After all, it requires leisure to enjoy fully the writings of Eugénie de Guérin and her brother--I inevitably think of this brother and sister together. There always lingers about the genius of these two delicate and sensitive beings a certain perfume of the white lilac which Maurice loved. It happened that through the amiability of my father, when I read the Journals of the De Guérins, I had leisure. A period of ill health stopped my work--I had begun to study law--and there were long days that could easily be filled by strolls in Fairmount Park in the early spring days, when it seems most appropriate to associate one's self with these two who ought to be read in the mood of the early spring, and they ought to be read slowly and even prayerfully. I hope I may be pardoned for quoting a sonnet which had a great vogue in the late 'seventies showing the impression that Maurice de Guérin made. It was a great surprise to find part of the sestette copied in the "Prose Writings" of Walt Whitman, who very rarely quoted any verse. The old wine filled him, and he saw, with eyes Anoint of Nature, fauns and dryads fair Unseen by others; to him maidenhair And waxen lilacs, and those birds that rise A-sudden from tall reeds at slight surprise, Brought charmèd thoughts; and in earth everywhere He, like sad Jacques, found a music rare As that of Syrinx to old Grecians wise. A pagan heart, a Christian soul had he: He followed Christ, yet for dead Pan he sighed, Till earth and heaven met within his breast; As if Theocritus in Sicily Had come upon the Figure crucified And lost his gods in deep, Christ given rest. I found, too, satisfaction of the taste which Hamerton had corroborated, in Eugénie de Guérin's little sketches of outdoor scenery--sketches which always have a human interest. I had not yet begun to take any pleasure in Wordsworth; and, in fact, all the poets who seemed to be able to enjoy nature for itself--nature unrelieved or unimproved by human figures--had no attractions for me. And here the dear Edward Roth came in, and confirmed my taste. And there were heavy arguments with other clever Philadelphians, Doctor Nolan, the scientist who loved letters, and that amateur of literature, Charles Devenny.