Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/78

 yO INTRODUCTION

Rarely, perhaps, does it happen that two entire families find themselves wholly congenial throughout, but it hap- pened so in this instance. Immediately after Dr. Gay's death and the successful effort to save his collection for Mrs. Gay, intercourse in this case became speedy, fre- quent, and close. Dr. Randall himself came often to our house in Temple Place (then a closed court opening on Tremont street only, except by a flight of steps descending to Washington street), and used to talk with my father till long after midnight. Finding me a constant and absorbed listener until I was reluctantly sent to bed, — hearing that I had never been sent to school, partly because I was not well and partly because I was better taught at home, and that I was a solitary child whose whole playtime went to scribblings of his own, chiefly in rhyme, — Dr. Randall asked me one day, in the early spring, to dine with him, and devoted a whole afternoon and evening to entertaining me in the kindest manner.

The result was that most of my Saturday evenings, during the months I was in town, were spent with him for the next five years. At first he gave these hours to read- ing aloud from the works of those whom he considered masters in literature, not at all for any set purpose of instruction, but simply as a matter of common enjoyment ; and the charm of listening to fine works was wonderfully enhanced by the richness of his voice and the perfectness of his articulation, as well as by the piquancy of his re- marks. When I discovered that he himself had once written poetry, but had turned away from it wholly since the shock of Ingersoll's death, I begged him to resume it now. The spur of sympathy, long unfelt by the lonely man, revived his interest in poetical production. He began once more to write with new zest, looking forward to an eager and appreciative audience of one, when Satur-

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