Now, this plain statement, however translated into the dignity of an ambitious style, would not appear to advantage in a brilliant eulogy. The man was fanatical, and crazy. But the design was to represent him as a philosophical reformer in the religious world.
And now behold the power of art. In the original document there is a sad poverty, and deformity of flesh and bones. The poor creature must appear on the stage in kingly robes. Hear our model!--Behold the transformation! "At this time he was convinced that he received a divine illumination, infusing such thoughts as transcend the most elevated conceptions of mere human wisdom; and he was overwhelmed with the depth of the conviction, that a man might pass through all the extent of scholastic learning taught at Oxford and Cambridge, and not be able to solve the great problem of human existence."
Was there ever such alchemy? If I could attain a moderate degree of efficiency, as the pupil of such a writer, the small items of information collected at the village, could become a grand biography.
Let me see, thought I, what I can make of my material. I do not know that I could dare to publish words which would make a false impression. But let me try my skill in this essay to transmute poor substances into gold. I take the note concerning the visit to Mrs. Rachel Peabody,--and the account she gave me of the sicknesses of Eliza Jane, Faith Kitty, and John Potts.
"One of the most impressive views of the doctor, was his appearance among the young, when the sickness which does not spare our race in the days of our early development, was bearing its distress to the languid frame, and sorrow to the affectionate relatives who watched by the bed-side. I do not mean to say that this illustrious physician was less skilful in dealing with the maladies of middle life, or with those which we deplore in the aged,--whose sun we would have to sink in all the tranquillity of a serene sky. It is the consequence of maternal love, that in this village where his great talents were so unfortunately circumscribed, you may still hear the most touching descriptions of his skill and tenderness by the cradle, and by the couch of those children, the future promise of our country, who would attend on the instructions of the academy, were it not that their condition has become one, where obscure causes prove to us the limitation of our finite capacities."