Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/158

 134 YEARS OF DISCIPLINE. [1843,

I have been reading lately what of Quarles s poetry I could get. He was a contemporary of Herbert, and a kindred spirit. I think you would like him. It is rare to find one who was so much of a poet and so little of an artist. He wrote long poems, almost epics for length, about Jonah, Esther, Job, Samson, and Solomon, in terspersed with meditations after a quite original plan, - - Shepherd s Oracles, Comedies, Ro mances, Fancies, and Meditations, the quin tessence of meditation, and Enchiridions of Meditation all divine, and what he calls his Morning Muse ; besides prose works as curious as the rest. He was an unwearied Christian, and a reformer of some old school withal. Hope lessly quaint, as if he lived all alone and knew nobody but his wife, who appears to have rev erenced him. He never doubts his genius ; it is only he and his God in all the world. He uses language sometimes as greatly as Shake speare ; and though there is not much straight grain in him, there is plenty of tough, crooked timber. In an age when Herbert is revived, Quarles surely ought not to be forgotten.

I will copy a few such sentences, as I should read to you if there. Mrs. Brown, too, may find some nutriment in them.

How does the Saxon Edith do ? Can you tell yet to which school of philosophy she be-