Presently he
entered a copse at a small distance, and disappeared. My eye
followed him while he remained in sight. If his image remained for
any duration in my fancy after his departure, it was because no
other object occurred sufficient to expel it.
I continued in the same spot for half an hour, vaguely, and by
fits, contemplating the image of this wanderer, and drawing from
outward appearances those inferences, with respect to the
intellectual history of this person, which experience affords us.
I reflected on the alliance which commonly subsists between
ignorance and the practice of agriculture, and indulged myself in
airy speculations as to the influence of progressive knowledge in
dissolving this alliance and embodying the dreams of the poets. I
asked why the plow and the hoe might not become the trade of every
human being, and how this trade might be made conducive to, or at
least consistent with, the acquisition of wisdom and eloquence.
Weary with these reflections, I returned to the kitchen to perform
some household office. I had usually but one servant, and she was
a girl about my own age.
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