. It would be simply a
superfluous egotism to say this to the public, except that I have a
philanthropic motive for doing so. There are many lonely people who are in
need of a companion possessing just such qualities as his; and he has
brothers singularly like himself, whose services can be secured. I despair
of doing justice to him by any description. In fact, thus far, I discover
new perfections in him daily, and believe that I am yet only on the
threshold of our friendship.
In conversation he is more suggestive than any person I have ever known.
After two or three hours alone with him, I am sometimes almost startled to
look back and see through what a marvellous train of fancy and reflection
he has led me. Yet he is never wordy, and often conveys his subtlest
meaning by a look.
He is an artist, too, of the rarest sort. You watch the process under
which his pictures grow with incredulous wonder. The Eastern magic which
drops the seed in the mould, and bids it shoot up before your eyes,
blossom, and bear its fruit in an hour, is tardy and clumsy by side of the
creative genius of my companion.
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